Bits Bucket for April 6, 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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From the news: Are people really retiring or was it spin from the economic commentators? There was a segment that people in their 60’s were going to work till their 70’s; out of need. I don’t understand how the trend suddenly changed in one month!
Forgot to mention that I was referring to the unemployment rate.
It maybe coming to pass sooner then later that Ohbewanna legacy will be the death of political correctness since so many are really throwing in the towel on him.
Or maybe he has a secret fantasy of a race war to make charlie manson happy before he dies.
WOT?
I dont hear anything positive anymore about obewanna, even the die hards are giving up and we have how much longer till a new prez?
A job is a terrible thing to waste. I plan on working until I am eighty.
One of the guys I work with is going on eighty-eight. He draws a full paycheck, full Social Security, and a full pension.
The full pension thingy is no longer available for those who have not yet retired but the rule was changed after he began drawing his so the grandfathered him in.
I asked him what he does about taxes:
“I pay them”, he says. (That’s after stuffing $22,000 each year into his 401k.)
Life is good.
I agree that a job, especially a good job is a terrible thing to waste.
Obviously this 88year old will pass his 401k to his offspring (if he has any). At this point in his life the joy of working is probably much greater than putting money in 401k.
What I want to know is about those people in their 60s & 70s are they really retiring. Can they retire if they are in marginal circumstances job-wise?
Some of the people I work with plan to retire as soon as they turn sixty-two. The company adopted the Six Sigma concept and the implementation of Six Sigma is driving them crazy and thus is driving them into retirement.
The irony of this is: When lots of experienced workers leave the value of the experienced workers who choose to remain increases.
Have you also noticed that new workers (engineers, accountants etc.) are not interested in learning the work. Must be that all the mobile devices (ieverything) that keeps them firmly in the ADD category. This I think is another reason coincident with the leaving of “good workers” why your value increases!
What kind of work do accountants need to learn?
Only companies like Enron have creative accounting.
To do a proper audit - that is not taught in school! Lots of accountants just go by standard programs or ERP based stuff.
Auditing is mostly detective work and one needs to work through stuff to find the issues.
When lots of experienced workers leave the value of the experienced workers who choose to remain increases.
When an organization has lost a sufficient amount of its institutional memory and worker experience, the value of the organization may decrease to the point where it goes out of existence.
What constitutes a “good job?”
A job is a terrible thing to waste. I plan on working until I am eighty.
One of the guys I work with is going on eighty-eight. He draws a full paycheck, full Social Security, and a full pension.
Guys like him must be a real rarity. I have known of physicians in their 70’s who still work 24-hour shifts. I see no useful conclusion to be drawn from such extreme outlying cases.
“I see no useful conclusions to be drawn from such extreme outlying cases.”
In the case of my soon-to-be eighty-eight year old co-worker:
1. The work is easy.
2. His free cash flow is enormous:
a. He pays no employee tax on his pension or on what Social security income he draws.
b. He pays federal income taxes on 85% of his Social Security but no state income taxes (California).
c. He pays nothing for medicare (other than the payroll tax) because the company’s health plan takes care of all his health care needs.
d. He gets to hide $22,500 each year from the tax man (actually tax men; both state and federal).
In the case of my soon-to-be eighty-eight year old co-worker:
Compare that to cases of home buyers flipping a few houses for profit between 2008 and 2012. (There must be at least one). There is not much to learn from them, either. A few are really lucky, most of the rest are just average.
I need to finish off d:
He gets to hide $22,500 each year from the tax man because this is the amount he is allowed to stuff into his 401K each year.
What one can learn from this is when opportunity presents itself one can choose to take advantage of the opportunity or allow the opportunity to slide by. In the case of my co-worker the opportunity presented itself and he took advantage of it. Others with the same opportunity made different choices.
Different strokes for different folks.
What one can learn from this is when opportunity presents itself one can choose to take advantage of the opportunity or allow the opportunity to slide by.
The vast majority of workers would seem to be more likely to win a lottery than wind up the way your octogenarian example did.
“The vast majority of workers would seem to be more likely to win a lottery than wind up the way your octogenarian example did.”
This is my point: A job is a terrible thing to waste.
One works hard for forty-five-or-so years to get into a cushy position then just when he is all set up to where he wants to be what does he do? Why, he retires.
Free cash flow that was so tough to get when he was younger is now flooding into his bank account. And he should walk away from that?
It would be different if he hated his job and his job was tough to do, but this is not the case.
Is he saving all that cash to pass on to some spoiled, lazy brats?
It will work great only if:
1) one enjoys the work and is able (meaning mental & physical faculties are in working order)
2) and the work place values the person and
For me personally, I would do it if I can continue to teach and develop younger workers that are truly interested in learning.
I can’t think of any 9 to 5 job that I would want to do into my late 80s. Maybe I’ll feel differently when/if I get there.
Combo, I like your reasoning here. My lunch pal is only about four years older than me, but about 24 years physically and mentally older. He is a pessimist. He had a sedentary life and poor diet so he has serious health issues. Some of us encourage him to eat right - we go as a group to a place with organic salad bar weekly. His prescriptions keep him going. But he is always tired.
There is a balance, that’s for sure. It’s gotta be a commitment to not be obese. A lifetime commitment. Yes, relationships should be on the back burner. Otherwise it is very unlikely one can be productive after the mid 50s. I do know one in his seventies who is sharp and working still.
“A job is a terrible thing to waste.” A mind is also a terrible thing to waste.
I always wondered how people who love their field of work could stop thinking of it after they retire? The brain usually retires with the person. Moreover one associates less with young energetic people and more with sedentary pessimistic people when they no longer are at the office.
Retirement won’t be for me. I will be spending summers doing software research on the California coast and be a masters swimmer wherever i go from Redondo Beach to Mendocino and spend the cooler months of Arizona developing embedded software. I want to work with young engineers. I met a few who are shining stars of professionalism and enthusiasm. Their energy is contagious!
I met a few who are shining stars of professionalism and enthusiasm. Their energy is contagious!
I’ve been hanging out at my local hackerspace for that kind of experience. I’ve always had more interests than time and energy to adequately pursue them with.
Retirement won’t be for me. I
BiLA, I thought you said recently that you planned to stop working so as to stop paying the tax-man. Do you mean you changed your plans, or merely that your retirement will be an active one?
Oh, I am certainly counting on downsizing my income, or at least to stop chasing the big bucks in order to live in the west. If I wrote it, that I will stop working because of taxes, I was being tongue-in-cheek. I certainly will work to reduce my tax rate.
Much of my investments will be subject to capital gain taxes. Combined Arizona and federal capital gain taxes will be less than 20% when Arizona’s capital gain tax cuts are fully phased in. It is a lower rate than my ordinary income tax rate combined.
I will still agitate to abolish taxes.
My job is essentially investing (which I love). For me, “retirement” will be after I’ve made enough where I don’t need to work for other people, but only for myself (investing only my own money).
Given that I am an adherent of market cycles, my optimum asset allocation is 60% stocks, 10% precious metals, and 30% government securities and cash. I guesstimate my annual gain will be roughly 7.6% if I rebalance yearly. Suppose the 7.6% is double my income at some point? Then there is an argument that I should spend a good deal of time to be sure the one third of my yearly gain, my income, is well spent. That it better be a constant action I would prefer doing rather than spend time honing my skills at a shooting range or working on improving my biceps. There are places I have not been to but want to, such as England, Ireland, and Scottland. And Hong Kong. The real answer is to be self employed and take time off when I need it, even if I get back to work for just a week and need time off again. But I love computer software projects.
They could be “going on disability,” which I believe would imply they left the work force.
I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I could really use another 0.9 percent of my pay about now (1.8 percent in the case of my wife’s self-employment earnings), as it is tax time, and my payroll taxes went up by 2 percent this year, leaving us considerably short.
Disability Trust Fund Ran Record $31.2B Deficit in 2012; In Deficit Every Year Under Obama
April 4, 2013
By Terence P. Jeffrey
(CNSNews.com) - The federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, which takes in money via a federal payroll tax and pays it out in disability benefits, ran a record $31.2 billion deficit in calendar year 2012, according to the Social Security Administration.
That means the trust fund has run a deficit in each of the first four years of the Obama presidency.
For fifteen straight years before Obama took office—from 1994 through 2008—the Disability Insurance Trust Fund ran a surplus. In 2007, for example, it ran an $11 billion surplus and in 2008 it ran an $889-million surplus.
In 2009, however, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund dipped into the red and has not returned to the black since then. In fact, each year since then the annual deficit has increased.
In 2009, the disability trust fund ran a $12.2 billion deficit; in 2010, it ran a $23.6 billion deficit; in 2011, it ran a $26.1 billion deficit; and in 2012, it ran a $31.2 billion deficit.
These deficits in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund have coincided with a massive run-up in the number of American workers taking federal disability payments.
In January 2009, when President Barack Obama was inaugurated, 7,442,377 workers took disability payments, according to data published by the Social Security Administration. In March 2013, 8,853,614 took disability payments. The 1,411,337 additional workers taking federal disability payments since Obama took office represents an increase of about 19 percent in the number of Americans claiming a disability.
Employed workers pay a 0.9 percent payroll tax for federal disability insurance and their employers pay an additional 0.9 percent. Self-employed workers pay the entire 1.8 percent themselves.
The aggregated revenue from the disability payroll tax is counted by the government as the Disability Insurance Trust Fund. When the value of the disability benefits paid by the government exceeds the value of the disability tax revenue received by the government, the trust fund runs a deficit.
The U.S. Treasury needs to borrow money–and increase the federal debt–to fund disability payments that exceed disability payroll taxes. As of the close of business on Tuesday, the federal debt equaled $16,804,876,955,116.78—or about $146,090 for each of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau now estimates there are in the United States.
Stopping disability fraud and aiding immigration reform
By Ted Hilton 6 p.m.March 28, 2013
President Obama and Congress can make real progress with spending cuts and immigration reform by first resolving entitlement fraud, particularly disability benefits. Despite the workplace becoming safer, there has been a rise in disability recipients between 1960 and 2011 from .0254 percent of the population to nearly 3 percent of the population, an increase of more than 900 percent.
In the last 15 years the nation has added 8.8 million nonfarm jobs while adding 4.1 million people to the disability rolls. Of the 8.6 million on federal disability, over four million receive benefits due to “mood disorders” or back pain according to research by the American Enterprise Institute. Researchers conclude that collecting disability has now become an American “profession.”
…
‘…over four million receive benefits due to “mood disorders” or back pain…’
I developed a mood disorder AND back pain just by reading that story…
‘…over four million receive benefits due to “mood disorders”
But they have all these great medications for that??
Funny how that works.
“Of the 8.6 million on federal disability, over four million receive benefits due to “mood disorders” or back pain according to research by the American Enterprise Institute.”
Bumper sticker: “Support mental health or I’ll kill you.”
But four years or so ago you were paying that amount weren’t you? That cut in SS contribution was a temporary measure that I am surprised that you were counting on it - enough to say that you are “considerably short”.
I wasn’t “counting on it,” and the actual source of the problem relates to my wife’s self-employment earnings, which are taxed at a confiscatory rate. Her pay went up last year, we are now facing the natural consequences of our bad habit of not paying quarterly self-employment taxes. The penalty is small, but the cash crunch is worse than usual this year.
P.S. I’m going to change my federal withholding to avoid this cash crunch next April.
My point is that if you are talking about cash crunch, what befalls the 貧困者 (lucky ducky)?
At least the woman used as an example in this story has a legitimate claim to being disabled. My impression is that many who “go on disability” do not.
Dropouts: Discouraged Americans leave labor force
10:06a.m. EDT April 6, 2013
(Photo: Steve Helber, AP)
Story Highlights
* Economist: unemployment hit 4-year low ‘for all the wrong reasons’
* Many give up after repeated rejection
* Nearly 500,000 people left the workforce last month
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a full year of fruitless job hunting, Natasha Baebler just gave up.
She’d already abandoned hope of getting work in her field, counseling the disabled. But she couldn’t land anything else, either — not even a job interview at a telephone call center.
Until she feels confident enough to send out resumes again, she’ll get by on food stamps and disability checks from Social Security and live with her parents in St. Louis.
“I’m not proud of it,” says Baebler, who is in her mid-30s and is blind. “The only way I’m able to sustain any semblance of self-preservation is to rely on government programs that I have no desire to be on.”
…
My impression is that many who “go on disability” do not.
As usual, the devil is in the details. I am sure there are some outright scam artists on federal disability and other disability beneficiaries who have stretched the truth a bit. It would be necessary to adequately screen a representative cross-section of all those on federal disability to determine just how “many” are undeserving.
NPR ran an entire show on this subject a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, the qualifications for federal disability are highly subjective.
Unfit for Work
The startling rise of disability in America
By Chana Joffe-Walt
In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.
The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. The vast majority of people on federal disability do not work.[1] Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.
In other words, people on disability don’t show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs — who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that — is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It’s the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.
For the past six months, I’ve been reporting on the growth of federal disability programs. I’ve been trying to understand what disability means for American workers, and, more broadly, what it means for poor people in America nearly 20 years after we ended welfare as we knew it. Here’s what I found.
…
There was a time when disability status was only granted to someone completely unable to do any useful work. Someone in a long-term coma, for example. Otherwise, someone who is blind & almost completely paralyzed, yet is capable of answering questions in English coherently and moving a single limb to press a button, can work at a call center, if necessary, from their beds. It did not matter whether or not such jobs were available, just that theoretically the person could fulfill them. By this standard there are very few “truly” disabled.
The definition has changed since the 1930’s.
By this standard there are very few “truly” disabled.
What would we do with all the broke, starving, partially-paralyzed/blind people?
Medical experiments, or euthanasia?
“There was a segment that people in their 60’s were going to work till their 70’s; out of need.”
Some workers will need to keep going into their 70s to make up for lost pay which was confiscated to provide disability payments to people with mood disorders or back aches…
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20130406_065747_287-en4HbKdT.jpg
The gun industry must be feverantly hoping the Democrats find another black man to elect President in 2016.
Or they are hoping for another mass shooting in suburbia that can ratchet up the hysteria for legislation and the fever to buy more guns before they are outlawed.
“With 25 million excess empty houses and growing, housing demand at 17 year lows and falling, housing prices have a very long way to fall. A very long way.”
Where the heck are these empty houses? Not in my neighborhood.
The POS house next door went on the market for 575k. It needed a bare minimum of $30,000 and they had multiple cash offers and the highest at $595,000.
Are the empty houses only in Detroit and other parts of the rust belt?
Be thankful you aren’t the sucker borrowing massively inflated amounts for depreciating houses that you know won’t be able to be sold for half that amount in the future.
its different n s cal.
Especially in the OC. Nope, no empty houses to see here.
Move on, people.
No empty houses in OC?
Here’s a full 4,000 in OC alone.
Nice try…… liar.
http://www.realtytrac.com/map/ca/orange-county/#cp=33.615955352783224;-117.78124237060547&lvl=12&sty=r&srange=3&page=1&sort=featured,asc&tabs=PreForeclosure,Auction,LiveAuction,OnlineAuction,BankOwned,REO,GovernmentOwned
I would like to ask HBB if they are seeing raises (or saw raises) this year? Personally I got a 1.5% raise (less than the official CPI) but hey something is better than nothing.
I am seeing the same across different industries from talking to people working in those industries (oil & gas, EPC, mfg etc.). Note that these are highly technical jobs and pay a decent salary.
I saw my payroll tax go up by 2 percent, which effectively was a 2 percent pay cut.
…and it was actually a larger-than-2 percent cut in disposable income.
I dont have any disposable income.
If you put everything in 401k, savings after expenses, you will not have any disposable income!
Top links: Why the bad jobs report? It’s the payroll tax, stupid
John Flowers, @MrJohnFlowers
10:56 AM on 04/05/2013
Construction was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bad March jobs report. (Press Association via AP Images)
Top story: The March jobs report was, well, not so good. But don’t blame the sequester — blame the payroll tax.
…
I can say unequivocally that I am grateful to have a job in this economy.
Few of my friends got laid off and have never found a full time job since 2008! One is pursuing a doctorate in education (of all things) and two others did the 2 year nursing degree. These two just go from one part time to another part time. As someone mentioned the commute in LA traffic is horrendous. It is a stressful situation for them.
3.5%
My hours were cut in half.
I have some friends who are teachers in southern CA. That have worked part time forever. Their hours were also cut from 24 hours to 16 ~0. Meaning that some weeks they are not called.
Way off topic:
If anyone is interested in looking into a stock to buy, take a look at Questcor Pharmaceuticals (QCOR).
Are you dumping?
QCOR is the 4th most shorted stock on the S&P 500.
Combo, are you expecting a short-squeeze? Or are you trying to trigger one?
Neither one.
Price can do its thing, Value often does something else.
Sometimes the two work together, sometimes they don’t. IMO right now they don’t.
Given that, care to explain why you believe that this stock is a buy?
Go here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=QCOR&annual
and here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=QCOR+Key+Statistics
And go here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=QCOR&annual
The company is sucking in so much money they don’t quite know what to do with it all. So some of it (a LOT of it) is being used to buy back shares. And these shares can be bought back by the company very cheaply partly because the short sellers are driving/have driven down the price.
Love the shorts. If you are a buyer then the shorts are your friends.
What is wonderful about being an indivivual investor is you don’t have to answer to anyone. This is not true for most institutional investors.
If you are an institutional investor and your stick your neck out then you just may get your head chopped off if you are wrong. The reward may be nice if your are right but the penality for being wrong is too severe to take the chance. Thus if the rest of the herd is selling then you also have to be selling. Same goes with the buying, but the risk in buying does not have the same intensity as it does with the selling.
Which means what? Well, it means that the market can make some very wild swings when the institutional herd decides to go one way or the other. And these wild swings can create some very interesting opportunities for the individual investor. IMO such an opportunity is currently presenting itself with QCOR.
And if I am wrong? If I am wrong lose some money, but at least I don’t get fired.
FWIW.
DEMOCRATS AGAINST U. N. AGENDA 21 - OK, So what is Agenda …
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/ - 38k -
I got my CCW from DPS the other day after they finally finished their investigation. Lickity split, went to my favorite firearms dealer this morning in Arizona and got me one of those “scary looking rifles.” Even though you don’t get your gun registered (with CCW) you do sign a paper and date it. You have to allow them to photocopy your drivers license and CCW permit.
No worry for me.
Now the goodies: I bought a Colt 6940. It’s going to get some use at an indoor range if I can find some ammo. I just need ammo for target shooting. But I also want defensive ammo.
In a few years I will spend more time home in Phoenix and become very community-involved, hook up with the libertarian/ voluntaryist scene, join other whatchamacallit- Teabillies?.
Congrats that’s a nice rifle.
Good luck with the ammo, to all of us.
Ammo - Sportsman’s Guide
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/sitemap/ammo-and-shooting.aspx?d=121 - 189k -
Exactly. There’s no ammo available. I can’t find any for my 10mm. I’ll hold onto the 250 rounds I have.
10 mm - DoubleTap Ammunition
http://www.doubletapammo.com/php/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_25 - 44k
I have a few boxes of 9mm and 45 calibre I bought months (and years) ago. But now I need .233 or .556. My usual place had mostly bare shelves today.
As for buying mail order, I would have to either get it delivered to California and pick it up at FedEx or have it delivered to my Phoenix apt manager office. Yeah it will be boxed and labeled nondescript perhaps, but I would not chance it. Next weekend I will call ahead when I am in Phoenix. Might drive to Tucson if a gun shop can hold a few hundred rounds for me.
“Realtor charged with living off avails of prostitution”
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Realtor+charged+with+living+avails+prostitution/8180012/story.html
These people are corrupt. But that’s what you get when the bar to entry is down at ghetto level.
This story clearly should have been posted by Pimp Watch.
If I found it first, you’d have seen it at the top of the blog where it belongs.
Hypocrites of Gun Control (Gun Control, But Not for Me) - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw0vnAo_mjA - 193k -
YouTube The Rothschilds Exposed 1 3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26_D96UESe8 - 120k -
The Rothschilds Exposed 2/3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfA6q6BTzk0 - 127k -
The Rothschilds Exposed 3/3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47WM2BhklmM - 235k -
I don’t trust anyone in the 70’s that smoked a pipe.
According to The Rothschilds Exposed 1 3 - YouTube the goldsmiths started all this sh#t.
Hey, my uncle did smoke a pipe as long as I knew him. He smoked cigars too. Died at 82. He never would hurt a flea. Retired ail road worker and lived off his pension and stock investments. He retired in his early 50s. When young, he married a beautiful woman who had serious menal issues that required drugs. My uncle was a doormat for her even to the last day he was alive.
Posted: 5:46 p.m. Saturday, April 6, 2013
Growing shadow inventory of foreclosed homes driving up prices in Palm Beach County
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
There’s blight at the corner of Happiness Street and Rainbow Avenue in suburban West Palm Beach.
Despite the sunny names in a neighborhood where residents also live on Faith and Pot o’ Gold, two homes sit vacant, burned out, boarded up and part of a growing shadow inventory of foreclosed homes in Florida.
Defined as homes in the foreclosure process or bank repossessed but not listed for sale, the properties are a boon and bane to real estate. They offer the tease of more inventory in a property-starved market, but can also can deteriorate, hurting neighborhoods and threatening to cut sale prices if too many rundown homes go up for sale at once.
Palm Beach County’s shadow inventory increased 78 percent from the first quarter of 2012 to a current measure of 25,702 homes, according to a new report from the Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.
Statewide, the increase was even higher, leaping 82 percent from 175,707 to 319,147. The hike puts Florida in second place for the biggest shadow inventory increase in the country, behind New York’s 129 percent. New Jersey had the third highest increase in shadow inventory at 49 percent.
Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president, said a restart of foreclosure filings following the National Mortgage Settlement, is part of the reason the shadow inventory has grown. The $25 billion settlement between the nation’s largest banks and its attorneys general penalized lenders for foreclosure wrongdoing and contained guidelines for banks on how to handle foreclosures — rules they were awaiting before resuming foreclosures full force.
But the pileup in the shadow inventory is also a case of banks not wanting to take a hit on distressed properties, said Ken Thomas, a Miami-based banking consultant and economist. Lenders don’t want to reduce a home’s value by 40 percent on their books and pay thousands of dollars to rehab it for sale, he said.
“They basically just get up every morning and pray the market is better that day,” Thomas said. “In the meantime, these homes just sit and accumulate.”
Nationwide, shadow inventory increased 12 percent from the beginning of 2012 to today.
“I’m pretty sure there are squatters in there because the gate is pushed open and there’s an open door in back,” Cook said. “I’m afraid the banks aren’t going to follow through with foreclosures on homes they think aren’t worth much.”
Palm Beach County isn’t waiting for the bank to take back the home on Happiness. The property, which is little more than a blackened shell after a fire several years ago, is on a list for demolition, said Doug Wise, building official for Palm Beach County. The demolition will be paid for with money from a program that requires banks to pay $150 to register their foreclosures so county officials can better track them.
Bought in 2005 for $245,000, the Happiness Street home went into foreclosure in October 2008. The case was also handled by the Law Offices of David J. Stern. In May of last year, the bank dismissed the foreclosure.
“In this case, demolition is an improvement to the neighborhood,” Wise said. “We’re not in the business of improving private property, but we are in the business of protecting folks.”
More than 111,000 homes in South Florida — Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties — are counted as shadow Inventory in RealtyTrac’s report.
Realtor Shannon Brink of RE/MAX Prestige Realty in West Palm Beach said there is so much pent-up demand for homes, he’s more concerned about another real estate bubble than worried that the shadow inventory will weaken sale prices.
“If we don’t see more inventory, and buyers outpace sellers, it may increase prices too much in too short of a time period,” Brink said. “We are going from one extreme of too much inventory to too little.”
April 6, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Dropouts: Discouraged Americans leave labor force
By Paul Wiseman and Jesse Washington
Associated Press Writers
Washington — After a full year of fruitless job hunting, Natasha Baebler just gave up.
She’d already abandoned hope of getting work in her field, counseling the disabled. But she couldn’t land anything else, either — not even a job interview at a telephone call center.
Until she feels confident enough to send out resumes again, she’ll get by on food stamps and disability checks from Social Security and live with her parents in St. Louis.
“I’m not proud of it,” says Baebler, who is in her mid-30s and is blind. “The only way I’m able to sustain any semblance of self-preservation is to rely on government programs that I have no desire to be on.”
Baebler’s frustrating experience has become all too common nearly four years after the Great Recession ended: Many Americans are still so discouraged that they’ve given up on the job market.
Older Americans have retired early. Younger ones have enrolled in school. Others have suspended their job hunt until the employment landscape brightens. Some, like Baebler, are collecting disability checks.
It isn’t supposed to be this way. After a recession, an improving economy is supposed to bring people back into the job market.
Instead, the number of Americans in the labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — fell by nearly half a million people from February to March, the government said Friday. And the percentage of working-age adults in the labor force — what’s called the participation rate — fell to 63.3 percent last month. It’s the lowest such figure since May 1979.
Many older Americans who lost their jobs are finding refuge in Social Security’s disability program. Nearly 8.9 million Americans are receiving disability checks, up 1.3 million from when the recession ended in June 2009.
Natasha Baebler’s journey out of the labor force and onto the disability rolls began when she lost her job serving disabled students and staff members at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., in February 2012.
For six months, she sought jobs in her field, brandishing master’s degrees in social education and counseling. No luck.
Then she just started looking for anything. Still, she had no takers.
“I chose to stop and take a step back for a while … After you’ve seen that amount of rejection,” she says, “you start thinking, ‘What’s going to make this time any different?’ ”
http://www.onenewspage.us/n/Business/74vspo593/Dropouts-Discouraged-Americans-leave-labor-force.htm -
Another blind deadbeat.
“Another blind deadbeat.”
I know right, and we are stuck with him for another four years.
The next president will let us kill the blind deadbeats? Dare to dream, Jethro.
Perhaps we could put them on treadmills, to generate electricity. The blind can walk, right?
April 6, 2013, 7:48 a.m. EDT
Paying your bar tab with Bitcoins?
A nightclub is among the venues accepting the digital currency
By Quentin Fottrell
With the bank bailout in Cyprus rattling European stock markets, there’s been renewed interest in the country-less virtual currency Bitcoin, which soared in value in recent weeks. But lost in all the talk of a Bitcoin bubble is whether the digital denomination is useful for more than just a novelty investment. Where can you actually buy with it?
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency that doesn’t require a bank or Treasury Department. Its value rose to around $130 from below $50 in March and $10.50 two years ago. MtGox.com (short for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange), the main exchange for users swapping Bitcoins, handles around 80% of all Bitcoin trade and charges 0.25% to 0.60% for its brokerage services, depending on the size of the trade. There are around 11 million Bitcoins in circulation, putting the currency’s value at nearly $1.4 billion, according to BitcoinCharts.com, but they won’t exceed 21 million to prevent neverending hyperinflation and the last coin won’t be created by around 2140.
There is a brisk — if narrow — trade in Bitcoins. Justin O’Connell, CEO of GoldSilverBitcoin.com, says he conducts $15,000 in Bitcoin trades a day. “A lot of people who got into the Bitcoin market earlier are switching them into silver and gold,” he says. “They are taking advantage of the high Bitcoin prices and low silver and gold prices.” The recent slump in the silver and gold prices has created opportunities for Bitcoinites. Silver has fallen more than 20% since October and 10% in 2013, while gold is down around 6% this year. “We accept Bitcoins for metals and metals for Bitcoins,” he says.
On Sunday, EVR nightclub in New York will start accepting Bitcoins for drinks and food. “We have to train all the waitresses,” says Charlie Shrem, a partner at the club. Shrem is also CEO of BitInstant, a company that facilitates the retail purchase of Bitcoins at over 700,000 locations throughout the U.S. and co-chairman of The Bitcoin Foundation, which aims to standardize, protect and promote Bitcoin. “It’s a nonpolitical online money backed exclusively by code and it’s only as good as its cryptography and math.”
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It pays to be cautious about bitcoins. Diversification is king. Envelopes fat with $100 USD hidden in false walls. Silver bullion. Gold bullion (in various weights).
20% haircut on bitcoin last week as hackers attacked it. Another one I read was mining sites that are milking bitcoins. Tin foil hat: Bernanke bankers hacking Bitcoin?