Bits Bucket for July 13, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
April 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Houses are never investments. Houses are a loss and depreciate, always.
good morning debt donkey. we know you aren’t selling anything.
“Get what you can get for your house today because its going to be much less tomorrow for many years to come.”
Correct.
“its not a lie if people want to believe it” — George Zimmerman
You got a citation and/or link for that?
“its not a lie if people want to believe it.”
One a minute.
Hey, I didn’t know Zimmerman was a realtor!
Awaiting Zimmerman verdict, tensions simmer on street
James Evan Muhammad, of the New Black Panther Party, demonstrates in front of the Seminole County Courthouse while the jury deliberates in the trial of George Zimmerman, Friday, July 12, 2013, in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman has been charged in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
http://us.topnewstoday.org/us/article/6824817/ - -
I think it’s cool that black people are trying to intimidate a jury to return a conviction no matter what. These are all ladies on the jury, right? I’d like to see the Black Panties use the Stand Your Ground Law to explain why they just had to attack an all-female jury.
Not quite, but he had worked as an underwriter at a mortgage brokerage.
“its not a lie if people want to believe it”
“Nixon was less than accurate” –John Dean & Gordon Liddy, Watergate
This just in:
SANFORD, Fla–The jury in the trial of George Zimmerman has found the neighborhood watchman not guilty in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman, 29, was acquitted on charges of second-degree murder in the death of Martin, a 17 year old black boy whom the defendant shot during a scuffle in a nearby gated community on Feb 26, 2012. The jury also found Zimmerman not guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
The six-woman panel signed they had reached a verdict 9:45 pm ET and filed into the courtroom around 10 pm. After the verdict was read, Judge Debra Nelson polled the jurors to make sure each agreed with the decision. She then told Zimmerman he was free to go.
Acquitted.
It’s almost as though the authorities realized ahead of time that Zimmerman would be acquitted.
Zimmerman verdict sparks worry of riots
Hadley Malcolm hosts USA NOW for July 12, 2013, covering how police are preparing communities for the Zimmerman trial verdict.
Marisol Bello and Rick Neale, USA TODAY 10:59 a.m. EDT July 13, 2013
Police departments, community leaders and pastors prepare for any civil unrest ahead of jury deliberations.
SANFORD, Fla. — Remembering the passions that inflamed the country with debates over race, profiling and gun laws, cities across Florida are bracing for protests and possible riots as the trial of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman winds down.
Shortly after the case went to the jury Friday afternoon, Sanford Police Chief Cecil Smith and Seminole County Sheriff Donald Eslinger held a press conference to urge calm when the verdict is rendered.
“This is a trying time for all of us,” Smith said. But he said the residents of Sanford should use the case to discuss, debate and exchange ideas peacefully, no matter the outcome of the trial.
“I’d like to remind everyone that the city of Sanford is a peaceful location and it has been since that time 17 months ago,” he said.
Eslinger warned, “We will not tolerate anyone who uses this verdict as an excuse to violate the law.”
…
I just wanted to get it straight for the record as to whether it was an actual, verifiable quote made by George Zimmerman as represented here in print or whether it was just more inflamatory, racist bullshit. If he said it, then he said it. If it is simply deliberate libel spread via the mass media intended to damage the character of a Latino who is innocent until proven guilty, then Zimmerman’s attorneys have every right to sue this person, just like they will NBC for deliberately falsifying the 911 tape. And they should.
The above comment was in response to this:
” Comment by spook
2013-07-13 05:06:31
“its not a lie if people want to believe it” — George Zimmerman”
And I still don’t see a citation or a link. Race-baiters of all colors should be very careful. Brown and white are also colors.
For those who don’t get it, I will say it again:
“its not a lie if people want to believe it”
(add any name you want to it)
“its not a lie if people want to believe it”
(add any name you want to it)
Eric Holder
For those who don’t get it, I will say it again:
“its not a lie if people want to believe it”
(add any name you want to it)
The Vatican
“its not a lie if people want to believe it” — Neil Armstrong
Google returns no results for that quote. The closest is “it’s not a lie if you beleive it” George Costanza -Seinfeld. But although the wording is close, the meaning is far from the same.
I think Spook is saying that the race baiters aren’t lying when they peddle the false story of what happened that night, because they want to beleive that is what happened.
“its not a lie if people want to believe it” —
Century 21 agent
“It’s not a lie if you want yo believe in it.”
Staffing recruiter
Those seeking confrontation will find it.
Why didn’t Zimmerman roll down the window of his SUV, introduce himself and ask if Martin needed help when the kid was circling him?
Why did it take “a frightened child trying to get home” four minutes to run into his condo after he told Rachael Jeantel he was “by my father’s front door”?
Too much testosterone compounded by too many assumptions and ill-considered gun laws = ruined lives.
Because Martin’s circle was not visible. He disappeared from one spot, then reappeared in another spot, right behind Zim, and then started a fist fight. Experienced street fighter, IMO.
He disappeared from one spot, then reappeared in another spot, right behind Zim, and then started a fist fight.
You should have testified at the trial since you have such exact knowledge of what happened. They really needed a witness like yourself, with knowledge that no one else has.
Why didn’t Martin pull his gun when Zimmerman pulled his?
Alpha: The recorded 911 call indicates that Zimmerman lost sight of Martin before Martin re-appeared.
Spook: Because Martin had already sold the illegal firearm that was the center of his texting conversation (evidence withheld by the prosecution, and revealed by the recently fired IT guy). Therefore, he no longer had the illegal firearm in his possession. On the other hand, Zimmerman did have a legal one.
The recorded 911 call indicates that Zimmerman lost sight of Martin before Martin re-appeared.
That’s not exactly the same as “reappeared in another spot, right behind Zim, and then started a fist fight”, is it? Where did you gain that extra knowledge of events?
Alpha:
No one calls the cops to report a suspicious person, and then turns around and starts a fist fight with the cops on the phone. Martin disappeared, reappeared, and obviously jumped Zim.
Too much testosterone
Agreed. The outlet for the hatred.
and obviously jumped Zim.
Or Zim jumped him?
that is; until you need a big strong brave man to pull your ovaries from the fire.
“Why didn’t Zimmerman roll down the window of his SUV, introduce himself and ask if Martin needed help when the kid was circling him?”
Why would an innocent pedestrian ‘circle’ an SUV? It would never, ever occur to me to take such an action.
Yeah, right. Big strong men….
Wonder how the press would have spun the story if Zimmerman’s first name had been Georgianne?
White is not a color…
Are you trying to be clever and making word-play about caucasians? Of course it is- have you never seen snow or a sheet of paper? Technically, white is an blend of all colors being reflected to the human eye and black is technically an absence of any color being reflected. If you are in a closed room with no windows and you turn off the light source, what do you see?
Technically, “white” is a mutation.
White people are not white, nor are black people black.
Have the U.S. stock and bond markets decoupled?
- Since May 2nd, the bond market has experienced a first-order meltdown, with the value of long-term bonds (10+yrs term) dropping by over 10% due to the steep rise in yields.
- Meanwhile it appears Wall Street stock market investors are blithely oblivious to the sharp selloff in bonds, with headline U.S. stock market indexes recently hitting record highs repeatedly.
One group of investors, bond market vigilantes, seem quite convinced by the Fed’s plan to withdraw the QE3 punchbowl sooner than later. The other group, Wall Street bulls, seem either unaware or in denial about the plan.
But one of these two groups can be correct, and only time will tell which.
While I like the fact that this guy went to the trouble of backing up his discussion with charts and figures, the ‘1-month change in 10-year interest rates’ chart is quite misleading as a measure of damage to bonds. Convexity dictates that the same increase in interest rate levels will exact far more damage off a low base, such as the recent record-low yield levels. It would probably make more sense to graph the 1-month percentage decline in value of a 10-year bond on the horizontal scale, in which case last month’s move would land farther into the right tail of the figure.
Interest Rates Wiggle. Bond Investors Panic.
By Morgan Housel
July 9, 2013
Take a look at this chart. It shows the monthly flows to bond mutual funds over the last two years. See if you can spot the outlier:
[Source: ICI.]
Suddenly, nobody wants bonds.
That’s understandable. Interest rates are rising, and for the first time in years, bonds are losing money. The PIMCO Total Return Fund is down 5.6% since April. The Vanguard Long Term Corporate Bond ETF (NASDAQ: VCLT ) is off nearly 10% in the last three months. The popular iShares Barclays 20 Year Treasury Bond ETF has lost more than 11% in the last 90 days.
But what’s interesting — maybe scary — to think about is that the rise in interest rates over the last month isn’t that large, historically. Interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds have increased by about 60 basis points in the last month, according to data from the Federal Reserve. In percentage terms, that’s a lot. But interest rates are so low right now that percentage gains can be deceptive — a doubling of interest rates from last summer’s lows would mean a gain of only a little more than one percentage point.
In absolute terms, the rise in interest rates over the last month isn’t that impressive:
[Source: Federal Reserve, author's calculations.]
If bond investors have panicked at what has been a pretty mild rise in interest rates, what will they do when rates really start to rise?
It won’t be pretty. My guess is there will be a few more outliers on that first chart.
…
Food stamp usage up 60% since 2008. The punchbowl is not working for everyone. what are the real costs of these people not being productive citizens?
Every night I watch the news and most of the crime is happening in neighborhoods with no hope. Can you calculate those costs?
Your points are taken but off topic. I’d rather to discuss how much money real estate investment bagholders are going to lose by the time this epic rise in bond yields and mortgage rates is finished playing out.
Those who bought at or near the echo bubble peak are going to lose ALOT of money.
They seemed to rise from the ashes just fine after the crash of 2008. Let the taxpayers eat the losses and pile on more govt debt. Seems the powers that be figured out that stock and home prices are pretty much the anchor of the economy now. Ship all the good jobs somewhere else and have asset inflation lead the way here? Seems the concentration of manufacturing is doing wonders for chinas environment.
I’m still trying to figure out what wealth means to people here. all the money printing is creating higher asset prices but I’m not sure most people are wealthier.
If printing money made wealth we wouldnt need to do much labor.
How do you like all those part time and service jobs being created?
“They seemed to rise from the ashes just fine after the crash of 2008.”
QE1 rose from the ashes of the Fall 2008 Wall Street meltdown circa March 2009. Since then, we also had QE2 and QE3 to bail out greater fools from their financial folly and enrich devalued asset owners while leaving the working class mired in hardship.
Your assumption seems to be that QE is a policy henceforth stuck in time.
My read of recent articles in top financial newspapers (WSJ, FT, The Economist, etc) is that the jury is still out on whether QE ‘worked’ and that a growing body of top finance peops say ‘no.’ Further, its chief architect and champion Ben Bernanke my soon leave the Fed. Moreover, the conditions for QE withdrawal seem to be on track to materialize by year-end 2014, and the FOMC seems committed to follow through on its stated plans to phase it out.
Hence it appears the QE era echo bubble may soon end, though I don’t claim to hold a crystal ball.
so what if it crashes again? People give back homes and they start the party over again. Pass the losses on to the taxpayer and move along. The casino like atmosphere is of their doings.
You seem to be wanting to say, without fully committing to it, that the bond market “meltdown” is going to be the end to the party because of rising interest rates for mortgages. First, I don’t think the rise in rates is going to continue at the rate it has been in the last month or so, otherwise we’d be at 15 % in no time. That will not happen. It’s going to tick up a little then if it starts to cool things down real estate wise, they’ll bring it back or do so something else similar.
It certainly doesn’t seem like the end of the world. But I’m with you big time on the decoupling. How can the stock market be at an all time high?!?!?
Welcome to the Stone Soup economy.
“Welcome to the Stone Soup economy.”
That Stone Soup story was pretty cool.
“First, I don’t think the rise in rates is going to continue at the rate it has been in the last month or so, otherwise we’d be at 15 % in no time. That will not happen.”
Agreed. There is no possibility of seeing 15% rates any time soon.
“It’s going to tick up a little then if it starts to cool things down real estate wise, they’ll bring it back or do so something else similar.”
What do you envision ‘them’ doing to bring it back in the event of an interest rate move back up to normal levels?
“It certainly doesn’t seem like the end of the world. But I’m with you big time on the decoupling. How can the stock market be at an all time high?!?!?”
I recommend you review the decoupled behavior of the bond and stock markets in 1987 for a historical example of how this can play out.
I don’t know about where to go for that info and frankly don’t have the time or care enough. Why not give me the TLDR version?
Here is what I did find from a quick google on the stock market at that time:
January 8, 1987 2,002.25
October 19, 1987 1,738.74
December 31, 1987 1938.83
December 30, 1988 2168.57
So it looks like it went down with the stock market crash, then right back up, then even higher the next year. I dont recall the economy tanking until the early 90s, several years after the 1987 crash.
As far as what they will do to keep rates low so that they don’t hurt RE, they will do everything they can. QE to infinity, QE at twice what it was before, bail outs, stimulus, anything and everything. I am absolutely convinced they will never, ever, ever give up let RE crash as it should. Screw ZIRP, lets go negative.
What do you envision ‘them’ doing to bring it back in the event of an interest rate move back up to normal levels?
Couldn’t they could do some more QE? It’s not like Bernanke’s the only guy who knows how to do it.
Or they could do the twist again, like they did last summer.
“Here is what I did find from a quick google on the stock market at that time:
January 8, 1987 2,002.25
October 19, 1987 1,738.74
December 31, 1987 1938.83
December 30, 1988 2168.57
So it looks like it went down with the stock market crash, then right back up, then even higher the next year.”
And the Greenspan put was born.
Epic rise, hunh? If bread went on sale for $1.99 then the sale ends and the price goes back to $2.89 - is that an epic rise?
Plus have you notices the 15 yr rates barely budged? That might be enough to incentivise buyers to consider a 15 yr loan - better strategy for long term budgeting anyway.
“If bread went on sale for $1.99 then the sale ends and the price goes back to $2.89 - is that an epic rise?”
No. That’s a temporary local market blip in the price of bread.
By contrast, the epic yield increase in bonds was global in scope and triggered an investor panic which led to billions of dollars in bond investment losses.
“Can you calculate those costs?”
Let me see
Food stamp usage up 60% x high crime neighborhoods + non productive citizens = divided by no hope =
“Food stamp usage up 60% x high crime neighborhoods + non productive citizens = divided by no hope = “ INCALCULABLE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT LOSSES
PB, RAL stole your handle. Your TM isn’t working.
“Food stamp usage up 60% x high crime neighborhoods + non productive citizens = divided by no hope = “ INCALCULABLE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT LOSSES”
Damn! You are good.
Food stamp use has increased because anyone with a pulse now qualifies. The govt actually has ads running on the radio encouraging people to apply. And not just for food stamps. There are ads for the Obamaphone as well. I remember seeing a TV ad for it once and thinking, no effing way, I must have misheard what this ad is for. No way the govt is spending money to buy TV ads that encourage people to apply for welfare. But sure enough in Obama’s America, anything’s possible.
No way the govt is spending money to buy TV ads that encourage people to apply for welfare.
I would bet you that the ads were actually paid for by the real beneficiaries of the program: Verizon, T-Mobile, & AT&T.
“I would bet you that the ads were actually paid for by the real beneficiaries of the program: Verizon, T-Mobile, & AT&T.”
And who pays for the ads (in several languages) encouraging people to apply for food stamps? Evil farmers?
And who pays for the ads (in several languages) encouraging people to apply for food stamps?
Sorry to break it to you, but no, the government does pay for those. They not only pay for ads—they also pay social workers to drive around and actively solicit people to join the program.
Then why don’t you apply for them?
I was discussing this no hope idea with a friend yesterday. A big worry I have is that the no hope is spreading further out beyond what you are talking about here. It is harder and harder to get ahead and there doesn’t seem to be any progress being made in anything but cell phone technology. Housing, education, health care, costing more and more. Income less and less. How long can people go without raises before it affects morale?
“How long can people go without raises before it affects morale?”
Americans think like brainwashed people who are programmed to be good little employees. I have said it before it is lot easier to make money than it is to make a living.
Start a business.
Now all the naysayers save the effin bull.
Start a business. I agree and I think this is a good individual solution in some cases. But I don’t think more than about 20 percent could do this. While anyone can start a business, I don’t think everyone can.
Many people lived good productive lives, getting ahead by hard work, being somewhat conservative financially, frugality and savings. Good luck with that now. It’s either “I got mines” screw the rest, or you are a sucker.
9 out of 10 businesses fail within the first year.
Of the remainder, somewhere around half fail over the next 5 years.
Very dumb advice.
When I worked at HP, they were going on 6 years without a raise. And none of them were looking for another job.
So I’d say as long as people remain stupid, it can go on forever.
They didn’t move on because they knew the other places they might work don’t give raises either.
They would have been 50% right, but it’s still stupid to stay anywhere they are screwing you.
Think how much Walmart would suffer if food stamps were eliminated.
From lack of both customers AND employees.
I’ve been noticing “since 2008″ mentioned as a benchmark in many recent stories about the global bond market meltdown.
Indonesian Bonds Complete Longest Losing Streak Since April 2008
By Yudith Ho - Jul 12, 2013 1:54 AM PT
Indonesian bonds declined for a ninth week, the longest losing streak in five years, after the central bank boosted its benchmark rate by the most since 2005 to slow inflation. The rupiah fell to the lowest since 2009.
Bank Indonesia raised its reference rate by 50 basis points to 6.50 percent yesterday, the most since December 2005. The decision was predicted by only three out of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Fourteen forecast a 25 basis point increase while two expected no change. The monetary authority sees the pace of price gains approaching the upper end of its 7.2 percent to 7.8 percent target range for 2013, Governor Agus Martowardojo said in Jakarta yesterday.
The yield on the government’s 5.625 percent notes due May 2023 surged 67 basis points this week to 8.07 percent as of 3:39 p.m. in Jakarta, the highest level since March 2011 and the biggest jump since September 2011, prices from the Inter Dealer Market Association show. It rose 17 basis points today, completing a ninth consecutive weekly climb, the longest run of increases since April 2008. Global funds pulled 18.2 trillion rupiah ($1.8 billion) from local sovereign debt holdings since May 22, when the Federal Reserve signaled plans to reduce its monthly debt purchases.
“Inflation should peak in July, limiting room for much higher yields as Bank Indonesia’s tightening cycle should be near its end,” said Handy Yunianto, head of fixed-income research in Jakarta at PT Mandiri Sekuritas, a unit of nation’s largest bank by assets. “In addition to inflation, the Fed tapering outlook is causing portfolio rebalancing in emerging markets.”
…
“Have the U.S. stock and bond markets decoupled?”
I don’t know, but I do know that Aaron Hernandez and the New England Patriots have decoupled.
I wonder when Hernandez’s (boy that’s tough to say) house will hit the market? And will it sell for more or less than it would have because it belonged to an NFL star gang member execution style murderer?
CREDIT MARKETS
Updated July 12, 2013, 5:20 p.m. ET
U.S. Treasury Bonds Fall
By MIN ZENG
The $11.9 trillion Treasury bond market lost ground Friday but still posted its biggest weekly price rally in three months.
The mixed statistics underscore how anxiety over the prospects of rising interest rates continue to whiplash the bond market, where bond yields had jumped sharply since early May. Bond prices fall when their yields rise.
Bond investors are grappling with the prospect that the Federal Reserve may cut back on its bond purchases as early as this quarter. The Fed has been a main buyer of Treasury bonds, which has helped hold bond yields near record lows.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to testify before lawmakers next Wednesday and Thursday, and investors will parse his comments on the outlook for the bond-buying program.
“It is all data dependent when it comes to the timing for the Fed to taper bond buying so expect more volatility in the bond market,” said Ray Remy, head of fixed-income trading in New York at Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc.
In late-afternoon trade, the benchmark 10-year note was 2/32 lower in price, yielding 2.582%, according to Tradeweb. The yield fell about 0.12 percentage point for the week.
The yield has soared over the past few weeks from this year’s low of 1.61% on May 1. The yield hit as high as 2.756% during Monday’s session, the highest level since Aug. 1, 2011.
Soothing comments from Mr. Bernanke on Wednesday put a ceiling on the rise in yields for now. The Fed chief reassured investors that the central bank isn’t in a rush to taper its bond-buying program and that a pullback on the central bank’s bond-buying program doesn’t mean a shift to raising interest rates.
Yet Friday’s selling showed the bond market was vulnerable to selling pressure on any comments about the Fed starting to taper bond buying in coming months. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg that the central bank should start tapering bond purchases in September. He added that the central bank should halt the buying by the end of this year.
…
Rate on 30-year mortgage hits 2-year high
10:55 a.m. EDT July 11, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — The average U.S. rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose this week to 4.51%, a two-year high. Rates have been rising on expectations that the Federal Reserve will slow its bond purchases this year.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average on the 30-year loan jumped from 4.29% the previous week. Just two months ago, it was 3.35% — barely above the record low of 3.31%.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.53% from 3.39% last week. That’s the highest since August 2011.
Chairman Ben Bernanke has said the Fed could slow its bond purchases this year if the economy strengthens. The purchases have kept rates low. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which mortgage rates typically track, has been rising.
…
Mortgage applications continue to fall
Ben Mitchell, USA TODAY 12:23 p.m. EDT July 10, 2013
- Mortgage activity has fallen nearly 44% over the past two months
- The rate for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reached a two-year high at 4.68%
- Mortgage applications are now 33% below their level a year ago
Mortgage applications fell for the fourth straight week as interest rates continued to tick up.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), mortgage applications fell 4% last week after plummeting 11.7% the week before. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 4.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. Mortgage applications are now about a third below their level from a year ago.
The decline in mortgage activity is fueled by the rise in interest rates which have reached their highest level since July 2011. The average rate for the 30-year fixed rate-mortgage increased to 4.68% from 4.58% last week. The spike in rates has driven the refinance share of mortgage applications down to 64%.
…
With or without QE3, stock prices are way too high.
One thing I do know, is that JSP is heavily influenced by market sentiment in this country and the emotional aspect of making a home purchase… as we saw before the great crash, greed and fear are the means for the industry to keep the pressure on all those J6P wanna bees.. when real estate gets this pricey and leveraged, then market direction and sentiment becomes more important.. lots at stake.. right now, I say greed and fear have trumped logic and historical factors, but those emotional factors and the associated overall bullish market sentiment that comes with them are slipping (with or without the Fed).. historically, without all this leverage in the market, any subtle shifts in sentiment would not be noticed by the average home owner.. however, today, those J6Ps, who have quite a lot riding on their new asset, will be highly tuned to market sentiment.. even more pronounced will be the affect on all those J6P wanna bees who are evaluating the risk/reward equation much more carefully at these levels.. greed and fear.. the strings the RE industry uses to control all their puppet J6Ps..
This country is dominated by state-of-the-art psychological warfare science and technology that is used to sell, sell, sell.
Most people simply do not stand a chance.
Will rising mortgage rates fire a silver bullet through the heart of the echo bubble?
EARNINGS
Updated July 12, 2013, 7:08 p.m. ET
Banks Cautious as Profits Rise
J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Notch Strong Earnings but Say Rising Rates Threaten Mortgage Activity
By DAN FITZPATRICK and SHAYNDI RAICE
Two of the nation’s largest banks reported better-than-expected profits Friday, but executives warned that mortgage lending could drop in the second half of 2013 if interest rates stay elevated.
…
Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan, the two largest home lenders in the U.S., are wrestling with the fallout from a recent run-up in long-term interest rates. J.P. Morgan Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake told analysts Friday that mortgage refinance volumes could drop substantially if interest rates remain unchanged or rise, saying “the market could be reduced by an estimated 30% to 40%” during the second half of the year.
For the second quarter, J.P. Morgan’s mortgage income dipped 14% compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Timothy Sloan also warned that refinancings of existing mortgages will decline. Mortgage banking income at the San Francisco lender decreased 3% from the year-ago period. Wells Fargo has a 22% share of U.S. mortgage originations, more than any other lender.
Both banks said they could benefit from higher interest rates once they are able to widen the gap between banks’ cost of borrowing and income from lending. Yet such a shift wasn’t evident in the second-quarter results.
…
Portland-area home sales slow in June as mortgage rates rise
A sold sign outside a home in Northeast Portland. (Elliot Njus/The Oregonian)
on July 12, 2013 at 6:26 PM, updated July 12, 2013 at 11:24 PM
The Portland-area real estate market cooled off in June against a backdrop of rising in mortgage rates.
Home sales numbers released Friday by the Regional Multiple Listing Service showed 2,500 closed deals during the month. That’s down 6.4 percent from the nearly 2,700 sales in May, but still 11.9 percent more transactions than reported a year ago.
Buyers and sellers signed sale contracts for another 2,800 transactions that will likely close in coming months. Those pending sales fell 5.8 percent compared with May.
The month’s slowdown came as mortgage rates were creeping upward from their recent historic lows. The average 30-year fixed-rate loan started May around 3.35 percent but rose steadily all month, according to Freddie Mac. By mid-June rates were hovering near 4 percent.
“The interest rates going up definitely clipped out a lot of the marginal buyers,” said Nick Krautter, a broker with Keller Williams Realty in Portland. “We lost a couple of clients who all of a sudden couldn’t afford a mortgage payment on the prices where they were looking.”
…
I guess I will remain confused on this until the day we stop talking about the housing bubble, but shouldn’t lower home prices properly be referred to as an INCREASE IN AFFORDABILITY?
Mortgage rates hit 2-year high
By Lily Leung
8:16 a.m.July 11, 2013
A neighborhood in Carmel Valley. A neighborhood in Carmel Valley. — Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune staff
Fixed mortgage rates have jumped to a two-year high after they cooled off a bit last week, says a report from mortgage giant Freddie Mac on Thursday.
…
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.51 percent, up 4.29 percent from the same time a year ago. The last time it was around that level was summer of 2011, when the monthly average was 4.55 percent.
…
The significant jump in fixed mortgage rates will likely cause a “dampening impact” on San Diego’s price appreciation, said Mark Goldman, real estate professor at San Diego State University. Increasing mortgage rates means decreasing affordability for consumers. In effect, more homesellers are having to reduce their prices, Goldman said.
no they will not let rates rise that high. They will announce more QE to keep rates down.
print more money , buy more treasuries and keep the party going. without QE sh@t will hit the fan.
Who won’t let rates rise that high? The same people who accidentally triggered a bond (and mortgage) market crash over the past two months by hinting that QE3 may have to eventually, some day way out in the indefinite future, have to end?
that was a stress test. Wall street knows the game. wall street simply responded to the threat of taking away the punchbowl. they made it clear. Keep the printing going or we will send this market into a free fall.
What is wealth? Means something different to a lot of people. The ultimate wealth to me is being able to get what you want and not have to exchange labor to get it. So wealth can be looked at as a storage of labor. Since most people have to exchange labor for those fed reserve notes in our system. If they save enough of them someday they might not have to exchange labor anymore for the stuff they want. They simply draw from their storage of labor.
If you create wealth out of no labor eventually you have an an unbalanced system.People who have to labor have to store a lot more wealth to have the same standard of living. a lot of people cant even exchange their labor and when they do they are finding they cant store any of it. plus when you give away wealth some people are happy to not labor.
“The ultimate wealth to me is being able to get what you want and not have to exchange labor to get it.”
Interesting.
My definition is being able to get what you want by exchanging labor to get it. To each his own.
good for you.
I wasn’t trying to pat myself on the back. I was offering my definition of a healthy economy, which is one where most everyone who is not disabled can contribute something of value to society and earn a living at some reasonable standard of existence in the process.
We ain’t there now…
At least you don’t have to worry about these things when you are having a lavish equity dinner dude.
“So wealth can be looked at as a storage of labor. Since most people have to exchange labor for those fed reserve notes in our system. If they save enough of them someday they might not have to exchange labor anymore for the stuff they want. They simply draw from their storage of labor.”
Whac - I think you missed the important part of azdude’s explanation. He’s not saying that you don’t have to work for stuff ever, he’s saying that it’s possible to “store” up the fruits of your labor to be drawn from in the future. That might mean living below ones means for a number of years until retirement (which is hard for some). I always say to my kids “you can sacrifice when you’re young, or you can sacrifice when you’re old, generally, most people can’t have it both ways.
‘He’s not saying that you don’t have to work for stuff ever, he’s saying that it’s possible to “store” up the fruits of your labor to be drawn from in the future.’
It’s called personal financial investment. (But this is different than buying real estate while the Fed is pumping in QE3 to MBS purchases with anticipation of making a quick flip at a high profit.)
which is one where most everyone who is not disabled can contribute something of value to society and earn a living at some reasonable standard of existence
This sounds suspiciously like “from each according to his a ability to each according to his needs,” doesn’t it?
Low short-term rates cause high long-term rates.
As difficult as it seems to believe this, there are MSM-favored real estate ‘experts’ who don’t realize that 6% rates will blow the last vestiges of the Housing Bubble to smithereens.
Just do the math, people — it’s spreadsheet maths, not rocket science!
Here is a simple illustration to show the loss in a hypothetical buyer’s purchase budget if 30-year fixed rates climbed off their recent low of 3.125% up to 6%:
Annual Income $100,000
Monthly Payment Share 30%
Monthly Payment $2,500
30-year fixed mortgage
Interest Rate / Term (yrs) / Purchase Budget / Loss (%) / Loss ($)
3.125% $583,600.20
6.000% $416,979.04 -28.6% ($166,621.17)
I learned on this site that raising interest rates will result in lower house prices, which would entice more people to buy.
“…will result in lower house prices, which would entice more people to buy.”
I don’t know where you read this, but I am quite certain I did not post such a blatant misconception.
Higher rates will reduce demand, reducing both prices and the number of buyers. You can do this with the supply-and-demand diagram in an undergraduate economics text; shift the demand curve to the left and note how both quantity of sales and prices decline. It’s not rocket science by a long stretch!
Lower prices with higher interest rates will entice more cash-owners to trade their dollars in for houses. Not a lot of cash-owners around these days.
“I learned on this site that raising interest rates will result in lower house prices, which would entice more people to buy.”
+1 A bond style discussion, IIRC.
Let’s adjust this for flyover country:
Median household income - 50K
30% of income at 3.5% : 291K
30% of income at 6% : 208K
If the median house is priced at 150K it may not have much of an effect except on the higher end of the spectrum.
Where is flyover country? What is the unemployment rate?
What does UI rate have to do with the topic at hand? The point is in 80% of the country, a 1 or 2% interest rate increase doesn’t affect things all that much since the typical house is $150K. That’s true if unemployment is 2% or 20%. Math is math.
“math is math”
High unemployment affects the equation. When your job is not stable and your wages are low, then your house has to be cheaper. Otherwise, you will lose the house when you get fired.
“When your job is not stable and your wages are low, then your house has to be cheaper.”
When your job is not stable and your wages are low you likely won’t have a mortgage to worry about.
Real Estate
How Rising Rates Could Help the Mortgage Market
By Karen Weise
July 11, 2013
As if bidding wars and rising prices weren’t enough to make homebuyers panic, the continued increase in mortgage rates is adding to the mania. Interest rates for home loans hit a two-year high, with the average 30-year mortgage at 4.51 percent, according to new data from Freddie Mac. That’s a third higher than it was just two months ago, meaning that on a $200,000 loan, the monthly payment jumps from $881 to $1,015.
As Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist wrote yesterday, homebuyers say rising rates is their top worry when looking to buy, even more so than rising prices or finding a home they like. But as Kolko points out, people’s actions aren’t matching their words so far. Despite the higher rates, applications for purchase mortgages rose in June, as did asking prices for homes. Trulia’s data suggest that mortgage rates around 6 percent would be a tipping point that cause a majority of people to reconsider buying.
Until rates reach that level, rising rates could help the mortgage market. While they could price some buyers out of the market, they may force lenders to loosen their underwriting requirements, which have been very strict for the past several years. Banks have been able to make money by refinancing mortgages, but higher rates are already slowing that gravy train. If banks want to keep the fees coming, they’ll need to relax some of their lending requirements. We’ve seen the early signs of this, with banks hiring new lending officers and requiring lower down payments, Bloomberg News reported last month.
…
“If banks want to keep the fees coming, they’ll need to relax some of their lending requirements.”
Because? Because lending rates are going up.
But If lending rates are going up then borrowing expenses are going up, and if borowing expenses are going up then risks are going up for borrowers. So if risks are going up for borrowers then lenders should be tightening requirements, not relaxing them.
If the bank intended to make it’s money from what income the interest on the loan would generate over the life of the loan - which is long-term thinking - then it would act to make sure the loan was safe.
But instead the bank is more interested in the fees that originating the loan generates - which is short-term thinking.
If the loan goes sour somewhere down the road … well now we’re back to long-term thinking again.
San Diego Home Prices Rise, Sales Slow
2,145 homes changed hands in June, according to the San Diego Association of Realtors.
Posted by John Crandall, July 5, 2013 at 05:22 pm
Housing prices in San Diego County rose last month, but sales slowed, according to the latest figures from the San Diego Association of Realtors.
The 2,145 single-family homes that changed hands in June had a median price of $481,000, up 3.2 percent compared to May and up 23.3 percent compared to June 2012, according to SDAR.
The number of homes sold was 11.4 percent less than the previous month and 1.9 percent fewer than the same period last year, according to SDAR.
…
Cautious buyers slow house sales
ADAM ROBERTS
Last updated 13:00 09/07/2013
House prices have fallen in Nelson City but are continuing to rise in Richmond and Motueka, with volumes falling across the board, new figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand show.
REINZ has released its figures for June, and they show the median price for Nelson fell compared with May, down 3.1 per cent to $351,000 from $362,250, but is similar to the same month last year, when it was $350,000.
In Richmond, the median price was $410,000, a rise of 4.1 per cent from May when it was $394,000, and a 9.3 per cent rise from last June when it was $371,000.
Motueka also saw a rise, with the median price up 24 per cent, to $377,000 from $304,000 in May, and up 1.6 per cent from June last year when it was $371,000.
But sales volume was down across the area, with a big drop in Richmond, down to 17 sales from 42 in May, and Nelson, down to 70 sales down from 96 in May. Motueka was at 24, from 25 in May, but was up on last June when it was 14.
…
Here is a list of reasons U.S. home price growth will slow which completely misses a key factor: the effect of rising mortgage rates.
Markets More: U.S. Housing
3 Reasons Why US Home Prices Are Going To Cool Off
Mamta Badkar Jun. 24, 2013, 7:45 PM
In recent months, U.S. home prices have been growing at a blazing hot double-digit pace.
But going forward, the pace of home price gains is expected to slow. Paul Diggle of Capital Economics lists three reasons, which we paraphrase here:
1. The double digit price gains we’ve seen recently are not sustainable. “If prices continue rising at 12.1% y/y – the latest CoreLogic reading – housing will be overvalued relative to rents within the next few months and relative to incomes in early-2015. And combined with the assumption that mortgage interest rates settle at their current 4.2% level, mortgage servicing costs will rise by 2%-3% of income each year.”
2. The home price gains have already made it harder for investors to find “bargains.” It will take some time before traditional homeowner demand makes up for the decline in investor demand and this should slow the pace of home price gains.
3. Inventory seems to have bottomed and “sellers are starting to return in greater force.”
…
Experts: Say So Long To Mortgage Rates In The 3’s For Now
(Wes Rand / Hartford Courant )
July 09, 2013|By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN, kgosselin@courant.com, The Hartford Courant
The era of the 30-year home mortgage rate in the 3’s suddenly appears to be over.
In less than a month, the popular loan option for financing a home purchase has surged by more than a full percentage point. The increase was capped by an eye-catching, quarter-point increase on Friday, mortgage lenders said.
Some lenders were quoting 30-year rates as high as 4.87 percent Friday, compared with 3.65 percent at the beginning of June.
“The market has been so stable for the past two years,” said Kim Neilson, executive vice president at McCue Mortgage in New Britain. “We haven’t experienced this type of jump in years.”
The average rate on a 30-year, fixed mortgage fell to a low of 3.3 percent in early May, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
Neilson said she would be “highly surprised” if the 30-year, fixed-rate home loans dipped below 4 percent again this year. But Neilson expects rates to remain between 4 percent and 5 percent at least through the end of the year.
…
This bubble will collapse without higher rates, just like the last one. There is too much fear to let the CBs raise rates significantly or at all. I don’t even believe the bond vigilantes have the guts to do much. The only thing I can see raising rates is fear that the US is going Greek.
“I don’t even believe the bond vigilantes have the guts to do much.”
They seem to be having little problem finding their way out the exit door from the burning theater.
REITs Deepening Bond Losses as Leverage Forces Sales
By Jody Shenn & Heather Perlberg - Jul 10, 2013 1:56 PM PT
Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NLY)’s Wellington Denahan, head of the largest mortgage real-estate investment trust, told investors less than three months ago that reports REITs could threaten U.S. financial stability were as misleading as the media frenzy over shark attacks in 2001.
Since the May 2 comments, shares of the companies, which use borrowed money to make $400 billion in credit market bets, dropped about 20 percent and the value of their assets has plunged after the Federal Reserve triggered a flight from bond funds by signaling plans to slow its debt-buying program.
REITs may have needed to sell about $30 billion of government-backed mortgage securities in just one week last month to maintain the amount of borrowing relative to their net worth, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Those types of sales deepened losses in the mortgage-bond market, which had the worst quarter since 1994, accelerated the exit from fixed-income funds and fueled a jump in home-loan rates to a two-year high.
…
True confession: FPSS was right about the risk of buying that Vanguard REIT. That said, even though the value dipped considerably on the recent bond market panic, I am still up over 10% over my basis. So it’s all good…
“There is too much fear to let the CBs raise rates significantly or at all.”
Are you talking about short-term or long-term rates?
If long-term, who controls these?
Long-Term Interest Rates Start Moving Higher
June 17, 2013 4:00 AM
4 min 23 sec
The bond market has pushed interest to the highest levels in 15 months, and that includes mortgage rates. David Greene talks to David Wessel, economics editor at The Wall Street Journal, about rising interest rates.
so whens is it all going to crash this time around?
yeah talk about a ponzi scheme. When the people who are selling you an investment know what your buying, tread lightly.
Seems like the only ones making money are wall street salespeople and the companies that issue the stock. Mom and pop are just along for the fleecing.
“Mom and pop are just along for the fleecing.”
And more of them will get sucked in with each new record high on the Dow!
Next year!
Median housing prices are up 30 or 40% in some Western U.S. metros year over year yet this has no impact on CPI and hence puts no pressure on the Fed to tighten. But will rents follow home prices up? Rents do enter into CPI and hence impact Fed policy.
the banks need higher prices to unload all their inventory. How hard is this to figure out?
Don’t they also need greater fools to snap it up?
There lining up in s cal dude. Why dont you go to some open houses in your hood and count the people lining up. they are eager and greed is in the air again.
“Why dont you go to some open houses in your hood and count the people lining up.”
We have had a trickle of open houses in our hood this year, and I have routinely driven past to see what kind of commotion brewed up in response to the prospect of getting in on the floor of the next housing boom. Either those bid war participants are driving invisible cars, or else I am missing it, as thus far I have seen no evidence of a single Realtor™ or looky-loo* at any of these!
* Who’d've thunk ‘looky-loo’ would merit an entry in the Oxford American English dictionary? I had previously always assumed it to be Realtor™’s slang.
I’m not going unless there are cupcakes, hot dogs, and Kool-Aide.
Al Jazeera
Why did you buy Al Gore’s liberal cable network, which was a complete and utter flop, for a price that earned him an estimated $70 million?
Someone has to report the news.
Zing.
Use pension lump-sum cash to buy house?
By Dr. Don Taylor, Ph.D., CFA, CFP, CASL • Bankrate.com
Q: Dear Retirement Adviser,
I have recently retired at age 63 with a $360,000 pension. Having raised four daughters, I have bad credit. Now, I’m having trouble getting a loan to buy a house. So I’m considering purchasing a home with cash, avoiding paying interest on a mortgage. Homes are relatively inexpensive here in Phoenix. I’d still have plenty of money left. And I have my Social Security benefits. What do you think?
Thank you,
– Jeff Jump-start
A: Dear Jeff,
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/retirement/pension-lump-sum-buy-house.aspx - 81k -
its the right thing to do.
are you kidding me? the expert says you can always take out another mortgage later, if you run into trouble. omg!
If you run into trouble later, dump your mortgage(s) on the lender(s) and relocate your household to Costa Rica.
Daughters cause bad credit. This must be why the Chinese drown them.
They can also suck your bank account into your car, by sponging gas money, repeatedly wrecking it, getting it towed, driving it to the Mexico border and back without permission and posting the joy ride on Facebook to be discovered and reported back to you by your sister, OR ALL OF THE ABOVE.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
That old saw has elements of truth to it. However, my daughter’s driving record so far has succeeded in torpedoing our bank account in a way that neither my wife nor I did to our parents at a similar age. And I have worked every year of my life since I turned 17, while my daughter has shown little inclination so far to seek employment.
“And I have worked every year of my life since I turned 17, while my daughter has shown little inclination so far to seek employment.”
The younger generation won’t work for “chump change.”
‘The younger generation won’t work for “chump change.”’
This depends on the individual in question. For instance, I am currently working with a volunteer. I can’t remunerate her financially for the work she is doing for reasons I won’t go into. However, in the course of the project we are conducting, I am providing her with on-the-job training in a valuable skill set which will greatly enhance her future employment prospects — a win-win.
Good times :-).
“Good times”
OPENING THEME LYRICS
Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment. - Good Times.
Any time you need a friend. - Good Times.
Any time you’re out from under.
Not getting hassled, not getting hustled.
Keepin’ your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.
Temporary lay offs. - Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. - Good Times.
Scratchin’ and surviving. - Good Times.
Hangin in a chow line - Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em - Good Times.
Dear Jeff:
“Having raised four daughters” does not cause a person to have bad credit. You get bad credit by borrowing money and then not paying it back.
Managing kids expectations is a tough job, but a very important one. I’d never considered that it could have an impact on credit ratings though.
In this first chapter, Oblio is a pointless child who is born into a land filled with pointed people, who don’t exactly understand who or why Oblio is the way he is.
The Point - Harry Nilsson - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1F7FBBEDD6073213 - 69k -
A movie way ahead of it’s time.
Corny as crap now, but still relevant in its story about dogma, group-think and stubborn inflexibility as well as being too reactionary to the previous.
“Corny as crap now,”
What!?
You pretty shook up, you been goofin’ with the bees?
The Point!
From Wikipedia
The Point! is a fable and the sixth album by American songwriter and musician Harry Nilsson about a boy named Oblio, the only round-headed person in the Pointed Village, where by law everyone and everything had to have a point.
I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, “Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn’t, then there’s a point to it.” – Harry Nilsson[2]
Named my first wolfhound Myaro.
“The Point” was a bit of gentle whimsey in a Most Troubled Time. Nilsson may have been a degenerate, but he redeemed himself with this album.
Late reply (hope you use Joshua Tree):
He came off as very likable in this documentary (and they didn’t gloss over the screw ups.)
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) (2010)
116 min - Documentary | February 2006 (USA)
A conundrum about the Fed:
1) It has a mandate to maintain stable prices.
2) It must credibly be willing to abandon that mandate, “credibly promise to be irresponsible” in order to stoke inflation.
Conundrum: If inflation is such a good thing, and it purportedly raises employment* why have the mandate in the first place?
Conundrum 2: If the Fed truly believes that increasing inflation drives increased employment, might it be possible its continuous recalculation of the official inflation rate might be an effort to hide real inflation while publicly maintaining the mandate? While in reality, inflation is high, as many suspect, but the official number is low?
===============
* The inflation-employment relationship well be a big post hoc fallacy regarding the Phillips curve in the sense that inflation goes up when employment goes up, but you can’t increase employment merely by increasing inflation.
“Conundrum: If inflation is such a good thing, and it purportedly raises employment* why have the mandate in the first place?”
My understanding of this is that the Fed used to only have a sole mandate regarding inflation. So long as prices were under control, unemployment could wander wherever the trade cycle sent it, up or down.
With the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation, they were additionally tasked with maintaining unemployment at a low level; hence the birth of the dual mandate.
Since the economy is currently still faced with an unemployment rate and level which is above the their target and deflationary, not inflationary, pressures, the Fed has recently faced a very unusual set of challenges; hence the birth and implementation QE1, QE2 and QE3.
how many years are you going to kick tires before you buy a house and live the dream?
I’m currently saving up to help my kids’ make downpayments when the time is right. Why throw good money down a rathole?
“The inflation-employment relationship well be a big post hoc fallacy regarding the Phillips curve in the sense that inflation goes up when employment goes up, but you can’t increase employment merely by increasing inflation.”
Attempting to increase employment by deliberately creating inflation would seem rather like pushing on a string.
Its all about keeping banks solvent and bonuses flowing.
Exactly. Why would anyone get the idea that most of the PTB give a flying crap about the welfare of the citizens?
How… quaint.
“While in reality, inflation is high, as many suspect, but the official number is low?”
Consumer prices (e.g. of oil, housing, college, etc) seem high, but this is different than high inflation, which requires a high ongoing rate of price increase, which I am not seeing. Asset price increases fueled by ultra-low interest rates are ephemeral. The perceived inflationary pressure is likely to prove transient once the Fed takes away the QE3 punchbowl.
The Fed
Why’s There So Much Dissension Inside the Fed?
By Gary Gately, Associate Editor, Money Morning
July 10, 2013
There’s considerable dissension within the ranks at the Federal Reserve, with many of Chairman Ben Bernanke’s colleagues saying the Fed’s monthly purchase of $85 billion in bonds should end by late this year.
“About half” of 19 Fed members “indicated that it likely would be appropriate to end asset purchases later this year,” according to minutes of the June Fed policy-making committee meeting, released Wednesday.
Ending QE3 could have enormous implications for the stock market - whose four-plus-year bull market has been buoyed by the central bank’s stimulus - and for the economy as a whole.
But while there’s growing sentiment inside the Fed to end QE, a majority of the 12 voting members of the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee hope to extend the bond-buying into next year.
Still, the Fed’s June 18-19 meeting could prove to be a turning point, given the amount of discord at the meeting.
The minutes add some context to Bernanke’s comments at a press conference immediately after the meeting in which he said the Fed could begin scaling back QE3 this year and end it altogether by mid-2014.
The markets dipped immediately after Bernanke’s comments but then recovered some.
“They’re Making It Up As They Go Along”
“To me, the real news is that you’ve got dissension inside the Fed now,” said Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald. “My initial read is there’s a lot more dissension than usual.
“And,” Fitz-Gerald said, showing his longtime disdain for the Fed, “the level of dissension reinforces the notion that they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re making it up as they go along.”
…
The slowest Zebra. It’s what’s for dinner.
Oh,the irony as Eddie Snowden is introduced to the murky world of Statecraft:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/13/usa-security-snowden-greenwald-idINDEE96C05520130713
Not guilty. Stay safe.
Not guilty. Stay safe.
+1 Avoid driving downtown in your nice car tonight.
Yawn.
“Yawn.”
A quick dent from a tossed bottle can easily cost $500+, and with a $1,000 deductible there’s no shared cost. Why endure that experience because the media decides to fan the flames rather than palliate the restless?
Why help propagate the apparently wishful thinking of the MSM? The usual publicity hounds will bloviate, a few fan-girls will gnash and wail, and the block chairmen will blather on about “justice” without acknowledging the kid’s responsibility in his own demise.
But so sorry, no cities will burn. Some of you have been anticipating the Long Hot Summer like Fundies awaiting the Rapture.
“But so sorry, no cities will burn. Some of you have been anticipating the Long Hot Summer like Fundies awaiting the Rapture.”
As downtown Oakland property owners cleaned up storefronts damaged in a chaotic overnight protest, organizers are planning afternoon demonstrations in Oakland and San Francisco to condemn the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Just stay indoors, period.
…and don’t buy Skittles and tea at night as they are now considered deadly weapons and the local vigilante can stalk and kill you for it.
Only if you circle back, lie in wait and sucker punch him first.
“Not guilty.”
Cue Eric Holder’s civil rights violation charges in 3, 2, 1…
“Housing Demand Continues To Sink In California”
http://picpaste.com/pics/8bea9437a62db7bb3de923643f0ee876.1373858653.png