Bits Bucket for July 9, 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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Mr. Smithers said this yesterday:
“You know why jobs get outsourced? Because the people in China and India work hard and don’t complain all day.”
Nah, nah this is the real reason why jobs get outsourced:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/09/news/china-air-pollution/index.html?iid=HP_LN
That’s not pollution, it’s The Smell of Freedom!
Chengdu or Detroit?
Sacramento or Guangzhou?
Does Detroit have a Panda preserve? Well, does it?
Yeah the IT tech support workers contribute a lot of pollution.
Do they use electricty while doing tech support? Then they contribute to air pollution in China.
What do you call it when you’re beyond grasping at straws?
“What do you call it when you’re beyond grasping at straws?”
Shilling real estate on a housing bubble blog.
“What do you call it when you’re beyond grasping at straws?”
It’s called “ smithering.”
+1
I’ll have to remember that. lol
SMITHERING!!!!!!
But really, Chinese people are not free. We should not be allowing US corporations to offhsore their labor to slave-providing nations without paying a tariff to compensate. Slavery is not compatible with capitalism.
Slavery? Are you suggesting those people are being forced against their will to work as tech support agents? You really have no clue what you’re talking about, which is patently obvious by your suggestion of tariffs. Do a little reading on Smoot-Hawley to get a sense of what tariffs do. Hint: it ruins economies. But why let facts get in the way of a good socialist goal, eh boys?
Slavery is perfectly compatible with capitalism. Invest in slaves, reap profits.
M. slith
Smoot-Hawley is a red herring and you know it. That happened when we were a net exporter, and the tariffs were increased from “normal” to “high”. The current situation is that are tariffs are “nearly none”, and they need to be increased.
This country was most prosperous when we were following the American School of economics, which requires tariffs. It has only been since we began to decimate our tariffs that our economy has steadily declined. To suggest (to DECLARE) that I have no idea what I’m talking about is as immature as it gets.
Yes, against their will. They do not have a free market. Period. They are not allowed to have one. Haven’t you been reading any of my comments? Don’t you know anything about the way the world works outside your darkened den?
So, um, which country is more socialist then? Communist China, or the United States?
Oops, there it is (boys).
“Slavery is perfectly compatible with capitalism.”
Ditto strip clubs and brothels.
I had a friend who supported himself through graduate school dancing at a strip club. He made money a lot faster than I could playing my violin at weddings.
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®
back to your rubbish ways?
Do watch suze’s tapes and dvds when your on your lunch break?
Don’t be a debtdonkey.
u sell any of your shanties lately? Suze will keep you broke.
And remember….. houses depreciate.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=30k%20millionaire
Amazingly these guys [do] manage to spread their genetics far and wide.
Probability suggests that for every stupid man there’s a stupid woman. It’s no surprise that they find each other.
A stupid woman is most likely a daughter of a stupid man.
I just sold a house for $124,000 more than I paid for it in 2010. The rent paid the mortgage payment, all expenses and provided a nice cash flow for 37 months. Properly used debt is a fantastic tool for buying below reproduction cost in a housing bust. I bought for $296,000 and obtained a mortgage for $222,000 (75%). I invested $80,000 and netted $178,000 when all was said and done at close of escrow yesterday.
Analyze that H.A. Cash talks, bullshit walks.
Then you better get walking…. Liar.
That’s is a nice profit. It would take most people 5 years to make that kind of cash.
If only the housing analyst could see the big picture and quit watching suze orman.
And houses eventually depreciate to ZERO.
live in the now HA and make some cash.
That’s is a nice profit.
Sure, that’s a nice _speculative_ profit.
But ask yourself: how frequently has housing provided a 42% gain in only three years? In other words, how sustainable are such returns?
(and yes, I know Jingle’s gains were higher due to leverage; I was computing the gain as if it were non-leveraged).
Jingle, why’d you sell, out of curiosity? I thought you said here that you were buying these properties as long-term investments… It was cash-flowing, right?
who cares what kind of profit it is. The guy took some risk and made some cash. kuddos to him.
Are you gonna find a million reasons why the profit isn’t real?
When you provide a shard of truth.
quit complaining about realtors all day a make a leap of faith HA. Make a profit for once. I know your shanties are not selling at 50/ ft.
No truth? Figures.
u should hire on as jingle males apprentice so he can teach you how to make money. But I know you will do more research on shoddy realtors instead.
But we’ll be waiting for you to substantiate your pipe dream.
I know you can do it HA, I have faith. Learn how to make real money. Your shanties are not selling are they?
:Crickets:
U would love the golden state. Have you ever heard of compton? U might be able to unload your shanties at 50 there.
Not a shred of proof. Lying again are we???
“Sure, that’s a nice _speculative_ profit.”
Every profit made in any investment is speculative. Exceptions would be federal govt bonds and FDIC insured deposits.
Every profit made in any investment is speculative.
False. You don’t know much about investment theory, do you?
Think about arbitrage profits.
“Every profit made in any investment is speculative.”
Interesting. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.
“False. You don’t know much about investment theory, do you?
Think about arbitrage profits.”
LOL. So now arbitrage is not speculative. So instead of earning 0.25% in a GUARANTEED FDIC insured CD, I can instead get a GUARANTEED return via arbitrage investing? Tell me more, please, this is fascinating stuff.
I guess they didn’t cover this top secret way to make money in any of my MBA classes.
Know how I know you’ve never taken an economics class? Go look up the definition of arbitrage. MBA my ass. Maybe from Devry or ITT tech….
Tell me more how I can use arbitrage to make risk free profits. That’s the key remember, risk free (as in non-speculative).
Come on man, you’re sitting on a gold mine here. This has the potential to be even better than Analyst’s $50/sq ft profit scheme.
I am begging you, share your knowledge.
Wow, just wow. The derp is strong with this one….
Again, do you know how I know you’ve never taken an economics class?
(hint: go look up the definition as previously instructed)
So you won’t tell me the secrets of using arbitrage to make risk free (that’s the key, risk free) profits? Bummer dude. Maybe your buddy Housing Analyst will come through and give me his $50/sq ft secret.
It’s amazing so many people here have all sorts money making ideas. Yet you’re all renting an apartment and whining about how expensive things are. You’d think with your risk free arbitrage system money would be no object and you could buy 10 houses without blinking an eye.
well…. you have to understand… AlphaSlithers couldnt’ develop a spreadsheet or build a doghouse in 6 months if you gave him plans and materials.
Essentially a know-nothing.
It’s amazing so many people here have all sorts money making ideas. Yet you’re all renting an apartment and whining about how expensive things are.”
That’s funny
All capital is at risk, all the time, even if you hide it under your bed waiting for Deflation.
There’s no need to wait for deflation. It’s here and has been here for 30 years.
Wow, just wow. The derp is strong with this one….
Note to Smithers: I never said arbitrage was “risk-free”; there are typically risks encountered during the brief time-window during which you are entering the two positions. But once you are past the window, the gains are clearly not “speculative”.
“I just sold a house for $124,000 more than I paid for it in 2010.”
I assume you will privatize the profits while the rest of us guarantee the other side of your transaction. BTW, if you were $124,000 upside-down would you toss ‘em the keys or rant for taxpayer subsidies to re-inflate the mortgage guarantors?
As I mentioned on the other thread:
Ben’s REIG (of which I am an investor) has made higher annual returns than Jingle Mail, and Ben hasn’t sold a single asset.
Just sayin’.
“Even in the absence of the excess empty housing inventory estimated in the tens of millions, historically housing prices fall. Why? Because houses depreciate. ALWAYS.”
Depreciate. You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
ALWAYS
Indeed. If it was so I could buy the house I grew up in as a kid for less than 20K as opposed to 600K.
And what are the losses on that old house? a half million or more?
Depreciate is a technical accounting and tax word. It has a very specific meaning. And, just in case someone is unaware, it is only applied to a business asset. You can’t apply it to a family or individual residence used by the owner for living in (as opposed to working out of).
Deteriorate is a process applicable to all man made goods except, perhaps for something made of gold as it doesn’t oxidize, though it certainly can be bent or otherwise damaged.
I expect that HA’s employer’s houses deteriorate very, very quickly. Much more quickly than a solidly built pre-bubble house made by a quality construction firm. They also depreciate for as long as they are held by a business. Or at least as long as they are held by a business that buys them from HA’s employer. You don’t depreciate inventory (stuff you hold for sale to your customers).
Please also note that HA always says that his company CAN sell for $50 or $55 or $60 a square foot and still make a profit. He doesn’t say that they do sell at that price. Why would they if other product is selling close by for much more? All they have to do is undercut the other guy by enough to make up for the fact that their houses are in a worse location in a neighborhood that isn’t well established. Then again, he might be lying.
Thank you, polly.
BTW- We did find a place that sells houses for ~$50 a square foot. They were essentially pre-fab mobile homes that they would put on the slab you supply. (They’d supply the skirting!)
They didn’t have the look of quality.
I think RAL actually admits that they don’t sell for $60/sq ft, they sell for more (probably “alot” more) and make profits. His specific claim is that they could sell for $60/sq ft if that was the market price. They would still be able to pay their bills and have a (smaller) profit.
Our blog attorney speaks of things she knows nothing of…. as usual.
ALL items depreciate and that depreciation is defined and quantified in dollars, ALWAYS. We buy equipment, temporary facilities and docks to support our operations, sometimes used. That used equipment has depreciated and it is reflected in the PRICE.
Now I don’t expect an ambulance chaser to know much of anything about construction, heavy and highway equipment, construction contracts, bidding a $400 million project, buying out materials from various CSI divisions, procuring equipment like barges and lattice boom crawlers, but don’t be bamboozled by a fool like her. Beware.
Thanks for proving my point. Everything you named is a asset used to generat income in a business.
So privately owned homes don’t depreciate.
There, we got that cleared up.
This is just stupid wording by the IRS. They say you can’t depreciate… what they mean is you can’t claim the depreciation that occurs. The depreciation still does occur, you just can’t claim it for tax purposes. The IRS is just trying to avoid showing you that they are enforcing law that is picking winners and losers… The losers being non-business owners.. aka the working class, as always…
You proved nothing Barrister. All items depreciate and they always will.
And thank you for helping us sharpen our message to the public.
———————————————————-
Always remember….Housing is always a loss. Houses depreciate and the losses to depreciation are magnified by the fact that you cannot write them off as a loss on your tax return.
Hmm post not showing. sorry if this is a repost. The IRS is using finnicky language to hide the fact they are enforcing unfair laws. All properties (buildings) depreciate, you just can’t claim that depreciation as a tax deduction unless you are a business. So once again, the working class are at a disadvantage.
You’ve never explained to me why housing is a “loss” rather than an expense.
Depreciation is technically an accounting term referring to allocation, not valuation.
There is a common use of the term depreciate to mean go down in value.
Neither of these uses are accurate when referring to houses used as residences always depreciating. In the technical sense, this is impossible. In the common sense, the are clearly periods when house values go up.
Therefore, with whichever definition you choose to use, the statement “all houses always depreciate” is incorrect.
Houses depreciate, ALWAYS.
Carry on.
alpha, like it or not, houses do depreciate no matter the price fluctuation associated with their sale. If you leave them alone without maintenance they will slowly settle back into the earth as they rot away to nothing. accounting and accounting rules simply try to quantify this return to chaos in some kind of neat friendly way. They do this by doing things like applying a lifetime to a structure i.e. 30 year depreciation schedule. This means you could reasonably expect that the house is in an unusable condition after 30 years of no maintenance, or perhaps rather that you will have to spend the equivalent of the full building cost of the structure to maintain it over that 30 year period.
A house/lot combo could potentially appreciate and depreciate at the same time… the structure depreciates while the land appreciates. If you want to buy a house to speculate on land appreciation.. well I guess that is a different discussion…
“Why buy a rapidly depreciating house at these massively inflated prices? Rent for half the monthly cost of buying. Then buy later for 70% less.”
Somehow this slipped by the MarketWatch censors.
The Housing Recovery is Bogus:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-housing-recovery-myth-2013-07-09?dist=lcountdown
Amy Hoak is on vaca.
on her knees under lawrence yun’s desk.
FTA: While it’s true that housing appears to be a great investment, it’s only a good investment for a select few…
Still shilling that housing is a great investment even though the case-shiller is still WAY high and accounting for the drop in prices the last few years or so.
Now consider that the median wage has been stagnant for decades, especially on a true inflation adjusted basis, and we have a recipe for a collapsing housing market. Of course the Federal Reserve™ could keep
counterfeitingprinting new dollars and loaning them to greater fools at near-zero cost, but that would eventually trash the value of the dollar and I’m betting that the private shareholders of the Fed™ will act in their own rational best interest and put the brakes on before that happens.Simple supply and demand - housing must drop to the new equilibrium at that point, likely overcorrecting along the way.
“If you pay current inflated prices for what is always a rapidly depreciating asset, in this case a house, you’re going to get skinned alive.”
“Realtor Convicted in Refinance Scam”
http://latinotimes.com/latinos/395611-realtor-convicted-in-refinance-scam-targeting-spanish-speakers.html
another day, another arrest. The public just hopes their realtor is on the up and up.
Spokane realtor charged with 4 felony burglaries
http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/former-realtor-busted-stealing-from-homes-for-sale/-/101214/20858566/-/t5hukdz/-/index.html
“Realtor Face Fraud Charges”
http://www.mdcoastdispatch.com/articles/2013/07/05/Top-Stories/OC-Pharmacist-Realtor-Face-Fraud-Charges
old news HA. Get us some up to date information.
You’re right…. that one is old. Read on junkie….
has zillow given you a raise yet? can you post a link to one of your shanties so we can see the quality @ 50?
Keep reading Junkie.
“Realtor arrested for throwing dead mice, snake on neighbor’s property”
http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/07/n28087.html
“Indicted Bend real estate agent could be sent to jail”
http://projects.registerguard.com/web/business/25724443-41/sawyer-tami-bend-attorney-questions.html.csp
Oregon, Washington state and California is ground zero for housing fraud.
“Nevada Realtors Charged in Short Sale Fraud”
http://www.californiarealestatefraudreport.com/archives/4545
“Real Estate Agent Who Targeted Elderly Residents Sentenced”
http://echopark.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/real-estate-agent-who-targeted-elderly-residents-sentenced_045ca9f1
Ha ha ha, Housing analyst has his $hit together. What a waste of broadband I was told by another poster. I have never seen so much
BS coming from one poster on this blog ever.
Either you like the truth or you don’t. But the truth never changes.
‘attorneys for george zimmerman hope to rest their case as early as tuesday afternoon after a judge ruled the defense can present evidence to the jury that florida teen trayvon martin had marijuana in his system when zimmerman shot him.’
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/09/11-calls-becoming-heart-zimmerman-trial/
‘trayvon, in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as ‘lean’, also known in southern hip-hop culture as ’sizzurp’ and ‘purple drank’. lean consists of three basic ingredients — codeine, a soft drink, and candy. if his facebook postings are to be believed, trayvon had been using lean since at least june 2011.’
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/m-what_the_media_choose_not_to_know_about_trayvon.html
‘if i had a son, he’d look like trayvon’ - president barack hussein obama
Hope and Change
http://www.infowars.com/trayvon-supporters-threaten-riots-looting-if-zimmerman-aquitted/
Forward
http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/07/rumblings-of-lynchings-over-trayvon-verdict/
If Zimmerman were black, and Treyvon white, the “American Thinker”, along with most of Zimmerman’s other defenders, would be screaming for Zimmerman’s head.
If Zimmerman were black, and Trayvon white, the bedwetter libtard media and the Race Hustlers Industrial Complex wouldn’t touch this story.
Zimmerman will be acquitted.
And there will be riots.
Forward
do you know how hard it is to get 12 people to agree on anything?
The Zimmerman jury only has six members as allowed under Florida law…but FWIW my personal experience as a juror on three trials in Calif. was three hung juries (12 members on each)
I was on a 6 person jury in Florida once. It was a relatively minor civil case, but we quickly came to the conclusion that the plaintiff was
lying.not being totally truthful.We ended up awarding the plaintiff about $20,000 but it was clear to me that their attorney spent far more than that on the case preparation.
The trial lasted a day and a half and it took us about 90 minutes to 2 hours to deliberate and reach a verdict and award figure.
we quickly came to the conclusion that the plaintiff was
lyingnot being totally truthful.We ended up awarding the plaintiff about $20,000 but
If the plaintiff was not being truthful, why not find for the defendant?
the bedwetter libtard media and the Race Hustlers Industrial Complex wouldn’t touch this story.
The “American Thinker”, Faux News, and the like, would take up the slack.
you are in louisville or lexington? do you remember the april 2000 cincinnati riots? i do. and all the ‘coexist’ stickers in the world aren’t gonna save you from becoming the next reginald denny.
forward
If Zimmerman were black and Treyvon white this story would be on page 34 of the local newspaper
And the race of neither would be mentioned.
When Zimmerman is acquitted, social justice will be achieved by looting Foot Locker.
Forward
That’s Hussssain, with a hiss.
that’s how it’s pronounced in kenyan.
Yeah, sure, all of the $hit-kickers I know kick azz because they smoke grass.
And “lean” sounds like something I need to be doing.
Obama’s “son” was probably high on bath salts too when he attacked George Zimmerman.
Maybe if Jesse Jackson’s kids get another Anheuser-Busch distributorship, then social justice can be achieved and the riots and lynchings prevented.
Forward
I don’t know why all of the NRA/law and order types are complaining. They been prepping/stocking up for the “Zombie Apocalypse” for years. Time to put their guns where their mouths are.
You would think they would be all “jacked up on Mt Dew”, loading AR clips, waiting for the green light to go on in the “Free-Fire Zone”
After my failed predictions of a Long Hot Summer in 2012, it looks like 2013 might be the year.
Whitey gonna pay.
What do you think the rest of the “white hispanic” community will do?
I love how members of the party of love, tolerance and acceptance always feel the need to hate / stereotype anyone who has opposing views.
HOPE!
This article from 1992 states that more than half of the arrests during the post Rodney King verdict riots in Los Angeles were Hispanic.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-18/local/me-734_1_los-angeles-riots
After Zimmerman is acquitted and TSHTF, expect to see some “white hispanic” seekers of social justice join their black brothers liberating some big screen teevees from Best Buy.
Social Justice = Get Whitey
The bilderbergers won’t allow any riots. We’re in good hands.
There won’t be any riots in Aspen or the Hamptons.
Looting Foot Locker = Reparations®
Are there any Foot Lockers in Compton?
Hopefully the rioters will only target Foot Lockers owned by “white hispanics”. You know…because George Zimmerman was the first person ever described by the media as a “white hispanic”.
Zimmerman doesn’t sound like an Hispanic name to me.
Zimmerman sounds more like a German name.
I believe that his mother is Hispanic.
The term “white Hispanic” has been used in the newspapers for many years. They use the term “non-Hispanic white” fairly frequently. In some part of the Southwest the term Anglo is used for the same purpose.
Yeah, sure, all of the $hit-kickers I know kick azz because they smoke grass.”
yes that’s pretty weak. Ingesting “lean” sounds like a good way to throw up.
More to the point, the “iced tea” Martin purchased was actually Arizona Watermelon Fruit Cocktail”, which combined with Skittles and Robitussin cough syrup (which Martin’s redacted FB also discusses at length) creates a ketamine/PCP-like high.
Mixing the drugs with Soft Drinks and candy doesn’t add any potency to them. The idea that the specific drink he had means something significant has been ‘cooked up’ on right wing websites, ignoring the fact that the classic ingredients in ’syrup’ are jolly ranchers and whatever soda, not skittles (which are completely different from jolly ranchers) and watermelon fruit cocktail.
And the only drug found in Treyvon’s system was very small amounts of THC.
It’s the recipe –with the brand of candy being the local identifier. See: Murder C. All circumstantial, of course, but when taken in conjunction with Martin’s Facebook postings and search for codeine two days before, it’s certainly suggestive of something less innocent than “ice tea” and candy.
Hippies and their dreams of equality…. Promoting ‘affordable’ housing downtown… As if developers would give away 10% of their prime real estate property and hand it to Sec 8 people
———–
Austin officials struggle to promote affordable housing downtown
High-rise buildings are not new to Austin. The first 300-foot building is now nearly 130 years old. Yet, city leaders are still struggling with how to write effective high-rise policy.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Kathie Tovo, an Austin City Council member. “We desperately need affordable housing in this community.”
Tovo said paying for it is tricky. One way is through the city’s Density Bonus Program. But some developers are using a loophole called CURE to avoid program stipulations.
“Again and again, they received a CURE rezoning and we had zero developers who participated in the density bonus program,” Tovo said.
The Density Bonus Program requires developers to either devote 10 percent of their project to affordable housing or pay the city a fee. That money then goes into the city’s coffers to be used to fund affordable housing projects.
Nikelle Meade with the Real Estate Council of Austin warns that the city council needs to find a perfect balance that both increases population density downtown and funds affordable housing.
“At some point, the payment becomes so high that the fee in lieu really is no longer an incentive to develop bigger or higher,” Meade said.
Meade said taking CURE away leaves no flexibility for developers. She said the Council needs to weigh its priorities.
“If we want to densify downtown, we don’t want to overtax for that density. We want to do things to encourage it. We fear that when you get to a fee of $10, it starts to be a disincentive, not an incentive,” Meade said.
The City Council wants to nail down a fee that’s fair for both interests.
A few developers have already agreed to provide affordable housing on property the city sold them. Another gave money to the program as a kind of good faith gesture. Tovo said, however, those instances only make up a small fraction of the projects that would have been eligible.
Austin is not unique, in that most cities have a similar issue. I’d just like to see some “semi-affordable housing” downtown.
The place I’m trying to relocate to has gone full bore into the trendy/hip loft/warehouse/repurposing development deal.
So the choices are:
-Pay $1000-1500 month to live close to work, in what may or may not be a nice loft conversion in “Trendyville”, that is a tossup on whether crime/property theft is an issue.
-Pay a little (20% approx) for a new/near new place 20-25 miles out, and deal with the traffic/$4.00 a gallon gas/1 hour commute each way every day.
-Live in an old apartment/rental house in the ghetto/Fort Apache areas (4-10 miles out) for half of what Trendyville costs, but where you will have to replace all of your stuff every 6 months.
The cardboard box/van down by the river options are looking better every day. I’m with RA…..what can’t go on, won’t go on, and eventually housing might get affordable.
But will it happen in my lifetime? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Where do you live?
I believe he lives near (or in) Topeka, KS.
It will be delicious to see the reaction of a trendy, hip, Whole Foods shopping liberal Democrat who just paid $800K for a condo find out her neighbor is a Section 8.
If the city would allow the rents to float with the free market, then local businesses would simply need to pay higher wages to get low-skilled workers. The price of a burger might need to go up. Wouldn’t it make more sense to let the free market take care of wages and prices?
It would be if there was such a thing as a free market. But there isn’t.
Markets are gamed and rigged every day in every way.
Feds drool, contractors rule:
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-08/pentagon-furloughs-hit-bases-from-pharmacy-to-repairs.html
commie Katrina vanden Heuvel spewing class warfare:
“most of the 195,000 jobs added last month, as well as the ones added in the last few years, are low-paying, temporary, part time and usually without benefits … Hourly wages have plummeted to record lows, while executive pay has soared to record highs. There is no longer an income gap; there is an income gulf. In 1978, the average American chief executive earned 26.5 times more than the average worker. Today, that gap is four times larger, with chief executives taking home 206 times more than average workers.”
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-a-jobs-crisis-stuck-on-the-back-burner/2013/07/08/de24a63c-e7f3-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html
Hope and Change
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/05/09/the-insiders-the-obama-economy-has-delivered-for-the-1-percent/
More Hope and Change:
“Friday’s disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. The report also showed another disturbing fact: There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs.”
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/recovery-woes-americas-second-largest-employer-is-a-temp-agency/article/2532778
Even more Hope and Change:
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/technology/309573-fcc-warns-telecoms-companies-about-obama-phones
Ran into my former avionics crew chief (and union steward) a couple of weeks ago.
He was a member of the negotiation committee for the last contract. One of the issues they were negotiating was “Mandatory overtime” (10 hour days Monday thru Friday, then 8 hours/day Saturday and Sunday) …..with the lower seniority guys in each pay grade, it was getting to the point where the only way they could get a Saturday, Sunday or holiday off was to burn their vacation time. (The last year I worked there, the shop was on O/T for 48 of the 52 weeks). The union was trying to tell the company that they weren’t getting that much out of the guys in those extra two hours.
(I can back that up……you could run mandatory O/T for about three weeks before fatigue issues started causing problems.)
Turns out that running people into the dirt is part of the business plan. And they didn’t care how efficient the guys were, or about the problems too much O/T and related fatigue issues caused (either on the job, or at home).
Internally, they account for benefits as part of the pay for a 40 hour week. The way they figure/bill it, they make bank when the guys are on O/T. They charge the customer a premium, but because all the bennies are “paid for” out of straight time, they get to keep everything over and above the base salary + O/T pay.
Know many a person that got used to the OT money.
Start to spend it all. Get home and car loans based on the OT.
Then the OT goes away.
And they stuck with a debt load they can not support.
And go bankrupt.
OT can equal the poor house…
yep, me too, that scenario is common in the telecom business, saw many coworkers buy expensive toys, vehicles, and houses that they could not possibly afford on their base pay…the OT went away when the bubble popped in 2008
“Then the OT goes away.”
“And they stuck with a debt load they can not support.”
“And go bankrupt.”
Yep. As I’ve been saying: One a minute.
Exactly. In my case I had so much OT in the mid 2000s that I first bought gold ($500s per ounce to $700 per ounce) then bought Series I bonds (1% or more fixed rate), then I spent it on women.
A consultant has his priorities.
Internally, they account for benefits as part of the pay for a 40 hour week.
This doesn’t make any sense. I’ve always understood that benefits cost roughly 40% of pay. If they are paying time-and-a-half, aren’t they paying 50% extra to avoid paying 40% in a different category to a new-hire?
From the Obama phone article:
“average of $9.25/month in discounted services”
“….program was started in 1985, and expanded to cover cellphone service in 2005 under then-President George W. Bush”
You mean they aren’t getting free iPhones with free data plans? And an Escalade to drive to the Verizon store get their free upgrades?
Since Obama took office the number of people on welfare has more than doubled. This is in all areas…SNAP, EBT, Obamaphone, etc.
So yes all these programs were here before Obama came to town. But Obama has expanded the programs to basically allow anyone with a pulse to get on the dole.
Not to mention the fraud that has increased exponentially since your mostest favoritest president came to town…everyone knows Obama won’t ever crack down on the fraud. It’s open season.
http://money.msn.com/now/blog–obamaphone-program-dialing-for-fraud
“More than 40% of the low-income customers enrolled via the top five Lifeline carriers — which include AT&T (T +0.17%) and Verizon Communications (VZ -0.33%) — either couldn’t demonstrate they were eligible or didn’t respond to certification requests, according to the newspaper’s investigation……..Undercover cameras taped salespeople telling applicants for phones under the Federal Communications Commissions’ Lifeline program that once they get a device, they can do whatever they want with it, including selling it. One employee at a Stand Up wireless location in Philadelphia looked the other way when an undercover actor said he was going to sell the phone for heroin. “Hey, I don’t judge,” the employee said. “
Since Obama took office the number of people on welfare has more than doubled. This is in all areas…SNAP, EBT, Obamaphone, etc.
So yes all these programs were here before Obama came to town. But Obama has expanded the programs to basically allow anyone with a pulse to get on the dole.
Do you actually think that is the case, that is has been Obama administration policy to double the number of people on SNAP? If you do, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
“with 28 million Americans now working part-time”
You voted for this twice. Enjoy the pain. May you suffer for decades to come.
And you will pay taxes for their SNAP and EITC for decades to come.
Forward
Eventually Obama will run out of other people’s money to give his constituents. And eventually China will cut off the credit card as well. And when that happens I hope Obama voters literally starve to death.
And when that happens I hope Obama voters literally starve to death.
I take it you’re not a religious man, Smithers?
“I take it you’re not a religious man, Smithers?”
No. I have been told by my liberal betters that religion = right wing extremist H8.
The day that the US government starts to issue debt NOT in US dollars - it is the day to sell everything related to the USD.
And yes, the Chinese have suggested this.
Eventually Obama will run out of other people’s money to give his constituents. And eventually China will cut off the credit card as well
Comment by Mr. Smithers
2013-07-09 11:28:40
“I take it you’re not a religious man, Smithers?”
No. I have been told by my liberal betters that religion = right wing extremist H8.
They’re not your liberal betters, they’re simply your betters. See the people(most of them) on this blog are intelligent enough to understand that you don’t have to be either liberal or conservative about everything and can in fact be either/or on any given issue. It’s called thinking for yourself and forming your own opinion.
You have demonstrated time and time again that you are completely unable to grasp this simple concept. therefore we are simply…your betters.
Q.E.D.
The day that the US government starts to issue debt NOT in US dollars - it is the day to sell everything related to the USD.
And yes, the Chinese have suggested this.”
And what do we expect home prices to do then ? In dollars ?
“See the people(most of them) on this blog are intelligent enough to understand that you don’t have to be either liberal or conservative”
I know, I know. Everyone here is a centrist, moderate, independent thinker who just happens to vote Democrat 99.98% of the time. But don’t you dare accuse them of being partisan.
You rest his case.
Again.
Part time jobs and temps keep getting hot! My former company stock went up $3600 Monday and $3800 today for my holdings. I am less than 21% away from selling $38,000 worth ($30,000 after taxes).
Goon:
Yep, any type of information is always a war, especially when it doesn’t look good for the Lead Ape.
“…most of the jobs added in the last 30 years are low-paying, temporary, part time and usually without benefits”
Fixed.
“You’d have to have rocks in your head to buy a house at these massively inflated prices. It’s a complete rip-off.”
Yes it is considering the cost of new housing is $60/sq foot (materials, labor and profit).
ft dot com
Markets Insight
July 9, 2013 11:53 am
Markets Insight: Fire drill reveals bond fund exit weakness
By Ralph Atkins in London
Bond investors fear some markets will not cope when real trouble hits, leading to big price falls
Only in a fire are the emergency exits tested properly. A big fear of bond investors is that some markets, weakened by changes since the financial crisis erupted in 2007, will not cope in stressed situations. When trouble hits, it will be much harder to match sellers with buyers – resulting in panic and precipitous price falls.
The past few weeks have been a fire drill. Talk about the possible ending of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve led to a rush out of emerging market and corporate bonds – especially by nervous investors who would have stuck to safer, more liquid government bond markets had central bank action to drive down interest rates not encouraged a global “hunt for yield”.
Since the June 19 Fed meeting, emerging market bond funds have seen outflows equivalent to almost 3 per cent of assets under management, according to EPFR, the funds data provider. High yield and investment grade corporate debt had seen almost 2 per cent and 0.6 per cent outflows by late last week – and those averages almost certainly mask much bigger swings in individual sectors and funds.
So how did emergency systems fare? Some anecdotal reports are scary; one emerging market investor complains trading was “by appointment only”. Corporate issuance dried up. In the relatively safe European investment grade sector, for instance, four out of the 10 trading days that followed the Fed meeting went without a single new bond launch – pointing to serious difficulties in secondary markets.
Yet spreads between bid and offer prices – a gauge of how easy it is to trade – widened only modestly compared with 2008, even in high yield, or “junk”, markets. The Financial Times has reported how exchange traded funds – which replicate the returns of different assets but, like stocks, are easily bought and sold – have come under scrutiny. The industry insists, however, that the apparatus behind ETFs worked perfectly during the turbulence.
Even if there is no need to revoke safety certificates, the worry is that systems have still not been tested in extreme conditions. Fund managers had time to prepare for a turn in bond markets triggered by the Fed – the possibility had been widely talked about beforehand. The next “shock” may be genuine. Situations could quickly get out of control – and we do not know what will tip the balance. If a fund has 10 per cent in cash or easily sold US Treasuries, it is easy to cope with, say, a 6 per cent outflow. But a 6 per cent outflow becomes dangerous when only 5 per cent is held in liquid assets.
…
Clearly gold has nowhere to go from here but up.
Paulson’s gold fund loses 65% so far this year. Wow.
July 9, 2013, 7:07 AM
“Wow.”
That summed up a few Twitter reactions to news that billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson’s gold fund has lost 65% year-to-date, after tumbling 23% last month. Losses for his PFR Gold Fund came on the heels of the Fed’s effort to prepare the markets last month for the eventuality of a paring-back on stimulus. Gold sank 23%-plus in the second quarter, the steepest quarterly loss since the start of modern trading in the 1970s.
Citing the contents of a July 3 letter to investors, Bloomberg said the gold fund’s assets have fallen to $300 million. The fund investments are mostly Paulson’s own money. It represents the firm’s smallest portfolio, with only 2% of assets, and is the only portfolio to post losses this year.
Paulson’s firm told investors in the letter that it is sticking to investing in bullion and stocks for protection against currency debasement as central bankers continue with easy-money policies. It said:
Paulson himself has previously said that investors should stop making a big deal out of losses for this tiny piece of his empire.
…
Nervous markets winnow foolish investments.
July 9, 2013, 10:37 a.m. EDT
Nervous markets are a risk to global economy: IMF
IMF trims outlook for 2013, 2014
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Financial market jitters as the Federal Reserve mulls stepping back from its ultra-loose monetary policy is a new risk to the global economic outlook, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.
The high volatility in financial markets over the past three week was due to “a sudden realization by investors that quantitative easing would eventually come to an end,” said Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, at a press briefing.
While the high market volatility over the past three weeks was “a re-pricing episode” and should subside, at least in part, “one cannot rule out further attacks of nerves along the way,” Blanchard said.
…
Comment by polly
2013-07-08 10:40:43
A flattish tax system is a terrible idea. A family or individual NEEDS the first and second $10,000 they earn. They can’t afford to part with a penny of it. A flat tax ignores this reality completely.
Wrong, polly. Most flat-tax proposals exempt the first $X of income entirely, and $X is generally close to the poverty-line.
That makes sense to me, as I find it nonsensical to tax someone near but above the poverty-line, such that they end up down below the poverty-line. And people below the poverty-line should not have the food taken out of their mouths via taxes.
“And people below the poverty-line should not have the food taken out of their mouths via taxes.”
Everyone should pay something. Even if it’s $50 a year in federal income taxes, nobody should get a free ride.
EITC is never going away. The Free Sh*t Army needs their free sh*t.
Free Sh*t Army = Permanent Democrat Supermajority
If they exempt the first $x of income, then it isn’t a flat tax proposal. Smithers didn’t raise the issue, so I presumed that he meant a real flat tax with the exact same rate applying to the first $10,000 of income as to the 50th $10,000 of income. His later comments yesterday made it fairly clear that is what he wants, though his comment above (saying that everyone should pay something, even if only $50) is a little less clear. Maybe he could clarify more fully.
By the way, that exemption of the first $x raises issues all by itself. Is that per person? Per family unit? If it is per family unit, do you adjust it in some other way if there are kids? Per kid? Complexity comes back pretty quickly.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive Polly. You can have a flat tax where everyone pays say 20% of their taxable income WITH the first $X exempted from tax. Let’s say that $X is $30,000.
So someone makes $50,000 they pay nothing on the first $30,000, they pay 20% on the remaining $20,000.
Someone makes $500,000, they too pay nothing on the first $30,000 and pay 20% on the remaining $470,000.
In addition I would take it a step further and have a minimum amount of tax that everyone pays. So someone making $20,000 a year would still be subject to that minimum even though their entire $20,000 would be exempt from the 20% tax rate. I don’t care if it’s something as small as $50. I just want everyone to pay SOMETHING into the system.
I say exempt the first $100,000, then tax everything above at 50% (or whatever we need to make up the difference).
Bring back the middle class.
“I say exempt the first $100,000, then tax everything above at 50% (or whatever we need to make up the difference).”
Psssst….wanna hear a secret? The vast majority of federal income taxes are already paid by those making over $100K.
Pass it on….
The vast majority of federal income taxes are already paid by those making over $100K.
They pay a lot of taxes because they make a lot of money. They’re free to make less if it bothers them.
“The vast majority of federal income taxes are already paid by those making over $100K.”
Wrong. The IRS has the spreadsheets to prove it on their website. I’ve posted and proven this here in the past.
Surprisingly, the actual dollar amount is about equal between the wealthy and everyone else. The problem is the wealthy pay a lower PERCENTAGE of their income in tax than everyone else.
Making money should be a crime. That’ll show those evil capitalists!!
At least you finally admit that evil rich people are the ones who pay the bills and the noble minimum wage earners are nothing but parasites. It’s a start.
In addition I would take it a step further and have a minimum amount of tax that everyone pays. So someone making $20,000 a year would still be subject to that minimum even though their entire $20,000 would be exempt from the 20% tax rate. I don’t care if it’s something as small as $50. I just want everyone to pay SOMETHING into the system.
Gee, thanks for telling us what you would do. I’ll keep that in mind if you ever run for president.
“By the way, that exemption of the first $x raises issues all by itself. Is that per person? Per family unit? If it is per family unit, do you adjust it in some other way if there are kids? Per kid? Complexity comes back pretty quickly.”
You’re looking at this from a govt bureaucrat point of view where everything is complicated. It doesn’t have to be. It could be very simple. $20,000 single, $30,000 married, $5000 / kid under 18. Doesn’t matter what the numbers are. Three numbers, one for single, one for married, one per kid.
It would take 30 seconds to figure your taxes at the end of the year.
It would eliminate the social engineering arm of the federal govt. No more tax incentives to buy a house. No more tax incentives to buy an electric car. No more tax incentives to invest in equities instead of interest bearing instruments. No more anything. Tax consequences will no longer be part of any economic decision by anyone.
And you’d get your wish as well. H&R Block would cease to exist.
Would you no longer want to incentivize charitable giving? Don’t you think a lot of charitable donations are given for tax purposes, and would therefore decline under this system?
Most people don’t give to charity because of a tax deduction. They give because they want to give and help people out. I donate quite a bit to a charity that helps kids with cancer and to a couple of animal abuse charities. I don’t think to myself, hmmm, if I give some money I’ll get a tax deduction. I think to myself, I want to help kids with cancer and abused animals. The tax deduction is a nice added bonus, but it won’t stop me from donating if the deduction were taken away tomorrow.
And besides there are thousands of deductions that will hurt someone somewhere. This is the reason we cannot cut a dime of spending ever. There’s some sob story just waiting to be shown on the local news. Tough shit. Either we cut spending a little now and hurt a few people a little or we let the whole thing implode Greece style and hurt everyone a lot.
You may not be unique in your thinking, but there are a whole lot of people who donate with tax in mind.
Taking away the deduction without lowering tax rates would absolutely reduce giving.
“I donate quite a bit to a charity that helps kids with cancer and to a couple of animal abuse charities.”
“There’s some sob story just waiting to be shown on the local news. Tough shit.”
You must be pretty conflicted when kids with cancer and abused animals show up on the local news.
“You must be pretty conflicted when kids with cancer and abused animals show up on the local news.”
Only if I think the govt can solve all my problems for me. I don
t so I am not.
Yeah, because BP would have compensated everyone who was the victim of the largest oil spill in history out of the goodness of their hearts.
What in the world are you talking about? BP has nothing to do with charitable donations or govt spending. You people are losing it.
why are you giving exemptions for kids? if anything, they should be paying more in taxes as they are using more services.
Complexity only comes back when politicians want to reward certain segments at the expense of others.
Complexity comes when someone has to actually write down the rules. It doesn’t matter if it is a contract or a law or anything else that governs the behavior of or defines a relationship among people. You can be simple when working up a crowd. Try to write it down and it gets complicated.
It gets complicated because laws are written for and by lobbyists who make sure it is as complicated as possible so the same lobbyists then have jobs for life as “legal experts” interpreting the laws they wrote.
What is so complicated about a 20% flat tax?
There are no exemptions. No deductions. You make $100,000 a year. You subtract $30,000. You pay 20% on $70,000. This could be codified in a few pages of law. Leave it to a lawyer to whine that it’s TOO SIMPLE.
+1 Polly.
Dodd Frank is a perfect example. The law was pretty long in its own right, but left a lot of the detail to be worked out later in rule writing.
The rules written based on the outline in the law will be 10x+ the length of the original law.
Define “making” $100,000 a year. W-2 wages are pretty straight foreward. Or are they? Should there be 401(k)s? IRAs? What about contributions to health savings accounts? What about flexible spending accounts? Do you get to deduct alimony (you can now)? Any exclusions at all? Will there be any more tax exempt bonds?
If you think calculating capital gains is simple or takes 30 seconds, you are crazy. So maybe you want the 20% to just apply to amount you get when you sell a capital asset? Really? No deduction for the cost of the stock you sold? It would make it simpler, but hardly more fair. Maybe you want to eliminate capital losses? Or at least the rule that lets you offset some small amount of regular income with capital losses if you don’t have capital gains. And what about the capital loss carry forward?
Oh, and then we have small business income that is reported directly on a individual’s taxes. That is easy right? 20% of what? If you really want it to take 30 seconds then I guess you mean 20% of gross income of the business. That is the fastest way. But then, why doesn’t a small business get to deduct its operating expenses and pay taxes on profits, not income like other businesses do?
“Define “making” $100,000 a year. W-2 wages are pretty straight foreward. Or are they? Should there be 401(k)s? IRAs? What about contributions to health savings accounts? What about flexible spending accounts? Do you get to deduct alimony (you can now)? Any exclusions at all? Will there be any more tax exempt bonds?”
Which part of no deductions, no exemptions do you not get Polly?
Yeah, I would be pretty ok with capital gains tax being set at 20% also. 20% feels like a good round number. No more than 1 day in 5 to go to the feds. Plus, a flat tax with a lower income exemption IS IN FACT a progessive tax by definition… Right.. at $30k your tax rate is 0.. at 40k you pay 20% tax on 10k = 2k.. your tax rate is 5% .. at 100k you pay 20% on 70k.. your tax is 14k, your tax rate is 14%..
Seems pretty straightforward to me…
Capital Gains rates are already 20%. It isn’t speculative any more.
I think the flat tax is the fairest way to go, 5%.
Eliminate all taxes on behavior, income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes. Maybe keep some sin taxes. Just tax nest assets 5% per annum.
Tax net assets 5% per annum?
Really?
How do you plan to make that work for people who are retired? Or are people always supposed to work?
How will you deal with people hiding assets/playing games with asset values, etc.? France has a wealth tax of up to 1.8% (as opposed to your 5%), and they have huge problems with people hiding assets, including their socialist budget minister who recently was to have found having a secret bank account.
I’m all for tax reform, but a 5% net asset tax is about the worst idea I’ve heard.
So the Warren Buffets all pay themselves 100K a year and transfer assets into family trusts and foundations. How does that work? Is there a one-time 5% assessment? Who makes the determination of value? What about appreciation? Does that count as income?
During the Great Depression era, tax assessors came into your home every year to take inventory. New refrigerator? Nice tool shed…. Can you even imagine the hue and cry that would elicit today?
During the Great Depression era, tax assessors came into your home every year to take inventory.
???? Reference?
Studs Terkel’s oral histories describe this in detail. It’s also portrayed in various classic movies from that era. (Though in all fairness, they were county assessors, rather than a state or federal ones.)
The government could not be funded with a flat or flattish tax. A progressive tax code is necessary for any first-world civilization.
Amazingly enough the govt was funded without any income tax for the first 135 years of its existence. Imagine that.
Do you consider Cayman Islands a 1st World nation? No income tax there. I’ve been there several times. Even had to visit a local hospital unfortunately on one occasion. Cleanest, nicest hospital I have ever set foot in. Waited for about 10 minutes to see a Dr. And all that without an income tax. Imagine that!! Bermuda also has no income tax and is one of the richest countries in the world.
Why even bother taxing? Borrow/Print and spend that’s the first world thing to do.
Isn’t it about time to raise the debt ceiling again?
Uh oh. Got you again, Smithereens.
How did the US fund the federal government before income tax?
TARIFFS and EXCISE TAXES.
Another win for the girls.
Good, lets go back to tariffs and excise taxes.. as a benefit, it even corresponds to the original intent of the people who wrote the constitution and expressly outlawed direct taxes.
For the first 135 years of its existence, the US had minimal foreign incursions that required funding. Moreover, the country was founded on slave labor.
VIVA FREE HEALTH CARE!!
VIVA HOPE!!
“If you’ve been reading all the Obamacare stories lately, you might get the impression that the administration has just realized it will not be able to implement the massive health reform as designed. It has known for months.
As far back as March, a top IT official at the Department of Health and Human Services said the department’s current ambition for the law’s new online insurance marketplaces was that they not be “a Third-World experience.” In April, several consultants focusing on the new online marketplaces, known as exchanges, told National Journal that the idealized, seamless user experience initially envisioned under the Affordable Care Act was no longer possible, as the administration axed non-essential provisions that were too complex to implement in time. ”
If only someone somewhere had warned the American people that Obamacare would be a total clusterf**k back in 2010….well kids, you voted for this twice. Get ready to experience 3rd World Health Care. May you suffer for decades for your stupidity.
and you will pay for decades for their stupidity.
and pay and pay and pay and pay and pay and pay and pay and pay.
there are more free sh1t army than there are of you.
Meh, I don’t think it will ever actually happen.
Always remember….Housing is always a loss. Houses depreciate and the losses to depreciation are magnified by the fact that you cannot write them off as a loss on your tax returns.
The key U.S. stockmarket indices are closing in on their all-time highs again for no reason. Could it be an “indefinite postponement of QE3 withdrawal” relief rally?
Stocks post fourth straight day of gains
Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY 4:05 p.m. EDT July 9, 2013
(Photo: Richard Drew, AP)
Stocks moved higher Tuesday as Wall Street extended prior-session gains to a fourth straight day.
Investors are cautiously optimistic as they turn their attention to corporate earnings after spending much of the last month preoccupied with the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program.
…
IMF scales back world growth forecasts for 2013-14
11:15 a.m. EDT July 9, 2013
(Photo: Franck Pennant, AFP/Getty Images)
Story Highlights
- Global organization lowers its global growth forecast to 3.1% from 3.3%
- Cites a more protracted recession in Europe and slowdown in China and Brazil
- IMF lowers U.S. forecast to 1.7%, down from a 1.9% forecast three months ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund forecast slower global growth for 2013 and 2014, citing expectations of a more protracted recession in Europe and a slowdown in key developing countries such as China and Brazil.
The update of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook issued three months ago now projects the world economy will grow at 3.1% this year, the same rate as last year and down from a forecast of 3.3% three months ago. The 2014 forecast was cut to 3.8% from 4.0%.
The IMF said new risks had emerged since April, including the possibility of a more drawn-out slowdown in developing country economies.
…
This is being done to annoy me.
“Get shorty!!!” (i.e., Enron again…)
“This is being done to annoy me.”
You could have profited from it had you listened to reason and not to anonymous posters on a blog. Oh well. Your money, do what you will with it. Just don’t whine about central bank this and PTB that. You brought this onto yourself.
http://www.corelogic.com/research/foreclosure-report/national-foreclosure-report-may-2013.pdf
Corelogic’s foreclosure report. Theme consistent with FHFA, LPS: The distress is concentrated in judicial states.
There are no bagholders, only victims.
yep victims of their own stupidity.
The various proposals would have a tax credit from a low of 12 percent to a high of 15 percent, without the need for taxpayers to itemize their returns. The proposals would limit the mortgage interest covered in the credit up to $500,000, or half of what it is now. All but one of the major proposals would eliminate the tax credit for a second home.
“A tax credit is a much fairer way to help homeowners, especially those that need it, like lower income families,” argued Fisher.
But some heavy hitters in housing say changing the deduction in any way is unthinkable.
The powerful real estate lobby has played a crucial role in keeping the mortgage interest deduction intact, spending more than $80 million in lobbying Congress in 2012 alone in order to advance their causes.
Once upon a time we bought a condo
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And think of all the great things we would DO
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
Refi and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
Then the busy years went rushing by us
We bought us four more condos on the way
Everytime we needed extra money
We’d smile at one another and we’d say
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
Refi and never lose
Those were the days
Oh, yes, those were the days
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
Just tonight I stood before the condos
Foreclosure signs were all that I could see
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that Deadbeat woman really me?
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
Refi and never lose
Those were the days
Oh, yes, those were the days
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh, my friend, we’re older but no wiser
It’s been three years now we’re back in the game…
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
Refi and never lose
Those were the days
Oh, yes, those were the days
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
4:56 Those were the days my friend - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TBdzBP17p0 - 130k
Guess what, HBB?
Mr. Smithereens is against income tax AND tariffs. Had to post it on both threads. It was just too much. Couldn’t help myself.
BTW, I can see that home-building is way up around my hood. The sticks and stones are being erected seemingly overnight.
“Housing’s Dead Cat Bounce”
Now that it’s self-evident that housing is in dead cat bounce mode, you can now observe the losses of those who were foolish enough to believe the tripe and paid a grossly inflated price for a house even though a house is always a depreciating asset.
r u calculating your losses on your shanties @ 50?
a depreciating asset ALWAYS.
http://www.cbc.ca/?cmp=pinned-ie9
When a member of this blog speak with President O’Bama, would you please ask him to allow the Keystone line ?
No worries, Patrick. Construction on the already-Obama approved southern leg of Keystone XL continues without even a slowdown. There is no reason to have a southern leg if they were not going to approve the rest of it.
Demographics bullish for gold
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Brecht/2013-07-08-Changing-Global-Demographics-Bode-Bullish-For-Gold-Long-Term.html
My next purchase will be 2.5 ounces worth of gold!
Do you really trust kitco, a gold purveyor, for unbiased opinions on the future price trajectory of the product they sell?
I dunno but I think the bottom for gold has been reached the last few weeks.
‘My next purchase will be 2.5 ounces worth of gold!’
Hey Kool Aid!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBeUGqeYsQg
Bloomberg News
Trayvon Martin’s Wound Backs Shooter’s Story, Pathologist Says
By Christopher Boyd
July 09, 2013
Trayvon Martin was probably on top of George Zimmerman and leaning forward when Zimmerman, a Florida Neighborhood Watch volunteer accused of second-degree murder, shot him through the heart, a forensic pathologist said.
Vincent Di Maio, a retired Texas medical examiner testifying for the defense, told jurors that material evidence from the shooting was consistent with what Zimmerman told Sanford, Florida, police had happened. Zimmerman, 29, contends he killed Martin in self-defense after he was punched and knocked to the ground and his head was pounded on the pavement.
The bullet tore into the 17-year-old’s chest and passed through his heart and right lung, Di Maio said today in state court in Sanford. He estimated that Martin’s hooded sweatshirt was two to four inches from the barrel of Zimmerman’s 9 mm pistol when the shot was fired.
“The medical evidence, the gunshot wound, was consistent with his statement,” Di Maio said during 3 1/2 hours of testimony. “It’s consistent with someone leaning over.”
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“This is not a complicated case, forensically,” Di Maio said.
This trial isn’t about evidence, facts or what actually happened.
If you recall, “Everyone” was shocked when OJ walked….
If you recall, “Everyone” was shocked when OJ walked….
+1 Yup including OJ himself.
Say what you want about OJ’s guilt or innocence, but Johnny Cochran stole the show by turning the trial into an issue of race, not OJ’s guilt or innocence.
So don’t be too surprised if Zimmerman is convicted. It’s Florida, after all….
Another junk science religious belief bites the dust…
‘Peak oil’ web site to close its doors
July 9, 2013, 4:59 PM
By Claudia Assis
The Oil Drum, a web site created and frequented by advocates of “peak oil,” is closing its doors July 31 after an eight-year run.
The site will be kept as a repository of old articles, but will no longer offer new ones, according to a post on the site dated July 3.
The decision was reached thanks to “scarcity of new content caused by a dwindling number of contributors” and the cost of running the site, the post said.
The post garnered more than 700 comments from readers mourning the site’s virtual death. Commenters suggested “donate” buttons and other ideas to raise money.
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If the Japanese are dumping Treasurys, who is buying them?
Surprise, surprise? Japanese investors are dumping U.S. Treasurys
July 8, 2013, 1:34 PM
One of the big surprises of 2013 may not actually be so shocking once you take a close look at the numbers.
Japan’s aggressive stimulus efforts were initially billed by many market strategists as the next big driver of a global asset rally. The Bank of Japan’s ramped-up quantitative-easing plan would knock down the yen and force domestic investors to finally give up on already low-yielding Japanese bonds to join a global quest for yield that would stream into emerging markets, the euro-zone’s so-called periphery, U.S. stocks and anything else with a pulse.
At least that was the argument back in April. Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda himself forecast that lower domestic bond yields would spark a “portfolio shift” into equities, foreign bonds and other assets. Instead, data show Japanese investors have remained net sellers of foreign assets.
But should that really be a surprise? Folks who follow investment flows will tell you that the money usually follows the market, not vice versa.
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasurys began to slip in early May, pushing up yields, then accelerated their drop into a rout as expectations the Federal Reserve would begin to scale back its bond purchases solidified.
Indeed, detailed May data from the Ministry of Finance shows that Japanese investors were joining the exodus out of U.S. Treasurys, noted Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman:
It appears that the bulk of the bonds that Japanese investors sold in May were US Treasurys and the roughly $30 billion were a record amount. This follows the $15.5 billion sales in April. May was the fifth consecutive month Japanese investors have reduced their U.S. Treasury holdings and over this period sold about 8 trilion yen.
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So much bad news from the global economy, so many new stock market highs…
July 10, 2013, 2:17 a.m. EDT
China trade data disappoint, as exports fall 3.1%
By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
Reuters
Workers sleep during a break in front of the World Trade Center in Beijing in this file photograph from 2011.
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — China’s trade performance for June showed drops in both exports and imports, according to reported customs data out Wednesday, disappointing for a second month in a row after May’s results missed estimates by a wide margin.
China’s exports last month fell 3.1% from a year earlier, swinging from May’s slim 1% gain, and coming in well below a forecast 4% rise from a Reuters survey of economists.
It marked the first year-on-year drop for exports since January 2012, and, according to the Financial Times, was the worst performance since October 2009.
Imports decreased by 0.7% after slipping 0.3% in May, with Reuters having tipped an 8% annual increase for June.
The General Administration of Customs, which issued the data, underscored the weakness in the numbers, with the agency’s spokesman Zheng Yuesheng saying it “can’t be too optimistic about exports for the third quarter.”
“The yuan’s appreciation and rising labor costs have added to the difficulties that exporters face,” Zheng said at a news briefing.
But despite the weak annual performance for exports, the trade surplus still posted a gain on a monthly basis, widening to $27.13 billion from May’s $20.4 billion, though falling just short of a projected $27.75 billion surplus in a Dow Jones Newswires poll.
Chinese authorities sentence the nation’s former railways minister to a de-facto life sentence in prison for bribery, as China’s clampdown on corruption widens.
While most Chinese government data are subjected to doubts from some economists over their accuracy, the trade numbers attract especially strong criticism.
In a post on Twitter immediately following the data release, DailyFX.com chief strategist John Kicklighter cited the contrast between the wider surplus and the fact that the loss in exports outpaced those of imports.
“I know that the 3.1% drop in exports and 0.7% drop in imports is ‘year-over-year,’ but the surplus rising from $20.4 [billion] to $27.2 bln … hmmm,” he wrote, adding: “I buy neither questionably-made Chinese goods nor data.”
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ft dot com
Last updated: July 8, 2013 4:40 pm
Bond investors fear sharp rise in Treasury yields
By Michael Mackenzie, Vivianne Rodrigues and Stephen Foley in New York
Not since 1994 have bond investors felt this kind of heat, and for good reason.
The US Federal Reserve will soon wind down the biggest experiment in monetary policy since the Great Depression, a prospect that has many in the bond market nursing hefty losses as investors redeem their money from bond funds and crowd the exit route.
Having been weaned on record low bond yields thanks to the Fed’s huge purchases of Treasury and mortgage securities, investors are now focused on one crucial question: how high can bond yields rise?
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield peaked above 2.75 per cent in Asian trading on Monday, up from 1.60 per cent at the end of April.
Such an explosive move over a relatively short period has spared few big bond funds that loaded up on government, inflation protected, mortgage and corporate debt securities as the Fed focused on suppressing yields at artificially low levels. Bond prices move inversely with yields.
The big worry is that the combination of an improving economy and less support from the Fed will provoke the bond market to price in a normalisation of rates, well before businesses and homebuyers can support higher interest rates.
In an economy growing at 2 per cent, with an inflation premium of 1.5 per cent, a normal rate for the 10-year Treasury could be 3.5 per cent.
The rejoinder from the Fed and long-term investors is that a reduction in the pace of “quantitative easing” is miles away from any actual tightening of interest rate policy that would mark the first concrete step towards a normalisation of bond yields.
Kevin Logan, chief US economist at HSBC, believes that the negative effects of rising rates will be muted, for the same reason that lower rates proved less of a positive than in previous recoveries: “This was a financial recession so the drop in rates did not elicit the usual response, because there was too much debt already.”
Ultimately, the level of end demand in the economy will be more important, he says, which is why Friday’s robust June jobs report moved markets so sharply. Some strategists point out the post-data surge in Treasury yields came a day after the July 4 holiday, when many traders were out of the office and liquidity was thin.
This week will be a key test of how markets might behave in the coming months. As yields have risen, investors have needed to sell more Treasuries to insulate their portfolios from larger losses. This type of technical selling could easily spin out of control and push the 10-year yield well beyond 3 per cent.
“The end of the period could bring a substantial deleveraging across the bond market and you need to make sure you have the freedom to manage your portfolio through the volatility,” says Tad Rivelle, chief investment officer at TCW. His portfolio is orientated to short-dated bonds that are less sensitive to higher interest rates and he also holds floating rate securities.
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