Bits Bucket for April 23, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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A History Of U.S. Paper Money
1913: $50 Gold Certificate
The last of the true Gold Certificates - the Federal Reserve was instituted in December 1913. This is a completely honest and upright money. It says so right on the certificate:
What you are looking at here is a money substitute. Any holder of this certificate held title to 2.41896 troy oz of Gold (at $US20.67 per troy oz.) which could be redeemed at any bank or from the U.S. Treasury itself at any time.
Enter The Federal Reserve
1914: $1 Federal Reserve Bank Note
At the time this was issued, a “note” was well understood to be a promise of payment. Accordingly, this is prominently labelled as a “Federal Reserve Bank Note”.
And what is this Note redeemable in? Here’s what it says: “Secured By United States Certificates Of Indebtedness Or One-Year Gold Notes, Deposited With The Treasurer Of The United States Of America”. The Note was directly redeemable in Treasury debt, but it was not directly redeemable in Gold.
It’s Money Because We Say It Is
1928: $100 Gold Certificate
The last of the U.S. Gold Certificates. This certificate was discontinued in 1934 - the same year as the U.S. ceased to issue Gold coinage and made it illegal for Americans to own Gold.
While the statement that the certificate is redeemable in Gold coin still appears, there is this ominous addition imprinted on the “Gold Certificate” stamp.
“This Certificate Is A Legal Tender In The Amount Thereof In Payment Of All Debts And Owen Public And Private”. “Owen” is an archaic form of the verb “owe”, meaning “to be in debt”.
Redeemable In What?
1934: $1000 Federal Reserve Note
As it says right on the note, “The United States Of America Will Pay To The Bearer On Demand One Thousand Dollars”. But what is it redeemable in? “Lawful Money”.
It says so right on the note: “This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public And Private And Is Redeemable In Lawful Money At The United States Treasury Or At Any Federal Reserve Bank”.
In 1934, Gold was no longer “lawful money”. In fact, this note was “redeemable” in another note just like it, or 10 “$100s”, or 50 “$20s”, or 1000 “$1s” - you get the picture.
Remember These?
1963: $1 Federal Reserve Note
The U.S. probably printed more of these than any other note in its history. When they first came out, you could buy quite a lot with one. Now, the U.S. $1 Dollar bill is being phased out.
The recognition of what a “note” is is no more. There is no statement about what this note can be redeemed in anywhere on it. Nor does the Fed bother to point out that the note is “lawful money” - just try and spend anything else! The Note simply states: “This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public And Private”. That’s it.
1997: $50 Federal Reserve Note
Here is a specimen of the new “counterfeit proof” U.S. paper currency (the “$100s” came out in 1996). As far as what is written on the note, there is not much to distinguish it from the $1 note above. The only discernible difference is the markedly inferior engraving.
But look at the portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, and then scroll up to the first example on this page. Same man, radically different “money”. This is counterfeiting of a much more blatant kind than the mere copying of what is already just a piece of paper.
http://www.the-privateer.com/paper.html - 10k -
Y’all are rude!
He took lots of time to put this post together and nobody commented on it =(
copiedfromthelink
Nobody cares about worthless paper unless they ask for too much of it for a house.
I don’t understand what happened to boomers as a group. They saw korea & vietnam rip the US apart, they saw mccarthyism, they saw the cold war, they saw watergate, they saw iran contra, shouldn’t they have been very skeptical of war, throwing away resources, and relying on bankers/insurers/other company men?
When i listen to their music, i hear such skepticism and yet hope.when i listen to CSNY or America or The Band or The Byrds (i could go on and on….) i can’t fathom that this turned out to be not just the worst generation in US history, but the generation that ended up so greedy and short sighted that they quite possibly befouled the country beyond repair.
George Thorogood, Creedence Clearwater rev, steely dan, joan jett, Santana, the rolling stones, mama kass, Jimi Hendrix, cream, queen, Kansas, the who (quadraphinia probably is the best album ever in any genre), bob Dillon, Pete segar, the Beatles, George Clinton/parliament/funkadelic, country Joe, Joni Mitchell, arlo Guthrie, Jefferson airplane, Janis Joplin, sky & the fam…
nice list
I thought you were a big Barry Manilow fan? Isn’t he a harpsichord maestro like you?
The corporations are what happened.
Destroying the unions are what happened.
Sending job overseas are what happened.
Double digit inflation is what happened.
Lost pensions are what happened.
Destruction of civil rights are what happened.
One other very important thing to remember: there is a actually a huge age difference between the front end boomers and the tail end boomers.
The massive growth of the size, scope, power and cost of government is what happened.
We can thank Reagan for much of this. Growth in gov’t was quickest under him. There are actually less government employees now in 2013 than there were in 2008. Biggest growth was in 80s, 90s, and 00s.
And are you considering “government contractors” in that statement?
I think anyone working exclusively for the government, even if not directly employed, should be considered a “government employee” for such a comparison.
And this still doesn’t explain why Boomers voted for these people… corporatist types like Reagan, Clinton, and W Bush.
If anything, you’d think that growing up in the 60s and 70s would’ve made people suspicious of people who wanted to build an ever “stronger” military and support globalism.
What happened?
City hippies learned right quick who OPEC was when the tank on the VW bus hit “E.”
Country commune hippies learned right quick that going back to the land wasn’t as easy as advertised.
Then the 80’s brought corporate domination! Shoulder pads! Alex P. Keaton! Power lunches!
..and a devil in disguise:
“Want to be the master of your own destiny?” whispered the 401K softly. “You can do better than those old fogey pensions. You’re smart.”
“A-ha,” answered, the young baby boomer, “Take me on.”
Exhaustion. Trying to figure out how to raise families without one parent being at home most of the time. Most “good” jobs really needed there to be a stay at home partner. Think about the stuff you can do on-line now at any time of the day or night and remember most had to be done in person (often during business hours) until very recently. And the infrastructure for taking care of kids from 8 in the morning until 6 or 7 in the evening was almost non-existant.
I blame cheap oil.
That’s a good point, Polly. If you think about some of the iconic political activities of the 1960s and ’70s - teach-ins, sit-ins, marches against the war and in favor of equal rights for women - they’re are all very time-consuming. That explains why students played such a large part in those movements - they had a certain amount of flexibility in their daily schedules. I’m old enough to remember housewives volunteering for George McGovern in 1972. As Polly wrote, by the end of 1970s, there weren’t many housewives around who had the time to participate in political activities while the kids were in school.
I blame cheap oil.”
They should have stayed renting
Everywhere I Look, I See Cheap Oil (May 12, 2010) - Charles Hugh Smith
The foundation of the American lifestyle and economy is cheap oil. Remove that prop and every aspect of that lifestyle becomes questionable.
Not to sound too cinematic, but everywhere I look, I see cheap oil. The results, of cheap oil, actually; or more precisely, a complete and total dependence on cheap, abundant oil.
When I see expansive, well-manicured lawns, I see cheap oil.
When I see busy airports and taxiing aircraft, I see cheap oil.
When I see news about the latest “surge” in Afghanistan, I see cheap oil.
When I see goods from China on sale for less than a dollar, I see cheap oil.
When I see branded water in plastic bottles, I see cheap oil.
When I see inexpensive meat in supermarket coolers, I see cheap oil.
When I walk through aisles of frozen food, I see cheap oil.
When I see vast swaths of America dotted with rural mini-estates, I see cheap oil.
When I see the “free” Internet, I see cheap oil.
When I see retirees walking their dogs, I see cheap oil. (Ultimately, all pensions are based on cheap oil.)
When I see bakeries which sell only dog treats, I see cheap oil.
When I see jammed freeways, I see cheap oil.
When I feel air conditioning in desert cities, I see cheap oil.
When I see new fiberglas boats with large inboard engines, I see cheap oil.
When I see boxes of “free clothing” set on the curb, I see cheap oil.
When I read about vast bureaucracies dedicated to regulating complex industries, I see cheap oil.
When I see a new iPad, I see cheap oil.
When I meet an enthusaistic young person who is jetting to a distant land to work for an NGO (non-governmental organization), I see cheap oil.
When I see auto rentals, I see cheap oil.
When I see college graduates applying to graduate school, I see cheap oil.
When I see electric bicycles, I see cheap oil.
When I see a Prius, I see cheap oil. (Mining and processing all that lithium into complex batteries requires a lot of energy.)
When I see well-dressed people filing into a corporate meeting, I see cheap oil.
When I see imported furniture, I see cheap oil (and clear-cut native forests).
When I see adverts for cosmetic surgery, I see cheap oil.
When I see a stadium full of sports fans, I see cheap oil.
Virtually all of the things which characterize the “American way of life” are utterly and completely dependent on cheap oil, cheap coal, cheap natural gas and cheap uranium (as long as the waste products of which can be “cheaply” stored).
Once liquid petroleum is no longer abundant and cheap, the “American way of life” will change in ways that few seem to anticipate.
Cheap oil is a substitute for a lot of slaves. It has enabled a significant percentage of us to live like kings.
“It has enabled a significant percentage of us to live like kings.”
And to endure long daily commutes like space-aged debt slaves.
+1
This tail-gunner (of 1957 vintage) came of age in much harder times than the late forties group. This has colored my life experiences in many ways.
As they used to say, You’re the speed limit now!
But 55 mph went the way of the dinosaur. Sure you burn more oil but 70 gets you there quicker so the powers that be got er done.
By the time my grandkids, of which I have none presently, are of driving age (think 25 years give or take), will we have burned every drop of oil by then? Can we just assume some other energy source will be harnessed such that our American way of life is safe for perpetuity or will the coming generations have to learn how to get around en masse or more slowly?
I think as we age, we become more easily angered and frightened as the world we know changes into something very different. Change has been massively accellerated over the last century, and I think it has been too much for a lot of boomers to handle, pushing them into a state of fear and rage that verges on mental illness.
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
LOL, you can always tell a gen-WTF loser by how much he/she blames “boomers”. A loser is a loser, they just gotta have someone to blame.
Me, I’m pissed at Cro-Magnon Man. It’s all their fault.
I blame whoever decided to come down from the trees.
The first land rush.
Condos yield more profit per square foot of footprint. Therefore wouldn’t it have been better to stay in the trees?
better to stay in the trees?
Trees gave us everything we needed. It wasn’t until we started walking around on the ground that we needed stuff, then a place to put that stuff. And then the REIC began.
Alpha, you could put that on a bumper sticker:
I blame Lucy.
OK, I don’t think that the Lucy human ancestor (Australopithecus Afarensis) was the first bipedal ancestor, but it is catchy.
My granddaddy wasn’t no monkey!
http://creationmuseum.org/
“The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.”
So they are saying that Adam and Eve COEXIST-ed with dinosaurs? I need to visit this place, but might die of laughter.
“then a place to put that stuff”
That’s all this housing bubble blog is about, you know. A place to put your stuff. A house is just a box for your stuff with a cover on it….
(yeah, I’ve been hitting the Carlin youtubes pretty hard lately).
LOL, you can always tell a gen-WTF loser by how much he/she blames “boomers”. A loser is a loser, they just gotta have someone to blame.
Me, I’m pissed at Cro-Magnon Man. It’s all their fault
————
I’m curious, how are millenials losers, the torch hasn’t been passed to us yet. I think we can fix this mess but it is going to be very painful. Unfortunately we haven’t been handed a strong country like the Boomers were. Come back in 20-25 years and see what we do.
What if I don’t want to “fix this mess?”
What if, in the immortal words of poet, mystic, and drunk Jim Morrison, “I just wanna get my kicks before the whole sh*thouse goes up in flames,” what then?
What if, in the immortal words of poet, mystic, and drunk Jim Morrison, “I just wanna get my kicks before the whole sh*thouse goes up in flames,” what then?
Vote GOP?
Since you will have no offspring, it’s hard to argue against that strategy. The only question is if 30 yrs from now energy will still be cheap enough that you can still live that lifestyle. My guess is yes, but I wouldn’t bet my debt-shack on it.
I’m curious, how are millenials losers, the torch hasn’t been passed to us yet. I think we can fix this mess but it is going to be very painful. Unfortunately we haven’t been handed a strong country like the Boomers were. Come back in 20-25 years and see what we do.
A bit of bad news. Us Gen-Xers thought that, too. But it turns out it’s not the previous generation that did it…it’s the “club” that exists in every generation that you’re not a member of. Just when you think you can push the last generation aside and really fix things you’ll find that those your own age in the club have already taken over and they’re not interested in your opinion.
^ This.
Boomers vs the world is just another divide and conquer game being played on us all.
” the torch hasn’t been passed to us yet”
Specifically, when do you see the boomers as having had the torch passed? When Clinton took office? When Strom Thurmond died?
“And this still doesn’t explain why Boomers voted for these people… corporatist types like Reagan, Clinton, and W Bush.”
This boomer voted for none of the above and you still blame me. Do you really believe that boomers were a majority in any of those elections? No generation is monolithic. There were young Republicans in colleges during the 60s and 70s.
” Unfortunately we haven’t been handed a strong country like the Boomers were”
The earliest boomers graduated high school into the hippie culture. Most of us missed it. In 1973, I graduated college into the economy of the Arab oil embargo and stagflation.
” Just when you think you can push the last generation aside and really fix things you’ll find that those your own age in the club have already taken over and they’re not interested in your opinion.”
This. And your children will blame you for their troubles.
Carl has a good point, but I can’t agree with it. Two huge differences here:
1. Compared to Millenial, Gen X is teeny and has no voting bloc power. I guess the Gen-X incarnation of the “club” will be proportionally teenier.
2. Gen X is the last group to swear at a zip drive, wait for dial-up, or think of “the news” as CBS/NBC/ABC at 6 pm. Millenial is the generation of Facebook, Diversity, Over-education, Internet, Gay Tolerance and COEXIST. I don’t think they will fall under the spell of Palin/Murdock/fundies et al, and they don’t seem too turned on by the war machine either.
The wildcard is going to be the political leanings of the Millenial billionaires. There may be enough rich liberal Millenials to outvote and out-purchase the rich conservative X-ers.
“…we haven’t been handed a strong country like the Boomers were….”
ROTFLMAO
Amen to you, Carl and Happy. Life has always been thus, and until the last spark of spirit is extinguished from humanity, will continue to be. You can either stew in your resentments or get off your arse and try to make a difference, but blaming “the generation” before you for what ails you today is both intellectually lazy and morally asinine.
“But it turns out it’s not the previous generation that did it…it’s the “club” that exists in every generation that you’re not a member of. Just when you think you can push the last generation aside and really fix things you’ll find that those your own age in the club have already taken over and they’re not interested in your opinion.”
Absolutely spot on, Carl.
It’s not the change per se, but the change for worse that’s the problem.
It is documented fact that jobs went overseas, that wages have been stagnate for 3 decades and inflation has destroyed remaining wages buying power.
These are not symptoms of “you kids get off my lawn.”
Boomers have always been this way.
You’re too young to have witnessed their behavior first-hand over the decades (ask any 40-year-old Xer for his or her perspective on Boomers. They know quite a lot about Boomers).
From the hedonism starting about 1966, to the Me generation in the 1970s, to the “Greed Is Good” mantra of the 1980s, to the “everyone younger is an inept slacker” 1990s, to the “take advantage of easy, fraudulent credit 2000s”.
They turned into yuppies. See also the movie “The Big Chill”. And see also the navel-gazing, vomit-inducing teevee show “Thirtysomething”.
Did you know that Kevin Costner was to play the corpse in that movie but I believe all his scenes were cut out?
I think you can see his hand.
I think the body being groomed in the casket is Costner, so you see various body parts, his hands, feet, and forehead.
I can’t believe they’ve never released a ‘director’s cut’ with the final scene of them all as youths celebrating Thanksgiving, which has Costner in it, I assume.
Not to mention the “Gosh I’m 65 but I can’t retire yet” 2010’s.
And the 40-something X-ers, waiting for promotions, know quite a bit about that. I heard a story where an X-er told a boomer point blank: “We’re not waiting for you to retire. We’re waiting for you to die.”
That only works if you have genetics on your side and you exercise. I see a lot more people in their 40’s in worse shape than many 70 year olds!
I see a lot more people in their 40’s in worse shape than many 70 year olds!
I think you mean, what’s left of those who should be 70 by now!
From the hedonism starting about 1966, to the Me generation in the 1970s, to the “Greed Is Good” mantra of the 1980s, to the “everyone younger is an inept slacker” 1990s, to the “take advantage of easy, fraudulent credit 2000s”.
By their very number, the Boomers defined and created the ethics for every decade they lived through. That was one lesson this GenXer learned.
Were you an abused child Joe ?? So much vile against a certain group and accusations that are unfounded…
Explain how they’re unfounded?
The Boomers elected increasingly feckless politicians, lived a very debt-based lifestyle, allowed their freedoms and quality of life to be eroded, have largely supported the idiotic “War on Drugs” and “War on Terrrr” and now stand to leech off the state via MC (inc. Part D) and SS but say “we must cut government spending, but HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE”.
The contrast I’m observing is, they started off as a pretty idealistic group with many advantages previous [and, ultimately, superior] generations did not have. Look at the generations for settled the West, fought the Civil War, built our infrastructure, fought the World Wars, and so forth. And then look at the Boomers. It’s painful, man. Debt-ridden, largely knuckle-dragging and supporters of the status quo and high military spending (just look at exit polls) and many have nothing to show for it. The ultimate group of sheep. Not *all* boomers, but as a cohort, surely you notice this. It’s impossible to miss.
Thats one massive paint brush that you use to paint that picture Joe…
“…Debt-ridden, largely knuckle-dragging and supporters of the status quo and high military spending….”
Yep, joe m’boy, that fits me to a “t”. I bow to your superior assessment of the history.
First off, of course this doesn’t apply to everyone in a generation. Not by a long shot.
Moreover, of course it doesn’t apply to most (if not all) HBBers. The fact we come here to discuss these things is at least the first step in not being a debt-ridden brokeback.
Spend some time around the people who spawned the boomers, and you’ll see that they are much the same. Better off financially because they got the max benefit from the post WWII boom, but just as reactionary, selfish, and jingoistic.
People are, in general, morons. They are completely unequipped to understand the massively complex world around them, so they strap themselves to some comforting ideology that tells them they are superior, and let that do the thinking.
Poke that ideology and they get scared and mad, and start making noise to drown you out. Certainty is their religion, and any info that runs counter to that must be lies and conspiracies.
“People are, in general, morons.”
Ditech: People are smart!
People like to think they are. Want to make a friend? Play up their shrewdness and rare insight.
A fine screed, Russ. As always.
Thank you. I may save it for when I get old.
Russ stole that quote from Blazing Saddles
“Poke that ideology and they get scared and mad, and start making noise to drown you out. Certainty is their religion, and any info that runs counter to that must be lies and conspiracies.”
Or worse yet, blasphemy if not heresy…
“Certainty is their religion,…”
I love poking holes in the world views of this type, unless they happen to be my relatives, in which case I try my hardest to keep my mouth shut.
“The Boomers elected increasingly feckless politicians”
The boomers were not the only group that voted in elections. The Presidential election of 1984 was the first in which all of the boomers were eligible to vote. At that point, they represented less than 57% of the electorate (age groups 18-49. Boomers were actually 20-38). It was probably closer to 40% of the voters.
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_84.html
Extrapolating for other years, in 1988 boomers represented about 45% (ages 24-42). In 1992, boomers were about 46%. The younger age groups voted more for Perot than the older age groups. Boomers were less than 50% of the voters in all other presidential elections.
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_08.html
By 2008, younger generations outnumber boomers by 10% (47% for ages 18-44, 37% for ages 45-64. Boomers are actually aged 44-62 at this point.)
I expect numbers for Congressional and state elections were consistent with the Presidential elections.
In terms of blame, you should blame whites. They are still more than 70% of the voters.
“i can’t fathom that this turned out to be not just the worst generation in US history, but the generation that ended up so greedy and short sighted that they quite possibly befouled the country beyond repair.”
So sayeth the self-appointed and omniscient curator of history and judge of all.
While his generation votes for someone running up the debt because they do not want to cutback the role of government. Sorry, I have not seen this new generation so hard working, talented or honest to justify their denouncing of an entire generation. I do see that self esteem was actively promoted by their schools and parents. We will see how that works out.
Could you comment on the “IRA stuffer” reference in your blog handle? I am intrigued, but have no clue about the intended message.
Say you have a business, esp. an S Corp. You assign a very low value to the shares in the S Corp. And then you put the shares of the S Corp into your IRA.
This is a pretty well-known tax loophole used by private equity. Mitt Romney did this and now has a 9 figure IRA. Ethically, it’s clearly an abuse of the system. But Congress knows about the loophole and has done nothing to close it.
It’s called IRA stuffing because you’re effectively packing many times the value of what you should be allowed to put into the IRA in a year. Kind of like when you try to pack your entire wardrobe into a piece of carry-on luggage.
“Mitt Romney did this and now has a 9 figure IRA.”
Some how I doubt reining in IRA tax deductibility to $3 million will jeopardize the household savings rate for average Americans.
Tax benefits of retirement savings in jeopardy
Outside the Box
Commentary: Decreasing savings could endanger U.S. economy
April 19, 2013|Pinar Cebi Wilber
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — In an effort to slow and reverse our spiraling national deficit and debt, lawmakers will likely put all tax expenditures (tax code spending via exemptions, deductions, or credits to select groups or specific activities) under close scrutiny.
Among those on the chopping block are tax-qualified retirement plans, and this could spell trouble when you consider the severe savings problem in the U.S.
…
The just-released fiscal year 2014 budget is the most recent attempt to limit the size of these plans by prohibiting individuals from accumulating over $3 million in IRAs and other tax-preferred retirement accounts. The $3 million figure is tied to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, which is also the current maximum benefit permitted to be paid under a qualified defined benefit plan in 2013 and is adjustable for increases in cost of living. It looks like this is another attempt to increase the taxes paid by the so called “1 percenters” but the impact might be wider.
…
I’m thinking it must be more difficult or complicated than just stuffing your self-undervalued S corp shares into an IRA, or tons of people would be doing it. ISTR that when Romney’s use of it was discussed, we were told it was a dodge available only to the very rich, not to every guy with a dental practice, taco stand, or pawn shop.
S-corps are for pikers. The real 0.01% do it with offshore partnerships protected by blocker corporations so they don’t have to pay taxes on having an active business in an IRA.
I don’t even know how you would get that much into an IRA. You are limited to $5000 contribution per year. You can rollover a 401k, but that is also limited to $15000/yr and was less in the past. So the little folk are limited in contributions, but somehow the ultra-rich have a means of shoving millions into an IRA.
I’ll be more clear. Let’s say you take your family’s business, e.g. a restaurant or some rental properties, and you look at their market value then subtract out how much you owe and take into account other factors that reflect their value. Now, even if this family business is “worth” several million, there’s nothing stopping you from valuing it at “slightly less”. Meaning “alot” [sic] less.
An even better option is to form a shell corporation with just a couple thousand of paid-in capital. Then, you issue shares. And then you put those shares into the IRA. At that time, the shares aren’t worth much at all… the business isn’t worth much yet. Then, over time, you have the S corp acquire your family’s other assets. Say, in 2014 it buys a share in a diner, in 2015-2020 it buys a few rental houses a year, etc. Now, clearly, the shares in this S corp are worth alot [sic]. But, since they are in an IRA, they can’t be taxed. And, you can keep the profits associated with the operations similarly disguised within the business.
Then, when you retire, you can take out approx. 220k/yr tax free. And you can also give your kids gift of the S corp stock, up to a certain amount a year, as a tax free gift.
Yes, as polly says, I am a piker compared to Mittens Romney, but that’s better than being a brain-dead brony who sits back and lets himself get screwed.
Coporations can’t be share holders of S-corps. You have “alot” more research to do, honey.
Can an IRA hold shares of an S-corp? can that S-Corp hold shares of other corporations?
“Coporations can’t be share holders of S-corps. You have “alot” more research to do, honey.”
Ouch. Pwned.
Some of us are still VERY skeptical.
Besides, it’s hard to use such broad-brush terms to describe a cohort of nearly 80 million people. Furthermore, when you refer to yourself in the first-person singular, the “i” is capitalized.
Power in numbers. They have always been catered to. They expect it.
After living long lives with the highest pay and most stability in the history of the world, 1/3 of them have saved NOTHING for retirement. They had very few kids, and will leave no inheritance. Instead, they expect their kids (and others’ kids) to fork over 25% of their own salaries for life, just to support the aging, irresponsible Boomer crowd. Those same kids will then be required to save another 25% of their own income, since no government “entitlements” will be afforded to them.
The Baby Boomers will call you a deadbeat if you are not willing and able to fork over a million bucks to buy a house that was purchased by a Boomer for $50k like 30 years ago. The Boomers will call you a deadbeat if you think it’s unintelligent to pay $700/month for health insurance for one person. The Baby Boomers will call you a deadbeat if you’re unemployed or underpaid because 50% of the jobs in your industry were offshored by Baby Boomers.
Baby Boomers. Most selfish generation of humans ever.
“Baby Boomers. Most selfish generation of humans ever.”
Woe is me. Woe is me.
Poor ole down trodden current generation.
Personal responsibility Hi-Z. Not surprised that you can’t take any.
History doesn’t record the vast majority of Boomers who quietly went along with the status quo, never questioned authority or held an original thought in their head, and made their motto “we’re only here for the beer.” The sheeple will always be among us.
But that committed vanguard of sixties activists is still actively shaping our national institutions and policies. A quick look at the eminence grises in our national government and media will reveal the same faces who led the revolution back in the sixties. Of course, back then we were known as “peace freaks and radicals”; now we’re simply reviled as “limosine liberals.”
vanguard of sixties activists
Many of whom were actually Silent Gen.
Like Mario Savio, Bob Dylan, Edie Parker, Nichols and May, Mort Sahl, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lenny Bruce, Joanie Baez, Alan Ginsberg….
And where is the anti-war sixties crowd for the last 2 decades? Are they happy to let the oil wars be fought on their behalf now that they have escalades to drive?
Seriously?
“The Liberal Media”, MoveOn.org, The AGW “crowd”, the election campaigns of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, OWS, the progressive wing of the Libertarian and TeaParty movements, 85% of America’s university professors? Have you gone mad?
Oh, you mean take-to-the-streets protests? Well there’s this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest —
and of course the Prius.
BobDylan. HAH! The guy who penned “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone” but who now employs illegal alien labor at his toney mansion and refuses to pay for the Sani-Hut to be cleaned more than once a month forcing them to eliminate in squalor and the neighbors to breathe the stench of a sewer. Guy is a joke.
its like this
Luke Skywalker = millennial
Han solo = Gen x
Darth vadar = Boomer
Obi wan = greatest generation
from the book ” the fourth turning”
Note how the Boomer vader blew whole planets up when his RE investments went bad.
What about Chewbacca?
Slacker, dude!
oh they were a great group! bill cosby, johnny cash, beverly sills and connie chung…cosby, sills, cash and chung.
Easy to explain. The Boomers were the most spoiled generation in history. They never did without or had to sacrifice and have not plan of doing so.
I agree. My own generation has become that which it held in the greatest contempt. It’s not that I believe in foolish charity and giving to those who don’t do anything for themselves. However screwing the multitudes for profit isn’t on my list of worthy activities. My generation has slanted the playing field so badly we may never recover.
The market conditions we are experiencing now are completely different again.
County home prices soar 28 percent in March
by Kim Miller
The median sales price of an existing single-family home in Palm Beach County soared to $249,894 in March, up 28 percent from the same time last year.
The pricing measure, released today in a report by the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches, is the highest in at least the past 12 months.
Despite the substantial jump, some county Realtors remain unconcerned about another housing bubble, saying the economic conditions today are different than they were before the crash.
“Although the year-over-year median price of a single-family home in Palm Beach County increased 28 percent, the market conditions we are experiencing now are completely different,” said Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches President Elect Barb Kozlow. “Pre-bubble investors or ‘flippers’ had short-term investment goals. The financial objectives of today’s investor are long term.”
This entry was posted on Monday, April 22nd, 2013 at 10:15 am and is filed under Condos, Florida economy, Foreclosures, Housing affordability, Housing boom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ - 120k -
“The financial objectives of today’s investor are long term.”
BS. Housing is in pump-and-dump with Fannie’s OPM, just like any stock. Housing transactions are a little tougher, but rental bond sales will cover that.
Nope. From what I can tell, Blackstone and friends are getting hard-money loans. Not long-term. Short-term.
If you are a desperate, priced-out buyer, having no luck finding a place, thanks to a dessicated local inventory of homes for sale, it is important to realize that on the other side of the market from you are hedge-funds, investment banks and all-cash investors trying to extract the maximum possible share of your life savings and future earnings out of the deal.
Don’t be surprised if it takes a very long time for you to find a house that works for you, which you can only get by outbidding many other greater fools willing to pay top dollar for the pleasure of joining the Ownership Society.
Real estate
Shortage of homes on the market slows local housing sales
04/23/2013 6:14 AM
By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff
Massachusetts home sales fell in March because of a shortage of homes on the market, the Warren Group said in its monthly report on the residential real estate market Tuesday.
Single-family home sales dropped 3.6 percent to 3,100 in March when compared with the number sold in March 2012, said the Warren Group, a Boston firm that tracks local real estate data. That tight inventory helped the median price to rise more than 8 percent to $285,000 on a year-to-year comparison basis.
“Low inventory is plaguing housing markets all over the country, and Massachusetts is no exception,” David Harris, editorial director at the Warren Group, said in a statement. “With mortgage rates low and prices competitive, we’re hopeful more sellers will emerge and the trend in dropping home sales will reverse.”
“It’s clear that the low supply of homes for sale is continuing to pressure prices,” Harris added.
A recent Globe story noted that a common pattern has been emerging this spring: There are too many potential buyers and too few sellers, resulting in bidding battles in many Boston-area neighborhoods.
…
homeless people are on the rise according to NPR report. And the gov people say it is because their funding has been cut.
That’s unpossible. Homeless people only exist when there is a Republican in the White House.
A primary reason is that the government drove up housing prices to unaffordable levels.
That and the overall lack of jobs
You may thank:
$7 Trillion in new deficit spending.
The government borrowing 46 cents of every dollar it spends.
The Federal Reserve buying $40 billion of worthless bank paper every month.
All this cheap money had to go somewhere.
It is hope and change.
Now renter - get back to work and pay your fair share.
We are all debt slaves now (’cept for our 0.1% masters…).
With very few exceptions, everyone was born a debt slave.
Correct.
The self inflicted slavery of mortgage albatross paying interest to rent money from the bank to pay for overpriced housing is a choice.
Your justifications for that choice may vary, but your choice is wrong, and your losses will be incalculable.
If PITI (+M) is the same and you are not planning on moving for a long time, what’s the difference between paying off your own mortgage and paying off your landlord’s mortgage?
I know 2 people looking for a SFH to rent and cannot find anything under 3K per month. Which is 2X our PITI.
Whether you rent or own, the bank gets their interest payments either way. Unfortunately, the bank always wins.
Not all of us live in a place where renting is half the cost of owning. If you do, then by all means, go ahead and rent. That’s the smart move.
We dont do (+M), that’s the landlord’s job, silly!
We dont do (+M)
It’s a matter of preference, I suppose. I spend about an hour a day in my garden, puttering around. It makes me happy. Some people hate gardening.
In my last rental we had a super cheap contractor’s special dishwasher. It kept breaking, and would stay broken for a couple of weeks until finally LL would agree to let me call someone to get it fixed. Then when we needed a new one, she got another cheap one that never cleaned the dishes right. Don’t even get me started on electric stoves…
We are putting in a dishwasher in our house and getting exactly the one we want, one that won’t quit after 2 years and won’t leave everything scummy looking.
Different priorities. I like to garden and cook and build stuff and have a lot of animals around. Don’t mind fixing things, I’ve been taking machines apart since I was a kid.
Between google and youtube, you can pretty much teach yourself how to repair anything these days.
Unfortunately, the bank always wins.
Not always.
We are putting in a dishwasher in our house and getting exactly the one we want
Even so, when you do the installation, do it so that it would be extremely easy to replace when it does break. I had a choice of wiring my dishwasher directly into a circuit or connecting it to an outlet - I chose an outlet even though it cost a little more and was more trouble. Use PEX tubing instead of pipes since that is easier to replace yet should be just as reliable.
I installed my sump pump that way, and when it did break, it took 10 minutes to swap out for a working one.
If you hire someone to install anything, he will not be thinking this way.
Yesterday I have a metal roof put on my house. I saw how slippery that surface is even when completely clean and dry. I had the contractor install a permanent metal ridge roof anchor — a place where fall arrest lanyards can be clipped, to assist in any future roof work. It cost me $20 extra. The roofers painted it to match the roof. You can only see it if you know what to look for. I got the idea from a commercial building that was constructed a few blocks away last winter.
These sorts of modifications are usually not found on the internet.
Different priorities
We don’t have kidz, animals, and (as of now) pay for housing expenses on one income. If we were going to “buy” something, the only places we would consider worth buying are 2-3x our current rental costs.
Unfortunately, the bank always wins
Our monthly outdoor recreation/adventure budget equals or exceeds what we “throw away on rent” every month. Rock climbing cliche: the best climber is the one having the most FUN.
sfhomowner and other homeowners
I get a kick out of puttering in the garden. I’m designing our landscape and the learning curve is a time sucker. I’ve come to love getting my gardening gloves filthy. My back and knees are feeling their age, but I’m having a blast.
A garden is an ongoing canvas. It will never be finished, but it’s sure a great excuse to play in the dirt.
It is hope and change ??
Its also a Republican controlled House….Don’t like it don’t pass it including any budget proposal..They talk a good game but have no nuts…Bring the whole friggen thing to a screeching halt…Short of that, quit whining…
Actually the House has been passing some ballsy budgets. Does the name Paul “Vouchercare” Ryan ring a bell?
The echo bubble should not be confused with a real recovery.
3 reasons the housing recovery may not last
By Les Christie @CNNMoney April 18, 2013: 2:59 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The housing market has made a big comeback over the past year; home prices have surged some 8% and homebuyers can’t seem to buy up properties fast enough.
But just as quickly as the market is gaining ground, some industry experts worry it will come crashing back to Earth. Here are three reasons the housing market recovery may not last:
1. The housing recovery is being led by investors. One problem is that investors are leading the latest surge in home prices, said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. They are taking advantage of low interest rates and depressed home prices and when those rates and prices rise, they’ll likely pull back, he said.
“An investor-driven boom is likely to end badly,” said Baker. “I’m worried that some of the big jumps in prices are driven by the same sort of speculation that drove the [original] housing bubble.”
And while institutional investors and small but experienced mom-and-pop outfits have been buying many of the properties, there are a growing number of inexperienced “armchair investors” now buying into the boom — a sign that demand may be peaking, Baker said.
In some hot markets, home prices should start slowing or even reverse gains. In Phoenix, where selling prices were up 23% year-over-year in January, many investors planned to rent out the properties they bought. “Yet, there was no comparable increase in rents and the rental vacancy rate in Phoenix is very high,” said Baker
As investors realize a low rate of return on their investments, demand will soften, he said.
2. The economic recovery is just not strong enough yet. “These days, I worry more about the economy hurting housing than housing hurting the economy,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.
He’s especially concerned about employment. Hiring slowed significantly in March, with just 88,000 jobs added — the weakest showing since last June.
Meanwhile, half a million Americans withdrew from the workforce during the month; either because they stopped looking for work or retired and stopped drawing unemployment. Many were discouraged workers, a sign that the economy remains weakened.
…
3. Government cuts will hurt homeowners. Headwinds from the current round of government spending cuts — $85 billion worth — could also curb the housing market’s recovery.
“The spending cuts from the sequestration [will] hit their apex this summer,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
The cuts, including unpaid days off for federal workers, cuts in unemployment compensation and decreased military spending, combined with the expiration of payroll tax breaks earlier this year, will lead to job and income losses that could strip about a percentage point off the GDP this year, according to Bernstein.
…
And yet not a single word about forthcoming increases in mandatory medical “taxes”.
The average Joe and Jill 6 is going to be able to afford that how, exactly?
They won’t be able to afford it. Single payer could have solved this problem, but that’s commie.
Instead we took the worst aspects of our current system, and made them worster.
In some hot markets, home prices should start slowing or even reverse gains. In Phoenix, where selling prices were up 23% year-over-year in January, many investors planned to rent out the properties they bought. “Yet, there was no comparable increase in rents and the rental vacancy rate in Phoenix is very high,” said Baker
This is the key point from the above article.
And, down here in Tucson, our rental vacancy rate is about 16%. I think that Phoenix’s is in the high single digits.
I feel the same about the stock market. I was very bearish after they flushed everyone out. what I did underestimate was the FED coming in so aggressively with the printing press. It really showed me who was running the show and how the economy works these days.
If you are surprised by the recovery of the stock market then maybe there is a connection to the latest poll numbers for Bush vs. Obama. You don’t think they have skewed these polls to influence the public do you?
“Days before his second term ended in 2009, Bush’s approval rating among all adults was 33 percent positive and 66 percent negative. The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bush-library-opening-puts-his-presidency-back-in-the-spotlight/2013/04/22/bb7e6b9c-ab65-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html
What this country(world?) needs is a crash in the bond market.
10yr rates need to go to 8% and stay there for a couple of years to re-balance the economy.
If interest rates go to 8%
Almost all banks will go BK
Most businesses will go BK
The government will stop functioning.
Thus
Interest rates will not be going to 8%.
“If interest rates go to 8%
Almost all banks will go BK
Most businesses will go BK
The government will stop functioning. ”
Absolute BS.
Why do pundits keep talking about the Fed unwinding its balance sheet, given the economic havoc which would result?
Can’t it simply keep its balance sheet tightly wound forever, if it so chooses?
It will take decade to return Fed balance sheet to normal: Goldman economist
April 23, 2013, 12:10 PM
The swollen Federal Reserve’s balance sheet won’t return to pre-crisis norms until 2022, according to projections published Tuesday by Kris Dawsey, a Goldman Sachs economist.
The forecast assumes the Fed isn’t likely to stop buying securities until well into 2014, resulting in a balance sheet well over $4 trillion.
Another key assumption is the Fed will shift its policy stance and rely mainly on “passive” portfolio runoff from maturities and pre-pays to shrink its balance sheet when the time comes, instead of outright sales.
The last exit strategy, published by the Fed in 2011, projected the central bank would sell mortgage-backed securities on its balance sheet over a period of 3 to 5 years.
Over the last few months, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and other officials have begun suggesting a more passive approach to shrinking its balance sheet, in order to avoid adverse effects on market functioning.
…
Can’t it simply keep its balance sheet tightly wound forever, if it so chooses?
Not forever obviously, but I think it’s a long time. It might be 10 years like the Goldman economist says - or it might be next month - but whenever it is, it won’t be because the Fed wants to, it’ll be because they have to. Maybe there will be some black swan event or something. To me this is the real key: when will the Fed have to raise interest rates and why? Until that happens full speed ahead with the stock market.
It’s noteworthy that there was a twenty-year lag (early-1960s through early-1980s) between the last time the Fed invoked “Operation Twist” and when the SHTF on the easy money regime…
“The forecast assumes the Fed isn’t likely to stop buying securities until well into 2014, resulting in a balance sheet well over $4 trillion.”
It’s always a year into the future with these guys. In 2014, they’ll be talking 2015. The truth is nobody exactly knows, but one thing is for certain- the Fed is going all in.
“…in order to avoid adverse effects on market functioning.”
…in order to avoid adverse effects on elected officials.
It really showed me who was running the show and how the economy works these days ??
It showed me how friggen scared they were…It even scared Bush…
That yellowbelly couldn’t even stand up out of his chair when a terrorist attack was underway.
It probably will be…
The Rebubble is merely a feature of the Big Down. The only people getting any relief from the Rebubble are the billionaires and the vultures. I hope I turn out to be the best vulture ever.
The “Big Down” is/will be a multigeneration process. Those hoping for improvement will glom onto every little uptick, no matter how artificial.
It is what it is…
And don’t forget that current owners who still don’t want to sell at today’s prices.
Hence they should be looking for a buyer pronto.
Remember;
“Get what you can get for your house today because it’s going to be much less tomorrow for many years to come.”
If you are surprised by the recovery of the stock market then maybe there is a connection to the latest poll numbers for Bush vs. Obama. You don’t think they have skewed these polls to influence the public do you?
The economic policies of Bush and Obama are the same, so I am not surprised that they get a similar approval rate. I am surprised and discouraged that so many Americans would approve of the creation of bubbles to create short term prosperity at the cost of long term ruin.
Ha! You must think the polls are accurate. The polls are bogus just look at the climate change hoax.
“I am surprised and discouraged that so many Americans would approve of the creation of bubbles to create short term prosperity at the cost of long term ruin.”
It is discouraging, but I don’t think most Americans recognize short-term bubble blowing. If they did, I suppose they might start thinking about the long-term effects.
Actually, not all houses will sell tomorrow for less than they sell today. Just one of those things…
You said all. heh heh heh.
I am the great sayer…
Only 99% of them.
It offers caveats now. That is a start…
Why buy a house at current grossly inflated asking prices of resale housing? Rent for half the cost and buy later after prices crater for 65% less.
It repeats itself. For it, its question is rhetorical…
Rent for twice the cost of buying? Weird…
Why?
Not?
Don’t forget the unmarried 20-something couples who are gobbling up $300,000-dollar houses with their $30k/each salaries.
See below Urban Dictionary definition of “30K Millionaire”.
Yep. Old news.
Do We Really Need Huge Numbers Of Foreign Workers?
Center For Immigration Studies | 15 April 2013 | David North,
While it is well known that the high-tech industries often prefer lower-paid, young, and docile foreign workers to hiring Americans, and while these employers keep screaming about “labor shortages”, some of the real labor market numbers on the subject have not been discussed much lately.
Comparison of Projected BLS Job Openings Data, 2010-2020, with a Projection of NSF and DoE Data in the Same Time Period on Degrees Earned by Citizens and Green Card Holders in the STEM Fields (Architecture and Social Sciences Excluded)
Projected STEM job openings over 10 years: 2,537,000
Projected STEM earned degrees by citizens and green card holders over 10 years:
Associate’s: 440,000
Bachelor’s: 2,652,000
Master’s: 569,000
PhDs: 258,000
Total: 3,919,000
Ratio of projected degrees to projected job openings: 1.55
That’s kinda racis. Our differences only make us stronger. They only want to move to USA to hard workers and build American dream and put food on their familes. Give them a chance. After all, who would have dreamed a generation ago that someone born in Kenya could one day grow up to be president of USA?
Why can’t foreign workers build a dream in their own country? What is wrong with these people that they are not capable of forming a society that makes it possible for people to fulfill their dreams? Why are US citizens expected to build such a society, and then sacrifice it for the sake of people who didn’t?
Because the coastal elitists get cheap nannies and landscapers. And because the Chamber of Commerce types get cheap worker bees to pick our vegetables and make our pink slime burgers.
And the rest of us get to live next door to 20 people living in a 3BR house with 5 cars on the lawn and COEXIST with our friendly neighborhood MS-13, because our differences only make us stronger
While it is well known that the high-tech industries often prefer lower-paid, young, and docile foreign workers to hiring Americans, and while these employers keep screaming about “labor shortages”,
We were all suppossed to wear these long sleeved black mock turtle neck shirts today to the Engineering meeting to show solidarity
Only the foreign workers wore them. I told them they all looked like they were off to a Star Trek Covention
this is why they want foregin workers they don’t mouth off and do what they are told even if its really stupid
to show solidarity
With whom?
OMG! My employer wanted us to wear all black one day too! I wore blue that day, but there have been other days when I wore all black and everyone always has to ask where the funeral is.
Why would HUD want to assume control of my original home town’s housing authority?
The details of this story seem sketchy, but it sounds as though HUD is trying to cram down some kind of federal housing policy on the local authorities, which they don’t want to ingest.
What, exactly, does HUD force local housing authorities to do, presumably against local residents’ interests? Got command-and-control economics?
Apr 22, 2013, 2:49pm EDT
HUD assumes control of Cocoa housing authority
Cindy Barth
Editor- Orlando Business Journal
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development announced Monday it is taking control of the Housing Authority of the City of Cocoa, effective immediately.
In a letter to Housing Authority President of the Board of Commissioners Bruce Tate Jr., HUD cited the Cocoa agency for violating federal law and defaulting on its public housing annual contributions contract, an agreement local housing authorities enter into with the federal government to administer HUD’s public housing programs.
…
That’s pretty straightforward.
Considering Florida is one of the most corrupt RE markets in the nation, this is not unusual.
HUD cited the Cocoa agency for violating federal law and defaulting on its public housing annual contributions contract
—————
Pretty straightforward.
You’re from Cocoa, Whacky? Are you a Florida cracker?
I was born there and stuck around for a year or so, Alfa-Slob. Have rarely been back since.
lmao
I actually went back on a family trip when I was about 10 years old. I still remember to this day the fishing trip where dad and I caught a large number of spotted trout in a short time period, and enjoyed them for dinner.
My main impressions of that trip were that the mosquitoes were huge and aggressive, the weather was unbearably muggy, and that I would have a hard time adjusting to living there, after having moved north.
Have rarely been back since.
But you could still be a Florida cracker, if your family is old Florida pioneer stock. I would imagine that would be a lot of the population of Cocoa, ‘way back’ then. (Sorry if ‘Wacky’ offended you, do you have another suggestion for shortening your latest lengthy name? Whacker? WAB? Whacko?)
What makes you think Whacky offended me, Mr. Slobberer?
You seem to be avoiding my question as to whether you are of Florida cracker stock.
“Florida cracker stock”
Not a cracker. Will have to ask dad whether he was aware of them.
Whacky is a saltine?
“Whacky is a saltine?”
The mentally disabled troll is perpetually confused.
Tactic 1 from the Losing Debater’s Manual: “Ad Hominem Insult”
Tactic 2 from the Losing Debater’s Manual: “Cry Troll”
Telling…
What’s a trole?
What’s stucco…
What’s stucco…
GIMF
Ain’t central planning grand?
Bernie Madoff was an amateur compared to obama and friends.
And FREE John Corzine!
—————————————-
Fisker spent $600K for every car it sold, skids toward bankruptcy
Hot Air | April 22, 2013 | MARY KATHARINE HAM
1.3 billion in venture capital and taxpayer funds, and they spent $600,000 per $100,000 car they sold. What an investment!
The Anaheim, California-based company made about 2,500 of its $103,000 Karmas before halting production last year, disrupting its plans to use a $529 million U.S. loan to restart a shuttered Delaware factory owned by the predecessor of General Motors Co. (GM) The Karma was assembled in Finland.
Fisker was allowed to keep using money from its Energy Department loan after violating its terms multiple times, according to a report released April 17 by PrivCo, a New York- based researcher specializing in closely held companies. It said it based its report on documents, including the loan agreement, obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Fisker has been heading toward bankruptcy for several months, laying off employees, and missing payments to the Department of Energy on its way. The Obama administration seized $21 million from the company this week to satisfy its loan agreement, allowing the Fisker to escape expected bankruptcy for a little while longer.
Fisker was an amateur compared to the $9 Trillion to Wall St.
Ahh….the “everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t I?” excuse.
Joe, here’s your answer to your Boomer question above.
Boomers have a problem excusing other people’s behavior, but not their own. Always finger-pointing “the other side”.
It’s their way of life. No introspection what-so-ever.
I used the exact same analogy cabana boy did.
Hypocrite.
Aren’t Wall Street and Main Street fully decoupled by this point in the cycle? Or has the Fed succeeded in tying the housing market albatross around the bull’s neck, by pouring $40 bn a month in QE3 dollars down the housing market rat hole?
Stock Market Feels Like Housing in 2006: Sam Zell
Published: Wednesday, 10 Apr 2013 | 5:32 PM ET
By: Justin Menza
Treacherous Market: Sam Zell
Wednesday, 10 Apr 2013 | 4:01 PM ET
Some market bears are turning into bulls, with David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff & Associates, and Sam Zell, Equity Group Investments. Regarding the economy, says Zell, “We’re seeing a lot of uncertainty” in our businesses.
The stock market’s upward march is starting to look like the housing market before it crashed, real estate investor Sam Zell told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Wednesday.
“This feels like the housing market of 2006,” he said. “Everybody feels they can’t afford to miss it.”
Though he wouldn’t predict where equities will go, Zell sees a strong resemblance to housing, telling CNBC, “We are suffering through another irrational exuberance.” While daily headlines now trumpet new highs for the stock market, he said, seven years ago they were about the rise in home prices.
Zell also said that the Federal Reserve’s money-printing is debasing the currency and will reduce its buying power, eventually leading to inflation.
“The Federal Reserve is manipulating the system,” he said. “The question is how long can they get away with it.
“We’re seeing a tsunami of liquidity,” Zell added. “But I don’t know that necessarily means things are better.”
…
(Read More: Fed Keeps Easing, Not Worried About Stock Bubble)
Zell also said that the Federal Reserve’s money-printing is debasing the currency and will reduce its buying power, eventually leading to inflation.”
The road ahead is indicating Deflation again. What will the FED do ?
They hate and fear deflation
I think main street is wising up to wall street somewhat. They cannot keep them in the dark anymore thx to the internet.
The problem is that Wall St still controls the raw materials.
I wonder who will come out on top in the epic battle between the central bankers and the gold bugs.
Got popcorn?
April 23, 2013, 6:44 a.m. EDT
UBS slashes gold target, cites soured sentiment
By Laura Clarke
Investment bank UBS on Tuesday updated its short-term price targets for gold following the precious metal’s recent volatility.
At 0939, spot gold was 0.6% lower on the day at $1,415.90 a troy ounce.
“Given that gold had already lost so much, few clients were calling for another aggressive push lower,” said the bank.
“There is certainly no rush to jump in here, but the willingness to give gold another chance when the circumstances call for it is definitely there,” it added.
Last week, the spot gold price fell to a two-year low due to several negative price drivers, including fears Cyprus may sell some gold reserves and disappointing economic data out of China, where the metal is bought as a store of wealth.
Since then, opportunistic physical buying at lower prices had lent support, until more underwhelming data out of China overnight dented the recovery Tuesday.
…
April 23, 2013, 3:43 a.m. EDT
Gold eases from one-week highs, copper drops
By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) — Gold prices touched one-week highs before backing off, putting a fourth winning session in jeopardy as the market tries to battle back from a massive selloff. Copper, meanwhile, remained weak.
Gold gained during Asian trading hours, but then began pulling back as Europe markets swung into action. Gold for June delivery (GCM3 -0.36%) fell $5.30, or 0.4%, to $1,415.70 an ounce. In Asian trading, gold reached $1,426.40 an ounce, its highest level since April 12, according to FactSet data.
Prices for gold on Monday marked their third consecutive session of advances, rising $25.60, or 1.8%, to $1,421.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gain came as figures from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitments of Traders report suggested big traders, including hedge funds and commodity trading advisors, reduced their bets for a fall in gold prices.
Gold prices last week lost 7%, and face a drop of roughly 11% in April.
“At the very least, a sharp rebound based on short covering and physical buying should be expected once the panic has run its course,” John Hathaway, manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX +1.87%), said in a report about the recent fall in gold prices. “The bigger consideration is whether the validity of the rationale for gold has changed.”
…
It’s interesting Xie calls the recent gold price move a “flash crash.” If you recall, the term was coined when the U.S. stock market lost but regained 10% on the same day in May a few years back.
So far as I can tell, the gold has not yet regained the ground it lost over the PAST COUPLE OF YEARS (back to the Fall 2011 peak), so this is more of a “slow crash” than a “flash crash.”
April 22, 2013, 8:56 p.m. EDT
After the flash crash in gold
By Andy Xie
BEIJING (Caixin Online) — The recent gyrations in precious metals, commodities, and both the dollar and yen stem from correlated deployment of vast liquidity resulting from quantitative easing around the world.
Some of the correlations are just due to the same people stir-frying the same stuff, not economic reasons.
As the quantitative easing around the world continues, such flash crashes will recur. It is possible that mass panics, resulting from such flash crashes, could change the trajectory of some economies.
The most important case is that, if the Japanese government bonds and/or yen holders panic over the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) QE policy, the resulting chaos could trigger a financial crisis in Japan, and the resulting yen crash would push East Asia and the world into a crisis.
Gold has bottomed. The recent price gyration is manufactured to benefit big speculators at the expense of gold buyers in emerging economies.
Physical gold demand is from emerging economies, but the financial market resides in New York and London; it is a heavily manipulated market. Retail investors must be on guard for manufactured panic-euphoria cycles to fleece them.
…
Buttonwood
Like chess, only without the dice
It is hard to find an economic explanation for gold’s sharp fall
Apr 20th 2013 |From the print edition
GOLD suffered its biggest two-day fall in 30 years on April 12th and 15th. When an asset falls so sharply in price, it is tempting to believe that significant economic changes must be afoot. But an examination of the background to bullion’s decline simply produces puzzlement.
One potential explanation is that investors have at last recovered their risk appetite and are selling gold to buy equities. But although that may have been true in the first three months of the year, it was hardly the case on April 15th, the day of gold’s biggest decline, when the S&P 500 dropped as well.
In any case, what would explain this sudden optimism? Some investors believe that America grew robustly in the first quarter but the latest data—from unemployment and retail sales to consumer confidence and the purchasing managers’ survey of manufacturing—have been disappointing. The same is true of other parts of the world, including China, where first-quarter growth was below expectations, and Germany, where the ZEW survey of economic sentiment fell sharply in April. The IMF lowered its global-growth forecast for the year on April 16th.
Commodity prices in general have been suffering, not something you would expect if investors believed that the world economy was rebounding. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has fallen by 10.6% so far this year. Copper, often seen as a bellwether of global activity, has dropped by 8%.
Furthermore, if economic sentiment were improving significantly, you would expect investors to sell government bonds as well as gold. But the ten-year Treasury-bond yield has fallen by more than a third of a percentage point since March 11th. The latest survey of fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch shows that they have become less optimistic about growth in recent months, and have increased their holdings of cash.
Another potential explanation for gold’s fall is linked to central-bank policy. The most recent set of Federal Reserve minutes suggested that the pace of quantitative easing (QE), the creation of money to buy assets, would slow later this year. Many of the most enthusiastic buyers of gold believed that QE would ultimately lead to rapid consumer inflation. So far that has not come to pass: expectations for American inflation over the next ten years, as measured by the difference between the yields on normal and inflation-protected bonds, dropped to 2.4% on April 16th, the lowest level since November. If QE is tapering off and inflation is low, the case for buying gold is weaker.
…
Bubble. Popping.
Or is it, “Bubble. Propping.”?
Bought a 1 OZ Apmex gold the other day. Measure its size and found out it is much larger than a 1 oz suisse pamp gold. It make me believe it is a fake one or a partially fake one. I returned it and they refund me. Anyone had a similar experience or just me?
Manias and scams go hand-in-hand.
That ain’t the half of it!
Engineered bubbles are created to cover for scams.
Did you tell them you were returning it because you thought it was fake?
If so, what was their response?
their gold expert was trying to convince it is real by only focusing on using their high tech x-ray device. They did not have an answer to weight vs volume, or cannot answer it.
Archimedes solved this problem. Just use a finely graduated beaker or flask and measure the displacement.
bluestar FTW
+1
mass / displacement = density, and the density of gold is 19.3 g/cm3.
“graduated beaker or flask ”
Actually your best bet is a graduated cylinder. As tall and skinny as possible.
Did you weigh them?
Yes, it is one troy oz
Did you measure all three axes?
measured 50mmX29.5mmX1.6mm
measured 50mmX29.5mmX1.6mm
My spreadsheet indicated the volume of a perfect rectangular solid with those dimensions is 2360 cubic mm, or 2.36 cubic cm. This web site http://www.traditionaloven.com/metal/gold-converter.html states this volume of gold would weigh 1.46 troy ounces. The measurements you supply don’t seem valid. You really need to measure the volume directly. Or maybe it was gold plated tungsten.
Interesting…
(50 mm) * (29.5 mm) * (1.6 mm) = 2.36 milliliters and
2.36 milliliters = 2.36 cm3 (Google sez)
At a density of 19.3 g/cm3, the mass if it is pure gold should be
(2.36*19.3) g = 45.548 g.
Since 454g = 1 lb and there are 16 ozs in 1 lb, the weight in ounces (again assuming it is gold) should be
45.548 g X (16 ozs / 454 g) = 1.6 ozs = 0.1 lb.
Does that help?
“1.46 troy ounces”
My 1.6 ounces were not ‘troy’ but rather the standard garden variety, where 16 ounces = 1 lb.
Since 1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams, the troy ounce version of my calculation is
2.36*19.3/31.1034768 = 1.46 troy ounces (i.e. we agree…)
I had the same calculation. 1 troy oz (31.1g) shoud have 1610mm3.
it seems all of you agree that the gold is fake, no matter it passed their xray test, right?
I wouldn’t do business there any more. At least they gave you your money back.
People talk about how hard it is to find physical PMs, but there are a million ads on CNBC for firms that will sell and ship them to you. Are they not to be trusted?
I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I was merely curious if “larger” accounted for all three dimensions…
Since 454g = 1 lb and there are 16 ozs in 1 lb, the weight in ounces (again assuming it is gold) should be
I think Gold is Troy Ounces
Gold Frequently Asked Questions
1.How can I convert an ounce (oz) of gold into troy ounces?
2.How many ounces (oz) are there in a troy ounce?
Answers: One ounce (oz) is approximately 0.911458 troy ounces. To convert your gold ounce (oz) figure, simply use our converter above.
The problem with measuring the volume of a gold brick with a graduate is the assumption that the ‘brick’ is one solid piece. However, what you are paying for is the gold, not the bulk. Suppose a ‘brick’ were to be fashioned so that had an air bubble was trapped inside. This way a troy ounce of gold could take up more space than the gold itself did. The density would look lower due to the included air (which would make little difference in the weight of the brick). Yet you would still have a troy ounce of gold.
“Suppose a ‘brick’ were to be fashioned so that had an air bubble was trapped inside.”
Weighing and measuring the volume would not reveal whether there was an air bubble inside, or something else (besides gold).
Anyone had a similar experience or just me?
Things just ain’t what they used to be. Maybe the density of gold has gotten smaller, like the bottles of OJ are now.
You know those cute little 8 oz cans of Diet Coke?
They’re now 7.5 oz.
Is the Eurozone’s bleak economic picture driving a stimulus-anticipation rally in their stock markets?
The banksters have won. We are all debt slaves now, even the proud Germans.
Now, even Germany has fallen prey to the euro-zone debt crisis
April 23, 2013, 5:32 AM
Even mighty Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy and primary growth engine, sputtered in April, according to a preliminary purchasing managers’ index reading, amplifying fears the region will continue to struggle to overcome a devastating recession that economists had previously hoped would come to an end in the second half of 2013.
The composite German purchasing managers’ index, or PMI, fell to a six-month low at 48.8 from 50.6 in March. A reading of less than 50 signals a contraction in private-sector output, the first for Germany since November.
The German data will raise fears “that the region’s largest growth engine has moved into reverse, thereby acting as a drag on the region at the same time as particularly steep downturns persist in France, Italy and Spain,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
For the euro zone as a whole, preliminary PMI readings made for bleak but not unexpected reading. The composite PMI was unchanged at 46.5, actually a smidge better than the forecast for a reading of 46.4 produced by a Dow Jones survey of economists.
But it’s the German data that will ring alarm bells, adding to the case for a rate cut or other steps by the European Central Bank. But the most important reaction will be watched for in Berlin, where the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected pleas to loosen fiscal policy in an effort to offset the impact of austerity on the region’s hardest-hit nations.
…
The proud Germans. Har.
Bulletin Ex-MF Global CEO Jon Corzine sued by trustee Louis Freeh
April 23, 2013, 7:59 a.m. EDT
Europe stocks rally on Spain auction, Italy yield
By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — European stock markets rallied on Tuesday, after a successful Spanish debt auction fueled confidence in the euro zone, sending yields on struggling nations’ government bonds sharply lower.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (XX:SXXP +1.83%) rose 1.3% to 289.39, adding to a 0.2% gain from Monday and on track for a third straight day of gains.
…
ft dot com
Stocks shrug off poor data
By Dave Shellock
A customer looks at a newspaper article displayed on a white board in front of an electronic stock board at a security firm in Shanghai, China©Bloomberg
Global Market Overview
Stocks put earnings worries to one side
Equities firm after volatile week
Growth concerns keep equities volatile
Equities slide on renewed growth worries
Tuesday 16:30 BST. A wave of bullishness swept through world equity markets as some encouraging corporate earnings reports out of the US and Europe offset fresh concerns about the outlook for global growth.
However, the upbeat mood did not extend to the industrial commodities complex, as Brent crude slipped back below $100 a barrel and the price of copper fell to a fresh 18-month low.
The latest worries about the prospects for the global economy came from a disappointing set of preliminary purchasing managers’ reports from China, the eurozone and the US.
The April HSBC-Markit “flash” manufacturing PMI for China came in at 50.5, less than the markets had expected and down from the previous month’s reading of 51.6. The export orders index suffered a particularly large fall. The data came hard on the heels of figures last week showing China’s first-quarter GDP growth slowing to 7.7 per cent.
Kit Juckes, strategist at Société Générale, said the importance of the PMI was as much to do with what they say about global demand, as much as the message about the Chinese economy.
“The export weakness tells us that demand elsewhere is soft – which we suspected anyway – and the ongoing rebalancing of the economy continues to argue for potential weakness in industrial commodities,” he said.
The Shanghai Composite equity index dropped 2.6 per cent in response to the data and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index retreated 1.1 per cent.
In Europe, the “flash” German PMI showed the country’s private sector contracting for the first time since November – a much poorer performance than expected.
Lena Komileva at G+ Economics said the figures were sufficiently weak to intensify the pressure on the European Central Bank to cut rates in June.
“With Germany unable to offset the austerity and credit crunch drag on growth in the periphery, and with excess capacity growing and business expectations falling, the only question is why the ECB has not cut rates already.” she said.
…
April 23, 2013, 7:00 a.m. EDT
Economic growth: Play it again, Sam
Commentary: Once more, slowdown follows early-year growth
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — When it comes to fluctuations in economic growth, we’ve heard this tune before.
For the fourth year in a row, the economy is slowing after a burst of speed earlier in the year. Growth in the first quarter of this year is generally believed to have hit the tape at a relatively healthy rate of 3%, after nearly stalling out in the fourth.
This pattern faked out the pundits, most of whom expected little or no growth in 2013’s opening period. They thought that the combination of the restoration of the payroll tax, along with sequestration would knock the economy for a loop pretty early on.
To their great surprise (and chagrin), these drags did not hit the first quarter, but they appear to be affecting the current period. The second quarter is definitely starting off on a weak note:
* Factory output slipped in March after a healthy rise in February;
* Payroll employment eked out an 88,000 gain last month — the smallest increase since last June;
* Retail sales fell 0.4% in March after rising a full percentage point in the previous month;
* Groundbreaking for single-family houses declined last month, while permits for future construction dropped a whopping 3.9%, reversing February’s gain;
* Finally, the index of leading economic indicators fell last month, the first such decline in seven months.
Put these all together and you spell slowdown.
…
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324493704578432961601644942-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html
Reid and Wal Mart support this. Corporate fascism and the democrats’ insatiable appettite for tax revenue continue to destroy the middle class.
nothing says status quo more than this.
Did you really expect obama and the democrats to oppose higher taxes - ever?
What infuriates me is how major pieces of legislation have to be rushed through the legislative process.
Obama care
Gun control
Major tax initiatives
Stimulus
Etc.
They don’t want the public to understand what they are doing - never let a crisis go to waste.
“Infuriates?”
Tell us how you really feel about Obama. Don’t hold back this time.
It seems he did already. People really need to read…
http://picpaste.com/tvWfYDuW.gif
No, lack of decent jobs continues to destroy the middle class.
Period.
wal mart jobs are crappy.
this bill that the democrats support improves wal mart’s competitiveness creating more crappy wal mart jobs.
I wonder why?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/usa-democrats-offshore-idUSN2821013620100928
Republicans block ending offshore jobs US tax breaks
No, lack of decent jobs continues to destroy the middle class.
Everyone I know is working and many are making a pretty good wage, certainly more than they have before. If you had read my previous post in Bits about my friends who got slammed by the tax man because they needed cash to pay real estate taxes, then you would understand: Taxes are a drag on the middle class. I am paying more taxes today than I have ever paid in my life… and it continues to increase, every year. Add in inflation and it’s no wonder our incomes can increase while our standard of living decreases.
Federal Income Tax
Social Security Tax
Medicare Tax
State Income Tax
Mandatory Health Insurance (or I pay a fine tax)
State Sales Tax
Real Estate Tax
Excise Tax
Fuel Tax (Federal and State)
Fees (License/Registration/Vehicle Safety Inspection/Dog License/Building Permit/Firearms License/Hunting License/Fishing License/etc.)
And don’t forget the payroll tax that employers pay on behalf of their employees (which I would pay if I was a 1099 Contractor/Self-employed). That money would otherwise be in my paycheck.
Only a socialist would think the tax burden on the middle class isn’t a problem…
If you live in a high tax northeast state, you can deduct your high property taxes, high state income taxes and high mortgage int. on your federal tax returns. A family of four with all of the above and an income between 100-200k probably pays a federal tax rate (after deductions) of 13-20%.
Yes, in the NE property taxes, sales tax and state income taxes are too high, but I don’t think the federal income tax is.
this
The entire tax burden is too high. And as your income approaches $150K, you lose many deductions. My family is in the particular position of earning more than we have in previous years while having a higher tax burden because of our AGI. In practice, this means we come out with less money at the end of the year then when we earned thousands less in income, but had a lower tax burden.
The liberals will say “You aren’t middle class if you’re earning that much” or “You can afford to pay all those taxes”. My point is that we’re not living an extravagant lifestyle… we live in a 2-bed apartment in an apartment building we own and drive a couple of late model Honda’s. In stead of being “comfortable” with our level of income, we have to sacrifice to get ahead, and it’s because of the taxes we pay, pure and simple.
The tax and spend liberals joke about the “disincentive” to work because of taxes, but it is quite true. We’re living it… earn too little to be really comfortable in MA and too much to get any breaks with little hope that our income will increase enough to make earning the additional money (and working the hours) worth it after taxes…
Yet I don’t see you giving up any of that money to be part of the “47%”.
You’re seriously out of touch if think anyone making half of that is going to have ANY sympathy.
Have you tried living on half of that lately?
Honestly, nothing personal, but HALF of the entire US workforce makes not even a third of that. And they aren’t all lazy or uneducated.
A third. Tried living on THAT lately?
“you can deduct your high property taxes, high state income taxes and high mortgage int. on your federal tax returns.”
screw the renters! off with their heads!
ecofeco,
The tax code is broken.
And our fearless leader is on a crusade to make it more broken, not reformed…as is desperately needed.
His latest gem is to propose that investors need to use their AVERAGE basis to determine gains when selling stock rather than the particular basis of the stock they are selling. This is a mess, with huge unintended consequences–there will be a disincentive to buy any more of any stock that you own already that has had a big increase in share price.
The only thing worse than spending 5 hours doing your taxes to find out you owe $500, is spending 20 hours doing your taxes to find out that you get $500 back.
Anecdotal.
73,000,000 people make $500 a week or less.
That’s almost half the entire us workforce. (156,000,000)
In other words, the majority of people used to be middle class, now the majority are working poor.
Everyone I know is working and many are making a pretty good wage, certainly more than they have before.
An everyone Donald Trump knows has a house in the Hamptons with servants to take care of it. It’s been pretty well documented for decades now that most new jobs being created in the economy are not good jobs.
The myth of the middle class continues to live on. Face it, the legendary “Middle Class” was just an anomaly, a statistical fluke that only existed for a few years in the 1950’s. I saw a poll the other day that showed most people with incomes between $22,000 and $38,000 considered themselves middle class now.
Got overdraft protection?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=30k%20millionaire
Hey, that sounds like my line
Feudalism very likely is the more stable economic model, vs “comfy middle class”. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be one of the serfs…
i jokingly tell folks that i could create a perfect and wonderful utopian society…cept that about 25% of the populous would have to be enslaved.
The billions of humanoids living on less than $2 a day must love their freedom. They may be starving, but at least they’re free.
Not clear they did much better under Feudalism. Not clear how free today’s $2/day folks are. Ahhh, the challenge of nuance…
If you’re starving, are you really free? Or are you just a slave to the basic requirements for survival: food, clean water, shelter.
The middle and lower classes are slaves to debt and the states respectively. In exchange, they are generally provided access to food and shelter. Seems to me, only those that are completely self-sufficient or very wealthy are truly free…
Seems to me, only those that are completely self-sufficient or very wealthy are truly free… Dead people are self-sufficient. I can’t say how free they are, though.
99% of this country is slaves to the other 1%. It might actually be more like 99.5% and .5%. Same thing, either way.
They key for the people at the very top of any power structure is, keep ambitions secret and keep the masses mostly happy or at least distracted. Distracting them by using “wedge issues” is a good strategy. Increasing their nominal pay and making them feel like they have “important jobs” making a “good wage” is another way. But in the end, all the real rewards flow to the very top. At the end of the day in this country, most people have very little to show for a life of very hard work, even if they have a self-described “good job”.
I basically applaud the people at the top for being what we call “gangsta”. They get the best of everything, meanwhile stupid americans commute long distances to increasingly fretful jobs and have less quality of life toiling in anonymity. (Note: Virtually all of these top people are incredibly white, but what’s gangsta is their ability to serve their own self interest and agenda, it’s the same for Obama as it was for G W Bush… except Obama is whiter than W.)
If you want to beat this system, you have to understand it and plan early. Even then, it’s a long shot.
If the 99.5% (or what have you) are slaves in the system, most in fact are content to be…
Indeed. Everyone wants to be a slave.
Most do.
Gov’t acting in loco parentis…
Where’s my Obamaphone…
Me gotz free of dem.
99% of this country is slaves to the other 1%. It might actually be more like 99.5% and .5%. Same thing, either way.
They key for the people at the very top of any power structure is, keep ambitions secret and keep the masses mostly happy or at least distracted.
You’re right on the money there. The true conflict in the economy is between the 1% and everyone else. One important form of distraction is to attract attention to other kinds of conflicts, such as blacks vs. whites, men vs. women, etc. I believe that a famous 19th century philosopher wrote about this, but I hesitate to mention his name here.
“The true conflict in the economy is between the 1% and everyone else.”
Historically, Feudalism has been a very stable social structure. Of course, the trick is not to be one of the serfs…
“the legendary “Middle Class” was just an anomaly, a statistical fluke that only existed for a few years in the 1950’s.”
The 1950s middle class did not live as high as we expect to today. We were middle-middle class.
We had a party line, landline phone. Long distance calls were a luxury. We had a black and white TV with 4 channels. The freezer was so small we had ice cream only on Sunday, when we would eat it for dinner (at noon).
We lived in a 3 BR, 1.5 bath house with a 1 car garage. I shared a room with my sister. We had 1 car. When I got sick at school on a day when my father had the car, the wife of his carpool partner picked me up at school.
My mother made most of our clothes. I had 3 dresses to wear in first grade. I wore the same dress 2 days in a row. She also made many of our Christmas decorations.
My father took his lunch to work every day.
Life was good. But our lifestyle would be considered lower middle class today. And we were not unusual.
I grew up a few miles away from Happy2bHeard. The people in our neighborhood lived the same way.
But you were middle class. It’s not about how many channels you got on TV but the how the economic pie was divided. The average CEO pay was about 20x of his employees back in the 50s, now that pay gap is over 380x.
Also note that maybe the only thing from your childhood that is still around is probably that house. All the rest of that stuff, the TV, car and clothes are gone but corporations can live forever.
All the rest of that stuff, the TV, car and clothes are gone but corporations can live forever.
I have a 40 year old pair of Fabiano hiking boots that are still usable. Since they weigh 7.5 lb, I don’t use them often.
The 1950s middle class did not live as high as we expect to today.
There was a lot of economic growth in the ’50s and ’60s and it was shared by people at all income levels. So the truly great time for the middle class and the working class was the early 1970s before the heavy inflation began.
And that was about the time that houses started to upsize.
Harry Reid and Wal Mart in bed with one another?
You don’t say.
Once again, neocons (i.e. “Wal Mart”) = progressives (i.e. “Harry Reid”). And Obama = Bush.
Walmart supports the internet sales tax legislation because they have stores in every state so they already have to collect the sales tax on internet sales in every state. If everyone else also has to collect the sales tax (if any), they are on the same footing as places that do not have physical stores in every state.
It isn’t about philosophy. It is about money.
It’s about competition. Destroy your rival’s competitive advantage and you have a greater chance of winning.
Online retailers with sales below $1 million will be exempt. So, this bill is directed at the likes of Amazon.com without coming out and saying it.
Except I’m pretty sure that Amazon is already collecting the sales taxes. Maybe they are still only doing it in places where they have warehouses (physical presense) but that is a larger part of country now? Anyway, I’m sure I paid sales tax on my niece’s birthday present. Not sure if Amazon has a warehouse in MD.
that’s good…glad those thresholds are permanent and can never be altered.
I’ve been paying sales tax at Amazon for a while, but we do have one of their distribution centers here.
The exemption on the first million dollars of sales is perfect- it gives an advantage to the true little guy. I’m surprised it’s in there, because it would be a great way to kneecap the little guy if it were required of everybody.
insatiable appettite for tax revenue ??
It may be the loss of revenue that is driving this….E-commerce is taking a huge bite out of retail sales tax revenue across the country…Thats revenue lost…Just listen to Sam Zell on a link posted above…Retail sales are going through a massive change due to e-commerce…And, as Sam Zell believes, its going to continue to increase…
This will have a wide swath of impact on retailers, commercial real estate owners, lenders and municipalities…I have heard an opinion that said 1/2 of all commercial real estate in the country could be bulldozed and we would not even miss it…Thats big…
i am not thinking about this from a tax perspective but from a competitiveness perspective.
more tax revenue in the short term in exchange for less competition in the marketplace is bad.
States also support an internet tax, especially states like Texas that have no income tax.
I see an opportunity for enterprising programmers to supply software that automates tax collection and payment.
I’ve dealt with e-commerce software. Not as a programmer, but as a merchant/user.
It seems to me that you’d need some sort of module that would ask the merchant what applies to his/her area. Take, for example, the City of Tucson. It has a sales tax and so does the State of Arizona.
You, the software user/merchant, enters the taxing amount for each of those jurisdictions, and, in most cases your customers are properly charged.
The problem lies with the zip codes. Some of those stretch across municipal boundaries. And, around here, people living outside the Tucson city limits don’t like paying city sales tax.
EL-ERIAN: Just As People Were Starting To Relax, The Sequester News Has Taken A Turn For The Worse
Mohamed El-Erian, Contributor | Apr. 22, 2013, 9:31 PM
Just as people were starting to relax – feeling that the warnings had been too alarmist – the “sequester” news took a turn for the worse.
The consequences go beyond confirming that an already sluggish U.S. economy will now face a fiscal drag of ½% of GDP this year (the first year of the sequester), adding to the 1% of GDP drag in the end-of-year “fiscal cliff” deal. They also suggest that we may never get a full handle on the negative effects of Congress’s self-inflicted wound.
The sequester, or the automatic set of blunt spending cuts triggered by Congressional polarization and dysfunction, was all over the news in the first few weeks of the year. Warnings got louder as we got closer to the trigger date. Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the trigger, the vast majority of Americans felt no effects
Many blamed the press for overhyping the issue. Some even pounced on the “false alarm” as confirmation that budget cuts, no matter how badly designed, could and should be pursued without hesitation. Just a few brave souls warned that it was only a matter of time until the adverse effects would become clearer.
I experienced a small reminder starting on Saturday evening. The airline I was flying the next morning sent me an automated e-mail warning me that “as a result of recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sequestration budget cuts, your flight may experience delays.”
On the plane the next day, the pilot informed us 20 minutes from our scheduled landing time that we had been placed on a “sequester hold.” After we circled for quite a while, we were cleared to land.
On arrival at the terminal, I glanced at the screens. Despite good weather, most incoming and outgoing flights were quite delayed. Then I received an automated e-mail from another airline. This one warned me that “due to FAA furloughs, airport and flight delays are possible.”
The next morning Libby Cantrill, a PIMCO colleague who follows the issue closely, confirmed that “sequester-related furloughs begin this week” across a number of federal agencies. Moreover, while problems were likely, she wrote that “they are not anticipated to catalyze members on the Hill to mitigate the sequester cuts for 2013.”
…
Snooze. It’s all the fault of the sequester!
The only thing keeping this economy alive are continuous expansion of federal spending and debt. Throttle that back and the economy shifts into reverse. What we really need are more gay marriages and fewer guns, yeah!
Throttle that back and the economy shifts into reverse ??
Like it or not I would agree….The patient is still in intensive care..Take away the needed medicine and patient dies or is permanently disabled…Generations just limping through life is nothing I want to witness…
It may be a long slow debase on the currency…Could take a lot longer…Who knows…Or, it may not work at all…Who knows…
i agree but it’s not medicine…more like methadone.
bingo
I experienced a small reminder starting on Saturday evening. The airline I was flying the next morning sent me an automated e-mail warning me that “as a result of recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sequestration budget cuts, your flight may experience delays.”
On the plane the next day, the pilot informed us 20 minutes from our scheduled landing time that we had been placed on a “sequester hold.” After we circled for quite a while, we were cleared to land.
On arrival at the terminal, I glanced at the screens. Despite good weather, most incoming and outgoing flights were quite delayed. Then I received an automated e-mail from another airline. This one warned me that “due to FAA furloughs, airport and flight delays are possible.”
Expect to see this story repeated 1,000 times.
And remember: Those pilots have unions. So do the air traffic controllers.
ft dot com
Last updated: April 23, 2013 1:31 pm
US budget cuts to hit Lockheed sales
By Robert Wright in New York
Lockheed PICN Two F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF©Reuters)
Lockheed Martin said US government spending cuts would reduce its sales for the year by $825m, as it became one of the first big military contractors to put a figure on the impact of the across-the-board reductions…
More proof that Obama hates job creators, hates the free market.
We need more weapons of mass destruction to combat the crises of global climate change caused by too many humanoids. Lockheed Martin makes excellent products to reduce over population.
Ah irony is a wonderful thing, is it not?
People shout for less government spending, and when it happens they wail and cry about loss of jobs.
In the immortal words of Something Awful, “derp derp derp”
The situation is quite artificial though. The budget sees a marginal drop in the increase of the budget, so suddenly a big visible target (four hour airport delays) pops up. Never let a crisis go to waste, I s’pose.
Reminder
PBS Frontline show tonight “The Retirement Gamble”
401K Scam
Released online as well as cable tonight.
Have a great day.
Good reminder, I had forgotten, but my DVR was set up for this a while back. Still would be good to watch tonight if possible and discuss with people here.
I have the trailer bookmarked. And I do plan to watch this one.
It would be great for Main Street America if the too-big-to-fail banks were broken up into small-enough-to-jail size.
Who gives a flying fork about ’shareholder value’? The main impetus of this should be to protect Main Street America’s wallets from systemic theft and future panic-driven ad hoc bailout demands.
Bank Investors Press Breakups to Add Value, Burnell Says
By Christine Harper - Apr 11, 2013 12:58 PM PT
Shareholders at the biggest U.S. banking conglomerates may demand breakups if valuations remain depressed, according to analysts at Wells Fargo & Co.
So-called universal banks such as Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) are trading at a 25 percent to 30 percent discount to more-focused competitors, analysts led by Matthew H. Burnell wrote in a research report today. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), which concentrate on investment banking, trading and money management, are within 8 percent of the estimated value of their parts, the analysts wrote.
“Given the challenges posed by increasing regulation, higher capital requirements, and well-publicized trading/market challenges, it’s not surprising that investors remain reluctant to assign a ‘full’ valuation to the universal banks,” the analysts wrote. “If regulators and/or legislators don’t demand it, shareholders could also intensify demands to ‘break up the banks.’ ”
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I wonder what would happen if there mom-and-pop banks to compete with BofA, Wells Fargo, and Chase?
I wonder what would happen if there mom-and-pop banks to compete with BofA, Wells Fargo, and Chase?
Isn’t that what a credit union is?
No, credit unions have to be huge to start with. You have to have at least $5,000,000.00 to start a bank.
A bank is a bank is a bank.
Small or large, they will try and screw you. It’s in their nature.
A credit union is the least of the evils.
I miss the Savings and Loans that survived the great culling. Their customer service was second to none.
The banks that survived just tightened the screws even tighter.
Are radical Islamic terrorists stepping up their attacks on Western nations with weak immigration policies?
Three cheers for the Canadian Mounties!
Canada Police Make Two Arrests in Train Terrorist Plot
By Greg Quinn & Katia Dmitrieva - Apr 23, 2013 5:08 AM PT
Canadian police arrested two foreign nationals in connection with a plan to derail a passenger train in the nation’s first suspected terror plot involving al-Qaeda.
Police arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers said yesterday. The accused were taking advice from al-Qaeda sources in Iran, the RCMP said. The target was a VIA Rail passenger train in the Toronto area, they said.
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“Each and every terrorist arrest the RCMP makes sends a message and illustrates our strong resolve to root out terrorist threats and keep Canadians and our allies safe,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner James Malizia told reporters in Toronto.
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Other than having succumbed to the radical Islam mind virus, how were these terrorism suspects similar to the Boston bomber suspects?
Spain Arrests Two Terror Suspects with ‘Similar Profile’ to Boston Bombers
Spanish ministry says Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb suspects have similar profile to Boston bombers
By Gianluca Mezzofiore
April 23, 2013 10:32 AM GMT
Spanish authorities have arrested two suspected terrorists believed to be connected to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), according to the country’s interior ministry.
Algerian-born Nou Mediouni was arrested in Zaragoza while a second suspect, a Moroccan named Haszsan el-Jaaouani, was arrested in Murcia.
They have “a similar profile to the two suspects who carried out the Boston attacks”, the ministry said without going into detail.
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I think it is just the law of unintended consequences biting us in the AZZ. Osama loved the grand attack. Years to develop and a lot of resources to pull off. He wanted to attack significant targets such as the WTC. Due to their complexity, they were easier to foil. Now, with his death, his followers can pursue smaller more frequent targets which they always wanted to pursue. I am certainly not saying we should not have killed him, but it does have this unfortunate consequence. Interesting, during WWII we considered trying to kill Hitler early in the war. But soon we decided his stupid micro managing of his military was actually helping us win the war and his assassination was put on the back burner.
The reason we made the right call in killing him is the Islamic mindset that everything is Allah’s will. Thus, unsuccessful attacks such as the missile attack by Clinton against Osama and the Tora Bora fubar made many Muslims believe Allah was protecting him. Consequently, killing him was the right call even with the unfortunate result that it might result in more frequent and difficult to defend attacks on the US, at least for a while.
“The reason we made the right call in killing him is the Islamic mindset that everything is Allah’s will.”
But how will we check out your conspiracy theories now that he is dead and gone? Dead men tell no tales…
Do you mean Osama or Obama? And weren’t some of those plane highjackers from Indonesia? The were childhood friends with Obama, riding bikes and playing soccer and eating dog meat together.
And by the way, in case some of you didn’t know, President Obama’s middle name is Hussein, the same name as the last name of that Iranian dictator baking yellow cakes and launching SCUD missiles full of WMD at our friend and ally Israel.
Goon, I actually share your concern that civil liberties are being stripped away justified by the war on terror. However, I think that the best way to prevent that is to prevent the attacks without stripping us of our liberties. Actions such as having tougher immigration rules particularly when we are dealing with Islamic nations. I am deeply concerned that once they are admitted in large numbers and become citizens it will be impossible to prevent attacks without essentially shredding the constitution. After we have a few suicide bombers blow up at the local malls, I am afraid that most Americans would be willing to give up their constitutional rights.
Thus, it is better to identify the real seriousness of the problem prior to passing an immigration bill which would result in citizenship for many that would have no problem attacking their fellow citizens.
Agreed, we need to be much picker about who we let into the country. The whole “Invade the world, invite the world” nonsense needs to stop.
Yeah, we should never have let those ******* Lanzas in. Or the Holmes’s or the Loughners, or the McVeighs or the Randolphs, or the Malvos or….
Maybe it would help if terrorism suspects were given fair trials. Might that prevent many theorists from concluding that the suspects are innocent victims of a bully-military state? Cause I know American citizens would never want to own a bully-military state.
Yes, I have a longer reply but it is hung up in cyber space.
The nonexistent bond bubble has flushed the standard tenets of modern portfolio theory down the toilet.
MARKETS
Updated April 23, 2013, 12:06 a.m. ET
Investors Fault a Model Portfolio For Falling Far Behind the Times
By CHARLES PASSY
One of the most time-honored strategies in investing may have finally run its course.
Generations of investors and financial advisers have relied on the so-called 60-40 asset allocation model, which calls for a portfolio with 60% invested in stocks—often via a broad index like the Standard & Poor’s 500—and 40% in government or other high-quality bonds, with regular rebalancing to keep proportions steady. But after a decade or more of out-of-the-ordinary market conditions, many investment professionals are tweaking the model or abandoning it altogether.
The 60-40 strategy is rooted in modern portfolio theory, first popularized in the late 1950s, which holds that diversification among asset classes helps boost returns. The problem, in a nutshell, is that low bond yields—driven by the Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping borrowing affordable—combined with historically low stock dividends have thrown the model out of whack.
Advisers who are turning away from the 60-40 strategy say they don’t see the situation improving significantly in the longer term. They point out that rising interest rates will have the effect of depressing bond prices.
Indeed, a 2012 study by Chris Brightman, head of investment management at Research Affiliates, a Newport Beach, Calif., firm that develops allocation strategies, predicts that a 60-40 portfolio will yield a 4.4% annual return from 2011 to 2020. If that turns out to be true, it would mark one of the worst decades ever for the strategy. In the periods 1981-1990 and 1991-2000, in contrast, the strategy yielded annual returns of 14.3% and 14.4%, respectively.
Such a slowdown could cause problems for adherents, especially when it comes to retirement planning. “You should not plug in an assumption that [a 60-40 portfolio is] going to return 7% or 8%,” Mr. Brightman says.
To replace the strategy, some financial professionals are turning to alternative investments—like commodities, foreign currencies, real estate or even private equity—that weren’t easily accessible or widely used when 60-40 method became popular. “Today’s tool kit is better,” says Steve Blumenthal, founder of CMG Capital Management in Philadelphia.
The conundrum is that there now are seemingly as many approaches to asset allocation as investment managers. Some experts advocate the “permanent portfolio” approach, developed by the late investment analyst Harry Browne, which splits money evenly among four asset classes: U.S. stocks, long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, precious metals and cash.
…
But they all agree that mere mortals such as you and I cannot time the market.
I just sent that article to my retired parents, with advice to avoid long-term bond funds like the plague.
HEARD ON THE STREET
Updated April 22, 2013, 9:52 a.m. ET
Consumer Meteor Strikes China’s State Dinosaurs
By TOM ORLIK
A common worry about China’s economy is that vested interests in the state sector will block reforms needed to raise household income and consumption. State-owned enterprises are certainly influential. But new technologies and demanding consumers can make them look less like all-powerful giants, and more like ungainly dinosaurs.
In telecommunications, for instance, popular web-based messaging systems like Tencent’s (0700.HK -1.33%) WeChat are a major challenge to state-owned China Mobile (0941.HK -0.91%). WeChat has more than 300 million users, sending voice and text messages over the web.
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So there was a plan after all and it’s working.
I wasn’t sure, but now I am.
I’m still not happy about the millions of Americans who have suffered for it. And it’s not over yet.
http://www.lpsvcs.com/LPSCorporateInformation/NewsRoom/Pages/20130423.aspx
The slow grinding away of distress continues…
With 25 million excess empty, defaulted and delinquent houses, we’re going to be grinding lower for a long time. A very long time.
Well, this just deals with the defaulted/delinquent, and the EXCESS of those over “normal” times is approximately 2.5 million (total of 5 million…10% non-current, “normal” is about 5%).
Well post up when youre ready to “deal” with the other 23 million.
We have discussed this, in great detail–and you choose to ignore it (or simply don’t understand it), favoring instead unsubstantiated number screaming.
1. Best I can tell, you’ve rounded up to 25 million of vacant/distressed. The number I get is 23 million (5 million distressed, 18 million vacant).
Key to all this data is recognizing that you will never have 0 loans that are non-current, and 0 vacant homes, so you must establish a baseline as to what is “normal” to determine how far out of whack we are.
2. Of the 5 million that are in some stage of distress, approximately 300k are “zombies” (vacant in the foreclosure process…90k of which are in FL–per RealtyTrac). Most are filled up with bodies. A “normal” level of distress is 2.5 million housing units–lots of people occasionally miss a payment, even in good times. The excess of distress is 2.5 million homes.
3. The number of vacant units as of Q4 2012 was about 18 million, which represents 13.5% of all housing units. The last time this number was below 10% for Q4 was Q4 1985. Most typically (the average from 1985-2000) we have been at about 11%. So, the excess vacancy right now is about 2.5% of all housing units, or approximately 3.3 million excess vacant units (of which 300k are included in the 5 million above).
So, nationally we have 2.5 million of distressed housing to burn off, and about 3.3 million excess homes (assuming 11% of all housing units is the normal amount of vacant units) to absorb with newly formed households.
Since you can’t easily move housing units around the country, the important question is WHERE are these excess units of distress and vacancy? Which is why I track 2 things with great regularity:
1. Non-current loan rates by state (as published by LPS monthly); and
2. Vacancy rates by state (as published by the Census quarterly).
The dominating trend for #1 is that non-judicial states have been much better at burning off the inventory than judicial…increasingly the excess distress is being left in judicial states (northeast and Florida predominantly).
Vacancy rates aren’t as clearly delineated between different types of states. However, since what I care most about is CA, it is worth noting that CA vacancy rates are now at pre-recession levels (and below the national average by a pretty wide margin).
The next release of the LPS data is scheduled for May 1st (but they are always late);
The next release of the Census Vacancy data is scheduled for April 30th (they are generally on time).
1) 23 or 25 million excess empty houses is a distinction without a difference. Rain drops in the desert my lying friend.
2)Only liars math gets you from 25 million excess empty houses to 5 million.
3)Vacancy rates are still at record highs.
Again, only liars math gets you from 25 MILLION excess empty houses to 2.5 million.
What we know is there are 4 MILLION excess, defaulted, empty or delinquent properties in CA and rising.
What we also know is an additional 35 MILLION houses just beginning to hit the market as boomers die off results in 60 MILLION excess empty houses.
And enter the unsubstantiated number screaming, and proof you have trouble reading.
I got down to 2.5 MM excess distress, and 3.3 MM excess vacant (with only minor overlap of 300k).
The data sources were:
RealtyTrac
LPS
Census
There are not 25 million excess vacant and distressed homes.
There are (by my estimation and explanation above) 5.5 million, which are NOT evenly spread out.
Add on top the fact that a distressed house is not the same as a vacant house when thinking about shelter needs relative to population, and your 25 million looks less and less like analysis we should be fearful of, and more like a data tantrum that we should ignore.
You source from:
Realtor, MBA and their proxies
Why:
Because you’re a liar.
There are over 25 MILLION excess empty houses in the US….. and growing.
Furthermore: Population growth is the lowest in US history.
YOU are a known liar to be ignored.
ft.com > World > Asia-Pacific >
Japan
Last updated: April 23, 2013 3:55 pm
OECD sounds fresh warning on Japan
By Ben McLannahan in Tokyo
Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD, gestures during his press conference annnouncing the Economic Surveys of Japan 2013 at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on April 23 2013. OECD backed Japan’s bid to end years of deflation, but called on Tokyo to step up efforts to shrink its huge debt pile.
The OECD has warned Japan that taming its vast debts remains the country’s “paramount policy challenge”, as prime minister Shinzo Abe goes all out to reflate the sluggish economy via aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus.
During a visit to Tokyo to present the OECD’s bi-annual review of Japan, secretary-general Angel Gurría said he welcomed Japan’s “gutsy bet” to boost growth, but stressed that it should be accompanied by a detailed “blueprint” to put the country’s finances on a more stable footing.
Next year the OECD expects Japan’s gross debt to approach 240 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest ratio in the developed world.
“When you are at [this level], going for fiscal stimulus is not intuitive,” said Mr Gurría, in an interview with the Financial Times. “But at the same time, getting some growth on the books is the only way you’re going to be able to solve the debt conundrum. It’s a careful balancing act.”
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Where oh where art thou, RAL?
I feel like a Ninja Turtle without Master Splinter.
He’s living in your head…. rent free.
I was just going to post that as a gif.
You ruined it for me.
Bulletin Dow industrials up more than 150 points at intraday high
April 22, 2013, 1:29 p.m. EDT
CAT is a cautionary tale on China
Earnings season is making Wall Street into a stock-picker’s paradise, according to Brian Frank of the Frank Value Fund, as long as they’re willing to buckle down and do their homework. And he says companies like Caterpillar are suffering from an over-reliance on what had been extremely strong growth in China.
Did you see the Twitter crash? If you blinked you missed it but the DOW dropped 140 points in 30 seconds, reversed and went back to +135. The internet is the most amazing thing humans have ever invented connecting billions of people and machines in real time. Kevin Kelly says it maybe the most dangerous thing ever invented too.
“If you blinked you missed it but the DOW dropped 140 points in 30 seconds, reversed and went back to +135.”
World’s fastest flash crash, ever!?
This is tweet!
It is encouraging to know that at some level, stocks respond to fundamentals, though also shocking to realize that fake news can trigger a selloff.
U.S. stocks briefly erase all gains after fake AP tweet on Obama
April 23, 2013, 1:37 PM
The U.S. stock market plunged in early afternoon trading Tuesday, briefly wiping out a triple-digit advance by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA +0.87%), after a fake tweet appeared on the Associated Press’s twitter feed describing a terror attack on the White House.
During the momentary plunge, the Dow fell 145 points, turning briefly negative for the day after being up more than 135 points.
It quickly rebounded and was lately up 120 points.
Treasury prices surged at the same time, sending interest rates sharply lower before the Associated Press said it had been hacked. Oil also fell sharply during the period before the tweet was retracted. The CBOE Volatility Index VIX -3.82% also spiked on the fake tweet.
The AP’s Twitter feed falsely said that there had been two explosions at the White House. Here’s the subsequent explanatory tweet from the wire service.
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Sadly for the gold bugs*, today’s price declines are not spontaneously vanishing.
* By “gold bug,” I mean anyone who believes that gold is a special investment class which always goes up.
The Internet is going to change everything. The PTB can’t stop it, but they are trying like hell.
We’re not quite 20 years into it, yet.
You’ve got that right, ecofeco. I’m chuckling over all this talk about the surviving Boston bombing suspect being radicalized online.
I’m tempted to ask friends and family how their online radicalization is going today.
I wonder how many people were “stopped out” of positions that they would have preferred to hold onto?
“stopped out”
Scariest comment on this thread!
Remember that ECRI recession call so long ago? When are they going to admit they had it either a) wrong, or b) WAAAY too early?
I don’t think that they’ll admit to being wrong or premature in their call. And I don’t think this is a recession. It’s a depression.
It’s a depression.
People are, one by one, coming to that conclusion.
And you know how some of us have reacted to that reality?
Cut our housing expenses to less than 1/7th of net income.
We were un/underemployed for a large part of 2009 and 2010, but just coming out of grad school in 2008, it wasn’t that big of an adjustment to revert back to that lifestyle.
The real loosers are people with mortgages and kidz, but I’m sorry to say, both of those forms of slavery are self-inflicted. I can cut my *FUN* budget by 100% tomorrow and live like a grad student again if I had to.
Got a mortgage? Got kidz? You got slavery.
You made your bed, now lie in it.
Also notable: Wealth and income disparities last reached current levels of extreme JUST BEFORE GD1.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Mayor Bloomberg: Interpretation of U.S. Constitution Will ‘Have to
Change’ Following Boston Bombings
By Billy Hallowell | The Blaze – 9 hrs ago
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg believes that the Boston Marathon bombings have created a unique scenario — one in which traditional interpretations of the U.S. Constitution must change. Rather than shying away from cameras and other security mechanisms that some view as infringements upon individual privacy, the politician claims that the most recent attack calls for a new paradigm.
As for those who fear government intrusion and express serious concerns about how these technologies and other policies could impede privacy, Bloomberg is sympathetic — but only to a point.
“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry, but we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will,” Bloomberg said during a press conference on Monday. “And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”
He went on to note that we live in a dangerous world and that there are some who wish to take away Americans’ freedoms, the Observer’s Politicker reports. But in order to protect these sentiments, Bloomberg argued that more intensive security is necessary.
“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he continued.
As the Observer’s Politicker notes, Bloomberg also invoked gun control while making his point about the Constitution and security. In connecting what he said is the Supreme Court’s recognition that there are some interpretations of the Second Amendment that give way to “reasonable gun laws,” the mayor said that the nation will also need to “live with reasonable levels of security.”
Bloomberg went on to argue that the Boston attack should not be used to go after specific religious groups. And he heralded the importance of striking a balance between enjoying personal freedom and ensuring security.
“What we cant do is let the protection get in the way of us enjoying our freedoms. You still want to let people practice their religion, no matter what that religion is,” he said. “And I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That’s not true…That would let the terrorists win. That’s what they want us to do.”
http://news.yahoo.com/mayor-bloomberg-interpretation-u-constitution-change-following-boston-122045169.html - -
So long as the stock market keeps going up, why does real economic activity in the leading economies even matter?
Just pour your life’s savings into stocks and real estate investments, wait a few months, and wake up to find yourself as rich as a king. Everybody should take advantage while the music keeps playing of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich!!!
China’s factories crawl and Germany’s shrink
Andy Bruce, Reuters | 13/04/23 |
Last Updated: 13/04/23 11:32 AM ET
More from Reuters
Growth among the legion of Chinese factories slowed to a near-crawl as export orders dwindled.
NEW YORK/LONDON – Major economies in North America, Europe and Asia lost some momentum this month, a clutch of business surveys showed on Tuesday, raising concerns about the strength of the global recovery.
China and Germany, the world’s biggest exporters, both lost a step in April. Growth in Chinese factories slowed to a crawl as export demand dwindled, while the euro zone’s largest economy saw business activity decline for the first time in five months.
U.S. manufacturing grew at its most sluggish pace in six months as domestic demand dried up, suggesting the world’s biggest economy started to lose ground in the second quarter.
The U.S. data “will obviously add significantly to concerns, most recently related to the softer China and German data, that another seasonal slowdown in the global economy is taking hold,” said Alan Ruskin, Deutsche Bank’s head of G10 currency strategy.
More than three years after the global recession, sluggish activity in rich and poor countries has confounded policymakers who have tried mightily to kick-start growth.
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ft dot com
Last updated: April 23, 2013 7:17 pm
Clouds darken over global outlook
By Claire Jones in London and Michael Steen in Frankfurt
An employee works beneath the wheel arch of a Porsche AG automobile as it travels along the production line inside the company’s factory in Stuttgart, Germany©Bloomberg
Signs of weakness clouded the world economic outlook on Tuesday after a leading business survey indicated the contraction in eurozone manufacturing activity gathered pace this month, while industrial expansion also slowed in the US and China.
The closely-watched flash – or initial – Markit purchasing managers’ index for euro-area manufacturing dipped to a four-month low of 46.5 in April, far below the 50 level that separates growth from contraction. The composite index for Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, fell sharply to 48.8, a six-month low.
Separately, Spain’s central bank estimated the Spanish economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the first three months of the year despite a pick-up in exports.
With top eurozone officials increasingly concerned that the bloc has hit the political limits of austerity in the face of growing opposition in recession-hit countries, the gloomy data add to pressure on the European Central Bank to cut rates next week.
The manufacturing PMIs also suggested manufacturers in the world’s two largest economies were suffering from a slowdown in global economic activity.
Julian Callow, economist at Barclays, a bank, said: “The conventional wisdom was that the global recovery would gain momentum as the year rolls on. But if you look at what has happened to manufacturing confidence in recent months, it’s looking a little more doutbful that the world economy will pick up in the second quarter.”
Last week, the International Monetary Fund called for more economic stimulus after shaving its estimate for global growth this year from the 3.5 per cent forecast in January to 3.3 per cent. The fund also cut its estimate of eurozone output, forecasting that the bloc’s economy will shrink by 0.3 per cent this year, rather than the 0.1 per cent contraction predicted at the start of the year.
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Yegads!
April 23, 2013, 6:28 p.m. EDT
Charges dropped against ricin suspect: reports
By Wallace Witkowski
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against Paul Kevin Curtis, a Mississippi man accused of sending letters containing the deadly poison ricin to U.S. President Barack Obama, a senator and a state judge, according to media reports late Tuesday. Curtis, 45, was charged last week with sending the letters and had been released on bond. The FBI is reportedly continuing with the investigation.
That seems like a fairly serious wrongful accusation. The MSM reported the story as though the guy’s guilt was just as obvious as that of the Boston bombers. I heard him interviewed on the radio this evening; he claims to have no idea what ricin was, and was so utterly confused when he was arrested that he told the cops he “doesn’t even eat rice.”
WTF!?
“AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department laid out its case in a lawsuit against Lance Armstrong on Tuesday, saying the cyclist violated his contract with the U.S. Postal Service and was “unjustly enriched” while cheating to win the Tour de France.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CYC_ARMSTRONG_DOPING?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Can we add to JD’s list of unjustly enriched?
‘Inventory shortage plague greater Minnesota’
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/204166651.html
Comment:
‘The short supply in housing is artificial. The Fed and the banks are holding on to millions of foreclosures trying to constrict the supply in order to boost prices. How many empty homes have all of you been seeing in your neighborhoods lately? They are everywhere in my town. Just sitting there waiting for the next housing bubble to take hold.’
Funny how the press never thinks to ask how come there’s a “shortage” of houses in every corner of the country at the same time.
You can’t get any more truthful than that. It’s good to see there are a few people out there that can speak honestly and intelligently about housing.
‘Funny how the press never thinks to ask how come there’s a “shortage” of houses in every corner of the country at the same time.’
St00pid is as st00pid sez.
“Funny how the press never thinks to ask how come there’s a “shortage” of houses in every corner of the country at the same time.”
The reporters usually reflect what they’ve seen, and their editors rework the content to accommodate the paper’s advertisers. Money.
“Funny how the press never thinks to ask how come there’s a “shortage” of houses in every corner of the country at the same time.”
Holding onto millions of foreclosures? The most common number I’ve heard is 500k of REO at any given time, and most homes in the foreclosure process are still occupied by people (ie. not just empty and sitting there).
Could any of it have to do with the sustained collapse in housing development in every corner of the country at the same time, for many years?