Bits Bucket for April 30, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
November 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Q: What would happen if a state raised $7 Billion in new taxes to better education.
A: It would ALL go to teacher’s pensions.
Q: Can you still say it is for the children?
A:….
————————————
As we predicted, pensions eating up Prop. 30 education funds
calwatchdog.com | 04/29/2013 | John Seiler
In the lead up to the November 6 election last fall, CalWatchDog.com ran several articles on Proposition 30 and pensions. We warned that the $7 billion tax increase would go not to schools, as advertised by Gov. Jerry Brown and others in TV ads, but to teacher pensions and other spending. I’ll quote some below.
The news now is that this is exactly what is happening. David Crane, a Democrat who was a budget adviser to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has the facts in a Bloomberg article:
“Most Californians would be surprised to learn that 100 percent of education’s share of the tax increase proposed by Governor Jerry Brown will go to pensions instead of classrooms. But that would be no surprise to longtime observers of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which administers teacher pensions.
With returns on investments so close to zero, aren’t pension funds legally obligated to fill the funding gap with contributions?
No.
The shortfall can (and apparently is) being made up through money coming from elsewhere in government. This is why pension reform is so important, and the money being shifted to Calstrs for Prop 30 is exactly why I vote pretty much the opposite way that the CTA suggests.
Ditto, Rental. I was horrified at how easily this proposition snuck past the critics. Sold as a “tax on the rich”, it essentially diverted funds from the very civil-servant demographic it’s supposedly giving them back to.
Then there is the “fire tax” (a triple taxation of rural areas for maintaining redundant services from State and Wildlife fire services — which goes to support firefighter pensions. I’m waiting for the “earthquake tax” in LA, SF and San Diego to support CalTrans pensions, the “gang force” tax in South Central and Stockton to support the Justice/DA’s pensions, the “evaporation tax” for water to San Bernardino/Riverside to support the DWP’s pensions, etc.
Basically the only defense of those of us still not employed by state government is to go on food stamps/MediCal to offset the hit to our state taxes.
How much less would pension funds have to pay out if we had single payer health plans?
I don’t know any teachers who are retired who are living high off the hog. In fact, most of them come back to substitute teach or take another part-time job in order to make ends meet.
Teachers pay into their pensions every month. I pay into mine to the tune of $700 month. We don’t get social security either.
Who is getting rich off pensions?
Fund managers and health insurance companies. Not retired teachers.
Who is getting rich off pensions?”
not me I don’t have one although I do get to pay for them.
Prop 30 was sold as a way help the schools, not the teacher’s pension system. It is now wrong to divert the funds away from the schools to the pension system (perhaps not illegal, but wrong).
The average annual salary for (CA) teachers in 2010 was $64,156 and the average retirement benefit was $51,072 annually
The most common retirement income level for 2010 is between $15,000 and $19,999 annually.
Read more: http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/California_public_pensions#ixzz2RzmhIMD7
Roads
Bridges
Police
Firefighters
Affordable medical care
Education
carney sited all of the above when commenting on the administrations support of the internet tax.
and the NRA are liars?
Yes, I can say it was for the children.
It for the Gen X children who were taught 25 years ago.
California was able to afford better teachers for cheaper pay and lower taxes years ago, in exchange for pensions now. I didn’t hear anyone complaining about lower taxes 25 years ago. Now it’s time for Gen X to pay up — if their jobs hadn’t been outsourced.
Money is fungible; all the taxes go into the same kitty. The Governor’s commercials could have said that the baseline taxes would pay for pensions and the increase was needed for new textbooks now, and been just as accurate.
Maybe the larger question is why California’s citizens don’t value its teaching force enough to give it six-figure pensions?
Maybe it’s because many people in this state don’t think they got a very good return on that investment?
It could be worse. Here in Illinois there are public employees who get more in pension than they ever earned.
This morning I heard on the radio a protest going on in South LA about kids not being allowed to eat breakfast in class, amoung other things because it makes a big mess.
some guy said it was unfair, I wonder if he pays any taxes at all ? probably was from Bell ?
Union officials representing school cafeteria workers led a noisy rally of parents Tuesday to save a Los Angeles Unified classroom breakfast program that feeds nearly 200,000 children but was in danger of being axed after sharp criticism by teachers.
Even as the majority of LAUSD school board members indicated they would vote to continue the program, about 100 parents turned out at Hooper Elementary School in South L.A., waving noisemakers and signs in Spanish and English to save the breakfasts.
One mother, Janet Torrez, said her two sons prefer to eat at school rather than at home but that a previous before-school meal program didn’t work because the children chose to play during the time instead. The classroom breakfast, she said, ensures her sons start their school day with a nutritious meal.
“I don’t want them to take the breakfast away,” she said. “This program is really important for the kids to eat and open their minds.”
a previous before-school meal program didn’t work because the children chose to play during the time instead.
I would argue that a kid who would rather play than eat is probably not mal-nourished.
Show me an actual mal-nourished kid, and I’ll show you one who will show up when you are handing out free food.
Don’t teachers, uh, teach, well, you know, children?
You would think, but reality seems to be different.
“A: It would ALL go to teacher’s pensions.
Q: Can you still say it is for the children?”
Reneging on pension promises would not only be illegal, but it would also be a good way to convince any working California teacher who was competent enough to get a job in another state to do so.
Interview with the grad student who found and detailed the math errors in Reinhart/Rogoff’s paper in sport of austerity:
http://qz.com/79051/thomas-herndon-the-grad-student-who-exposed-reinhart-and-rogoff-they-still-cant-get-their-facts-straight/
Most shocking is that it was a first year grad student.
“Most shocking is that it was a first year grad student.”
Not at all. Lots of first-year econ grad students have very good math backgrounds.
I’m not shocked that he worked it out, I’m shocked that _no one_ else looked at the numbers first. Before papers like Reinhart/Rogoff are published, they are circulated widely. People had a chance to look at the math, even people who should’ve been skeptical. We do the same thing, we circulate any whitepaper or client advisory about a week before it goes out and you can bill time to trouble-shooting or playing skeptical. I always try to find errors or counterpoints because it improves the paper and if I ever find something big, I’m going to get credit for it. So I’m shocked _no one_ who looked at this paper didn’t catch this before it became public and worked its way down to a 1st yr grad student. This was a math mistake and not a particularly complex one, all you’d have to do to see it is go back through the numbers.
“This was a math mistake and not a particularly complex one, all you’d have to do to see it is go back through the numbers.”
Do the anonymous reviewers get paid extra for catching math errors?
I can assure you that first year graduate student does…
At least some of the people who were intimately familiar with the papers would’ve been Harvard grad students who are very familiar with Reinhart/Rogoff’s work and with austerity policies in general. Then you have a legion of new profs and grad students fighting over limited tenure track jobs… you’d think there would be a lot of incentive.
Stephen Colbert interviewed that grad student on his show. During his introduction he mentioned that the paper had not been peer-reviewed. That’s pretty interesting. It’s probably the one bit of new economic research that has gotten the most attention over the past five years.
“During his introduction he mentioned that the paper had not been peer-reviewed.”
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
They didn’t release the spread sheets until very recently. It was new information.
They didn’t make them public, there were at least a few groups of people that saw them before the study was published.
But not a large enough group for anyone in it to be interested in trying to reproduce the results. If they had released all the data with the paper, then someone would have checked through it before now - probably looking for something less bone headed than a coding error, but they didn’t release the information to anyone who read the paper.
Arrogant jerks.
Most shocking was the simple error (averaging the wrong range in a spreadsheet).
I give the guy credit for looking at the detail.
I give the guy credit for sticking to his guns when he raised the issue with his professors.
I don’t give him credit for being some sort of genius. He might be, but he has yet to prove that.
In most situations I have encountered in this world, diligence trumps genius.
Said another way, genius without diligence doesn’t get you very far. Competence with diligence keeps you employed.
And cheating trumps both.
Sorry to disagree, but cheating catches up with you…in a big way (either in damaging your reputation, or causing legal problems).
And who you know. And who your daddy knows.
Being aggressive technically isn’t cheating. Gaming the system also isn’t cheating.
Gaming the system also isn’t cheating.
It’s certainly not fair play…
All is fair in love and war…
diligence trumps genius ??
The world is full of educated derelicts… Persistence…Diligence are omnipotent…
To be clear, I didn’t say he was a genius. Far from it, if I had to guess I’d say this will probably be the height of his career. He found a major error in a heavily-tauted paper by a pair of ivy league professors (I think one of them is a former fed reserve governor?) and it basically invalidated the findings of said paper.
I’m just shocked that everyone else beat around the bush trying to poke holes in the results of the numbers (arguing that it shows correlation, not causation) rather than dig into the numbers. One of the best ways I’ve seen to find errors is to start from the foundation up.
Agree.
I’m reminded of an investment I was presented probably 15 years ago for evaluation. The profitability looked great. Instead of looking at second and third order matters (market, business plan details, etc.), I created my own spreadsheet to see if the profits made sense.
Turned out the developer forgot to include the cost of the land in the analysis.
The first thing we do before moving forward on any investment, is we recreate their financial model to confirm that we replicate their result (or come really close to it). You gain a lot of insight in to how the numbers flow by doing this…it’s not just a check, but it does serve that purpose as well.
Turned out the developer forgot to include the cost of the land in the analysis.
Was he going to build for $50 a square foot?
Was this “investment” for housing at $50/sq ft, by any chance?
ha
*pops popcorn, awaits RAL*
Well cowards…. considering ‘land’ can be had in all 48states under$1,000 an acre, what’s your excuse ? Seriously. Let’s hear it.
Heres your opportunity to demonstrate your bid estimating and analysis expertise.
One of you. Anyone of you.
No, it was a commercial property if I recall correctly. He had the cost of the land on the spreadsheet, but just didn’t include it in the analysis.
Oh yeah!!! “It’s the land!”, declares the liar. LMAO
You did the right thing Liar. Even though I’d love to see you post more of your BS bidding and contracting “knowledge”.
“what’s your excuse ? Seriously. Let’s hear it.”
Not wanting to live in the places where land can be bought for $1000 an acre no matter which state it is in. Because I am thinking about a place to LIVE, not an investment. Your analysis only works if you are planning to sell, not if you are looking for a place to live while retaining your current life.
You wouldn’t live in Westchester CO NY? Philly suburbs? Hartford CT suburbs? Dover, DE suburbs? Boston suburbs outside the 128 ring?
You’re not no more thinking about a “place to live” than you are of the question that was asked. You’re rationalizing and shooting in the dark because you just don’t know.
As I’ve said over, and over, and over again, I am not in construction, we don’t bid on projects. The developer procures bids from GCs as part of the development process. We invest in real estate (including development). In those development investments, construction is a line item in the overall budget, which also includes land, A&E, entitlement costs, permit costs, leasing and sales commissions, interest cost, other financing costs (points, etc.), etc.
Construction is simply one line item in the budget, but it isn’t the ENTIRE budget.
Even if the land costs 1K an acre there is the cost of the septic, a well, electricity, driveway. People expect these amenities. If you are in an urban area there is the cost of sewer and water hookups. The driveway is shorter but most cities require parking. Urban lots with utilities & roads cost more than 1K an acre unless the city is giving them away to a charitable organization.
And we’ve discussed the site package over and over again. You just don’t like the fact that the cost of the site package still doesn’t get you anywhere near your debt-junkie prices.
Reinhart/Rogoff kind of reminds me of Climategate. On a broader scale it just reenforces the populist idea that intellectuals are untrustworthy at best and evil at worst. Remember the economic professor that launched the Iceland Miracle with a study back in 2002 that lead to privatized the banking sector?
Reinhart/Rogoff accomplished what the authors had hoped would happen. Someone took them seriously and decided to experiment on the Greece and Cyprus economies.
*pops popcorn, waits for NostraDan*
“Remember the economic professor that launched the Iceland Miracle with a study back in 2002 that lead to privatized the banking sector?”
Do you mean Frederic S. Mishkin, one of the stars of “Inside Job” and a Federal Reserve insider?
“Most shocking is that it was a first year grad student.”
And it takes years for them to unlearn it. But that’s what a good econ course does.
/sarcasm
So, yesterday we were talking about Obama pushing subprime loans again. I asked, what kind of loans is Obama pushing? Are they fixed rates with fixed and fully amortized PITI? Or are they ARM, I/O or some other ninja loan where there is a grace period followed by a jump in payments?
I went googling and found NO good answer to this question. All I could find was that FHA wants a minimum credit score and 48% total debt-to-gross-income. Nothing about non-fixed payments. I think this is an important question. IMO, fully amortized PITI vs. income, not FICO, is the best indicator of ability to pay.
3% down.
And this relates to FICO, income, and grace periods how?
Isn’t it 3.5%? Don’t forget that last 0.5%, that’s the REAL skin in the game…
Also don’t forget those conforming loan limits*, to make sure FHA is only used to purchase affordable housing.
*Last I checked they were $729,750, but it’s been a while.
to make sure FHA is only used to purchase affordable housing ??
Yes but “affordability” differs across the country..
Materials and labor are within 5% across the country.
‘Affordability’ huh?
Liar.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/fha-underestimates-mortgage-delinquency-rates-study-says.html
Where in this bloomibergi article does it describe what type of loan Obama is pushing? I didn’t see it. They only show the record of loans made in 2007-2009. It is now 2013.
Of course Obama (like any President or any executive of almost any organization) doesn’t get down into the details about FICO scores or % down or debt/earnings ratios.
However, this is missing the bigger point. Obama is pushing the idea that “owning is better than renting” just like any other President in the last 100 yrs. It is this tacit support and grandstanding which enables or emboldens the GSEs to do what they do. Obama gets some of the blame for not doing more to slow down the GSEs and make them far, far more risk-averse. Congress, IMO, also dropped the ball big time. Both are responsible. However, it would be right to point out that Obama really isn’t doing anything much different than any President in the last century. It’s a slightly different song with some updated lyrics.
Bush housing bubble: pimp housing so bad loans were made that were securitized by the private sector and then have the government bail out the banks after it popped.
Obama housing bubble: pimp housing so bad loans are made that are securitized directly by the government.
Apparently oxide and crew think the second one is ok. At least Obama got rid of the middle man to make the mal-investment more efficient.
Where did I say that what Obama was pushing was OK?
I don’t even know what Obama is pushing.
That’s why I keep asking what Obama is pushing.
And evidently no one else knows either.
‘I keep asking what Obama is pushing’
You voted for him, you tell us.
Here’s one opinion, if you care to read all three pages:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/re_inflating_the_bubble_QgouEca5dJQOBb2iNOPNxJ
I think this writer had a good explanation:
‘The core problem is simple: from 1995 to 2008 home prices more than tripled (rose 200%+). Hence, if we round off to a 20% drop from peak levels, or 60% from 1995 levels when prices were a third of what they were in 2008, there’s still an increase of about 150% from the starting levels that needs to be dealt with. We can discount for, and let’s be generous, perhaps 50% for overall price inflation, but that still leaves us with a 100% increase, which is quite a bit more than the 60% absorbed so far.’
‘You see the problem by now, of course: like many other nations, the Dutch today feel quite strongly that they have suffered enough already, and someone somehow needs to revive the housing market. But like everyone else, the Dutch wish to wish away the problem of the not yet corrected part of the pricing model. In their case, they want 200% (1995+100%) to be the new normal (a.k.a. the new black).’
‘Not surprisingly, the government report says that A) all parties are to blame, and B) the government needs to get more involved, i.e. make sure loans become available for people who now can’t get them, a.k.a. people who are not the most likely prime candidates to buy a home that’s still some 33% overvalued. Though, admittedly, sucking in those last remaining suckers would prop up moribund builders, agents and lenders for a while longer. Whether that’s a government’s task is at the very least highly questionable (obviously, other countries, including the US, work on similar resuscitation efforts).’
‘Throughout the western world it’s been an active collaboration of the governments and the banks and the real estate industry and the builders. It’s a very simple story really: this is a widespread tale of western societies transforming themselves into pyramid schemes; or perhaps we should say one big global Ponzi scheme. And these Ponzi things collapse, and there’s nothing anyone can do to ‘fix’ that: the poisoned chalice must and will be emptied to the last drop. Only, the politicians - legally - have their hands in everyone’s pocket, so they can throw around trillions of dollars and euros to hide the process of the plunging system for as long as it lasts. That’s where we’re at right now.’
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=7698
‘The core problem is simple: from 1995 to 2008 home prices more than tripled (rose 200%+). Hence, if we round off to a 20% drop from peak levels, or 60% from 1995 levels when prices were a third of what they were in 2008, there’s still an increase of about 150% from the starting levels that needs to be dealt with. We can discount for, and let’s be generous, perhaps 50% for overall price inflation, but that still leaves us with a 100% increase, which is quite a bit more than the 60% absorbed so far.’
Clearly.
Now. Again and again, I’ve stated here that we supply the market with new product for a fraction of the cost of used product. It’s simple math as stated in the quote Ben posted. You may not like it. You might not agree with. But it doesn’t change that reality…. that truth. And for some of you, that truth is hard to face because you made the error of buying a house. It is what it is. Face it and get on with your life. If that means holding on to your melting ice cube or dumping it, so it is. It just is. Understanding the value of a dollar doesn’t come easy. For some it’s quite costly. And that’s what this is all about. Understanding the value of a dollar.
And heres another hard reality…. At current resale asking prices, we’re so friggin’ profitable that even with a 30% nominal decline in resale prices, we’re still earning 20%+ margin. That’s right.
To be fair, I think 1995 is nearly a “cherry picked” year. I agree with the basic premise however. I would prefer that a historic average of multiples of median income be used as the target point for “fair market value” of a house, with that multiple also being adjusted specific to location. That said, I wish this bubble would pop and we would get low 1995 prices and bankrupt these damn banks and scalawags.
All in good time.
Guys and outfits in this business are so hungry right now that working prices lower is in the bag.
If you think 1995 is cherrypicked, select any prebubble year.
I think Obama is pushing home ownership in general. Now, Bush advocated an ownership society too, but I suspect that the reasons were more general, perhaps with no more of an agenda than ramping up the sales at Home Despot.
I don’t know if Obama or his Admin realize this or not, but ISTM that the times are much more desperate for J6P than they were 10 years ago. The rich and the hedge funds have re-discovered that housing is a Need. They have accumulated the critical mass of cash and credit needed to buy up all the inventory and make us into renters until the day we die. J6P is trying to compete but he is fast losing ground every day.
This is why I’ve been asking, repeatedly, if these Obama mortgages are fixed-rate fixed-PITI. Not because I’m kissin’ up to Obama. Right now, the low interest rates make up for the higher prices to give the same PITI. Even if J6P has a low FICO, if he has a job and 3.5% down, he still has a chance of owning a house outright and avoiding the rentership fate. Maybe Obama wants to get as many people as he possibly can to buy houses with a good PITI, before Blackstone buys them all up.
J6P does NOT have this chance if he takes out a ARM-grace period mortgages.
“You voted for him, you tell us.”
As if housing is the only issue. Do you agree with Ron Paul on 100% of the issues?
“I’ve stated here that we supply the market with new product for a fraction of the cost of used product.”
PW, can you supply links to some of your developments? Do you build subdivisions or individual homes?
At current resale asking prices, we’re so friggin’ profitable that even with a 30% nominal decline in resale prices, we’re still earning 20%+ margin.
If that’s true, why aren’t you guys ramping up production to infinity and beyond? It sounds like a no-brainer.
And builders should be hiring like crazy, to support that crazy production ramp-up.
Are you?
We build everything. Power plants, dams, houses, parking garages, bridges, water plants, wastewater plants, water reuse facilities.
I posted before but I’ll dig up some images that protect our customers.
Why? Because houses are chump change.
Here’s what you housing worshippers just can’t seem to get past. Housing construction in dollar volume is a tiny fraction of the total. Low tech, low profit, low brow.
Step away from the housing altar.
As if housing is the only issue. Do you agree with Ron Paul on 100% of the issues?
You tell us in what other issues did Obama come through? Only one humble request, please be honest.
For me the biggest issue is the Supreme Court. He did not appoint another Alito or Scalia or Thomas.
‘For me the biggest issue is’ I like the left cheek of the same hairy ass.
‘Ron Paul exposes Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac in 2003′
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoKwB-JHn8
‘Ron Paul accurately predicts the US economic meltdown 10 years ago (2001)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNp1wf1T_k
‘Those Who Predicted the Economic Crisis now Give Warnings’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksiHXSyQssI
“‘For me the biggest issue is’ I like the left cheek of the same hairy ass.”
I don’t understand what you are saying. Do you believe that it doesn’t matter who is appointed to the Supreme Court? I respectfully disagree. I would hope you would give me the same respect.
debt pusher’s kryptonite asked for one example and I responded.
‘I don’t understand what you are saying.’
You are rationalizing. Instead of calling YOUR candidate on the carpet, you pick something you like and cling to it. He is reviving subprime loans. All hell should be breaking loose and you want to talk about the freaking supreme court? We’ll see how satisfied you are when the SHTF on these loans, and everybody is saying “I never should have been approved for…” blah blah.
This is what I can’t stand about politics in the US. People in this country can’t objectively observe what these elected people are doing and act on it. Jeebus, if this is another bubble, we’re gonna get hammered!
“You are rationalizing”
debt pusher’s kryptonite asked for one example and I responded. No President will do everything I want them to do. I either vote for an imperfect candidate or I don’t vote at all.
“People in this country can’t objectively observe what these elected people are doing and act on it.”
What action do you expect people to take? Will my objective observation necessarily lead me to the same action that yours will?
“if this is another bubble, we’re gonna get hammered!”
I see significant risk of getting hammered by bubbles in China and austerity in Europe. I may get personally hammered by housing bubble 2.0 in the next few months.
‘I either vote for an imperfect candidate or I don’t vote at all’
You can’t email the white house and tell them you don’t approve? We’re stuck with whatever these politicians do once elected? I’m no big organizer, but I drove across the country trying to get signatures to take to congress about shadow inventory. I was unsuccessful, but I didn’t sit here doing nothing.
Ben, Happy,
As odious as it seems, the alternative to having 33 million more people living in housing owned by corporations is further ceding our democracy to an increasingly-powerful oligarchy. In America “We the People” still ARE nominally the government, and it’s the duty of our elected POTUS to keep our system functioning for everyone. (Notice I said “functioning”, not “functioning efficiently”.) I absolutely agree that sub-prime mortgages as they were meted out before would be a disaster, but so far I’ve not seen any specifics on this latest proposal, so I’ll withhold judgment until I do.
That said, if the banking system fails completely because of an over-abrupt change to mark-to-market, (as it nearly did in 2008) how do you suggest we handle the years of social chaos while the global society transitions? Civil war is no bag o’ laffs, nor is outright foreign invasion.
In Galt World the theoretical flows seamlessly into the actual, and the bodies that pile up in the process magically disappear without consequence to the system at large. Do you expect that good-citizen America will simply say “Oh well, my Army/ pay/SS/pension check bounced this month. Guess I’ll have to eat cardboard for a few more weeks….” ? Or do you suppose that there soon will literally be blood in the streets? And vulture opportunists with bagsful-o’cash “snapping up” everything in sight a la fall of the Soviet Union?
The rule of law is a fragile thing. It requires the full faith and credit of the government to back it up. While it’s fun to speculate what a truly free-market libertarian society would be like, we’re unfortunately stuck with a very real mess — a mess we’re (all) in the process of restructuring. To that end, I’d prefer to err on the side of a populist authority (SOCUS) rather than a crony corporate one.
But that’s just me.
“You can’t email the white house and tell them you don’t approve?”
I can do that. And I have done so for other issues in the past. I don’t really expect it to have much of an effect.
But perhaps I need to find a way to multiply my efforts like you have done with this blog. Maybe I should start a chain email - “Be sure to send this to 5 of your friends or suffer 7 years of bad luck”
http://www.lender411.com/mortgage-articles/5434/fha-loan-default-rates-skyrocket/
I find your line of inquiry somewhat irrelevant. What is relevant is that the FHA offers mortgages for select groups of people which require cross-subsidization by those who don’t qualify.
This seems like lending discrimination, but I must be wrong, as the practice has been illegal for decades.
“I find your line of inquiry somewhat irrelevant.”
And I find our blog debt-junkie’s charade mildly amusing.
+1…but i think it’s more of an obama-junkie charade. oxide just can’t admit it. she is really beginning to lose all credibility.
she is really beginning to lose all credibility.
By asking whether the new loans being made are NINJAs, ARMs, I/Os, etc?
Seems like a reasonable question to me. Does anyone know the answer?
more evidence of her undying devotion to a president’s failed/failing policies just because he has a D after his name.
think about how you feel about 2B…it’s the same thing.
Voicing your Obama trauma at every opportunity strips you of credibility.
i don’t have obama trauma…i have crony capitalist neoliberal status quo trauma.
…and the republican house has just as much responsibility in this housing bubble 2.0 as the senate, obama, and federal reserve.
P-bear, could you tell me which groups don’t qualify and are being descriminated against?
—————
“Generally, to be eligible for an FHA loan, you must have a valid social security number and have lawful residency in the United States and be of a legal age to sign on a mortgage in your state. Lenders will verify income, assets, liabilities, and credit history for all parties on the loan.
FHA’s mortgage programs do not typically have maximum income limits for qualifying, although you must have sufficient income to qualify for the mortgage payment and other debts.”
http://portalapps.hud.gov/FHAFAQ/controllerServlet?method=showPopup&faqId=1-6KT-962
It’s basic reverse discrimination: If you don’t belong to a list of Democrat-favored minorities, you don’t qualify.
Oxide, do you “get it” now, or do I need to post ten more articles that spell this out in plain English?
Mortgage Programs for Minorities
by Amber Keefer
Government programs are available to assist minority families to achieve homeownership.
Several programs sponsored by the federal government offer a variety of financing strategies to help make homeownership affordable to more Americans. Many of these programs specifically target minority households, which traditionally have been underserved in the mortgage industry. Some mortgage programs partner with other governmental agencies, lending institutions and community nonprofit organizations to help make the dream of owning a home come true for more families across the nation.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Native American Programs offers housing assistance for Native American families (see Resources). The goal of these programs is to ensure that low-income Native Americans can obtain affordable and safe housing and are offered opportunities for homeownership. Income-eligible American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian families can apply for the affordable housing opportunities these programs offer.
Fannie Mae
Fannie Mae offers mortgage programs designed to help families and individuals with low to moderate incomes. Lenders offer mortgage options that can help minority applicants afford and qualify for a mortgage loan (see Resources). Some of the benefits of these loan programs include lower closing costs, lower down payment requirements, credit opportunities for those with little credit history or less than ideal credit, in addition to a number of repayment options. Fannie Mae is active in the communities it serves and works closely with other organizations to help ensure that more people can get mortgages to buy their own homes.
FHA Loans
The Federal Housing Administration offers loan programs that can help minorities who want to be homeowners. Individuals do not need to have a high credit score to be eligible for an FHA-guaranteed loan as it is easier to qualify than when applying for a conventional home mortgage loan. Another benefit of applying for an FHA loan is that approved lenders require a lower down payment, as little as 3 percent, according to HUD. This makes it possible for people who can afford a mortgage but who do not have enough money to cover a higher down payment to still be able to buy a home. Interest rates are also lower.
…
“Federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on your race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. If you have been trying to buy or rent a home or apartment and you believe your civil rights have been violated, you can file your fair housing complaint online by clicking the Housing Discrimination Complaint button below. ”
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_discrimination
she will never get it.
“Federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on your race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.”
Openly flouting the law lowers it to the status of propaganda.
The biggest irony is that the discriminatory lending programs supported by HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and probably other federal agencies I don’t know about royally backfired by saddling the low-income and minority families they were designed to “help” with unrepayable debt burdens.
You are better off to be outside the target groups for this kind of discrimination.
P-bear, why are you doing this? You know full well the difference between “target” and “discriminate.”
she will never get it.
She doesnt want to get it. If she ever gets it, her worlds will collide.
…..even the cows can program the VCR!
It’s too late to stop what’s coming. The questions are how bad it will be and how many will be involved. We can now point to housing bubbles all over the world, in various stages. Maybe more than existed in 2005. And a replay of the “race to the bottom” lending should perhaps not be surprising. The idea of a reversal in the prices is probably terrifying to the PTB. Given the global nature of this thing, and that there is likely a bubble in stocks and bonds, the destruction of wealth may be unprecedented.
I can’t see a way that they back down. We’ve seen 14 central banks creating money like mad for years. Years of artificially low interest rates have created distortions in almost every part of the economy. How do they turn back? Announce that they were wrong all along? (Greenspan actually pulled that off, BTW). I don’t see that happening. So if that’s the case, it will be pedal to the metal until something blows.
If there was a point when something could have been done, it was when Bernanke announced he was targeting house prices to reduce unemployment. No one in DC challenged it, even though there was no proof it could work. There was lots of evidence it would make things worse. And here we are, like a cat that climbs a tree, going higher because he’s afraid to go back down.
Allow me to jump ahead in this movie. In the future, will people ask if they knew they were creating a bubble? That these loans were “designed to fail”? How will history view the spectacle of Fannie and Freddie providing the fuel for yet another economic flame-out?
“It’s too late to stop what’s coming. The questions are how bad it will be and how many will be involved.”
While I’d love to make a bold prediction, I’ll go with an obvious one. Quote from random ‘professional’: “Just like in 2005, no one could have seen this coming.”
I maintain that the bubble was foreseen at its inception as a means of minimizing the growing US trade imbalance with China. Perhaps it got out of hand, or perhaps it was intended to burst (although human greed had a hand in either scenario) but managing it down gradually to avoid civil catastrophe seems to be the intent of the Obama Administration, and although we’re in for worse as time goes on, so far they’ve done a better job of avoiding all-out civil war than I had “hoped”.
As to whether this detente will continue in the latter part of the decade, I have serious doubts
i actually heard one pundit on the teevee last night suggest that the current state of the “recovery” and the housing turn around validates the bush adminsitrations bail-out response.
i wanted to throw up.
So if that’s the case, it will be pedal to the metal until something blows.
Would love to hear predictions on what this might look like….
And we love to watch flounder away at your ruse.
What did you pay for your debt-dump?
So if that’s the case, it will be pedal to the metal until something blows.
Would love to hear predictions on what this might look like….
As well as estimates for when it blows. I’m going with late 2015/early 2016. Low confidence.
Oh right — I forgot. For instance, it is OK to “target” a male candidate for a job opening, but not to “discriminate” in his favor.
Did I get your point?
For instance, it is OK to “target” a male candidate for a job opening, but not to “discriminate” in his favor.
No, silly—it’s only ok to “target” a PC-preferred group.
‘Paul Krugman “This would be a really good time for a bubble”
Uploaded on Jul 6, 2011
May 5, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM6_yIVcP6Q
‘In the future, will people ask if they knew they were creating a bubble? That these loans were “designed to fail”? How will history view the spectacle of Fannie and Freddie providing the fuel for yet another economic flame-out?’
CLEARLY NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING!!!!!
Correction to my erroneous earlier post:
Social policies
Time to scrap affirmative action
Governments should be colour-blind
Apr 27th 2013
ABOVE the entrance to America’s Supreme Court four words are carved: “Equal justice under law”. The court is pondering whether affirmative action breaks that promise. The justices recently accepted a case concerning a vote in Michigan that banned it, and will soon rule on whether the University of Texas’s race-conscious admissions policies are lawful. The question in both cases is as simple as it is divisive: should government be colour-blind?
America is one of many countries where the state gives a leg-up to members of certain racial, ethnic, or other groups by holding them to different standards. The details vary. In some countries, the policy applies only to areas under direct state control, such as public-works contracts or admission to public universities. In others, private firms are also obliged to take account of the race of their employees, contractors and even owners. But the effects are strikingly similar around the world (see article).
The burden of history
Many of these policies were put in place with the best of intentions: to atone for past injustices and ameliorate their legacy. No one can deny that, for example, blacks in America or dalits in India (members of the caste once branded “untouchable”) have suffered grievous wrongs, and continue to suffer discrimination. Favouring members of these groups seems like a quick and effective way of making society fairer.
Most of these groups have made great progress. But establishing how much credit affirmative action can take is hard, when growth also brings progress and some of the good—for example the confidence-boosting effect of creating prominent role models for a benighted group—is intangible. And it is impossible to know how a targeted group would have got on without this special treatment. Malays are three times richer in Singapore, where they do not get preferences, than in next-door Malaysia, where they do. At the same time, the downside of affirmative action has become all too apparent.
Awarding university places to black students with lower test scores than whites sounds reasonable, given the legacy of segregation. But a study found that at some American universities, black applicants who scored 450 points (out of 1,600) worse than Asians on entrance tests were equally likely to win a place. That is neither fair on Asians, nor an incentive to blacks to study in high school. In their book “Mismatch”, Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor produce evidence that suggests affirmative action reduces the number of blacks who qualify as lawyers by placing black students in law schools for which they are ill-prepared, causing many to drop out. Had they attended less demanding schools, they might have graduated.
…
As someone who took advantage of these kinds of programs (to the tune of 90K down payment assistance with 0% interest) I can attest that there are requirements to spend MORE on housing than you might otherwise want to.
The program we used required you to spend between 33% and 45% of your gross monthly on housing.
Ie., folks COULD NOT use these programs and buy a cheaper house if their PITI ended up being LESS than 33% of their gross monthly.
FAIL.
An interesting question is, “Who makes money from this?”
The answer lies here. These contributors just don’t give money to politicians because the pols smell nice. They expect something in return.
‘ Published on Apr 5, 2013′
‘The President asks banks to relax their mortgage lending policies. Are we going to have a housing bubble similar to the one that caused the financial crisis of 2008?’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmGndsjo1Cw
‘continue to push for homeownership…your not going to see the collapse’
Barney Frank in 2005: What Housing Bubble?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE
‘apartment rents in metro denver have hit an all-time high, according to a report released monday … according to the report, the apartment vacancy rate in the metro area fell to 4.6 percent in the first quarter, the second-lowest since the first quarter of 2001.’
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23130172/apartment-rents-denver-metro-rise-an-all-time
Yup, rents up around me too. I have a ton of pricing power when I show people the parentals’ rentals. Getting about 20% more than 2008. And in the cases when someone’s tried to haggle on price, I’ve always held firm and they’ve either agreed to the price that same day or within 48 hours. I know this won’t last forever, but it would be foolish not to take advantage of it now.
The rent increases are hitting where the pretty young things all want to live: Highlands, Washington Park, Lower Downtown, Capitol Hill. We have occupied the same rental outside of the pretty young thing zone for just under three years, and our rent has increased a whopping 1.6% since then.
I live outside the hipster zone as well, but it is helpful to live nearby. Once you venture out into the actual ‘burbs any money you save on rent/house is eaten up by other things. Plus, it’s just depressing.
Word. Our neighborhood has a high walkability score, and importantly our walkable destinations include grocery, dry cleaners, library, gym, light rail station. Walkability to the pretty young thing watering holes is not worth paying a 50% rent premium and dealing with nuisances like no street parking, public urination, and omnipresent panhandlers.
I think the end game is further consolidation of markets and leveling of pay across the globe. Bad news for the US.
“agree within 48 hours”
From personal experience, I can tell you those 48 hours are spent looking at competing properties and finding that the competition charges the same rent.
Ever worked as a property accountant? We have. Including a gig at Archstone. You are comparing apples to apples in your alleged comparison of those “competing properties” and know not of which you speak. We could tell you more, but we won’t. Except that there’s a reason we rent from a small, local LLC and not some big, dumb maw-feeder.
Enjoy your albatross, you’ll need a neck brace soon
LMAO. But true.
Yeah… enjoy that millstone.
It happens in my area too. I wonder how can people pay for it, because wages flat if not lower.
I guess this can explain why several retail store closed their door recently, bc people paid too much housing with little left for anything else.
denver is a slightly less-crunchy version of portland, i.e. where the young people move to retire. they keep moving here from the east coast and midwest with their freshly-minted b.a. in obama studies to live with roommates, work multiple lucky duck jobs, snowboard, and smoke legal weed.
In Norfolk and the surrounding region the rents are pretty nuts. It’s generally fixed to the idea that the housing allowance from two separate navy people can be combined to afford the 2 bed / 2 bath apartments. At least on new construction. Around $1800 a month generally.
I (still) work for a company that can’t make full payroll and it’s challenging. I think I’m bringing home a little over $45K a year (on 3 hours work a day
and it seems like 50% of take home goes to apartment, the rest is rapidly chewed up by bills and eating out. Any toy money comes from selling stuff and side jobs.
I should honestly just bail to Northern Va.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2F2013-04-30%2Fpaulson-leads-hedge-fund-lobby-push-to-privatize-fannie.html&ei=Q8B_UbCWNeG1iwKxnoAo&usg=AFQjCNHVoTyBpqreQlXFnFkynMzijGak1A&sig2=3jKv839_inKD8FQiot-Kog&bvm=bv.45921128,d.cGE
Improving finances? LMAO
Wonder if this hedge fund will buy these assets at PAR.
Like the taxpayers did from the banks.
If this 9.3% rate of home price increases goes on for another eight years, prices will have doubled, and you renters will be priced out forever. BUY NOW! IN FACT, BUY TEN HOUSES IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO!!!
And now on to the next proposed high-level financial scam: Take some collapsed government sponsored enterprises which were kept alive only through taxpayers’ involuntary support and condemned for dismantling, and privatize them, thereby making the hedge fund managers who have been snapping up their “worthless” stock at fire sale prices as rich as Croesus.
BREAKING NEWS
Feb. S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Rise 9.3% vs Year Ago
Paulson Leads Hedge-Fund Lobby Push to Privatize Fannie
By Clea Benson & Cheyenne Hopkins - Apr 29, 2013 9:01 PM PT
Hedge funds including Paulson & Co. Inc. are pushing Congress to abandon plans to liquidate Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac as investors buy up preferred stock that has long been considered worthless, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
…
I guess that would explain why sales volume has been collapsing for years and in particular, the precipitous drop in sales this year. Even in spite of 25 MILLION excess empty houses across the US.
http://picpaste.com/pics/f857fe90e6339646fdca19ed764c944c.1367329232.png
Now how would you like to be one of the suckers that jumped in in 2011?
It’s worth noting that Shiller himself doesn’t think the price increase is a good thing or necessarily sustainable.
I think it’s great. Home prices are now rising at a 9% annual rate, and by this time next year, they may be going up by over 20% a year pretty much across the U.S., as they already are in Phoenix.
Everyone who can afford to buy a home will be able to get rich again, just like in the period from 1998-2007.
Where is the downside here?
Home prices are now rising at a 9% annual rate,’
I heard on the radio it was 14% in Los Angeles
Home prices are now rising at a 9% annual rate,’
I heard on the radio it was 14% in Los Angeles
Impossible. I heard on the housing bubble blog that these guys have already lost 65%.
Impossible. I heard on the housing bubble blog that these guys have already lost 65%.
Go ahead and buy. You will lose 82% not 65%.
Impossible. I heard on the housing bubble blog that these guys have already lost 65%.
Go ahead and buy. You will lose 82% not 65%.
It’s all about past, present and future tense. Verb conjugation. Plenty of people have made money buying something in 2011 or 2012 and selling it now; these people did not lose 65%. According to the ad nauseum pimp reports, it’s impossible that housing prices could be going up. What housing prices will do tomorrow, next week or next year is anybody’s guess, but what they’ve done in the past is plain to see.
‘Plenty of people have made money buying something in 2011 or 2012 and selling it now’
You’re going to have to back that up.
‘Thu Apr 26, 2012 (Reuters) - More than 1 million Americans who have taken out mortgages in the past two years now owe more on their loans than their homes are worth, and Federal Housing Administration loans that require only a tiny down payment are partly to blame.’
‘That figure, provided to Reuters by tracking firm CoreLogic, represents about one out of 10 home loans made during that period.’
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/us-usa-housing-negative-idUSBRE83P12E20120426
“You’re going to have to back that up.”
Frogs: RIBBIT! RIBBIT!
You’re going to have to back that up.
Fine. Without giving specific addresses, look in these neighborhoods:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/Morning-Dew-Ln,-Buckeye,-AZ-85326_rb/
http://www.zillow.com/homes/W-Cantilever-St,-Buckeye,-AZ-85326_rb/
http://www.zillow.com/homes/W-Hutton-Dr,-Surprise,-AZ-85378_rb/
http://www.zillow.com/homes/W-Sonora-St,-Buckeye,-AZ-85326_rb/
It should be easy enough to find actual sales histories (not listings or zestimates) and rents by snooping around. Without giving actual addresses, houses were purchased in early to mid 2011 in the 50-70K range. They were immediately cash-flow positive based on rent. They are selling for a lot more than 50-70K now.
Some people are actually making money. Usually you’re the first to tell people to get out there and make money on the situation…
Well PBear…I look forward to hearing some more of your croaking, whatever it means.
Theres nothing in those links but losses on depreciating assets.
You need to at least try.
Theres nothing in those links but losses on depreciating assets.
You need to at least try.
There’s nothing to what you’re saying but crying
over spilt milkabout the fact that some people are making money and you aren’t.I realize you believe what you’re saying. You say it so often that if you were saying it to a spot on the wall the spot would be answering you back by now. Doesn’t make what you say true, though.
You should at least try to let some actual data through your echo chamber filter. Good luck to you!
are fannie and freddie ever going to pay back the bond money from the FED? Or is there a shredder in a secret building?
Why can’t the Fed simply take money created on its virtual printing press, snap up GSE debt, and bury it on the balance sheet forever?
If there is a technical or legal constraint which precludes this, I’m missing it.
I thought this kind of operation was normally carried out by men in black helicopters.
29 April 2013 Last updated at 10:59 ET
Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirms secret US cash ‘help’
Mr Karzai said his office “appreciated” the assistance, which helped with several legitimate ventures
The Afghan president has admitted his office received secret payments from the US, but says the amounts were small and used legitimately.
Hamid Karzai was responding to a New York Times report that alleged the CIA sent suitcases stuffed with cash to the president’s office on a regular basis.
It said tens of millions of dollars “came in secret” and cash was given on a vaster scale than previously thought.
The president said the money was for projects such as helping the sick.
“It was used for different purposes: operational, assistance to injured people, rental costs and other goals. This was efficient assistance and we appreciate it,” he said in a statement.
He added that the money had been delivered to Afghanistan’s National Security Council, which is part of the president’s office, during the last 10 years.
The New York Times report said: “Wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president.”
…
Best quote from another article:
“…while Iran was also giving bribe money to Karzai, the United States CIA was by far the largest contributor to the corruption. The very corruption the other groups were trying to stop.”
You can’t fix our kind of stupid.
What’s that Churchill quote…americans always end up doing the right thing…only when they’ve exhausted all other possibilities? (except when it comes to house pimping apparently)
Yeah, saw that. I hope every poor military grunt posted in that hellhole saw it, too. And their parents. Because that’s what they were fighting, dying and getting their limbs blown off for, a POS who played both sides of the fence.
I’m beyond disgusted with the gubmin at this point.
At least Karzai had the decency to use the tens of millions of dollars he received in suitcases to help the sick.
I call BS on Karzai. If he needed money for the sick, then he could have asked for it openly and he knows it. Why use secret suitcase money?
I think PB was being sarcastic, no?
Why use secret suitcase money?
Because those who care about how much money was originally in the suitcase don’t know, and those who know don’t care?
The US government managed to somehow misplace pallet loads of cash. Literally billions IIRC. Then it sort of disappeared. The Afghanistan thing seems small by comparison.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
Another day, another Wall Street insider trading scandal (snore….)
DEALS & DEAL MAKERS
April 30, 2013, 12:07 a.m. ET
Insider-Trading Probe Trains Lens on Boards
By SUSAN PULLIAM, ROB BARRY and SCOTT PATTERSON
Federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into whether corporate directors misused government-sanctioned trading plans to sell company shares for investment funds they run.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York issued subpoenas requesting information from companies and funds cited in an April 25 page-one article in The Wall Street Journal that highlighted trading at three companies by directors who also run funds, a person familiar with the probe says.
The investigation is an outgrowth of another criminal probe, led by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission, into trading by company insiders.
Spokespeople for the SEC and the Eastern and Southern districts declined to comment.
At issue are preset trading arrangements known as 10b5-1 plans, initiated by the SEC in 2000. The plans allow corporate executives and nonexecutive directors a way to sell some shares despite potentially having knowledge of nonpublic information about their companies, though such plans must be set up when the executive doesn’t possess inside information.
Prosecutors are interested in whether insiders are using such plans to shed their positions when they are privy to private information about companies, the person familiar with the probe said. There haven’t been any allegations of wrongdoing.
The development comes as federal prosecutors and the SEC meet this week to discuss the burgeoning probes.
The investigations represent a new front in the government’s pursuit of potential insider trading. In the past three years, the U.S. has convicted or gotten guilty pleas from more than 70 individuals on insider-trading charges, most involving hedge funds and outside investors, rather than executives or corporate officials.
…
The insanity is back.
Forward.
———————————
From Zero Hedge:
Presenting: The Housing Bubble 2.0
The Gretsch building, an old guitar factory turned condo building in Williamsburg, just had a crazy week: Crain’s reports that three units sold in all-cash transactions, each one setting new highs on a per-square-foot basis. The units in questions were two adjacent two-bedrooms on the ninth floor, selling for $1.4 million and $1.5 million, and a larger two-bedroom on the 10th floor selling at $2.5 million — all at an average of $1,150 per square foot. “It needs to be cash, it needs to be over ask, and (the listing) will never see the light of day,” the broker had told all the buyers. According to Crain’s, Williamsburg condos are currently averaging $794 per square foot, with high-end condos like Northside Piers bringing in closer to $1,050 per foot. The broker who handled the Gretsch sales at 60 Broadway can’t seem to believe it herself: “It’s unbelievable what’s going on out there,” she told Crain’s.
That’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right? This is a really bad example, Williamsburg is one of the nicest neighborhoods in all of NYC(or the US) and not a good barometer for the country as a whole. Williamsburg has had a major influx of legitimately rich people, successful internet companies/founders, celebrities, musicians, and trust fund kidz. It’s pretty common for people to move from Manhattan to Billy-burg to raise kidz.
There certainly is a bubble but Williamsburg (or Potrero Hill in SF or Cleveland Park in DC) is a horrible example.
You know something is way out of wack when you have to rent out the walk in closet to pay the rent…..and get lots of takers….yup billys burg.
Welcome back to the 19th century!
You saying “It is different here?”
Why would legitimately rich people waste their money? Wouldn’t that imply stupidity, which is typically associated with poorness? Here on the HBB, we have an old saying - “A fool from his money is soon parted”.
Why would legitimately rich people waste their money?
Not everyone wants to live in Oil City.
Dang, if I were legitimately rich, I’d have a pad in Manhattan, 1 in SF, and maybe a beach front somewhere in Hawaii.
What did you pay for your debt-dump?
Williamsburg used to be a sh!thole. Like make sure you have at least 3 people with you when walking to the subway station that is only 2 blocks away.
Have a pal that bought a building there back in the 80’s, for pennies. He’s sitting pretty now.
Williamsburg is now more expensive than Manhattan. Ditto for Dumbo.
SF:
Every time i think of yuppieville this commercial just says it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB6zOdfigS0
Ah, memories. In the early nineties when we were in the Food Emporium in Riverdale (Bronx), I’d embarrass my husband by singing that jingle in an even shmaltzier fashion (for MEEEEE…!!!) up and down the aisles while we shopped. The place was usually mobbed.
Just so white so fresh so clean……soho tribeca yup riverdale….
Six years ago was…let me see…2013-6 = 2007.
Wasn’t that the year that U.S. housing prices began to literally collapse?
But it is different this time, as the Plunge Protection Team is now working to make sure that housing prices always go up from now on.
Annual gains in U.S. home prices strongest in 6 years
• Completed U.S. mortgage foreclosures down from March 2012
April 30, 2013, 9:19 a.m. EDT
U.S. home-price advance continues
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Signaling continued momentum, an index of home prices for 20 U.S. cities posted the largest year-over-year growth in more than six years, according to data released Tuesday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index rose 0.3% in February, before seasonal adjustment, and was up 9.3% from the same period in the prior year, the largest annual growth since May 2006.
February’s monthly growth was the largest since August.
After seasonal adjustments, prices rose 1.2% in February.
Stock futures were little changed after the data.
All 20 cities saw year-over-year gains in February, with accelerating growth in 16 cities. Phoenix posted the largest year-over-year price growth at 23%, while New York had the lowest at 1.9%.
…
Oh bugger…always a fly in the ointment.
April 30, 2013, 9:48 a.m. EDT
Chicago PMI slumps to 3.5-year low in April
By Steve Goldstein
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Chicago PMI slumped to a three-and-a-half year low of 49.0 in April, down from 52.4 in March and at a reading indicating contraction. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 52.5 reading. Order backlogs were particularly weak, falling to 40.6 from 45.0. The Chicago PMI is the last of the regional manufacturing indexes to be released before the national Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index for April.
Who needs a real economy? The FEDs have resurrected housing and the stock market, isn’t that all that really matters?
‘Flood of Easy Money Putting This Region at Risk’
‘The risk of asset bubbles in Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing emerging economies is rising, warn economists, pointing to red flags including surging domestic credit growth and rapidly rising property prices. Robert Prior-Wandesforde, head of India & Southeast Asia economics at Credit Suisse, expects central banks in the region will start tightening monetary policy in late 2013 or 2014, says policymakers are getting a false sense of security from benign inflation levels, and ignoring the excesses being built elsewhere in their economies.’
“We expect interest rates to move higher and it is at that point that history suggests we should worry about possible bubbles turning to bust,” he said.’
‘The mix of U.S. monetary policy and relatively low levels of inflation have led many ASEAN nations to adopt “inappropriately” low interest rates, according to economists. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and the Pacific published on Monday warned of overheating risks in the region, noting that Asian policymakers must be ready to act “early and decisively” to prevent the situation from escalating.’
“Rapid credit growth is the key risk. If central bank’s don’t normalize policy fast enough or implement macro prudential measures, we could get an over extension of the credit cycle where non-performing loans build up and property bubble bursts,” said Leif Eskesen, chief economist for India & ASEAN at HSBC.’
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/flood-easy-money-putting-region-012018160.html
That Myanmar housing bubble is truly worrisome!
Will the end of EU sanctions pop Myanmar’s real estate bubble?
QuartzBy Tim Fernholz | Quartz – Mon, Apr 22, 2013 6:40 PM EDT
Today the European Union lifted economic sanctions against Myanmar, but European businesses still face obstacles to operations there as the troubled Asian country re-enters the international community. Chief among those problems: a real estate bubble.
…
What’s really going on in California
California imposed a new law on banks innocuously called “Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process, which they can opt to do on their own, but takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks. And while those changes are being made… it makes it appear that foreclosures have slowed down dramatically in the state.
The reality?
Defaults (undeclared) are spiraling upward that yet have to pass through the foreclosure pipeline.
The truth?
California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.
The low-down?
Resale housing is still massively overpriced as a result of unprecedented interference by individual states and the federal government. When the market distortioning policies are removed the down draft will continue allowing the market to correct.
With millions of excess empty houses and housing demand at 17 year lows, housing prices a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
Stocks are selling off while Obama speaks.
Any reason, besides coincidence?
Watch Obama’s press conference here
April 30, 2013, 10:11 AM
President Obama is holding a press conference. Follow the action live here:
A real snoozer. More cawfeeeeeeeee!
why????? whats he trying to pull today?
Because people complain when he doesn’t give press conferences?
I only saw a bit of it but it was along the lines of “See, I told you so. The sequester is dragging down the economy.”
But just today I heard a report that, unexpectedly, consumer confidence was up! Anyone else’s head spinning?
The sight of Obama withers the confidence of old white dudes, and they own all the stocks?
Blackstone (BX) today announced it has partnered with The White House to support veterans and military families. Led by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, “Joining Forces” is a national initiative to encourage private sector hiring of America’s veterans. Blackstone plans to hire 50,000 veterans across its portfolio of companies over the next five years. “
Lemme guess. Blackstone figured out that they need jobs for all the prospective tenants to pay rent for all the houses that Blackstone is buying?
VA loans?
I live in a Navy area. Nothing like all these contractors that hire up the retired military guys and pay them $150K+ to surf the web all day. Of course it looks good when they’re bidding on government contracts — gives future ideas to those currently enlisted that have a retirement coming up.
In a way, it seems like discrimination to turn down a non-veteran (likely female) in preference for a veteran (likely male). On the other hand, some employers fear possible PTSD, so it probably evens out.
I would bet this isn’t the only partnership Blackstone has with washington…
in other words why does Blackstone over bid on foreclosures?
Property maintenance.
We’re near a great moment in American history. Coming out as a homophobe will soon be more damaging to your career than coming out as gay.
Still a few years out. The ESPN guy didn’t get fired for example.
Being gay was never a problem, only the coming out part was a problem. Because nothing says “family values” like married men chasing some downlow.
If you work for Corporate America or for the government, then you might as well keep your opinions to yourself, which in Corporate America is a good idea regardless of your views. Most people know this and just keep their mouths shut.
In many small biz scenarios, it can still be a plus.
I do wonder how having a barrage of gay athletes affect the macho fan base that major league sports rely on? I know the media has made a big fuss over the basketball player who came out of the locker, but I don’t hear J6P’s sounding all that excited about it. Being that I don’t really care about the NBA or basketball in general it was a non story for me.
I do find the media grandstanding to be a bit annoying. If you’re gay, then be gay. I really don’t care how many guys or gals you bang or if you’re in a committed relationship or if you’re celibate. Just like I didn’t care when Magic Johnson became HIV infected. That was his business.
If I were an NBA player (or any other sport), actually I would care if another player revealed he had HIV.
There is even a guy who went “transgender” and is allowed to box against women. It’s not PC to be against this.
Which is more damaging to one’s career: being black or outright admitting that you are a white supramacist?
Attempt to control state pension fund expenses stalled after employees make minor concession
A later item on the Dispatch site :
Everyone knows there are a great many places to invest retirement assets in Hawaii. This was almost a rare example of a legislature reining in extravagance / waste.
for me it’s the intro to Ratt, “Lay it Down”.
Carl… you read my mind because DiMartini’s tone is exactly what I meant. Exactly.
So any particular Soloist?
Speaking of Ratt, a good song for the dead-cat bounce bubble buyers who will sustain incalculable losses is “Back For More.” And for those who think that having an allegedly paid-off house after decades of debt slavery is anything less than a lifetime of incalculable losses, the Ratt song dedicated to them “Nobody Rides For Free”.
Nice. 6 degrees of Keanu Reeves.
I like a milder sound now so I play a Jackson Infinity Pro which is made from Mahogany (and uses milder pickups) and I think the set neck sounds better than a through neck at low gains. For the Soloists I’m not sure what they used for wood back then…but it and the Charvel Model 6s made in the mid-late 80s were great. Don’t be afraid of the early 90s Jackson Pro series made in Japan…in some ways they were even better. But after that I don’t know and I’d have to play a newer one a lot to know whether I thought they were in the same league as the old ones. So I guess I’m just saying anything from that era should be good, you’d have to play it to be sure. The Charvel Model 6 from that era deserves a special mention because it had an active pickup setup with a midrange boost that worked really well. Allows it to adjust from a weaker pickup sound to a stronger pickup sound and unlike most guitars that try to do that, all the combinations sound good.
I’ve heard that these days if you want to spend money, the PRS stuff is what you want. And I like what Neil Schon has done with new Les Pauls lately. But you said cheap…
blech….. sourcing used 80’s equip given the coveting that goes on with all guitars sounds nightmarish. I test drove a bunch of PRS stuff. Nice yea but way overpriced. New in box soloist’s are roughly $600. I’m sure they’re not domestic but only prudes and purists who can’t play pine about that. Anything out of Japan is equal to domestic, JMHO.
Anyways, I figured with all the active electronics and sound processing, it would seem any axe plugged into a Line 6 or Fender with DSP would have Warren’s tone programmed in. I just don’t know how “authentically Warren” it sounds.
I’m pretty sure Ratt’s last gig was the Pawnee, Indiana city fair, so you could probably just drop them a fiver and they’d play in your living room.
That may be true :-), but doesn’t change the fact that they set the bar for that sound.
But no, PW…I’ll admit I haven’t tried them all, but everything I have tried in the DSP arena falls woefully short of what we’re talking about. Sometimes they can get it close to right at one volume (usually low bedroom volume) but at stage levels it tends to sound weak and pathetic. You need the real thing.
What I get from the Fender I like is a really good clean sound (lightly distorted isn’t bad) with a digital tape delay simulator that’s good enough to never look lustfully at an Echoplex again. It’s good enough that I don’t need anything else…unless I try for what you’re talking about in which case I’d be on the hunt for the ultimate pedal to put on top of it if I didn’t want to go back to the real thing. But I haven’t looked for that so I don’t know if it exists.
And I never plan to load 4×12s into a vehicle ever again. Ever.
That’s what I’m getting at. Thank you Carl.
EVH didn’t have any DSP and if you listen to 1 and the brown sound of women and children first, it’s all cabinet and amp. His pre-1 work(on youtube) is even more raw and it sounds like he’s playing through 8″ paper cone speakers mounted in garage built cabs overdriven by plain old tubes. Lots of guys out there(especially worship bands) insist they can emulate with DSP yet I haven’t heard one of them actually do it with DSP amps.
EVH didn’t have any DSP and if you listen to 1 and the brown sound of women and children first, it’s all cabinet and amp.
I think that what people didn’t understand about that sound was the importance of the tape echo AND the use of extremely high volume to get the right compression characteristics rather than using really high gain and hot pickups. People made a huge deal out of the hand wound potted pickup based on the assumption that it gave a really strong signal, but I don’t think it did. Then he put it in a bolt on neck strat-type guitar. There were so many critical ingredients to the setup that I didn’t understand back in the day. Everything I did sounded like a transistor AM radio in comparison.
Yeah you’re onto it. Extremely high volume would best be described as an overdriven speaker, no?
The critical part is how the electrical parts such as the transformers that feed the tubes reach their maximum capacity when the amp is being pushed really hard. It means that when you use a soft touch you get a wide dynamic range but as you play harder it compresses into a different sound with less dynamics. It’s like a living thing that I think our brains respond to because it matches how the real world works. The distortion from the tubes and the speakers adds to the effect, but is not the most crucial part IMO. You can put a distortion pedal in the chain to get as much as you want, but nothing will exactly duplicate the hardware itself being stressed.
The Fender I play has some built in compression that doesn’t sound very good when used as intended, but when you turn the input sensitivity way down to where you don’t hit the “knee” of the compression curve until you start playing harder it kind of works in a similar fashion. Good enough for me to put up with in return for not having to carry the big stuff around.
PRS stuff. Nice yea but way overpriced.
PRS guitars are going to crash 65% because you can buy wood cheap in any state.
PW is going to live in your head rent free because you can’t be honest.
@joe smith
if the f-35 program wasn’t ripping off the taxpayers enough already, check this out. the coffee, tea, and hot chocolate provided is for lockheed employees only.
if you are a fed or work for some other contractor, and you want coffee, join the coffee club and go give your 5 dollars a month to bob in accounting.
the coffee is for closers. lockheed = closers. the rest of you are just loosers.
http://picpaste.com/IMG_20130430_111318_412-vjGKOB1C.jpg
Hard to tell - But it looks like the people who pay into the “coffee club” are sick of the moochers taking coffee for free.
The coffee is paid for by the private contractors, this is commonplace. The contractors always cost more (MUCH more) than the fully burdened labor rate (that’s the techinical term, it means everything included, even an allocation for pensions) for federal employees. Contractors also bill the gov’t for transportation, meals, hotels, etc. at much higher rates than the fed gov’t would negotiate or pay. The pay rates are outrageous, even under newly proposed regulations, executives for private contractors can get the first $700k (approx., the actual figure is a little higher) paid for as part of federal contracts, meaning paid for by the taxpayers. Salaries of 300k+ are commonplace even for upper-middle management types. BiLA doesn’t have any managerial duties and he’s paid $100 hr (his claim, but very believable), his employment agency gets a cut, and the private contractor upcharges on that amount. Meaning BiLA costs the taxpayers probably $400+/hr.
Federal contractors also pay their accountants and lawyers _lavishly_. We charge between 300-800/hr. All of our clients are private contractors, mostly defense contractors but some healthcare as well.
BananaBoy, you don’t seem to really know much about how private contractors for the fed gov’t work. I don’t want to burden your easy-breezy thought process so I’ll save further lessons for a future day.
It works pretty much the same way in the private sector, except we pay Indian contractors only $85 an hour, fully loaded. Not like the hourly rate matters, they just jack up estimated hours to hit numbers.
If it’s anyplace like the last place I worked, the company supplied beverage choices sucks….
…as well people were stealing it.
That sign is there because federal workers are not allowed to accept any food at all from private contractors for fear of being “influenced.” It’s an ethics issue.
That’s right. Congressmen are taking vacations and fact-finding trips which they “forget” to disclose. Fed workers can’t even take the coffee.
Some places have set up mechanism for feds to buy coffee just so the Feds don’t have to sit there and be deprived (which might “influence” them against the contractor). It’s more basic politeness than influence. To be fair, the feds have relaxed the rules a little bit. I think you are allowed to take some small amount, <$50, per contractor per year for this purpose.
What we really appreciate is that the notice is in a gilt-edged frame under glass, and not just a MS Word printout pinned to a bulletin board in the coffee room.
It’s like a special diploma for the Lockheed people: this coffee is just for you, because you matter…
Is an “abnormal economy” part of “hope and change” or “forward?”
————————
Robert Shiller: Home Prices Will Remain Relatively Stagnant For Next 10 Years
More good news on the housing market. This morning, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index posted its biggest annual increase since 2006—just before the housing market crash.
Home prices in all 20 metro areas included in the index rose for the second month running. Phoenix led, with a 23% annual increase followed by San Francisco (18.9%), Las Vegas (17.6%) and Atlanta (16.5%).
Still, Robert Shiller, co-creator of the index, is cautious. “There’s a lot of excitement in the housing market now but it might be just short term,” he tells The Daily Ticker.
Shiller says the housing market is operating in an “abnormal economy” where the Federal Reserve is buying $40 billion worth of mortgage securities and $45 billion worth of Treasury notes each month. This has driven mortgage rates to record lows.
When asked where this all leaves the housing market 10 years from now, Shiller says home prices will be “about where they are now” after adjusting for inflation.
http://finance.yahoo.com/
Krugman blog
The central debate over macroeconomic policy is, of course, between Keynesians and Austerians. And at this point the Keynesians have overwhelmingly won the debate everywhere except where it matters – the intellectual basis for austerity economics has collapsed, but actual austerity continues apace on both sides of the Atlantic.
There have, however, been a couple of side shows, with what I guess now constitutes mainstream Keynesianism – carried forth in public debate by Martin Wolf, Simon Wren-Lewis, Brad DeLong, Jonathan Portes, Paul DeGrauwe, and whatshisface, among others – subjected to non-austerian criticism on both flanks. On the left are the Modern Monetary Theory types, who assert exactly what the austerians like to claim, falsely, is the Keynesian position - BINGO– that budget deficits never matter (except for their direct effect on aggregate demand). On the right are the market monetarists like Scott Sumner and David Beckworth, who insist that the Fed could solve the slump if it wanted to, and that fiscal policy is irrelevant.
Now, there won’t and can’t be any current-events test of MMT until we get out of the slump, because standard IS-LM and MMT are indistinguishable when you’re in a liquidity trap. But as Mike Konczal points out, we are in effect getting a test of the market monetarist view right now, with the Fed having adopted more expansionary policies even as fiscal policy tightens.
And the results aren’t looking good for the monetarists: despite the Fed’s fairly dramatic changes in both policy and policy announcements, austerity seems to be taking its toll. I would add that the UK experience provides a similar lesson. Mervyn King advocated fiscal consolidation – I’d say that he shares equal responsibility with Cameron/Osborne for Britain’s wrong turn — but more or less promised (pdf) that he would and could offset any adverse effects on growth with monetary policy. He didn’t and couldn’t.
I’m not claiming that there is nothing the central bank can do; but as I’ve tried to explain before, monetary policy can, for the most part, gain traction under current circumstances only by changing expectations about future actions (and changing them a lot). Meanwhile, fiscal policy has a direct, current effect on the economy, which easily trumps attempts to move the economy by changing the Fed’s messaging.
Sorry, guys, but as a practical matter the Fed – while it should be doing more – can’t make up for contractionary fiscal policy in the face of a depressed economy
Krugmans blog
The central debate over macroeconomic policy is, of course, between Keynesians and Austerians. And at this point the Keynesians have overwhelmingly won the debate everywhere except where it matters – the intellectual basis for austerity economics has collapsed, but actual austerity continues apace on both sides of the Atlantic.
There have, however, been a couple of side shows, with what I guess now constitutes mainstream Keynesianism – carried forth in public debate by Martin Wolf, Simon Wren-Lewis, Brad DeLong, Jonathan Portes, Paul DeGrauwe, and whatshisface, among others – subjected to non-austerian criticism on both flanks. On the left are the Modern Monetary Theory types, who assert exactly what the austerians like to claim, falsely, is the Keynesian position – that budget deficits never matter (except for their direct effect on aggregate demand). On the right are the market monetarists like Scott Sumner and David Beckworth, who insist that the Fed could solve the slump if it wanted to, and that fiscal policy is irrelevant.
Now, there won’t and can’t be any current-events test of MMT until we get out of the slump, because standard IS-LM and MMT are indistinguishable when you’re in a liquidity trap. But as Mike Kocknzel points out we are in effect getting a test of the market monetarist view right now, with the Fed having adopted more expansionary policies even as fiscal policy tightens.
And the results aren’t looking good for the monetarists: despite the Fed’s fairly dramatic changes in both policy and policy announcements, austerity seems to be taking its toll. I would add that the UK experience provides a similar lesson. Mervyn King advocated fiscal consolidation – I’d say that he shares equal responsibility with Cameron/Osborne for Britain’s wrong turn — but more or less promised\ that he would and could offset any adverse effects on growth with monetary policy. He didn’t and couldn’t.
I’m not claiming that there is nothing the central bank can do; but as I’ve tried to explain before monetary policy can, for the most part, gain traction under current circumstances only by changing expectations about future actions (and changing them a lot). Meanwhile, fiscal policy has a direct, current effect on the economy, which easily trumps attempts to move the economy by changing the Fed’s messaging.
Sorry, guys, but as a practical matter the Fed – while it should be doing more – can’t make up for contractionary fiscal policy in the face of a depressed economy
Trade policy. The United States has shifted toward British-style trade policy.
yo jethro…. trow me an email.
I just want to comment that I think some of my sisters and brothers on this blog are being a bit close-minded about the possibility that a rebubble is forming right now. We already know that it’s possible for bubbles to form, since we witnessed the last one together. We were bonded, man.
Why the vitriol against anyone who suggests that a rebubble may be rearing as we speak? Why?
It’s another RE bubble…I haven’t heard anyone here say otherwise. Maybe I missed something?
Exeter thinks prices are still going down.
I can ask $40k for my 10 year old Honda civic….. But where are the buyers? Inventory is looming, Realtors are liars.
‘Published on Apr 16, 2013
Michael Regan of The Regan Team Home Loan Group discuss these two topics along with special guest Michael Boles of RE/MAX Regency in Petaluma, CA.’
Is there another housing bubble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POiI_f2drI
NZ 100% loans are back:
‘Bernard Hickey: The new housing bubble’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyTSOC-GV7o
Is the US government keeping rates down to support housing or because it can’t pay back it’s debt at near zero percent how will it do at 5% ? 10% ?
Stories everywhere about rapidly rising home prices. Time for bubble 2.0?
‘The share of Americans who own their homes was 65 percent in the first quarter, down from 65.4 percent a year earlier and the lowest level since the third quarter of 1995, the Census Bureau reported today.’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/u-s-home-vacancies-fell-in-first-quarter-from-prior-year.html
So much for the Ownership Society…
Stories everywhere
That’s right. Stories.
Posted: 9:51 a.m. Tuesday, April 30, 2013
South Florida home prices climb more than 10 percent
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
South Florida’s home prices saw a double-digit increase in February from last year, climbing 10.4 percent as economists continue to be optimistic about the housing recovery.
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released this morning also found that the 10-city and 20-city composites showed their highest annual price increases since May 2006.
“Despie some recent mixed economic reports for March, housing continues to be one of the brighter spots in the economy,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The 2013 first quarter GDP report shows that residential investment accelerated from the 2012 fourth quarter and made apositive contribution to growth.”
3 Comment(s)
Posted by SteveinWPB at 11:58 a.m. Apr. 30, 2013
Prices are only up because the banks are keeping tens of thousands of houses off the market in shadow inventory in order to manipulate the free market. We are all working for the bankers.
Posted by DAW at 12:04 p.m. Apr. 30, 2013
There are three abandoned homes within two blocks of my house that have notices on the door as foreclosures and they are there for over 2 years now. I guess the banks are waiting for prices to increase, if prices increase enough they will be selling them at a profit since the selling price may well go above the foreclosed mortgage amount. There is no requirement that if the bank sells at a profit that the excess money go to the former home owner even if the former home owner put in their own money when they bought the home.
Posted by dinop1 at 2:07 p.m. Apr. 30, 2013
so, like, the plan is to create another bubble b/c wages haven’t gone up? The only delta I see from 2008 is that the fed is printing more money that’s apparently going directly into the stock market b/c no one I know got a raise.
You know how our paid hack and liar “Rental Watch” likes to quote LPS to falsely characterize housing positively?
Well….LPS subsidiary DocX forged millions of documents on behalf of LPS and the founder and CEO is a convicted felon.
Yep. That’s our “Rental Watch”.
Hey Dan Dunlap….. you’re lying to the public about housing. You’re a known liar.
As long as the central banks keep on pumping in plenty of liquidity to green up all asset prices, all of the various recent reports of economic slowdown from major developed country economies can be safely ignored.
ft dot com
Last updated: May 1, 2013 5:25 am
Chinese manufacturing growth slows in April
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
Growth in China’s manufacturing sector slowed in April, providing further evidence of weakness in the world’s second-largest economy.
China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 50.6 in April from 50.9 in March, indicating a slowdown in manufacturing activity that was led by a slump in new export orders. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector while a reading below 50 means that manufacturing activity shrank.
“The slight fall in the PMI reading for April shows that the economic recovery is still not on a solid foundation,” the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, which publishes the PMI with the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Wednesday.
The PMI figure is closely watched for signs about the health of the Chinese and global economies, and as a gauge of global demand for Chinese products and for hints of future Chinese demand for raw materials and industrial commodities.
The March reading was the strongest in 11 months and most economists had expected the index would rise slightly in April in a sign that the giant Chinese manufacturing engine was picking up steam.
Overall growth in the Chinese economy was unexpectedly weak in the first quarter, with an increase of 7.7 per cent from a year earlier, compared with 7.9 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Investors will be closely watching other measures, such as Chinese industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment, that are due to be released over the next two weeks for signs of a turnround in April but the latest PMI reading suggests they may be disappointed.
The official PMI sub-index for new orders fell to 51.7 in April from 52.3 in March while the measure of new export orders slid into contraction territory with a reading of 48.6 in April, compared to 50.9 in March.
Some analysts took the disappointing PMI reading as a positive signal for future growth prospects, arguing that it could prompt the government to introduce more policies to boost growth.
But others pointed to a flood of credit in the economy in the first quarter of 2013 that did not help to pump up growth, suggesting Beijing will not be able to stimulate growth through looser monetary policy.
“The most worrying aspect of this is not that growth is weak, but that growth is weak despite a torrent of new credit issuance,” said Alistair Thornton, economist at IHS Global Insight.
…
It’s a schizophrenic market!
Homeownership Falls to 1995 Levels
Homeownership in the United States continued to tick downward, hitting its lowest rate in nearly 18 years, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Here is an explanation.
ECONOMY
Updated April 30, 2013, 7:40 p.m. ET
Housing Market Accelerates
Home Prices Jump 9.3% in Quickest Rise Since 2006; Gains Seen Across Country
By NICK TIMIRAOS
Home prices are rising at the fastest rate in seven years, with some communities seeing double-digit gains, as buyers are returning to a market where the number of properties for sale is in short supply.
Housing prices are up by double digits in Miami and several other markets over the past year. Here, a prospective sale in Miami earlier this year.
The U.S. housing recovery continues as home prices grew at their highest annual growth rate since 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller survey.
From the outlook for price increases to performance during the seasonal slowdown, here are five takeaways from the report.
Which Cities Did Best?
Even with the slower winter season, 11 cities posted monthly increases. On an adjusted basis, no city reported a monthly decline. This sortable table ranks the metro areas.
Prices increased 9.3% in February from a year earlier while mortgage-interest rates hovered near record lows, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index that tracks home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas. All 20 cities posted year-over-year gains for the second consecutive month, which hasn’t happened since 2005, before the crash.
In some of the hardest-hit markets, the gains have been particularly heady. Home prices rose 23% from one year ago in Phoenix and 18.9% in San Francisco. Nationally, the median home price in March stood at $184,300, well below the peak of $230,400 in 2006 but up from $154,600 in January 2012.
“Nobody that I’m aware of anticipated the kind of price growth that we’ve had,” said Budge Huskey, chief executive of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “It’s simple supply and demand.”
…
No camcorders after the Boston Marathon? I wouldn’t go.
Track beefs up security for the Kentucky Derby
Posted: Apr 18, 2013 4:20 PM EDT
By GARY GRAVES
AP Sports Writer
Churchill Downs announced security policies for the Derby and Oaks last Friday. But after meeting with law enforcement officials following Monday’s blasts that killed three and injured more than 170, the track strengthened its procedures.
Coolers, cans, fireworks and camcorders are among the items banned from the infield. Fans will also be subjected to an electronic wand search and are encouraged to watch for unusual and suspicious behavior.
“These are not wholesale changes, but these would not have happened without the events that happened” at the Boston Marathon, Churchill Downs spokesman John Asher said Thursday.
http://www.wave3.com/story/22017091/track-beefs-up-security-for-the-kentucky-derby - -
-18
8GB MicroSDHC Memory Card for Celkon C999 Cellphone with Free USB MicroSD/SDHC Card Reader — 8 G/GB/GIG 8G 8GIGSamsung Electronics 16GB EVO Micro SDHC with Adapter Upto 48MB/s Class 10 Memory Card (MB-MP16DA/AM)Lexar High-Performance microSDHC 633x 16GB UHS-I Flash Memory Card LSDMI16GBBNL633R,Find tools, fun quizzes, coaching, inspiration and solutions for multi-talented people at http://www. xboter 2014