Bits Bucket for April 12, 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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Builders hate regulations and inspections as much as banks. I wonder if lax standards will end up costing alot (sic) more money than they “save”.
http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/830/article/p2p-75355157/
Skanska does crappy work, hope they’re ready for the lawsuit that’s headed their way from this.
Good morning, hater.
Short answer, yes, they will. But you see, the cost will come from the homeowners or consumers or government later, while the builders will save money NOW. The Bottomless Stockholder Maw must be fed.
Yep.
Homeowners historically and on avg., don’t have very good luck suing house builders.
Mom and pop equities investors are screwed in the long ruin anyway, but this is even more cause for concern. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100632206
The fed gives copies of their minutes to certain banks, trade groups, hedge funds, and law firms a day before they’re released to the public.
been happenening for years. who do you think has put a floor under the market? Its all who you know.
Luckily, none of those banks trade groups, hedge funds or law firms would ever trade for profit on the insider information handed them by the Fed a day before their public release.
Is it illegal for lawmakers to break the law?
April 11, 2013, 8:13 am EDT
Fed Leak Fuels Fears That Congress Is Engaging in Insider Trading
The early release of minutes because of a leak to lobbyists makes you wonder what else Washington knows
This week, the Federal Reserve released early the minutes from its recent FOMC meeting after a leak to lobbyists.
The gist of the minutes, from a Federal Open Market Committee held March 19-20, was that some Fed members continue to speculate about halting quantitative easing before year-end, though broadly everyone remains “concerned” about the market and the economy while seeing little change in outlook.
It wasn’t that big of a deal on paper, since the minutes came out at 9 a.m. instead of 2 p.m. as forecast. However, there’s a bigger narrative work here: Namely, that beltway insiders are getting inside information on the market — and could be making a pretty penny from it.
Remember the fuss a few years ago over Spencer Bachus, a Republican from Alabama who chairs the House Financial Services Committee? In 2011, 60 Minutes aired a damning look at several members of Congress. Apparently while the mortgage crisis was toppling the financial sector like a house of cards and Bachus was having closed-door meetings with the Treasury and Federal Reserve, he also was buying put options to turn a tidy profit.
Classy. Check out the entire report here.
…
Both parties are full of these guys say one thing and do another. Like the Democrats who rail against bank yet their family business is a bank (Maxine Waters is a good example). And of course the Republicans who are against stimulus and bail outs, yet routinely (Bauchus isn’t the only example by any means) trade on insider information, write special tax loopholes for banks and big business, and then demand spending cuts while continuing to pork up the private contractor army.
Fears? It’s been proven time and time again that they ARE doing insider trading.
All you have to do is google it.
The politicians and bankers have taken this country hostage, and have a gun to the head of every American while whispering sweet nothings into their collective ears telling them to trust them and everything will be ok. I think we need to roll a big guillotine down the streets to the Capitol, and start a chopping heads discussion.
now the schedule of the times during the day when the FED works its magic would be golden.
Lord help you if you own a house in a city in or approaching bankruptcy.
Lord help you if you own munis in a city in or approaching bankruptcy.
The funny thing - San Bernardino borrowed money to pay their insane pensions promises (for a short time). And now they stiff the people who they borrowed the money from.
Good luck ever borrowing money again, EVER, San Bernadino!
——————–
Bankrupt California City to Resume Paying Pension Fund, but Not Bondholders
NYTimes | April 11, 2013
April 12, 2013 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bankrupt San Bernardino will resume paying into the state pension fund on July 1, but the California city will continue to renege on other debts including payments to bondholders, according to a new budget released late Thursday.
Nearly a year after it halted contributions to America’s biggest pension fund, San Bernardino will resume payments to Calpers at the start of the new fiscal year - but continue to not pay other creditors, according to the budget.
San Bernardino will not make interest and principal payments on $50 million in pension bonds issued in 2005, according to the new budget. The city council on Monday will review the budget, a blueprint for how the city proposes to manage its finances since declaring bankruptcy last August.
San Bernardino’s decision to resume its $1.2 million, bimonthly employer contributions to Calpers while continuing to defer pension bond debt will intensify the battle between the pension fund and Wall Street bondholders.
You have the brain of a brony.
Keep spreading the love, bro.
Being a brony is all about the love, just ask 2Ban. Perhaps you can go to a Bronycon event and see for yourself.
*snerk*
I actually had to look that up:
“Brony: a name typically given to the male viewers/fans (whether they are straight, gay, bisexual, etc.) of the My Little Pony show or franchise. They typically do not give in to the hype that males aren’t allowed to enjoy things that may be intended for females.” (urban dictionary)
pehaps anyone that would even know (without looking it up) what even a fracking brony is…has a brain of a brony.
so glad i am much more disconnected from pop culture now that i am older.
Bronies have been discussed a lot lately, it’s kind of a trend right now. A few blogs I read have discussed them, plus reddit has had a few things and Howard Stern sent someone to a bronycon to do a report.
speaking of “disconnected from pop culture”
“Twitter is becoming the new job board. It is also becoming the new resume.
Fed up with traditional recruiting sites and floods of irrelevant resumes, some recruiters are turning to the social network to post jobs, hunt for candidates and research applicants.
Job seekers, in turn, are trying to summarize their CVs in 140 characters or six-second videos.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578384682292475750.html
“so glad i am much more disconnected from pop culture now that i am older.”
Me, too, although it intrudes sometimes most rudely.
It’s interesting to read youtube comments by younger teens regarding music videos from the 1980s and older. There’s such a wistful tone, mainly how great that music is/was and why isn’t there anything like that today. And how the people were so much more attractive, even in shoulder pads.
Selection bias at work. The music from the 1980’s only seems better because only the better music survived. Today’s kids are effectively watching one giant Greatest Hits album; they don’t see the junk. In 30 years kids will think the 2010’s was better too.
The musicians looked more attractive because their faces were overshadowed behind The Hair. Oh god, The Hair.
(For the record, there aren’t many true music videos older than 1980. Early MTV was a lot of edited concert footage because that’s all they had.)
“bronycon”
I’m home today, so I can look stuff up. Google Images for “Bronycon 2012″ is colorful to say the least. What’s really disturbing is the number of people who attended.
Bronies are a big thing right now and they are very passionate in their devotion, just like 2Ban. The devotion doesn’t make sense on any logical level, which again matches 2Ban.
The musicians looked more attractive because their faces were overshadowed behind The Hair. Oh god, The Hair.
They looked better because they were thinner.
Bronycon? Not sure what to make of it? I didn’t even know what it was until few weeks ago. Looks like kids who lack courage to join the Folsom street fair….
if the girls look like the one kneeling on the bottom left with purple hair no wonder why guys would go.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronycon_summer_2012_cosplay_session.jpg
charles hugh smith had a post a few weeks (months) ago that discussed this type of culture…his context related to Japan and its youths…but perhaps the same concluson can be drawn with respect to the USA.
if the girls look like the one kneeling on the bottom left with purple hair no wonder why guys would go.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronycon_summer_2012_cosplay_
——————
That’s a man, baby.
HUH its scary what doctors can do today…….you mean today I would have to ask a “woman” to drop her panties before I take her out to dinner just to be sure?
The werid S1&t I learn on this blog
I will have to ask my kids about this … is this a New England thing ? I know the weather is bad for long periods of time .. in the house all day watching TV
He comes off more like a closeted diaperfur than a brony.
aNYCAdj, I ask a woman to drop her panties before I take her out to dinner, regardless of whether or not I suspect something wierd about her.
some women really like that..no chasing, no games, makes life fun
Someone correct me if I am getting this wrong, but doesn’t CALPERS invest in Wall Street?
So everyone is screwed no matter how you slice it.
Yep.
There was saying going around in the 1990s that Wall St. does not equal the economy.
Needless to say, they were wrong. The FIRE sector controls everything in some way or another, from dirt to diamonds.
Dennis Weatherstone
From Wikipedia
Sir Dennis Weatherstone KBE (29 November 1930 – 13 June 2008) was the former CEO and Chairman of J. P. Morgan & Co.. He attended the Northwest Polytechnic. In 1946, at age 16, he was hired as a bookkeeper and was quickly promoted to the foreign exchange trading desk at the Guarantee Trust Company, a predecessor firm in London. Weatherstone rose through the ranks, becoming the Chairman in 1980 and the CEO in 1990. He retired from J. P. Morgan in 1994 and was succeeded by Douglas Warner III “Sandy”.
Sir Dennis became a Vice Chairman and director in 1979, Chairman of the Executive Committee a year later and President in 1987. In 1990, he was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II—the first J.P. Morgan employee to receive the honour.
Later that year, Sir Dennis helped the firm earn Federal Reserve authority to trade and sell corporate stocks, making J. P. Morgan the first bank-related securities firm with a full range of securities powers. A decade later, the Glass–Steagall Act was repealed, allowing banking companies to provide any service, whether it be a loan, advice or a securities offering.
JPMorgan invented value-at-risk (VaR) as a tool for measuring exposure to trading losses. The tool emerged in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash when Sir Dennis Weatherstone, JPMorgan’s British-born chairman, asked his division chiefs to put together a briefing to answer the question: “How much can we lose on our trading portfolio by tomorrow’s close?”
Sir Dennis served as an independent member of the Board of Banking Supervision of the Bank of England from 1995 through 2001. He was also a board member of Merck & Co., General Motors and the NYSE, and a director of Air Liquide.
Douglas A. Warner III
From Wikipedia
Douglas ‘Sandy’ Warner (born June 9, 1946 as Douglas Alexander Warner III but widely known as “Sandy”) is an American banker who joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York out of college in 1968 as an officer’s assistant and rose through the ranks to become chairman of the board of J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc. in 2000. Among his many accomplishments, Warner may be best known for spearheading the 2000 sale of J P Morgan & Co. to Chase Manhattan Bank for $30.9 billion.
Education and careerFrom The Hill School, Warner applied to Yale University, the same school attended by his father and uncle.[2] In 1964, Warner entered Yale University at the age of 18 as a pre-med student.[4] At age 18, Warner was of draft age but most likely held a 2-S (college deferment) Selective Service System classification as a student at Yale University. During his time at Yale, Warner became friends with the future President George W. Bush through then-Yale ice hockey player Roland W. Betts - now owner of the multimillion dollar Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex.[5][6] This friendship would prove valuable as President Bush later named Warner as a financial adviser to President-elect Bush’s transition team in 2000.[5][7]
In 1983, at age 37, Warner was transferred to London, England and was named Senior Vice President.[12] First, Warner was in charge of United Kingdom and Scandinavian banking operations and then became the head of oil and gas lending for the region.[8] In becoming the general manager of the London office and Morgan’s senior executive in the United Kingdom in 1986, Warner received extensive experience in U.S. and international corporate finance.[1]
In 1987, Warner was promoted to Executive Vice President and returned to New York city to take charge of North American and South American corporate finance and, later that year, of the entire group worldwide.[1][13]
In 1989, Warner became Managing Director of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company and elected president and a director in 1990.[14] After rising through the ranks in various positions in London and New York, Warner succeeded Dennis Weatherstone in 1995 as Morgan’s youngest CEO ever at age 49.[4][13] From 1995 to 2000, Warner served as chairman and chief executive officer. In 1999, Warner was ranked 14th of the “25 Highest Paid Banking Executives in 1999″ with a total compensation for the year of US$9,916,151.[15] In 2000, Warner was mentioned as a possible candidate for President Bush’s Treasury secretary along with Enron head Kenneth Lay and a few others.[16] However, Warner was elevated to chairman of the board of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., The Chase Manhattan Bank and Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, NY in 2000 and served there until his retirement on September 7, 2001.[14] Instead, President Bush named Warner as a financial adviser to President-elect Bush’s transition team in 2000.[5]
2000 merger and retirementWarner may be best known for spearheading the sale of J P Morgan & Co. to Chase Manhattan Bank through its then CEO William Harrison for $30.9 billion.[17]
In retirement, Warner is a director of Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. and Motorola, Inc., a member of the Board of Counselors of The Bechtel Group, Inc., chairman of the Board of Managers and the Board of Overseers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, serves as the Chair of the General Electric Audit committee, and serves on both the General Electric Nominating committee and Corporate Governance and Management Development and Compensation committee.[14] Warner is a member of the Business Council, a trustee of the Pierpont Morgan Library, and a member of the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy (CECP).[18] In between such retirement, Warner enjoys golf, skiing, and shooting as a member of Seminole Golf Club Seminole Golf Club, Links Club, River Club, Meadowbrook Club (Long Island, New York), Augusta National Golf Club, and Wequetonsing Golf Club(Harbor Springs, MI).[1][19]
Warner was recently selected for a coveted six year term on the Yale Corporation, Yale University’s governing body.
Let me guess: illuminati?
Skull & Bones for sure.
Same thing, my friend, same thing.
Bohemian Grove
I stumbled across the entrance to Bohemian Grove once on my travels.
Talk about a gated community! There was a security gate about 20′ tall that could repel a Mack truck. Those guys must be worried about pitchfork wielding crowds.
I thought they were banksters. If these guys aren’t the banksters, who is?
Stuart Chase
From Wikipedia,
Chase was among the dozen or more prominent members of the temporary committee which conducted the affairs of the Technical Alliance which later formed into Technocracy Incorporated, (Technocracy movement).[4][5]
Although not a Marxist, Chase admired the planned economy of the Soviet Union, being impressed with it after a 1927 visit. Chase stated that “The Russians, in a time of peace, have answered the question of what an economic system is for”.[2]
It has been suggested that he was the originator of the expression a New Deal, which became identified with the economic programs of American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He wrote a cover story in The New Republic entitled “A New Deal for America”, during the week that Roosevelt gave his 1932 presidential acceptance speech promising a new deal, but whether Roosevelt’s speechwriter Samuel Rosenman saw the magazine is not clear.
Quotes
Chase is famous for the quote at the end of his book A New Deal, “Why should Russians have all the fun remaking a world?” — a reference to the “socialist experiment” in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).[
“Yale Corporation?”
I guess I have to give them credit for honesty, as opposed to, say, “Duke Basketball [Inc.]“.
Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford basically have sovereign wealth funds. Meaning they really don’t need to take any tuition from students, so they skim off the top talent by making it such that they can match or exceed any other college’s fin. aid offer. Any tuition they receive is superfluous to the actual operation of the university. And if your parents make under 100k you are basically going to get a free ride. The real closely guarded secrets are, who donates, how much, and what do they get in return? For example, how much gets you a named lecture hall? How much for a room in the library? How much for a dorm (e.g. Meg Whitman)? How much to make sure all the children in your family will be virtually guaranteed admission for generations down the line?
And none of those institutions pay taxes.
“Demand for housing continues lower as defaults, delinquencies and foreclosures continue to rise driving prices ever lower.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/u-s-housing-in-fragile-recovery-wachter-says-L6ak6rFoRvaJ_xihRSJd3g.html
Avoid housing at all costs. If you buy a house now you will lose alot of money. ALOT of money. Beware.
Avoid housing at all costs
It’s almost warm enough to sleep outside here now.
You have to wonder why more houses sell in the warmer months than the colder?
it’s basically one giant effin falling knife.
it’s basically one giant effin falling knife.
Yes sir indeed. And the personal losses are massive.
If you buy a house at current inflated asking prices, or you bought a house 1998-current, you are or will be underwater the instant you agree to buy.
How long from now until when the all-cash foreign investors in U.S. residential real estate make the awful discovery that they are the falling knife bag holders?
2 years max.
When the rest of the world including BRIC nations are forced to do more stringent capital controls, you can kiss your rich oligarch neighbor good bye.
Better to be a Chinese bag holder in the US instead of a body bag holder in China.
That’s what the japanese thought in the 1980’s too. They all went bankrupt.
Did the Japanese then have a cultural revolution in which many of the rich were slaughtered or sent to work camps?
And the chinese will go bankrupt too. Just like you.
Answer. The. Question.
Just. Like. Japan. BANKRUPT.
That. Wasn’t. The. Question.
Tough.Luck.
Just. Like. Japan. BANKRUPT.
Or how would you like to be an all-cash Chinese investor waiting for your ghost city real estate investments to pencil out? I’d be more optimistic about investing in vacant homes in California…
wharton professor…lol…what an idiot.
wharton professor…lol…what an idiot.
exactly…. there is some serious delusion going on in that skull.
Good morning, My Little Pony!
Actually if you buy a house today you probably will lose money.
But I didn’t buy a house today.
And your losses are growing.
What did you pay /sq ft?
A house once but my sister.
Do you mean “bit” your sister?
they will never take the punchbowl away.
nope.
They don’t have to take it away. They can just not re-fill it after it gets drained, which is what I suspect will happen.
They just did, over and over.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/04/business/20090205-bailout-totals-graphic.html?_r=0
Oh, have I mentioned before the the total bailout was about $7 TRILLION.
Boy, was I wrong. (I’ve always said I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong)
Do you believe that the central planners can fuel the mania forever?
you know the sentiment out there right now says they can. Can you give some examples of how it will not work?
It merely slows things down. The direction down never changes.
they will never take the punchbowl away.
Are you saying eventually we’re all going to drown in it?
Yesterday there was a discussion with Rental Watch as to whether state or Federal pensions will go above the $3 million limit that Obama set in his budget proposal. RW’s point was that a state could wind up paying more than $3 million to a retiree, if you figure in 20+ years of payments and a good interest rate.
RW, I checked parts of the President’s proposed budget from the OMB dot gov page. All I could find was the relevant paragraph here on page 16 out of 48: (Warning: PDF)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/strengthening.pdf
But I didn’t find any specifics. The budget is a layman’s proposal, not legal language. I assume that Congress would hammer out all the scenarios when/if they write the actual legislation. I’m sure it’s pretty easy to keep track of payouts and simply stop the tax deferment at the limit.
For fun and giggles, here’s $10 billion of gov programs that Obama wants to cut (warning, another PDF):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/ccs.pdf
The cuts are heavy on small-time research grants — mine safety and nanoscience — and the smaller defense programs — C-27, C-130, sea-based X-band radar, and other grants. IMO $10 billion really isn’t that much.
You missed my point.
Obama says that people don’t need more than $205k per year for a “reasonable” retirement, and that their federal tax-deferred personal retirement account should be limited to only provide for that level of annuity.
By limiting the benefit, the government can pick up additional taxes for the amount of money that needs to be pulled out of that individual’s pool of tax deferred investments.
However, state pensions are also federal tax deferred, and frequently pay people more than $205k annually as their annuity in retirement. There is NO push to limit the federal tax deferral for those large pensions.
Why the double standard?
Because it’s very easy politically today to try to stick it to the successful individual (even though it doesn’t move the ball forward on deficit reduction in any meaningful way).
You can see that simply by the response from people on my thread yesterday–there are no qualms about grabbing MORE and MORE in current taxes from a very small subset of the population.
It’s easy political pickin’s. It’s harder to say that a public pension of $300k+ annually forever should stop, because they have the unions to fight.
“They were lying about home sales.”
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=49703
And they’re still lying.
Housing demand has fallen to mid 1990’s levels…. and it’s still falling. Why? Housing prices are massively inflated.
I know. It’s really weird. Every house that comes up for sale in my neighborhood immediately goes sale pending!
It sounds like you have a beef with MBA. Take it up with them.
Not in my neighborhood. For instance, a home in the ‘hood has been on the market for over a month now. So far they have dropped the price twice — first time from $550K to $539K, then again just this week from $539K to $515K, and apparently the Dutch auction sale has so far yielded no offers. Maybe the problem is that the Zestimate™ is only $464,622, or perhaps word is out that the place has mold problems, as reported by the former tenants — hard to say!
Our LLs must be watching in consternation, as this is a comp to the place where we live, and the initial list price exceeds what they paid (before closing costs) for this place a decade ago. Got negative wealth effects?
I’ll never understand dumb LL and tenants..you have some mold or mildew open the windows and put bleach in a bucket and use a toilet brush to clean it off…or the sponge on a car window washer usually that solves the problem for weeks , now if is a serious leak and behind the walls..
Same here, I thought the one across the street from me would last until the fall at least. It went pending in under a month and then closed fast because it was all cash.
There’s a house on my street that has been on the market for over 6 months. It has a pool (the only one in the neighborhood) and backs onto the junior high school, which just built an addition, bringing that building even closer to the pool. Whatever they want for that home, they are asking too much.
Housing demand has fallen to mid 1990’s levels…. and it’s still falling. Why? Housing prices are massively inflated.
“mid 1990’s”?
I looked at the MBA Mortgage Purchase data just the other day, and it was roughly at 1997 levels.
I’d call that “late 90’s”, not “mid 90’s”.
Then what is mid-90’s?
Does the number of mortgages equal housing demand? Seems like there are a good bit of cash buyers this time, like my friend who just bought a (get ready) condo in Tampa- $65,000, all cash, 2br in Ybor City.
And all those institutional buyers.
And demand is still at mid 1990’s levels in spite of your fantasy buyers.
Did I mention he’s a realtor?
Did I mention you’re a liar? And everyone knows it?
And everyone knows it?
Then I guess it’s time for a name change, eh exeter, RALiar, Untruth, Housing Anal-ist, Pimple Wash?
In a Depression, people aren’t freeze dried, business goes on but at much lower levels. So what if you know a guy who buys a condo. I know a guy who is building high end appartments here in an old buckwheat warehouse, yet the RE market is sick in general. It’s very wierd, houses are going pending but I’ve never seen so few for sale signs. Hardly any new construction. The shops are consolidating toward the downtown, at least 10% movement in the last year. The census stats on new construction for SFH over the winter were lower than 1960, or something like that. So compared to the population probably the worst EVER. We had only just come out of the Great Depression in 1960 by a few years.
Is this all we get for the $Trillions shot from cannons by the Feds?
Everyone.Knows.AlpoTheLiar.
We had only just come out of the Great Depression in 1960 by a few years.
And we were about a decade past the Civil War, too?
In 1960 we were in the third grade, just like here.
So now my dumb idea of paying off peoples credit cards by $3000 seems quaint
Is this all we get for the $Trillions shot from cannons by the Feds?
wall street journal - can we afford another housing boom?
‘it’s certainly good news that the very long housing recession is finally over, and that prices in most of the country are rising again … but the hard part is knowing how much an asset-price rally is rooted in genuinely rising prosperity and how much in government policies that can’t last.’
genuinely rising prosperity?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578384682292475750.html
There was an even better article on Bloomberg Business Week the other day (Thurs). It actually seemed like it could’ve been written by an HBBer.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/cheap-mortgages-are-hiding-the-truth-about-home-prices
———————–
Even so, the perception of affordability, combined with the fact that home prices compared with rental rates are at levels last seen in the early 2000s, is making it tempting for people to think now’s a good time to buy a home.
“We are currently in a carnival funhouse mirror,” says Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. ”Homes seem quite affordable when at base they are not.”
Humphries says there’s a lot that worries him. The main tool the Federal Reserve uses to fix the broader economy—lowering rates—”could, if it hasn’t already, reinflate a bubble in the housing sector.” If incomes start to grow more, home values could move more into line with historic norms, but that’s not likely.
More likely, in his view, is that as rates rise and push mortgage payments higher, people are going to realize that homes—and not just mortgage payments—are overpriced for what the nation as a whole earns, which in turn could send home prices tumbling again.
Humphries’s outlook is unsettling. He says many people think that once home prices corrected from their overinflated bubble levels, the market would be back to normal. But that’s not the reality he sees. “It’s really a period of oscillations that will be disorienting for buyers and sellers, and I think we are far from done.”
He predicts volatility until at least 2016. Looks like the circus isn’t leaving town any time soon.
the sheeple have been conditioned to think overpriced housing is normal. many co-workers and other folks we know are paying 400k and more (that is alot for flyover) just to not send their kidz to school with a bunch of ms-13.
“just to not send their kidz to school with a bunch of ms-13.”
I feel bad for any kid that has to go to a lower level public school. I was an accidental witness to what these mestizo kids consider “entertainment”. Gangbanger execution videos, downloaded to their cell phones. I kid you not.
A buddy and I were working a short term marketing project involving a big box chain. Between stops, we went to the break room at one of the stores for a quick cup of coffee. Some young heifer who worked for the store was taking her break and was absorbed into the screen on her phone, while blood-curdling screams issued forth from the speaker. One of the older, male workers cracked a joke “What’re ya watching, sounds like “When Harry Met Sally”.
She looks up with a big bright smile and tells him she’s watching a Mexican drug cartel beheading rivals. And she then proceeds to go into great detail how, when they capture someone on their turf, they interrogate him, get his name and rank in the rival gang, and who he’s working for, and the names of others in the gang. They torture the info out of him, and then behead him and they record it and upload to the net. She was quite knowledgeable and articulate on the subject. To be fair, her friend ran into the room during the whole exposition and expressed shock that she was watching this stuff.
An uneasy silence fell over the room.
Back in the day, we called recordings like that “snuff films”. I’m pretty sure they’re still illegal, aren’t they?
Anyway, we got the hell out of there fast.
God help America.
Jose, the cultural relativists want us to welcome and embrace MS-13, the Zetas, et cetera, because “our differences only make us stronger”
Sounds like those photos from Abu Ghariab prison our soldiers took a few years ago.
Good thing the government deleted the torture and execution videos, it would have made US soldiers look like common Mexican criminals.
Steve J,
What are you talking about? Those are some pretty serious statements to make without any sources to back it up.
“Good thing the government deleted the torture and execution videos, it would have made US soldiers look like common Mexican criminals.”
Over there, over there! The Yanks are comin’.
Really Ryan?
You have forgotten the pictures of the prisoners Private England made into naked pyramids already?
From Wikipedia:
The prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi died in Abu Ghraib prison after being interrogated and tortured by a CIA officer and a private contractor. The torture included physical violence and strappado hanging, whereby the victim is hung from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back. His death has been labeled a homicide by the US military,[8] but neither of the two men who caused his death have been charged. The private contractor was granted qualified immunity.[9]
Pictures of humiliation are one thing.
Stating that there are multiples of people who died from torture is another. Which isn’t substantiated by the wiki quote.
Stating that there were multiple executions is taking it to a whole different level. One for which your pathetic wiki quote doesn’t explain.
More likely, in his view, is that as rates rise and push mortgage payments higher, people are going to realize that homes—and not just mortgage payments—are overpriced for what the nation as a whole earns, which in turn could send home prices tumbling again.
That says it all. Then we get another large leg down. I don’t even think it will take rising rates. Flat rates and falling income for housing (rising food fuel tax rates decreased incomes ect)
He predicts volatility until at least 2016. Looks like the circus isn’t leaving town any time soon.
What exactly does this mean?
It means whatever you want it to mean.
asset prices are now the most dominant factor in the economy. you just have to be smart enough to see a bubble forming and then wait to pick up the scraps.
“Boomerang Foreclosures” Are Back As Bernanke’s Second Housing Bubble Begins To Pop
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-14/boomerang-foreclosures-are-back-bernankes-second-housing-bubble-begins-pop
As housing prices resume their decline and head ever lower, the losses grow with each passing day.
Is there a “profession” less ethical than realtors?
“Eli Lilly & Co plans to lay off about 1,000 sales representatives in the U.S., in a major restructuring … The layoffs will affect about 30% of Lilly’s sales force across the U.S.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324240804578417111074635032.html
Good. Nothing’s more annoying than sitting in a doctor’s waiting room and watching some arrogant pharma rep come sashaying up to the front desk and being ushered in while patients (I guess that’s why they call them patients) sit miserably awaiting their turn.
Eff ‘em. Let ‘em eat Prozac.
+1 These are jobs that could use cutting.
My vote for “fewest ethics” (besides the obvious CEO maw-feeding class), is, hands down, Monsanto Lawyers.
Yes, you have a winner there. Followed closely by the Monsanto execs who hire them.
And yet, any Vault 100 law firm would drool over the possibility of getting work from Monsanto or any other similarly-situated corporation.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202565897428&Monsantos_1_billion_patent_verdict_raises_eyebrows&slreturn=20130312122806
It looks like Winston & Strawn is the current winner of those bragging rights.
I see lots of commercials pushing pills on the tube.
We don’t see any commercials because we don’t watch TeeVee.
Are they pusing pills or pushing side effetcs?
Pharma commercials are my best…..they do dedicate most of their time on listing out side effects.
Lawyers
Bankers
Central Planners
Politicians
ALOT cheaper than college.
Coding boot camps promise to launch tech careers
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Looking for a career change, Ken Shimizu decided he wanted to be a software developer, but he didn’t want to go back to college to study computer science.
Instead, he quit his job and spent his savings to enroll at Dev Bootcamp, a new San Francisco school that teaches students how to write software in nine weeks. The $11,000 gamble paid off: A week after he finished the program last summer, he landed an engineering job that paid more than twice his previous salary.
“It’s the best decision I’ve made in my life,” said Shimizu, 24, who worked in marketing and public relations after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. “I was really worried about getting a job, and it just happened like that.”
Dev Bootcamp, which calls itself an “apprenticeship on steroids,” is one of a new breed of computer-programming school that’s proliferating in San Francisco and other U.S. tech hubs. These “hacker boot camps” promise to teach students how to write code in two or three months and help them get hired as web developers, with starting salaries between $80,000 and $100,000, often within days or weeks of graduation.
“We’re focused on extreme employability,” said Shereef Bishay, who co-founded Dev Bootcamp 15 months ago. “Every single skill you learn here you’ll apply on your first day on the job.”
These intensive training programs are not cheap — charging $10,000 to $15,000 for programs running nine to 12 weeks — and they’re highly selective, typically only admitting 10 to 20 percent of applicants. And they’re called boot camps for a reason. Students can expect to work 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly writing code in teams under the guidance of experienced software developers.
http://news.yahoo.com/coding-boot-camps-promise-launch-081223005.html
Oh, we must be getting there.
When I started my working life at the tail end of the tech BOOM, a director in my company (dotcom) hired her favorite bartender as an account executive.
i have been saying for years that the standard 4 year degree sacred cow is obsolete.
i could do the same thing with accounting…unfortunatley the AICPA has rules that reuire a certain amount of college hours in order for someone to sit for the CPA exam.
I’ve attended “crash courses” for learning new technologies. My experience is that a lot of what you are taught simply doesn’t stick when you take these 1-2 week long seminars. You can only drink so much from the fire hose.
That said, I could see programs that are taught over say a year or less (vs. a 4 year year program) being realistic. As to who will hire them … I suppose that start ups might take them, though most employers do expect a 4 year degree these days, in contrast to 20+ years ago when most would hire the self taught.
My experience is that a lot of what you are taught simply doesn’t stick when you take these 1-2 week long seminars. You can only drink so much from the fire hose.
If you keep doing it after the course ends (ideally on-the-job, but you could also do it on its own), then I think it probably would stick.
If you see it briefly, and then don’t use it, then yes—it’s gone (but will still come back more easily down the road if you study it again).
A lot of the classes I’ve taken over the years have been relevant and applicable to the job, but I’ve found that maybe 30% sticks at best, especially if you’re putting in 100 hours a week (you’d burn pretty fast trying to absorb all that new knowledge)
Also, what you learn in an engineering program is how to solve problems (which is why you take all those pesky math classes)
I do think you can teach people to be coders in a few months, but not to be problem solvers. I’m guessing that these crash courses teach people to write stuff like ASP.NET applications or stuff like that, in other words, a single specialty. That isn’t going to land you a 100K job straight out of boot camp. For that you’ll either need a wide variety of skills or some very specialized domain knowledge.
I could see the value of a boot camp for an experienced engineer who wants to learn a different technology. Say like a UNIX programmer who wants to learn
HR/Recruiting is the only part of any company I have ever worked at or interviewed with that was the least bit concerned with what degree I held. It is purely a barrier of entry to filter job applicants on. If you can walk into a technical interview and blow them away on the code examples and technical minutiae, the degree is essentially forgotten.
FWIW, most startups these days require you to have code examples you’ve written on Github (opensource or otherwise) as well as links to your LinkedIn profile just to apply. Then it’s usually a grueling technical torture test designed to test your knowledge in a specific technical area with hands-on examples. Never is degree (or certification for that matter) ever mentioned…
California Foreclosure Starts Skyrocket 41.3 Percent in February
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=23020
Wait a minute — what about the California Home Owner Bill of Rights?
“I DEMAND MY RIGHT NOT TO BE FORECLOSED, EVEN THOUGH I STOPPED PAYING MY MORTGAGE MONTHS AGO!”
“I DEMAND MY RIGHT NOT TO BE FORECLOSED, EVEN THOUGH I STOPPED PAYING MY MORTGAGE
MONTHSYEARS AGO!”Are you perchance in FL?
“The Coming Housing Collapse: The Fed, Instead Of Lehman, Owns The Mortgage Market”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/03/05/peter-schiff-and-the-coming-housing-collapse-the-fed-instead-of-lehman-owns-the-mortgage-market/
There are many reasons NOT to buy a house right now.
1) Prices are massively inflated
2) Rental rates are half the cost of buying at current inflated prices
3) The cost of new housing is a fraction of resale housing in $/square foot.
4) $/square foot prices are falling
…. and most importantly… You’re going to lose alot of money if you buy a house now. ALOT of money.
If the Fed owns the mortgage market, and they can buy whatever they want and bury it on their balance sheet indefinitely, then I fail to see the problem…why would the Fed ever again allow the housing market to lose value, if they can always pump it up with more QE cash?
It doesn’t seem to be working for them does it…?
So far as I can see, the only way for them to prop up housing prices given the current state of household balance sheets are to withhold inventory and to qualify low-credit-score applicants to take out ginormous federally-guaranteed low-downpayment FHA loans which are, in many cases, quite likely to eventually go into default.
And isn’t this pretty much what is happening?
Prices have been sliding at different rates since 2008. Nothing has changed except for velocity.
So far as I can see, the only way for them to prop up housing prices given the current state of household balance sheets are to withhold inventory and to qualify low-credit-score applicants
I agree, and would also point out that they will eventually run out of low-credit-score applicants—but that from what I can tell, their ability to withhold inventory is effectively unbounded, except for political fallout, which they seem quite adept at avoiding.
Nothing has changed except for velocity.
Case-Shiller data disagrees with you.
No if fact CS demonstrates that prices are still in decline. Better yet, transaction in the last 90 days confirms prices are falling and in fact the fall is accelerating.
No if fact CS demonstrates that prices are still in decline.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s1id=SPCS20RSA
That’s not CS.
CS20 SA shows falling prices.
CS20 SA shows falling prices.
Not sure what chart you are looking at; here is SA and NSA:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=SPCS20RSA,SPCS20RNSA,
p.s. You actually TRUST their seasonal-adjustment??
So prices are still at the grossly inflated levels of 2004.
Remember…… the floor is early 1990’s prices.
I agree on both counts, PW.
90% of Foreclosed Properties Held Off the Market
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/07/13/shadow-reo-as-much-as-90-percent-of-foreclosed-properties-are-h/
They’re still there. 20-30 MILLION of them. Disposition: Excess empty inventory.
pssst…… If you think a 20 year old ranch is worth more than $50/sq ft, you’ve been lied to.
I would love too see a real regional breakdown of homes being held off the market. 95% of homes that were REOs became “for lease” in our affordable neighborhood in the last 4 months. One sold for $120K more than we paid after some lipstick.
$50/sq ft in So Ca puts you in Palmdale/ Lancaster. Get real. I wish nice areas were that reasonable. trust me.
In 1984 our first home cost $70/ sq ft.
So you paid a massively inflated price in 1984 and you double down in 2012 and make the same tragic error?
No wonder you’re crying.
pimp
You know nothing about So Ca real estate prices.
cactus and I live in a fairly nice area, in neighboring cities.
TearsOfHorror,
You know nothing of the value of a dollar.
What did you pay for your DebtDump in $/sq ft?
Sally Soccermom sh*ts on the 2nd Amendment:
“Pennsylvania, Georgia and Virginia have long been bastions of gun-rights supporters, with vast rural areas and strong hunting traditions. But in recent days, lawmakers from those states have demonstrated a new willingness to back stricter firearms regulations … The shift underscores a new reality of gun politics in America: The rapid growth of suburbs in historically gun-friendly states is forcing politicians to cater to the more centrist and pragmatic views of voters in subdivisions and cul-de-sacs as well as to constituents in shrinking rural hamlets where gun ownership is more a way of life.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/growth-of-suburbs-in-pro-gun-states-changing-the-political-calculus-in-congress/2013/04/11/e2ba79b6-a2bf-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html
“Sally Soccermom sh*ts on the 2nd Amendment:”
Sally Soccermom hasn’t experienced her first home invasion yet.
That’s why we like the term “bedwetter”, because they’ll be swimming in p*ss when they wake up to a home invasion
And remember, kidz, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away…
Shockingly, not everyone who wants sensible limits on guns, e.g. background checks at gun shows and in stores, is a bedwetter. Just like not every gun owner is a slackjawed ill mannered teabilly.
Joe, considering you’re an educated practicing attorney, it is sad that even you can’t get the current gun laws correct.
Every FFL (Federally Licensed Firearm Dealer) must, by law (Brady Act 1993), perform a NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) background check to purchase a firearm, whether that sale occurs in the gunshop or at a gunshow. The only firearm transfers that don’t require a NICS check are private transfers between individuals. That transfer could happen at a gun show or in a parking lot or a private residence. There is no “gun show loophole”.
Also, it is illegal by Federal law to transfer handguns across state lines. To transfer a handgun to a buyer in another state, the handgun must first be transferred to an FFL dealer in the buyer’s state and then transferred from the FFL to the buyer, which means a NICS check.
The myth perpetuated by the liberal progressive gun grabbers and the media is that it is easy to purchase a firearm, even if you are prohibited (felon, mentally ill, etc). That is not the case, at all.
Posts on the weekend topic thread want the gunz discussion curtailed. Housing and economics only, please.
NE, private individials go to gun shows and exchange weapons without a background check. Yes, if you are a licensed firearms dealer, you need the check.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/guns-and-dollars/gun-show-loophole-not-about-gun-shows-and-not-loophole
It’s individual transfers *done* at gunshows that people are worried about. You can sell quit a few guns before you need to get a federal license.
Ah, the chickens are coming home to roost already in CT. That was quick! A home invasion AND robbery. Double play.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/More-than-4M-in-jewelry-stolen-from-Conn-store-4429464.php
Ha-ha, love to see how this one unfolds.
Maybe it was the Aryan Brotherhood, lol.
That was quick! A home invasion AND robbery. Double play.
Has a new gun law even been enacted and taken effect there?
Cops in Virginia are responsible for most home invasions now a days
“If you buy a house today you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money. Rent now as rental rates are half the monthly cost of buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing. Buy later for 65% less.”
So confused.
An hour ago you said “avoid housing at all costs” and here you say “rent now”
Why buy when you can rent for half the cost?
You said “at all costs”, not “half the costs”.
The Pimp IS NOT a renter.
He is a landlord. He rents his wh0res out.
He is a landlord.
‘Nuff said. I dislike landlords as much as I dislike bankers and RE agents.
heh…. poor debt junkies. Can’t even get past the fact that we build and sell new housing for a fraction of the massively inflated prices you paid.
It’s your funeral.
A landlord and a builder, talking his book. Our very own REIC spokesman.
Probably married to a realtor, hence his animosity towards his partners in crime.
Speaking of established liars…. Alpo…. you’re untrustworthy and it’s unanimous.
Never trust a builder.
Speaking of liars….
Kitchen’s gettin’ warm isn’t it DebtCoaster?
You can live at some National Forest campgrounds for *FREE* but you are limited to a 14 day stay in one location. We know someone who used to work for Vail Resorts that did just that all summer long, moved his trailer every 2 weeks, and got showers at the gym.
Why now just shower at work? I shower at work, sometimes twice a day (if I take a walk or jog around lunchtime), just because it feels decadent. It’s a great way to break up your day and do some thinking.
Over time, I’ve figured out when all the big players use the gym, so I avoid going during those times since I don’t like to bump into people in the locker room.
Why shower at work when you can rent a house with 2 bathrooms for half the cost of buying it?
Not everybody has showers at work.
We worked as a legislative page for the state legislature while attending undergrad at Football Factory State University. The House Minority Leader had a full bathroom with shower directly adjacent to his office. The running joke was that the shower wasn’t for working late, it was for the interns.
I can’t go home and shower during the day, so that’s a lot less useful. I take jacuzzi baths at home, helps the muscles recover from biking or weights. But at work, it’s all about showering at some random time “just because”.
And no, no bronies (or interns) are involved in my showering.
Do you get repetitive motion symptoms from all your harpsichording?
+1 pimp… if you said what I think you just said.
Your mind is always in the gutter.
welcome to the recoveryless recovery
’student debt has a dramatic impact on the ability to buy a house, and to buy the dishwashers and lawnmowers and all the other purchases that stem from that,’ said diane swonk, chief economist of mesirow financial. ‘it has a ripple effect throughout the economy.’
combined private and federal student debt doubled since 2007 to $1.1 trillion … while a bankruptcy can wipe out housing and credit card debt, there’s no absolution for student loans.’
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-12/american-dream-eludes-with-student-debt-burden-mortgages.html
Next thing you know, there will be a national moratorium on student debt during Hillary Clinton’s first term, in order to enable young families to afford homes of their own.
These days … I don’t know what to expect anymore.
These days … I don’t know what to expect anymore.
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
“Confess! Or suffer.. the soft cushions!”
mom and pop investors are the best TELL:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mom-and-pop-the-worlds-worst-investors-2013-04-04?mod=wsj_share_tweet
Gold/Silver is getting murdered today, down $60. Oil is down pretty hard too but Nat. Gas is up to $4.20 and looks like it’s heading to $4.5 or $5 soon. You would think the the recent 25% boost in NG reserve estimates would have had a depressing effect on prices. What seems to be missing is the huge ramp-up in NG demand in the export market plus the industrial and transportation sectors. Even though they upped the reserve estimates they didn’t adjust the total years of US supply.
Next up, the collapse of AR-15/AK-47 prices when everybody figures out the new Federal gun laws will be mostly toothless. I bet there is a high correlation between gold hoarders and people that own several large cal. guns.
I bet there is a high correlation between gold hoarders and people that own several large cal. guns.
I doubt it. If you own serveral large cal. guns, you just have no money left for gold.
Also, if you have loads of guns, do you really need gold? Your gold is theirs anyway when SHTF.
I doubt it. If you own serveral large cal. guns, you just have no money left for gold.
This.
My latest build, a custom LR-308 SASS in Flat Dark Earth (modeled after the M110) will end up costing me $2500, not including optics and my own labor. Add $1.5/round for match .308 and it adds up quick.
Interesting that NatGas is going up, now that winter is pretty much over and demand is about to drop quite a bit.
Demand for natural gas soars in the summertime in the South. Several coal firing plants have been converted to natural gas.
I think it’s really two things. Rig count for natural gas are down so less supply. This makes sense since there is little profit in dry gas under $4 and second, the ramp up in liquified natural gas export projections. The new DoE secretary is a big supporter of LNG exports. Funny thing is that most Americans don’t want to export our NG and think we should keep it here to lower our energy costs.
“Last Friday, April 5, Baker Hughes reported yet another sizeable reduction in the U.S. gas-directed rig count: according to the survey, the number of rigs drilling for natural gas in the Lower 48 States now stands at 375, down 14 from 389 rigs the week before and down 56 rigs from the recent high of 431 rigs on March 15 (these figures compare to 900+ rigs just eighteen months ago). “
Thank you for this analysis, this is why you’re one of my favorite posters here.
Funny thing is that most Americans don’t want to export our NG and think we should keep it here to lower our energy costs.
So much for “drill, baby, drill”
So much for “drill, baby, drill”
Doh! You mean we don’t get to keep our drill baby drill oil for ourselves, so we can pay $1 a gallon again?
They didn’t include that part on Faux News.
Bluestar, NG has moved up because the amount of NG in storage has gone from way above the average to now below the average. Go to the EIA website and you can see that move. Part of the reason has been that the amount of rigs drilling for gas collapsed when the price was below production costs. In the commodity space the cure for low prices is low prices. The other part has been much colder weather than we have seem for years.
The gold prices and other precious metals have been hammered, although not as much as bitcoin, as I predicted or Apple as I predicted. However, gold bugs, and I am one, have said for years just prior to the big boys moving from suppressing the price of gold to supporting a bubble, would knock the price down in a major way. I think that is exactly what is happening and the next move will be a parabolic move up which will be the end of the bull run. Many South African mines cannot make money at these price levels for gold, platinum and palladium. This is a buying opportunity for those that have not invested in the metals. I still believe by the end of the year the price will be above the start of the year.
BTW, the suppression of gold is part of manipulating housing prices up. If gold was allowed to give the proper signal that the printing of money was dangerous the easy money that is underpinning the “housing recovery” would have to be withdrawn and interest rates would rise stopping the recovery.
By every traditional metric the FED has flooded the market with money. Except the money was never really printed was it? Digital transactions worth trillions have swamped the bond and derivatives market but only a tiny amount has seeped into the real economy. When I look at the volatility of the precious metals the last thing that comes to mind a stable store of value. I can fully accept you think the price of gold will skyrocket at some point but due to it’s lack of industrial value it could just as well fall back to slightly more than it’s wholesale production costs of between $400-$700.
I agree that seasonal factors had much to do with the increase in NG prices. Last winter was exceptionally warn and the drillers were just scaling back from the boom in new wells during 2010-11. But there is a new dynamic in play now, LNG exports. From what I can see this will stunt any effort to deploy compressed natural gas as transportation fuel (outside of a few applications in bulk shipping). Over the long term it’s all BTUs and watts. When the BTU ratio of Oil/Coal/Gas gets too distorted the market will play the arbitrage. NG has been at a huge discount to Oil and Gas for the last 2 years and that’s slowly being fixed. Here is a interesting play? Remember that leveraged buyout of TXU ($47 billion) was financed in part by multi-billion long term NG supply contracts? It was those $6-$7 long term hedged contracts that has nearly bankrupted that utility company(now known as Energy Future Holding). What if the value of those gas contracts completely recover? How would you like some long term bonds yielding 15%? Of course if the bonds do recover to their issue price they will call them back but you will still get a nice premium.
Last morning in San Jose. It’s been a nice trip. Had dinner in Monterey (actually Pacific Grove) last night. I can see how if you lived here you could think that there was no problem…everybody is still stretching to get their piece of paradise on the assumption that real estate always goes up.
Yup, that’s the vibe I get from my Silly Valley colleagues.
Then again, I’m getting that vibe from my colleagues at the Broomfield campus
San Francisco: recession? what recession?
The money flowing in this town is crazy.
I just finished reading an awesome book, “The Sisters Brothers” about the Gold Rush. I think the boom mentality is in the DNA of this city.
Yeah DebtJunkie….. I’m sure it’s just roaring with a 10% unemployment rate and a housing market with collapsing demand.
The bust mentality is there, too, always lurking in the background of the latest mania…
Another flip
14420 Purdue St Tract Code: Campus Park (W)-199Moorpark 93021
Old house not the greatest nabe cars parked on front lawns stuff like that
Successful flip to some sucker. Bought in August for $310K, sold last month at $420K. OK inside but no yard. Now they’re renting to $1600/month — will take 20 years to pay it off.
Bought in August for $310K, sold last month at $420K.
That’s unpossible. Right, Pimples?
Greater losses? Not only possible, but guaranteed.
Poor Alpo….. you just can’t be truthful.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Moorpark/14420-Purdue-St-93021/home/4566314
cactus
I posted the pics from Redfin.
Our across the street neighbors do mechanics work on multiple cars almost every weekend. It really brings down the neighborhood. Construction trucks, boats, RVs, litter our nicely kept homes street. It sucks, but we hate HOAs. Lesser of the evils, I guess.
Sold $420,000 4 2 (2 0 0 0) 1431 6098 sf (Public Records) 1978 SFD 3/6/2013
Address: 14420 Purdue St Tract Code: Campus Park (W)-199
Moorpark 93021
Public Remarks: Come see this beautifully renovated 4 bedroom, 2 bath single story in Moorpark. The kitchen has been renovated & features updated cabinets, custom tile & new stainless steel appliances. The bathrooms have been completely renovated with new tile, fixtures, vanities & granite tops. The kitchen is light & bright with vaulted ceilings, recessed lighting & plenty of room for dining. The family room also has vaulted ceiling, recessed lighting & a beautifully renovated gas fireplace. Above the fireplace is the perfect spot for your flat screen TV. The master bedroom has a slider for direct access to the large back-yard. The lucky buyer will enjoy the new wood flooring, new carpeting & new double-pane windows throughout. The large 2 car garage has a new sectional door & opener for years of worry-free operation. The large yard has been completely re-planted & features new sprinklers and a new automatic timer. Easy to purchase, not a short-sale or foreclosure just move in and enjoy.
Bitcoin
Gold
Bitcoin
Got monkey-hammered along with gold and silver. Looks like it’s time to back up the truck on all three.
Completely predictable that TPTB depress the price of anything that would be in direct competition with their money printing inflationary schemes…
“Completely predictable that TPTB depress the price of anything that would be in direct competition with their money printing inflationary schemes…”
Given the relative stability of gold’s value, a gold price crash is far more likely to be associated with deflationary pressures, as the gold-denominated value of a dollar goes up when the gold price falls.
Money printing comes into play in driving the price of gold and other PMs above long-term trend, before fundamentals hammer them back to the ground, as happened today.
That’s one way to look at it. The other way would be that given the recent easing action by the Japanese central bank to stoke inflation and the US Fed Reserve policy of continued easing to stoke asset inflation, concern over out-of-control debasement of fiat currencies (and artificial valuations of propped-up assets) is at an all time high.
Add to that recent proposals out of the EU/Cypress regarding deposit confiscation and you have the least amount of confidence in the global monetary system since the 2007 economic crash.
How does that jive with “return to fundamentals”? It doesn’t. But it does jive with the modis operandi of Central Banks manipulating asset prices up or down for reasons that serve their interests. Or… I could just be paranoid and it is as you stated.
I don’t believe you are paranoid. In fact, my reading of statements out of FOMC doves like Janet Yellen (Bernanke’s presumptive successor and would-be first-time-ever female FOMC chair ) is that they are completely open to tolerating higher inflation in exchange for lower unemployment.
Certain FOMC members are on a hegemonic power trip which may overestimate their potential to dictate policy interventions which achieve desired U.S.-centric objectives. They may at some point encounter a concrete wall of fundamental economic reality which is inherently deflationary in the wake of the Fall 2008 financial collapse.
Only time will tell whether the Fed or the wall eventually wins.
I was beginning to pity the gold bug brigade before seeing what recently happened to the Bitcoin price. Talk about catching yourself a falling knife — ouch!!!!
World Finance
The Real Significance of the Bitcoin Boom (and Bust)
By Michael Sivy
April 12, 201324 Comments
Bitcoin Value Soars And Drops
Sean Gallup / Getty Images
A sticker on the window of a local pub indicates the acceptance of Bitcoins for payment on April 11, 2013 in Berlin.
The volatile rise and fall of Bitcoins has prompted lots of stories explaining why the online virtual currency is a classic bubble. Many compare it with Tulipmania in 17th Century Holland, where the prices of rare tulip bulbs soared to absurd heights and then crashed, ruining the speculative investors who had bought them. But the Bitcoin phenomenon is more than a bubble. It says something important about the current and future state of the global economy.
The scale of the recent boom and bust has been staggering indeed. At the start of the year, a Bitcoin was worth $13.51. Earlier this week, it traded as high as $266. And on Thursday, it plummeted to less than $100, as one of the exchanges where Bitcoins are traded closed temporarily. This would be comparable to the exchange rate for the British pound soaring from $1.62 (where it was on Jan. 1) to $31.90 and then falling back to $12.
Such monumental appreciation and volatility is clearly the result of speculation – people buying the online currency just because they think its value will rise, not because they want to use it to purchase goods and services. But Bitcoins’ gains are not the result of speculation alone. They partly reflect the fact that the Bitcoin system is much better designed than previous online currencies. And more significantly, the runup also reflects anxiety about the safety of the global banking system and the stability of major international currencies.
…
Denial ain’t a river in Egypt.
Financial Times
April 12, 2013 7:41 pm
Bitcoin fans put brave face on price fall
By Stephen Foley in New York
Adherents of the virtual currency Bitcoin are picking up the pieces after their holdings collapsed in price, and vowing to continue growing the Bitcoin economy despite the volatility and illiquidity bedevilling activity.
The price of a single Bitcoin peaked at $266 on Wednesday, double its price a week earlier, and then slumped to a low of $54 on Friday. That takes it back to its level before a surge in internet and media interest that began in late March.
The price collapse hit not just speculators but also merchants who sold goods or services for Bitcoin at the peak.
Tony Gallippi, founder of Bitpay, which processes transactions for merchants, said about half his customers keep their income in Bitcoins, rather than immediately cashing out, and so would have lost money on transactions. Bitpay’s 5,000 merchants include gold and silver exhanges, electronics businesses and even a car dealer.
“The problem is that people are trying transactions that are bigger than Bitcoin can handle,” Mr Gallippi said of the price volatility. “Long term, the price will rise to reflect the size of trades that people want to do with it.”
…
($54/$266-1)*100% = -80% crash in a matter of months…
ANOTHER BUBBLE BITES THE DUST!
“Bitcoins were down to $77.56 as of 3 p.m. ET Friday. Prices reached as high as $266 per Bitcoin around 7:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. But the price started to fall through the rest of day and Thursday morning.”
Holy shomoly — I misspoke: DOWN BY 80% IN A MATTER OF TWO DAYS! IS IT A WORLD RECORD TIME FOR THE COLLAPSE OF A BUBBLE?????
Ben, when do I get my new T-shirt?
With apologies to easily-confused readers like tj and Ol’Bubba, I am contemplating yet another name change.
Bubble whacking can be great sport!
Another one bites the dust
Bitcoin bubble may have burst
By Chris Isidore
@CNNMoneyInvest April 12, 2013: 3:10 PM ET
Trading in Bitcoins on Mt.Gox since Wednesday.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The price of Bitcoins has plunged more than 70% in the past two days, sparking a rush of activity that overwhelmed trading platforms and suggested the bubble in the virtual currency has burst.
Bitcoins were down to $77.56 as of 3 p.m. ET Friday. Prices reached as high as $266 per Bitcoin around 7:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. But the price started to fall through the rest of day and Thursday morning.
At about 10 a.m. ET Thursday, trading was halted on Mt.Gox, a Japan-based exchange that claims to handle 80% of Bitcoin trade worldwide. The price at that time was already at about $123, down more than 50% from the peak.
Mt.Gox issued a statement Friday attributing both the pre-halt price fall and the halt in trading to the rush of new customers trying to trade in the electronic currency.
“The rather astonishing amount of new accounts opened in the last few days…made a huge impact on the overall system that started to lag,” the exchange said. “As expected in such situations, people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin in mass…resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine.”
The exchange said the shutdown was different from the cyber attacks that hit it and other Bitcoin sites earlier this month.
Related: Major Bitcoin exchanges hit with cyber attacks
During the Mt.Gox trading halt, trading continued on some smaller Bitcoin markets, and the price fell sharply. When trading resumed on Mt.Gox about 10 p.m. ET, the price quickly plunged as low as $69.45, ricocheted back up to $135.69, then started to fall again. All the new volume flooding back to Mt.Gox caused another 2-hour halt in trading.
When trading resumed again, Bitcoin prices continued to fall. Since the peak on Wednesday, owners of Bitcoins have lost more than $2 billion combined.
Societe Generale currency analyst Sebastien Galy said that even if the bubble has burst for Bitcoins, it doesn’t mean it won’t have additional rallies in the future.
“Its trading is typical of a bubble,” he said. “But there are still people who believe in it. You can’t say we’re going to zero tomorrow. Even assets that have no underlying value have people willing to trade in it.”
Related: Bitcoin ATMs coming soon
…
Democratic Rep. Mocks Elderly Man During Gun Control … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2wE6Ed3ikQ - 225k -
Rep. Diana DeGette Doesn’t Understand High-Capacity Magazines …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxtu228bYFw - 216k
I live in her district. DeGette was re-elected in 2012 with 68.2% of the vote. The City of Denver also voted 65.9% yes for Amendment 64 to legalize recreational marijuana.
Voters are vegetables. And the vegetables have spoken.
You don’t get the government you want, you get the government you deserve.
Wait, why wouldn’t you want recreational marijuana legalized? The “war on drugs” is one of the reasons we have a crazy level of violence here in the U.S.
We *do* want it legalized. But we don’t agree with the vegetables that re-elected DeGette. Last November we voted for the Libertarian State House candidate, the Libertarian U.S. Congress candidate, and Yes on Amendment 64. And left the rest of the ballot blank. No R or D votes were cast by the squad, because we’re so principled and holier-than-thou and all that sh*t…
You should have at least voted for someone other than Romney, if only in a generational act of solidarity.
Sorry, forgot that we also voted for Gary Johnson in November.
And before that, our last vote was for Ron Paul in the caucus February 2012. Yes, the squad is registered Republican.
Jow why not grow your own, but still be illegal to sell.
News Anchor slams Obama, Bloomberg - Be more … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAOgDXeFoFQ - 207k -
COMMUNISM SURVIVOR BLASTS SALEM GUN GRABBERS …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1ABw6IMKn0 - 234k - Cached - Similar pages
4 days ago
The Debt-Junkie Walk
http://imageshack.us/a/img688/2484/40973600.jpg
Still no Jingle Male? Clearly an oversight.
So, the model for the economy that’s been put forth by the central bank and government has been as follows:
I sell you a house for X.
You sell it back to me for X + 1.
I sell it back to you for X + 2.
You sell it back to me for X + 3.
I sell it back to you for X + 4.
And so on.
I call it the “Flying Troll economy”. Wall Street gets rich off of it which is why the government and central bank advocate it. J6P is left to fend for himself.
But what we here at HBB have amazingly discovered is that a market consists of both sellers AND buyers. A conceptually difficult idea, I realize.
So the other day, I was shocked when, for the very first time, on DC news radio, they discussed real estate and its affordability for buyers. And this was discussed with one of their regular real estate cheerleader commentators. I can’t recall housing affordability for the buyer ever discussed in the MSM.
My take: along with the top realtor on DC news radio the other day urging sellers to list now lest economic conditions deteriorate and they get less money in the future, and this real estate cheerleader talking about buyer affordability, the NAR must be starting to get squeezed from the lack of inventory. NAR is one of the biggest overall contributors to the federal government so this might have some interesting implications.
Yeah I listened to it too.
The realtard basically said, “get what you can get for your house today because it’s going to be alot less tomorrow.”
Frankly I was shocked.
Lots of construction going on at work, talked to a guy pulling up sub floors he said the RE market was crazy now. Also admitted he was under water on a few homes but wasn’t worried because we will shoot past the previous old high. Wished he would have bought some condoz in China.
This is my 3rd bubble in the last 13 years, tech bubble, housing bubble 1 now housing bubble 2.
I guess its true ? No growth = mandatory bubbles to keep “somthing” going.
Imagine the losses on the horizon.
my whole adult working life has been bubbles and recoveryless recoveries.
my whole adult working life has been bubbles and recoveryless recoveries.
This.
Yep.
I’ve lived through five.
It got old after the first…
my whole adult working life has been bubbles and recoveryless recoveries.
Ever since Reagan fired Volcker and replaced him with Greenspan.
It’s all been on the national credit card since then. (Oh, except a brief respite under Clinton, which doesn’t count because it causes cognitive dissonance.)
It’s all been on the national credit card since then. (Oh, except a brief respite under Clinton, which doesn’t count because it causes cognitive dissonance.)
No not cognitive dissonance but I don’t see why a surplus that is primarily caused by a bubble(s) is a reason to find that he is different from either the Bush(s) or Obama. Their policies were to encourage the bubbles and so were his. Greenspan did not begin the easy money during Reagan or even during Bush I but he certainly did under Clinton and Clinton reappointed him for it.
I don’t see why a surplus that is primarily caused by a bubble(s) is a reason to find that he is different
Clinton used the surplus to pay down the debt. He didn’t ‘return’ it to the (richest) taxpayers (ie increase the debt) like the GOPsters did, and would do again.
Don’t forget there’s a mini social media bubble right now. That will also pop.
See above Wall Street Journal link about employer recruiting on Twitter, it’s buried in the “brony” thread.
I see the echo bubble construction boom on my way to work as well. Most recently I saw a new home development with the sign posted “From the $1 millions.” Boo-yah!
3,636 sq ft at $1m pencils out to $275/sq ft. Try not to catch yourself a falling knife!
Watermark
Now Selling from the $1 Million
(858) 342-8797
Grand Opening
Introducing Watermark, a new neighborhood of luxury homes in the coveted Pacific Highlands Ranch master-planned community. Featuring California Spanish, Coastal and Cottage-inspired architecture, Watermark includes three, two-story floor plans with five bedrooms, up to four and one-half baths and square footage ranging from approximately 3,636 to 4,351 square feet. Watermark offers bright, open floor plans, sun room and outdoor room options, and a versatile guest suite/sitting room with separate entrance. This distinctive collection of classic family homes also includes LivingSmart® design features and options that help conserve natural resources while making the home environment more energy-efficient and comfortable.
…
Or Illegal 2nd apartment to cover the soon to be underwater mortgage????
versatile guest suite/sitting room with separate entrance
Foreclosure radar updated their data for March today.
Foreclosures in CA up a bit. Below where they were prior to January, but most definitely NOT zero.
Bank owned REO continues to decline.
Fewer and fewer homes are going back to the bank.
Fewer and fewer homes are scheduled for sale.
Preforeclosure WAS on a longer-term downward trend. It is unclear whether that longer-term trend has re-established itself following the new law on January.
The spread between the opening bid and winning bid at foreclosure auctions has been steadily widening.
Time to foreclose is going up (a byproduct of the law?). Time for banks to resell appears to be steady.
I wish they had data on the same page of delinquent, but not yet foreclosure filed…I guess we need to rely on LPS for this piece of the puzzle.
http://www.foreclosureradar.com/california-foreclosures
With 4 million excess, underwater, defaulted and delinquent houses in CA, housing prices have a long way to fall there.
Then why do you keep on building?
Why do you considering slapping together depreciating assets like houses “building”?
Why do you considering slapping together depreciating assets like houses “building”?
I don’t. I consider building today’s houses somewhere between a joke and a shame. (A joke if you don’t buy one, a shame if you do.)
The tree forts I built as a child were superior construction- we ‘borrowed’ real plywood from nearby houses under construction. No vinyl involved.
Good for you.
I’m glad you removed the excess “excess” from your cut and paste. Too bad you haven’t inserted any reality.
Hit the bricks you liar.
If anyone reads this and had a chance to talk to some kids about it, that would be like a good thing.
3 teens arrested for assault after girl’s suicide
10:58 p.m. EDT April 11, 2013
(Photo: AP)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Eight days after allegedly being sexually battered while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, “worst day ever,” and hanged herself.
For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not bely a struggling soul.
And then on Thursday, seven months after the tragedy, a Northern California sheriff’s office arrested three 16-year-old boys on charges of sexual battery.
“The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable,” said family attorney Robert Allard.
“After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious.”
Allard said students used cell phones to share photos of the attack, and that the images went viral.
The Pott family is not alone.
In Canada on Thursday, authorities said they are looking further into the case of a teenage girl who hanged herself Sunday after an alleged rape and months of bullying. A photo said to be of the 2011 assault on 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons was shared online.
No charges initially were filed against four teenage boys being investigated. But after an outcry, Nova Scotia’s justice minister appointed four government departments to look into Parsons’ case.
3 teens arrested for assault after girl’s suicide
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/11/assault-teen-suicide/2076395/ - - Cached - Similar pages
19 hours ago …
“…was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious.”
Take-home lesson for adolescent girls: Don’t drink yourself unconscious in the presence of horny adolescent boys.
“Take-home lesson for adolescent girls: Don’t drink yourself unconscious in the presence of horny adolescent boys.”
Obviously drinking yourself unconscious is a bad thing for adolescent girls, adolescent boys, college girls, college boys etc. But nothing, and I mean nothing makes it Ok for adolescent boys or any other kind of boy or man to assault any girl or woman unconscious or not. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the reason the two girls in this story hanged themselves, it seems like it was because the photos of the assaults were shared online. Everybody makes mistakes, some kids drink too much. Passing out was not all that uncommon for 14 or 15 year olds in my town in the 70s. They got brought home, not raped with pictures of the attack in the morning paper. I can see how a young girl could find herself in a dark place where she could see no way out after that.
Totally agree with you.
And I find it disturbing that either this type of incident is on the rise, or else reporting of these incidents is more in the open than it used to be. And I also find it disturbing that I cannot tell which hypothesis is more plausible, and that I live in a world where this kind of incident ever happens, and worse yet, apparently not all that infrequently.
Given this state of the world, every dad should warn his adolescent daughter to never, ever put herself into this kind of situation.
Canadian teen commits suicide after alleged rape, bullying
By Paula Newton, CNN
updated 5:31 PM EDT, Wed April 10, 2013
———————————————————————–
The Steubenville Rape Case Is Back — Are Parents at Party Houses to Blame?
Jason Cohn/Reuters
Alexander Abad-Santos
Apr 8, 2013
Don’t drink yourself unconscious in the presence of horny adolescent boys.
If this happened to your daughter, would you blame her, or her attackers?
I’d blame myself.
No charges pressed? Boys will be boys?
I don’t believe it for a second.
Your daughters will probably drink themselves into a stupor at some point in their high school or college years. Let’s hope they aren’t surrounded by boys who have been taught that some girls are ‘asking for it’.
A new breed of buyers and sellers in region’s housing market
Friday, April 12, 2013
By Rob Varnon
At a recent open house in Stamford last month, 100 people came through the door, said Silva Christov of Keller Williams Prestige Properties.
It’s proof that buyers are back in the southwestern Connecticut residential housing market, a fact also reflected in sales statistics and a sense of growing optimism in the real estate industry.
But the players in today’s market are different than those who drove up housing values in a frenzy prior to the collapse of the real estate bubble five years ago, real estate experts say.
They are wiser, more cautious and, in many instances, poorer. Whether buyers or sellers, they fall into some distinctive categories.
Let’s meet them. First, the buyers.
The Newbies
The Transplants
The Investors
Now let’s look at the sellers, for the last few years a beleaguered group if ever there was one.
The Gottas
The Wannas
The MIAs
http://www.norwalkcitizenonline.com/news/article/A-new-breed-of-buyers-and-sellers-in-region-s-4429975.php -
Colleague of mine sold his Gilbert, Az rental for $529k, buyer patched (papered?) the driveway and now it’s up for sale for $629k. Buyer is using same pictures my friend and his wife had the agent post. The pictures include the staged furniture my friend rented for showing. Furniture of course is not there anymore. My friend said any buyers going in will see empty place and wonder if something’s up.
“$529k”
Isn’t that right smack on top of the conforming loan limit?
What makes the new buyer think he will be able to find a greater fool willing to pay $100K over the recent sale price? (Not to suggest he won’t succeed if he is patient…my own sister was the greater fool bagholder in one of these quick-flip situations back in Dec 2006…).
Yeah my jaw dropped when my colleague told me today.
Whats your take on this house? meth lab?
http://www.housecompare.net/listing/5045852/312276/1063+PRESCOTT+ROAD/Columbia/SC/
Based on the price of $12,000, it appears the inescapable depreciation is reflected in the price.
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.
Metro NYC Foreclosures Skyrocket
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/ny_ag_gets_as_foreclosures_rise_1EXgYlEH1LDIYe6CSVMADL
I’m a paid hack for CAR….. which naturally means I’m a liar.
1,277 homes out of 4,080 currently on the San Diego County market (at least according to Redfin dot com) are priced at $1 million or more. That’s 31 percent of the homes priced for the millionaire crowd — the highest level I’ve ever seen!