Bits Bucket for August 11, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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The Bernanke-Obama Bubble Must Burst
July 17, 2013
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Eric in Latham, New York. Glad you waited. You’re up next, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, moles and moles of dittos from the sweltering liberal stranglehold of New York State.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: This might be related, I don’t know, to all the stuff we’ve been talking about, in terms of the economy.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: In all the mess the last few days, the government released the June retail report and — no doubt unexpected — it came in weaker than, than they thought. And one of the interesting things they said later was that economists fear that the economy “may begin to slow.”
RUSH: (chuckling)
CALLER: I’m thinking, “Slowing from what? The 1.8%? I think that was the number that came in the first quarter.”
RUSH: It is amazing how these people have begun to believe their own lies now about being in a recovery and it’s serious and real, and so they get news like this, and some of them are genuinely shocked.
CALLER: Remember the good old days when Democrats weren’t happy with 4.5% unemployment and 3.5% growth? That was a bad economy.
RUSH: Yeah, four, 4.5% unemployment was bad.
CALLER: Now 1.5% growth is great.
RUSH: That was a recession, in fact. They told us those stats were recessionary, when those are the stats with Bush.
CALLER: My fear is… Like right now it’s kind of strange with the stock market. It seems like the market moves with the Fed comments rather than earnings.
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not just the Fed comments. It’s the Fed infusion. The Fed is digitizing. They don’t print money anymore. They digitize it. They just add some numbers into the accounts that end up buying stock. The regime, I think, in conjunction with the Fed has decided that they’re gonna do what it takes to make the stock market look good. A, it’s helping Obama donors. B, it gives an indication the economy somewhere is upwardly mobile.
But primarily it’s taking care of Obama donors. Earnings, yeah. There’s still some of that. You know, stock prices related or the over all DJI related to actual business activity. But most of it, you’re right, is in reaction to what Bernanke says and then does. In fact, Bernanke doesn’t even have to infuse the money. All he’s gotta do is say he’s going to next week. (claps) Bammo! (sigh) Folks, this is a bubble. They’re creating a huge bubble.
This is not real. Well, it depends how you define it. But that’s Eric’s point. It’s not based on earnings, what’s happening in the market. It’s not happening as a result of real strength or weaknesses in American industries. So they’re creating a bubble here, and at some point this has to burst. At some point, they stop pumping money into it. Somewhere, at some time they have to stop — you would think — and that’s a bubble. There are a lot of people that thought it woulda happened by now. But, Eric, I appreciate the call. Thank you el mucho.
END TRANSCRIPT
what would make it end? it seems so easy to keep digitizing money.
I was struck recently by the similarity between bitcoin and a savings account. The savings account and bitcoin are digital representations of a currency. Except bitcoin has no physical representation, and the savings account can have a physical representation, in slips of paper.
The big difference: The savings account is denominated in fiat money, bitcoin is not. The legal ramifications of this distinction are likely to only become visible through the lens of the rear view mirror.
Don’t see anything would make it end. It’s the pinnacle of a centrally planned economy; politicians’ and technocrats’ wet dream. Soviets would have been proud of us how we got here, while pretending to be capitalist along the way. I mean it’s surreal if you take a moment to think about it.
“Soviets would have been proud of us how we got here, while pretending to be capitalist along the way.”
That the Soviet Empire ended way back in 1989 makes me think the ‘pinnacle of central planning’ of which you speak will end as well, though nobody will see it coming when it does.
^^^^^This!
It’s not based on earnings, what’s happening in the market. It’s not happening as a result of real strength or weaknesses in American industries. So they’re creating a bubble here, and at some point this has to burst.
WTF?!??
Did you really have to point out that I agree with Rush on something?
If you need me, I’ll be in the closet, rocking myself.
(Posters are bound to read this to mean that I’m a liberal, but really I’m more libertarian-leaning, and merely think Rush is a big fat idiot.)
“Did you really have to point out that I agree with Rush on something?”
Sorry…I simply couldn’t contain my shock on discovering I agreed with Rush on something.
“…moles of dittos…”
Not being a Rush follower, that one left me scratching. Are they talking about Avagadro’s number (6.02214 X 10^23)?
I had absolutely no idea Rush was that scientifically astute.
On a molecular level, Rush is still a douchebag.
Is the choice of next Fed Chair a done deal?
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Obama sidestepped the vetted academic frontrunners for the Fed Chair position?
Obama Rejects Speculation Summers Has Fed ‘Inside Track’
By Hans Nichols & Michelle Jamrisko - Aug 9, 2013 9:00 PM PT
President Barack Obama rejected the notion that Lawrence Summers is the front-runner to replace Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben S. Bernanke, explaining that he has defended his former National Economic Council director as an act of loyalty.
“The perception that Mr. Summers might have an inside track simply had to do with a bunch of attacks that I was hearing on Mr. Summers pre-emptively, which is sort of a standard Washington exercise that I don’t like,” Obama said at a White House news conference yesterday. “I tend to defend folks who I think have done a good job and don’t deserve attacks.”
The former Treasury secretary is one of a “range of outstanding candidates” to head lead the central bank, including Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, the president said.
While Obama didn’t express a preference between Summers and Yellen, calling them both “outstanding candidates,” he did elaborate on the need for the next Fed chairman to combat inflation. The president warned of the potential dangers of “artificial bubbles” and reiterated his requirement that the next chairman work to lower unemployment.
“My main criteria for the Fed Reserve chairman is somebody who understands they’ve got a dual mandate,” he said. “A critical part of the job is making sure that we keep inflation in check, that our monetary policy is sound, that the dollar is sound.”
Additional Candidates
Besides Summers, 58, and Yellen, 66, Obama said he had a “couple” more candidates under consideration. Last week, he told House lawmakers that he was also considering former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, 70, for the job, bringing to three the names of publicly known candidates.
It’s hard to make a case that Summers, Yellen or Kohn “clearly has a stronger reputation than the others” on inflation, said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. “Proponents of each individual might make subjective arguments on their favorite’s behalf.’
…
It doesn’t matter who is appointed. It doesn’t matter who is elected. They will all do the same thing.
Obama has yet to show any backbone with regard to the financial crisis…he isn’t going to start now.
Do y’all notice the only thing that moves the stock market these days is speculation on when the Fed will begin to end QE3?
U.S. Stocks Have Worst Week Since June Amid Fed Concern
By Lu Wang & Katie Brennan - Aug 10, 2013 7:40 AM PT
U.S. stocks fell for the week, with benchmark indexes posting the worst losses since June, as better-than-estimated data on trade and service industries fueled concern the Federal Reserve may reduce its stimulus.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. dropped at least 2.6 percent amid federal legal actions tied to their past mortgage-backed bond practices. Homebuilders tumbled 6.6 percent as a group amid concern rising interest rates and slow orders may continue to hurt the industry. International Business Machines Corp. slumped 3.8 percent to its 2013 low on signs of slowing demand for hardware. Tesla Motors Inc. and Groupon Inc. surged as results beat analyst estimates.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 1.1 percent to 1,691.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 232.85 points, or 1.5 percent, to 15,425.51. Both gauges capped their worst week since June 21 after closing at records on Aug. 2.
…
I did not notice. My ex company keeps on improving earnings and exceeding analyist expectations. The earnings report is real. Same for lots of companies. Until the next recession hits.
you cant fudge revenue like earnings. Revenue is falling for a lot of companies.
is arthur anderson still out there cookn the books for wall street?
My ex company revenues also keep improving.
My company’s as well, Bill. There are certainly some spots of the economy that are doing well.
That’s not to say the overall fundamentals are good, but…I just need it to last until my lockup period is over
+1 drumminj.
Even though it’s my ex company the outlook is brighter going forward than I thought seven weeks ago.
My own philosophy about company stocks is “What’s good for the company shareholders is bad for the company employees. What’s good for the company employees is bad for the company shareholders. That is one reason I no longer work at that company. At some point it shoots itself in the foot. Game of musical chairs. Only that in this game, far more than one person will be left without a chair when the recession hits. I’m praying to the black God Obama like a good White guilt cracker would to his deity (the black man) that he keeps this bubble going.
P/E can only take you so high.
You are talking about the fortunes of individual companies, while I am talking about the headline market indexes…completely different animals!
“At first I got lots of discouragement from friends and stranger who are loser! You know what these people kept telling me? They kept saying, ‘Well Tom Vu, you a crazy nut, here you are, a poor immigrant, poor minority, speak no English, no contact, on and on, and you trying to be rich in America! You crazy, man! Look at people out there! They smarter than you are, they not even rich! Who are you to try?’ And you know what? I have to keep telling these people every time, I kept saying, ‘You are loser! Get out of my way! I make it somehow!’ “
Does it even matter? We all know they will just keep printing to support the fake economy.
Stocks and homes will get u somewhere.
Stocks and homes will get u somewhere.
And will leave you nowhere.
Yes.
1. He/She will carry out the same policies.
2. He/She will belong to the tribe.
3. He/She will have a PHD from one of the ivys.
Like Shakespeare said, what’s in a name? A turd would smell the same…..
Is the Eurozone out of recession now…or not?
City economists say eurozone recession is ‘over’
The eurozone has exited its longest recession since records began, official figures are expected to show this week.
Cyprus has agreed a €10 billion bail-out deal with the eurozone.
Official figures released this week are expected to show that the eurozone’s longest recession has ended Photo: Reuters
By Emma Rowley
4:09PM BST 10 Aug 2013
Growth from the powerhouse economy of Germany has pulled the single currency region’s economy as a whole out of contraction mode, economists believe.
Wednesday’s “flash” estimate for the region’s growth in the second quarter of this year is expected to show gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.2pc on the previous quarter, after shrinking for the previous six quarters in a row.
That would mark an end to the recession – defined as two or more consecutive quarters in which an economy shrank – which the euro region entered at the end of 2011.
“Don’t get us wrong, we are not talking about a speedy recovery in the eurozone here,” said Evelyn Herrmann, an economist at BNP Paribas. “But we see reasons to hope for and even expect no more negative quarterly growth in the eurozone, on aggregate, from the second quarter onwards.”
…
I guess it’s over, that is if 20%+ unemployment is “normal” in places like Spain.
They didn’t say it’s over, they said it’s ‘over.’
Ray Dalio: Eurocrisis Ain’t Over
“With youth unemployment spiraling higher, economic stress rising and government revenue shrinking it is only a function of time until something goes horribly wrong. The timing of such an event, however, is the key. It is also questionable just how long Federal Reserve interventions can continue to keep the divergence between the Euro-zone, which is a major export partner and a big chunk of corporate profitability, and the U.S. from reverting.
http://www.streettalklive.com/daily-x-change/1785-ray-dalio-eurocrisis-ain-t-over.html
ECB Forecasters Lower Euro-Zone Growth View
By Dow Jones Business News, August 08, 2013, 05:35:00 AM EDT
FRANKFURT–Economists once again cut their growth expectations for the euro zone for this year and next, according to a European Central Bank survey published Thursday, citing weak demand at home and abroad.
Forecasters now expect euro-zone economic activity to contract by 0.6% in 2013, down from a previous prediction of a 0.4% contraction, made just three months ago, the ECB said in its quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters.
Survey respondents blamed weaker than expected domestic demand in the first quarter as the main reasons for the downward revision in 2013, but also noted “disappointing data from key emerging economies such as China and Brazil implying a lowering in the expected contribution of net trade to growth in the near term.”
Euro-zone growth is subsequently expected to rise 0.9% in 2014, down from a previous forecast of 1.0% in May, before accelerating to 1.5% in 2015, also downwardly revised from 1.6%.
…
Is it safe to say that China’s economy successfully dodged the slowdown bullet?
RBC analysts tip China slowdown
by: LAUREN DAVIDSON
From: The Wall Street Journal
August 10, 2013 12:00AM
ANY celebration over the strong data released by China on Thursday may be short-lived.
Chinese exports and imports both rose significantly last month, but its economy is headed for a severe slowdown, warns Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management.
Over the past decade, China has enjoyed an annual increase in its gross domestic product of about 10 per cent.
In the second quarter of this year, however, GDP growth slowed to an annualised 7.5 per cent, and Lascelles predicts GDP in the next decade will grow by as little as 4.5 per cent per year.
Thursday’s stronger-than-expected data will do little to change the longer-term expectation that China’s growth is waning, Lascelles believes.
“It’s not a sustainable growth rate for Chinese trade. The global demand isn’t enough, there simply isn’t scope for its exports to grow materially,” he said in an interview. “There’s nothing in (these figures) to suggest a major rebound is under way . . . the longer-term slowdown story is ultimately still intact.”
China’s economic spurt has largely been driven by exports and borrowing, but “both of those growth engines are tapped out”, said Lascelles.
He believes the country has saturated the world with its exports, and warns that Chinese policymakers are cracking down on the credit boom.
The developed world appears to be on the cusp of recovery, with the US Federal Reserve indicating it could begin to wind down its fiscal stimulus as soon as next month, and Europe printing better economic data. But any recovery on a global scale is intertwined closely with the fate of China, which accounts for almost a third of global growth.
“China is now so important to global growth that any slowdown would chill the global economy, potentially impacting commodity prices and financial markets as well,” Lascelles told clients in a report.
…
“China is now so important to global growth that any slowdown would chill the global economy, potentially impacting commodity prices and financial markets as well.”
“… potentially impacting commodity prices …” translates to -what? - potentially REDUCING commodity prices, perhaps?
Which is not a good thing is you are a producer of commodities that experience this price reduction, but it just might be a good thing if you are a consumer of those commodities that experience this price reduction.
But it’s rare for the spinmeisters to put it this way.
Is it safe to say that China’s economy successfully dodged the slowdown bullet?
Only if you believe their numbers aren’t fudged.
I’ll be waiting for the Great Pumpkin again this year.
Did the Canada housing bubble scare blow over without a drop of rain?
Recommended Video
Reuters Today: Bare breasts and protests in Italy
Canada tightens mortgage lending rules to cool housing market
Tue Aug 6, 2013 9:49pm IST
* Canada housing agency caps mortgage guarantees for lenders
* Move seen as another move to cool Canada’s housing market
* Mortgage rates seen rising as banks reluctant to take on risk
By Andrea Hopkins
TORONTO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Canada’s federal housing agency took small step to tighten mortgage lending in 2013, limiting guarantees it offers banks and other lenders on mortgage-backed securities in another attempt to keep a lid on the country’s robust housing market.
The move by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp may drive mortgage rates up by a small amount as banks and other big lenders are shut out of an inexpensive way to issue loans and have to take on more risk themselves at a time when some say Canada’s housing market is overheated.
“CMHC is pushing back on the banks, (saying) ‘You’re going to take more risks on your balance sheet if you want to write these mortgages.’ Well, the banks aren’t going to write the mortgages,” said Barry Schwartz, vice president and portfolio manager at Baskin Financial Services, which owns Canadian bank shares.
“No way are they going to take on risk when everyone is concerned about the housing market … so this is going to cool off the housing market.”
…
How about the British — are their housing bubble troubles history at this point?
I warn you, Mr Carney – a housing bubble is coming
Like missing penalties, drinking tea and listening to The Archers, home ownership is a peculiarly British obsession that is hard to explain to outsiders.
‘The most recent figures for high loan-to-value lending show that it is up 56pc in the past year. Householders are starting to find their appetite again.’ Photo: Film Stills
By Kamal Ahmed
9:30PM BST 10 Aug 2013
Any politician suffering a little in the polls knows he or she needs only to tickle the public’s home-buying erogenous zones for a general feeling of warmth to flow from the voter to the MP.
At the last Budget, George Osborne reached for the home ownership Viagra when he announced – to widespread surprise – a package of measures under the banner Help to Buy.
An equity loan scheme and state-backed mortgage guarantee programme would encourage more people on to the housing ladder, it was argued. House price inflation has been proceeding, unsurprisingly, at quite a clip ever since, at a time when real incomes remain squeezed.
This can have only one effect, as a glance at the latest data on the average house price-to-earnings ratio for first-time buyers reveals. It is on the way up again and now stands at 4.4:1.
That compares with 4:1 in the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2:1 after the 1990s house price crash, which left millions of homes repossessed and homeowners suffering the miserable impact of negative equity. Its record high is 5.4, an unsustainable figure reached in 2007 before the wheels came off the economy.
Last week, the ratings agency, Fitch, was the latest body to reveal its concerns over the Government’s attempt to pump-prime a housing market that has not gone through the type of price correction normally seen during periods of recession.
In particular, Fitch pointed out that far from increasing the supply of homes – a legitimate policy objective given Britain’s historic inability to build enough of them – Help to Buy is pushing up house prices and creating higher liabilities for the state. In other words, if any of this goes wrong, it will be the taxpayer picking up the tab.
“The second phase of the Help to Buy scheme [mortgage guarantees] will increase margins for home builders and may do the same for banks, while creating contingent liabilities for the sovereign,” Fitch said.
…
“…tickle the public’s home-buying erogenous zones for a general feeling of warmth to flow from the voter to the MP.”
What a lovely metaphor!
Sis-in-law and her husband live in Cornwall. There are no quality jobs there (he’s a cop). The average “detached” house goes for £292,986 (about $450K USD). So, Highlands Ranch prices, flyover job market.
Yeah, I think they have a bubble problem.
“Why buy a house at these massively inflated asking prices? Rent for half the monthly carrying costs and buy later, after prices crater for 65% less.”
What makes you so sure that Obama and Bernanke won’t succeed in their efforts to prevent a 65% price crater from ever forming?
Reality…. like diamonds, it’s forever.
they will print as much money as possible to stop home prices from tanking. Stocks and homes are backstopped by the FED now.
The backstopping by the FED …, like diamonds, it’s forever.
Until it’s not. Just like 2007-2012.
Denial seems to be forever.
JingleBalls,
What are “reproduction” costs?
When you’re done hiding from that painful truth we’ll discuss the reality that is housing demand at 1997 levels and falling.
Did you mean denial that the bubble has been successfully reflated, or denial that temporarily-successful reflation will eventually give way to another leg down?
Take the Money and Run
Steve Miller Band
we’ll discuss the reality that is housing demand at 1997 levels and falling.
Hasn’t that been true for a couple of years now?
If so, it hasn’t been falling very fast…
Your point is what?
I’ve been watching the MBA’s Purchase Mortgage Index as well, and it looks like it is stuck at 1997-ish level to me. I haven’t seen it decline to 1996 levels.
It looks as though it is temporarily stable at roughly the 1997-ish level.
The only way the PTB can prevent house prices from sinking is to convince more and more of us to borrow ever increasingly huge amounts on our ever decreasing incomes, while we pay higher taxes and higher prices for food and energy, and millions less of us even have jobs.
Do you have some suggestions for them on how they might accomplish it? Aside from the bring in more uneducated day laborers from Mexico idea being advertised.
“Do you have some suggestions for them on how they might accomplish it?”
Pump up the prices and they will come.
Pump up the price of a consumption item - an expense item - and the interest shown by consumers will drop off.
Pump up the price of an investment item and the interest of investors will pick up.
Since there appears to be no shortage of greater fools who are willing to forever pay higher-and-higher prices for investment items the only restriction that holds back higher prices is the access of money allowed to these greater fools. But if lenders have an interest in keeping the prices of these investment items high then they have an interest in keeping greater fools supplied with money.
Which, IMHO, is what is going on.
yep dude. the banks want to keep the value of homes high so they can dump all their shanties onto mom and pop.
When investors are the major bulk of house owners, what happens? They just flip them to each other over and over and the price goes up forever?
Answer: Rental rates and resale housing prices crumble from their grossly inflated levels.
“When investors are the major bulk of house owners, what happens? They just flip them to each other over and over and the price goes up forever?”
Yep, forever, or until the money-flow stops - whichever comes first.
If the source of the money-flow is OPM that is managed by folks that have an interest is extracting fees of twenty percent from any capital gain then these folks have a great interest in making the price of whatever they are investing in go up. And if these same folks are in the position of becoming the major purchasers of these investment items then they are in a position of controlling the prices of these investment items.
The prices increase because they can make them increase. And as the prices increase they get to extract twenty percent of this increase.
Such a deal, especially when the money they use to do all this belongs to somebody else.
What you are describing Combo is a Ponzi. How does that end?
“How does that end?”
How, or when?
How? Not well.
When? Sometime other than right now. Which seems to be all that matters to those who are running things.
The longer the guys that run these things can keep on running them the more money from the pile of OPM they get to extract. They extract money from the pile in two ways:
1. From two percent of the money that is contained in the pile, and
2. From twenty percent of the capital gain that the pile is able to generate.
The increase caused by 2 will cause an increase in 1 because the capital gain aspect will attract new money to the pile and will make the pile grow larger. The larger pile means more money gets extracted via their two percent rule.
Plus, a larger the increase in 1 will cause a larger increase in 2 because with an increase in the size of the OPM pile more money is available to buy up investment assets. Buying up investment assets puts upward pressure on the price of these assets. And 2 means twenty percent of the price increase is extracted by the guys running the show.
2 feeds back into 1 and ends up strengthening 1 and the stregthening of 1 feeds back into 2 and results in the strengthening of 2.
Which works until it doesn’t.
What really favors the guys running these things is there is nobody around with any clout to go against the concept.
The assets that are being bid up are houses and most everyone accepts the idea that to bid up the prices of houses is somehow deemed to be a good thing, something that is in the national interest.
“yep dude. the banks want to keep the value of homes high so they can dump all their shanties onto mom and pop.”
That’s the Achilles heel of bubble reflation effort, as even with re-weakening of lending standards, there is only so far you can go with double-digit rates of annual appreciation before mom-and-pop buyers are priced out, and the only folks still dancing to the music are the investors who are only in it for short-term financial gain.
This is about the point when double-digit price appreciation gives way to the race-to-the-exits phenomena. (I refer anyone who isn’t following this to the 2007-08 episode in financial history.)
What really favors the guys running these things is there is nobody around with any clout to go against the concept.
Because we’ve been taught that people who oppose the concept are “socialists”?
“Since there appears to be no shortage of greater fools”
Apparently there is a shortage considering housing demand is at 1997 levels and falling.
‘When investors are the major bulk of house owners, what happens? They just flip them to each other over and over and the price goes up forever?
History rhymes. And repeats. I think Tom Vu knows what we should do.
“…most everyone accepts the idea that to bid up the prices of houses is somehow deemed to be a good thing, something that is in the national interest.”
The term favored by MSM writers, politicians and other real estate pimps is ‘housing price improvements.’
“Do you have some suggestions for them on how they might accomplish it?”
Encourage all-cash investors, including U.S. hedge funds plus foreign buyers from Canada and China, to snap up vacant U.S. homes and rent them out to the masses.
“Encourage all-cash investors, including U.S. hedge funds plus foreign buyers from Canada and China, to snap up vacant U.S. homes and rent them out to the masses.”
That works as long as prices in Canada, China, Australia and countless others remain sky-high. For the time being, it does seem that, compared to most of the developed world, and some of the not-so developed world, U.S. homes are considered bargains.
“That works as long as prices in Canada, China, Australia and countless others remain sky-high.”
Similarly, the flood of California equity locust investments in remote outposts such as Missoula, MT, Bend, OR, Boise, ID and Fayetteville, AR kept real estate going up until the California bubble popped.
Exactly. When those housing markets crash, we can count the foreign investors out of the equation. And right now they seem to have a measurable presence.
‘The only way the PTB can prevent house prices from sinking is to convince more and more of us to borrow ever increasingly huge amounts on our ever decreasing incomes, while we pay higher taxes and higher prices for food and energy, and millions less of us even have jobs.’
Are you man enough to get off your lazy American ass and go to Vu’s seminars?
“If you buy a house today, you will be underwater instantly and you will never recover financially. Beware.”
Given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are on the cusp of going away forever, why should Richmond city leaders care if they will refuse to do future business there?
Real Estate
Feds Say No Way to Using Eminent Domain to Help Underwater Homeowners
By Christopher Matthews @crobmatthews
Aug. 09, 2013
California Foreclosure Assist Program
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
A boarded up home is seen in Richmond, Calif., in 2011.
On Thursday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a strong message discouraging municipalities from using eminent domain to help bail out distressed homeowners — dramatically changing the tenor of a closely watched legal dispute over the maneuver currently taking place in California. The federal agency said it would direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which it oversees, to “limit, restrict or cease business activities” in any town using eminent domain to seize mortgages.
But let’s back up for a minute to explain. The housing market has been on fire of late — so much so that a couple of cities are seeing higher home values than before the bursting of the real estate bubble. Most of the country, however, is still in recovery mode. Despite more than a year’s worth of rising prices, more than 20% of all mortgagors remain underwater — meaning they owe more on their home loan than their house is worth.
And many of these hapless homeowners are concentrated in areas like Richmond, Calif., where half of all mortgagors remain underwater. In theory, it would make sense for lenders in such blighted areas to work with homeowners to reduce the amount they owe. That’s because severely underwater homeowners are much more likely to walk away from their mortgages and give up their home in foreclosure — a very expensive process for lenders. And when many of the foreclosures occur in one city, that creates a negative feedback loop that just makes the situation worse for lenders and citizens alike.
The problem is that in places like Richmond, the mortgage “lenders” in question aren’t banks, but a wide array of mortgage-backed-security investors. And the structure of these mortgage-backed securities makes it very difficult for stakeholders to get together and agree on what is in their collective interest.
…
No problem with kicking people out of their homes even though they are current on their mortgage though.
That’s because severely underwater homeowners are much more likely to walk away from their mortgages and give up their home in foreclosure — a very expensive process for lenders.
False. It is now a very _lucrative_ process for lenders.
Lenders who actually owned loans used to get hammered by foreclosures.
But nowadays, the lenders hold only the valuable servicing rights—so they continue to get paid during the period of default, and actually have a disincentive to shorten it. The losses are borne by others, the taxpayers, of course.
Good Morning everyone.
Our floor plan has jumped to $529K w/o a pool.
$262 a sq ft. That’s insane. At an open house yesterday, the listing agent told me they are getting sold at high prices because:
1. Mom and Dad are making up the difference of the appraisal and price sold, so loans are getting approved. No relations to comps right now. Here we go again. People are waiving protections again, like inspections, owner fixing stuff, etc…
2. Move-Ups are putting 50% down.
I can’t fathom how long this manipulated supply side bubble will last, but in some markets, the lack of inventory is astounding. Divorce is the #1 reason for the sale of some nice homes, at ridiculous prices in my neighborhood.
You’re “floor plan”?
Your rapidly depreciating house that you paid an massively inflated price for is simply a loss for you and the longer you hold it, the less it’s worth.
Is the Ownership Society concept still the driving force in U.S. politics?
Give billions to already rich and tax them few millions more is the force de jour in Amrikka.
If most voters are homeowners and homebuyers then the answer is “yes”.
It seems to be deemed to be in the national interest that home prices are to be kept up and are to be kept going up, and there are many that have an interest in this happening and few that have an interest in this not happening.
Unless they are going down 2007-2012.
So you admit that they are rising after 2012?
Admit? We haven’t raised prices.
Do you know what you’re talking about? At all?
Anecdote -
I have seen more and more couple with toddlers in my apartment complex this year. Something is going on I think….
Well, from what my two income, yuppie coworkers tell me, it costs too much to have kids (plus it gets in the way of the career). I suppose that if you get section 8 and foodstamps that you can stay home with the kids and not have to pay $1000 a month for daycare per kid.
Given that housing bubble reflation has succeeded in inflating living costs beyond the reach of young families, we can’t count on the current generation of young Americans to replenish the population. The only way forward appears to be to open our borders to families with children from other countries.
Teddy Roosevelt’s Warning To Time Magazine
David Stokes | Aug 11, 2013
Not wanting to go the way of its former print rival, Newsweek, it is no surprise that Time magazine is looking for ways to generate buzz. Thus the provocative current cover story: “The Child Free Life: When Having It All Means Not Having Children.” I read the article while on vacation. Vacation with my family—including seven grandchildren, ironic, huh?
I immediately remembered reading something Theodore Roosevelt said, directly on point, in a famous speech more than a century ago—on April 23, 1910. I am aware that most American conservatives find little in the political ideas by Theodore Roosevelt worth salvaging, much less translating into present day policy. But he nailed it that day, not only by giving us his famous quote about “The Man in the Arena,” but also with something he said about “child free living.” It was part of a major address delivered at The University of Paris (The Sorbonne) titled “Citizenship In A Republic.”
Roosevelt left the White House in 1909 and was at the pinnacle of his renown a year later when he toured Europe. One journalist wrote at the time, “When he appears, the windows shake for three miles around. He has the gift, nay the genius of being sensational.” TR addressed a massive audience in the school’s grand amphitheater. The crowd included academicians, “ministers in court dress, army and navy officers in full uniform, nine hundred students,” and another 2,000 “ticket holders.”
The former president was introduced that day as “the greatest voice of the New World.” And hiding in the shadows of his remembered-as-the-man-in-the-arena-speech is a long since forgotten rhetorical rebuke to the ideas promoted in the current issue of Time:
That’s right. Theodore Roosevelt told the French that they needed to keep having babies.
…
Wow. Well said.
Fannie, Freddie, and the Destructive Dream of the ‘Ownership Society’
Unwinding the mortgage giants won’t cure Americans of their desire to own a home, whether they can afford it or not.
Zachary Karabell Aug 10 2013, 1:45 PM ET
More than four years ago, President Obama assumed office promising dramatic reform to the housing market. After all, it was the housing market that triggered the financial crisis, and the vast proliferation of low-quality loans that had fueled the housing bubble. But politics delayed those reforms, and now the president is reopening the issue with a call to wind down the two main federal mortgage agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “For too long, these companies were allowed to make big profits buying mortgages, knowing that if their bets went bad, taxpayers would be left holding the bag,” the president said this week. “It was ‘heads we win, tails you lose.’”
Well, not entirely. The U.S. government and taxpayers did rescue these agencies in 2009 (to the tune of nearly $200 billion), and, after injecting them with capital and essentially nationalizing them, these companies started to turn a profit as the housing market slowly recovered. This month, they contributed more than $15 billion to the U.S. Treasury, and have been one factor in sharply reducing government deficits.
Even more, Obama’s targeting of Fannie and Freddie is part of a larger narrative — on both the left and the right — that banks and government colluded to produce the financial crisis and the continuing drag on the United States. To be fair, Obama in the same speech this week acknowledged that much of the housing crisis was the product of “banks and the government…[making] everyone feel like they had to own a home, even if they weren’t ready and didn’t have the payment.” But that chord is a decidedly minor one in a general atmosphere of blame.
Over the past decade, we have collectively spun a story of the financial crisis. It goes something like this: in the 2000s, government regulation of the financial system loosened as large banks, in collusion with free-market ideologues in government, convinced regulators that risk was a thing of the past. They then took advantage of easy money and lax regulation and began to push mortgages to speculators and low-credit individuals, who bought homes they couldn’t afford. Those mortgages were then packaged and used as the fodder for financial derivatives, which turned bad loans into a global crisis. Meanwhile, millions of people lost homes and jobs; the government spent hundreds of billions to bail out the banks, and those millions of citizens were left with shattered credit, no employment, and fractured communities such as Detroit.
There is much that is true in this story. Its basic contours were repeated this week in the Justice Department case against Bank of America over lax lending practices in 2008. And Fannie and Freddie, independent agencies backed by the government, were the linchpins, buying up those mortgages and providing a seemingly endless backstop.
What’s missing from the story is crucial, however. Obama alluded to it in his speech, but he buried the details. Often neglected is the degree to which so many felt that they needed to own a home. That wasn’t created by banks and government, even though it was encouraged. The “ownership society” had been touted not just by President Bush in the 2000s, but by Clinton, Reagan, and by Americans of all parties and ideologies since the founding of the republic. There is nothing more “Jeffersonian” than owning your own land and home (and slaves…but that is another issue). The United States pulled immigrants in part because of the availability of land and the promise of independence that owning land afforded. Freed slaves after the Civil War were promised — though not actually granted — “40 acres and a mule” because having land was seen as a necessary component to liberty and freedom.
…
Make no mistake, opening the floodgates to immigrants, both legal and illegal, is a major part of the plan to break the citizens of the US, and to devalue their citizenship.
Ben Franklin:
“In countries fully settled…those who cannot get land must labor for others that have it; when laborers are plenty, their wages will be low; by low wages a family is supported with difficulty; this difficulty deters many from marriage, who therefore long continue servants and single.”
It’s called “Fiat Citizenship”.
http://takimag.com/article/fiat_citizenship_steve_sailer#axzz2bWZUVwn4
I will never forgive, I will never forget.
“Plan to?”
We’re WAY, WAY past that point.
The plan now is to KEEP wages low and drive them down even farther.
Poor people can’t afford lawyers when they get screwed over.
Things are so bad in the US that the Mexodus has screeched to a grinding halt. They know that there are no jobs in “El Norte”
Seriously? Maybe in Colorado, but you couldn’t tell it by the crowds around here. Although I have observed a shift to more Indios appearing people than mestizo recently, so perhaps there’s more of an influx from Central America?
Someone posted a George Carlin Press Club appearance a week or so ago, and he mentioned some Christopher Columbus mythology. Shows you how screwed up grade school history can be, I was always taught that “Native Americans” were mistakenly called “Indians” because Columbus was trying to reach India and thought he had arrived, so he called the indigenous people Indians. Come to find out, that was a crock in the grade school history books.
Turns out, back in Columbus’ day, India was called “Hinudstan”. Columbus was an Italian whose Spanish wasn’t all that good, I think he was claiming the land and the people for Spain in the name of God. Hence, “In Dios”, of God. Indios. Indians.
Columbas was trying to reach Japan, not India.
The Spanish called him Cristobal Colon, because of where they thought his head was at.
“The Spanish called him Cristobal Colon, because of where they thought his head was at.”
Lol, I’ve read some excerpts here and there about how the Admiral of the Ocean Sea ran the Caribbean, appointing friends and family to govern various islands and such. Apparently lots of corruption and nepotism.
Apparently lots of corruption and nepotism.
Discovering America was all a big conspiracy towards one world government.
Editorial
Housing finance, beyond Fannie and Freddie
As Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are phased out, the focus shifts to what the government’s role should be in housing finance. Foremost, any support should target those who need it.
President Obama speaks about housing in Phoenix. Homebuyers could feel the pinch if Congress follows through on proposals to shut down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-run mortgage guarantee giants that were rescued by a $187 billion taxpayer bailout during the financial crisis. (Matt York / Associated Press / August 6, 2013)
By The Times editorial board
August 8, 2013
President Obama this week joined lawmakers from both parties in calling for Congress to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the privately owned but government-backed companies that supply most of the funding for home mortgages in this country. There is now a clear consensus in Washington in favor of shrinking the government’s role in housing finance. The tough question that remains, though, is how far to go.
Fannie and Freddie have bought or guaranteed nearly half of the home loans outstanding in the United States. Those purchases and guarantees enable banks to sell the mortgages on their books to investors, freeing up the capital needed to make more loans. In ordinary times, their actions helped reduce the interest rate on home loans. And in downturns, their support helped keep mortgages available for new borrowers. A case in point: Since the financial market collapse in 2007, almost 90% of the country’s mortgages have been bought or guaranteed by the two companies.
Some critics blame Fannie and Freddie’s troubles on government mandates to finance more loans for lower-income Americans. But Wall Street firms started the rush into risky subprime and exotic loans; Fannie and Freddie just followed their competitors’ lead. The real problem with Fannie and Freddie was that the public assumed — correctly, as it turns out — that the government wouldn’t allow them to fail, making them more attractive to lenders and investors. They grew too big and took on far too much risk, precipitating a $187-billion bailout.
Fannie and Freddie demonstrate that Washington can’t use government-sponsored private companies to carry out its housing policies. The companies’ ability to privatize profits while sticking taxpayers with their losses poses an enormous and unacceptable moral hazard. And phasing them out won’t eliminate investors’ appetite for the mortgage-backed securities that supply capital for home loans.
…
keep rates artificially low is all you gotta do. could you imagine what home prices would do if rates went to zero?
The fed also wants to keep rates low so the value of their bond portfolio doesnt fall off a cliff. Up to about 3 trillion now right?
“Get what you can get for your rapidly depreciating house now because its going to be much less later for decades to come.
unfortunately if your crystal ball visions come true, we will all be in some hellacious soup lines like there has never been seen.
I think they have chosen the path of least resistance and there is no turning back.
You had two choices as a leader back in 2008:
1. Make people feel some pain for malinvestment.
2. Come to the rescue and print the problems away for awhile.
Since they choose option 2 people now feel they will always be there for them and so the malinvestment continues.
It will continue as long as people are picked up off the floor.
“awhile…”
Ok, it has been a while so we can see how this scheme works already. The soup lines by the way are here, just don’t look like the b&w pictures of the GD. Now you get a card to buy your soup in line with everyone else. Perhaps you haven’t noticed this going on while you were buying your booze. 40 million people are easy to overlook.
Interest rates have already been at zero for all practical purposes. The middlemen are picking up a few points between Fed rates and the end borrower. That won’t go away.
Got any other ideas?
interest rates for buying a home have been @ zero, really?
when the food stamps get cut off where will these people go?
“when the food stamps get cut off where will these people go?”
Why should food stamps (or SNAP or whatever) ever get cut off?
As long as we have these programs money gets distributed, and there are a lot of people who have a great interest in maintaining this distribution.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3899
SNAP Benefits Will Be Cut for All Participants in November 2013
The 2009 Recovery Act’s temporary boost to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits is scheduled to end on November 1, 2013, resulting in a benefit cut for every SNAP household. For families of three, the cut will be $29 a month — a total of $319 for November 2013 through September 2014, the remaining months of fiscal year 2014.[2] That’s a serious loss, especially in light of the very low amount of basic SNAP benefits. Without the Recovery Act’s boost, SNAP benefits will average less than $1.40 per person per meal in 2014.
How much steak can you get with a buck forty?
“interest rates for buying a home have been @ zero, really?…”
I’ll leave it to you to figure out why Debt Donkeys still pay a few percent even when the actual lender is charging zero percent interest.
“Cut” is not quite the same thing as “cut off”.
In a way (if it is done correctly) a cut can be deemed by the politicians as a “good thing” because a cut is something that can be restored.
Blame the cut on your political enemies and then restore the cut (and take credit for the restore) just before the next election.
Walmart will see a serious decline in revenue from SNAP cuts.
corporate welfare?
Falling housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels results in bread lines?
Hey Jonesy…… The $hitHouse Poet has quite the imagination.
How much steak can you get with a buck forty?
Why should anyone be eating steak on someone else’s dime?
I’m in favor of preventing malnutrition of the impoverished; however, doing so does not require steak.
Steak is a treat that I don’t allow myself all that often…
With 3oz. of meat protein as the RDA, one could buy 1/4 lb. of steak at $5.60 per pound.
Around here, chuck and top sirloin without doubt. New York on sale.
“The fed also wants to keep rates low so the value of their bond portfolio doesnt fall off a cliff. Up to about 3 trillion now right?”
Given that they are not a private corporation and that they own a digital fiat press, how does a change in the value of the assets on their balance sheet matter to anyone? Isn’t this akin to the question, ‘if a tree fell in the middle of the forest with nobody around, would there be a sound?’
they are a private bank. they are in the business of making money arent they? They loan money to the govt by buying treasuries. The money seems to be created out of nothing but hey someone has to do it right?
You wonder why the value of the dollar has been eroded by @ least 90% since 1913? why does everything keep going up in price?
a lot of the money created out of nothing since 2008 is being held as bank reserves at the FED. 50% foreign banks and about 50% domestic banks make up the reserves.
what if the govt could print money at will? Didnt zimbaubwee try that?
$hitHouse Poet,
Printing and storing money in warehouses doesn’t cause inflation.
You’ve got alot to learn kiddo.
your full of beans kiddo.
Alot to learn.
they are in the business of making money arent they?
Actually, no.
Any profits that the Fed generates are turned to the Treasury. Just like the fact that any losses they generate with their $3T in printing will also flow through to the Treasury, and be borne by the taxpayers.
how does a change in the value of the assets on their balance sheet matter to anyone?
+infinity. They can improve their balance sheet at will as well, merely by digital-printing up some dollars to buy real assets that generate a real return. Bingo, problem solved.
I’m anchored behind some barrier dunes on Lake Ontario and took the dinghy ashore at the little village to get some supplies. A group of locals were gathered at water’s edge by the public launch. Lawn chairs, cooler full of beer and smoking cigarettes. They offered me a cold one and I joined their conversation for a while. One guy, about to turn 62, semiretired was talking about Obama’s health insurance scheme and how it carries a huge penalty ($5,000 ?) for smokers. Says he can’t pay that on what he makes working part time. Says he will not tell them he uses tobacco. It will be an interesting dilemma in my opinion, and one I identify with. I think that because the insurance racket will be policed by the IRS, that such an approach will essentially be Federal tax fraud, which is not a good place to find yourself. Couple that with Federal access to all your health records and mega other privacy intrusions by the FedGov. Like I said last week, I think soon I will have to give my SSN to buy tobacco. Not that I would mention tobacco on an internet blog under these circumstances…..
Thank God the do-gooders are not focused on the liberal application of scotch!
You should verify that and the context before jumping to conclusion.
I am only expressing a suspicion. If you care to dispel any wrong ideas about this please feel free.
I heard the same thing.
Obama is a smoker. Yes, I know they say he quit, but I’ve heard that’s a “smokescreen”. Like Jackie Kennedy, his smoking is apparently just hidden from sight. What I find interesting about this is that it looks like a drift toward reserving certain vices and luxuries only for the elites.
For example, in Florida there is or was some law on the books that if a resident of public housing was found to be using street drugs, that person, including their family, would be evicted from public housing. During the reign of Prince Jeb in Florida, his daughter was found to be using illegal drugs and in and out of rehab, etc. Many pointed out that by law, Jeb and his family should be evicted from the governor’s mansion, but that of course never occurred and I understand the princeling got quite huffy when a reporter brought it up to him.
In the Maya civilizations of old, only royalty was allowed to indulge in chocolate, or cacao.
Dang, it’s almost like smoking isn’t cool any more.
I think it’s a form of abuse to take a smoker, make him President and then, with the extreme pressures of the job, insist with great smarm and finger-wagging self-righteousness that he quit.
If I’m Obama, I’m saying to myself “Eff this, I’m gonna shag ‘em up all I want”.
Then again, maybe he did quit and that’s what makes him so mean about suveillance, Snowden and droning the daylights out of places in the Middle East, Pockeestahn and North Africa.
I had a buddy whose mother was a major smoker and the family was constantly all over her butt to quit. She finally did. Within six weeks they were begging her to start again.
“Dang, it’s almost like smoking isn’t cool any more.”
No, what’s cool now is veganism and raw foods. You know, like Steve Jobs exuding BO and lecturing his associates on the joys of “eating right” and alternative treatments and then expiring from cancer.
joys of “eating right” and alternative treatments and then expiring from cancer.
I think it was after he got cancer.
I am not so concerned with what is cool or in or not. My point isn’t whether it is good for me to smoke some tobacco now and then or not. It is that micro managing others can be extended inch by inch.
I heard the same thing.
I’m sure you both heard the same “anecdote” on some right wing web site.
Unless he is cruising Lake Ontario, you’d be wrong as usual.
“I think because the insurance racket will be policed by the IRS …”
If I were an insurance guy I would love this. Why should I pay for enforcement of my rules when the IRS will do it for me?
Same with being a credit card lender: Somehow I would try to rig it so as the Secret Service would spend their money to investigate credit card fraud so I wouldn’t have to foot the bill.
(Hmmmm, if only this could somehow be arranged … Oh wait!. It already has been!)
Nevada has a task force to go after people that welch on agreements with casinos.
Couple that with Federal access to all your health records and mega other privacy intrusions by the FedGov.
Stop blaming Obama. All those insurance options on the exchanges are from PRIVATE insurance companies, not government run. We don’t HAVE a “public option,” remember?
And why is this tax fraud? Since the guy is still going to buy insurance, just at the non-smoker premium, the IRS is satisfied, and is out of the picture. Besides, doesn’t your buddy know that any private health insurance company has access to your records too? If he lies on the application that he doesn’t smoke, and then he contracts a smoker-related disease like lung disease, they can check his hair for nicotine. Then the PRIVATE INSURANCE DEATH PANEL can declare insurance fraud and either pay out less of a claim, or deny the claim entirely.
Did I mention that there is NO PUBLIC OPTION on these exchanges?
Says he can’t pay that on what he makes working part time.
Hmm, maybe I should ask a different question. Your buddy is 62 and he works part time. How many private employers are going to give a 62-year-old part-timer any health insurance benefits at all? Oh, right, ZERO.
He should be thanking his lucky stars for Obama who fought for the option to buy insurance of any stripe. There’s a lot that can go wrong than just lung disease.
Your buddy is 62 and he works part time. How many private employers are going to give a 62-year-old part-timer any health insurance benefits at all? Oh, right, ZERO.
Hmm, they didn’t cover that on the dittohead website.
“thanking his lucky stars for Obama…”
So, we are not supposed to blame Obama, we are to thank the skies for him?
Not sure about that buying insurance being an option. I suppose it is an option if you opt to pay the IRS penalty if you do not participate. Regarding how a part timer gets insurance, in NY there is already a state run program for low earners. I would guess that goes away now but I don’t know the details.
Just completed my move to Orange County finally. So much better in a one bedroom apartment. Feels very spacious. Traffic along the parkway is 24/7 but I will get used to it.
Working on retooling my skill set to where I would be able to contract only in California as an Az resident in a few years. Depends on how I advance salary wise at my friend’s company here. I needed to downsize my income as a short term sacrifice in exchange for learning the valuable skills in commercial (non-defense) work. Other consultant friends don’t understand my motive. But yeah I wanted to 1) get out of defense software and 2) get into something where I could work only on the west coast. It is still a gamble but I made my first big breakthrough on a tough Linux problem on Friday. Much of my information to assist me comes through google. I google most of the day at the office. Very valuable to have all that info for your job at low cost.
“Much of my information that assists me comes through google. I google most of the day at the office. Very valuable to have all that info for your job at low cost.”
Not trying to be insulting, but it sounds as if your job is something that is easy to do, and is something than can be done from anywhere (from such places as India, where the cost is low).
The problem with the 3rd world tech-serfs is:
1) They aren’t very productive (the good ones get H1-B visas and come here)
2) They require a lot of hand holding. If they get stuck they have a hard time finding a solution using google. They simply wait until the next weekly staff meeting to announce they’re stuck, so that someone more senior can tell what to do.
Two words: Windows Vista. lol.
Yeah, but they bill out so much cheaper than costly Americanworkers.
There is also the language barrier. Maybe not in India, but all other third world nations that could compete in software. There are fringe Linux development tools that may have users groups. The language is n English. Occasionally you do see a google hit where the language is not English. But they are floundering, even if another person sees the post and understands it, that person needs to know the answer.
My work is NOT easy, even for a newbie. I had to do research to find my solution, the users grip people who I communicated with, even package developer did not answer my question, which was articulated well.
My work is easy and can be done by most anybody BUT it cannot be done remotely, which makes my job secure.
And, because it is easy, this means I can do the work when I am old. I mentioned this once before: A guy that works for the same company I work for does the same job that I do (but does it at different location) and he is eighty-eight year old.
Not saying I want to be working at age eighty-eight but it is nice to have that option.
Dice.com. Key word “linux”. Search criteria: Within 40 miles of Irvine, California.
376 hits. Within 40 miles is not China, not India, not South Korea.
So, Bill, is STEM still worth it for students and latter day career changers to go into?
STEM has always been the best fields to be into. I recommend a vigorous background in mathematics, maybe some lower division engineering, then some software engineering courses such as data structures, operating systems, compiler theory, file structures, and seriously non technical courses to develop critical thinking in history and literature with composition.
I don’t take it that way as insulting. True, this type of work could be done in the middle of Borneo. That is how commercial software is. So why isn’t it done in Borneo?
We collaborate with other companies in the U.S. So why are they not outsourcing their work for ten cents on the dollar?
Well they are not. So there must be some fundamental reason that we are all missing. I did read that there is insourcing going on in some areas.
The work I am doing is cutting edge technology. The Linux packages I download have counters of the number of downloads. They are not in the tens of thousands but number under 200. There is a lot of room for software developers in the commercial world.
I heard of these worries twenty years ago. Whatever happened to the CMM level 5 organizations in India I read about twenty years ago? And visual programming was regarded as a big threat to software developers. Instead it created a whole new sub industry for GUIs.
Cutting edge software is done where cutting edge software technology is developed. So far that is here in the states.
Cutting edge software is done where cutting edge software technology is developed.
Location, location, location!
Actually, yes.
While moving out of L.A. I met a young recruiter for engineering who lived across the hall. He told me the software jobs are booming here in the U.S.
A moment of silence please,
Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill! Star Haji Dies at 67
The HBB poster handle is “Faster, Pussycat, Sell Sell” and I believe he has recently posted from the South China Sea under the handle Bludgeon Dudgeon.
I believe he has recently posted from the South China Sea under the handle Bludgeon Dudgeon.
Hmmm… Must have missed that!
The news of seafood lunch and evening sail on the South China Sea was a bit of a tip off to the identity of the poster.
I know FPSS’s moniker, I figured, perhaps incorrectly, he picked it from this movie. Just a bit for the bucket.
Not sure about what the rest of you are seeing, but with few exceptions, the under-30 folks in my circle are focused on their personal survival, and too poor and marginally employed to form households and have kids. I’m talking about bright, readily employable kids from good families with degrees and decent grades from reputable universities; not sure about how those of lesser means are making it.
It’s a bit odd to discuss birth rates when so many young people are nowhere near the point of even forming households.
For Stronger Families, Focus on Childcare, Not Birthrates
Some people are worried about the fact that the lifetime fertility rate for American women is at an all-time low. But it’s wiser to be concerned with policies that support families that already exist.
Elizabeth Gregory Aug 1 2013, 3:21 PM ET
With the United States birthrate at an all-time low and the lifetime fertility rate per woman at 1.89 kids each, some are looking for ways to return the birthrate to replacement level (2.1), where it stood before the current decline began in 2008. Some countries facing low birthrates offer payments for kids, while others hope that an improved job market will bring an upswing.
…
Amnesty to manual laborers from the third world.
Mortgage rate spike finally hits housing
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100952350
Don’t be shy, click the link below and see an actual “jaded borrower”.
Streamlined loan mods available, jaded borrowers doubt success
Deborah Stockhammer speaks with a customer service representative regarding a facsimile confirmation as she continues to wade through paperwork in the fight to save her Jupiter home on Thursday, May 16, 2013.
By Kimberly Miller -
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:50 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9, 2013
A new federal program offering automatic lower monthly mortgage payments with no application or financial paperwork required was rolled out last month, but some Florida homeowners are skeptical it will be a success.
The Streamlined Modification Initiative announced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in March requires lenders beginning July 1 to offer loan modifications to homeowners who miss 90 days of payments and have loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/business/streamlined-loan-mods-available-jaded-borrowers-do/nZKZP/ - 69k -
The Tubes - She’s A Beauty (With Lyrics)….. - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTNsdKNB08 - 145k -
Step right up and don’t be shy
Because you will not believe your eyes
She’s right here, behind the glass
You’re gonna like her
‘Cause she’s got class
You can look inside another world
You get to talk to a jaded borrower
She’s everything you dream about
(But don’t fall in love)
She’s a jaded borrower
(She’s one in a million jaded borrower)
She’s six years behind on her mortgage payments
(Why would I lie)
Why would I lie
You can say anything you like
But you can’t touch the paperwork in the fight to save her home
She’ll give you ev’ry penny’s worth
But it will cost you a dollar first
You can step outside your little world
(Step outside)
You can talk to a jaded borrowers
She’s everything you dream about
(But don’t fall in love)
She’s a jaded borrower
(She’s one in a million jaded borrower)
One in a million jaded borrower
(Why would I lie)
Why would I lie