Bits Bucket for June 12, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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buy a house today and own a piece of the american dream
And then jam it full of illegals and maximize profit by using the Chinese model to charge an hourly rent on the rooms, because, you know, if they’re here to work, they only need the room for a resting place.
if you don’t want to live in a neighborhood full of ms-13, you are a racis. our differences only make us stronger.
current drudge headline:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/11/Schumer-makes-impassioned-plea-that-immigration-bill-solves-illegal-immigration-secures-the-border
Schumer is one nasty piece of goods. His sibilant, insinuating voice makes me shudder.
There are 65 active listings in my zip code in Austin, TX (78701). 17 of them are over $1,000,000 USD. The most expensive unit is:
210 Lavaca St #3501
Price. $3,300,000
Beds: 3
Baths: 3.5
Sq. Ft.: 3,542
$/Sq. Ft.: $932
HOA Dues: $2,292/month
MLS#: 8860440
Yet there are thousands in Austin.
Who cares? Why by now when you know you’ll get ripped off?
2K for HOA?
Fools and their money…
when did housing become a get rich quick scheme?
‘nearly four in 10 denver-metro-area homes put on the market sold within seven days in april, up from 22 percent in april 2012 … denver homes spent a median 11 days on the market in april before selling, which tied with washington, dc, for the fastest turnover’
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23436197/denver-homes-had-fastest-turnover-any-major-metro
It’s even worse in the desirable Denver Nabes. It isn’t quite so hot in the exurbs, though Fort Collins is kind of frothy now.
When you decided that you understood the market.
‘the number of underwater homeowners has dropped below 10 million for the first time in more than at least three years … nationwide, 9.7 million, or 19.8 percent of homeowners with a mortgage, owed more on their homes than they were worth as of march’
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/12/underwater-borrowers-lessen-home-prices-rise/2412847/
“an additional 11.2 million homeowners have less than 20% equity in their homes…”
less the 10% transaction cost to sell.
If these 11 million find the magical 12% YOY increase in the “value” of their homes elusive, they are also trapped.
In that picture, Broomfield looks like a slum.
Yeah, that section in the foreground is bizarre. Would you call those things McMansions? And there are hardly any trees. It could be a subdivision in Las Vegas.
You have to love the whole suburban mentality. A person who lives in an apartment or a condo is a looser because he shares walls with his neighbors. These houses are much better because each one has a little strip of grass around it and there’s a good five feet between the walls of the houses.
I live in an apartment and do not share walls with neighbors. My kitchen is adjacent to the elevator shaft, but none of the other rooms are adjacent to another apartment.
Yeah, that section in the foreground is bizarre. Would you call those things McMansions? And there are hardly any trees. It could be a subdivision in Las Vegas.
Looks like a new subdivision alright. The thing about the front range, trees don’t grow naturally. I know people associate trees with Colorado, but that’s in the mountains. On the front range you have to plant them and the growing season is short. As for the overall brownness, the picture was probably taken in the winter.
A house in the burbs WAS desirable over common wall living until “zero lot line” was approved.
There was plenty of room between the house I grew up in and the house next door. But they spent long summer evenings getting drunk (loudly) with friends on the back porch and my brother (windows open because there was no A/C) was a light sleeper. He would get up the next morning and play loud music at 7:00 AM because we were all up by then and mom allowed it. Point is, shared walls are not needed to have loud neighbors. A porch and a few open windows and quarter acre zoning will do you just fine.
Broomfield feels pretty soulless, I can’t recall seeing a single restaurant or retailer there that wasn’t a chain. If there weren’t mountains on the horizon it wouldn’t be much different from the suburbs of Columbus, OH.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broomfield,_Colorado
There’s decent Dim Sum in the old Armadillo building, but generally you’re right. What’s good about Broomfield is location and newish houses with plenty of garage space if that’s your thing. But for suburban Colorado in general it’s not just the mountains on the horizon, it’s also the weather that comes with them compared to Columbus. For those of us who don’t like to sweat like pigs all summer…
it’s also the weather that comes with them compared to Columbus. For those of us who don’t like to sweat like pigs all summer…
Correct … it isn’t humid here, but doesn’t get furnace blast hot like Arizona either. And on the front range the winters are relatively mild. People who move here from the great lakes region think its heaven.
So let me get this straight - they’ve decided that these homes are no longer underwater based on newly re-inflated prices which will surely not last?
Step one: Buy overpriced shitbox.
Step two: ??????
Step Three: Profit!
Get it?
Signed,
The underpants Gnomes
“when did housing become a get rich quick scheme?”
It started when the gov repealed glass-steagal and pushed homeownership by lower the Fannie&Freddie loan standard. It did not take long for speculators to figure it out. It got intensified years later which is 2003-2005.
+1 robot…I agree…Although, I am learning through the book “Reckless Endangerment” it started in the Clinton years with Maxwell & Johnson @ FNMA….
Agree. It started in Clinton years. One step a time. After repealing glass-steagal, more money (other people’s money) available to speculate.
“when did housing become a get rich quick scheme?”
Let me translate.
When government got involved.
When government wanted to help.
well said
Let me translate.
When corrupt government got involved.
When corrupt government wanted to help.
/Fixed that for you
And don’t forget the corrupt co-conspirators NAR, MBA and NAHB.
When lenders discovered they could make loans and rid themselves entirely of repayment risk. Drag a bum in off the street, have him sign some papers, turn the stack of paperwork into the government for a healthy commission. House prices skyrocket.
“Why would lenders make loans they don’t care about having repaid?” That’s the core question of the global debt crisis.
Go ahead and finish the sentence.
To whom???????????
Only bigger and bigger government can save us…
When lenders discovered they could make loans and rid themselves entirely of repayment risk.
You mean the big government which is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the fortune 500?
I think you’re right - big government is a problem, but having it fully controlled by plutocratic puppet masters is an ever bigger part of the larger problem, no?
During the original bubble those loans were being sold to private investment banks to be turned into private bonds to be sold to investors. Fannie and Freddie were late to the party. That is why they were losing market share. The private banks were dropping their lending standards like crazy while F and F still had theirs in place.
Home values are driven by land values, and land manias have occurred with some frequency over long periods of time.
However, with GSEs allowing everyone to participate in the mania, the frequency of such manias is increasing.
^^^^^^^
LOLZ
Rental Pimp…….. when you don’t have answer, you admit it. Winging it constantly makes you appear like you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/business/before-housing-bubbles-there-was-land-fever.html?smid=pl-share
When?
Since The 1st Bank of the United States in 1791.
Note: ALL references to real estate bubbles related to this and the 2nd Bank of the United Stats have been REMOVED on Wiki.
Vague ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
See table.
Winging it.
Sam Zell on for 30 minutes this morning..Bloomberg…In the Loop with Betty Liu….Talking Real Estate including his perception on housing…Very interesting interview…
Bullet Point on housing;
America has changed its perspective and opinion about home ownership.
From what to what?
The need or desire to own a home…Renting is moving from a default choice to a preferred choice….Lessons learned from the housing crash and being house poor…
after throwing away 13% of monthly income on rent we have so much money left over we don’t know where to throw it.
With saved money, you can buy things by actually paying for them.
That’s so un-American.
One of my co-workers is in his early 60’s with two teenage child creatures and has a balance of about $350,000 on the mortgage. The house could probably sell for that much today, maybe $375,000-400,000 in a few years if metro Denver keeps bubbling up. But it’s not close enough to job centers to bubble beyond that, he commutes 43 miles each way to work every day.
Last week I fell into debt. I owed a guy $50. It wore heavy on me until I finally caught up with him and handed him the ransom. It’s good to be free again.
I saved enough over a decade of throwing money away on rent that I don’t need to be a “co-worker” any more. Thank God my teenagers all turned into twenty and thrity somethings.
“With saved money, you can buy things by actually paying for them.”
sounds confusing.
I agree with michael.
Where would you get this *saved* money?
Well let’s say I don’t have enough money to buy something. Should I buy it anyways?
Well let’s say I don’t have enough money to buy something. Should I buy it anyways?
How many trillions of years are you going to be dead?
NO.
It’s a little confusing at first.
One of my co-workers is in his early 60’s with two teenage child creatures and has a balance of about $350,000 on the mortgage.
If he’s lucky he’ll die of a heart attack and stiff his creditors.
Don’t buy things you can not afford.
I suggest you throw it into some kind of bank account so that you have enough $$ to buy an Oil City Low Tax State house when you retire. Or were you planning to snowboard off a cliff the day after you finally have to quite work?
We have savings in different local credit unions. Also considering buying a piece of raw land in Chaffee County and parking a used RV trailer there while we construct the bunker/compound for “GoTime”.
Good boy! I’d love to see a youtube of your prepper paradise. Make sure the land has water.
Who says water is needed in the future? Broawndo is your friend.
That would be the Arkansas River and its tributaries. Water rights may not be included with the land, but in a true “Go Time” scenario, not sure who’ll be enforcing them…
I spoke with a guy this morning who’s family owns a lot of apartment properties in So Cal. He noted that he’s beginning to see more people jumping to buy and expects rental rates increases to slow in apartments they own.
I wonder if Zell has looked at the lifestyle decisions that people are making relative to their stage in life.
There are two possibilities for the effect Zell is seeing:
1. In fact, people want to raise their families in urban cores; or
2. Companies like Motorola (the example that Zell cites) are more reliant on young tech workers (who are waiting longer to start families), which are causing them to live in urban cores for longer.
I haven’t seen any data on #1, but continually hear about how SF is lacking school age kids in their school system, and know of a few folks who are living in big cities with very young kids, and are planning to exit the city (to the suburbs either to rent or own) when their kids get to school age.
In Northern Virginia, the Metro systems and local governments are attempting to attract young DINKs and SINKs. They pay property taxes on those new condos, but don’t have children to overpopulate the local schools. It’s a win-win.
“America has changed its perspective and opinion about home ownership.”
+1 Squatting is cheaper than renting.
Question to Mr. Zell;
Q; What about these expensive apartments in New York that sit Empty ?
A; There are extremely wealthy people with enormous liquidity throughout the world that are not necessarily seeking yield..So holding a high value asset in a barrier to entry market in what is perceived as a safe country makes sense to them…
Q; Are you still seeking apartment acquisitions ??
A; Yes but in Urban area not in suburban area’s…We are no longer interested in the “Garden Apartment” market…People’s desires on where they want to live have changed and are continuing to change…
Example; Motorola built a huge campus outside of Chicago thinking that people would be willing to move to suburbia and work there…Motorola moved back to Chicago and the building sits 2/3rd’s empty…People were unwilling to move there
It was a wonderful and informing interview with one of the smartest real estate guys in the world..Well worth the time to seek it out if you can…I listened to it several times…
Added note;
Q; What market do you think has the greatest potential ??
A; Columbia…..
Example; Motorola built a huge campus outside of Chicago thinking that people would be willing to move to suburbia and work there…Motorola moved back to Chicago and the building sits 2/3rd’s empty…People were unwilling to move there
People don’t want to move to good jobs and houses with yards? BS.
More like, Motorola lost $110M in juicy tax breaks. They had to maintain 2500 workers to keep the tax breaks. They had 3000 at the campus. Then Google bought Motorola and cut 700 from the campus, putting them below the threshold.
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120813/news/708139926/
Why did Motorola move back to Chicago?
That, I don’t really know. I can only imagine that someone at Google made a calculation that it wasn’t worth keeping 200 more jobs to keep the tax break. Or, it was financially better to sell the building and move downtown. They wouldn’t have to pay the taxes in the burbs or pay to upkeep that sprawling campus and parking lot. Put the onus on the workers to pay to park or take the transit to work and join a gym if they want to jog.
The point is, it wasn’t necessarily because “people were unwilling to move there,” as espoused by Zell. (admittedly, a quick google showed that Libertyville houses cost as much as they do in my area.)
More like, Motorola lost $110M in juicy tax breaks.
Funny how Corporate America reacts to lost government cheese. They always promise jobs and then don’t deliver. You’d think that municipalities and state governments across the country would have got the memo by now.
“They always promise jobs and then don’t deliver.”
Very true.
But it’s the fault of the residents (and governing board) in the locality where these guys want to set up shop. The residents are too stupid to get anything in writing and the the local board officials get brown envelopes. It happens all the time, every time.
You might have a point, but it might not apply here. Motorola got bought and the new boss is firing people, selling the property and moving to rented digs. The tax incentives were for them to stay in the state. Nobody promised they would create jobs.
The Age of appreciating real estate as a corporate business model is coming to a close.
Should I say “day”?
Hour.
That’s why I love this blog. When so-called experts make very authoritative statements that are very wrong, people here call them on their BS.
Thought for the day: The less you know the more you believe.
‘the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter’ - winston churchill
Yeah, sometimes I look at Wall Street, Washington and TPTB and I think to myself, look around, can you blame them?
And then you realize it’s maybe not so much “those guys”, but your so-called friends and neighbors that you have to fear.
In the old Soviet Union, that’s how it was.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for lunch.
“Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. ”
- also Winston Churchill
The guy was a big talker.
And a drunk most of the time.
Bessie Braddock: “You, sir, are a drunk.”
Churchill: “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
a most amusing short take (23 secs) on that alleged incident from a “Family Guy” episode
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IDTOg4DuCA
“Thought for the day: The less you know the more you believe.”
+1 The world’s religious flock in a nutshell.
You “know” they are all wrong, or you “believe” they are all wrong?
in the end…we will all know.
We will only know if the sky wizard people are right. Oblivion teaches nothing.
in the end…we will all know.
or the other possibility is… we won’t.
or the other possibility is… we won’t.
Which is the beauty of being a believer. You’ll never know that you were wrong.
Which is the beauty of being a believer. You’ll never know that you were wrong.
Good point! In the event that you’re wrong, that is definitely preferable of the two possibilities…
My Sky Wizard is better than your Sky Wizard.
Jiroemon Kimura’s Sky Wizard was best of all.
RIP Mr. Jiroeman. (1897-2013). What an amazing set of birth and death years.
The world’s oldest man ever (and oldest living person) lived to 116 years and 54 days. He was the last living man born in the 1800s.
Imagine the changes he saw in his lifetime! It boggles the mind.
Good job, Sir.
True. I for one believe the earth revolves around the sun, and the world was created in seven days.
I pray to Joe Pesci.
Which one?
Cousion Vinnie, Devito or Kritski ?
Nicky Santoro would wack ‘em all.
As discussed here previously, “days” can refer to eons and epochs.
As discussed here previously, “days” can refer to eons and epochs.
According to what dictionary?
—I apologize if this has already been linked to on the HBB. I read it in the free weekly paper version of the “Arizona Republic” that the newspaper piles up outside of Phoenix-area grocery stores. I guess that I should not be Surprised, but I was still fascinated by this way of thinking (hoping):
“Developers are confident a vast industrial building rising in Surprise will one day be home to companies that could bring hundreds of jobs to the city even though similar Southwest Valley projects have struggled to find tenants…”
“Surprise City Council members last year gave the green light to a deal with Silagi Development & Management Co., which is based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Under the development agreement, the city will waive $275,000 in permit fees if Silagi has the building ready for tenants by February.
Company President Moshe Silagi said it will be ready by Labor Day. Silagi and Surprise officials are working with brokers to market the “spec” building, one that is built on speculation and does not have a locked-in tenant.
Landing such a tenant has become increasingly difficult, experts said.
While demand for such buildings was strong last year, in recent weeks it has become difficult to get a manufacturer or distributor to close a deal…”
“This year, the Southwest Valley has 2.7 million square feet of industrial space under construction, MacWilliam said.
“Now a business owner who comes to town looking for 300,000 square feet has as many as 10 choices because more industrial buildings have been built,” Koss said.
West Valley still has momentum over the long term, Koss said…”
http://www.azcentral.com/community/surprise/articles/20130603industrial-vacancies-increase-hopes-stay-high.html
Here’s a guy who doesn’t like debt.
Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt
“I had no idea what I was getting into at the time. I didn’t even know what interest was when I was 17,” he said. “I just think that’s awfully indicative of the incredibly poor personal finance education young people have at that time in their lives.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/duke-grad-student-secretly-lived-in-a-van-to-escape-loan-debt-194021112.html?page=all
This story was also on Marketplace (APM) last week.
A man gets a job in Alaska doing anything, works hard and pays off his undergraduate student loans.
He goes to grad school and lives in a van to avoid debt.
He refused to be a victim or join the free sh*t army.
A future conservative in the making.
3/4 of HBB now hate him.
Insightful analysis as always, bananapanties. He is a Ron Paul supporter, not a Romney voter.
He’s responsible for the rise of Barak HUSSSSSSAIN Obama then!
If the GOP would nominate someone like Ron Paul (NOT Rand Paul) or Gary Johnson they would cease to be the stupid party and I’d vote for them.
In reality, what the GOP did to Ron Paul and his *earned* delegates during the 2012 primaries was probably the most disgusting thing about the 2012 election cycle.
Not surprisingly, Romney didn’t win a single state that isn’t in Flyover Country.
He did not build that van.
He refused to be a victim or join the free sh*t army.
He only had to borrow $8000/year because he went to a state school (SUNY Buffalo). Free sh*t.
His job as a park ranger at Gates of Arctic National Park was paid by the taxpayer dime. More free sh*t.
His six month stint in Americorps was free sh*t.
He hitchiked from Alaska back to Buffalo, probably across Canada. Free sh*t courtesy of the commie Canuckistanis.
Paid $3000 in interest in three years for $32000 in loans. That works out to an interest rate of 7.5%. Is that the government rate? Most likely it was a mix of private and government loans. Free sh*t again.
Do you seriously think tuition at a place like Duke is only $2500? He was so poor when he applied to Duke that they only charged him $2500. Free pity free sh*t. And he should be thankful that they didn’t ask if his parents had any assets before cutting him that sweetheart deal.
Used way more than his $34 worth share of water and showers at the Duke gym, and his tuition’s share for electricity and Wifi at the library. Free sh*t courtesy his full-tuition fellow students.
While at Duke, he made extra money at a “well-paying part-time job working for a government-sponsored program, tutoring inner-city kids. Free sh*t there too.
When this all was discovered, Duke didn’t kick him out of the parking lot — free sh*t from the school, likely a PR move.
Not exactly mooch-free.
He never said — at least I can’t find it right away — exactly what his Duke graduate degree is in, except that it’s more “liberal arts.” And he’s now “working on his second book.” You mean he STILL doesn’t have a job?
Wow Oxy, harsh and hateful. Debt Donkey hateful.
By your own definition, you must be full of free sht. We are paying you to pretend to work, right?
She is the Debt Donkey of Debt Donkeys.
The neocon response to logic: Look! Over there! A Kitty!
The neocon response to logic: Look! Over there! A Kitty!
Exactly. She shot the ‘free sht’ point down, quite well, so they attack her about something else.
The real donkeys.
I think this is the point about all the Rand Paul supporters. They are convinced that they have succeeded on their own, due to their own diligence and hard work, but fail to take into account all of the support, both personal and public, that it required to get where they are.
Yea, I made it on my own - by going to publish schools and universities, drinking water provided by a government entitiy, eating food inspected by a government entity, working at jobs paid for by the taxpayer, driving on roads provided by the local, county, and state governments.
We’re not saying that it’s bad to have a little assistance, we’re saying you should realize it and pay for it.
So, when budget cuts mean eliminating things, I’m want everything eliminated. See how self-sufficient you are when the cops and firefighter’s are sequestered.
You do raise a good point - the VERY top schools in the U.S. are paid for by endowments so if you can get into one, no need to pay “full tuition” unless your parents are 0.5% ‘ers.
Schools like the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, MIT, A/W/S and a few others don’t need tuition money and don’t want students taking loans if at all possible (the exceptions being medical, law, or MBA students, bc they are going to make the money back anyway).
So, basically there are perverse rewards in education, if you can go to the best school you get to pay less than if you go to some rando school that actually charges you tuition.
“You do raise a good point - the VERY top schools in the U.S. are paid for by endowments so if you can get into one, no need to pay “full tuition” unless your parents are 0.5% ‘ers.
Schools like the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, MIT, A/W/S and a few others don’t need tuition money and don’t want students taking loans if at all possible (the exceptions being medical, law, or MBA students, bc they are going to make the money back anyway).”
Bullsh*t.
I went to one of those schools. My parents were FAR from 0.5% ‘ers. We never went hungry, had a very stable living situation, and my parents were always gainfully employed. But we never took an airplane to go on vacation, rarely stayed at a hotel (usually crashed at a friend’s house), almost never ate out, grew a lot of our own food, etc. We were firmly middle, perhaps upper middle class, but not anywhere close to wealthy.
Because my parents didn’t use our family home as a piggie bank (dutifully paid down the mortgage balance on schedule), the school called the home equity “means” and I needed to take out loans each and every year of my schooling to make it work. Some private (at 10%), some federally subsidized.
I made it my mission to repay those loans upon graduation, and am pleased to say that I paid them off at a much accelerated pace–done with that debt long ago.
I’m grateful for the opportunity I was given to go to that school, and UNBELIEVABLY grateful for the sacrifices my parents made to help me pay for it, but you should not spread the false rumor that you’ll get your schooling paid for if you are in the bottom 99% and get into a top school.
Rental, things have changed a lot since you went to school. You can’t get a lot of support at the upper end of the 99%, but 65% to 70% will get quite a bit. Maybe even a bit higher.
The school I went to recently published the average student loan debt for graduating seniors in 2012…it was the highest number on the graph going back 10 years.
However, at the same time, they note that the percentage of students graduating with debt has now fallen below 30% (from the mid-40’s 10 years ago).
So, fewer people borrowing, but those who do still borrow need to borrow a lot more.
So, fewer people borrowing, but those who do still borrow need to borrow a lot more.
And the separation between classes continues.
Well… just because he’s worked for government doesn’t mean he’s part of the FSA. Government does a lot of necessary things. But it also does a whole lot of pork-barrel, unnecessary and ultimately destructive things (intervening in housing, medical care, education has skyrocketed those prices).
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble
Government is gray. Not black and white.
Government yes, but our rights are not.
It never ceases to amaze me that the largest section of the Free Sh^t army is clearly the corporate welfare system. From private prisons, to like 70% of the military budged spent on contractors, to the backdoor bailouts via the Fed buying up crap mortgages.
Yet to a huge segment(~half) of the population, the real problem is the single parent who’s tried for month to find work and gets a hundred dollars or so in food stamps every month.
Unbelievable how gullible you are to fall for that.
“Oh look, we found one person who bought lobster with theirs! EVERYTHING’s all their fault!”
Why don’t you wake up already and see who the REAL welfare quessn are. Worse yet, they’re using those ill-gotten corporate welfare dollars to buy off and further corrupt congress.
WAKE. THE. F^CK. UP.
Forget it. We have the government we deserve and worse.
You can’t fix our kind of stupid.
I personally would have never thought that we would see a repeat of the Savings & Loan disaster in just 15 short years.
11 years if you count from the year of real recovery (1996) to the year of real recession (2007)
11 years.
Yes, we ARE that effin’ stupid.
Amen, Biggs. The corruption is all-pervasive now, and the only way to purge it from the system is from the top down.
And THAT’s not gonna happen until we can all agree to abide by the same set of rules. And THAT’s not gonna happen….
You wake the F Up. 90% of time people commenting on the free sh*t army are not speaking about a mother who wants to work because the father is disabled, but can’t find a job and childcare at the same time. They are talking about a 24 year old kid who graduated and has been on unemployment for 99 weeks because they don’t want to pick lettuce, dig ditches, wash dishes, or basically do anything outside their field of study.
They are talking about single mothers who can’t keep their legs closed and have 9 kids from 6 different fathers, none of whom is paying child support. They are talking about those same fathers who are shirking their duties to pay for their kids, meanwhile getting subsidized cell phones and the like.
They are talking about people from south of the border crossing over to drop an anchor baby paid for by the state.
They are talking about families in LA driving escalades and putting their children in the free lunch programs at Azusa Unified School District (direct form the source of my MIL’s eyewitness accounts).
So you F off. Corporate welfare IS a problem but it doesn’t excuse the other problem. And the free sh*t army commentrs don’t ignore the fact that some people like mothers of a bunch of kids whose father was injured in Iraq might need some help. Stop being mutually exclusive and wake the F up. Acknowledge that the problem exists. Bring up the corporate welfare problem also. Good on you. But stop calling people who recognize they are getting raped “sheeple” and “greedy”. If anything, all those giveaways are just to keep the corporate welfare masked. Get rid of the masking, and the corporate problem will be seen clearly.
That’s deep, mathy.
We can really get bogged down in the weeds about what LBJ’s “Great Society” accomplished, what it was meant to accomplish.
But you can’t talk about about most of that, or else the cultural relativists will pull out their big wide paintbrush and label you a racis.
America isn’t a country, it’s a Game.
Remember that, and all is well…
Wonderful, the key to graduating debt-free… is to become boot-strappin’ homeless moocher, TERRIFIC!!!
One wonders how many ex-hippies, who now are in administrative roles at various universities, frown at this sort of thing.
Probably quite a few.
I wonder how many Vietnam vets have no problem with it.
So your reaction to this is based on who (hypothetically) might hold certain views of it?
I’m not a hippie, but I’m certainly against all the wars we’ve fought in the last decade and against the military industrial complex in general. I also believe that college is overpriced and there are probably only 20-30 colleges worth paying full tuition for. And of course I support this guy, he did what makes sense for him. If he was a Med or Law student, I would think what he did was madness, because his schedule would be more brutal, he’d need a space he could cram in when the library is closed, and he’d be penny wise/pound foolish to do this. But I believe this guy’s degree is less marketable/financially sound, so good on him for facing up to that and being proactive.
Not everyone fits in neat boxes, MacBeth.
Heh heh…was just having a conversation a couple of days back about a guy who lived in a closet for part of his time in grad school, in order to avoid going into debt. Reportedly he now pulls down six figures (i.e. more than Snowden, without any spying…).
“lived in a closet”
Why would coming out and being openly gay result in debt?
Snowden made like 200k last year (yes a lot of that was overtime, his base salary was “only” 122k).
Snowden neither graduated H.S. nor attended college.
HTH.
Did he live by the river?
Maybe he should have got a yurt, instead?
(points to whoever remembers those references)
It’s interesting how people foist all kinds of ideology onto an internet story, then beat it to death over it’s intellectual purity or lack thereof. This guy was probably picked up by a reporter looking for a human interest story to fill a space. He never made some grand strategy of free shit or not. But posters scurry around trying to make it fit some ideal and or debunking an ideal that never had anything to do with the subject at all.
Thank you, Ben.
June 12, 2013, 11:20 a.m. EDT
Making money off of QE-induced volatility
By Nigam Arora
Both the stock and bond markets are becoming increasingly volatile. Going back 30 years, high volatility is common after a sustained run and subsequent to the appearance of technical patterns that indicate a reversal. This time is no different.
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June 12, 2013, 9:20 a.m. EDT
The Man of Steel and Ben Bernanke
Commentary: Would Superman step aside before the job is done?
By Al Lewis
Terrence Horan/MarketWatch
Ben Bernanke, mild-mannered superhero?
Superman and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are both mild-mannered. They are both calm, even in the face of global disasters. They are both sometimes said to be from other planets.
Superman wears an “S” on his chest. Where he comes from, it’s a symbol of hope. Bernanke prefers the “$”. Where he comes from, there is no problem that this symbol cannot solve.
Superman is known as the “Man of Steel,” the title of a movie to be released on Friday. Bernanke could be called the “Man of Steal” given low-interest rate policies said to widen the gap between rich investors and poor retirees living on fixed incomes.
Both men defy gravity. Superman can leap buildings in a single bound. Bernanke is nicknamed “Helicopter Ben” for dropping money from great heights, as his mentor Milton Friedman, famously suggested as a way of fighting deflation.
…
Both men defy gravity.
Only a man with no self-esteem would write nonsense like this. Is there a pay-off for sucking bernanke’s ….?
Jim O’Neill: Get ready for 4% bond yields, ‘quite ugly days’
June 12, 2013, 7:29 AM
Edvard Munch: “The Scream”
Bond yields are headed near 4% and not even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke can stop the “inevitable shock” that’s coming.
That’s a fresh view from Goldman Sachs’s former chief economist Jim O’Neill, writing an op/ed column for Bloomberg on Wednesday, entitled, “Can Bernanke avoid a meltdown in the bond market?”
His answer? Not really.
In a separate Bloomberg Television interview he adds that investors should expect “quite ugly days” in the process.
…
Dear stock market: HURRY UP AND CRASH ALREADY!
Pdf from the Feds advisory council meeting dated may 17 2013.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/fac-20130517.pdf
If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~ Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
“Why get ripped of by paying massively inflated prices for a depreciating 20 year old houses? Pre-bubble prices are 70% lower than asking prices. Buy later, after prices crater for 70% less.”
So cool! And I love the front door.
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For sale: Decommissioned missile silo, 40 feet underground
Zillow via Today/Money | 6/12/13 | Erika Riggs Zillow
It’s the one home where curb appeal doesn’t matter, quips listing agent Brian Dominic of Select Sotheby’s International Realty.
He’s right: At first glance, the home in upstate New York isn’t anything more than a steel door in the middle of the Adirondacks. But it’s below the ground that matters.
Forty feet underground is the actual residence, set in a decommissioned missile silo. A dozen or so are scattered through the country — one popped up for sale in Saranac, N.Y. in December 2011. Unlike the other silos, explains Dominic, this one remains true to its original function.
I like it….Its “catchy” and unique s I am sure the “Condo Silo” will bring big bucks…
Converted silos aren’t worth what they used to be.
http://www.missilebases.com/properties
There is a priced to sell one in Tuscon!
Finally. Fitting architecture for the white walls and p*rno set contempo furniture.
But can you really be sure the Russian ICBM targeting has been updated?
Well, can you?
What’s the old adage? Location, location, location.
Thomson Reuters Gives Elite Clients Early Edge
“With 25 million excess, empty and defaulted houses and another 35 million houses to be vacated as boomers die off, what do you think is going to happen to housing prices?”
They will be kept artificially inflated.
Was this a trick question?
Hide 60 million houses? You’re as deluded at the Blog Debt Donkey.
The prices will drop but only bottom feeders will want to buy them. Ever see a house where a senior aged in place? They need fix-up and serious decor updates.
hee haw!
“Ever see a house where a senior aged in place?”
What happened to suburban Lake Worth couple in Condo #1223?
Bernie and June Sperling were so reclusive that neighbors hadn’t seen them in months. Now they know the terrible reason why.
Posted: 4:34 p.m. Saturday, June 8, 2013
By Barbara Marshall - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Taptaptaptaptap.
The noise inside 7915 Willow Spring Drive began in early November, perhaps around the time of the presidential election, although no one remembers the date.
The sound was insistent, but muted, neighbors said, as if someone was lightly pounding small tacks. There would be hours of silence, then it would start again for a minute, maybe two, up to 10 times a day.
Taptaptaptaptap.
A few times, it woke up the neighbors who shared a bedroom wall with Bernie and June Sperling in the 16-unit condo building off west Lake Worth Road.
But when residents discovered the noise was coming from #1223 on the second floor, they didn’t bother investigating further.
Bernie Sperling had pushed the world away long ago.
After three, maybe four days, the noise stopped.
Residents forgot about the tapping until a sheriff’s deputy knocked on their doors on Jan. 18.
By then, June and Bernie had been dead inside their condo for two-and-a-half months.
The world had, indeed, left them alone.
Bernie, 88, went first, from a sudden illness, the police theorize.
He was found half-naked, bloody clothes nearby. There was blood in the master bathroom toilet and in the sink. Three feet away, a phone was on the floor, its receiver lying uselessly on the carpet.
The tapping had come from June, 87. Although immobilized on her bed by her illness, she apparently used her hand to try to summon help. An empty plastic spray bottle was on the pillow next to her head.
Empty Ensure bottles were scattered nearby, her naked body flanked by a bed pan on one side and adult diapers on the other.
Her corpse, they said, was still wearing eyeglasses.
Their mailbox hadn’t been emptied since early November.
June survived a few days after Bernie died, police speculated, helpless on the bed with his body lying on the floor a few feet away. Her body wasn’t quite as decomposed as her husband’s.
In her last desperate days, June had tried — finally, futilely — to break out of the cocoon her husband had wound so tightly around her.
But it was too late for anyone to notice.
June Sperling had disappeared years before she died.
Pushing friends, family away
Jill Grossman hired a company to renovate the apartment. She said she plans to sell it.
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/local/what-happened-to-suburban-lake-worth-couple-in-con/nYDXD/ - 86k -
But bottom feeders get the best parts!
We learned during the bottom in the mid-1990s that if you wait long enough, the decrepit shacks get fixed up to livable standards at a very affordable bottom. But it takes tremendous patience or luck…
Ah, the austerity.
US budget deficit widens $139 billion in May
BTFD b1tchez!
Sell in June, avoid the swoon!
Broad stock-market decline is gathering momentum
Commentary: Perhaps “sell in May and go away” will work this year after all, says Lawrence McMillan.
This viseo is worth a look.
The way the 25 year ols girl hops the counter and figures out how to open the cash register. The way the obese attendant bursts out of the bathroom and attempts to tackle her, coming up with only flip flops as he falls to the floor like a defensive back who misses a tackle and lays on the ground watching helplessly as the running back heads for the endzone.
Posted: 12:16 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Woman who lost shoes while robbing gas station gets caught, allegedly admits to crime
By Alexandra Seltzer
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
A Fort Pierce woman is being held in the Martin County jail today after she allegedly admitted that she is the woman who lost her sandals after robbing a Chevron gas station in Atlantis earlier this week.
Heather Kelly, 25, faces a charge of robbery after she was seen on video surveillance early Monday morning crawling through a counter window at the gas station and then removing large bills from the cash register. The surveillance video shows the woman losing her shoes while engaging in a scuffle with the gas station clerk.
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper arrested Kelly on Tuesday. She was driving north on Interstate 95 in the Palm City area when the trooper stopped her for speeding, according to a detective with Atlantis Police.
The trooper arrested her on an outstanding warrant in another county in Florida. Details regarding that warrant were not immediately available.
Kelly then allegedly admitted to a detective with Atlantis Police that she was the woman who robbed the Chevron station.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/woman-who-lost-shoes-while-robbing-gas-station-get/nYJgt/ - -
That is depressing entertainment if ever there was, replete with a distopic criminal Cinderella losing her flip-flop slippers and a would-be hero who loses his grip, only to fall down and have his buttcrack flash for all viewers on Youtube when he gets back up.
Yegads!
My defined contribution plan allocation* is either lucky or smart. On a day when Wall Street headlines screamed PANIC! in a crowded theater, I made an extra half a thousand for doing nothing.
* Professional secret.
Hint: Buy when everyone else is selling, and vice versa.
I have to get out too early to post anything in the morning for a while so if someone could repost this tomorow.
Now, who wants ice cream?
This Photo Might Make You Reconsider Heading Out For A Nice, Cold Wendy’s Frosty
By Mary Beth Quirk June 12, 2013
Listen. We understand. Wendy’s makes a delicious Frosty. And if I had my very own machine at home spewing out globs of soft serve, I’d totally slurp it down right from the nozzle. But using the machine at your place of employment — that place being Wendy’s — as your personal, direct-to-mouth Frosty dispenser is gross.
http://consumerist.com/2013/06/12/this-photo-might-make-you-reconsider-heading-out-for-a-nice-cold-wendys-frosty/ -
Cramdowns are coming (finally!).
‘Insider’ Short Sales Can Keep Families in Their Homes, Senator Says
06.11.2013 by Staff
‘Insider’ Short Sales Can Keep Families in Their Homes, Senator SaysIs allowing “insider” short sales fair? Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, believes it is more than fair to homeowners facing possible foreclosure and losing their homes because they owe much more than what their home is worth.
But the Federal Housing Finance Agency, regulator over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, does not allow what they see as a sweetheart deal for borrowers.
Warren, the junior Democrat who made a name for herself as a consumer advocate, posted a plea to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator on her website (FHFA’s Senseless Arm’s-Length Policy on Short Sales) to allow “friends, families, or nonprofit organizations” of underwater borrowers to conduct short sales for the purpose of renting the home to the family that lives there, or re-selling back to the family.
…
Did Snowden break the law by sharing the extent of tech company surveillance on innocent U.S. citizens without just cause?
How? Did he release confidential data — the kind Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft collect on innocent U.S. citizens?
If not, what law did he break? Was it a matter of rubbing egg onto the faces of Congressmen who supported this covert program?
June 13, 2013, 12:36 a.m. EDT
Hong Kong plans march to support Snowden: report
By Michael Kitchen
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Supporters of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden are planning a protest march to the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong Saturday to oppose his extradition, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. Snowden told the English-language newspaper that he would fight attempts to extradite him for revealing information about a classified NSA surveillance program. The march is organized by In-media, a website supporting freelance journalists, the report said.
Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America
Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an ‘executive coup’ against the US constitution
Daniel Ellsberg
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 June 2013 06.30 EDT
Link to video: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things’
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. Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an “executive coup” against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.
The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: “It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp.”
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The Lives of Others
The communist fascists are winning, and not a shot was fired.
Iowa Poll: Obama Disapproval Rating Rises to New High
Wednesday, 12 Jun 2013 03:52 PM
By Dan Weil
President Barack Obama’s disapproval rating in Iowa has risen to 54 percent, the highest level since he took office, according to a Des Moines Register poll.
Meanwhile, his approval rating stands at only 41 percent, down from 49 percent in February and 68 percent when he took office in January 2009.
The survey of 809 Iowans was conducted June 2-5 by Selzer & Co. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
“That says to me the scandals are taking a hit,” J. Ann Selzer, the poll’s director, told the Register.
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How long from now until the recent carnage in U.S. bond and stock prices visibly spills over to the U.S. housing market?
At any rate, it appears the Fed is well positioned to cushion capital losses when Treasury bond yields and mortgage rates inevitably rise towards normalcy.
Fed Mortgage Stockpile Seen Cushioning Pullback
Wednesday, 12 Jun 2013 07:39 AM
The $1.2 trillion of mortgage-backed securities the Federal Reserve has amassed to stoke economic growth is creating a potential firewall that dealers say is shielding the bond market from a rapid decline as policy makers debate scaling back debt purchases.
The stockpile, which has made the Fed the biggest holder of government-backed mortgage bonds, is cutting the risk that a sudden jump in Treasury yields will lead to an even bigger surge as investors place bearish bets to protect against housing-debt losses triggered by rising rates, a practice known as convexity hedging, according to dealers from Deutsche Bank AG to Barclays Plc. The Fed, which doesn’t hedge, owns about 21 percent of agency mortgage bonds, up from zero a decade ago. The share owned by investors that typically hedge has dropped.
The shift is reducing the odds that the bond market relives 2003, when convexity hedging fueled a 1.45 percentage-point increase in 10-year Treasury yields in two months and led to a 4.03 percent loss that July in the Bank of America U.S. Corporate & Government Index, the biggest monthly decline in more than two decades. That index lost 2.07 percent in May, the biggest decline since the 2008 credit crisis, as Treasury yields increased 0.45 percentage point.
“The actual convexity hedging flows will be less when rates rise this time than it was in the past,” Dominic Konstam, the global head of interest-rates research at Deutsche Bank in New York, said in a May 29 telephone interview. The hedging “was massive in 2003, and we won’t see a repeat of that. With the Fed holding so much of the mortgage paper, it really knocks down the amount of mortgage hedging needed when yields rise.”
…
So it turns out at the end that Michael Jackson’s problems came down to housing affordability.
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Michael Jackson and family ‘living like vagabonds’
AEG Live chief executive Randy Phillips testified in court on Wednesday that a cash-strapped Michael Jackson wanted to go on tour again to purchase a house for his family.
Michael Jackson allegedly claimed he was too cash-strapped to buy a house for his family.
The King of Pop’s mother Katherine Jackson initiated a $40 billion wrongful death lawsuit against concert giant AEG Live on the behalf of his three children, Prince, 16, Paris, 15, and Blanket, 11.
The Jackson family accuses the company of negligently hiring Dr. Conrad Murray as Michael’s primary physician. Murray is currently imprisoned for involuntary manslaughter after he administered a fatal dose of propofol to Michael in 2009.
The plaintiffs contend that AEG Live forced Michael to work even though they were aware of his poor health.
The corporation’s chief executive Randy Phillips testified in court on Wednesday Michael wanted to do his This Is It comeback tour in order to earn some much needed money.
According to Randy, Michael said he and his children “were living like vagabonds” and needed a permanent place to call home.
“He actually broke down [crying] and I broke down — we both broke down,” Phillips recalled under questioning from AEG’s attorney Marvin Putnam.
“He got emotional. He teared up about his family and having a good life with them and a place to live and a residence they could call their own.
“I felt incredibly bad that this incredible star was at the point where he just couldn’t buy a house with all this money he made. It just didn’t make sense. [This conversation was the] first time Michael really told me why he wanted to go back to work.”
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