Bits Bucket for August 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.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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“Why buy a house today at these massively inflated bubble prices? Rent for half the monthly cost and by later after prices crater for 65 percent less.
Exactly. The losses are large considering the magnitude of the price declines we’re looking at.
Poor bank.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/10231556/Man-who-created-own-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-sticking-to-terms.html
“Mr Argarkov’s version of the contract contained a 0pc interest rate, no fees and no credit limit. Every time the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3m rubles (£58,716). If Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6m rubles.”
“Oleg Tinkov, founder of the bank, tweeted: ‘Our lawyers think he is going to get not 24m, but really 4 years in prison for fraud. Now it’s a matter of principle for @tcsbanktwitter.’ “
!!BRILLIANT!!” target=”_blank” (new window)
Ok, lets try that again:
!!BRILLIANT!! <—regular link
!!Brilliant!! <—test new window
“Get what you can get for your house today because today’s price is your best price for decades to come.”
You better believe it mister.
You are wrong.
They are not making any more land
Everyone wants to live here
It is different this time
It is the American dream
Get on the property ladder or be priced out forever
Interest rates have never been lower
Housing always goes up
Stop throwing your money away on rent
Build equity and a nest egg for retirement
Pay yourself while paying off the mortgage
Feel free to liberate that equity
Your house can pay you
What do you mean I am underwater?
I can’t sell it?
You mean I have to pay back the loans I took out?
Property taxes went up HOW MUCH?
I have bring HOW MUCH to the table to refinance or sell the house?
The banks are predators
I am a victim
I didn’t read what I was signing
I need a bailout
I am fighting to keep my house
Giving amnesty to millions of illegals will make the value of housing go up.
+82
You mean in Mexico, right?
Bravo, nanerz! Eight years of REtardation in one concise post.
I’m entirely impressed.
LOL, LMAO! Not that some of these folks haven’t had some accomplishments and made some contributions during their lives, but a Medal of Freedom?????? Where’s Snowden’s Medal of Freedom?
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/usa-obama-medals-idINL1N0G91UQ20130808
Damn! I didn’t make it this time either.
Where’s Snowden’s Medal of Freedom?
Killing the messenger: It’s not just a good idea, it’s official state policy.
Pretty soon those people are going to look like General Admiral Aladeen with all the medals.
a house will bring you wealth nvr seen by punching a time clock.
Real estate investments will bring losses never seen by ordinary American workers.
a house is your ticket to financial independence from the man.
…until you lose your house to tax liens filed by the man because you couldn’t keep up with property tax hikes and “special assessments”.
poser
a house will give you to chance to tell your boss, ” take this job and shove it.”
Punching a time clock?LOLZ Do time clocks exist anymore?
You’re pure genius $hithouse Poet!
how you doing shanty boy? hows your bankruptcy?
A clueless genius at that $hithouse Poet.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=30k%20millionaire
“a house will bring you wealth nvr seen by punching a time clock.”
The sad thing is that this is probably true. Those folks who bought in 1970 and are now retired probably got more retirment income from appreciation and not paying rent than they could save while working a time-clock job.
And yes, the lucky ducky workers do punch in, if on a digital version. Remember the stories of Wal-Mart workers being forced to punch out and then work more (unpaid) hours afterwards?
Of course the only person to buy the $hithouse Poet’s untruth is a debt-junkie. LOLz
HA, listen up….
I made more money in real estate (cash flow, plus capital gains) in the last 36 months than my total salary during the last 36 months….and I make pretty good money at my regular job.
Keep your head in the sand with your ass in the air. It is your best profile shot!
What are production costs JingleBalls……
And when you’re done running from that question, tell us how many suckers you lied to today as you attempt to sell depreciating houses.
at least he’s making money while you cry about the situation waiting for the next crash, lmao.
And you’re underwater too $hithouse Poet….. just like millions of other foolish donkeys.
“(cash flow, plus capital gains)”
You have about 10% of the intellectual capacity of the former blog participant you pretend to be. Sorry.
Cash flow is the money I receive from ongoing rental income. Capital gains is the money I make from selling. There is no intellectual capacity needed to understand the difference.
This only works out in Oxyland, where nothing depreciates, gets renovated, outdated, HELOCed, broken, taxed, assessed, furnished, depressed, transferred, fired, divorced and charged interest up the wazoo.
The vast majority of working folks in the period you cite pissed away almost all they could have saved and thereby lost their shirts in the biggest expansion of credit in history. You are only their echo.
It gets into silly territory. OK, I’m gonna risk HA’s wrath here: we sold our house at the top of the bubble and got a price for it we never thought we’d see. We purchased it to live in, but when prices got ridiculous, we sold it, took a profit, and I have been renting ever since. But it was dumb luck on our part.
Would I do it again? You betcha, if the situation presented itself. But I probably wouldn’t set out to deliberately “invest” in real estate.
good for you. you were smart enough to take some money off the table at the right time. Counldn’t have been dumb luck.
Investments are all about timing, dont any of these smucks tell you differently.
Yeah…… And take the advice of under water debt junkies. You’re a real prize $hithouse Poet.
keep renting boy.
“Why buy a house when you can rent for half the cost of buying at current grossly inflated asking prices? Buy later, after prices crater for 65% less.”
Investments are all about timing…
The point was that they didn’t BUY it as an investment, and only sold it when they couldn’t believe someone would give them an astronomical price for it.
The muni dam is breaking.
Especially with those places that have insane public unions + huge free sh*t army + long term democrat rule.
———————————-
Michigan’s Saginaw County Postpones Debt Sale
The Wall Street Journal - Mike Cherney - 09 AUG 2013
Cities and counties across Michigan are struggling to distance themselves from cash-strapped Detroit.
Saginaw County on Thursday postponed a $60 million bond offering after investors demanded higher interest rates than the county wanted to pay.
The setback for Saginaw, where the county seat is about 100 miles northwest of Detroit, is the latest sign of how the Motor City’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing has shaken up the $3.7 trillion U.S. market for bonds sold by cities, states and other government-related entities.
Detroit’s bankruptcy, the largest ever by a municipality, has sparked concerns that municipal bonds may not be as safe as once assumed. The city’s state-appointed emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, has proposed saddling some bondholders with significant cuts that creditors say will undermine faith in muni debt. The proceedings have made some investors more wary about investing in Michigan munis.
Genesee County, about 60 miles northwest of Detroit, pulled a $53 million bond sale last week, and this week Battle Creek, about 120 miles west, postponed a $16 million deal.
A spokesman for Mr. Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, has said the concerns of bondholders are overblown, and that Mr. Orr isn’t worried about the impact of Detroit’s bankruptcy on the rest of the state or the municipal-bond market. “This is all part of the concerted strategy by the municipal-bond market to exert political pressure on decision makers in Michigan to get the emergency manager to take a different position,” said the spokesman, Bill Nowling.
These news items of muni bankruptcy does not entice someone to want to move to Michigan and other places.
Contagion. Well, there ya go. Lots of “teachable moments” here, as Obama likes to say.
Is Detroit the start of debt-driven collapse?
‘Is Detroit the start of debt-driven collapse?’
The list:
http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/cities-bankruptcy-after-detroit/2013/08/06/id/519081?promo_code=13D03-1&utm_source=13D03Twitchy&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1
This will create jobs though somehow, right? I mean, these cities are looking to reinvent themselves now maybe. Here is the chance for financial genius to step in and save the cities and get everyone back to real estate growth.
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®
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3201-NE-5th-Ave-Boca-Raton-FL-33431/46714929_zpid/
yea, there’s no bubble.
Yet you can rent it for about 40% of what it would cost to buy it at that massively inflated price.
“The risk and magnitude of losses associated with paying current grossly inflated prices of resale housing is massive and unacceptable. Don’t do it.”
The seller sure is optimistic. He’s asking about 40% more than the Zestimate.
HA and Colorado, I should have pointed out that the seller bought it June 2013 for $130K.
……. and overpaid by 50%+ ……. Sucker.
The bubble hasn’t popped yet, he might still be able to flip for a profit. Somewhere down the flip chain, someone will get burned though.
HA and Colorado, I should have pointed out that the seller bought it June 2013 for $130K.
That was on the zillow page. Clearly a flipper.
And as we all know, Zestimates are often rosy and unrealistic. I doubt the flipper will even get that much.
I think the real story here is that the Zestimate itself skyrocketed from $130 sale price to $190K Zestimate in 2 months.
There seems some disconnect between fantasy and a “real story”.
There seems some disconnect between fantasy and a “real story”.
Welcome to Amrika. Hope you have a pleasant stay.
This should help with understanding the phenomenon in question.
The ability to focus the public’s attention on non-issues is an amazing thing. For instance, look at how much wasted energy and spirited rabbit hole chasing went on about the Zimmerman trial. Now, nobody gives a damn and it’s on to the next cable news ratings booster. I’m glad I don’t have TV. Isn’t that odd? Glad that I don’t have some form of “entertainment” which has many billions of dollars spent every year just to entertain people like me? And I reject it because of the side effects on my attention, focus, even my ability to think straight.
I was wondering about the future of the internet. Some email services are shutting down because they can’t guarantee privacy. Have any of you changed what you say on the phone since the NSA stuff came out? I certainly have. I don’t joke about sensitive (to the government) stuff or use certain words for fear that it might get picked up by a computer program and thrown into some file I don’t want any part of.
Like I used to say here that Bernanke was a flaming idiot. I have since seen the light and am in full support of all government/central bank efforts to (redacted).
‘ the whole chase scene is symbolic of the difficulties in which Washington finds itself immersed. Unable to win their case in the court of public opinion, the self-styled leaders of the free world resort to threats and bullying to get their way - which kind of sums up American foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century. And the spectacle of US attorney general Eric Holder trying to offer Russia assurances that his government would not torture or execute Snowden speaks volumes about how far the US government’s reputation on human rights - even within the United States - has plummeted over the past decade.’
‘Two weeks ago there was a surprisingly close call in the US House of Representatives, with the majority of House Democrats and 94 of 234 Republicans defying their House (and Senate) leadership, the White House, and the national security establishment in a vote to end the NSA’s mass collection of phone records. The amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 205 to 217, but it was clear that “this is only the beginning,” as John Conyers (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee announced.’
‘A week later Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Democratic Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called a hearing where he challenged the Obama administration’s claims that the NSA dragnet had been effective in disrupting terrorist plots. According to Leahy, the classified list that he had been shown of “terrorist events” did not show that “dozens or even several terrorist plots” had been thwarted by the NSA’s surveillance of domestic phone calls.’
‘It is beginning to sink in that the main target of the NSA’s massive spying programmes is not terrorism but the American people themselves (as well as other non-terrorist populations throughout the world). Pew Research finds for the first time since 2004 that there are more Americans concerned that government “anti-terror” programmes have “gone too far in restricting civil liberties” than those who think not enough has been done to protect people from terrorism.’
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201387957162873.html
Curious how the row about a terrorist threat last week, and shutting down embassies, fell flat and diverted the media from the Snowden/NSA spying business. It was blatantly obvious misdirection.
I don’t mention going to the rifle range too much on the telephone or online. I refrain from saying the Congress and Administration are corrupt idiots. I expect in future if the course of things does not change, I will have to give my SSN to buy tobacco. I’m probably already an enemy of the state simply because I have no (recent) credit history.
I checked in with US border control today on my way back from Canada. Very thorough and all my documents and permits needed to be in order. But amnesty to illegal immigrants will make house prices go up.
Disturbing you two.
I just sold a house for $420,000 which Zillow said was worth $310,000. Even today, after the sale, Zillow has it pegged at $344,000.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/1212-Hillwood-Loop,-Lincoln,-ca_rb/
Most schools in FL are awful. Is Boca Raton an exception? Or possibly not, since it’s full of old people from NY/NJ/CT?
I can’t say much about the public schools (I graduated back in ‘79), but charter schools are popping up all over and the one my grandkids attend seems to be very good. As far as the old people, I don’t live out west (or even in boca anymore), which is where the retirement communities are that you’re talking about.
People freaking out about student loans is the biggest joke yet.
No matter how high your student loan balance is, all you need to do is cop that PAYE or IBR. You make 20 yrs of payments, which adjust annually and top out at 15% of “discretionary income”, meaning income after taxes and expenses like housing, car, etc. Do this for 20 yrs, you’re done. For most people this would be some ridiculously low monthly payment like 200/month, maybe less.
For any of you with kids in school definitely check out PAYE/IBR. The CFPB has a good Q&A about it on their site, plus lots of info.
The other option is, if you are a gov’t employee, you can go on PAYE/IBR for 10 yrs and after 120 payments while in a qualifying gov’t job, you get your loans discharged. (This is what my wife is doing, which is why I encouraged her to take out all loans for Johns Hopkins grad school rather than go to some TTT.) (Also if you teach in a Title I school, meaning a diverse one, after 5 yrs the gov’t cancels half your federal student loan balance.)
Sounds alot “clever” than Romney’s business decisions.
Just cop that PAYE/IBR, bro.
Sample: John Jones has 100k debt from UG and a random masters degree. Gets job paying 50k. Post tax and post nondiscretionary expenses, he has about 20k/yr discretionary income. His payments under IBR would be capped at 10% of his discretionary income, so $2k. That’s a little under 200/month. After 20 yrs, he’s finished. If he gets a gov’t job, he’s finished in 10 yrs.
Anyone with kids in school, pay attention: PAYE, IBR.
Don’t pay for your kids’ school, let them take loans and then PAYE it away.
For law students, LRAP works pretty well too. The WaPo just did a story on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/
How Georgetown Law gets Uncle Sam to pay its students’ bills
“Georgetown Law students who use LRAP use loans from Grad PLUS — the federal government’s student loan program for grad students — to fund the entire cost of going to law school. That includes not only tuition and fees but living expenses like housing and food. Grad PLUS has no upper limit on the amount you can borrow, so there isn’t any constraint on how much you take out.
Once out of school, the students enroll in an income-based repayment program, in which, if they’re working for a nonprofit, the federal government forgives all loans after 10 years. For that 10-year period, however, the borrower has to pay a share of their income. But under LRAP, Georgetown commits to covering all of those payments.
Upon first glance, it looks like what’s happening is that Georgetown is paying for part of the cost of law school and the federal government is forgiving the rest. But as Jason Delisle and Alex Holt at the New America Foundation discovered, Georgetown’s cleverer than that. The tuition paid by new students — tuition they’re often paying with federal loans — includes the cost of covering the previous students’ loan payments.”
Extree! Extree! Read all about it! New college tuition structure to be designed by Charles Ponzi!
Just cop that PAYE/IBR, bro.”
Thanks I’m going to check it out. Many of my co-workers have kids going to universities, I will in a few years.
so far not to bad it just hangs around forever and needs yearly documentation. May owe taxes at the end of 10 or 20 years on forgiven balance. OK what else ? still checking.
“Disadvantages of Pay As You Earn
You may pay more interest—A reduced monthly payment under Pay As You Earn generally means you’ll be repaying your loan for a longer period of time, so you may pay more total interest over the life of the loan than you would under other repayment plans.
You must submit annual documentation—To set your payment amount each year, your loan servicer, the organization that handles billing and other services for your loan, needs updated information about your income and family size. You must provide the documentation or your monthly payment amount will be changed to the amount you would be required to pay under the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan, based on the amount you owed when you began repaying under Pay As You Earn, and will no longer be based on your income. This amount will be higher than your prior payment under Pay As You Earn that was based on your income. If you do not provide the required income documentation, unpaid interest will also capitalize.
Though FFEL Program loans are taken into account when determining whether you have a partial financial hardship, only Direct Loans are eligible for the Pay As You Earn repayment plan. Therefore, you will need to select another repayment plan, such as the Income-Based Repayment plan, for any FFEL Program loans that you have.
You may have to pay taxes on any loan amount that is forgiven after 20 years.
20-year forgiveness—If you repay under Pay As You Earn and meet certain other requirements, any remaining balance will be forgiven after 20 years of qualifying repayment.”
certain other requirments ? is that legal talk for if they like me ?
Easier to just move to another country.
Why would you move to another country? Do you not see how sweet these deals are? My wife makes like 3600/month after taxes + benefits + SS + pension contribution (she only works 9.5 months but her pay is spread through 12 months, she also pays into both SS and the state’s educator pension). I’m filling out her IBR stuff for her… after non-discretionary expenses, less than 2k/month is eligible for consideration for loan repayment. Her loan repayments will be under 200/month. She does this for 10 yrs, she’s done. Yes, it will adjust upwards as she makes more but as the Georgetown videos show, there are ways to game the system and keep your discretionary income down. I plan to be aggressive about this on her behalf.
Move to another country? Good luck using that MD or JD to cop that high paying job. For undergrads, good luck at getting a visa to work legally in Western Europe or Japan, esp if your only fluent language is English! Good fucking luck. And good luck with that if your loans are defaulted. I guess you could just go live on a beach somewhere and give bj’s instead of working.
This is from the WaPo article:
“So the program amounts to a massive educational grant to Georgetown law students, who are likely to make more as lawyers than the vast majority of Americans and whose ability level suggests that they could make more than most Americans even if they didn’t go to law school.”
Move to another country? Good luck using that MD or JD to cop that high paying job. For undergrads, good luck at getting a visa to work legally in Western Europe or Japan, esp if your only fluent language is English! Good fucking luck
+1
As someone who has lived outside the US, I can testify as to how hard it is to get papers. Unless there is a skill shortage in that country you can forget about it. Which is why I harp frequently on getting an EU passport (through ancestry) if you can.
Not really. We are coming to a point that you will have to “pay” to leave this country.
Which is why you should procure a foreign passport, if you are eligible. I can definitely see it coming to the the point to where US Passports are denied to anyone who owes the FedGov any money.
It’s already here.
If you owe $2,500 or more in child support, you are not eligible to receive a U.S. passport.
>Easier to just move to another country.
Yep.
Again, you make no sense. Under PAYE or IBR (or programs like LRAP for law, I’m sure there are similar ones for medicine) someone making a solid middle class wage pays mere hundreds per month and has the balance of the student loans (and interest) discharged in 20 yrs. Ten if they work a gov’t job. The gov’t job could be a fed gov’t worker that makes 6 figures, btw.
I gave an example of my wife who makes approx 62k/yr and whose IBR program puts her monthly payments at under 200 per month. She pays for 10 yrs/120 payments and then she’s done. Walk in the park.
Any time she gets a pay increase, we find ways to “reduce” the increase. An easy one is just to plow the money into a retirement account, but there are plenty of other options.
An easy one is just to plow the money into a retirement account, but there are plenty of other options.
What if you’re a person already plowing the max into your retirement accounts?
Federal programs can always be changed. 20 years is a long bet.
Easier to just move to another country.
Not if you want to work there. Getting a work or immigrant visa in other countries can be next to impossible.
And if you can get papers, you’ll be thrilled by the low wages and the Lucky Ducky standard of living you’ll have as a college educated professional.
I know several people that work remotely from another country. I don’t think their bosses are even aware of it.
I know several people that work remotely from another country. I don’t think their bosses are even aware of it.
I used to know a guy who worked from Cananda for a US company in CA and his American bosses were fine.
Outside of Canada, might be tricky with the laws and $hit.
some ridiculously low monthly payment like 200/month,
Couldn’t keep that snobbery down for long, could ya.
200 bucks per month is for about 60k income/yr. Someone making like 30k/yr would pay almost nothing because their “discretionary budget” would be so small, everything would be tied up in taxes, benefits, housing, transportation, etc. 10% of the remainder would be de minimus. They’d pay back less than 100/month.
And yes, 200/month is a great deal for all the loans needed for UG and grad school. Without PAYE/IBR the monthly payments would be much higher, even with a 30 yr payback period. I knew this was going to happen (it was in progress at the time) so I had encouraged my wife (gf at the time) to borrow as much as possible = the full cost of grad school.
The overall point is, you can pay very little for college/grad school, just take loans. And then at the end, you just consolidate and cop that PAYE or IBR. Get a gov’t job if you want to cut the payback time down to 10 yrs without increasing monthly payments at all. You’re welcome in advance.
Get a gov’t job if you want to cut the payback time down to 10 yrs without increasing monthly payments at all. You’re welcome in advance.
I paid off my college loans a decade ago. Get over yourself.
A picture is worth 1000 property craters:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/shanghai080713/s_s01_RTX1292L.gif
(Image from The Atlantic, showing Shanghai skyline in 1987 and in 2013)
That is quite a contrast.
If you have BBC America, try to catch the Top Gear episode where they drive their cars around an empty condo “development” in Spain. The visuals were incredible.
I haven’t seen that one, but I can imagine Clarkson’s snide remarks.
My favorite part was when they raced their supercars on the runway for the built but never used airport.
Was it Hammond whose Ferrari was disintegrating?
Don’t remember that exact bit. I don’t watch it very often, but a friend recommeded it so I waited for on that looked interesting. I thought Spain might be fun to see and it was certainly something. Just building after giant building of nothing.
I think it is playing again this weekend (the shorter version). Sometime on Saturday.
They built an airport to serve all the people who would be flying in to stay in their awesome Spanish condos. Chickens were counted far in advance.
“Just for the record; there is no shortage of housing. Not in California, not in Tokyo, not anywhere. And there will come a day (again) when the media will tell us, ‘there’s a glut of houses for sale in….’, and regale us with sob stories, ‘I was doing great until the economy went south and my income went away and I can’t get rid of this damned house!’”
~Ben Jones, August 8, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv4PSNJJPfE
More ways for millenials to game the student loan system.
In a nutshell, any money you put towards retirement is NOT eligible for the gov’t to consider when adjusting PAYE/IBR payments. So if you get a 10k/yr raise, just increase your retirement contributions by 10k and your PAYE/IBR payments will not go up.
The above video is a video of a Georgetown Law financial aid rep telling students how to do it. Check it out. Anyone with kids in college now needs to be savvy and work the system.
I have a lot more ideas I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks. I’m on vacation next week and will be reading up on this stuff for LULZ.
Another ponzi scheme finance by the government…
From a bankrupted federal government
that borrows 49 cents of every dollar it spends
You’re done here, reptile.
Ya, but it borrows most of that from the Fed who just
counterfeitscreates the money from thin air, so it’s all good.That’s another point I recall that made me realize Limbaugh, Hannity, O’reilley, Beck, and their ilk were lairs and propagandists: They at different times justified our debt and military expenditures in particular by saying that we owed most of that debt to ourselves - the taxpayers.
The pieces of sh1t failed to mention that the Federal Reserve Bank™ is the main taxpayer in question.
It’s main evil is that it enables the ruling class politicians to spen a bunch of money without being accountable to the people. If they had to go the people hat-in-hand to raise taxes every time they needed to pay for a war, there’d be no more wars.
Same goes for a bunch of the welfare programs. In particular corporate welfare. And that’s another thing from the above mentioned group - they loved to complain about welfare, but somehow usually failed to mention that corporate welfare was many times that spent helping individual people and families - even accounting for the various and sundry abuses which don’t even qualify as a statistical anomaly in the grand spending scheme.
Not that the other guys are a lot better, but at least they have the g-damn common courtesy to give the American people a reacharound.
Wake up and stop voting for the two headed snake.
If you have someone else’s income to live on and you have a Roth 401k/403b option you can tuck a bunch of money into retirement and pre-pay the taxes, reducing that income even more.
…remember folks whatever happens on the fringe will ultimately effect the CORE!
———————–
The EU Crisis Will Be Back Very Shortly
August 9, 2013
Remember, politics drive everything in Europe, including the markets (Spain’s political scandals had a bigger impact on the Spanish Ibex than a myriad of horrific economic data). Which is why everything is on hold until the German election ends next month.
http://gainspainscapital.com/2013/08/09/the-eu-crisis-will-be-back-very-shortly/
“The reality is that housing prices are inflated by 250% because of the 30 year mortgage term.”
Correct. For decades housing notes were 5 or 7 years.
That’s OK if my wages go up 300% in the same time period.
Initial Jobless Claimsj/p
Each week economists and journalists eagerly await the unemployment application numbers from the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor for clues on the health of the job market. The number of initial jobless claims tells us how many workers filed for unemployment benefits in the prior week. A lower number indicates that fewer workers applied for benefits.
http://smaulgld.com/initial-jobless-claims/
Listing #13009629
$489,000 (LP)
Price/SqFt: 267.21
15527 Dracena Ave, Moorpark, CA 93021 * Pending
Beds: 4* Baths: 3 (2 0 1 0) (FTHQ)* Sq Ft: 1830* Lot Sz: 4554sqft*
Area: NMP Yr: 1984*
Imagine the losses the sucker will take on that one. Be thankful it wasn’t you.
I think this is a zero lot line house. That’s why the yard is so small.
losses.. in this economy
I’m not even going to try and guess the future of RE prices anymore.
well thats not true. I guess they will stall out with higher interest rates then its up to Uncle FED to decide what to do about it. Thats the part I won’t guess about.
“I’m not even going to try and guess the future of RE prices anymore.”
BS.
Republican consultants: Poor and older whites are the key demographic for the GOP.
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tp://www.vdare.com/articles/john-derbyshire-on-the-voter-demographic-that-dare-not-speak-its-name
But working class whites have not been so much pushed towards the Republicans as pushed out of politics altogether. That’s why so many of them went missing last November. They may have been pushed towards the Republicans, but the GOP gave no indication it wanted them.
If, after an hour of play, nobody has passed you the ball, you may as well quit the game—walk off the pitch, go home, watch some reality TV. And that’s what the white working-class vote has done. No politician passes the ball to them because no politician wants it thought that he’s singling them out for positive attention. That would be…oh, you know.
No, not even Senator Jeff Sessions, hero of the recent Senate “debate” on the Eight Gangsters’ Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill. His recent powerful statement “How The GOP Can Do The Right Thing On Immigration—And Win” faltered at exactly this point:
“The GOP lost the election—as exit polls clearly show—because it hemorrhaged support from middle- and low-income Americans of all backgrounds.
[Sessions to Republicans: GOP Elite View on Immigration Is ‘Nonsense’, Weekly Standard, July 29th.]”
Support for the GOP from “middle- and low-income Americans” of backgrounds other than non-Hispanic white is so inconsequential—small-minority percentages of minority percentages—it is absurd to speak of it “hemorrhaging.”
Senator Sessions is speaking diplomatically, of course, as he must, and I do not mean to belittle his magnificent efforts and stirring rhetoric against the Schumer-Rubio bill. But that’s the point: he must speak of “all backgrounds,” although he surely knows that the hemorrhaging was of whites—the demographic that dare not speak its shameful name.
It is an extraordinary situation; ethnomasochism is an extraordinary state of mind; the marginalizing of non-elite whites—a substantial majority of the population!—by the Cultural Marxists is an extraordinary achievement.
That is the environment we work in, though. The only suggestion anyone has come up with for getting working-class whites back on the field and playing with the GOP team, is economic populism.
Sean Trende:
“Ultimately, the basic prescription for the GOP is a healthy dose of economic populism. This includes a lot of changes Democrats would presumably enjoy, such as jettisoning the pro-big-business, Wall Street-style conservatism that characterized the Romney campaign for something authentically geared more toward downscale voters.
[Demographics and the GOP, Part IV, Real Clear Politics, July 2nd 2013.]”
Douthat thinks there might even be trans-racial appeal:
“If Republicans interpret Trende’s analysis correctly and set out to increase their margins with working class whites by developing a more inclusive and populist vision on economic policy, then they will probably ultimately win more Hispanic and even African-American votes as well.”
Possibly so; but economic populism has already had a good airing this past quarter-century—Buchanan, Perot—and been found not merely wanting, but racist.
However, a focused economic-populist approach could yield some electoral dividends among disaffected whites. Patriotic immigration reform is likely the easiest policy to advance, enjoying as it does widespread support among both whites and blacks—and, according to Trende, not alienating Hispanics as much as GOP consultants fear.
This one issue might stir the non-elite white electorate into wakefulness.
The trick is to find a viable GOP presidential candidate who is not perfectly clueless about it.
“Let’s get right to the point. If you’re building a 47-story building, you’re going to need an elevator. Unfortunately, that was a point overlooked by the architectural brain trust who designed the Intempo skyscraper in Benidorm, Spain. The condo building was initially meant to be 20-stories. When developers decided to move skyward, they reportedly neglected to reconfigure their plans to accommodate the necessary elevators. The Intempo was intended to symbolize hope and prosperity, showing that Benidorm was recovering from financial issues.”
http://m.now.msn.com/intempo-building-47-stories-skyscraper-would-really-be-nice-if-it-had-an-elevator
Free StairMaster with every condo unit!
The Tragedy of America’s Great Food Stamp Binge - Fox Nation
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/08/08/tragedy-americas-great-food-stamp-binge - - Cached - Similar pages
1 day ago … It airs Friday at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. This investigation focuses on a federal program called SNAP, …
I am looking forward to the 29 year ols surfer who picks up a lobster at the grocery store and says “thanks mr. and mrs. taxpayer”.
Record number of Americans now on food stamps | Fox News Video
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2593601772001/record-number-of-americans-now-on-food-stamps/ - 36k - Cached - Similar pages
1 day ago … We have a new fox poll number that shows — 15% of Americans … a snap — and goes to a local food — Snaps it through and — a lobster and says thanks mr. and mrs. taxpayer well and it’s so — there — – — – that is abusing you …
‘Record number of Americans now on food stamps’
And yet Ebay is clamping down on coupon selling on its site. At least I was being more creative trying to get discounted food and using the manufacturers’ own dollars. I looked at the coupons as venture capital for me to invest in their food. But food stamps, well they are easier to use.