Bits Bucket for June 11, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Spec house that recently went under contract in my general area.
http://bannerteam.com/dev/property/4600-norwood-dr/
This is the one that was put on the lot so small it was previously used only as a Christmas tree lot. If you look at the first and last pictures (the ones that show the outside) you have probably seen 80% of the “yard.” .17 acres, right at the corner of a very busy street. 3375 square feet. 5 beds. 5 1/2 baths. Only room for one car in the detached garage. No idea why the art and stuff is so ugly. Please note that the house next door is kept out of the photos - it is much less upscale than this thing. That neighbor told me (during the neighborhood yard sale day) the contractor told her the construction quality was terrible for everything except the basement.
Price is listed as $1.875 million. Not sure what the actual contract price is.
Some pretty extensive milwork inside that house but, do they only have white paint in MD ?? My goodness, it looks like a clinic or hospital inside that place…
Agree. White walls, black floors, “contemporary” staged furniture, good god. Looks like the set of a 1970’s adult movie.
Absolutely does NOT match the American Four-Square architecture, which is a traditional style from ~1900-1930.
For a really good view of the lot, check Trulia. Their photo is of the empty lot, pre-house. This must be a huge hunk of house. My lot is only a little larger than that, with a house with a relatively big footprint, and I still have a fair amount of yard.
For the price, this is a better value (not that this is saying much): http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9208-Jones-Mill-Rd-Chevy-Chase-MD-20815/67490587_zpid/
And what would you know about sets of 1970’s adult movies?
It looks like the current owner bought the previous house (for more than $1.3MM) and either ripped it down or built around it to create a much bigger house.
Joe do you mean the Jones Mill Road house?
Looking at the satellite pic… It looks like it used to be a single estate, 1.5 - 2 acres. Some developer likely bought the one estate, tore down the one house, and packed 5 standard issue McMansions onto the land with a road branching into 5 driveways. I’ve seen this quite a few times in my neck of the woods too. Looks like CRAP.
You’re probably right, oxide. I’m just saying that I noted a previous sale for 1.3MM, maybe that’s what they’re talking about. They used that house to get the lots to built this house (and others).
I like it. I might do my next porno shoot right there.
Voyeuers of DC are welcome….You can take your eyes off computer screens for a change.
Eggshell and other varieties of off-white or beige are the “in” thing right now. Preferably paired with bright white wainscoting/crown molding/chair rail.
And white kitchens. Someday, all that white is going to look as dated as harvest gold or avocado.
Oh yes oh my…… And the drapery!!!!!!!!
I’m more worried about the black floor.
I’m eventually aiming for off-white walls and darker woodwork. That’s been in style since the Globe Theatre. Or at least it can’t be pinned to a decade.
HGTV Eggplant paint? Not so much…
it looks like a clinic or hospital inside that place…
I had a couple of guys working on my house last year who convinced me to repaint some off-white rooms using beige or tan paint. They used that same hospital remark with me. It occurred to me that for decades a pretty large majority of Americans were probably painting their houses, apartments, etc. some off-white color. Then, all of a sudden a few years ago, off-white went out of style and is now reviled.
I think that this is probably a feature of irrational housing bubble mentality.
“…5 beds. 5 1/2 baths…”
That isn’t a house, its a small apartment building or a dorm.
I bet it sold for $1.9 mil (a little over asking).
I’m sure they got the lot for $5k, though, right?
Probably less than $5000. After all, $5000 is what you would pay in the Woodmont Triangle neighborhood of Bethesda (which is about a 10 to 15 minute walk from this place).
Is it on a busy street? I don’t really know Chevy Chase or Bethesda very well, only certain areas and not really the “best” ones. If this is a corner lot, that could be a noise problem.
You mention the lot size. I don’t think .17 acres is that bad really, that’s very close to what I have. Enough for a patio, more than enough garden patches, a lawn in the front, and a garage. That said, I couldn’t justify nearly $2MM and $30k/yr property taxes for that. And you note that the nearby houses are very un-fancy. It would seem out of place. People are strange animals.
The longest edge of the lot is right on Wisconsin. Very noisy. Very busy. Very close to a fire station. I thought the Christmas tree sales was a great use of that lot.
Wisconsin? Busy busy busy.
Why do the words lawyer and liar rhyme so well?
They don’t.
You don’t want them to laiwyer……. but they do sound remarkably similar.
Why is that?
For the reading public, our blog government lawyer Polly conveniently failed to mention that Chevy Chase housing prices are still massively inflated 200%+ over pre-bubble prices. She would like you to ignore this.
Remember….. Pre bubbles prices are 50% lower than current asking prices.
Beware.
There is nothing in Polly’s remarks to suggest that she is pushing any sort of agenda. It’s quite possible that she agrees with you that the price of that house is absurd and likely to fall at some point in the future.
Thanks, Mike. I don’t even bother to think about the future direction of housing prices for houses that large. Why would I care? It has no impact on my life now and never will.
I will admit to a particular interest in that lot. The first time I walked past it (shortly after I moved into my current apartment), I thought it was an odd piece of land. Really too small for a house and on a very, very busy street. I’m surprised that anyone even thought to build on it at all.
Polly
Are you serious about the cost of the land only being $5,000 ? Is that a common price in DC ? That lot in my area would be well over $200,000 (and not worth it). And I doubt if you could find a vacant lot.
Until today I used to snicker whenever RAL said down by 60% but then I was looking up how much the Canadian Venture Exchange had fallen - 75% !
I don’t know what will happen to housing prices. My gut says down badly due to interest rates going up and someone in government saying to the banks enough is enough. Mark to market.
Joe and I were joking. I’d be very, very surprised if the cost of that lot was less than $700,000 or $800,000. Even given how small it was.
When I was chatting with the neighbor (in the run down place next door), she told me that the place across the street (similar to hers but in better shape) had had an offer of just over $800,000. Probably a larger lot, one house in from the very loud street. And that price could have been offered with someone thinking of it as a tear down. The neighbor was generally peeved about all this. She didn’t like the implications for her property taxes of the offer for the place across the street. And she wasn’t looking forward to having extremely wealthy people next door. She figured they would be jerks.
HA (formerly RAL, etc.) keeps insisting that housing (new construction) should never be above $50 a square foot since he claims that he can find build-able lots for $5000 or less anywhere in the country. Then when we specify places we would consider living, he counters with places that are “commutable” (20 to 25 miles out) to cities like Albany. Like a person who needs to commute into downtown DC would be content with living 25 miles from Albany. So very much a joke.
The only joke here is you my liawyer friend.
You were provided link after link for lots under $10k commutable to Manhattan.
What’s the problem Liawyer? Does your client know how ineffective you are here?
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4600-Norwood-Dr-Chevy-Chase-MD-20815/116226952_zpid/
Gee wiz….. Your example can rented for $1800/month. all other historical information is redacted.
Why do you think that is Polly?
It is a zestimate and it is wrong. If there is any truth to it at all, I bet that is what the Christmas tree sellers were being charged for occupying the empty space from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.
Not a lot of SFR rentals around here, but Somerset House (condo building) has a few listings - 1141 square feet 1 bedroom, 1.5 bath for $3000 a month or 2870 square feet 2 bedroom plus den and 2.5 bath for $6000 a month.
Ohhhhhhh…”its wrong” huh
And why do u think all other info is hidden?
I think all the other info is hidden because their current data relates to an empty lot, not a house.
Lol. That house is 60+ years old Polly.
That house was built starting last spring. In December of 2011 it was a grassy lot where a vendor sold Christmas trees. You are probably looking at the house next door. Could easily be 60 years old and not very well maintained.
You’re right. That dump was put up on all lot recently.
What of it?
Imagine the losses for the guy that got suckered.
Dude, come on… YES that house is overpriced. YES the location is noisy.
But LOL @ the idea you could rent that house for anything less than 4 grand.
It’s sad, but true, DC prices are insane and due for a fall.
Also, keep in mind that polly is wisely renting, not buying, despite the fact she could easily buy something - probably for cash.
Not really able to buy for cash yet. I’m working on it.
I expect to renew my lease for another 2 years when I get the paperwork this fall. It will be a rent increase - again, but still better choice for me now. I’m loving the utilities being included in the rent this time of year.
Whether cash or credit, who cares?…. You’re getting ripped off at current inflate asking prices. Just like millions of other who bought a house 1998-current.
.17 acres is the size of a typical city lot around here. 50 x 150. There are a few victorians that big on a city lot and they don’t look out of place. Depends on the context I guess.
the only path to recovery is more debt
Don’t forget stocks, gold, and real estate speculation.
Also: more wars.
Mornin’ Lib.
Who’s next?
Bomb bomb bomb Iran?
I was thinking maybe Cyprus? Nice climate. Probably not much interest in fighting back. Easy win for a morale booster. Just need an excuse.
Why Iran? Why don’t we talk about Syria?
Oh, may be certain narratives will go kaboom!
Who’s a Realtors next target? Don’t be it.
Obama needs a terrist attack on U.S. soil to distract the sheeple from all the scandals and rally the ribbon people. As long as it concludes with a herd of mouth breathers dancing in the streets chanting “USA! USA!” all is well…
Good morning, Fort Meade!
We have to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here and after Saddam baked his yellow cakes and threatened our friend and ally Israel and flew his planes into our World Trade Centers because they hate our freedoms we had no choice but to liberate his people otherwise it would have been mushroom cloud over Manhattan?
“We have to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here”
But we keep bringing them over here, or letting them come here. Sick, insane.
But we keep bringing them over here, or letting them come here. Sick, insane.
Invade the world, invite the world.
Simple policy change: if the majority of people from a given country show a demonstrable dislike of prevailing American culture and nationals from said country have a history of committing terrorist acts against us and/or our allies, no more people from said country are allowed to come to this one.
Simple, no? And I think the majority of Americans would agree with it - let democracy rule.
Simple, no? And I think the majority of Americans would agree with it - let democracy rule.
What makes you think we have a say in this matter?
Government of/by/for the people? Or is that just a quaint notion from bygone days?
Or is that just a quaint notion from bygone days?
Yes.
“Also: more wars.”
+1 Holy wars.
Is Mr Market in a state of denial over the eventual withdrawal of QE3?
they just hope it never happens at this point.
The Fed has been quite explicit in suggesting QE3 would end when headline unemployment drops to 6.5%.
U.S. headline unemployment rate:
Oct 2009 10.0%
April 2013 7.5%
Oct 2014 6.5% (projected)
This assumes the nearly-straight-line path of U.S. unemployment decline from October 2009 through April 2013 continues for another 18 months.
Plan accordingly.
P.S. You can see from this Google graph that the Boooosh recession was already driving unemployment skyward before Obama ever set foot in the WH. Heckuva job!
and if and when those millions return to the workforce, it will be for lucky ducky wages. welcome to the recoveryless recovery:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/chart-median-household-incomes-have-collapsed-during-the-recession/
Bush & Cheney drove this country into a ditch in a multitude of ways….The country and the republican party are now paying the tab for those 8 years of policy…
‘drove this country into a ditch’
they certainly drove government contractors down the road to riches!
“now paying the tab….”
No, we’re not paying the tab yet. We’re still trying to borrow our way out.
Asmlong as there are future generations to enslave, we can keep borrowing.
If we run out of people to enslave, bring in the
immigrantsnew debtors. Makes perfect sense.No, we’re not paying the tab yet ??
Not the final tab but in Many ways we are paying…Hows the job market for many…Has housing become more or less affordable due to policy…I could go on but you get the drift…
“Bush & Cheney drove this country into a ditch”
They started the Orwellian police state march, the current crew has kicked into overdrive. Statist progressives all.
If unemployment does reach 6.5%, and the Fed starts tapering, do they ramp it back up if unemployment goes back up? Is the Fed’s new self-professed mandate (unemployment) eternal?
“Is the Fed’s new self-professed mandate (unemployment) eternal?”
Not new.
But housing price support is new(ish)…
June 11, 2013, 6:01 a.m. EDT
Wall Street can’t quit Fed addiction
Commentary: Cheap money has fueled the recent rally, profits
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The men and women of Wall Street fancy themselves the free-market evangelists.
Whether it be J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon criticizing regulations, or Peter Schiff issuing another sky-is-falling-warning, or trade groups — such as the American Bankers Association — picking apart central bank policy, Wall Street’s message is almost uniformly: Back off. We got this.
But like the drug counselor who has a secret habit, the industry’s actions give them away. And investors only need to look at the day-to-day fluctuations in the market when a possible change in Federal Reserve policy is hinted at. Just Monday, the Fed’s use of a single word, “taper,” in relation to its bond-buying program created a surge in media coverage and shakiness in the markets.
Wall Street is addicted to cheap money.
…
June 11, 2013, 2:17 p.m. EDT
Treasurys gyrate as auction shows Fed concerns
By 0 and Ben Eisen
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices continued to gyrate Tuesday after a weak auction of 3-year notes showed investor demand remained tepid amid concerns over central-bank monetary policy.
The benchmark 10-year note 10_YEAR -0.68% yield, which moves inversely to price, was down 3.5 basis points on the day at 2.182% after climbing as high as 2.290% in morning trade, its highest since April 2012.
The 30-year bond (30_YEAR -1.04%) yield was down 5 basis points at 3.324%, while the 3-year note (3_YEAR +3.16%) yield was up 1 basis point at 0.547%.
The Treasury Department auctioned $32 billion of 3-year notes at a yield of 0.581%, the highest yield since July 2011. Offers for the debt outpaced the amount of debt sold by 2.95 times, compared to an average ratio of 3.43 times over the last four auctions. The ratio for the Tuesday sale was the lowest since October 2010.
Indirect bidders, including foreign central banks, took down a relatively large portion of the sale, while direct bidders bought relatively less. Indirect bidders were at 33.1% compared to an average of 22.1%, while direct bidders purchased 8.4%, versus an average of 20.3%.
The lack of demand reflects lingering questions about how and when the Federal Reserve will act to wind down, or taper, its bond-purchase program, which has artificially held down yields. Though most investors have converged on the assumption that the Fed won’t act before September, lingering uncertainty over whether the central bank could take action this month has pushed bond yields dramatically higher since the month of May.
“There’s still a little reluctance to own paper. I think there’s a lot of uncertainty around the taper,” said Sean Murphy, senior Treasurys trader at Société Générale. “Guys have these embedded QE positions.”
…
Wall Street Journal - Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578537720921466776.html
You know, I commend this young man’s desire to expose what was going on violating the constitution & written law….It just seems to me he could have done it in another way that didn’t expose him to the treason accusations he now face’s..
You’ll know who the real traitors are when you see ‘em standing up on their hind legs and making accusations of treason against him.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/house-speaker-john-boehner-nsa-leaker-a-traitor/
Truly a “bipartisan” sentiment
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/06/10/Feinstein-calls-Snowden-a-traitor/UPI-86781370845139/
Wow, that just turns my stomach. Boner and his lapdog Steffi.
How can anyone actually vote for this guy?
Somebody should keep a list of everyone who calls him a traitor just so we can remember who the traitors are.
the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots and all that hogwash i reckon.
i remember telling a buddy of mine a few years ago that if the fed does x y and z that i was going to set myself on fire on the steps of the federal reserve building…well…the fed held up its end of the bargain that’s for sure.
So who is accusing him of treason? President Stalin and the government apparatchiks who are reading your e-mails and monitoring your phone calls? What about governmental limitations set forth in the 9th and 10th Amendments? Many would argue that THEY are guilty of treason.
‘Pressure is growing on the White House to explain whether there was effective congressional oversight of the programs revealed by Snowden. In unbroadcast elements of a transcript issued by NBC, the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said he had responded in the “least untruthful manner” possible when denying that the NSA collected data on millions of Americans during congressional hearings.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/10/patriot-act-nsa-surveillance-review?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box:Position3
Here’s the problem for the goobermint in all of this: The citizens of the US as a group are not their enemies and I don’t buy that they’re looking for “patterns” and trying to locate the needle in the haystack.
But if they keep setting it up this way, they’re gonna get what they’re wishing for, eventually.
Pretty insane bunch in DC. Not doing so well overseas, so what the heck, might as well turn on the citizens. Talk about a thirst for conflict.
The citizens of the US as a group are not their enemies and
I think you are wrong there. Citizens are the enemies and pitting one group vs another while amassing more wealth and power is the true nature of any government.
I don’t buy that they’re looking for “patterns” and trying to locate the needle in the haystack.
Forget the needle in the haystack. They personally knew boston bommbers. They have interviewed and followed for many years and still they had to ask for people to indentify them. Talk about incompetence.
‘They personally knew boston bommbers. They have interviewed and followed for many years and still they had to ask for people to indentify them.’
I’ve had some disagreements with people over this. IMO, there ain’t no way the FBI didn’t know who these two were. They interviewed the older guy in 2011 on a tip from the Russians. This was in Boston. Then two years later a bomb goes off, in Boston, and the FBI narrows it down to the two men in the photos, and they don’t recognize them? I had an FBI agent come to my office about the accounting files of a student who was applying to be in the secret service. He wanted to know payment history, etc. This FBI agent looked at me like no one I’ve ever met in my life; studying every part of my face and body language. I’d bet that guy could pick me out of a stack of photos to this day, and I wasn’t even the object of his inquiry.
my brother has been an FBI agent for over 15 years. he has obtained confessions from 2 serial killers and was involved with the investigation of another. he works white collar crime now.
he says he absolutely knows when someone is lying to him. the hard part is proving it.
they are very well trained…but most of them are type “A” mega assholes. for most of them their hubris is their biggest weakness.
a while ago there was this new agent in my brother’s office, all full of piss and vinegar, that told everyone my brother was a pussy.
my brother pulled him aside one day and told him that the agents wife and kids should be very thankful that he is a pussy.
Congress is a bunch of narcissistic pigs who act against the best interests of their constituents in the name of greed. We need public lynchings. Let’s start with John Boehner, and Harry Reid.
Making public misinformation about how far an investigation has progressed (like whether they knew who was in the pictures or not) isn’t entirely unheard of. Especially if you are trying to figure out who is helping the people you have already identified. If cousin Larry comes forward and helps you (with information you already know is true), you can be pretty sure that cousin Larry isn’t in on anything, though you might check cousin Larry’s phone records before crossing him completely off your list.
a while ago there was this new agent in my brother’s office, all full of piss and vinegar, that told everyone my brother was a pussy.
my brother pulled him aside one day and told him that the agents wife and kids should be very thankful that he is a pussy.
They sound like a couple of juvenile delinquent teenage boys.
This FBI agent looked at me like no one I’ve ever met in my life; studying every part of my face and body language. I’d bet that guy could pick me out of a stack of photos to this day, and I wasn’t even the object of his inquiry.
Perhaps the student’s accounting files was a pretext; are you absolutely SURE you weren’t the object of his inquiry, Ben, considering all of your nefarious blogging about the Constitution?
Yeah, this was in the 90’s.
Yeah, this was in the 90’s.
Ok, I’m sure you read it right, then; that was before your rabble-rousing became dangerous.
Here’s something interesting about that situation though: he gave me a waiver signed by the student wanting to join the secret service. I gave him the payment history he wanted, he asked a few more questions (I didn’t personally know this person or anything about him). Then he asked for the same information on his roommate. I asked, “Do you have a waiver from him?” He replied no. I said, “well I can’t give you any information on this person”. He gave me this studying stare that lasted for a few seconds and said, “fair enough.” We shook hands and he left.
‘Making public misinformation about how far an investigation has progressed (like whether they knew who was in the pictures or not) isn’t entirely unheard of.’
The day these pictures came out, the younger brother went to a party. This is now two going on three days after the bombing. And where they were living wasn’t a secret. Then a shooting spree starts and an MIT security guard is killed. If they were playing cat and mouse trying to trap cousin Larry, they got an innocent man killed.
“President Stalin”
Please, show some respect. That’s President Obama bin Stalin to you, prole.
Recent events have added new meaning to “is it go time”, as in “it’s time for you to go”. Can you hear me now?
‘Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971 exposed the secret history of the war in Vietnam, thinks Edward Snowden’s leak of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs was more important than his. “In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material, and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago,” Ellsberg wrote in an op-ed published by the Guardian on Monday. “Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an ‘executive coup’ against the U.S. constitution.”
‘Ellsberg added on CNN Sunday night that “it can’t be overestimated to this democracy. It gives us a chance, I think, from drawing back from the total surveillance state that we could say we’re in process of becoming, I’m afraid we have become. That’s what he’s revealed.”
‘On Friday, President Barack Obama defended the programs that predated his administration, saying Americans must tolerate “modest encroachments on privacy” in the name of security, Congress had been fully briefed, and that his White House “actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards.”
‘In the Guardian, Ellsberg scoffed at Obama’s response: For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense—as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time—as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads—they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.’
‘The fact that congressional leaders were “briefed” on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.’
‘Last week, Ellsberg told The Washington Post that the U.S. government would have gone after him the same way they’ve gone after Bradley Manning, the former U.S. soldier who is currently on trial accused of providing thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. “I’m sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case,” Ellsberg said.’
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ellsberg-snowden-nsa-leak-pentagon-papers-142811185.html
We’re all being monitored here too. Large sums are spent to detract from discussing current massively inflated housing prices.
Why is that?
Then he asked for the same information on his roommate. I asked, “Do you have a waiver from him?” He replied no.
Interesting, indeed…
Ellsberg was granted a mistrial because of illegal wiretapping etc. Can one be convicted of treason for reporting same? There seems to be a precedent that would say “no”.
wall street journal - insider probe hits congress
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578537780079103690.html
Unfortunately, Congress is exempt from insider trading regs.
Does it all make sense now?
hope all the shrink-the-government, grover norquist fetishist, privatize everything crowd are happy with this
‘in recent years, about one in four intelligence workers has been a contractor, and 70 percent or more of the intelligence community’s secret budget has gone to private firms.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nsa-leaks-put-focus-on-intelligence-apparatuss-reliance-on-outside-contractors/2013/06/10/e940c4ba-d20e-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html
Of course they’re happy with it. They made tons of profits.
‘if i had a son, he’d look like trayvon’ - president barack hussein obama
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-trial-of-the-century-begins-in-sanford/2013/06/10/547eb91a-d20c-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html
I would stock up now for the upcoming race riots when this trial goes “sideways”.
Would today be a great time to buy the dip?
This is getting a bit surreal. The headlines are screaming CRASH but it barely shows up in the futures at all.
New York Markets Open in: 0:34:45
Pre-Market Indications | Analyst Ratings
Futures: S&P 500 -0.0% DOW -0.8% NASDAQ -0.0%
Futures tumble as global stock rout spreads
• Gut checks: Bonds fall, but no rotation
Talk of destruction and danger attracts more interest than talks of mild up or down movements.
It’s true with the weather and it’s true with the markets.
June 11, 2013, 6:47 a.m. EDT
Europe stocks slide with BOJ, OMT hearing in focus
By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — European stock markets staged broad-based losses on Tuesday, tracking losses in Asia, where the Bank of Japan’s latest monetary decision failed to boost market optimism.
…
what dip? there hasnt been a dip in years that I would even think about buying.
the insiders have made a fortune on this engineered market.
Volatile stocks tumble in global sell-off
Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY 5:33 p.m. EDT June 11, 2013
Story Highlights
* Dow was down as much as 150 points before recovering and then dropping again
* Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.45%
* European markets also tumble
Stocks tumbled Tuesday in volatile trading as renewed concerns about central banks easing off their efforts to support the global economy weighed on markets worldwide.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 117.73 points, or 0.8%, to 15,120.86. The Dow initially plunged more than 150 points at the open after overseas markets fell sharply. The Dow recovered at midday and briefly turned positive before retreating again.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 16.66 points, or 1.0% to 1,626.15 and the Nasdaq composite index tumbled 36.82, or 1.1% to 3,436.95.
The global rout began in Asia as Japan’s Nikkei stock index fell 1.45% to 13,317.62. Japan’s central bank ended a two-day policy meeting and disappointed investors by not taking any new measures.
There had been expectations that the central bank, which started a big monetary stimulus earlier this year in an attempt to get the world’s number 3 economy out of a two-decade stagnation, would take some action to try and ease the volatility in the Japanese bond market. Instead the bank’s policy board merely upgraded its economic assessment.
This added to concerns about global central banks easing back on their efforts to support economic growth and keep interest rates low, investors said. U.S. markets have been shaken by speculation that the Federal Reserve will start curtailing its bond-buying program in the coming months.
“There’s just a lot of uncertainty,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at the brokerage BTIG in New York. “People are worried about the Fed. They’re worried about a spike in interest rates. And then Japan says it’s finished for now.”
…
Is it time for gold bugs to get themselves Prozac prescriptions?
PRECIOUS-Gold slides to 3-week low on stimulus concerns
Tue Jun 11, 2013 7:10am EDT
* BoJ stands pat on stimulus; speculation mounts over Fed
* Largest gold ETF reports biggest inflow in a month
* Platinum miner Lonmin, union in talks to avert strike (Updates prices)
By Jan Harvey
LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - Gold fell more than 1 percent on Tuesday to a near three-week low after the Bank of Japan opted not to extend its stimulus programme, stoking speculation that the era of ultra-loose global monetary policy is coming to an end.
Gold had already been hurt by talk the U.S. Federal Reserve may be set to taper its monetary easing sooner than expected, after Standard & Poor’s revised up its U.S. sovereign credit outlook on Monday and a U.S. payrolls report last week beat forecasts.
…
Prozac? Golly no!
Or maybe I’m not a gold bug, as I have less than 8% of my assets in precious metals.
I see more and more Kitco columnists calling a gold bear market. This is when it gets better for those of us accumulating the precious.
Sounds good…unless the bear’s jaws get locked onto the market for three more decades.
the 0.1 percent raping the u.s. taxpayers:
‘booz allen hamilton holding corp relies on the u.s. government for 99 percent of its revenue … carlyle group acquired booz allen in 2008 and still holds 67 percent, according to data compiled by bloomberg.’
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-11/booz-allen-contracts-seen-at-risk-with-leaked-government-secrets.html
Remember the good old days of the 1980s, when the top 20 percent was getting and everyone else was falling behind?
Or the not quite as good old days of a decade ago when the whole one percent was getting ahead?
It’s have to believe there was once a time when someone gave a damn about the bottom half.
(some of) the bottom half could once work and save to afford college…now they have to become debt slaves.
You got a problem with
crony capitalismthe invisible hand of the free market, buddy?Only when it’s balled into the invisible fist.
‘Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Rand Paul had strong words for the National Security Agency. “Get a warrant, go after a terrorist or a murderer or a rapist,” he said. “But don’t troll through a billion phone records every day.’
‘But not everyone in the GOP is on board with this great privacy awakening. “Sen. Rand Paul, he’s a libertarian, and in Rand Paul’s world you have almost no defenses against terrorists,” blustered South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. “In Rand Paul’s world, you can’t hold somebody for questioning who’s been involved in an attack on our country.”
‘This broadside elicited a fierce reaction from South Carolinian Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Citadel—and a possible Graham primary challenger. “In Senator Graham’s world, the Constitution doesn’t exist,” Mace wrote. “In Senator Graham’s world, the entire Bill of Rights is negotiable.”
‘Mace zinged Graham for believing “arming al-Qaeda in Syria is a good idea.” She argued Graham “says we’re fighting for freedom but is the first to surrender all of them.” Mace concluded, “Maybe Senator Graham has been living in a world of his own for too long.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/civil-liberties-a-gop-civil-war/
bazinga!
Wow, I don’t know anything about this lady, but I like her already.
Wow, I don’t know anything about this lady, but I like her already.
+1.
Message of the markets. The real value long term value of stocks has been falling right along. If the market perceives that the value of the currencies they are being priced in is not going down fast enough, the nominal value falls.
And since wages have been falling in real terms for a long time, there is no one left to sell to.
stocks are a way to legally steal money from mom and pop.
Its like a casino where they give an illusion that you are going to win but the house is making all the money, no difference at all.
But if mom and pops are in their 50’s and only have 50,000 saved up so far, they have no choice but to hit the casino.
First published in 1940: “Where are the customers’ yachts?” by Fred Schwed:
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Are-Customers-Yachts-Investment/dp/0471770892
And since wages have been falling in real terms for a long time, there is no one left to sell to ??
There are 70 million people in this country that are starting to enter their low earning and low consumption years…They are not stock buyers either…At least on a personal level…I guess they are if their pension fund is active in the market but thats a lot of people that are going to be buying very little of anything…
is this ‘taking america back?’ or ‘restoring our future?’ so confused…
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-10/house-republican-leaders-said-to-speed-immigration-work.html
obama promotes policy to turn little girls into sluts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/in-reversal-obama-to-end-effort-to-restrict-morning-after-pill.html?pagewanted=all
I like it. We may have to sell them one day to pay the banksters and chinese. The earlier we train them the better.
“NSA Leak puts Booz Allen, Employee in DOJ Crosshairs”
http://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/448637?nl_pk=9d07ff26-0986-46de-917f-4b7f3ce1f9dc&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=governmentcontracts
“From a legal sense, he’s not a whistleblower at all,” Oswald said. “Going to the media directly is not a protected activity in most cases. … He’s put himself in great criminal jeopardy.”
If he wanted to qualify for whistleblower protection, Snowden could have pursued several reporting paths that he should have been aware of as a government contractor employee with a security clearance, according to Oswald. He could have reported his concerns to Booz Allen, the National Security Agency, the NSA’s inspector general, the Department of Justice, or a congressional oversight committee. He could even have filed a lawsuit under seal, Oswald said.
Although the DOJ did not immediately respond to a question about its plans to prosecute Snowden, it has pursued criminal charges for national security leaks in the past.
“If they aren’t already presenting charges to a grand jury, I’d say they’re drawing up those charges right now,” Oswald said.
Snowden is reportedly in Hong Kong, which signed an extradition treaty with the U.S. in December 1996. The treaty allows for extradition for a variety of criminal charges, including “involving unlawful use of computers” and activity that would be deemed illegal in both countries, but allows an exemption from extradition for “an offense of a political character.”
Current Drudge Report headline:
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-russia-asylum-request
Food is better in China. Women are better in Russia.
Really a tough choice…
But Dahlink, they have Mickey D’s in Moscow!
The takeaways from the article to me are:
1) Booz is one of the higher-quality gov’t contractors. If Booz doesn’t know what it’s paid snoopers are doing, imagine what goes on at the fly-by-the-night super-secret contractor operations.
2) DoD/NSA and DHS are so dependent on private contractors at this point that they could not function without them. I think it’s going to be very hard for DoD/NSA to pin this on Booz Allen. These employees switch over from one contractor to the other all the time but they are always working on DoD/NSA work. The “private contractor” thing is nonsense in this case–they’re using NSA equipment, working in an NSA facility, and accessing NSA data on an NSA network. Yet, without private contractors and the profit motive, our “national security” infrastructure wouldn’t be nearly as intrusive or extensive.
The profit motive. Exactly. Like for-profit prisons, scary.
+1
Yet, without private contractors and the profit motive, our “national security” infrastructure wouldn’t be nearly as intrusive or extensive.
What joe said.
The profit motive. Exactly. Like for-profit prisons, scary.
I call a BS in this.
Government = root cause
Contractors = symptoms
There’s a subtle propaganda going on lately. The meme is without the contractors, we would have had the best government possible. That’s a utter BS! Contractors exist/do because of the government not the other way around.
Lobbyists = root cause
Lobbyists = root cause
Seems like electing members who listen to them is the root cause. Unless you think it’s impossible not to under the current system. In which case the system that allows them access to the members is the root cause.
You can’t change human nature…..
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
–P. J. O’Rourke
Seems like electing members who listen to them is the root cause.
Agreed, but when the only two choices you get are Coke and Pepsi, and voting third party is “throwing away your vote”, how can you stop it?
Ross Perot could have in 1992.
Ross Perot could have in 1992.
It’s unfortunate that he came across as an uncharismatic, eccentric crackpot.
He was doing good until he quit and then tried to get back in later…
Reagan and the GOP created the environment for contractors to be indistinguishable from government.
“Privatizing” and all that.
And much like trickle down, free market, the unproductive American worker and dozens of other lies, the American people were conned.
“Why do you hate America?”
Reminder: Over 550,000 (not a typo) PRIVATE CONTRACTOR EMPLOYEES have top secret clearances (the highest level). Think about that for a second.
Reminder: The Pentagon spends more than 70% of its labor budget on private contractors. The Pentagon is the primary or only customer for a plethora of the largest businesses in the world, some you have heard of and some you probably haven’t.
Reminder: Private contractors make fairly outrageous sums of money. Even a small fish like the NSA/Booz Allen leaker made 200k plus full benefits. His only real “talent” was getting a security clearance. Congress is currently trying to cap the pay that private contractors can charge to the government to a max of $750k for any one employee per year. ($750k does not include benefits or fringe benefits, in case you were wondering.) There are currently thousands of private contractor employees who make over $1MM/yr doing government contracting work.
Goon, pls add the 550k top secret clearances thing to your meme collection. I’ll post a link to that figure when I get a chance. I have to find where I read it.
Links to mind blowing numbers of security clearances held by private contractors:
http://www.lastpostpublishing.com/Pages/AboutSecurityClearances.aspx
http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/06/10/2536422/leak-highlights-key-role-of-private.html
I’ll find more later. I know I’ve read that the actual number is 550k.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/11/about-500000-private-contractors-have-access-to-top-secret-information/
About 500,000 private contractors have access to top-secret info
By Brad Plumer, Published: June 11, 2013 at 11:01 amE-mail the writer
One of the more frequent questions raised after Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s surveillance programs is how a private contractor working at Booz Allen Hamilton had access to such sensitive information in the first place.
But as our Washington Post colleagues report Tuesday, this isn’t all that unusual. Roughly 500,000 contractors were privy to top-secret information in 2012 — making up about 36 percent of those who had access:
….
There’s a lot more detail in this Post story about the outsourcing of intelligence work, which notes that one in four intelligence workers has been a contractor, and 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to private firms. “But,” the caveat goes, “in the rush to fill jobs, the government has relied on faulty procedures to vet intelligence workers, documents and interviews show.”
In a related vein, The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman compiles the evidence that outsourcing key functions doesn’t actually save the government money. For instance: “The Senate Intelligence Committee has stated that while the average civilian federal employee costs $125,000 per year (with overhead included), an equivalent contractor comes out to about $250,000.”
This phenomenon isn’t just confined to military and intelligence, of course. Since 1999, the number of workers directly employed by the entire federal government has stayed roughly constant at about 4 million. But the number of private contractors has ballooned, from 4.4 million to 7.6 million in 2005 (these numbers turn out to be surprisingly difficult to pin down, since records on contractors are fairly unreliable). And there’s no ready way to tell whether this outsourcing boom is actually saving taxpayers money.
Further reading:
–The Post’s in-depth report on “Top Secret America”
–Study: Privatizing government doesn’t actually save money.
And there’s no ready way to tell whether this outsourcing boom is actually saving taxpayers money.
There ya have it!
“The Senate Intelligence Committee has stated that while the average civilian federal employee costs $125,000 per year (with overhead included), an equivalent contractor comes out to about $250,000.”
And for that $250k, you get a lot less loyalty and continuity of service. You also get tons of lots of overhead cost overruns that aren’t disclosed until a project is mostly completed. Contractor overhead usually gets tossed to the government.
“About 500,000 private contractors have access to top-secret info”
This is a joke, right?
I was listening to a radio show about this this morning. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I imagine that the FBI or somebody has to check these people out every couple of years to see if they’ve done anything that should cause them to lose their clearances. On top of that there must be tens of thousands of prople who apply for a clearance every year. All of that must add up to quite a bit of money.
Leak risk: So many security clearances
The Defense Department issues about 80 percent of all U.S. clearances. | Reuters
By LEIGH MUNSIL | 6/11/13 5:44 PM EDT
In the mammoth national security community, any one of the nearly 5 million Americans with a security clearance could become a leaker.
…
I’m stuck in meetings all day but look forward to following this discussion later.
BTW, I only hold Public Trust clearance, not Top Secret.
Snowden was only making 120K per the employer.
Wouldn’t you love to be that badly paid? I sure would!
Apparently the educational bar also is fairly low for spooks.
That’s his base salary. There’s no way those guys don’t do tons of overtime (which is paid).
And, btw, with benefits and overhead, 120k would cost the government close to 200k once you build in overhead.
Military and NSA direct employees would _not_ get paid overtime, btw. Contractors get time and a half or double time (holidays/weekends). They generally go to town on the overtime. At least all our clients do. It’s a feeding frenzy.
His only real “talent” was getting a security clearance.
We should all be so lucky.
Joe - those are astonishing figures. Can you post some links where this can be verified - I’d like to bring that up to my congresscritters at the next town meeting I go to.
More LLs trying to become rip off artists.
http://www.mrlandlord.com/landlordforum/display.php?id=14078652
And these same landlords whine about why they can’t attract and retain good tenants.
For anyone who doesn’t read the link, basically a LL wants to bill the tenants $50 off their security deposit because the trash can is “overflowing the brim” or somesuch. Not because there are possessions left behind or trash in the yard, etc. No, just an overly-full trash can.
This happens everyday over on that forum. New ways to charge tenants appear all the time. It’s usually from the people who have only 1 or 2 rental houses and are overly involved, almost like it’s a hobby instead of a business. The guys with dozens of houses (or 100+ in some cases) always blow things like this off.
Full Trash Cans @ Turnove (by Orlando [MO]) Posted on: Jun 10, 2013 7:35 PM
Message: What is a reasonable amount to charge when the tenants leave their trash cans overflowing to the brim at the property turnover? This is standard practice in my hood. I’d like to shoot for $50 per can, as it’s unlikely to ever be captured.
What is everyone else charging, and perhaps more importantly, the judge allowing?
————————————————————————
# 1 “overflowing to the brim” makes no fuqing sense you cheap @sshole.
#2 I suggest you invest in a Hefty bag, thank your former tenants for taking the trash out of your property and be glad you didn’t rent to Jeffrey Dahmer and have to clean up after him.
The contents of Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment
The Kitchen
The refrigerator, containing a head, facing upward from a cardboard box on the bottom shelf, blood drippings and condiments
The freezer portion of this refrigerator contained three plastic bags: two each contained a heart and the other contained a portion of muscle.
A floor-standing freezer, containing three additional heads, a bag containing a torso, and a bag containing internal organs
The Hallway Closet
Formaldehyde, ether, and chloroform - Dahmer used the formaldehyde to preserve various body parts. He attempted to use the ether to drug his victims, but found that it was not as effective as sleeping pills.
Two bleached skulls
An aluminum kettle, containing two hands and one set of male genitalia
The Bedroom
Bloodstains on the walls
A bed, with bloodstained mattress and pillowcase
A large knife - this was the knife used to attack Tracy Edwards and likely the knife used to cut Ernest Miller’s throat.
A Polaroid camera - Dahmer used a Polaroid camera to take pictures of nearly every one of his victims when both alive and dead.
A metal filing cabinet, containing three painted skulls, a complete skeleton, 74 polaroid photographs of Dahmer’s victims, and two paper bags, containing a dried scalp and another set of male genitalia - Dahmer painted most of his trophy skulls with a granite colored enamel spray paint. Dahmer hoped that if anyone saw the skulls, they would appear to be fake.
A box with a styrofoam lid, containing two skulls
A 57-gallon plastic drum filled with acid, containing three torsos in various stages of decomposition - Dahmer used this drum to store and dissolve body parts
Miscellaneous Items
Jug of Clorox bleach - used to bleach bones and skulls
Odorsorb and incense sticks - decomposing flesh created a stench in Dahmer’s apartment so bad that neighbors often complained.
Four boxes of muriatic acid - Dahmer had purchased these at Ace Hardware just days before his arrest. He used the acid to dissolve portions of dismembered corpses.
Six boxes of Soilex - Dahmer used a Soilex/water mixture to boil bones. After being boiled in the solution, flesh would wash off of the bones.
Identification cards of several of Dahmer’s victims
A 3/8″ drill, a 1/16″ drill bit, and a hypodermic needle - Dahmer drilled holes into several of his victim’s heads and injected acid in at attempt to create zombies.
A claw hammer
A handsaw - Dahmer used this saw to dismember his victims.
Pornographic videos, including Cocktales, Chippendales Tall Dark and Handsome, Rock Hard, Hard Men II, Hard Men III, Peep Show, and Tropical Heat Wave
Non-pornographic videos, including The Exorcist II, Return of the Jedi, a lecture on evolution, and an episode of The Cosby Show.
A King James Version bible
http://everything2.com/title/the+contents+of+Jeffrey+Dahmer%2527s+apartment - 28k -
What is a reasonable amount to charge when the tenants leave their trash cans overflowing to the brim at the property turnover?
In my city, you do actually get charged more by the city if your lid does not fit on the garbage can.
So as a LL, I would want the tenant to pay any such fees, rather than paying it myself.
“I would want the tenant to pay any such fees,”
I bet you wouldn’t ask for it if two heads, three torsos in various stages of decomposition , a bag containing internal organs, two hands, a dried scalp and set of male genitalia were causing the lid not fit on the garbage can.
“In my city, you do actually get charged more by the city if your lid does not fit on the garbage can.”
Your city sucks.
But having said that, how much do they charge? Do they give you a warning? Do you tell your tenants up front if they do not know that?
The charge is $10 for extra garbage, defined as anything that doesn’t fit in your can with the lid fully closed. There is no warning. I don’t tell my tenants, because I don’t have any–I’m not a LL, I’m a renter!
http://www.seattle.gov/util/MyServices/Garbage/HouseResidentsGarbage/ExtraorBulkyGarbage/index.htm
Most states have very precise security deposit regs. Usually favoring the tenant.
Most small time LLs are buttheads who often shoot themselves in the foot.
Oxide mentioned me late yesterday:
Where the rent is cheap, there is probably cheap housing to match. However, in some places in flyover, houses are cheap enough that it would be folly NOT to buy. For example, Carl in his trailer park. Buying a trailer outright probably paid for itself in saved rent in a couple years. In 5 years it would pay for itself even if renting really were half the cost of buying.
My response:
Oxide, your example using me confuses me. I paid cash for a trailer and pay a pittance for lot fees each month specifically because the houses here are outrageously expensive relative to incomes. So I found a way to avoid giving all my spare income to the banks each month, but it required me to compromise on my “needs”, particularly in the image and extra space/garage area. There was no other way to accomplish that while living and working in this location.
Bottom line, the only way to avoid giving your money to the banks around here is to live like a poor person. Everything else has been gamed.
B-b-b-but it’s totally worth paying 7x median income for a house so you can trail-run to the Flatirons and ride your bike to go rock climb in Eldorado Canyon bro.
I’m sure it is :-). But you don’t have to sign your life away for that…
Bottom line, the only way to avoid giving your money to the banks around here is to live like a poor person.
And I’ll bet those po’ folks/”trailer trash” are better neighbors than the D Bags in the overpriced houses.
It’s tough to compare, but there are some good people here. Lots of professionals who chose professions that don’t pay much, such as social work. Lots of retirees and young blue collar types. A few toothless house painter types that I suspect are under the influence sometimes. Lots of female divorcees just getting by. Haven’t had any problems with anybody.
What’s interesting is that it’s the subsidized low-income housing down the road that seems to get a lot of visits from the police. You don’t see that here. But nobody is allowed to rent here…everything must be owner occupied.
Owning probably is a good thing for a neighborhood, provided the owners are not spending the bulk of their income on servicing the house and little else.
I think that living like a poor person has been gamed as well. There is a little row of 100 to 200 ft2 ancient shanties at the south end of town here, lined up in a narrow patch between the highway and a rock cliff. They rent for $500 a month, because that is the government subsidy. You can rent or buy a house in the country for that, or an appartment in town. $500 is the floor. If you fall off the debt donkey cart, you land in the subsidy barrow.
Government doesn’t subsidize our boat slip though, or your campsite, so it is cheaper to live like you are well off but on holiday. You can also rent a store front for less than an appartment, and there is one in the village with lacy curtains in the window now instead of video rentals.
This sounds about right. The amount that a LL can get from S. 8 becomes the “floor” for rents. If a place “should” rent for $500/month based on income, but a LL can easily get $ 600 or 700 from S. 8, there’s no way he’s renting it for $500.
Section 8 usually has to overpay by 20% or more because LL’s would rather take regular renters otherwise. The amount paid by Section 8 still pushes up the minimum rents on everyone else, though, since there’s a flux of LL’s adjusting prices upwards to keep up with what S. 8 will pay.
If they want a robust economy, they need to stop artificially inflating housing and renting prices.
If it is true that increased unemployment follows increased homeownership, and there is every indication there is, they really need to consider the question of whether servicing the house, the bulk of which feeds non-productive Wall Street, is a situation to be encouraged.
Don’t get me wrong, they could already know it, and don’t care due to crony and future employer/client concerns. To the politicians, as long as it looks good and the public believes it, that’s all that matters. Ditto with policy makers. “Housing will lead us out of the slump!” we always hear. Ironic that it actually leads into the slump. As it did in the early 2000s.
We always hear how renters are poor and homeowners are well off, but personal experience shows that homeowners typically don’t have two nickels to rub together for quite some time after buying the house.
I am onboard with homeownership. I think it’s great to be able to be able to live rent/mortgage-free. However, the social policy of indebting the society as much as possible doesn’t help the real economy and employment. Wall Street jobs are very expensive to fund and very limited in quantity.
I understand how low interest rates allows people to pay more for their house…I get that…however, here’s the question Neuro…how are they artificially inflating rents?
Seems like the only way they could do that is by monkeying with the physical supply and demand economics.
Restricting supply through NIMBYism? Forcing higher costs because of higher city fees, etc.?
Perversely, low interest rates are actually allowing more development of multi-family than would actually occur at today’s rents with higher yields…in Southern California, I understand developers are building to 6% yields on cost (and even less). If interest rates were to move 100bps, and that development yield moved to 7%, then additional supply would be restricted until rents rose to support the development.
It’s going to be very strange indeed as yields rise.
It’s going to be very strange indeed as yields rise.
So, RW—are you saying that you expect the brakes to slam on the multi-family development as yields rise?
Or do you expect rents to rise as the higher rates demand higher rental yields?
Or both?
People are being forced into rentals, while houses are kept empty, unavailable for rent or sale due to intentionally byzantine foreclosure / short sale processes. And deceptive accounting procedures such as mark to fantasy encourage banks to hold inventory as they don’t realize losses till they sell.
There’s plenty of housing capacity. It’s legislative choices that cause the inefficiency, creating a traffic jam in rentals while keeping houses idle, unavailable for rent or sale.
Keeping both house prices high and rental prices high reduces income that can be spent on other goods and services. That’s not going to increase employment.
I think the confusion is that I think of “flyover” more in the Oil City sense, where houses are easily sub $100K.
OK, the way you went from that sentence to the next made me think that you thought we had that kind of prices in Boulder and for whatever reason I bought a trailer to go even cheaper. If I could buy a 3br 2ba in good shape with a garage here for under $200k I’d have bought that instead of the trailer. Instead we’re talking 400k+ and I find that ridiculous. I think a bunch of those owners couldn’t purchase their own house now, they’ve been in them since before the 1998 runup.
Flyover country is anything other than the Northeast (from MD and DC on up) or on the Pacific Ocean (CA, OR, WA).
In reality, much of Pennsylvania is “flyover” and parts of CA, OR, and WA are flyover (e.g. Inland Empire, Central Valley).
Of course there are exeptions like Chicago, Toronto, Denver, and maybe Austin. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Most on NY state, all of MA west of Springfield, all of NH and VT, All of ME and CT east of Hartford is all flyover.
Coastal NH, all 33 miles of it, and the Nashua corridor are definitely considered Boston suburbia. I would hardly write off the old money ME coast areas as “flyover”. More like summer establishment hangouts.
I always assumed that the term flyover was invented by show business people who travel back and forth between New York and LA. Looking at this blog, it appears that it is people in the middle of the country who use the term the most.
Flyover = Fox News, talk radio “informed” citizens
Coastal Elitists = NPR, New York Times, et cetera
As a Ron Paul supporter (and campaign donor) in flyover, I look forward to the day when we shoot down the planes of coastal elitist pr*cks flying over us and feed their burnt carcasses to the prairie dogs.
NSA, are you listening?
and feed their burnt carcasses to the prairie dogs.
LOL… You got me with that one, goon.
The central San Joaquin Valley (”San Jokin’ Valley, as my uncle would say) is sort of the “flyover country” of California. A better term would be “skirt around country,” as people would normally take the 5 freeway on the west side and avoid the “big” cities of Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, and Stockton as they drive between S.F. and L.A.
But the difference is that Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, and Stockton residents pay the high California taxes and receive no representation. Ouch!
map of Flyover Country: http://www.flyovermovie.com/images/flyover_front_map.jpg
I was in a meeting today all day with people from Back East. What a bunch of crackberry-addicted, self-involved freaks.
F* the East Coast. You can take all your money and narcissism and go f* yourselves. And when “go time” really happens, I’ll be living the Red Dawn dream up in the foothills while I watch your wives and children get raped and murdered a la the Superdome circa September 2005. Loosers
+1 Lemme guess, 4-shot, 8-oz Americano?
“Everything else has been gamed.”
Including our Debt Donkey Oxide.
If this is “flight to quality” time, why aren’t more panic-stricken investors flocking into gold or Treasurys?
As emerging markets tank, traditional safe havens don’t look so safe any more
June 11, 2013, 10:17 AM
Emerging-market currencies and equities suffered a fresh hammering on Tuesday. And global equity markets aren’t faring too well overall, either.
In Europe, Spanish and Italian bond yields are on the rise (albeit from low levels). All in all, sounds like a recipe for a good, old-fashioned flight to safety.
There’s just one problem, traditional havens such as the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and even U.S. Treasurys just don’t seem that safe any more, notes Steven Barrow, currency and fixed-income strategist at Standard Bank in London. He writes:
…
There’s just one problem, traditional havens such as the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and even U.S. Treasurys just don’t seem that safe any more,
As everything else starts to tank, don’t the traditional havens by definition get more safe, as the flight to quality pushes their prices up and their yields down?
I see more and more people becoming bullish on the stock market and bearish on precious metals.
Those are good contrarian indicators for both. Of course I am going to keep buying far more stocks and hold far more in stocks than in precious metals. But I’m not selling gold for quite awhile. Just buying more and more of it.
June 11, 2013, 6:13 p.m. EDT
Gold ends down as rate worries spur global selloff
By Barbara Kollmeyer and William L. Watts, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Gold prices ended lower but trimmed losses after dropping to the lowest level in nearly two months Tuesday, with precious metals caught in a downdraft after the Bank of Japan offered no additional stimulus at its policy meeting and investors around the world showed mounting concerns over rising short-term interest rates.
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Homeowners risk losing tax break to pursue loan modification
Posted: 7:20 p.m. Monday, June 10, 2013
By Kimberly Miller - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Homeowner advocates celebrated last month when a key federal foreclosure prevention program was extended, but the time gain has turned borrowers into unwitting gamblers, forced to chance a loan modification at the risk of losing out on a short sale tax break.
The Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program is now open through 2015, meaning homeowners rushing to negotiate a deal by year’s end have more time. What hasn’t been extended is a law that allows homeowners who short sell their home to exclude the forgiven debt _ usually tens of thousands of dollars _ from their income.
That ends Jan. 1, 2014, and means if borrowers pursue a loan modification and fail, they could face a short sale of their home next year without the benefit of the tax break.
“It’s putting people in a crazy situation,” said attorney Paul Krasker, whose West Palm Beach law firm does foreclosure defense and helps homeowners with loan modifications. “Some people wanting to save their home are actually being forced to do a short sale so they won’t owe the IRS.”
Since 2007, homeowners whose banks have forgiven unpaid mortgage debt after a short sale, principal reduction or foreclosure have not had to count that money as income on their tax returns. Originally set to end in December, the Mortgage Debt Relief Act was extended in a last-minute vote on legislation that averted the worst of the fiscal cliff earlier this year.
With some short sales taking months to complete, Realtors say the decision on whether to put a home on the market needs to be made soon so it can close before the Jan. 1, 2014, tax relief cutoff.
Sherry Lee, broker/owner of Lee Property Sales in West Palm Beach, suggests getting a contract on a short sale by the end of September to meet the deadline. But she has one client who would prefer to keep his home with a loan modification instead of put it on the market as a short sale.
“I told him straight up that he has to do the loan mod right now and get an answer because the only other alternative at that point is short sale and it’s already June,” Lee said. “I can’t tell my clients not to roll the dice, but I have to walk a fine line as far as advice.”
The debt relief act has been particularly helpful to South Florida borrowers who saw their home values plummet 51 percent from the peak of the market in December 2006 to a low point in November 2011, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index. Values have rebounded in recent months and were 43 percent below the peak in March, according to the index.
Under normal circumstances, if a home sells for $150,000 less than what is owed on the mortgage, the borrower would be on the hook for up to $58,500 in taxes, depending on the tax bracket. The debt relief act waives that charge.
“Prices are up so people are closer to getting even and this will be less of an issue,” said Jason Altman, a Boynton Beach accountant who has helped people avoid paying taxes on canceled debt and suggests insolvency as an option to defer phantom income. “This is a problem, but also an opportunity. It’s not the end of the world.”
Not everyone can benefit from the debt relief act. It covers only forgiven debt on principal residences and amounts up to $2 million, or $1 million if married but filing separately.
Krasker said his employees were ecstatic when the Home Affordable Modification Program to reduce monthly loan payments was extended through December 2015 because they were getting nervous about completing clients’ files before the end of the year.
Since the program was announced in 2009, more than 105,000 Florida homeowners, including 46,300 in South Florida, have received permanent mortgage modifications through the program.
But then Krasker realized homeowners would have to make the difficult decision of whether to pursue a loan modification under the threat of missing the tax deadline.
“If they want to continue forward with the modification and take the risk, we tell them that that’s what it is at this point, a risk,” Krasker said.”We hope the (tax break) will be extended, but as of today, it hasn’t.”
The dilemma
While federal loan modification plans have been extended through 2015, a law that waives taxes on forgiven debt expires Jan. 1, 2014. That means a homeowner who holds out for a loan modification, but is unsuccessful, risks having to short sale their home and owing tens of thousands of dollars in taxes on the forgiven debt.
With today’s politicians, there is no longer any need for trial by jury. All you need is someone like Old Weepy Eyes to shout “Traitor!” and turn loose the hounds who sit in the six percent (and declining) approval rating Congress on the accused.
Rasmussen Poll: Just 6 Percent Think Congress is Doing Good Job
Wednesday, 05 Jun 2013 10:29 PM
By Greg Richter
A mere 6 percent of Americans believe Congress is doing either a good or excellent job, a new Rasmussen Poll shows. And while disapproval of Congress isn’t surprising, the poll shows that people don’t like their own representatives either.
While support was in single digits, a whopping 90 percent of likely voters rated them fair or poor. Almost two-thirds rated the legislative branch as “poor.”
Republicans matched the overall numbers at 6 percent approval. Democrats rated Congress only slightly better at 9 percent.
Among income groups, only those making less than $30,000 or more than $200,000 a year gave double-digit approval: 10 percent. Everyone in between gave either 4 percent or 6 percent approval.
Conservative, moderates and liberals all gave 6 percent to 7 percent approval. No one in labor unions or allied with the tea party gave excellent marks. They gave “good” ratings of 8 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Only 24 percent think their member of Congress is the best person for the job, and a third think that he or she should be re-elected.
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Considering the slant of Rasmussen, this is still a real eye opener.
Wow. (seriously)
Trial by
juryCongress…and for the record, is indiscriminate surveillance of all American phone records without just cause really an effective (or legal) use of intelligence resources?June 11, 2013, 9:03 am 81 Comments
Boehner Calls Snowden a Traitor
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, offered harsh criticism of the man who leaked classified information on the government’s Internet and telephone monitoring programs, and gave his strongest defense of the surveillance efforts on Tuesday.
“He’s a traitor,” Mr. Boehner said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. He added: “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
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The law that is a violation of the 4th and 5th amendments?
THAT law?
QE-Nippon is failing.
June 11, 2013, 8:17 p.m. EDT
Japan stocks tumble on yen’s latest spike
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Asia stocks lower after Bank of Japan stays pat
By Michael Kitchen
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — An overnight jump in the yen and solid losses on Wall Street conspired to plunge Japanese stocks lower Wednesday morning, with the Nikkei Stock Average falling 2.1% to 13,045.25, while the broader Topix lost 2.4%.
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NSA stooges are backpeddling now.
I never could figure out how the likes of Google, Yahoo or Facebook could make it on ad revenue alone. Now it all makes perfect sense:
THEY ARE PEDDLING THEIR USERS’ PRIVATE INFORMATION TO THE NSA GOON SQUAD FOR TOP DOLLAR.
Proposed name change: GOONgle
Google: We’re No NSA Stooge and We’ll Prove It if the Feds Let Us
By Sam Gustin
June 11, 201,323 Comments
Andrew Kelly / REUTERS
The Google signage is seen at the company’s office in New York City on Jan. 8, 2013.
Tech giant Google has asked the U.S. Department of Justice for permission to publish the number of national-security information requests it receives from the government, including requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), one of the laws at the heart of recent blockbuster disclosures about government data collection.
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Thugnology firms are falling all over themselves now to ‘fess up on their spying activities.
I hope every one of them fully discloses how many pieces of silver they took in exchange for betraying the American people.
Microsoft and Twitter join rivals in seeking to disclose NSA requests
The Guardian
1 hour ago
Written by Charles Arthur
Microsoft and Twitter have joined calls by Google and Facebook to be able to publish more detail about how many secret requests they receive to hand over user data under the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).
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Is the prospect of a QE3 slowdown something to fear?
Yellen: Don’t Fear a QE3 Slowdown
The Fed’s vice chair says the program is working and will be around as long as the recovery needs it
By Danielle Kurtzleben
March 4, 2013
Janet Yellen said that the Fed will not sell assets until after it allows the federal funds rate to rise.
Last month, the stock market slid on the news that policymakers at the Federal Reserve were chattering about a slowdown—or even an end—to quantitative easing. But the woman who is second-in-command at the central bank issued a message of calm to those who are rankled by that news.
“The level of accommodation is increasing as long as those purchases continue,” said Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen at the National Association for Business Economics Economic Policy Conference on Monday. “And I think the [Federal Open Market Committee] has made very clear, but let me try to emphasize again my own view that once accommodation has peaked … the committee’s intention is to leave that accommodation in place until well into the recovery.”
She’s talking about QE3, the Fed’s attempt to boost the economy by purchasing $85 billion in U.S. Treasuries and mortgage backed securities per month. Translated from Fedspeak, her message was simple: even if the rate of those purchases slows down, the Fed will still be making asset purchases and boosting the economy until the recovery looks strong enough.
She also added that, while there are potential risks involved in QE3, she remains confident in the program: “At this stage, I do not see any [potential costs] that would cause me to advocate a curtailment of our asset purchase program.”
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ft dot com
June 11, 2013 6:53 pm
Fears of QE3 slowdown drive Treasury rates up
By Michael MacKenzie in New York and Robin Harding in Washington
Shredded currency surrounds the seal of the US Treasury on a twenty dollar bill in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 24 2013.©Bloomberg
The US Treasury will have to pay a positive real interest rate on new 10-year borrowing for the first time in 18 months as investors get cold feet about a possible slowing of the Federal Reserve’s bond buying programme.
Bond investors are ditching Treasury inflation-protected securities, or Tips, pushing the inflation-adjusted or “real” Treasury yield above zero. It was minus 0.75 per cent as recently as April.
The surge in real yields highlights investor expectations that the Fed will soon start to slow the $85bn-a-month, third round of quantitative easing that it began last September. But investors say markets may be moving too far ahead of the central bank.
The Fed wants to slow its bond purchases as the labour market improves and it is likely to push back against market expectations of an automatic end to QE.
In his press conference next week, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to repeat the possibility of tapering QE, but emphasise that a decision to do so will be closely tied to the economy and in no way signals that the Fed is closer to raising interest rates.
“We have known for some time that Tips were overvalued, and the reversal has happened very quickly,” said James Evans, senior vice-president at Brown Brothers Harriman. “Rightly or wrongly, the bond market has pulled forward the end of QE and rate hikes coming as early as 2014. It does seem premature.”
Michael Pond, interest rate strategist at Barclays said: “The bond market seems to be missing the point that the Fed’s policy of tapering depends on the tone of economic data.
“The market has moved from pricing in less bond buying to a full-on tightening cycle and we believe that is a different story than what the Fed is trying to communicate.”
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