Bits Bucket for April 2, 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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I have jury duty today, so moderation will not happen very often.
We promise to behave.
speak for yourself.
Not Guilty!
Guilty! Wait, what was the charge?
Nolo contendre!
Juries are so 18th. century. Simple rule: If the defendant is a person then throw the book at them, fine them and sentence them to long prison terms. If the accused is a corporate or government entity you must find them innocent of wrong doing and at worse a token fine will ensure justice is served.
That is the bench trial rule. I think OJ and plenty other individuals have done quite well with juries that have watched too many crime dramas where the scientific evidence is always so conclusive.
OJ’s lawyers proved, conclusively, that the police tampered with the evidence. After that, it is hard to say the jury wasn’t perfectly justified in doing what they did. And yes, you need a heck of a lot of money to put together a legal team that can create a new type of forensic analysis to prove it, but after one person does it, it is available to everyone else for a heck of a lot less money.
police tampered with the evidence ??
Tampered or was the “question” raised that it was mishandled in the chain of custody raising the reasonable doubt defense ??
Tampered suggests they manipulated the evidence…If that was proven, why did not some police or forensic people go to jail…Isn’t tampering of evidence a criminal act ??
“but i like OJ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw_CtUR9Lh0
It was not “proven” that even the chain of custody was broken. The evidence was certainly there, it was jury nullification at work. He ran because he was innocent. Sure. He played the race card and it worked for awhile but he is where he belongs now.
Policeman never go to jail silly.
Dan…the other theories include Faye Resnick was in debt to drug dealers and one came by to collect and Nicole was killed by mistaken identity.
and OJ came by to say goodnight to his kids and found Nicole dead that’s why his size 12 Bruno mail shoe print was there..and he pricked his finger on the rose bush next to her head.
Or Oj and Kato went to get some crack and he got super paranoid flipped out.
There was not even a civil suit filed against them. That would have really happened had they altered the evidence.
To be fair many a white defendant walked in the south during the civil rights struggle for the exact reason. But it is what it is, a black jury refused to send a black man to jail for killing a white man and woman to get back at white society. When you get people off with slogans such as if the gloves do not fit you must acquit, and any leather gloves do shrink when soaked in blood, then you are not dealing with a jury that wants to fairly deal with the evidence.
Dan that is racis.
And if Reginald Denny had more COEXIST stickers on his truck the Rodney King “protesters” wouldn’t have gotten so carried away in delivering him some social justice.
I agree Dan….
Look, Reginald Denny is a white hero, he took one for the team and bled off a lot of black anger. Lots of black people got disturbed enough by that event to start trying to defuse the situation. Blowing off some steam is one thing; dragging innocent people out of vehicles and beating them is going too far, even for black people.
It wasn’t just the chain of evidence. I doubt they could have proven who did it, but they proved that the blood on the sock was put on the sock at a time when there was no foot in the sock. There is a difference between a transfer from one layer of fabric to another when it is just liquid seeping through and then drying on both layers vs. transfer from one layer to another of a liquid that has had some time to dry out/crystalize on one layer before it comes in contact with the other layer. It was never particularly talked about in the popular press because it is too complicated, but it was there and the jury got plenty of information about it.
The prosecutors should have been able to make the case without the sock and without the glove, but once they brought up a sock that had been tampered with and a glove that looked like it didn’t fit, they were fighting a very uphill battle. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a very high standard.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is a very high standard ??
Yes, I got that…..
but they proved that the blood on the sock was put on the sock at a time when there was no foot in the sock ??
Put on the sock by whom ??
More than enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but don’t worry OJ is looking for the real killers because he really loved her. Fair look at the evidence:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/index/nns25.htm
I have sent a link to the evidence but I guess until Ben is available it will not post. But when you have size 12 Bruno shoes making prints at the murder scene and OJ owns size 12 Bruno shoes despite claiming he would never own such ugly azz shoes, you are going beyond reasonable doubt to prove that Elvis in a space ship did not plant the evidence.
“Put on the sock by whom ??”
That is the whole point. It the prosecutor says the blood on the sock proves that OJ killed them because he must have gotten blood on his socks while killing them. Then the defense proves the sock had blood put on it when it was not on anyone’s foot (wet transfer from a part of the sock that isn’t inside the shoe to the part of a sock that is protected by the shoe), the prosecutor has pretty much lost the jury. They aren’t going to believe anything, and they don’t have to. They already know the prosecutor lied about something. Why not everything?
looking for the real killers, lolz
he was looking for them in the cup of every golf hole in south florida bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Reminds me of Henry Lee Lucas being convicted of murdering a women outside of Austin despite the fact he was documented cashing his paycheck the next day in Florida. And his boss testified he saw Lucas at work in Florida the day of the murder.
Texas juries will convict and give the death penalty to almost anyone the DA brings before them regardless of the evidence.
Even Bush had to give him a pardon when presented with the idiocy of that case.
Comment by polly
2013-04-02 09:39:45
“Put on the sock by whom ??”
Lawyer defending lawyers.
The mistake was to rush the case to trial and change of venue and the residual memory of the Watts rioting. I totally disagree with Polly about the evidence, you just had inept prosecution. If the case had taken place in Kern County I might have been able to take the stand.
The mistake was to rush the case to trial and change of venue
+1 Change of venue, especially. It changed the whole nature of the case. Then throw in some inept prosecution, some questions about the chain of evidence, and a weak judge.
The fact that the prosecution was inept was exactly the point that I was making. It is the job of the prosecutor to make sure that they are dealing with clean evidence. They didn’t and the cops screwed them over.
I have no doubt that OJ did it. None at all. But the jury had more than enough reason to say that it wasn’t proven to them beyond a reasonable doubt during the trial.
And I’m not defending lawyers. Prosecutors are lawyers too. I’m defending the jury. They had more than enough to raise doubt given that the prosecutors did a bad job and the defense did a good job.
Try that case anywhere but where they tried it and he would have been found guilty. The prosecutors only transferred it there so a black jury would be seen as convicting him. It was not the law but a political decision that lead to him being found innocent.
But it is what it is, a black jury refused to send a black man to jail for killing a white man and woman to get back at white society.
True story:
My sister was on a jury for a robbery case. Everyone on the jury agreed that the guy did it (young black guy mugged an older white lady in the street and there were witnesses).
The result: hung jury. The black jurors decided that they could not send another black man to prison.
“I have no doubt that OJ did it. None at all.”
how can you be so sure?
A little bit because of what the person who told me about the sock evidence didn’t say. Mostly because all the things that the defense came up with raised enough doubt to get a jury to say it wasn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but not more. The defense team was really, really good. If there had been more to find, they would have found it.
Okay guys, here’s the deal:
Mezzaluna was cocaine central for Westside, LA and the code for “bring me a gram” was “I left my glasses at the restaurant.” Friend Ron was the runner — one who had also been seen driving around town in Nicole’s (read, Simpson’s) Ferrari flouting his friendship with OJ’s ex. Add one PO’d jealous stalker and one creepy cop with some serious resentment issues.
Mezzaluna’s owner relocated to Vail, CO where he continued um, catering to the South American real estate interests who took over the town.
Here is also the deal. OJ was going to film a movie called the frogman just prior to the murders. He learned the quick kill technique with a knife from Navy seals in Coronado for the movie.
What’s really going on in California
California imposed a new law on banks innocuously called “Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process, which they can opt to do on their own, but takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks. And while those changes are being made… it makes it appear that foreclosures have slowed down dramatically in the state.
The reality?
Defaults (undeclared) are spiraling upward that yet have to pass through the foreclosure pipeline.
The truth?
California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.
The low-down?
Resale housing is still massively overpriced as a result of unprecedented interference by individual states and the federal government. The market distortions will be removed and the down draft will continue allowing the market to correct.
With millions of excess empty houses and housing demand at 17 year lows, housing prices have a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/sacramento/1753412-what-area-sacramento-most-ghetto.html
a
http://www.city-data.com/forum/sacramento/222797-what-level-gang-activity-sac-precisely.html
a
Next step in the Stockton Ca., BK case…Looks like the legal challenge between the bond holders and the pensions is going to come front & center;
http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe50137973670d7c7211&ls=fe1b1d777d6c017e741275&m=fefc1172766306&l=fed1157376640678&s=fe35157277640d7d711074&jb=ffcf14&t=
The NYT left this out of the story:
“I don’t know whether spiked pensions can be reeled back in,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said while making the ruling. “There are very complex and difficult questions of law that I can see out there on the horizon.”
Wall Street always wins.
Wall St always wins when suckers like you sign up for massively inflated payments on rapidly depreciating assets.
To think you could have rented the same square footage for half the cost is stunning to any thinking person.
Have to agree. The debt junkies have a huge hand in the mess.
Fear Becoming a ‘Bag Lady’ Someday? Many Others Do, Too
Published: Monday, 1 Apr 2013 | 1:07 PM ET
By: Amy Langfield, TODAY contributor
If you spend time worrying that you’ll end up on the street in your old age with your belongings stuffed into plastic bags in a shopping cart, you have good company.
A new survey shows that almost half of American women fear they will become “bag ladies” some day, and the anxiety ripples across all income groups.
Even among women with household earnings above $200,000, 27 percent harbor the bag-lady fear, according to a new online survey issued by Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.
While Allianz is promoting the survey to encourage women to seek more financial-planning advice, the underlying concern is valid, according to a labor economist who studies aging and income issues.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100606605 - 65k -
sigh, loosers.
maybe if those womens put down the ’suzanne researched it’ kool-aid and overcame their biologically obsolete nesting instinct and didn’t commit financial suicide by paying for overpriced real estate, they’d have alot more financial security.
Or, may be they worry that they will not see a penny from SS. Their savings and 401k will be looted by the government like in Cyprus. With a house, they probably fear that they are nothing but a revenue stream for the local governments.
^ This!
If true, how exactly is that unique to women?
Women live longer than men do.
Funny, my Dad was the spend-o-holic in our family. My mother was always trying to reel him in and save for a rainy day.
next bubble: shopping carts
you’re welcome.
In parts of my region, shopping carts lock up at a certain radius from the store. I saw it especially in areas populated with *ahem* guest workers who use them as strollers.
It’s not a radius, it’s a wire under the pavement, like an invisible fence for dogs.
The Safeway on the border between Bethesda and Chevy Chase has it. It isn’t just for poor people. Stores use it anywhere people are likely to walk home.
It was my dream to build a unit to send the signal to lock up all the shopping carts in a store. Then someone else beat me to it.
The local King Soopers’ (Kroger’s) has installed an “invisible fence” wire around the perimeter of their parking lot and wheel brake sensors on their carts to prevent them from leaving the parking lot.
Don’t worry the meth heads and/or the illegals will steal the copper wire and disable the system.
Tweakers are scum.
Let me guess: One of the main reason lots of women buy homes is to alleviate their fears of becoming bag ladies…
You got a problem with that?
It’s irrational, but everybody who wishes to be irrational is entitled to do so, as long as nobody else is harmed. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, etc.
It might alleviate their fear but it brings it much closer to reality.
There’s the rub! (Not in Oxide’s case, of course, so you needn’t defend yourself…)
I don’t suppose any of you guys (emphasis on guy) considered that these may be women who gave up their careers (or never had one) to raise kids and are now seeing their friends or themselves get dumped for a younger wife?
Sorry but that helpless victim nonsense is negated by the fact that womens earn more college degrees than men do, and that there is no longer a wage disparity between the genders (once taking into account time out of the workforce on the “mommy track”).
And if you don’t want the income hit from leaving work to have and raise childrens, DON’T HAVE THEM.
So, do you get an exemption from being a bag lady because your lower income is from taking time off to raise your kids? What is it? Do landlords charge you less because you provide a certificate proving that you took off time to raise kids?
As for college degrees, that switch to women earning more of them has been fairly recent. My mother never even considered graduating from college once she got engaged. Of both my grandmothers and all the women descended from them, I was the only one to graduate from college until my aunt finished a degree (paid for by her employer one class per semester) about a month before she retired. I expect my niece will join me eventually. By the way, of my grandfathers and all the men descended from them, the only one without a degree was my paternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather only had one. All of the others have two or more.
If you don’t want to have to worry about becoming dependent on your husband (to keep you from bag lady status), don’t have children and don’t leave the workforce. Seems pretty simple to me.
Women’s lib, you’ve won. Now welcome to the “real world”, where the idea of taking 5-10 years off employment in your prime earning years is simply not a realistic option for 95% of the population.
Children become, every day, more and more the pursuit of the rich and the poor. The middle class (75% of the population) need not apply with our current environment and systems in place.
Overtaxed, +1
Lovely advice for women in their 20s who don’t have kids yet. Not very useful for 40 or 50 somethings who have already had kids. You can’t go back and undo 20 years. The original article is about a survey. The women they surveyed are worried about not having enough income to support themselves in the future. Getting all pissy about choices made in the past doesn’t change the results of the survey.
there is no longer a wage disparity between the genders
wrong, sorry
No, you’re wrong. And you don’t have to be sorry about it.
And if you don’t want the income hit from leaving work to have and raise childrens, DON’T HAVE THEM.
Did you know that 49% of all pregnancies in this country are UNPLANNED?!
No data on how many of those 49% are also unwanted.
And you have betrayed your homogayness by choosing to breed.
An estimated one-quarter of all same-sex households are raising children, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
Destroying the very fabric of civilization, too.
Did you know 99 44/100% of all pregnancies were caused by 2 willing people?
Did you know that 49% of all pregnancies in this country are UNPLANNED?!
Not only that, but the divorce courts are very kind to women with children, regardless of the facts and circumstances…
and are now seeing their friends or themselves get dumped for a younger wife ??
We see it all the time….It makes me wonder who will be better off…That lonely old man when the young wife dumps him after taking everything he has, or the X-wife that may have some kind of support group…Kids, etc…
“and are now seeing their friends or themselves get dumped for a younger wife ??”
most guys i know that do this were DBs to begin with…why women choose to marry DBs is beyond me.
Because she is attracted to “bad boys” andthinks she can “change” him.
Women get married thinking he will change. He won’t.
Men get married thinking she won’t change. She will.
I respect the institution of marriage too much to ever engage in it.
Women get married thinking he will change. He won’t.
Men get married thinking she won’t change. She will.
I haven’t heard this one in ages.
Oh so true.
I’ve seen a lot more women dump hubbies, as soon as the kids are out of the house.
Of course, they all carry this “I put up with his abuse/s#it for 20 years, for the kids…….”
If anyone hasn’t noticed “abuse” covers a lot of territory anymore. Some women consider having a credit limit to be “abusive”.
Because she is attracted to “bad boys” andthinks she can “change” him.
And nice guys end up in the “friend box”.
perhaps DBs have a certain “killer instinct” that women find attractive…and even though the DB dumps the woman later for something younger…the matron is satisified that at least the DB genome was passed to her children…and that satisfaction trumps her lonlieness?
i’m gonna go with that.
perhaps DBs have a certain “killer instinct” that women find attractive … the matron is satisfied that at least the DB genome was passed to her children
I am quite certain of this. Of course there are always exceptions (some nice guys are lucky and they do find nice ladies)
Actually women prefer men with high T for breeding but prefer less aggressive men for husbands, a chemically based attraction. There have been numerous studies on this. The men most likely to beat them are the ones they find most attractive for sex. However, not the ones they want to settle down with when they are using their brains. Most women figure it out sooner or later but they forget quickly after a few drinks and pick the most macho DB with the high T.
Men get married not realizing their lovely, accommodative young spouse will soon enough far more closely resemble their combative, aging MIL.
Cry me a river. Women have it too easy in the job market. Any woman can make $50 and hour planting tulips, no experience necessary.
Lots of jobs on NYC CL lately at double and triple that for something called a happy ending.
The option is there for you too.
i have said that if i ever own a race horse i am going to name it “happy ending”…and smile.
It makes me wonder who will be better off…That lonely old man when the young wife dumps him after taking everything he has, or the X-wife
Old men die off at a rate far higher than old women. Check out the gender ratio of nursing homes, as just one of many possible examples. Maybe the dead are better off, we have no way of really knowing that.
Maybe the dead are better off, we have no way of really knowing that.
“The dead only know one thing… that it is better to be alive.”
“The dead only know one thing… that it is better to be alive.”
Nonsense. We don’t know what, or if, the dead know anything. We know nothing about actually being dead. Those who might know (having themselves died), don’t communicate with us, the living. On the other hand, many of the living don’t know much about being alive.
Gee is that what I am facing in the future. Been married for 30 yrs to a wife 15 years younger and it works for me. I’m not about to chase a younger one as I don’t have the time or energy to train one. (I can say that because my wife isn’t sitting here)
“Been married for 30 yrs to a wife 15 years younger and it works for me.”
+1 Wow. Managed to snag one seven years younger here, and I thought I was robbing the cradle.
Managed to snag one seven years younger here, and I thought I was robbing the cradle.
+1, though not married yet; longish-term gf is 13yrs younger, and she is hinting pretty hard about making it permanent.
I would honestly never consider marrying a woman who didn’t have some drive to *want* some type of career. The exact career isn’t that important, it’s the actually having a mind that is hot.
If I was a lady who really wanted to just sit home and have kids, I would be a little worried about this trend. Men (and women) these days are marrying their educational/financial equals more and more.
I would have trouble with a woman that had a planting tulips career. However, there would be some equality between the law that you claim to practice and that “profession”.
I’ll admit, helping private contractors with their legal issues is kind of the equivalent of planting tulips. Actually probably less useful to society. But our society is willing to pay a premium for this system and I get paid much more doing this than I would to do something more useful. Where are the do-gooder legal jobs that pay even half of what I make as a big firm drone? And with remotely similar exit options? They essentially do not exist.
As long as private contractors run up billion dollar profits and pay our bills, grads will line up to do the work. And, who knows, maybe I won’t do it forever - I save my money, pay down my very reasonable house, don’t have debt or loans. The options are limitless. For now, though, it’s the Mitt Romney/Koch Fluffer path for me, at least as far as work is concerned.
Men (and women) these days are marrying their educational/financial equals more and more.
————————————————————————–
and thats why these marriages fail.
“Women don’t want to win; they want a winner”
““Women don’t want to win; they want a winner””
…since the dawn of recorded history.
If I was a lady who really wanted to just sit home and have kids, I would be a little worried about this trend.
Even amongst that set there is a wide variation between the ones who want to do it and kick butt at it and those who want to do it so they don’t have to face the real world. I have a lot of respect for the first type.
Until you’ve had to leave a newborn when they are only 6 weeks old in order to go back to work full-time, you really have no idea what you are talking about.
Not every country is like this, either.
No link cuz it’ll take forever to post today, but the stats are easily available.
When Australia passed a parental leave law in 2010, it left the U.S. as the only industrialized nation not to mandate paid leave for mothers of newborns. Most of the rest of the world has paid maternity leave policies, too; Lesotho, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea are the only other countries that do not. Many countries give new fathers paid time off as well or allow parents to share paid leave.
and are now seeing their friends or themselves get dumped for a younger wife? ”
Wealthy business man gets younger wife is like chumming the water for lawyers around here 91362
And often the younger women launch themselfs at the rich older guy then brags about it to her friends, oh and she hates the stepkids who are often about her age !!
I see this all too often Work all the time rich guy and a young ladder climbing new trophy wife ( example Murdoch ) plus a ex wife who is really pissed off and taking him for all he has.
Telling statistic from the article:
in 2010, only 29.5 percent of men age 65 or older were not married, compared with 56.3 percent of women.
Those single women can’t ALL be 88-year old widows.
there’s more womens those ages because their ’suzanne researched it’ nagging drove their husbands to early graves.
there’s more womens those ages because their ’suzanne researched it’ nagging drove their husbands to early graves.
This was certainly the case with my grandfather and grandmother…
“Those single women can’t ALL be 88-year old widows.”
Yeah, they are. Women tend to outlive men. Fact.
Women tend to outlive men.
Yep. And women tend to marry older men, especially back in the Good Old Days. Combine these two facts, and you see why a widower in a retirement community gets a lot of dates.
I don’t suppose any of you guys (emphasis on guy) considered
that …women are almost half of the workforce. They are the equal, if not main, breadwinner in four out of ten families. They receive more college and graduate degrees than men. Yet, on average, women continue to earn considerably less than men. In 2010, female full-time workers made only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 23 percent. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio.
Most women leave the workforce (or get off the career ladder) for 5-10 years when they have small children at home. It’s that gap, IMHO, that causes most women to earn more than men. Also, women aren’t typically as “money motivated” as men at work, at least in my (admittedly small) experience. Men, in many cases, measure their worth by their paychecks; women tend to measure their jobs more holistically.
Finally, there’s the “tax” of becoming a mother and then getting a divorce. If that happens, you’re going to be far less employable than someone who is married with children and/or is single with no children. And, if it happens while you’re working, you become a “slave”; your boss knows that finding another job will be very difficult and then starts to figure out ways to take advantage of your indentured servitude status.
I went through some trouble trying to pick out quotes from this Washington Post article about PG County. PG County is known as the ghetto-ist of counties in the metro area. It was tough because every single paragraph has cringe-worthy real estate cheerleading.
Read it and weep.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/real-estate-investors-flock-to-prince-georges-fueling-a-housing-rebound/2013/04/01/cbb0627c-97b0-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story_1.html
The arrival of house flippers and aspiring landlords is an encouraging sign for Prince George’s, where more than half of homeowners still owe more than their houses are worth and where hundreds of foreclosed houses still sit vacant.
In certain parts of the region, such as the District and Arlington, multiple bids are the norm and prices are close to boom-time peaks. The county’s outlier status is now a draw for investors.
“More people are getting into the game,” declared Jesse Marks, a real estate broker in Upper Marlboro, at a recent gathering of real estate investors. “Housing is back. And what happens when housing comes back? Everybody thinks they can do this.”
Some investors have moved over to Prince George’s to try to cash in on a similar — and also temporary — set of market conditions. Since 2010, cash sales have been on the rise and have accounted for 30 percent of home sales.
Now that buyers are back, flippers have no problem unloading homes. Only now, many of them are choosing not to resell, and opting instead to hold onto the properties and rent them out.
Allen, a histology technician, has dabbled in real estate for years but only recently finished his first rehab on a house in Capitol Heights that he plans to rent out. He sees real estate as a way to shore up his retirement savings.
Over the past year, he has made more than 70 offers on single-family homes with five-figure asking prices. He got turned down constantly for low-balling. He landed the Capitol Heights property through another member of the real estate investment club he joined a year ago.
“People are coming like bees,” said Sirazul, who is waiting for the bank to sign off on a purchase of a short-sale house in Hyattsville.
Speculators haven’t given up yet. The quest for bargains recently lead a half dozen of them to a 99-year-old house in Capitol Heights.
“A rooming house?” guessed a man on the second floor. Below, someone in the basement said, “It looks like Hannibal Lecter lived here.”
Here’s the key phrase:
“Over the past year, he has made more than 70 offers on single-family homes with five-figure asking prices.”
Prince George’s County is kept alive by the crumbling Beltway. You can buy a house cheap (55-60% of what it costs in MoCo) and drive 1/4 way around the Beltway to work. On the northern side, it’s a way to get to the offices in Montgomery County. On the southern side, it’s a back door into Arlington and Fairfax.
PG County (according to wikipedia) is 64.5% black.
Rich white people don’t want to live there cus theyre racis.
Rich white people don’t want to live there cus theyre racis.
——————————————————————–
They may not be racist, but they do live in a racial construct. My friend who grew up there explained to me; “black people THINK they are moving, but actually, they are getting moved”
PG county was “designated” the “black area” by the powerful white people who allowed black people to get decent government jobs. It was a “soft conspiracy”. Understand that you only have to make things a little bit better in order to get black people to move. And now they had money (your job is your credit) and needed a BETTER place to move to. My friend said he was one of only a few black children in 1st grade; by 7th grade his middle school was just about all black. You did have some racial conflict due to some of the white people not getting the “message” that PG county was the new designated black area.
The problem is the not so much the racial makeup but the quality of life.
Take Howard County for example. PG has 10 times the murder rate, 5 times the robbery rate and 3 times the rape rate as Howard County: http://www.goccp.maryland.gov/msac/crime-statistics.php
As far as school quality goes, I suspect PG has poorer schools.
Schools and crime - quality of life issues. That’s the driver. I’m not going to be intentionally obtuse or willfully self-deluding and not notice that these phenomena - relatively higher crime and poorer schools - occur more commonly in areas with high minority populations.
However, for me personally, if a black area had a higher quality of life than other local areas, I’d want to move there.
There are “classical racists/tribalists” - those who are put off by those they perceive to be different in some way - either by looks, religion, ethnicity or other. I personally notice these factors but I’m not put off by them. Some are. Instead I’m interested in concrete practicalities that affect my quality of life.
Prince George’s is the worst county in Maryland *by far*. It’s like the worst parts of Baltimore City, yet sprawly and suburban. I honestly don’t understand what happened, PG County is surrounded by 3 of the nicest counties you could find anywhere in this country - Howard (might be the wealthiest county in the US, if not #1 it is close), Montgomery (e.g. Bethesda, Chevy Chase), and Anne Arundel (e.g. Annapolis).
Prince George’s county is a turd, I would not even buy a house in one of the *nice* areas because the county services are terrible. At my old job trying to clean up foreclosures and defaulted mortgages so we could sell & reimburse bondholders, PG County officials were the least helpful by far. Extremely incompetent. Baltimore City had a few extra procedures because of regulations, but the people handling things were very competent, the Sheriff’s office was very professional about doing service, etc. PG… nightmare. (FWIW, the best county staff was Baltimore County, which is surprising because it’s the biggest county in MD.)
Or as a friend of mine once said as a hooptie with dealer tags drove by: “pee-G county, land of the paper tags”
That’s racis.
If you can believe it, though, PG County is the richest majority-black county in the US.
Still the worst County in Maryland, though. And I’m including Allegeny and Washington Counties in this.
And those rich black people are all racis against poor black people like the poors in Baltimore and DC.
PG isn’t a rich county, it’s only rich compared to other majority-black counties in the U.S. And it is only in that state because of its geographical location that causes homes prices to get bid up and wages to be artificially high.
We thought Colorado was all white and mexican the first few years we lived here but after we started working on the East Side have discovered that Colorado has black people too, Over Nine Thousand black people if you can believe it.
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-02 08:56:31
If you can believe it, though, PG County is the richest majority-black county in the US.
Yeah Joe, but you do know what kind of rich it is don’t you?
Enlighten us, please.
More than 300,000 homes are foreclosed “zombies,” study says
By Barbara Liston
ORLANDO, Florida | Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:59pm EDT
Some spend public funds on securing, cleaning and stabilizing houses that generate no tax revenue. Others let the houses rot.
Unsuspecting homeowners have had their wages garnished, their credit destroyed and their tax refunds seized. They’ve opened their mail to find bills for back taxes, graffiti-scrubbing services, demolition crews, trash removal, gutter repair, exterior cleaning and lawn clipping.
In some cities, people with zombie titles can be sentenced to probation, with the threat of jail if they don’t bring their houses into compliance.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-usa-housing-zombies-idUSBRE92R0YQ20130328 - 101k -
In China, zombies float.
OP/ED | 3/31/2013 @ 4:19PM |7,846 views
Now In China’s Rivers: Decomposing Humans
On Thursday, Lanzhou authorities announced that about 100 bodies are retrieved from the Yellow River each year. That figure, however, is well wide of the mark. Just one “body fisher,” Wei Jinpeng, collects about 80 to 100 corpses each year from his spot 18 miles downriver from Lanzhou, and he is just one of many involved in this profitable, but gruesome, trade. The Shanghai paper also reported that in recent times there has been an annual increase of 200 to 300 corpses retrieved in and around Lanzhou.
The presence of decomposing humans in the waterway is not just limited to the area around the Gansu capital. Body fishers work most of the Yellow River, Asia’s second longest, from west of Lanzhou to Shandong province at its mouth.
“he is just one of many involved in this profitable, but gruesome, trade.”
How do they pay, by the pound?
“decomposing humans”
Good name for a band.
They sell the bodies back to the families.
Flint Michigan: Of the 1,631 suspicious fires at vacant buildings in the city from 2008-2012, more than a quarter involved structures that burned multiple times. In all, 416 structures caught fire multiple times between 2008 to 2012. With more than a quarter of the city’s housing stock vacant, the city had 2,283 buildings slated for demolition as of December. Flint now has a policy for fighting fires inside vacant buildings. If there isn’t anyone inside, firefighters use a defensive approach when fighting the blaze and prevent the fire from spreading to adjacent property.
And quite frankly, this is the best approach (let ‘em burn) considering the fact that Flint is currently under an Emergency Financial Manager (for the second time) and in no better financial condition than its big sister city Detroit. Bankruptcy is inevitable for both cities IMO.
Most of the houses being burnt are scheduled to be demolished anyways but there is a massive backlog and extremely limited funds to do so.
If there isn’t anyone inside, firefighters use a defensive approach when fighting the blaze and prevent the fire from spreading to adjacent property.
Translation: “Let the emm-er-eff-er burn!”
90k of 300k in Florida…wow.
New York’s Inventory Of Foreclosed Homes Spiked In Q1
Mamta Badkar | Mar. 28, 2013, 9:17 AM
The housing market in the Northeast has been one of the slowest to recover. And now we have another worrisome indicator.
New York posted a nearly 130 percent year-over-year surge in foreclosure inventory in the first quarter, according to RealtyTrac’s latest report. This compares with a nine percent rise in overall U.S. foreclosure inventory.
The rise has been attributed in part to New York’s judicial foreclosure process that can last 445 days (15 months).
At 15,212, New York was the fifth largest zombie foreclosure state, in which the owner had vacated the home and moved.
This chart shows the 10 states with the biggest increases in overall foreclosure inventory:
Moreover, in New York both listed and unlisted foreclosure inventory were up. The former was driven entirely by an increase in pre-foreclosure sales. Meanwhile, New York’s unlisted foreclosure inventory (where homes are not listed for sale) jumped 129 percent on the year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-foreclosure-inventory-2013-3 - 135k -
12 States Where Homeowners Are Deep Underwater
Mamta Badkar | Mar. 23, 2013, 6:15 AM
Despite the housing recovery, 10.4 million or 21.5 percent of all residential properties continued to be underwater at the end of Q4 2012, according to latest data by CoreLogic.
The value of negative equity – when homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their home is worth – fell to $628 billion, from $670 billion the previous quarter.
Idaho
Negative equity share:
21.0 percent
Total mortgages:
247,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
73.3 percent
Mississippi
Negative equity share:
22.7 percent
Total mortgages:
48,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
77.7 percent
Maryland
Negative equity share:
23.5 percent
Total mortgages:
1,362,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
70.0 percent
Rhode Island
Negative equity share:
23.4 percent
Total mortgages:
228,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
66.6 percent
Ohio
Negative equity share:
25.0 percent
Total mortgages:
2,142,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
76.6 percent
California
Wikimedia Commons
Negative equity share:
25.2 percent
Total mortgages:
6,758,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
67.1 percent
Illinois
Negative equity share:
28.4 percent
Total mortgages:
2,227,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
77.3 percent
Michigan
Negative equity share:
31.9 percent
Total mortgages:
1,372,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
80.8 percent
Georgia
Negative equity share:
33.8 percent
Total mortgages:
1,612,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
82.6 percent
Arizona
Negative equity share:
34.9 percent
Total mortgages:
1,306,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
82.1 percent
Florida
Negative equity share:
40.2 percent
Total mortgages:
4,166,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
83.6 percent
Nevada
Negative equity share:
52.4 percent
Total mortgages:
548,000
Average loan-to-value ratio:
103.7 percent
http://www.businessinsider.com/states-with-underwater-mortgages-q4-2012-2013-3?op=1 - 150k -
California, AZ and FL top the list. Imagine that.
… and of course the data is understated for certain meaning it’s far far worse than anyone is admitting.
NV:
Average loan-to-value ratio:
103.7 percent
Holy cr*p. That’s incredible, on average, the entire state should default.
the entire state should default
It will. Just give it a time.
For an “analyst”, you sure have a problem with numbers. CA is up there, but not in the top three.
1. NV
2. FL
3. AZ
4. GA
5. MI
6. IL
7. CA
And worse yet for California, a full 4 MILLION houses are empty, defaulted or underwater.
“California
Negative equity share:
25.2 percent
Total mortgages:
6,758,000″
25.2% of 6,758,000 = ‘only’ 1.7 million underwater California mortgages.
Welcome to the Hotel California!
“Average loan-to-value ratio:
67.1 percent”
That sounds about right for our area, except isn’t the correct term ‘value-to-loan ratio’, in that selling a home for current market value will result in sale proceeds that cover only 67.1 percent of the loan?
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but I’m pretty sure it’s loan/value. I’m also wondering about this:
25.2% of all homes are underwater, but
the average over all houses is 32.9% equity.
The only way to get those numbers is to have ALOT of near-paid-off homes offsetting the 25% with no equity.
I think that’s right.
Also telling is Fannie Mae’s report today that noted only 1.7% of their loans in CA were seriously delinquent, vs. 10% in FL, 6.7% in NV, and 2.1% in AZ.
If a home is underwater, but the owner keeps making payments, only only real near-term effect of being underwater is that if you run into problems making payments, you can’t sell the home (absent a short sale approval) to solve the problem.
Fannie’s estimate of average LTV for their book of business in CA was 73%.
Good morning HBB’ers. It has now been one year since we changed our status from renter to owner. We rented from 2004 to 2012 having moved into our new home on April 1, 2012. We bought a one owner house built in 1991 for 18% over the original cost, that had everything on our list of wants ; couldn’t have designed the house better if I were building it. The quality of our life here has improved tremendously. No more sitting in front of the tv watching mindless drivel hour after hour; yes throw in a DVD if we want to watch a movie for a movie night but the tv is in the garage and not in the house (we bought the tv from SIL who was moving and had no place for a 65 inched). We spend our time outside, or my wife quilting and me reading a book about every two days.Below are some outside shots of what we have to look at, one from the breakfast window in the front facing east the the back facing west. Plus we haven’t lost any of our 19 koi yet (one of my favorites has a bite mark as of two days ago, think raccoon got a shot at it.http://picpaste.com/DSCN1256-IhbM0Xof.JPG
http://picpaste.com/DSCN1277-7MGCDpO5.JPG
http://picpaste.com/DSCN1297-nOWAYnBD.JPG
But without the TeeVee how will you know what to feel materially inadequate and neurotic about?
Without a TV you’re just a godless un-American socialist commie!
Without a TV you’re just a godless un-American socialist commie!
It’s closer to the truth if you change it to “Without a firearm, you’re just a godless, un-American socialist commie!”
Got your “ammo license” ?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-01/connecticut-lawmakers-said-to-reach-deal-to-curb-firearms.html
I’m often reminded of a quote from an Army sergeant.
She said: “My Hummvee with a 50 cal and my gals can wipe out any “militia” in about 10 seconds.
Nobody, NOBODY is going to stop the feds with handguns.
They are good for personal defense against thugs and wild animals. That’s about it.
turkey lurkey apologizing for the statists, sigh.
but only since GWB left office.
Nobody, NOBODY is going to stop the feds with handguns.
————————————————————————
“Nope, but a trickle of water will if allowed to flow for a few nights.”
I can’t link to the article because it now has a virus attached to it; but a marine in Afghanistan did a photo documentary showing how the muj halts patrols by using water to produce mud, and weaken bridges. They would wait all day for something strong enough to tow their multi million dollar “mine resistant vehicle” out of mud produced by diverting a small irrigation ditch.
*never underestimate the ability of a simple farmer*
Good point.
Now how about their defense against drones.
Oh right, they don’t have any.
Snipers? Nope. Jets? Nope. Gunships? Nope. Raids on firebases? Failed every time.
What’s the old saying? You can win the battle but it doesn’t mean you can win the war.
Lol Eco!
You’d think we won the war in Iraq and Afghanistan by now with all that firepower.
They won the war. We are exiting Afghanistan. The current government of Afghanistan is negotiating with the Taliban whom we supposedly defeated in 2002/3. The country is just as dangerous today as it was in 2001. The only thing we achieved in 12 years of war was to make life difficult for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and allow them to metastasize
to other countries.
Oh, and the US is that much closer to being bankrupt for it’s involvement in 12 years of expensive war. Still think a bunch of rebels with rifles can’t defeat the most powerful military in the world?
‘She said: ‘My Hummvee with a 50 cal and my gals can wipe out any ‘militia’
Ha ha. Ohhh, we’re scared now! Humvee’s are death traps. And what is this militia going to be doing, standing under a lamp post with targets on their backs? The Feds will do a number on these “gals”, so they are on the wrong side anyway.
Here’s one thing to remember about this “most powerful military ever”. They never fight anyone with any serious hope of fighting back. And they still lose eventually.
Well, come over to the Arizona Slim Ranch! No teevee here either.
how will you know what to feel materially inadequate and neurotic about?
Pick up any woman’s magazine from any checkout counter. You’ll have a therapy-grade inferiority complex even before you get to the impossible recipes in back.
Why did you pay 18% MORE than the 1991 retail price? Are you nuts?
i guess you missed the part about the koi?
“Why did you pay 18% MORE than the 1991 retail price? Are you nuts?”
Well, let’s see, perhaps because I wasn’t here when it was built. Perhaps it’s because the landscaping and improvements have been put in place. Perhaps it’s because it was in immaculate condition. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. In truth, this is how and where I want to live my life and I can afford it.Hoarding money for money’s sake is of little value and we all choose what to do with what we earn. I’m sure you would not spend a cent to buy a hand carved Zimbabwe rock sculpture, or a hand tied Chinese rug, or an extremely fine hand stitched piece of Chinese silk art (think of over a year to sew), or restore an old century old oil painting; I would. I on the other hand have no desire to spend over $20K for an auto and only in the last 10 years have I purchased one new. I cannot take my money with me but I can purchase things that give me pleasure and peace in my life.
picpaste.com/DSCN1256-IhbM0Xof.JPG
You didn’t answer the question. Why would you pay 18% MORE than the place cost new just prior to the start of the massive housing bubble?
Hey there, sweetpie! How big are your quantity discounts on Chinese drywall and OSB today?
Good morning my underwater debt junkie.
I can smell the arrogance oozing from every pore, all the way across the country, via Google Nose.
Isn’t that cute. A nest of debt-junkies.
How’s your CraterCare classes going?
No debt here.
And what cash you did have is long gone.
You didn’t answer the question. Why would you pay 18% MORE than the place cost new just prior to the start of the massive housing bubble?
Hint: the dollar is worth less now than it was in 1991, so the higher nominal cost will make it _appear_ that he paid more than the cost when new.
The reality is that he paid far less than the previous owner.
Hint: The dollar is NOT worth less than it was in 1991. In fact the dollar index is exactly where it was in 1991.
The only way for you to get from here to there is to make $hit up.
$100 in 1991 has the same buying power as $168 in 2012 (per the BLS CPI Inflation Calculator).
It’s called inflation.
Oh yeah, you live in a world where there is no inflation. I forgot.
The only way for you to get from here to there is to make $hit up.
I checked my assertion using the top two results returned by Google when searching for “inflation calculator”.
The first (US inflation estimator dot com) said that the purchasing power of a dollar back in 1991 would require a ~$1.70 today to equal it.
The second (measuring worth dot com) said $1.65, though it distinguished between a wide variety of inflation measures (results below). They varied between $1.52 and $2.52.
So… do you really believe that a dollar today buys as much as a dollar did back in 1991? If so, I want some of what you are smoking.
Current data is only available till 2011. In 2011, the relative worth of $1.00 from 1991 is:
$1.65 using the Consumer Price Index
$1.52 using the GDP deflator
$1.68 using the value of consumer bundle
$1.66 using the unskilled wage
$1.80 using the Production Worker Compensation
$2.05 using the nominal GDP per capita
$2.52 using the relative share of GDP
Oh yeah, you live in a world where there is no inflation.
PW, if you truly do live in a universe where there is no inflation, is there no Federal Reserve in your universe either?
The Fed is bound, determined, and apparently quite capable of producing inflation reliably in the universe that I live in.
YMMV.
Again with quoting BS?
The .dxy today is right where it was in 1991. Go look for yourself.
And unless wages are rising, there is no “inflation”.
Are wages rising? No.
When have the risen? Not since 1980.
Anything else?
‘The Fed is bound, determined, and apparently quite capable of producing inflation’
Oh, but I thought they were supposed to prevent inflation. This is probably the most misunderstood problem we face:
‘One of the Federal Reserve’s most hawkish policy makers confronted one of the Fed’s most dovish senior officials on Tuesday in a joint public debate about whether the central bank’s bold steps to spur growth were risking future inflation. Policy dove Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and anti-inflation hawk Jeffrey Lacker, chief of the Richmond Fed, sparred pointedly but agreed to disagree.’
“Our credibility will be judged by how we do on both sides of the mandate,” Evans said, saying that the Fed was still “missing tremendously” on the employment side of its dual mandate, while its other charge, inflation, was under control.’
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-usa-fed-lacker-evansbre932011-20130402,0,1055239.story
So these guys pretend to be walking a delicate line between printing money like crazy and inflation. In reality, they have been printing like crazy for about a decade and we’ve had deflation. Yet they’ll say, “look, inflation is low, so we can print more!” This completely ignores the many destructive aspects of the zero rate/fiat money flood. And it ignores the fact that they’ve been failing to produce inflation since 2002, so their model is worthless.
Some people act like inflation would be a sign of success! Jeebus, they must not be old enough to remember how horrible inflation is. And what if food doubles and wages don’t? Oops! Sorry everybody, just boil those shoes for a long time before you eat them.
The problem IS the central banks. They should be audited, broken up and stripped of their power. They don’t work for you and me. And instead of sitting around saying stuff like, “don’t fight the Fed”, we should be lining these bastards up in orange jumpsuits.
But here’s the problem…..
Like panting lap-dogs, the public has been trained to trade their freedom for debt slavery and they look to the Fed to make the “feel” richer via asset inflation. We’ve seen over and over how that’s worked out for the lapdogs since the early 1980’s with gold, stocks, houses, etc.
How do you create debt-junkies? Market the snot out of something, offer financing and you have an entire generation of empty pockets and tire kickers at your disposal. This is precisely what the fed has done. It may not be their fundamental goal but it’s certainly the outcome. Nevertheless, the lap-dogs won’t turn on their masters. In the absence of the Fed, their debt-fueled delusions come crashing down. Their entire life is predicated on belief in the inflation lie. No….. the lap-dog debt junkies are hopelessly chained to the Fed so they are a hindrance, not help.
‘the lap-dog debt junkies are hopelessly chained to the Fed so they are a hindrance’
Oh but they have strawberries and deer! And children, think of the children! Never mind they are adding to the mania, while they pat themselves on the back in an HBB sewing circle. Freaking unbelievable. You people have learned nothing.
The .dxy is made up of a combination of OTHER FIAT CURRENCIES, not something tangible that you can eat, clothe yourself with, or otherwise utilize. When you compare a dollar to all these other things (ie. that you want to buy to use), it buys you less than it did in 1991. There is no dispute to this.
The problem is people (including the people at the Fed) think that 1.5%-2% per year is not inflation. It’s the worst kind. Every year, when there are 0% interest rates, savers have 2% of their wealth stolen from them by the Fed. And before you know it, you’ve lost 10% of your wealth…then 20%…then 30%.
It ends when we have a purely consumption based economy with a near 0% savings rate…oh, we’re there.
This is worth listening to:
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/18/174639926/does-america-need-a-strong-dollar-policy
This is a microcosm of the problem. Smart guys on both sides of the issue (pro-Fed/Fiat vs. anti-Fed/Fiat). After the entire debate, the pro-Fed/Fiat debaters moved more people to their side than the anti-Fed/Fiat debaters.
You have a stake in the direction of prices. AND you’re an established liar here.
Congratulations on finding a little contentment! It’s not always about getting stuff at the absolute lowest cost. It’s all relative. I, myself, splurge on grocery store food even though I could save tons by eating out of dumpsters!
LOL!
Good attitude. Glad you found what you wanted.
One negative note: the deer.
We have two herds of deer, one 7 and the other 9, which use our yard and foliage during
the winter for forage. We’ve tried netting,
liquid fence, nothing works, and being in the
city, I can’t shoot them. Hope you have better luck.
Deer eat at our house for desert. Am now in the process of cross fencing garden area and hope they are like people and take the path of least resistance (ie. neighbours yards). I put up some 7 ft fencing on lodge poles that is almost invisible and my SIL’s dog chasing a ball ran right into, got to his feet and tried to figure out what happened.
I cannot take my money with me but I can purchase things that give me pleasure and peace in my life ??
+ 1 Salinas….Take that RAL…..
And you too grossly overpaid for a rapidly depreciating asset from which you’ll never recover.
You go girls!
And you too grossly overpaid for a rapidly depreciating asset from which you’ll never recover.
If you are happy living in the house for the remainder of your life, you can afford it (e.g. you can afford the lifestyle you want _after_ paying for the house), and you don’t ever need to sell it, then there is nothing to “recover” from.
No?
What you call the difference between what you have in it and what you have to accept to get out from under it when you can’t carry the burden anymore?
You’re a Liar.
What you call the difference between what you have in it and what you have to accept to get out from under it when you can’t carry the burden anymore?
I described a toe-tag house, if you were paying attention.
A toe-tag house, by definition, is one that you never have “to get out from under,” as you put it.
A well-designed, well thought-out toe-tag house is one you can die in (e.g. I don’t plan to move into a nursing home.)
I dont’ care what you’re “describing”….. YOU said ” don’t ever need to sell it”
Youre on the bull$hit radar bud.
I dont’ care what you’re “describing”….. YOU said ” don’t ever need to sell it”
Let me be more clear for you: “don’t ever need to sell it, WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.”
I don’t care what it sells for after I’m dead; that’s kind of irrelevant to me. And at the moment, I don’t have any heirs.
Damn that looks like a painting……what a great view…
In truth, this is how and where I want to live my life and I can afford it.Hoarding money for money’s sake is of little value and we all choose what to do with what we earn.
^ What he said.
You can say this same thing a million different ways, but there are some people who just don’t think this well.
If you can afford to live where you want to live, marry who you want to marry, and have a job you love, then more or less money won’t really affect your happiness.
Recent studies on happiness have shown that increases in wealth, once you have a middle class standard of living, do not make people any happier.
Mr. One Trick Pony Poster: I am guessing you are not a happy man.
Salinas Ron: more power to you
And we know you and SalinaSam paid a massively inflated price for a rapidly depreciating asset in a bubble market on the edge of collapse.
You two can have a double funeral. Enjoy it.
Did you forget how to read or your wife forget how to sew when you were renters?
What part of Salinas last sentence did you quite not understand Polly ??
What part of “Paid a massively inflated price for what is always a depreciating asset from which you’ll never recover” don’t you understand?
I believe I understood that his koi are still alive but one might have been bitten by a racoon. I don’t see what that has to do with the fact that they evidently used to watch bad TV when inside and now read or do quilting while inside and he claims the change can be attributed to owning rather than renting.
Surrounded by strawberry fields, hills and trees and 25 miles from the middle of Monterey. Great weather, great place to be. Thank you.
Great weather, great place to be.
Once you get used to CA weather, it’s hard to live anywhere else. Maybe Hawaii…
Now that it’s lighter later, I have been mountain biking after dinner with the dogs. I love living near a huge park and not having to get in my car to be in the trees. Last night I saw our local coyote and the resident red fox.
” it’s hard to live anywhere else.”
I know…. it’s so difficult! What will we do?
You mollycoddle.
No! We had moved from a 2260 sq.ft house in Bakersfield to a 1200+ sq.ft house here with 2 kids and not enough room to have any place of peace and quiet.Wonderful neighborhood with 5 or more cars parked per house with 10ft between houses plus a yearly dose of graffiti. Rent $1670/mo. now mortgage, interest, insurance $1671/mo with 1 acre of land in a 71 house gated area in the foothills. Have a large family room with a two sided fireplace and wall to wall filled book shelf, kids have just left but in the area and have biweekly house guests (old college roomie and high school friends come to spend a week). Wife just took up quilting after retiring from a six-figure income job a year ago (hispanic,first generation, high school education, and smart)
So you moved from Tijuana to Mexicali. How much are your losses associated with this fiasco?
^ Sour grapes from an unhappy little man ^
^ Denial from a debt burdened mortgage slave.
Awww honeypot, tomorrow’s another day.
Another day of losses.
Enjoy
Congrats, you are the definition of what homeownership should be about. Not an ATM or get rich quick scheme.
My wife and I were sitting down the other day after putting the kids to bed, and cringed when we thought what it would be like to still live in our old rental (complete with the rats).
My wife and I were sitting down the other day after putting the kids to bed, and cringed when we thought what it would be like to still live in our old rental (complete with the rats).
Hate to say it, but this is a GREAT reason to buy.
I’m a renter, and we had our first rat-incursion this past winter. My GF almost couldn’t live there anymore after coming face-to-face with one that was exploring our living quarters. I was able to address the problem short-term, but more needs to be done.
Now I am looking at having to make extensive rat-proofing efforts over the summer months, when it is more amenable to outdoor work. I’ll be burying hardware-cloth in a number of areas.
Not really looking forward to it, to be honest.
And rational honest people cringe at the thought of paying 2x the sale price in principal and interest for a rapidly depreciating asset when they can rent it for 50% of the carrying costs.
‘this is a GREAT reason to buy’
Everybody knows rats only live in rentals.
@PIC-
We first tried to solve the problem. Exterminators, replaced insulation, closed as many holes as we could, etc. This was all in preparation to hunker down and rent the place for a few more years…we invested in new insulation in the garage to make a play space for the kids, new insulation in the back room (that got really cold in the winter, etc.). This was in December 2010…we were ready to rent for a long time.
However, we apparently just closed enough holes that they had to find another way in (a hole under the island in the kitchen). The morning we found a half-eaten apple on the kitchen floor we decided to move.
We first tried to rent a bigger, nicer place (since we were outgrowing the smaller place anyway). The problem was that every bigger, nicer place that was for rent was only a temporary situation (18 months max), since the owners were typically just out of the area for a short period of time (usually on business, etc.), and didn’t want to sell their house–rented while they were away.
So we turned to try to buy a place…and found one that will last us a long time, about 5 minutes from my office, close enough that I can walk my daughter to the bus stop a few times a week before work, and be home reliably for dinner every night–and is big enough to host family events, etc. Life is good…I’ve got no complaints.
You should never buy just to buy. Housing is consumption…buy a house that you wish to use.
And you could have rented it for half your monthly carrying costs.
To be very clear, I _AM_ currently choosing to rent for approximately 50% of what it would cost me to buy.
Everybody knows rats only live in rentals.
I didn’t mean to imply that, Ben.
What I meant to say, but never really got around to saying, was that it is kind of a pain when you have to choose between hassling your LL (with potential reprisals or rent increases), or doing it yourself (which I really don’t feel like doing).
Most stuff I just do myself, since I think I have a sweet deal on sweet digs (to channel Casey), and I want to keep it that way; ideally, my LL almost forgets that I’m there except for the very-reliable rent checks that show up.
But this one sounds like a fair amount of work. And he didn’t really offer to do anything about it when I informed him of the rat incursions.
My other point is that what I invested in rat-proofing would be a LONG-term investment if I owned the property, and I might only reap the benefits short-term if my LL decides to jack the rent. I have to make a decision with no certainty about the future.
Very nice. Enjoy.
Nice !! I like that part of CA Central Coast
I did a similair sell - rent then buy. Sold a Townhome in June 2006 and bought a house 6 years later in june 2012, they are about 2 miles apart.
The house is working out well for my 2 boys they have a basketball hoop in the back yard ( killed the grass under it but so what I own it ) plus they can walk to the park which is very close.
Now home prices have gone crazy again. I would be locked out again if I wanted to buy now.
‘I would be locked out again if I wanted to buy now’
But you can’t see that if ordinary people are “locked out”, there is nowhere for prices to go but down? Jeebus, you people are repeating all the statements we laughed at because they were so absurd just a few years ago.
“But you can’t see that if ordinary people are “locked out”, there is nowhere for prices to go but down?”
Well, I’m in cactus’ boat. We all realize that there’s probably another big leg down coming, but we have two little boys as well and we got what we needed at a good price. If we had waited, we would be “locked out” today (we bought in 2010). Maybe in 2015 or 16 or 17 or 18… we’d have gotten the bargain of a lifetime, but at a cost of another nature.
‘If we had waited, we would be “locked out” today’
As I said, ‘repeating all the statements we laughed at because they were so absurd.’ I don’t care about any one house purchase. If you go under and lose a lot of money, I’ll never know or care. But I do care about a country and global economy losing it’s collective mind in a mania, because the outcome will not be pretty.
So by all means, admire your views and pat your children on the head. But be aware that they may not have much of a future because of what is happening today, a ‘cost of another nature’ as you say. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
“But I do care about a country and global economy losing it’s collective mind in a mania, because the outcome will not be pretty.”
I think that most here, including myself, agree.
“But be aware that they may not have much of a future because of what is happening today”
I’m aware of this every day. There are plenty of reasons why our kids might not have much of a future. The ongoing housing bubble is one of many.
The quality of our life here has improved tremendously
Thanks for the update.
Quality of life is nothing to sneer at.
ron,
What a serene view to enjoy with one’s morning coffee. It’s just lovely. I’m happy for youse.
Bloomberg - Wal-Mart Customers Complain Bare Shelves Are Widespread:
“More than 1,000 e-mailed complaints signal that Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s restocking challenges are more widespread than the world’s largest retailer has said.
Wal-Mart customers from Hawaii to Florida and from Texas to Vermont wrote to express their frustration after Bloomberg News reported March 26 that there aren’t enoug workers to in the stores to keep shelves stocked, cash registers manned and shoppers’ questions answered.
Wal-Mart’s restocking challenges stem from a thinly spread labor force struggling to keep up with all the work that needs to be done … The company now has about 1.3 million U.S. workers.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-02/wal-mart-customers-complain-bare-shelves-are-widespread
I shop before work and noticed there haven’t been any employee rah-rah sessions in a few months.
The Wal-Mart cheer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KA9LqsHSfY
When Walmart was in Germany, its employees were in the habit of hiding in the restrooms so they could avoid the mandatory cheering session.
Why would Germans have a problem with mindlessly following?
Why would Germans have a problem with mindlessly following?
They probably heard stories from their grandparents about how it didn’t work out well in the past.
You’re dissatisfied with a store and you file an email complaint with Bloomberg? I heard this nonsense on WBBR this morning too. BS.
I know that there is a concerted effort on the left to discredit the store and I think part of it is nothing more than that. However, part of it is true and it speaks to how effective the free market can be when it is allowed to operate. Walmart is having difficulty finding employees. During its rapid expansion period stock options and the chance to move up made up for the low entry pay. Now, both of those do not exist and Walmart cannot find employees and their customer service has suffered. Stores such as Costco which treat their employees and their customers correctly are doing well. However, since big business and big labor have gotten together to bring in more cheap labor, they will not be hurting for long. The businesses that treat their workers right will suffer and the country as a whole will suffer since the workers will need the EIC, food stamps and will not pay enough property taxes to educate their children to the 8th grade (after which they will drop out). Forward!!!!
Concerted effort by the left?
Our only concerted effort is to spend as little time as possible in unaesthetic environments. When we shop at Wal-Mart, which is primarilly for ammo (not that they have anrecentlly), we try to go before 7am, before the EBT land whales are awake.
I do know how you feel. I sometimes find myself force to shop there and I always feel dirty when I come out. I feel like I have time traveled to the time period of the movie idiocracy.
How arrogant.
Did the thought ever occur to you that people spend $$ at Walmart because that’s all they can afford?
Exactly PW.
I always love those kinds of comments because it tells me right away who has a sheltered life and who doesn’t.
how arrogant
and how noble of you to build them all new houses for 40 dollars a square foot.
Lighten up goon…. it’s reality. Some people can’t afford anything but Walmart.
‘a sheltered life’
“Lighten up’
If you try to turn this into a “keeping it real” p*ssing contest, you will loose. We know ALOT more about keeping it real and an unsheltered life than you know, especially more than turkey lurkey thinks.
most of the shit people buy at walmart they don’t need. and if you turn to walmart to save $10 on your grocery bill, it’s only because you’re willing to ingest a lot of processed crap or bottom-of-the-barrel produce offerings.
quality > quantity. always. you only get to live once, why live like a slovenly flyover-state trash poors*?
* I’m not saying everyone in flyover lives like this, but the general trend holds up so i’m sticking with it
Go for it bud. Your beef is with Eco anyways. In the meantime, the reality is that those who frequent walmart do so for economic reasons.
Proceed.
do so for economic reasons.
——————
No, they do it because they can’t think beyond “cheaper is better”. If you look at the average walmart person’s house, it’s full of shoddy products and looks like a lesser version of “Horders”.
It’s kind of like someone who would put aluminum or vinyl siding on their house. Sure it’s cheaper, but it also looks like shit and reveals a lack of appreciation for quality. No thanks.
Walmart grew initially because of price but its expansion to today’s levels is because the average American is incredibly stupid.
Sorry but all those immigrants you see in Walmart buying food are there because that’s what they can afford.
And aluminum? Vinyl? Shakes? MetalSpan? It all depreciates to zero. All of it.
I do know they shop there because that is all they can afford and that includes college grads in this economy:
http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=60c2d77c-2d2b-4920-8156-4fb05e443d93
However, the simple reality is at Walmart many of both the employees and the shoppers are drawn from the bottom of the gene pool. Seeing three hundred pound people in tube tops or muscle shirts is not uncommon. The country will have to support them and many of their offspring. They inflict environmental damage on the country without providing the country with resources to address the damage. They consume more resources than they produce. This country would be far better off addressing any “shortage” of unskilled labor with technology such as robots. Only the people that live truly sheltered lives in gated communities and never shop at Walmart do not see the problem. Of course, those same people are benefitting from the depressed wages.
It is why I strongly disapprove of any immigration policy that brings in more unskilled labor particularly without considering things like IQ. If the next generation of immigrant does not have a shot of being a professional, they should not be allowed into this country or being allowed to stay in this country if they arrived illegally.
joe please tone down the cursing.
Did the thought ever occur to you that people spend $$ at Walmart because that’s all they can afford?
Or that the reason they have to shop at Walmart is because there are no other places to shop because Walmart cut prices to drive out competition from existing stores?
Ah, goon… going schiz again?
I thought you were just being sarcastic. Didn’t know you’d take it personally.
You reveal more and more all the time.
hello turkey lurkey
“cut prices to drive out competition…”
We only had one store close here when Wallyworld moved in. Small businesses on Main St. mostly did better than before. Counter intuitive maybe. More people come to town because of the W.
I think it’s more to the point that Walmart built 400 new stores last year, but ended up with less employees than in 2011.
About a 14% reduction in employees(FTE) per store.
About a 14% reduction in employees(FTE) per store.
I think that is a choice the company made. There is certainly no shortage of possible employees.
Walmart is for (human) trash. An absolutely hideous brand that will be laughed at by future generations, assuming America doesn’t collapse by that point.
Hey Richie Rich, check the attitude or you’ll get turkey lurkey’s feathers all ruffled.
An absolutely hideous brand that will be laughed at by future generations
That’s an interesting comment given you readily admit it’s only “the poors” that are breeding. What exactly do you imagine is going to occur in the future to pull all those poor breeders and their children out of poverty and change their minds regarding Walmart?
You know what, Joe, grow up. Adults edit stuff they say in public. Yes, the internet is anymous (a bit) but that doesn’t mean that you have to be a jerk all the time.
Joe, are you saying there are cheaper places to shop?
Spoken like a true nouveau, joe.
Wall Street Journal - Hip Markets Are Builders’ New Lure:
“In a new residential building at 44th Street and 11th Avenue, developers plan to open a market selling everything from artisinal pickels to ramen, a permanently located take on the makeshift outdoor markets that have sprung up around Brroklyn and Manhattan.
While such marlets have their roots in some consumers’ opposition to chain stores and industrial farming, developers say they have increasingly become the amenity of choice. they help owners bring an authentic edge to a new building while also helping them fetch top rents.
The food market, which is expected to open in late summer or early fall, features Brooklyn Kitchen, a Williamsburg-based artisanal-food and kitchen supply shop that offers classes in home brewing, fermented pickling and vegan tamale-making.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323611604578396803017044958.html
heck of a long walk to the subway….now that the 7 extension subway at 41st and 10th ave wont be built for years.
What is the residual value of a 20+ year old house?
Hint: not much
Good morning, red velvet cupcake!
Stumped once again huh.
Whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Duh.
You mean however much a sucker can borrow.
The supply of greater fools seems endless.
“If you bought a house from 1998-current or are thinking of buying a house at these massively inflated prices, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.”
LOL MiddleCoaster….RAL is getting his butt handed to him this morning….
And that’s what it’s about for you…….. a trolling used house pimp.
You got suckered….
You know nothing, Pimpster.
And you’re blind to your massive losses.
98 million of the 132 million housing units in the US were built before 1990, of which 85 million are occupied by an owner or renter (per the American Housing Survey, published in December 2012–Tax C-01-AH in their raw data).
You should ask those people what they would be willing to pay for the shelter that they are currently using…it’s far more than “not much”.
That would be “Tab C-01-AH” in their raw data spreadsheet…
Because people don’t know the value of a dollar, including yourself, is somehow evidence that the residual value of a depreciated structure is something more than a few bucks?
I see I now have to school you on residual value too. Follow along Rental Pimp.
Given what people are willing to pay for rent on 20+ year old structures all over the US (my prior 35-year old rental garners $4k per month), either a) the land under the buildings have value (far greater than your $5k-$20k), or b) the 20+ year old buildings have some value.
You can’t have it both ways.
Don’t forget to disclose to the public you a stake in the direction of prices. You overpaid for near worthless dirt by orders of magnitude.
The truth is that “land” isn’t worth more than $500/acre in the lower 48 states. That’s why anyone can buy land for…….$500/acre in the lower 48.
The land is near worthless, the structures are worthless. Why? Because residual value is a function of depreciation. Houses depreciate, ALWAYS.
The biggest fallacy in all your arguments is that IF land and buildings are so cheap and easy to replace/create, there should be rampant construction everywhere, driving profit margins down, and no one would be crying about lack of inventory.
In every business where there are low barriers to entry, margins are low. Are we to believe that housing is somehow different?
There is no arguing. It’s truth.
You paid massively inflated prices for worthless dirt.
And you have no idea what it costs to build. None.
Here’s a ridiculous idea:
———————
Don’t Kill the Mortgage Deduction—Cap It (opinion)
CNBC Tuesday, 26 Mar 2013 | 9:01 AM ET By: Barry Habib (re shill)
“My proposal would be to give the deduction five years of life: After reaping the benefits for half a decade, homeowners would no longer be entitled to deduct the interest on their mortgage, unless they purchased a new home, in which case they would have a new five-year period of deductability on the new mortgage. (Simply refinancing a mortgage after the five-year period would not qualify a homeowner for the deduction.) This would keep the incentive where we want it to be: fueling economic activity.
…limiting the duration of the incentive would increase the desire for everyone to move out and up.
…Grandfathering my plan would make it easy to implement. Individuals with current mortgages will continue to claim the deduction for the next five years.”
——————–
As you can imagine, this guy was lambasted in the comments. He’s an re shill who wants to force people to move every 5 years, thus cancelling out any tax advantage with Realtor fees. It does nothing to stop the rich from buying investment houses for the tax break. Most commenters think MID should be capped at some dollar amount.
Exactly. Also, encouraging people to buy a house every five years also will increase the cost of this deduction to the government. As the balance get paid down the deduction is reduced and for most within ten years it gets to the point where the standard deduction is more valuable. This would increase the number of people taking the MID.
We never hear of any proposal which is designed to reduce consumption and encourage production which is what this country needs a more balanced economy which produces wealth.
I agree. Much better to kill it by slow strangulation, along with Uncle Sam’s myriad other housing subsidies.
April 2, 2013, 11:08 a.m. EDT
Fannie Mae and fuzzy math
Commentary: Record profits welcome, but no recovery
By MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Fannie Mae’s record profits, attained through a resurgent — if still nascent — housing market and economic recovery, are indeed welcome.
But they don’t go anywhere close to erasing the damage the institution wreaked on taxpayers, nor are they vindication for what is still a flawed system of government’s participation in the markets.
…
Fannie Mae’s record profits, attained through a resurgent — if still nascent — housing market and economic recovery, are indeed welcome.”
I wonder how much Blackstone contributed to this ?
Most commenters think MID should be capped at some dollar amount ??
I could support that as long as it was index to some medium housing cost for the zip or general area…Giving a homeowner in Tennessee a $300,000. CAP is a lot different than Manhattan…If its about fairness and equity then that is how it should be done…
It’s already currently capped at $1 million isn’t it?
technically it’s $ 1.1M and that is the limitation of the loan amount.
no other aspect of the federal code is based on “cost of living” so it is doubtful the MID would be.
a couple earning $ 200k in manahattan is much worse off than a couple earning $ 200k in tchula, mississippi.
The sales tax deduction is.
KEEEEEEEEEEEEEYRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!
What was that?!
You know that house you made the mistake of buying? Well the value of it just fell through the floor leaving a smoldering moon-crater.
Beware reading public. Beware.
“failing to make reasonable efforts to protect students from conditions harmful to learning.”
Depends on what your teaching them.
I`ll meet you in Burg’s classroom and we`ll learn how to play Drown the Clown.
50 Drinking Games Guaranteed to Get You Hammered | AMOG
http://amog.com/lifestyle/50-drinking-games-guaranteed-hammered/ - 181k
Odyssey teacher faces suspension over alcohol
by Jason Schultz
Students raiding a teacher’s cooler could result in that west Boynton Beach middle school teacher being suspended this week.
The school board will vote Wednesday on a proposal to suspend Odyssey Middle School Jeffrey Burg for three days without pay for allegations ranging from possessing alcoholic beverages on school grounds to failing to make reasonable efforts to protect students from conditions harmful to learning.
According to a school district report, employees caught a boy at the school with an unspecified alcoholic beverage on Dec. 19. The boy told school officials he got it from another girl who told them she took it from a storage closet in Burg’s classroom.
The principal and assistant principal then went to Burg’s room and found a cooler with the alcoholic beverages in it.
According to the report, Burg told school officials he brought the cooler to work to replenish the water supply in his fridge and did not see that he had alcoholic beverages in it until he was already at school. He told school officials when he saw that he meant to take it home.
According to district records Burg, 47, was hired by the school district in 2007 and currently teaches math at Odyssey.
Tags: bnblogs
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 at 7:00 am and is filed under Educator misconduct, Miscellaneous, Palm Beach County schools, School board, Teacher issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What a maroon.
Homes in our ‘hood have been selling for $100K north of the Trulia estimates, which is about 25% higher than last year’s sale prices. This reminds me of the 23% rate of home price appreciation that Los Angeles wracked up for a short while back in the early 2000s.
Guess what, folks? This bubbly rate of appreciation is unsustainable, and at the end of it will be another price crash. Our landlords are hoping the echo bubble lasts long enough for them to get out, but they are still quite a bit underwater compared to their 2004 pre-bubble-collapse entry costs. I’d guess their is a fair chance they will hold on until the next leg down.
This bubbly rate of appreciation is unsustainable ??
Ditto here…….
Dave, where are you? Greenville here.
Our landlords are hoping the echo bubble lasts long enough for them to get out, but they are still quite a bit underwater compared to their 2004 pre-bubble-collapse entry costs.”
Overhead resistance. Once prices reach peak 2006 prices supply could come on the market pretty quick. In your area the 1% will buy but can they buy it all ?
It’s all over priced or are we all under paid ? This is all part of a great leveling of world economies going on lowering Americans standards of living. SFH as we know it will be gone in 30 years.
Why would SFR’s be gone in 30 years? We have so many houses in excess inventory to last another 50 years even if outfits like us stopped building for that duration.
Why would SFR’s be gone in 30 years?”
My guess is that Blackstone will depreciate exsisting rental SFH they are buying like crazy. 20 years from now they will be falling apart so they knock them down and put up apartments. Make money by selling apartment REITs. Smaller carbon footprint, mass transist, all the stuff city planners ( who will live in remaining SFH in gated communities ) like. Probably get government to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
Not everywhere but in densly populated areas like on the S. CA Coast where Blackstone is buying. Areas where affordable housing is now non exsistant but people still want to live working for the rich. Do you think these city people can survive out in flyover on a farm ?
You will be busy as ever building the Apartments. They will have Wi-Fi plus cameras all over the place, Watch Youtube clips of the futuristic movie “Brazil” they will look like that. It will be a paradise. You can be Robert DeNiro.
Pimp Watch turns into Terry Tuttle renagade repair man
Now I’m just getting silly. Great movie though have to watch it a few times to get all the detail.
Nature takes care of depreciation just fine. Whether you like it or not.
Harry Tuttle my bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dht_3NziwSw
Yes, it’s unsustainable. Blackstone et al are going to stop buying when the rental income no longer pencils out. But what are prices going to crash TO? I’m tired of hearing about this “next leg down.” This current baby bubble is a leg up. The next leg down is back to mid-2012 prices. Still bouncing along the bottom.
Junkie…..Prices haven’t come remotely close to the bottom…. yet.
The parallels to the Savings & Loan disaster are uncanny.
There was a dead cat bounce during its time as well, but in the end, you could literally get RE for a song.
And this time we’re determined to learn from that mistake.
Only it’s the wrong lesson, isn’t it?
You can’t fix our kind of stupid.
Yeah…the “wrong” people made money on that one.
“Blackstone et al are going to stop buying when the rental income no longer pencils out. But what are prices going to crash TO?”
It seems quite obvious that at some point, all these too-clever-by-half hedge funds and all-cash foreign investors will try to cash in their short-term capital gains. I’d guess this will happen a little before the rest of us realize the Fed is about to take away the punch bowl.
My worst case scenario is that then the Fed just buy all that up too, and makes them whole at everyone else’s expense. At the rate we are going eventually they will own, or at least set the price for, everything.
I’d guess this will happen a little before the rest of us realize the Fed is about to take away the punch bowl.”
This is another possiblity. Instead of big brother government controlling eveything they just let it self adjust crash or no crash.
They had there chance.
No I don’t think they will let the free market work. Not if it works out to there banker friend’s disadvantage.
Sequester axe falls in Washington — but not on lawmaker salaries
By Pete Kasperowicz - 04/02/13 05:00 AM ET
One small group is curiously immune from the sequester and the related furloughs that are about to become a fact of life in Washington: Congress.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will take a pay cut because of this year’s $85 billion in automatic spending cuts, including about 750,000 at the Pentagon alone. Air traffic control towers are being closed, unemployment benefits are being reduced, and the White House has even cancelled tours.
Congressional offices aren’t escaping the sequester. They’ve had to reduce office budgets, and some members have said they may have to lay off staff.
But lawmakers themselves won’t take a pay cut because member pay is completely exempted from the sequester.
…
But lawmakers themselves won’t take a pay cut because member pay is completely exempted from the sequester.
Well, what a surprise!
And fair, too!
The sequester specter hasn’t lost all of its scare power — just yet!
The Morning Plum: The sequester is not a Beltway joke
Posted by Greg Sargent on April 2, 2013 at 9:17 am
It is now an established truth in Washington that the Obama administration committed a horrible strategic error in hyping the impact of the sequester: Its impact was overblown, and partly as a result, Republicans have “won” the political battle over it. The sequester is little more than fodder for jokes about White House tours.
It’s true that in a number of specific instances the White House did falsely inflate the consequences of sequestration. But what if, on the broad strokes, it is actually true that the sequester cuts are doing real damage all over the country — damage that is only just beginning?
…
Just as the Fed takes credit for any upturn in the economy, any downturn will be blamed on the Sequester.
Unfalsifiable arguments are beautiful, in a perverse way.
damage that is only just beginning? ”
Whatever happens you can bet “they” will make sure Joe taxpayer feels it. Otherwise joe might want to cut even more…
the sequester cuts are doing real damage all over the country
– The mere failure of the government to constantly increase its spending year by year and to never let up on this, will do “real damage” to the economy.
– Ever increasing government outlays, supported by borrowed money, is about all that is keeping the economy from collapsing.
– The hoo-ha about “sequester” is just a smoke screen to distract the masses from their predicament.
The whole country screams for cuts in gov spending.
So the gov cuts spending.
Now the whole country screams that it hurts.
You can’t fix our kind of stupid.
Now the whole country screams that it hurts.
You can’t fix our kind of stupid.
You don’t hear me or most Tea Party members screaming that it hurts. Rather, we’re giddy with glee at the carnage the sequester should reap in DC.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. - Obi Wan describing Mos Eisley, but he could have been describing DC…
I tried to do a little online research yesterday on electric cars, and found price information very hard to come by. In particular, I couldn’t easily figure out how often the batteries need replacement, or what that would cost. Eventually I came up with a figure north of $10K for the rough cost of replacing a battery, which suggests it wouldn’t pencil out for me unless the batteries almost never need replacement.
Any leads on this?
Not sure I get the “manufacturing scale” concern of this article. If electric cars caught on, then more would sell, and they could manufacture them at a more efficient scale, leading to lower prices and more increases in sales.
The bigger question in my mind is what they really cost compared to gasoline-powered cars, at whatever scale of manufacturing. Are the batteries so expensive to manufacture and replace that they will never be able to compete with gasoline as an energy source?
April 1, 2013, 9:45 a.m. EDT
Tesla’s Awful Sales News
By 24/7 Wall St.
Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced that its most recent quarter would be profitable, and its shares rose 13% to $42.82, which is above its 52-week high. The electronic car company is still in a horrible business. It sold more than 4,750 cars, or units as it calls them. There is no economy of scale at that level, which is what eventually will doom the company.
That revolution already has ended, as global electric car sales have faltered, buried by clean diesel, falling gas prices and a clear preference among buyers of hybrids for the Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) Prius, and much higher end equivalents, such as the Porsche Panamera S Hybrid. The Porsche sells for $96,000 or better and is, by many measures, a better sports car than Tesla makes. And the Tesla Model S does not make it very far on a charge, another drawback. With a 60 kWh battery, it goes about 230 miles.
The most severe drawbacks for Tesla’s future are already well known, a quarter of profit notwithstanding. The company, like all other publicly traded corporations, had to list its risk factors in the 10-K it filed for 2012. Several are frightening. First among these is the manufacturing scale question, to which there is no ready answer:
In other words, Tesla may never have sustainable margins.
…
Low sulfur diesel is at all the gas stations… Most of the country could switch over with very little trouble over the next 10-15 as old cars die….why not offer tax incentives for that?
buried by clean diesel,
Tesla and Fisker are the “in cars” in Washington DC right now, even ahead of Audi A10 and Q7.
Meaning Tesla Model S & Fisker Karma.
Fisker might go down as a company, it’s a shame because that car is awesome.
I guess the in crowd will have to be more like George Tenet and just lease a Maybach (but if you lease you can’t tint the windows to get the privacy effect).
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Fisker in person, but we have a Tesla dealership here and I’ve been seeing Model S Teslas everywhere. Sometime 2 or 3 in one commute.
The crazy thing about the Fisker Karma (and why it really isnt even close to being a “green car”) is that its weight is around 5,200 lbs.
Maybe it gets the farm equipment subsidy?
Does FedGov give away free power to charge the batteries?
It appears the market disagrees with the author of this story. It has a lower cost version coming out soon. Of course big money doesn’t like new comers. I’m sure the horse and buggy makers had a lot of bad things to say in the press when the first motor cars appeared. They bad mouthed the prius and said it would never be profitable when it came out. That’s been proven wrong in spades. They said it didn’t make economic sense, tell that to all the cab companies scrambling to get these things into their fleet. I have a friend who does a fair business converting these to cabs. I have close to 190 k on my rusting civic hybrid still runs great.
Tesla has close to 300mile range
You can recharge 150 miles in about 30 minutes at a supercharger site.
Next generation batteries will be even better.
Gen III a new smaller Tesla will be a reality in a couple years
There tech is be used by some of the big manufacturers like Mercedes and Toyota.
Economy of scale is growing
30 min to recharge on X country trips?
Better consider waiting times on the highways in summer mos should these things catch on.
A close friend has a Prius.
Last time we saw each other, I was amazed to see that car glide away from the parking lot without making a sound. At first, I thought he was coasting away in neutral.
I personally find the quiet quite disturbing. And the legroom in the driver seat is inadequate for a six foot man, as it uncomfortably forces your knees together. When I test drove one, I concluded the car must have been designed for a woman.
Any leads on this ??
No leads really but generally I lack the trust of a all electric car…I think if I were to buy a electric car it would need to be a Hybrid that also had a small combustion motor…That way, if the battery crashes, it does not render the vehicle useless…
If the battery crashes it is unusable. At least for the Ford hybrids.
Battery all of a sudden crashing is very unlikely, less likely than a car engine not working. If a battery fails quickly it’s likely a problem with overcharging it. A gradual loss of capacity how a battery charged normally fails.
That said a chevy Volt is an electric car with a back up generator and ours is giving us about 90mpg in winter and we’re expecting 200mpg in the summer. The gas engine kicks in when it’s cold to warm everything up and then periodically to maintain the engine if you only take short trips. Our Toyota corolla got 23mpg in the dead of winter and our prius 38-40 so it’s quite an improvement.
I just did a quick search and came up with this which has links to other sites:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/hybrid-technology/hybrid-battery-cost1.htm
My own opinion which I have shared for years is electric cars are a dead end until they find something better than lithium to make the batteries. Too expensive, too limited in range and ironically too environmentally damaging.
One thing that really hurts the pure EV cars are that the batteries are considered “spent” when they only hold 70% of their rated capacity. For most lithium-ion batteries that’s around 100,000 miles. There is a ready made market for used EV batteries if they resold them as UPS systems to solar panel users.
“Most lithium-ion battery packs that power vehicles such as Nissan’s all-electric car, the LEAF, have an estimated life of about 10 years, just shy of the average age of an automobile these days. But even after the electric car’s battery has served its purpose, it typically can still operate at 70% of its capacity”
http://www.solarnovus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6339:old-ev-batteries-as-solar-storage-solution&catid=38:application-tech-features&Itemid=246
Meltdown: A lithium-ion battery pack in a Mitsubishi Motors Corp. Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) melted last week at a dealership, the carmaker said Wednesday. | KYODO
Business / Corporate
Lithium-ion battery melts, another catches fire in Mitsubishi vehicles
JIJI, Bloomberg
Mar 29, 2013
Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said two lithium-ion battery packs suffered accidents last week.
A charged battery melted March 21 in an Outlander PHEV at a dealership in Kanagawa Prefecture before the vehicle was sold, Mitsubishi Motors said Wednesday.
The automaker also said a lithium-ion battery pack in an i-MiEV electric vehicle caught fire during a charging test at a plant in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, on March 18.
Both batteries were produced by Lithium Energy Japan, a joint venture set up by Mitsubishi Motors, GS Yuasa Corp. and trading house Mitsubishi Corp.
GS Yuasa, based in Kyoto, manufactured the lithium-ion batteries that have been malfunctioning on Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Ryugo Nakao, director of MMC, told reporters that he cannot comment on whether there are any links between the problems at the automaker and Boeing.
Nakao said it was possible a metallic fragment may have been mixed in during the manufacturing process, causing the battery to short out.
“We will find the cause of the trouble in about one to two weeks,” he said.
Boeing Co. said Wednesday that the fire in a lithium-ion automobile battery built by GS Yuasa is unrelated to overheating that prompted the worldwide grounding of the composite plastic jet.
“We have been assured that the battery in question is fundamentally different from the 787 battery both in its construction processes, design, and chemistry,” said Marc Birtel, a Boeing spokesman.
…
Lead acid batteries burn up hundreds of cars every year too.
We are now into the 3rd. year of the explosion in Natural Gas production but why don’t we see CNG cars from any of the manufactures? Could it be that the surplus in NG would disappear overnight if we suddenly diverted 50% of production into transportation and NG prices would end up costing the equivalent BTU of gasoline?
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/
The domestics have models on the drawing boards also. There are millions of NG vehicles in the world a proven and cost effective alternative.
CNG cars can blow up real good as well . . . like this one did in Seattle a few years back:
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/general/t-cng-honda-civic-car-fireexplosion-dialup-warning-many-photos-7555.html
Dan, I live in the heart of the gas boom area and not one dealer in the DFW area has any CNG models for sale. It’s been like that for years. The closest is a dealer in Austin. The only CNG filling stations are owned by the county or private fleets. Sure there are lots of CNG vehicles in other countries but not here or in Canada or Mexico. It seems the free market has decided there is no interest.
As can gasoline driven cars. However, while there are millions of CNG cars in the world the number of electric cars in in the tens of thousands even after years of tax credits. Put a $7500 tax credit on that Honda like we do with electric cars and you will sell more in a week than you do with the electric cars in a year. Within a few years you could do away with the credit since you would break the chicken or egg problem of demand for fueling stations. Mass production of the car would make it cost about what a gasoline fueled vehicle costs and you would have an engine that lasted 500,000 miles.
All that may be true but will CNG still look like a good deal if Nat Gas goes from $4 today (it was $2 just 9 months ago) to $9 or $12 in a few years? Have you noticed that quite a bit of our future natural gas production has already been sold to foreign buyers at the many new LNG export terminals being built along our coast lines? It’s just like the Canada tar sands being shipped across the US only to end up being refined and sold to foreign buyers and won’t lower the cost for the American consumer.
Mortgage applications are at multi-decade lows.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/03/20130328_house2.jpg
Why? Because there is no demand at current grossly inflated housing prices. And until prices fall to pre-bubble levels, this chart will remain just as you see it. FLAT.
Housing prices have a very long way to fall. A very long way.
Buyer Beware.
Could America be at “Peak Greater Fool?”
Looks like they peaked in ‘06. But I’d like to see what the trend was, say, in the 20 years before 2005.
Posted: 11:28 a.m. Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Fannie earns $17.2B in 2012, biggest annual gain
By MARCY GORDON
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant’s history, helped by a record fourth quarter. The 2012 gain was driven by the housing recovery, which has reduced delinquencies and lifted home prices six years after the bubble burst.
The government-controlled company also said Tuesday that it paid dividends of $11.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2012. Fannie says it expects to remain profitable “for the foreseeable future.”
The company did not seek any federal assistance in 2012. That followed a year in which the company reported a net loss of $16.9 billion and requested $25.9 billion in federal assistance.
Taxpayers spent $188 billion to rescue Fannie and smaller sibling Freddie Mac from their exposure to risky loans that trigged the 2008 financial crisis. Fannie received $116 billion and has paid back $35.6 billion.
Freddie received $72 billion and has paid back nearly $24 billion.
The gradual recovery of the housing market has enabled both companies to become profitable again. Freddie has posted positive net earnings for the past five quarters.
“Our financial results improved significantly in 2012 and we expect our earnings to remain strong over the next few years,” Timothy Mayopoulos, Fannie’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Fannie earned $7.6 billion in the October-December quarter, a quarterly record for the company. A legal settlement with Bank of America Corp. provided $1.3 billion of the gain. Fannie paid the Treasury a quarterly dividend of $2.9 billion.
Under a federal policy adopted last summer, Fannie and Freddie must turn over their quarterly profits to the government.
The fourth-quarter earnings compared with a net loss of $2.4 billion in the final quarter of 2011.
Fannie and Freddie together own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans. Those loans are worth more than $5 trillion. Along with other federal agencies, they back roughly 90 percent of new mortgages.
Copyright The Associated Press
What do you know? Government-sponsored and bailed out enterprises with a duopoly lock on their industry can still make outsized profits…
These guys were following the Obama election model but screwed up and got caught.
“FBI busts state senator and 5 others in plot to rig New York City mayoral race”
“Smith and the Republicans are charged with an elaborate scheme in which Smith paid Halloran to provide him with access to Republican officials so that they would agree to sign statements that Smith should be allowed to run for mayor as a Republican even though he is a registered Democrat. In return, they were paid lavish fees and promised that Smith would steer lucrative projects to their districts.”
www rawstory com/rs/2013/04/02/fbi-busts-state-senator-and-5-others-in-plot-to-rig-new-york-city-mayoral-race/
The myth of Obama “the socialist” has been the greatest deception since 9/11 and the Iraq war. Latest example being the ’surprise’ CMS ruling that gutted the Obamacare cost controls and gave the health care industry a huge rate increase. CMS backed off Medicare Advantage cuts that were to help pay for Obamacare. According to the CBO, $156 billion of the over $700 billion in Medicare cuts under Obamacare were supposed to come through reducing payments to private companies within the Medicare Advantage program. Now instead of decreasing the cost of Obamacare it will ADD $400 billion to the cost.
Let’s not forget this little news item from yesterday:
“For 2014, small businesses shopping for policies in many states will be limited to choosing a single health plan to offer their workers. Count this as a political victory for states that wanted to thwart Obamacare by not building their own exchanges. The Affordable Care Act envisioned each state setting up a marketplace in which individuals and small businesses could shop for health insurance, starting in 2014.”
www businessweek com/articles/2013-04-01/obamacares-small-business-exchanges-get-watered-down
“For 2014, small businesses shopping for policies in many states will be limited to choosing a single health plan to offer their workers. Count this as a political victory for states that wanted to thwart Obamacare by not building their own exchanges. The Affordable Care Act envisioned each state setting up a marketplace in which individuals and small businesses could shop for health insurance, starting in 2014.”
Well, whoopee. I can’t wait to continue getting screwed by the individual health insurance market.
Two words: Public option.
I am surprised that this drudge link has not been posted but it says it all about Cali: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/03/state-auditor-california-net-worth-at-negative-127-billion.html
And that is not including the pensions as the story states.
Make no mistake. CA is a financial disaster and they’re digging deeper, creating a much larger problem. The calamity that results is going to bring unimaginable pain to millions there.
“state-auditor-california-net-worth-at-negative-127-billion.html
And that is not including the pensions as the story states.”
Holy shimoly — how will the state ever dig itself out from this pit?
Hmmmmmmm…
Which “state” is in the worst financial condition?
1. Cyprus
2. Italy
3. Spain
4. California
And which of these is too biggest to fail?
1. Cyprus was just bailed out to the tune of 10 bn euros = $12.8 bn dollars — chump change compared to the holes in which other failed states find themselves.
2. According to the IMF, Italy’s national debt in 2013 was 2016.27 billion euros = $2.6 trillion and rising steadily — apparently a slightly larger concern than Cyprus.
3. Spain’s national debt in 2013 is 1,025.86 billion euros = $1.3 trillion and rising even faster than Italy’s.
4. If the reports are true that California’s fiscal hole is only a few hundred billion dollars, then apparently they are worse off in absolute terms than Cyprus, though perhaps not in per capita terms. And both Spain and Italy have far larger debt problems than California has.
Corruption across party lines in NYC… A Queens Democrat and a Queens Republican led a conspiracy to get the Queens Democrat (head of the state senate) on the NYC mayoral ballot.
From NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/nyregion/state-senator-and-city-councilman-accused-of-trying-to-rig-mayors-race.html?hp&_r=0
“Mr. Smith, a contractor and real estate developer, has said he was considering running for mayor as a Republican, and the charges contend that he made payments to Mr. Halloran in exchange for the councilman’s assistance in setting up meetings with Republican leaders as part of an effort to get on the ballot, the complaint said.
The criminal complaint was filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and was unsealed Tuesday morning. Mr. Smith, Mr. Halloran and the others were to appear later Tuesday before a United States magistrate judge in United States District Court in White Plains.
Mr. Smith, according to the complaint, agreed with a cooperating witness and an undercover F.B.I. agent, who was masquerading as a wealthy real estate developer, to pay off leaders of Republican county committees in New York’s five boroughs. The bribes were to be paid to obtain specific certificates authorizing him to run for mayor as a Republican even though he was a registered Democrat. “
This happens everyday all across this country.
Wonder who he pissed off…
So was it really a Democrat trying to infiltrate the Republican caucus in NY or was it an attempt to get egg on the face of Republicans in NY via the FBI bribery sting?
In my region, the Repubs charge a lot of money to “endorse” a GOP candidate.
IIRC, I don’t think the Dems charge anything or only a tiny amount. (again, only in my region)
Anyone else seen Thom Friedman’s ever-so-insightful NY Times piece today?
Apparently if you need a job in America today, you need to invent it.
Welcome to the Lucky Ducky future.
Apparently if you need a job in America today, you need to invent it. ”
Does selling crack count ?
Yes, but the real boot-strapping job creators are the meth lab guys.
American meth for American Tweakers!
Does robbing tourists and breaking into homes and business count?
They aren’t crooks.
They are “Unauthorized Property Relocators/Disposition Agents”
A bunch of people are whining about the “three strikes” laws.
Sorry. As a guy who has been ripped off repeatedly by these types, “Sympathy” is just a word between “s##t” and “syphilis”. as far as I’m concerned. For every time these bottom feeders get caught, they’ve ripped off 20 other people.
My only regret is that no one seems to apply the same laws/sentences to the banksters.
Paraphrasing Chris Rock,……”If you are stupid enough to risk going to jail for 25 years for stealing a pizza………maybe your azz BELONGS in prison.”
(I’m channeling my Inner Republican today).
Hating on blacks, mexicans, poor people, and women. Putting all the onus on the raising of children on women. Elementary-level jokes about prostitution. Still pissed about the OJ verdict 15 years later…
I think there is an inner Republican convention going on here today.
The “inner Republican convention” wouldn’t be complete without married white men chasing some downlow.
Ask joe smith, he knows where all the hot action is.
For every time these bottom feeders get caught, they’ve ripped off 20 other people.
For every banker NOT prosecuted, there are 20 million people they’ve ripped off.
Copper salesman?
States Propose Crackdowns On Copper Theft
by Candace Wheeler
April 02, 2013 3:22 AM
Listen to the Story
Morning Edition
5 min 1 sec
Everything from telephone wire to plumbing is a target for copper thieves, and lawmakers in nearly half the states are considering legislation aimed at making it harder to sell the stolen metal.
Everything from telephone wire to plumbing is a target for copper thieves, and lawmakers in nearly half the states are considering legislation aimed at making it harder to sell the stolen metal.
iStockphoto.com
The price of copper remains at near historic highs, and that means so, too, does the amount of copper getting stolen.
Everything from telephone wire to plumbing is a target, and lawmakers in nearly half the states are considering legislation aimed at making it harder for thieves to sell the stolen metal.
James City County in southeastern Virginia has seen a spate of recent copper thefts. Maj. Steve Rubino with the county police department says there have been six major incidents since January.
With thousands of dollars at stake, Rubino says, thieves are taking risks. One of the targets, for example, was a power substation at the end of a remote road.
“Even though it says ‘High voltage, may cause injury or death,’ obviously they were not concerned with that,” Rubino says.
…
“Even though it says ‘High voltage, may cause injury or death,’ obviously they were not concerned with that,” Rubino says.
Zzzzzzzzt!
Reminds me of those stories about drunks peeing on the tracks. Which have a third rail.
Friedman has always been an ass.
bleccchh.
started reading his co-authored book ‘that used to be us’ recently but am returning it to the library without finishing it.
I think he should write a book about how his wife’s family company ended up in its current sorry state. And how many of his (wife’s) billions was lost in the process.
That would be a must-read book, but I am sure his wife wears the pants. He probably sleeps in the dog house on their massive Bethesda property. A 1000 sq ft dog house with a slate shower and recessed LED lighting.
…with a cabana boy.
From the article:
But, more than ever, our kids will have to “invent” a job. (Fortunately, in today’s world, that’s easier and cheaper than ever before.)
It is? I remember when you found a start up in a a garage. All the startups I see today are funded by venture capitalists.
I’m thinking that his phrase “invent a job” is code for “become a freelacer/contractor”. So you do the same job, you just aren’t an employee.
Exactly.
As for start-ups, if you don’t have some serious capital and enough to last for 5 years of business, you better be either VERY lucky or don’t even bother trying.
You’re better off playing the lottery and hoping for the low payout win.
Will they also have to invent customers with cash??
Okay, so I’ve invented my job. Can I invent people who will pay me to do it?
Nice.
If you can’t, Friedman will give you a refund.
Corporations RULE ALL
From Motley Fool
Medicare Advantage plans are more expensive than traditional Medicare plans, but they offer significantly better coverage — including vision care — and often allow for lower out-of-pocket costs, making them the perfect solution for more than 13 million seniors around the country.
There was serious concern from the get-go for insurers like Humana (NYSE: HUM ) , Universal American (NYSE: UAM ) , UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH ) and Health Net (NYSE: HNT ) — which generate 63.5%, 75%, 25%, and 25%, respectively, of their revenue from Medicare Advantage plans. These insurers made it clear that if these rates were to continue into 2014 they would simply reduce the amount of benefits offered and shrink the overall scope of the provider network.
The idea of higher premiums and fewer benefits didn’t sit too well with Congressional lawmakers, insurers, or insurance advocacy groups, which took to aggressive lobbying since the decision was announced in February. Last night, that lobbying turned out to be wholly worthwhile.
As a warning shot aimed directly across the bow of Obamacare, the insurers operating in the Medicare Advantage industry were informed by the CMS on Monday that it had decided to reverse its original recommendation of a 2.3% reimbursement cut in 2013 in favor of a 3.3% increase in the rate of reimbursement!
The reversal decision came about after the assumption was made that Congress would keep payment rates to doctors from falling next year, which is in contrast to the reduction in pay rate that had been factored into the February assessment. It also acts against the premise of the PPACA, which is to wean private insurers from relying on government aid for certain health care plans, including Medicare Advantage.
The bigger story here appears to be the kick in the shin that Obamacare just took at the hands of the insurance industry. By exerting its lobbying power — hinting at the possibility of reducing benefits for 13 million-plus seniors in 2014 — and getting some 160 lawmakers to write letters to persuade the CMS to change its opinion, the insurance industry effectively dictated itself a raise.
From an investment standpoint, insurers like Humana and Universal American — which have significantly more revenue and profit exposure to Medicare Advantage than anything else in the product portfolio — should benefit the most. UnitedHealth Group and Health Net should benefit as well, although their health solutions offered are more diverse, so the impact won’t be as substantial. I urged for calmer heads to prevail in February with regard to Humana, and that appears to have been prescient advice now looking back.
Seriously they bill the US gov to provide Medicare service. They’ve been charging 15% more than it costs the US gov to provide the same service, I’m guessing around 750 to 1000 dollars for each of 13-14million patients. Now they are going to get a 3% increase? The beatings will continue until moral improves. !@#$@#$%#$^$#&^
Nobody suggested a boycott or a General Strike? Nope, just pressure a few legislators and a cut becomes bonus!! You know what this means… all the GDP numbers will have to be raised to account for the increased spending.
Bluestar, we already had one of those… just after 9/11 when nobody spend money because they were afraid to leave the house.
Guess who felt the pain of that… and it wasn’t the corporate CEOs.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism, comrade?
“The Housing Market “Recovery” Is A Complete Myth”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1151771-the-housing-market-recovery-is-a-complete-myth
Reader beware. If you buy a house at current inflated asking prices of resale housing, you will lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
Richard Florida, sage or scam?
(Not using an HTML link to avoid moderation)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/20/richard-florida-concedes-the-limits-of-the-creative-class.html
or:
http://is.gd/Agsyym
Neither.
Says the most cliche ridden pedestrian stuff. A lightweight.
Key point from the story: Florida himself, in his role as an editor at The Atlantic, admitted last month what his critics, including myself, have said for a decade: that the benefits of appealing to the creative class accrue largely to its members—and do little to make anyone else any better off. The rewards of the “creative class” strategy, he notes, “flow disproportionately to more highly-skilled knowledge, professional and creative workers,” since the wage increases that blue-collar and lower-skilled workers see “disappear when their higher housing costs are taken into account.” His reasonable and fairly brave, if belated, takeaway: “On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits.”
The hubris and mendacity of realtors is stunning. These people cannot be trusted.
http://www.cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2013/3/22/real_estate_agent_ac.html
While I’ve only met maybe a dozen or less realtors, they did have one thing in common and in spades: complete douches.
Since the Cyprus “Lehman crisis” turned out to be a tempest in a teapot, gold is quickly dropping towards its 52-week low:
marketwatch dot com
Gold - Electronic (COMEX) Jun 2013
$1,576.30
Change -24.60 -1.54%
Volume 148,248
Apr 2, 2013 3:14 p.m.
Quotes are delayed by 10 min
Previous close $1,600.90
52 week low $1,545
52 week high $1,803
Down we go!
One has to wonder why gold hasn’t collapsed give the massive deflationary spiral we’re in.
There is a whole lot of quantitative easing going on to try to offset the deflationary spiral, which obviously (to none gold bugs at least) has been very good for the gold price.
Once the Fed takes away the QE punch bowl, watch out below…
Why would the Fed ever take away the punch bowl if doing so could take down the economy?
Bulletin Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs
April 2, 2013, 8:31 a.m. EDT
First quarter looks solid but latest data is shaky
Commentary: Is early-year momentum sustainable?
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
Although the second quarter is now underway, economists are more confused than usual over what lies ahead.
Six months ago, most pundits thought that the economy would slow down at the end of last year. The government’s figures for the gross domestic product show that this was an accurate call. Even after the first revision, growth was a paltry 0.4%, following a zippy 3.1% in the third quarter.
…
Although profits as a share of GDP are at their highest levels since 1943, a lot of the market’s recent runup can be traced to the unprecedented easing by the Federal Reserve.
Don’t take my word for it, look at the record. Over the past four years whenever the Fed injected new stimulus stocks would take off. When the market doubted that the Fed would continue is ultra-easy policy, stocks would sell off.
In other words, more and more stimulus is needed to keep the market from going into the tank. Meanwhile, the economy has to deal with such headwinds as domestic politics, Cyprus banks and the fate of the euro — not to mention a tightening of fiscal policy and a strong dollar.
Getting back to the Fed, a growing number of analysts and politicians think that the money mavens are doing the economy more harm than good by keeping interest rates at near-zero levels.
Today’s low rates are clearly hurting savers yet not producing all that much new borrowing. At the same time, these rates are creating bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate. The concomitant jump in the money supply could also lead to a new round of inflation.
With this in mind, the central bank has begun to hint at a potential exit strategy. If and when the Fed decides to take away the punch bowl, the market will likely take a header and could well drag the economy along with it.
Again the FED has to keep everyone guessing. It’s the only way they can manage this high wire act. They send out talking heads to shift the weights they use to keep the whole show up in the air. If everyone believes deflation then they rush to one side and off we go. If everyone believes inflation we fall off the other side with giant bursting bubbles and a collapse in confidence.
Don’t forget, gold is not just regarded as an inflation hedge, but a place to turn to for safety. Treasury bills too, although of course T-bills are strictly a deflation hedge.
These are great times for those pondering buying gold and those pondering selling their stock gains.
Here are a sounds I like….”Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink,” as five quarter ounce gold American eagles were added to my pill bottle on Monday evening.
In five weeks, I will repeat the sounds.
In five weeks what will be the price of gold per ounce? I dunno.
I do know there is a big entitlement crisis ahead. The social security, medicare, and interest on the debt will be so huge that government could not fullfill its constitutional duties…without severe inflation or severe taxes on the middle class. Taxes will be a la Cyprus: seizure of a certain percent of electronic assets: Bank deposits, 401ks, IRAs, brokerages. Maybe I will hang onto my paper savings bonds for awhile until the Obama disease wears off, but that will be in ten years.
Moveable and hideable assets: Silver bullion, platinum bullion, and gold bullion.
Here school marm, I will tell you where it’s buried, so you can tell your favorite folks, BIG GOVERNMENT. Buried in your toilet.
http://www.fanniemae.com/resources/file/ir/pdf/quarterly-annual-results/2012/q42012_credit_summary.pdf
Fannie Mae released it’s credit supplement today. Lots of data.
The housing market has leaped head first into recovery mode. March’s housing numbers show that the S&P Case-Shiller Index is rising more quickly on an annual basis than it has since 2006, existing-home sales have experienced 12 months of year-over-year price increases and new home sales are 29% higher than they were a year ago.
A new survey by PulteGroup shows that the housing market will continue its upward trend. The study interviewed renters between the ages of 18 and 34 (otherwise known as generation Y or millennials) and found that 65% of respondent’s intentions to buy homes had increased over the past year. 52% of millennials indicated a desire to own and build equity.
There are around 90 million millennials living in the United States, making them the largest demographic group in the county’s history - an onslaught of this group into the housing industry could create a boom larger than anything the U.S. has ever seen before.”
Around here they will all be moving in rentals owned by Blackstone.
It did not say when they will purchase a house. It just said more of them intend to buy houses. Perhaps when they reach age 60?
And there are 70 million boomers heading to the grave leaving 35 million excess empty houses in addition to the 25 excess empty houses in inventory.
Now what do you think happens considering housing demand is at 17 year lows and falling?
Cramer: Fed’s Punchbowl Is Going Nowhere
Published: Tuesday, 2 Apr 2013 | 6:04 PM ET
By: Lee Brodie
Cramer on Fed Stimulus: Don’t Stop the Party?
Tuesday, 2 Apr 2013 | 6:00 PM ET
The Fed says its bond-buying will likely continue through the remainder of 2013. Mad Money host Jim Cramer explains what happens when that stops.
If you’re a bull the Federal Reserve has been mixing a cocktail that’s blown your socks off.
And with the S&P flirting with all time highs, pros on Wall Street are wondering when the Fed will take the punchbowl off the table. That is, they’re wondering when the Fed will begin to wind down its ultra-loose monetary policy.
(In case you’re wondering why the punchbowl reference, Jim Cramer said it was first uttered by William McChesney Martin, the longest serving Federal Reserve Chairman, from 1951 to 1970, who said the Fed’s job is to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.)
The idea of losing the punchbowl is frightening to some pros who aren’t sure the stock market can advance without the punch or stimulus as a crutch.
And their worst fears surfaced today after Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart said the Federal Reserve may be able to reduce its bond-buying stimulus plan before the end of this year.
Largely, by driving interest rates to almost 0% and by buying $85 billion per month in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities, the Fed has essentially forced investors into the market.
That is, return is so low in the bond market, there are few alternatives but dividend yielding stocks.
If the Fed changes policy and allows rates to rise, even by a small amount, there’s fear the stock market could tumble – and tumble badly.
However, Jim Cramer thinks those fears are misguided.
“I am not worried about the punch bowl being taken away,” he said.
“Do you think this Fed, which has aggressively stimulated the economy, is going to take the foot off the gas pedal, now? “Think about it!” Cramer said back in February.
…