Bits Bucket for October 29, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Re-posted for the morning crew. It has been 4 years since Olygal’s passing.
“the project was originally championed by local resident and south Sound conservationist Gayle Broadbent-Ferris who died in an accident in 2009. She introduced the property to the Trust and helped keep interest in its preservation alive during a period when development was contemplated. “Gayle, more than anyone, would have been thrilled to know the property is now under conservancy,” Laurence said.”
http://griffinneighbors.blogspot.com/2011/07/conservation-of-pocket-estuary.html
Thanks, Resistor.
Olygal left her legacy beyond HBB,
in her children and the good she did
in her short time on this planet.
I miss her wit and fantasy.
She was truly a great lady.
Me too. It helps to know that her efforts paid off in such a way. I hope someone puts up a memorial to her in Adams Cove.
She’s kayaking through the afterlife! While wearing a sparkly tiara, of course.
I truly enjoyed Olygal’s posts as well. That said, I do find it ironic that she lived on high bank waterfront property, yet she fought against the development of waterfront property. I see this sort of thing all the time in this area, and I don’t understand the logic. The same people who are fighting something are engaging in the very behavior they supposedly abhor. Are they willing to tear down their house and give it back to nature, to live what they preach? I sure wish they would.
This is not meant to disrespect Oly, but just to point out that I have a hard time with the hypocrisy of many people around here. It’s ok for them to destroy a patch of land for their own little slice of heaven, but heaven forbid anyone else do the same. A lot of these folks are simply interested in keeping development away for their own personal interests, not for the environment. They want to continue to enjoy nature outside their back door, not new houses and businesses.
eh heh.
Shiller: “Home Equity Isn’t A Place To Put Your Money”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/shiller-s-lesson-housing-was-never-a-great-investment.html
Why?
Because houses are depreciating assets that result in loss every.single.time.
Remember…. “equity” is a fallacy. It doesn’t exist.
Shiller Update this morning:
So how is the co-founder of the S&P Case/Shiller Home Price Index (also a 2013 Nobel Prize-Winner in economic sciences) thinking about home prices, and is he worried about another housing bubble?
In an interview with The Daily Ticker, Shiller says home prices on a national basis are reasonable and he is not too worried about bubbles right now.
“We just went through the biggest bubble in U.S. history, so I wouldn’t expect that to repeat…maybe not in our lifetimes,” he tells us in the video above.
One reason he cites is homeowner expectations. According to Shiller, in the short-term, homeowners expect price gains of 8%, but over the long-term, homeowners are only expecting 4%, “which is reasonable,” he says.
Reasonable expectations…..Hmmmm. Sounds ….. reasonable!
What’s the price per square foot nationally for a resale house?
So Ca
east Ventura County’s one story 1960-1980’s ranchers $253 sq ft. (closed deals) That’s insane. We paid $63 less per sq ft, which is still absurd. I see another 5 years of overpriced basic homes around here. Then hopefully, the froth will be down (or gone).
… which is 600% overpriced.
What liar was saying “reasonable”?
Housing Analyst asked:
What liar was saying “reasonable”?
Answer:
That would be Shiller, the same guy you quoted in the opening post.
Conclusion:
HA, what a joke! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,……!!!
600% overpriced is reasonable?
Conclusion: You’re a fraud.
I’m reasonable. You are ridiculous.
I build America. You float lies.
I build America
You “build” America??
So you “build” the decaying structures that you despise. How can “building America” be being building the very things that you disparage? How?
So you “build America” but the things you build are always a “loss”? So you contribute to America’s losses. WTF are you injecting?
And I expose liars like you.
Post a picture RioTard. Cmon boy.
Post a picture RioTard. Cmon boy.
Are you delusional? Are you coherent? I posted a live webcam sequence of me in Rio that Ben confirmed yesterday. And you won’t forget it.
Post a picture like we told you ReoTard. What are you so afraid of?
Post a picture like we told you ReoTard. What are you so afraid of?
I did. Yesterday in front of a live cam. Ben confirmed it. Is he a liar?
Put up some dough and I’ll do it again. You need help. Maybe Obamacare can help you.
Ben didn’t confirm anything more than some bum passing by a street cam. And guess what? The same guy walked by the camera today.
POST a pic RioTard.
Ducking and weaving… Draggin Ben into it. Begging for cash.
Just post a photo RioTard.
Ben didn’t confirm anything more than some bum passing by a street cam. And guess what? The same guy walked by the camera today.
Liar. 11 hours later you make such a lie.
11 hours? Clown. You are a sociopath. And maybe Psychopath.
Keep beggin’ RioTard.
Post the pic. What are you so afraid of?
Save yourself RioTard.
Post the pic.
Save yourself RioTard.
You post that 5 min later than you last post?
Nervous and mentally ill. So you claim “the same guy walked by the cam”?
But only after 12 hours after you “saw it”? And after you’ve posted all day?
Weirdo.
It’s all about you RioTard.
Stop deflecting a post a pic.
Stop deflecting a post a pic.
I posted a live pic of me in Rio yesterday HA. People saw it. You can’t beat me. Because I’m not a liar and you are not as smart as me. I cleaned your clock yesterday. You’re too dumb to stop.
You posted a link Riotard.
Man up and post a photo.
You’re backpedalling RioTard.
What are you so afraid of?
HA, you become so tedious with your constant repetitive posts…..
And the known fraudster interjects once again.
“We just went through the biggest bubble in U.S. history, so I wouldn’t expect that to repeat…maybe not in our lifetimes,”
Does Shiller realize the Fed is deliberately trying to reflate the housing bubble, or do academic economists tend to be oblivious to the obvious?
Irving Fisher: “Stocks have reached a permanent high plateau.”
House prices were driven upward by debauched lending, because loan originators could shed repayment risk.
The Fed and government are aggressively buoying house prices, via the MBS purchase plan and GSE’s buying just about 100% of MBS - for the past five years. Also, with the myriad other government lenders ramping up their price supports, like FHA (which just broke), USDA and VA.
Add to that the Chinese RE bubble sloshing here, and hedge funds involvement in the RE market, with about half of house sales being all cash.
Incomes never kept up with the first bubble, much less the second.
As a result of these factors, I don’t see a big upside for those looking to flip houses in anything but the shortest term. One can gamble on that, certainly, but the only consistent winner in that game is Wall Street - the “House”. Just like with a casino. And the average person is not allowed in the House. His job is merely to maintain the physical asset and promise a portion of his income to Wall Street for the next several decades.
Politicians and Wall Street don’t leave money on the table.
It’s crazy, and the eventual crash will be epic. It’s in the cards and a repeat of history, as every previous Ponzi scheme has eventually met a similar fate.
When they start believing their models are accurate models of the world, they start making nonsense statements.
All models are simplifications. They can provide insights but it takes wisdom to know when they stop making sense.
When they start believing their models are accurate models of the world, they start making nonsense statements.
Hence the reason RenTroll Watch’s blather sounds so outlandish.
I don’t use the ignore feature that many do on this blog because I actually like the option of reading the posts of people whose views I completely disagree with. However, I just gloss over RenTroll Watch’s posts now. The shilling is just nauseating.
“the biggest bubble in U.S. history…”
The question shouldn’t be if such a bubble happens again in our lifetimes, rather if this one corrects in our lifetimes. A period of correction brought national prices down to 2004 level from the 2006 peak, and then was arrested by extraordinary Fed measures. Yet the fundamentals do not support 2004 prices, or even 1990 prices. “Biggest Bubble in US History”. The Happy Housing Hookers on the HB Blog keep telling us we are going up, up, up from here, cause it’s reasonable.
Watch your step Hookers, the next leg down is ahead.
The question shouldn’t be if such a bubble happens again in our lifetimes, rather if this one corrects in our lifetimes.
Word.
The Fed is all in on this bubble, and will destroy the country before they let off the pedal. The engine has sprung a leak and is running out of oil, and the Fed’s answer is to ignore the knocking and give it full throttle. This is a recipe for disaster.
It’s a recipe for throwing a rod then slamming into a brick wall. Be ready for panic to strike when the end suddenly arrives (historical reference: August 2007, when subprime was gonna be contained to $200 bn).
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®
Take the political quiz and see which political party you side with.
http://www.isidewith.com/
I have been scoring libertarian on the “shortest political quiz” since the early 80s when that quiz came out. I might be mistaken, but I think the late Marshall Fritz, a friend of mine, came up with the quiz. Marshall was a Fresno/Clovis libertarian who became nationally famous among libertarians for his outreach.
I’m 64% Republican, as I have long feared.
First: Libertarian, 73%
Last: Socialist, 27%
I’m 64% Republican, as I have long feared.
Me too :-). Why oh why must they suck so bad? Maybe this means I should try to influence them rather than just complaining about them. But I gave up hope on that quite a while ago…just too corrupt and I don’t have that kind of money.
Good morning Mike.
You talking to me Jeff?
Actually if you’re chasing down posts under a different name, they really aren’t me. I’m easy to find and I only post under my own name, at least so far. But if “Mike” is messing with you that’s interesting to know…
k Mike.
Suit yourself. You know as well as anybody, nothing is anonymous.
Suit yourself. You know as well as anybody, nothing is anonymous.
I’m not sure what’s going on but is HA “stalking” you or coming after you too?
That makes no sense as imo you are one of the most reasonable posters here.
If he’s doing something like that, it shows how far HA has gone off the deep end.
The dude has serious issues.
Don’t know if anything is going on off the blog. On the blog, I think a couple of things got posted by someone and and assumptions are being made. No stress here. What do you mean by “too”?
What do you mean by “too”?
I mean every week it seems that “Housing Analyst” becomes more rude and vitriolic with more people - all attack and dumb name-calling all the time.
Malice in Wonderland. No class.
Oh, OK, I didn’t know if you meant there other things going on that the rest of us couldn’t see. I try to stay out of it…but occasionally I hear things :-).
Catch up RioTard.
“Why oh why must they suck so bad?”
I’m sure one of the many versions of Murphy’s Law covers it.
About what I thought…
80% Dem - economic, domestic policy, social, and healthcare
71% Green- social, healthcare, and science issue
53% Libertarian - domestic policy issues
43% Repub - immigration issues
33% Socialist -healthcare issues
RioTard’s “2 day business trip’ was as truthful as a bum passing a streetcam.
RioTard’s “2 day business trip’ was as truthful as a bum passing a streetcam.
I proved you wrong yesterday. I said I’d stand in front of a Rio de Janeiro street live webcam at 2:30 pm. I said I’d be wearing a green Rolling Stones shirt with a the big red lip logo and a white panama hat, and I’d be be pulling a black carry-on for a “few day” trip to take care of some business. (not 2 day)
One half hour later at 2:30 pm, I did it and I waved at the live webcam. Ben Jones confirmed he saw me and took a screen shot. Are you calling Ben a liar too?
You owe me a public apology but I don’t expect one from you because you have no shame, pride or class. You have actual mental issues imo.
For 5 days I read you calling me a liar and to prove I lived in Rio but I didn’t do it for 5 days. Why? Because I don’t respect you or care what you think. It could have gone on for years and I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to prove to you where I live. I did it only because someone said they’d donate to Ben’s blog if I did. It was not about you.
But it was you who got punked.
You proved nothing.
You proved nothing.
Nothing. Except that I live in Rio, that I don’t care what you or my detractors think about me, and (because of your lack of an apology) that you might be a sociopath.
Sociopaths (psychopaths) are glib, superficial, egocentric and impulsive. They have no guilt, remorse or empathy.
NOTHING
43% Repub - immigration issues?
Please explain. Isn’t that racis?
43% Repub - immigration issues?…..Please explain. Isn’t that racis?
No. It is nationalistic. Sovereignty. Color is not the issue in my point of view. Example:
I’m in Brazil legally and I’m whiter than their average. But I went through big hoops to be here. (FBI report for one) Brazil does not care what color I am for immigration purposes and neither should or does The USA.
You want to keep the poor brown folks out of America. I’m pretty sure that’s racis. Ask your lib friends, they’ll confirm it for you.
I’m pretty sure that’s racis. Ask your lib friends, they’ll confirm it for you.
Grow up clown and try to figure out wtf you are actually trying to say and to whom.
I punked you clowns. Deal with it.
I’m trying to say that according to those who seem to share your sympathies for the Messiah, your views on immigration are considered racis because they would keep poor brown folks south of the border.
My apologies for implying that you had friends. My mistake.
What time is it in Brazil?
your sympathies for the Messiah,
Don’t mess with words like Messiah.
For any Christian, that label for anyone besides Jesus is a sacrileges. I take it you are not Christian.
sac·ri·lege
noun \ˈsa-krə-lij\
: an act of treating a holy place or object in a way that does not show proper respect
: a technical and not necessarily intrinsically outrageous violation (as improper reception of a sacrament) of what is sacred because consecrated to God
You can’t influence them unless you happen to be Supply Side Jesus.
97% Green and 93% Democrat here!
Penn State: 26 people get $59.7 mn over Sandusky
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/penn-state-26-people-get-59-7-mn-over-sandusky/article1-1144713.aspx
World’s tallest man gets married to woman who is 2 feet, 7 inches shorter
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/world-tallest-man-marries-shorter-woman-article-1.1498717
promethazine + arizona iced tea brand watermelon fruit punch + skittles = purple drank
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/10/25/senate-to-hold-stand-your-ground-hearing-tuesday/
I gotta take that purple dank on a hike. Put it in my Camelbak.
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” - President Barack Obama
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398486/Rapper-The-Game-unveils-new-tattoo-Trayvon-Martin-wearing-hoodie-tribute-slain-teenager.html
http://www.examiner.com/article/trayvon-s-skittles-arizona-tea-and-something-called-purple-drank
Is it safe to say the Housing Bubble is history?
Housing
Little Sign of Housing Bubble in Land Prices
By Peter Coy October 28, 2013
(5:15 p.m., Oct. 28: Adds data on rising lot prices from John Burns Real Estate Consulting.)
Empty parcels of land and unfinished roads are seen at a new housing development on March 6, in Mesa, Arizona
Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
For anyone wanting to know if the U.S. housing market is turning into a new, speculative bubble, a good and overlooked way to tell is the price of land. A real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin has done just that—and concluded that there is no evidence of a bubble on a national level. Not yet, anyway.
“Housing might be undervalued today,” says Morris Davis, a professor in the Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics at the Wisconsin School of Business in Madison.Wisc.
Twice a year, Davis looks at prices that houses are selling for and then strips out the cost of the structures, leaving the value of the land they are built on as “residual.” Land prices fluctuate much more than overall sales prices because the cost of structures doesn’t change much from year to year.
“Land is telling you what’s going on with demand,” Davis says.
Phoenix is one metro area whose prices have rebounded sharply, and bidding wars are back in the headlines.
Phoenix doesn’t look so scary by Davis’s metric. Land’s share of house value was 65 percent in 2006 and then plummeted to 5 percent in 2011. It has climbed steeply since, but it was still just 26 percent in the first quarter of 2013, according to Davis’s calculations. He won’t have his figures for the third quarter of 2013 until next February or so.
…
Land’s share of house value was 65 percent in 2006 and then plummeted to 5 percent in 2011.
Given the fact that there is so much empty land, the cost of a lot is typically less than 15% of the total cost of new housing.
Yeah don’t look at house prices, look at land prices. And ignore all that land that was bought up or being held as part of the last bubble.
Just be thankful you don’t have $$ tied up in worthless dirt. Every day you hold onto it, it costs you money. ALOT of money.
Whac’s article contains a link which leads to a wealth of data from 1984. But I’m not sure if the data is any good. The strucuture price keeps increasing in adjusted dollars, even after deterioration, and the pricing doesn’t take interest rates into account.
But for what it’s worth, DC’s land share started at 52% in 1984, bubbled to 70% in 2006, and is now back at 49%. Compared to 1984, we’ve actually craaaatered a bit.
So the last shack we built in DC was 49% materials and labor and 51% site cost?
You truly don’t know what you’re talking about. Not even a small grain of understanding.
I’m not sure if the data is any good. The strucuture price keeps increasing in adjusted dollars, even after deterioration
Dude, I just AGREED with you that houses (the structures) depreciate in value as they deteriorate, and you say I don’t know what I’m taking about????
Here’s a hint Junkster….
It’s not the labor…
It’s not “the land”….
It’s not “the materials”…..
Here is the website:
http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/land-values/metro-area-land-prices.asp
I started looking for any kind of historical analysis for land values starting a couple of years ago…this has been the best that I’ve found.
If you want to see how low land prices went, look at land values in the inland CA markets (Sac and San Bernardino), and compare those values to what they were going back nearly 30 years.
I note that these are NOMINAL values.
“I’m not sure if the data is any good. The strucuture price keeps increasing in adjusted dollars, even after deterioration”
The spreadsheet they have on their website is in nominal dollars. While they adjust for deterioration, they do not adjust for inflation (which goes in the opposite direction).
Does deterioration of the structure occur at the same pace inflation is rising?
For that to be true, 2% inflation for 50 years would need to be countered by the structure that exists at that time to be able to be replaced for $0. And we know that isn’t true.
When you want to foist a fraud, start with fraudulent data.
You do it well RenTroll Watch.
There is no wage inflation nor has there been for 30 years.
Try again RenTroll Watch.
If only Olygal was still around to burst this buffoon’s vastly overblown notion of his own superiority!
Here is Davis’s money quote at the end of the article:
“Land is the right thing to pay attention to when sniffing for speculation. “There’s only one difference between a car and a house, and that’s the land,” says Wisconsin’s Davis. “We all know how cars work. Eventually they depreciate and they’re worthless. Housing is the same way. It depreciates, and eventually it’s worthless and it needs to be torn down. Only hope is that the land appreciates in value. It’s really the only piece of a house that can appreciates.””
And you don’t even agree with him?
The Knitting Club victims are flailing desperately.
In other news, there’s a globe full of land. And 95% of goes undeveloped.
“There is no wage inflation nor has there been for 30 years.”
Median Household Income 1980 (Nominal $): $16,542
Median Household Income 2010 (Nominal $): $48,415
Average Hourly Earnings 1980 (Nominal $): $6.86
Average Hourly Earnings 2010 (Nominal $): $19.08
Yup, no wage inflation at all.
Gross aggregate as been falling since the 60’s.
Try again.
Land prices are still outrageous around here. $500k per acre in some areas.
So when they say “current” dollars, they mean dollars in that particular year, not the current year of 2013. i.e. not adjusted for inflation. A ha. That would explain the rise in structure prices. But the trends are pretty clear.
The fraud is clear.
Where’s the money? Where did it go?(a question you can’t seem to wrap your mind around)
Yes, Oxide, they also throw out the word “nominal” in their spreadsheet, which is the dead giveaway for not being adjusted for inflation.
“Gross aggregate as been falling since the 60’s.”
What are you talking about? Gross aggregate income in the US per household? The only possible way it could be falling since the 60’s is if you are adjusting for inflation. The ONLY way.
Where is the link to your source data?
FALLING.
Where in the world is the next housing bubble?
By Catherine Boyle, CNBC / October 28, 2013
Property prices in most developed countries have rebounded since 2008, but there are fears of a new bubble in locations including Israel, Canada, Norway, and Belgium.
Property prices in developed markets have rebounded from the crash which followed the credit crisis of 2008 – but there are now increasing fears of a new bubble inflating in several locations.
Israel, Canada, Norway, Belgium, Australia, Dubai, Hong Kong, London and Singapore are all causing concern among economists and property market analysts. House prices have risen by close to 40 percent in Israel since 2009, with Norway up by nearly 30 percent and Switzerland by over 20 percent over the same period.
…
swz and norw are places people want to live
A better question might where in the world is real estate not overvalued and headed for a fall in price.
“A better question might where in the world is real estate not overvalued and headed for a fall in price.”
I can’t answer that question. But what I can say is that Canada must be one of the most insane housing markets in the world. Isn’t Canada something like 2X the size of the US with 1/10th the people? And yet, every time I watch house hunters, I see people looking at places that I wouldn’t use as a garage that are 500K+. The Canadians are heading for a massive fall; I just don’t see any way around it. Makes bubble era Florida prices look down right reasonable!
Markets More: London Housing Bubbles
How London Is Totally Separate From The Rest Of The UK In One Incredible Chart
Steven Perlberg Oct. 28, 2013, 5:36 PM 3,014 1
The red-hot London housing market has been of particular interest as of late, with ultra-rich foreign buyers grabbing up high-end real estate like crazy.
This chart via Savills’ Neal Hudson shows just how unique the London market is as compared to the rest of the country.
Here you can see regional housing prices versus the 2007 housing peak. London is in a league of its own.
pip pip
Yep, it’s another housing bubble
Tuesday, 10 Sep 2013 | 6:00 AM ET
By: John Carney | Senior Editor, CNBC.com
Four months ago something troubling happened in the housing market. The home price affordability index tracked by the National Association of Realtors slipped below it’s long-term trend line, marking a possible beginning of a housing bubble.
On Monday, we got the fourth month of home affordability data coming in below trend, which is a strong confirmation that the housing market is once again in a bubble. (The NAR index is published with a two-month delay, so the latest numbers are for July).
The affordability index measures the household income needed to qualify for a traditional mortgage on a median-priced single family home. So it’s looking at a mortgage with a 20 percent down payment and a monthly payment below 25 percent of income at the currently effective rate on conventional mortgages.
When the index is at 100, that means that a household earning the median income has exactly the amount it needs to qualify for a conventional mortgage on a median-priced home. When it is above 100, it signals that the median income is higher than needed to qualify for a mortgage. An AI score of 130, for example, would indicate that households earning the median income would have 30 percent more income than needed to qualify.
Rising interest rates and rising home prices put downward pressure on the affordability index, meaning homes are becoming less affordable. Rising incomes put upward pressure on the index, meaning homes are more affordable.
The index has been dropping rapidly since peaking in January at 210.7. We’re now down to 157.8, according to the preliminary numbers released for July on Monday. Home prices have been rising and interest rates climbing, while wages haven’t kept up. That’s how we got to the lowest level of affordability seen since July of 2009.
…
The U.S. and China share one thing in common: Millions of vacant housing units in stark contradiction to a perceived shortage.
Capital Flows, Contributor
Op/Ed
10/28/2013 @ 8:00AM
In China There’s Not One City Without Terrifying Stretches Of Empty Houses
By Anne Stevenson-Yang
A housing development in China.
Reality and economic analysis in China seem to have grown far apart. But, given confusion even within the Chinese government between economic data and investment promotion, ideological polarization over simple questions like “Is the economy growing?” may be inevitable.
To some of us, it is almost unfathomable that the Wall Street Journal, in a recent report, could write: “There is currently a supply crunch of homes in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which is in turn leading to fast-rising property prices” or that Thomson Reuters could ink the sentence: “China needs more housing.” The reality of eyes and ears and common sense is quite different.
Over the last two years of traveling constantly in China, I can say that I have not seen a single city, town, or hamlet without massive empty housing stock. A colleague, on two trips crossing about 1,500 kilometers overland, said that he was not out of sight of empty buildings even once. Up by the Siberian border, the town of Manzhouli has decided to become a tourist resort and built thousands of empty “villa” developments. In the southern mountains of Yunnan, a colleague took video footage of 15 kilometers unbroken of empty highrises. The ghost developments stretch along Beijing’s southern Fourth Ring and through Shanghai’s Pudong and Xuhui. The East District Zhengzhou looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape. The new districts of Harbin could earn some revenue as sets for a remake of I Am Legend.
When I have been able to collect a count of all housing now available for sale, not counting projects already sold but not occupied, cities seem to average out at about 25 square meters of new housing per individual in the city, or one new dwelling for each four people. Yinchuan in Ningxia has around 200,000 units on the market, with a population of 800,000 in the city proper and 1.2 mln in the extended city. As a comparison, the United States sells about 650,000 new homes per year. The small city of Tieling in Liaoning Province has a reported 10 mln square meters of available space for a population of 400,000. Kunming, Xian, Chongqing, Hefei, Hangzhou, Haikou, Urumqi, Changchun: there is no city in the country without stretches of terrifyingly empty towers.
For those who do not believe travelers’ tales, there is the Chinese government’s own report, from 2010, concluding that home ownership rates in China were then nearly 90%. This compares with a world average of 63% and a U.S. average of 65%. The report also concluded that 15% of Chinese people own more than one housing unit.
…
We saw how important housing has become for the economy and financial interests.
Basically they created a bubble via loose credit, bubble popped , and then they printed a bunch of money to save the system.
What do you think will happen the next time around?
Good Morning HBB’ers! I was hoping your collective wisdom could help me out:
How come my used car is not going up in price 20% YOY? I mean, they’re not making any more cars. I even bought a stinky tree that smells like fresh baked cookies.
Why can’t I get more for my used car today than I could have a year ago?
It just doesn’t make sense…
clunkers program and now you can refi yo used car,yo
60 months !
gov claimed clunkers was a great program- they priced to poor into the bus
Refi a used car for 60 months?
I like it.
http://www.titlebucks.com
glorified loan sharks?
Im seeing adds by some indian tribes for payday loans. You cant read the fine print at the bottom of tv of course.
We have an explosion of dollar stores around here:
Dollar tree
99 cents stores
family dollar
I have noticed walmart has dollar item bins up toward the registers now.
pawn shops, title loans, dollar stores, payday loans, food stamps , does it get any better for people?
“explosion of dollar stores”
That sector of retail is doing well
along with luxury stores, last time I read my periodicals.
The middle class isn’t middle anymore. We need those bargains. But watch your quality, item counts, and ozs.
No. YOU need them. You signed up for Dollar Store Donkeyism.
Wear it Donkey.
‘I have noticed walmart has dollar item bins up toward the registers now.
pawn shops, title loans, dollar stores, payday loans, food stamps , does it get any better for people?’
That reminds me, for some reason, how supposedly Manhattan island was bought for trinkets.
“Manhattan island was bought for trinkets”
I have thought about this. Those trinkets were things that were unique in the New World. And the concept of individual ownership of land was foreign to the natives. With the language barrier, they may not have understood the bargain. They may have thought they were trading hunting rights for those trinkets.
In the end it may not have mattered. Technology would have given the Europeans an overwhelming advantage within a couple of centuries even if they had been repulsed in their early ventures.
IF I had some equity in my used car, I would totally do a cash-out refi, Mr. Banker.
With credit all things are possible.
Do not allow the lack of car equity to keep you from your God-given right as an American to exercise your freedom of choice. Go to your nearest bank and apply for a credit card now, and then max it out, and then make the minimum payments. Do not pay any more than the minimum, in this way you will be using the bank’s money instead of your own.
Remember, people are smart. You owe it to yourself to become one of these people.
Mr. Banker….
What do you have to say to the millions of suckers groveling at your feet?
Mr. Banker
How about us transactors vs. the revolvers? Do you still love us?
After all, you make a fee off the transaction from the merchant.
(I think we use 1% of our available credit and pay it in full each month. Helps with bookkeeping chores.
Mr. Banker-
The only meal you are worthy of can be found in a dirty diaper. Eat it.
Regards,
USoCPaB
Didn’t we have a guy here that went by the name DirtyDiaper? Or was it DroopyDiaper?
And a used automobile is the precise analogy for a used house. Both depreciate rapidly however the losses to housing depreciation last a lifetime.
Moreover, the cost of one year’s depreciation on a used home would be enough money to buy a brand new automobile.
Maybe if you registered your car in a better school district its value would go up faster.
But the paint falls off the house much more rapidly.
“How come my used car is not going up in price 20% YOY?”
Obviously you bought the wrong kind of used car.
Maybe you bought it in the wrong location…
Does a used Honda Civic cost more in NY than it does in VA?
You can move a used civic from VA to NY fairly easily.
You can’t move a house located 20 miles from Albany to be a 5 minute walk from a DC area Metro Station in a nice neighborhood.
I don’t need to considering there are just as many sh*tty shacks in DC as there are anywhere else.
I don’t want a “sh*tty” shack. I want well built shack for $55 a square foot within a 5 minute walk of the Bethesda Metro Station, the Friendship Heights, American University Station or Cleveland Park. I suppose a few of the nicer VA stations would be OK too (King Street, especially). Dupont Circle if you insist. I’m not sure I’m as sold on U street and/or 14th street or H street. Restaurants are nice to have in a neighborhood, but I’d like some useful retail as well.
Or was that just you admitting that the stuff your employer builds is of very low quality? If that is what you were getting at, you should state it proudly. The rest of us have already figured it out, but admitting it would be good for you.
You don’t? You live in one just like everybody else.
If used car sales were growing by leaps and bounds the way used home sales are, then you could safely assume your 20% YOY gains were in the bag.
Oh wait!
P.S. “The Realtors group attributed the drop to … budget battles in Congress that hit consumers’ confidence”
Only in a Realtor®’s brain could an October government shutdown hammer September home sales results.
20 HRs ago
Pending Home Sales Show Sharp Drop
Buyers Retreat as Affordability Conditions Tighten
By Sarah Portlock
WASHINGTON—Higher mortgage rates and rising home prices scared off prospective home buyers in September, sparking the fourth straight monthly drop in a key measure of home sales.
The National Association of Realtors’ gauge of pending sales of existing homes fell 5.6% last month from August, the trade group said Monday. That pushed the measure down to its lowest level since December 2012. The 1.2% drop from a year ago marked the first time in more than two years that pending home sales were lower than they were a year earlier.
The Realtors group attributed the drop to rising costs of purchasing a home, as well as budget battles in Congress that hit consumers’ confidence.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected a 0.5% monthly rise. “This is worse than we expected and it surely lays to rest the notion that the housing market is strong enough to absorb the rise in mortgage rates with no ill-effects,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
…
Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!
WTF was that?!!
Well Donkey….. that was the sound of collapsing housing demand across the nation.
Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!
WTF was that?!
What was that sound?
That sound is what was left of your credibility after you meanly (and stupidly) attacked me for almost a week saying I did not live in Brazil, and then I proved that I did yesterday “Housing Analyst”.
You have no class or even and understanding whom you’re dealing with.
And the same street walked by the same camera at the same time today.
YOU are a fraud.
YOU are a fraud
LOL,
That you won’t give a dime to try to disprove. $500 and I’ll walk by another Rio live street cam again….
Do you know how weird you seem?
Do you know how cowardly you are?
Post a pic ReoTard.
Post a pic ReoTard.
I did yesterday. Checkmate. LOL
You are a fun clown.
Wrong again. You posted a link of a street cam.
You’re afraid. Why?
Wrong again. You posted a link of a street cam.
Live. Much more evidence than any pic of the ocean.
Put up some dough, and I’ll do it again. Weirdo.
You’re ducking and weaving again RioTard…. cash, ben jones, blah blah blah…..
But no photo from the Liar.
But no photo from the Liar.
Everyone saw the photo of me in Rio yesterday on a live webcam that Ben saw. U won’t forget it.
You posted a link of a street cam.
Man up RioTard.
Man up RioTard.
I posted a live pic of me in Rio yesterday HA. People saw it. You can’t beat me. Because I’m not a liar and you are not as smart as me. I cleaned your clock yesterday. You’re too dumb to stop.
It’s all about you now RioTard.
Man up.
ISTR the same thing happening, oh, in 2006. We all know what happened next.
Oh bugger…not only were used home sales down in September, but also auto sales. Go figure!
No worries, as the genius who penned this screed assures us that the dip is temporary. I’m sure the October auto sales numbers will show a marked improvement.
Bulletin U.S. retail sales dip in September »
Investor Alert
Oct. 29, 2013, 9:12 a.m. EDT
U.S. retail sales fall slightly in September
Auto purchases taper off, but most stores see boost in sales
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. retail sales fell in September for the first time in six months, but the decline mostly stemmed from a drop-off in auto purchases that could prove temporary.
…
How can a guy hope to get 20%+ on used car appreciation when consumer confidence is in the toilet?
Bulletin U.S. consumer confidence plunges »
Oct. 29, 2013, 10:07 a.m. EDT
Consumer confidence plunges in October
By Ruth Mantell
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Confidence among American consumers plunged in October to the lowest level in six months, as their expectations plummeted, the Conference Board reported Tuesday. The consumer-confidence index fell to 71.2 in October from a revised 80.2 in September. Economists polled by MarketWatch had projected the index to drop to 75 from a prior estimate of 79.7 in September. “Consumer confidence deteriorated considerably as the federal government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis took a particularly large toll on consumers’ expectations,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board.
Silver lining to plunge in consumer confidence: The Fed will have to pump in lots of liquidity to prevent the poor confidence from showing up in stock prices.
The way I see it, if the economy improves, stock prices will go up to reflect it. And if the economy deteriorates, the Fed will step up QE3 to increase stimulus. Either way, the stock market and housing market both will keep going up.
Buy stocks and houses now, or get priced out forever!
Oct. 28, 2013, 3:32 p.m. EDT
Why the Fed can’t taper
By Anthony Mirhaydari
On Wednesday, a handful of souls at the Federal Reserve will once more decide the path of interest rates in this country. After September’s surprise “no taper” decision — where Bernanke and company decided to keep the $85 billion-a-month QE3 money pump going out of fear of the fiscal fight in Washington — Wall Street doesn’t expect any major changes until January or March at the earliest.
And that’s good news not just for us, but for the global economy as well. Because despite the scary long-term risks of what the Fed is doing by printing so much cheap money — and by extension what the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan are doing too — the last few months have proved we just can’t handle an increase in borrowing costs.
The economy is too fragile after suffering a rise in 10-year Treasury yields from 1.7% in May to 3% in September.
That kicked 30-year mortgage rates from 3.4% to 4.6% in a hurry, and sucked the wind out of the housing market. Pending home sales dropped 6% in September over August, nearly 2% in August over July, and has fallen for four consecutive months. On a year-over-year basis, pending sales are down 1.2% for the first negative reading in nearly two-and-a-half years.
It’s not just housing. Core durable goods orders came in soft as inventories swell. That pushed the annualized three-month change down to -8.4% — the second-weakest result since the recession ended. Industrial production will likely be scaled back in the months to come in response.
And consumers are understandably nervous. The University of Michigan Consumer Confidence survey dropped to its lowest level since December 2012 as fears over the government shutdown, and its economic impact weighs on the minds of regular Americans heading into the holiday season.
…
The economy is too fragile
The economy must be a new born child that never grows. Always fragile….I have never heard anyone ever say Economy is strong and we can remove the stimulus.
the last few months have proved we just can’t handle an increase in borrowing costs.
Nope. And a drug addict just can’t handle their problems either. Usually ends badly.
I purchased a new Ford Shelby Mustang for $7000 in 1971.
It is worth $120,000 today.
Location, location, location…
“It is worth $120,000 today.”
In your wildest dreams.
Making $50,000 a year and bankrupt, Joe Harris sleeps in his Cadillac to make a statement
“You’re a man, you have no business standing here and begging. You’re a man. Get out of here and find some work.”
Exact same words my bosses tell me every day at work.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/watch-a-grown-man-defend-his-10-mil-grilled-cheese-sta-896779977
http://gawker.com/tea-party-republican-defends-being-on-medicaid-while-op-1446552792
This guy reminds me of someone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/anderson-soap-company_n_1429290.html
http://millionairemommynextdoor.com/about-me/
Creating the next generation of vegetables with ADD
Denver Post reprint of Washington Post piece - More children are using mobile devices earlier than before:
“The vast majority of young children in the United States are using mobile devices and for much longer periods of time, with an even greater number of babies being exposed to the smartphones and tablets that have become a bigger part of family life, according to a survey.
Seven out of 10 children younger than 8 have used a mobile device, a figure that has doubled in two years, according to a report to be released Monday by Common Sense Media.
Four out of 10 children younger than 2 are also using mobile devices, a jump from one in 10 two years ago.
The findings come amid increased concern over the time children spend online as families snap up gadgets, game consoles and computers. The American Academy of Pediatrics has advised parents to limit their children’s time in front of screens, which it says may lead to attention problems, exposure to inappropriate content and obesity.”
Police: Frying pan and hammer used to murder Mesa mother
MESA, Ariz. -
A Mesa woman was found dead inside her home and her 16-year-old son and his 17-year-old friend have been arrested in connection to her murder.
36-year-old Tina Helms Spencer was found murdered in the backyard shed, allegedly at the hands of her son Michael Helms.
Mesa Police say the 16-year-old’s stepfather returned home from work about 4 a.m. Saturday and was immediately attacked by the boy. After a short struggle, the stepfather was able to escape the home and call 911.
When police arrived at the scene near Baseline and Gilbert Roads, a vehicle was missing from the home and there were signs of a struggle.
Police say they found a hammer and a frying pan at the scene.
At some point, the 17-year-old boy’s parents called police and said their son was also at the home.
Helms was taken into custody after he pulled up to a friend’s house and was greeted by detectives.
After interviewing both suspects, police say they found out Helms was grounded and had his phone taken away.
As his mother was returning home from work, they allegedly had a heated argument over the phone and he allegedly decided to kill her.
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/23796349/2013/10/26/woman-killed-in-mesa/
My niece wanted an ipad for her upcoming 4th birthday. May be it’s my BIL who wants it….it’s hard to say….
Look for some vintage toys on ebay. You can over spend (if you want to), not turn her into a screen zombie (yet), and relive a little bit of your childhood. Also, you may be able to get something that was manufactured in the US.
My 4 year old niece was wielding one a few Christmas’ ago. It was actually comical how adept she was with it.
Is there any chance the Chicoms will be booted out of power as part of China’s wave of modernization?
China leaders were nearby during apparent Tiananmen Square attack
By Barbara Demick
October 29, 2013, 5:07 a.m.
A tourist holds up a Chinese flag as he poses for photos near a paramilitary policeman on duty in front of former Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung’s portrait in Tiananmen Square. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press / October 29, 2013)
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping and the six other top officials reportedly were at Tiananmen Square on Monday when a vehicle crashed and exploded nearby, leaving five dead.
Although there is no indication that the physical safety of the leaders, who were attending meetings inside the Great Hall of the People, was jeopardized, the apparent suicide attack so close to the epicenter of power rattled the Chinese government and has raised doubts about the effectiveness of its often-stifling security apparatus.
…
because teabaggers are batsh1t crazy?
reuters - ‘most american libertarians do not consider themselves part of the conservative tea party movement despite a public perception that the two political groups are linked, according to a national survey released on tuesday.
libertarians, who generally support maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of government, differ sharply with the tea party and religious conservatives on issues such as abortion and decriminalization of marijuana, according to the survey by the non-partisan public religion research institute.’
tp and lp are aligned on spending issues
No way. Libertarians would gut the military perhaps more than anyone else. They’d also tell private contractors to F off, especially for essentially functions such as “intelligence” gathering/spying.
Tea Party self-identifiers tend to be drool-y and old. Not so for libertarians.
When I think of libertarians I think of educated and affluent people.
When I think of Teabaggers, as represented by online blog and article comments and phone calls to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, they sound like modern-day versions of characters in a Faulkner novel.
‘despite a public perception that’
When I read stuff like this, I remember that the majority of the “public” couldn’t find DC on a map.
‘most american libertarians do not consider themselves…’
That was a difficult poll. How do you find enough libertarians to ask? Most libertarians don’t align with the republicans, but they would have voted for Ron Paul.
It’s pretty obvious what’s going on; there is a libertarian aspect to part of the TP. Just like there was an OWS contingent at the anti-NSA rally this weekend. Oh yeah, there were TP congressmen there too. Hmm, it’s almost like we’ve got some common ground here.
Quick, somebody on TV try and turn all these people against each other!
Hmm, it’s almost like we’ve got some common ground here.
Yes sir we do indeed.
When I read stuff like this, I remember that the majority of the “public” couldn’t find DC on a map.
Americans Who Don’t Know the Capital of the United States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNzN3q-VgwI
Just like how liberals now like to call themselves progressives. Rebranded with the same old tired ideas. When was the last time a politician stood up and claimed to be a liberal?
Self-proclaimed “progressive” = closeted Stalinist.
There was interesting sentence in there about people who identify as libertarian.
More than two-thirds are men and nearly all are non-Hispanic whites.
current links on drudge:
nbc news - obama administration knew millions could not keep their health insurance
breitbart - nearly 1.5 million lose health insurance due to obamacare
new york post - docs resisting obamacare
but we are more civilized at least.
but we are more civilized at least.
Exactly. ACE will make The USA a more more civilized nation, socially, morally and ethically.
How would it not?
Did you see what Mr Money Mustache said?
Yes I read his latest post, he is drinking too much koolaid.
The squad correctly predicts that as the Obamacare rollout progresses (as enacted), it will be much, much worse than anyone predicted.
I said months ago. The Big Dig.
Worse than Iraq war?
is that the measure now?
well hell…party on wayne!
is that the measure now?
If it’s not, it has to be.
GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF MY $50,000 DEDUCTIBLE THAT COVERS NO PRESCRIPTIONS
What’s the premium for that plan?
Why can’t someone buy a high deductible plan to lower their premium?
Because they can’t pay their medical bills. If the Republicans proposed adding an exception to the minimum standards of coverage that ACA sets up for people who are willing to put several years of their maximum deductible/copays into an escrow account so that the hospitals and docs wouldn’t have to whistle dixie to get paid, I bet they would have gotten it into the final bill. The darn thing wouldn’t have applied to more than a few thousand people in the entire country (most rich people have good health insurance already), but they could have gotten it.
Did they ask?
obama kool-aid drikner alert.
All the “bad” in obamacare is the fault of the republicans
I bet they would have gotten it into the final bill.
I guess you missed the part where your former democrat leader of the House said “we have to pass the bill to see what is in it…”
You do know that Nancy Pelosi was referring to the details of implementation that Congress never includes in bills when they draft them, right?
The alternative to the escrow account is having a tattoo put on several different places on your body instructing doctors/nurses/emts/etc. not to provide you with medical care unless you are conscious and able to pay in advance.
Heritage foundation found the idea that people with no money were free riding on the health care system and making the rest of us pay for it to be anathema. I tend to agree with them.
All the “bad” in obamacare is the fault of the republicans
A lot of it is. They did not even attempt to negotiate in good faith with the Dems.
And, it is the Repub governors who refuse to set up health exchanges in their states or expand Medicaid that hurt their own people just to spite the Dems.
“We have the votes, F’ em.” - Rahm Emanual, starting immediately after Obama entered office.
The Democrats were teeming with good faith, right?
Just like when the House Republicans offered a one-page summary of 5 suggestions for the stimulus package in early 2009 (including temporarily lowering the BOTTOM tax rates, NOT taxing unemployement benefits, etc.), and none of those suggestions got into the stimulus package?
Plenty of good faith there too, right?
Don’t rewrite history, this administration has been ultra-partisan and unwilling to listen to the other side from literally week 1.
Obama passed his stimulus without a single House R vote, and the ACA without a single R vote anywhere, and Dodd-Frank with very few supporters from the right (perhaps 5 or 6, if I remember correctly).
Despite the rhetoric, Obama’s record of working with the other side is p*ss poor. You can’t lay blame on the Republicans for not getting their ideas into the law, it lies entirely with the Democrats who for the first two years of the Obama administration clearly believed that they knew best and the Republicans could go to hell because (another choice quote from Obama) “Elections have consequences and Eric [Cantor], I won.”.
The Democrats were teeming with good faith, right?
Much more than the Republicans. That’s why the Repubs are so scoffed at by more than don’t respect the Dems. Do you think it’s because of their red ties?
Don’t re-write history.
“Don’t re-write history.”
Ah, the power of the MSM at work…
Have you read Woodward’s book? I suggest you do. It goes back to day 1 of this administration, and the words that come to mind with respect to how they acted toward Republican legislative ideas was “dismissive” and “arrogance”.
To say that they were teeming with good faith from early on is a laugh.
To say that (Dems) were teeming with good faith from early on is a laugh.
The truth can be funny.
Have you read Woodward’s book? Or are you going off of the opinion page of the NYT and the Daily Show to come to your conclusions?
Have you read Woodward’s book?
Do you mean “Maestro”? The one with the fawning and glowing and BS portrayal of Alan Greenspan?
Don’t re-write history like “Maestro”.
“Woodward presents the Greenspan years as a gripping narrative, a remarkable portrait of a man who has become the symbol of American economic preeminence” amazon dot com
No, the Price of Politics, the one that painstakingly outlines how Obama destroyed any hope of a workable relationship with Republicans starting from the moment he took office…that one:
“Based on 18 months of reporting, Woodward’s 17th book The Price of Politics is an intimate, documented examination of how President Obama and the highest profile Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States Congress attempted to restore the American economy and improve the federal government’s fiscal condition over three and one half years. … Providing verbatim, day-by-day, even hour-by-hour accounts, the book shows what really happened, what drove the debates, negotiations and struggles that define, and will continue to define, the American future.”
Show me some Democrats who have disputed what Woodward says. Then we can talk about the quality of the homework he did.
No, the Price of Politics, the one that painstakingly outlines how Obama….
Woodward’s books always “painstakingly outline” whatever his opinions are.
Show me some Democrats who have disputed what Woodward says.
Show you Dem’s who say Repubs did not negotiate in good faith, shut down the gov for extremism, want to make our president fail at every turn, poison the well, cause strife between Americans, and spread hate?
You think I can’t show you those? Your kidding me.
Why are you avoiding my question?
You claim that Republicans could have had some ownership in the ACA and gotten their ideas into the law making it less of a sh*t sandwich–had they only been engaged in good faith.
Woodward detailed an Obama administration that refused to include the simplest of Republican ideas from week 1 of his administration (poisoning the relationship between R’s and D’s more than 4 years ago), choosing instead to ignore those ideas.
You so far have tried to discredit the Woodward book by noting DIFFERENT books that he wrote. If his reporting was easy to discredit, there should be tons of Democrats saying his book is not a true representation of what happened.
So, we are left with two options, and two options only:
1. Woodward is accurate in his depiction of this administrations unwillingness to work with Republicans as long as they “had the votes”; or
2. Woodward is inaccurate in his depiction, in which case there should be lots of Democrats out there discrediting the events as he described them.
Where are the Dems discrediting Woodward? Can you find any?
^
LOLZ.
You’re not fooling anyone.
This stuff is comical. The Repubs are back on the “we have got to stop this Obamacare” train. Give it up, losers. What’s sad is that things had to come to this. Greed brought us to where we are, now we all have to eat a sh!t sandwich. I don’t recall any Repubs trotting out ideas when I personally was paying $100 per day for a “prescription delivery system” which amounted to a miniature Dixie cup you’d find at a water cooler, or $10k per day for the bed I was stuck in despite my wishes to leave the hospital due to my inability to afford such outrageous prices. When I told the doctor I would rather leave and die than go into such debt, he screamed at me and left. I ultimately left, too, and cared for my nasty surgery wound at home.
I saved myself $35k+ by leaving three days before the earliest juncture they were allowing for. My bills still totaled more than my annual salary for surgery and a few days at the hospital. I had to take out a HELOC to pay for everything, and I ended up paying that off. I don’t wish that amount of stress on anyone. This system is completely broken, and the prices reflect it. I would rather die than go through it again.
future history books mention of obama:
john doe jr….the first black american president…although some historians attribute it to being president barrack hussain obama in error, who was actually half white.
end of entry
and maybe….”who did when a nobel peace prize…although for no apparent reason.”
win even
a nobel peace prize…although for no apparent reason
Part of the reason was they thought he would foster greater peace with the Muslim world.
Did he? In his favor:
1. Winding down 2 wars.
2. First phone call between Iran/USA presidents in over three decades.
3. No new big real wars started on his watch.
It was also a “hope” thing and about feeling better. Brazilians felt a lot of hope when he was elected.
There won’t be any future history books about Obama because in the future there won’t be any books.
Idiocracy will be here sooner than you think.
Those toddlers weilding iPads isn’t going to help either.
Maybe we should just give up now and carve a Rosetta stone with side-by-side passages in English, Spanish, and iPhone icons. Then the archaeologists will know what we were (not) thinking.
The popularity of breitbert.com, infowars.com, etc. shows that we’re on our way.
i think the infowars dude is a CIA operative.
how’s that for a tinfoil hat.
Better stick with Feinstein-approved “real journalists” then
Dianne Hussein Feinstein
25 MILLION excess, empty and defaulted houses CHECK
Housing demand at 14 year lows and falling CHECK
Housing prices inflated by 250% CHECK
Household formation at multi decade lows CHECK
Rampant housing fraud CHECK
Public denial formed and supported by a corrupt media CHECK
Population growth the lowest in US history CHECK
Immigration flat to slightly negative CHECK
Oh my word
Hope and Change
Washington Post - At the source of the shutdown, the economy falters — and anger at Obama runs high:
“If you want to understand the congressional Republicans who have forced confrontations with Obama on the “fiscal cliff,” the government shutdown and the debt ceiling — and whether those lawmakers might feel encouraged to force more confrontations in the future — you need to understand the economic struggles of the Republicans’ home districts.
People in those districts are poorer and more likely to be unemployed than in the nation at large. They have focused their anger about their economic circumstances on Obama, and they want someone, anyone, to make him improve things for them.
On average, the economy in the districts those Republicans represent is significantly worse than it is in the nation at large.
The median income in those districts last year was 7 percent lower than the national median, according to the Census Bureau. The unemployment rate averaged 10 percent.
The epicenter of that economic distress lies in the Deep South. Four of the congressional districts are in North Georgia. A dozen others are close by in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and North and South Carolina. Nearly all of them ended 2012 with jobless rates in the double digits.”
So they shut down the government because people in the south are mad that the Messiah hasn’t done anything on jobs?
I think people everywhere are mad about that. In fact, in those places that most heavily support him, the urban centers, I bet that feeling also runs high. No need to report on that.
Yep they are certain
1. Tax breaks for the elite will make them wealthier.
2. Free trade is good for them
3. Cutting Medicare, and privatizing social security will secure their retirement. Food stamps and Welfare only benefit poor blacks.
4. Deregulation is good.
5. Government jobs should be eliminated and replaced with contracting jobs going to the company that donates the most to congressional campaigns.
obama care has made us more civilized.
bigger and bigger government with higher and higher taxes and more and more regulations and deeper and deeper deficits is the ONLY way to prosperity…
higher and higher taxes and more and more regulations and deeper and deeper
Federal income taxes are historically low, especially for the rich.. We’ve been on a de-regulation kick for 30 years.
So if you’re an unemployed lib, get off your lazy azz and “better yourself” and get a job. If you’re an unemployed TP-luvver — in a right-to-work state, no less — it’s Obama’s fault. Got it.
Do these “real Americans” know that Obama wanted to bring jobs home by taking away the tax breaks to companies that offshore jobs, and that their beloved conservatives filibustered the bill in the Senate? Or that Obama has held numerous conferences with business leaders, begging them to create jobs, only to be rebuffed? Or do they think Obama can “force” companies to employ them? Have they figured out that “spreading the wealth” meant spreading the wealth to them?
^
Sucker
only in america…do we think we have a “right” to another countries tax base.
we are special and deserve perptually low interest rates forever and ever…all must bow down to the mighty god of the world…in USD we trust.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21215983-superstorm-sandy-anniversary-one-year-later-thousands-still-not-home?lite
” ‘It’s a year of nothing. Nothing,’ said Joe, a 68-year-old retiree now sharing a one-bedroom bungalow in Union Beach with Lori, 50, and their two young daughters. Another daughter, in college, is expected to return home soon after she graduates. The couple has no money to rebuild, saying their bank pressured them to use their flood insurance check to pay off their mortgage. They quickly accrued debt, making them ineligible for a federal government loan pegged for disaster victims (they were twice rejected).
Lori, a paraprofessional for the New York City education department, said the family’s last resort was a $150,000 HUD-funded state grant. She applied when the program began in late May and received preliminary approval in early July but doesn’t know how much they will receive or when.”
Anyone know if these HUD grants need to be repaid? My guess is “no” since that would probably be called a “loan” rather than a “grant”.
1938 hurricane killed 800+ in the US. No 60 billion for their beach homes etc. Fed response was minimal and all areas recovered just fine.
A friend of the family lost their beach house in that storm. According to my aunt, the emotional toll was quite profound. They grieved that place for years.
“Considering rental rates are less than half the cost of buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing, why did you buy a house?”
Good question.
Well well, the recent Nobel Prize winner for Fence Sitting is headlined on Yahoo Finance:
‘Another Housing Bubble? “Maybe Not in Our Lifetimes”: Robert Shiller’
So the “leading” bubble expert is flitting around; ‘Oh, you might have a bubble Brazil. No bubble here London, most likely. I don’t know, that looks kinda bubbly China. Keep buying California!’
This clown should have a Nobel Prize in Establishment Hackery.
Why wouldn’t you keep buying in California, given those recent home price gains! California real estate always goes up, and will never again crash in our lifetimes!!
Home prices in large cities soar in August, Case-Shiller index shows
By Andrew Khouri
October 29, 2013, 7:02 a.m.
Home prices in the nation’s largest metro regions jumped sharply in August, posting yearly gains not seen since the last boom, according to a leading gauge.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday showed that home prices in 20 large U.S. metro areas rose 1.3% from July and 12.8% from August 2012, beating the expectations of analysts who predicted weaker price gains. Prices haven’t risen this fast year over year since Feb. 2006.
…
The housing recovery kicked into overdrive earlier this year as families and investors jumped into the market, finally convinced the bottom had passed. Prices shot up rapidly as people battled over a shortage of homes for sale, raising concerns that a bubble was forming in some red-hot markets.
But lately the market has cooled as investors have pulled back and listings have increased in many areas, helped by some owners looking to cash in on those soaring values. Some buyers, meanwhile, have stepped aside, frustrated over the higher cost of houses and bidding wars. Mortgage rates, while declining recently, are up sharply since May.
The Case-Shiller index, created by economists Karl E. Case and Robert J. Shiller, is widely considered the most reliable read on home values. The housing index compares the latest sales of detached houses with previous sales and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a house’s sale price over time.
Las Vegas saw the largest annual increases, with prices soaring from a year earlier 29.2%. In San Francisco prices jumped 25.4%; in Los Angeles 21.7%; in San Diego 21.5%.
All 20 metros saw prices rise over the month in August,…
‘is widely considered the most reliable read on home values’
This is Shiller’s purpose; he’s put out as THE expert, when he’s nothing but an establishment snake-oil salesman. For instance, I got a call from Las Vegas last night. About 5,000 of the 15,000 SFH have reduced prices.
‘Las Vegas saw the largest annual increases, with prices soaring’
Are foreclosures and other “distress” home sales routinely excluded from the Case-Shiller price index calculation?
If so, they are subject to massive upward bias.
Ben said:
I got a call from Las Vegas last night. About 5,000 of the 15,000 SFH have reduced prices.
Here in Vegas, my accidental LL’s home estimates (Zillow, my rental and his personal residence) have fallen $7400 in October and I only started watching his house on the 17th.
Relentless cheer leading still going on in the local media, though. Happy days are here again.
So in other words, these cities will be the epicenter of the collapse.
Holy sufferin’ sh*t…. how is it the obvious goes over everyones empty skull?
Remember, Shiller’s data is a three month average going back a few months…Zillow has showed things slowing down a lot just over the past month…that hasn’t trickled into the Shiller data yet…
Last month in CA per Zillow? Flat M-o-M.
Down 2% from being up the previous month is flat?
You go RenTroll Watch.
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-home-value/r_9/
0.0% M-to-M
This includes REO:
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/san-diego.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/san-diego.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Inventory&type=0
At the bottom of the page you can see price reductions have almost tripled since March.
And you’re looking at the median, which clearly has seasonal tendencies:
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-home-value/r_9/#metric=mt%3D19%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D14%26r%3D9%252C394806%252C395057%252C395025%26el%3D0
Interesting data re: price reductions–it’s what you would expect if people’s expectations got to be way ahead of the market. Also interesting is if you click on the 5-year trend for inventories…clearly inventories are up, but still quite low.
” http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-home-value/r_9/
0.0% M-to-M
That’s “zillow index”.
CA transaction prices FELL 1.8% MoM.
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-home-value/r_9/#metric=mt%3D19%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D14%26r%3D9%252C394806%252C395057%252C395025%26el%3D0
You really are one dishonest MoFo.. Dishonest.
The Zillow index uses the same methodology as Case Shiller, using paired sales to get a sense for the direction of the market–and removes biases introduced into the data based on a change in mix.
There is substantial seasonality in the median sale prices (which is why there are humps in the graph for median that repeat each year), which is why using THAT metric for any M-to-M analysis is hopelessly flawed.
You’re flawed. And fraud.
Seasonal tendencies my arse.
Click on the 5-year view of San Diego for a good look at the first-time buyer credit price bump that took off in 2009 and the Fed QE3 MBS purchase program bump that took off in 2012. At this stage, we are already in the unwinding stage of the Fed’s QE3 housing stimulus bump.
I wonder what new measure “they” will cook up in 2014 to kick the ball back up into the air?
i think it’s inflation taking hold…which starts where the money is and right now that’s in the big metropolitan areas.
is then any data on wages in those metro areas? especially the upper tier wage earners?
He has been lauded and showered in blandishments. He is now one of them.
Last I heard Shiller talk about CA specifically, he noted how that was one of the markets that exhibited the most significant boom-bust tendencies over time (ie. watch out for bubbles forming and bursting there).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mJphsJYkfmE
“We want every ‘murkan to own their own home”
(at :27 into the speech)
ObamaCare Website Builder Also Tapped for Long-delayed Disaster Relief
As it turns out, CGI was also put in charge of disbursing federal disaster aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy — and has been hardly more successful in that endeavor
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/16827-obamacare-website-builder-also-tapped-for-long-delayed-disaster-relief
Obama hates white people.
When Obama initiates riots nationwide by crashing the Electronic Benefits Transfer (food stamp) system, the thug army DHS will be given stand-down orders not to arrest people of color. Any white people who defend themselves against looters or attackers who are not white will have their guns confiscated and be sent to the FEMA camps.
Obama can’t exterminate and imprison all white Americans (as much as he’d like to) but he will “disappear” at least 10-20 million of them.
The Chris Dorner manhunt was a dry run.
Watertown, MA was a dry run.
You’ll see
http://www.infowars.com/food-bank-ceo-suggests-welfare-cuts-may-spark-riots/
Another “dry run” in Roseville, California:
http://www.infowars.com/california-cops-impose-police-state-following-shooting/
i will never forget all the people lined up in front of their homes chearing the jack booted thugs.
i remember thinking…”this is some scary shit.”
i will never forget all the people lined up in front of their homes chearing the jack booted thugs.
I remember thinking there are a whole lot of sheep in this god-forsaken progressive hell-hole.
I’ll never forget the pictures that one Watertown resident took of the terrorists in the street right outside his window during the firefight with law enforcement. Had he been armed, he could have taken the terrorists out and potentially saved lives. Had it been me, I would have put a .308 168gr hollow point bullet in the brain of each of those terrorists without a second thought… too bad the progressives in this state are sheep who welcome the JBT into their homes and don’t think twice about their constitutional rights.
goon if i said that whoa i’d be banned…..me being such a racist and all. But i just take a cue that none of ohbewanna’s gun control ideas include people with illegal guns…..same racist difference.
“none of ohbewanna’s gun control ideas include people with illegal guns”
Seriously, dj? I thought you couldn’t say anything any worse than what you have posted before. Really, I thought you had reached the pinnacle with some of the other things. But this? This takes the cake.
Obama can’t exterminate and imprison all white Americans (as much as he’d like to) but he will “disappear” at least 10-20 million of them.
You should stick with trying to be funny. Your good at it.
Your good at it.
I know. I’m watching a good movie.
Cheers.
“Obama hates white people.”
Would love to see someone take an Obama speech, preferably one from a campaign stop where he’s shouting into a mic with a bunch of white folks around, and overdub Eddie Murphy’s barroom rant from 48 Hours: “I don’t like white people. I hate rednecks. You people are rednecks. That means I’m enjoying this sh*t.
… and white culture too
Do you think it is pretty much a certainty now that the likes of the NSA logs every e-mail and phone call on this planet or at least in the USA and will mine it and store much of for years to come? Taxpayer expense probably allows them to build to infinity storage farms to warehouse every piece of e-mail and maybe even every online purchase and every post or web-surf history a person has done? Am I being too paranoid? I kinda know I am. Is this what it has come down to though? Joe average citizen thinking that government has eclipsed the individual finally once and for all?
Just think of all the economic stimulus created due to paying essential worker NSA contractors to pour over your personal emails and phone calls and you will feel much better about the situation.
No you’re not paranoid.
just because spys are spying; it don’t mean they are finding anything of value?
Yeah, they probably are. And there is no going back. Government/radicalism/Mr. Banker has finally eclipsed the individual for eternity. Wake up every day and realize it is a Truman Show in so many ways.
you are correct
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
Remember the 1990’s? This stuff might been the wet cement still and we were not as cognizant? Life was ok then even though OK city, Waco, Ruby Ridge and blue dress. Now, I see boundaries more and a belief that much of what around is a scam that WS has a hand in. I mean, government is pretty much the fat guy at the buffet bar. Don’t get in his way and he gets sated with his solons getting theirs. Do you think society has changed much? During the course of the day, I think that things must have improved for the trend material gains but people are still, by nature, scheming to figure out how they can get over on another.
even every online purchase and every post or web-surf history a person has done? Am I being too paranoid?
It sucks but I don’t think it matters much in practice. The more they know about everyone, the more they just realize most people are not totally clean or PC according to the letter of every law or social constraint.
Recession ahead ?
“Long-term commodity prices are at a critical point. And, right now, the technicals indicate they’re headed down.
That’s what legendary technical analyst Louise Yamada, managing director at Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors, says is ahead. She reached that conclusion by analyzing the long-term chart of the Thomson Reuters Equal Weight Continuous Commodity Index (the CCI). The CCI is a basket of 17 commodity futures such as contracts on metals, grains, energy, and livestock. It is considered a benchmark for commodity prices.
(Read: US corn, soy fall as better-than-expected harvest rolls on)
Since mid-February 2011, the CCI is down 25%. According to Yamada, that was the start of a bearish signal in the charts.
“It is a descending triangular formation which suggests that every rally along the way over three years has failed,” says Yamada. “In other words, someone sold into each of the rallies over the past couple of years.”
It’s not just the descending triangle that has Yamada worried for the index. The moving averages have also been bearish for over a year and half.
A recession at this point would be the kiss of death for the stock market rally. Therefore it isn’t going to happen, regardless of the triangulated tea leaves pattern the technical analysts think they see in the data.
Never forget: Ron Paul’s campaign manager died of pneumonia because he ran out of money and didn’t have health insurance. He couldn’t get insurance bc of pre-existing conditions.
“Back in 2008, Kent Snyder — Paul’s former campaign chairman — died of complications from pneumonia. Like the man in Blitzer’s example, the 49-year-old Snyder (pictured) was relatively young and seemingly healthy* when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder’s surviving mother (pictured, left), who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations.”
http://gawker.com/5840024/ron-pauls-campaign-manager-died-of-pneumonia-penniless-and-uninsured
Why? Did he express a wish to have the debt (that died with him) paid off?
Ron Paul’s campaign manager died of pneumonia because he ran out of money and didn’t have health insurance.
Now that’s “civilized”.
I am glad someone said F U to the system. The outrage should not be a person died because of the life he choose to live, the real outrate should be what fooking system charges or spends 400,000 for pneumonia cure?
Never forget:
Why? People die for a lot less than that for each day if you haven’t noticed.
We drone children for no reason. I want to know how much you think about those children? Oh no, you voted twice for the guy who’s the real cause of so many unnecessary and unwanted deaths all over.
Here at least a man dies of the consequences of the life he chose to live. What do you dislke so much about this? Because he doesn’t want to be part of your ponzi scheme?
To accumulate 400K in charges, he sure as heck received some health care. He did not die because he had no insurance; he died from pneumonia. But don’t let facts interrupt your slant.
He did not die because he had no insurance; he died from pneumonia.
When one has no insurance, treatment for ongoing ailments is much more hit or miss than if one is insured. And the stress level alone for such a situation can hasten death.
400k is a lot of hit n miss. Sounds like he receive quite a bi of ace for “pneumonia”
400k is a lot of hit n miss.
So you’re defending a 400K uninsured bill in defense of America’s healthcare system before ACA. I see.
Bit of care. The guy had a pre-existing condition that killed him.
Rio under what circumstances would you deny health care to anyone? Better get ready cause that’s what your Messiah is bringing.
Enjoy those millions who are receiving termination letters now. Your Messiah is in deep doodoo.
How’s your business trip going?
How’s your business trip going?
Much better than yours, I’m sure.
I’m in an ocean view house and watching American TV. But I only had chicken tonight. But it was awesome. Nice.
Your Messiah is in deep doodoo.
I know. He might not even be re-elected.
(This train has left the station.)
“How’s your business trip going?”
About as well as that street bum that waved to the street cam….. and guess what. The SAME guy walked by the camera today at the SAME time.
Rio under what circumstances would you deny health care to anyone? Better get ready cause that’s what your Messiah is bringing.
Calling anyone including Obama the “Messiah” is sacreligious to Christians including me. It is an affront to Christianity. Study it.
Get ready for “rationing”? Cry me a river. Blue Cross has been rationing healthcare for 60 years.
and guess what. The SAME guy walked by the camera today at the SAME time.
What an ill person. Gents, “Housing Analyst” is a nut. I can prove it again.
HA, You are a such a pathetic liar. Caught. Sociopath. If you doubt. For $500, tell me what color shirt, pants, hat, I should wear in front of a Rio cam and I’ll make you look like more of a clown that you are. (sorry, that’s not possible)
I think you are mentally ill. You were punked hard by me. And I can do it again.
You got caught BSing again.
POST a photo like we asked.
POST a photo like we asked.
We? There is no “we”.
You’re the only insane one.
I proved you wrong yesterday. I said I’d stand in front of a Rio de Janeiro street live webcam at 2:30 pm. I said I’d be wearing a green Rolling Stones shirt with a the big red lip logo and a white panama hat, and I’d be be pulling a black carry-on for a “few day” trip to take care of some business. (not 2 day)
One half hour later at 2:30 pm, I did it and I waved at the live webcam. Ben Jones confirmed he saw me and took a screen shot. Are you calling Ben a liar too?
You owe me a public apology but I don’t expect one from you because you have no shame, pride or class. You have actual mental issues imo.
For 5 days I read you calling me a liar and to prove I lived in Rio but I didn’t do it for 5 days. Why? Because I don’t respect you or care what you think. It could have gone on for years and I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to prove to you where I live. I did it only because someone said they’d donate to Ben’s blog if I did. It was not about you.
But it was you who got punked.
POST a photo RioTard.
I saw it also. Not yesterday. Today. Why do you wear the same green shirt two days I a row? I think you Lso said you had it on Saturday as well.
2013-10-29 19:55:08
“How’s your business trip going?”
About as well as that street bum that waved to the street cam….. and guess what. The SAME guy walked by the camera today at the SAME time.
Proof that HA is off the reservation:
Let’s do the math. Yesterday I stood by a Rio street cam with specific cloths and waved to the camera. Now HA lying that “the same guy walked by” today. But he says that almost 12 hours after he says he saw it. I was at the cam 2:30 Rio time yesterday. Look at the time of his post. Almost 12 hours later that what he says was the “SAME time”.
If that were true, why would he wait almost 12 hours to make such an accusation?
Because HA is a liar and unstable. No mater what you think a bout me, do the math and think about his posts.
Don’t mess with rio.
You’re a fraud RioTard.
Post a photo. What are you so afraid of?
I saw it also. Not yesterday. Today. Why do you wear the same green shirt two days I a row?
You “saw it” Pathetic. Like now only you say it? 12 hours later? You guys are liars and defeated. Half day later? Now only you say it? WTF. Is that normal. Like you had to work, take a nap, eat dinner and just now? Are you dumb? Put up some money and I’ll do it again. Liars.
Defeated liars. Like Southerners.
Post the pic Riotard.
The fun is just beginning RioTard.
Quit running a post a photo.
I didn’t take a nap. Why the same shirt always? Why one day claim it is a cowboy hat you will wear and then later say you were wearing a Panama hat? I think you were also wearing a green shirt standing on the grassy knoll. Ask Spook.
The fun is just beginning RioTard.
I know. There are many Rio live web cams. But you are a cheap skate.
Get some money. And I’ll go before another live Rio cam.
Sick Psyco. Let’s roll.
All your deflection about cash, Jonesy, blah blah.
Post the photo. You’ve got nothing to lose anymore.
Why the same shirt always? Why one day claim it is a cowboy hat you will wear and then later say you were wearing a Panama hat?
LOL.
What kind of questions are those? Like you’re a wannabe lawyer or something? Like you’re smart? Really? OK.
My Stones shirt is the most distinctive I have. Big red logo on green. Get it? But I’ve got a big wardrobe. Give Ben’s blog a grand and I’ll wear a suit.
Cowboy hat vs Panama hat? I live in Rio dude. I wear whatever hat I wanna depending on the weather. I don’t give a f about you.
Then post a picture of the Stones shirt.
…waiting.
Post the photo. You’ve got nothing to lose anymore.
I posted a live movie of me in Rio yesterday HA. People saw it. Ben saw it. Give Ben some money and I’ll do it again. And again You can’t beat me clown. Because I’m not a liar and you are not as intelligent as me. You are inferior. I buried you yesterday. You’re too dumb to know it.
Fine.
hen post a picture of the Stones shirt.
I’ll post no “pics” for you clown. Ever.
I call the tunes, as I did yesterday. Get it? I call the tunes. Because I don’t respect you. I think you’re ill.
Can’t you see that?
Not only afraid but angry too.
Man up and post a photo. You can do it.
OT question for shooters.
How much skill does it take to do what Lee Harvey Oswalds is said to have done? (a head shot on a moving target)
What is the technique to practice doing that?
duck hunting?
I think Cheney practiced with Quail hunting.
To my recollection it was attorney hunting.
Modern marksman have attempted to replicate the shots Oswald allegedly took, bolt action rifle, moving target, through foliage. To say the odds are long is an understatement.
One shot would not be that difficult, the problem arises from the recoil of the rifle and re-acquiring the target.
Duck hunting is done with a shotgun, not a rifle. Shooting ranges occasionally have a belt, or tram, which will move an object to simulate a moving target.
Why do you ask?
Spook is pretty tinfoil. He thinks NASA faked the moon landing.
No Oxide; here is what I would say in a court of law: The historical records of the Apollo moon landings as presented by NASA are inaccurate.
Thats all Im saying.
Now its possible the event was much more sophisticated and they have a moon based up there right now…
But I personally suspect it was much less sophisticated, much less capable, possibly including faking the landing. The more I study it, the more contradictions and straight up gaps in the logic I find which NASA could easily answer but ignores.
Also, as a black person in a culture dominated by white people I understand how people will easily accept things they want to believe, while rejecting things they don’t want to believe.
Its not about proof, its about faith.
Just look at Obama? no experience, never had a real job, never ran anything… but there he is, president of the United States
But even if it was about proof, guess who Im expected to prove it to?
BTW– if the moon landing were fake, there is no person more disapointed than I.
as a black person in a culture dominated by white people I understand how people will easily accept things they want to believe,
Such as the Civil War was about “States Rights” and not slavery.
Such as the Civil War was about “States Rights” and not slavery.
————————————————————————-
Thats not a valid example because there was and still is much disagreement between white people on that topic.
Unfortunately, as with physics and orbital mechanics, the average person is poorly equipped to discuss either.
Personally I like the idea of being first and foremost, a citizen of a state, and states having a certain amount of “rights” to run their area as they see fit.
Why?
Because then people could vote with their feet.
This is getting more and more difficult to do; Obamacare is an example.
Thats not a valid example because there was and still is much disagreement between white people on that topic.
No. There is not much disagreement at all from anyone objective and educated in American/Civil War History. It is a valid example.
the average person is poorly equipped to discuss either.
Those that understand American/Civil War History are not “average”.
I’ve already schooled you on this. Carry on worshiping that racist Lincoln.
I’ve already schooled you on this.
The Civil war was fought over slavery. Even the south said so in their Secession papers.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
“Now its possible the event was much more sophisticated and they have a moon based up there right now…”
If you followed the 2012 presidential election campaign, then you realize that Newt Gingrich already lives up there on the 51st state of Moonscape, U.S.A.
I ask because despite being a black man, I don’t own any guns and don’t have much experience with them. I just know that some people doubt Oswald was the shooter, or only shooter because of the skill it would take to do it like he is said to have done it?
Also, the way Oswald got killed makes me suspicious.
What does being black have to do with owning guns… or any of the other stuff you have prefaced with that disclaimer?
Calm down Russ, everybody else here knows thats part of my shtick.
Lets call it pre-emption on my part; why should I wait for a white person to bring race into a discussion when I can do it first, get it over with, and out of the way; so we can all move on to exchange views, and solve problems, have fun…?
In addition I noticed years ago that in the digital world, everybody wants to be a white person because it makes you more credible and inoculates you from mistreatment based on color. Think about it? who else on this blog has revealed themselves as a nonwhite person without prompting?
To this day people on line refuse to accept I am a black person when I make sense; how racist is that?
Ive met Ben so he knows Im not some long game white performance artist trying to punk white people.
By “confessing” to being colored, I can serve as the house “black expert” for all things black.
Does anyone wanna ax me a question?
Calm down Russ, everybody else here knows thats part of my shtick.
Acting like you’re a confused black dude?
pre-emption on my part; why should I wait for a white person to bring race into a discussion when I can do it first, get it over with, and out of the way; have fun…?
I’m white. I just had some fun too. That’s OK, right?
As a white person, I find that hilarious, even if I had to have the joke explained.
How much skill does it take to do what Lee Harvey Oswalds is said to have done? (a head shot on a moving target)
Any trained marksman can do it. The distance was approximately 90 yards and the rifle Oswald used had a 4x scope on it. The 6.5mm rifle Oswald used had a muzzle velocity of 700 meters/second, so from the time the trigger was squeezed to impact on target at 90 yards was .12 seconds. Hitting a slowly moving target with a magnified optic at 90 yards with a high-powered rifle is trivial for anyone who has gone through basic marksmanship.
To put this in perspective, Corporal Craig Harrison, a trained UK sniper in Afghanistan, has the official record for longest confirmed sniper kill at 2,700 yards. That shot was taken using an L115A3 .338 Lapua Magnum and a 16x optic.
What is the technique to practice doing that?
Practice hitting a moving target? Try trap target shooting. Everything else is about learning the fundamentals of marksmanship (sight picture, firing position, breathing, trigger squeeze) and practice. If we’re talking about learning long distance shooting (over 800 yards), you need to learn a few formulas for range estimation, calculating bullet drop, adjusting zero, wind estimation and the formulas for predicting holdover for the effect of wind on ballistics, etc.
Thanks for the info NE. Understanding if its physically possible for a person to do something is one of the first questions I ask before going further in an investigation.
Either that or motive.
spook
What’s your take on this?
Thomas Sowell Fears “Race Hustling” Consequences
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/25/2013 18:03 -0400
.Authored by Thomas Sowell via RealClearPolitics blog,
Years ago, someone said that, according to the laws of aerodynamics, bumblebees cannot fly. But the bumblebees, not knowing the laws of aerodynamics, go ahead and fly anyway.
Something like that happens among people. There have been many ponderous academic writings and dour editorials in the mainstream media, lamenting that most people born poor cannot rise in American society any more. Meanwhile, many poor immigrants arrive here from various parts of Asia, and rise on up the ladder anyway.
Often these Asian immigrants arrive not only with very little money, but also very little knowledge of English. They start out working at low-paid jobs but working so many hours, often at more than one job, that they are able to put a little money aside.
After a few years, they have enough money to open some little shop, where they still work long hours, and still save their money, so that they can afford to send their children to college. Meanwhile, these children know that their parents not only expect, but demand, that they make good grades.
Some people try to explain why Asians, and Asian-Americans, succeed so well in education and in the economy by some special characteristics that they have. That may be true, but their success may also be due to what they do not have — namely “leaders” who tell them that the deck is so stacked against them that they cannot rise, or at least not without depending on “leaders.”
Such “leaders” are like the people who said that the laws of aerodynamics showed that the bumblebee cannot fly. Those who have believed such “leaders” have in fact stayed grounded, unlike the bumblebees.
A painful moment for me, years ago, when I was on the lecture circuit, came after a talk at Marquette University, when a young black student rose and asked: “Even though I am graduating from Marquette University, what hope is there for me?”
Back in the 1950s, when I was a student, I never encountered any fellow black student who expressed such hopelessness, even though there was far more racial discrimination then. We knew that there were obstacles for us to overcome, and we intended to overcome them.
The memory of that Marquette student came back to me, years later, when another black young man said that he had wanted to become a pilot, and had even planned to join the Air Force in order to do so. But then, he said, he now “realized” that “The Man” would never allow a black guy to become a pilot.
This was said decades after a whole squadron of black fighter plane pilots made a reputation for themselves in World War II, as the “Tuskegee Airmen.” There have been black generals in the Air Force.
Both these young men — and many others — have learned all too well the lessons taught by race hustlers, in their social version of the laws of aerodynamics, which said that they could not rise.
You don’t hear about racial “leaders” like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson among Asians or Asian-Americans. Here and there you may see some irresponsible academics peddling that line in the classroom — some of whom are of Asian ancestry, since no race of human beings is completely lacking in fools.
But they do not get the same attention, or draw the same following, as race hustlers operating in black or Hispanic communities. By and large, Asian youngsters rise and fly.
Other groups in times past also arrived on these shores with very little money and often with very little education, at least during the immigrant generation.
A poem by Carl Sandburg, back during that era, referred to a Jewish fish peddler in Chicago: “His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to whom he may call his wares from a pushcart.”
This fish peddler probably had not gone to college, and so had no one to tell him that he couldn’t make it, and that his children couldn’t rise, because this was such a terrible country.
No one can claim that there was no anti-Semitism in America, any more than they can claim that there was never any anti-Asian discrimination. There was plenty of both. But that is very different from following “leaders” whose message would only keep them grounded, after the skies were open to them as never before.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-25/thomas-sowell-fears-race-hustling-consequences - 120k - Cached - Similar pages
4 days ago
Comment by phony scandals
2013-10-29 16:51:21
spook
What’s your take on this?
————————————————————
Can you be more specific about what you want to know?
“Can you be more specific about what you want to know?”
“Both these young men — and many others — have learned all too well the lessons taught by race hustlers, in their social version of the laws of aerodynamics, which said that they could not rise.”
In your opinion
True/False
It is true that “race hustlers” exist and have a vested interest in maintaining a white supremacy “frame” in order to keep black people from thinking outside of that frame in a way that eliminates the purpose of the “race hustler”.
But the key is, black people do not have the money to maintain, expand or refine the white supremacy frame the “race hustlers” depend on for their livelihood.
You cant ignore the role of money because people will do all kinds of things (like sell their own people into slavery) in order to get it.
So perhaps you should begin your investigation by asking the question: Who has all the money?
“Who has all the money?”
Well that would be the Bilderberg crowd.
“Understanding if its physically possible for a person to do something is one of the first questions I ask before going further in an investigation.”
The initial turning point was the first meeting that I had with the French narcotics trafficker at Leavenworth Penitentiary. His name was Christian David. He had been a member of the old French Connection heroin network. He had then been a leader of the Corsican drug trafficking network in South America known as the Latin Connection. And he had also been an intelligence agent for a number of intelligence services around the world. In exchange for my help in finding him an attorney to represent him against the possibility of his deportation to France after he finished his sentence at Leavenworth, he agreed to give me a certain amount of information concerning the assassination based upon his own knowledge. The first thing that he told me, very reluctantly and only after four or five hours of my arguing with him, was that he was aware that there had been a conspiracy to murder the president, and indeed in May or June of 1963 in Marseilles, he had been offered the contract to kill President Kennedy. That was the initial breakthrough, if you will. He was eventually deported to France. I remained in contact with him. I went to Paris to interview him in two prisons in Paris. And in the fear that he would be either committed to an asylum or that he would be convicted of an old murder charge, he gradually gave me additional information about the assassination.
David’s position was that there were three killers, and that they had been hired on a contract which had been placed with the leader of the Corsican Mafia at Marseilles, a man named Antoine Guerini. Guerini, he said, was asked to supply three assassins of high quality, experienced killers to murder the President, and that Guerini did so. In the course of one of the first significant conversations I had with David on this subject, he told me that he had been in Marseilles in May or June of 1963, and that every evening he went to Antoine Guerini’s club on the old Port of Marseilles to meet people who owed him money. And one evening, Guerini sent for him, asked him to come to the office which was above the club. Guerini told him that he had an important contract, and he asked David if he were interested. David said, “Who’s the contract on?” Guerini said, “an American politician.” David asked, “Well is it a congressman, a senator?” And Guerini said, “higher than that… The highest vegetable.” At that point of course David knew who he was talking about. David asked him where was the contract to be carried out. And when Guerini said it would be done inside the United States, David refused on the grounds that that was much too dangerous.
Why did Christian David refuse the contract to kill John F. Kennedy?
(H15) Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1998)
In May or June of 1963, he was offered a contract by Antoine Guerini, the Corsican crime boss in Marseilles, to accept a contract to kill “a highly placed American politician” whom Guerini called the “biggest vegetable”- i.e., President Kennedy. The president was to be killed on US territory. David told Rivele that he turned down the contract because it was too dangerous. After David turned down the contract offer, he said it was accepted by Lucien Sarti, another Corsican drug trafficker and killer, and two other members of the Marseilles mob, whom he refused to name. David said he learned what happened about two years after the assassination in a meeting in Buenos Aires, during which Sarti, another drug trafficker named Michele Nicoli, David, and two others were present. During the meeting, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was discussed. This is how the assassination was carried out as David told it to Rivele.
About two weeks before the assassination, Sarti flew from France to Mexico City, from where he drove or was driven to the US border at Brownsville, Texas. Sarti crossed at Brownsville where he was picked up by someone from the Chicago mafia. This person drove him to a private house in Dallas. He did not stay at a hotel, as not to leave records. David believes that Sarti was traveling on an Italian passport. David said the assassins cased Dealey Plaza, took photographs and worked out mathematically how to set up a crossfire. Sarti wanted to fire from the triple underpass bridge, but when he arrived in Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination, there were people there, so he fired from a little hill next to the bridge. There was a wooden fence on that hill, and Sarti fired from behind the wooden fence. He said Sarti only fired once, and used an explosive bullet. He said Kennedy was shot in a crossfire, two shots from behind, and Sarti’s shot from the front. Of the two assassins behind, one was high, and one was low. He said you can’t understand the wounds if you don’t realize that one gun was low, “almost on the horizontal.” The first shot was fired from behind and hit Kennedy in the back. The second shot was fired from behind, and hit “the other person in the car.” The third shot was fired from in front, and hit Kennedy in the head. The fourth shot was from behind and missed “because the car was too far away.” He said that two shots were almost simultaneous.
David said that Kennedy was killed for revenge and money. He said the CIA was incapable of killing Kennedy, but did cover it up. He said the gunmen stayed at the private house in Dallas for approximately two weeks following the assassination, then believes they went to Canada, that there were people in Canada who had the ability to fly them out of North America.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKSinvestigation.htm - 47k -
I would like to add that this “slowly moving target” was a slowly AND SMOOTHLY moving target (as opposed to being a jerking moving target - jerking about such as a running jack rabbit would be doing) and the movement it was making was in a direction that was slowly going away from the shooter and not going to one side or the other, which means the target wouldn’t have to be “led” by the shooter.
From what several people have told me, people who have actually visited the scene, it was a easy shot to make.
“it was a easy shot to make.”
1 shooter or 3, one shot missed the car so it wasn’t that easy.
That reminds of a great little scene from the movie Full Metal Jacket. It takes place during basic training of Marines during the Vietnam War: The drill instructor, Sergeant Hartman, is talking to his recruits before just before they their marksmanship training.
HARTMAN: Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was? None of you dumbasses knows? Private Cowboy?
COWBOY: Sir, he was that guy who shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!
HARTMAN: That’s affirmative. Charles Whitman killed twelve people from a twenty-eight-storey observation tower at the University of Texas from distances up to four hundred yards. Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was? Private Snowball?
SNOWBALL: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!
HARTMAN: That’s right, and do you know how far away he was?
SNOWBALL: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!
HARTMAN: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot? Private Joker?
JOKER: Sir, in the Marines, sir!
HARTMAN: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!
I LOVE Spook! Makes my day.
Did you white people know about this?
http://takimag.com/article/dutch_santas_little_black_helper_jim_goad/print#disqus_thread
I think Im offended but Im not sure?
I’ll decide as soon as I figure out where the money is in it.
How come nobody rang a bell when we should have all bought $100 worth of Bitcoin?
Guy named Koch bought 5,000 bitcoins in 2009 for $27, now worth $886,000
October 29, 2013, 1:16 PM
Talk about a degree that gives you bang for your buck.
Kristoffer Koch was writing a thesis on encryption in 2009 when he used about $27 to buy 5,000 bitcoins.
Life went on, and he forgot about his investment until bitcoin’s wild price swings earlier this year resulted in a slew of articles about bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that isn’t controlled by a central bank. Instead, bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which a computer tries to solve a cryptographic problem. The total supply of bitcoins is capped, which has led to comparisons with assets like gold.
Koch’ original $27 investment is now worth about $886,000, Koch told Norwegian publication NRK. That’s a return of 3,281,500 percent in four years.
Koch has used one-fifth of his bitcoin stash to buy an apartment in Oslo, Norway, the Guardian points out.
…
Subprime lending standards are the only hope for keeping the Housing Bubble inflated!
Capitol Report
Lewis Ranieri: Tough mortgage standards may be worse than meltdown
October 28, 2013, 5:07 PM
Bloomberg
Overly strict standards that are preventing credit-worthy borrowers from obtaining home loans could hit the U.S. harder than losses caused by the housing meltdown, said Lewis Ranieri, “father” of the securitized mortgage market, at an industry event in Washington on Monday, according to a Bloomberg story.
“If this legacy persists the consequences will be more profound for the country than the economic losses,” Ranieri said at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference.
Ranieri, who helped popularize mortgage-backed securities, also said the “irrational restriction and contraction of credit” is the “most truly unacceptable legacy” from the meltdown, according to Bloomberg.
“Fear and not fact is making credit tighter than it should be,” Ranieri said, according to Bloomberg.
Ranieri’s words echo another newsmaker: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Bernanke has said that some improvement in lending standards was appropriate, but that it may be too hard to get a loan these days.
“It seems likely at this point that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and that overly tight lending standards may now be preventing creditworthy borrowers from buying homes, thereby slowing the revival in housing and impeding the economic recovery,” Bernanke said late last year.
–Ruth Mantell
There is a plethora of awesome comments below the Marketwatch story I just posted on the need to revitalize the subprime lending sector.
For example:
David Wooten 32 minutes ago
“It seems likely at this point that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and that overly tight lending standards may now be preventing creditworthy borrowers from buying homes, thereby slowing the revival in housing and impeding the economic recovery,” Bernanke said late last year.”
A home should be a place to live; not a savings account. The latter requires constantly increasing prices. That may be good for people when they want to sell but it isn’t for people who want to buy. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages, along with HUD programs and Fannie and Freddy and the FHA have acted to drive up real estate prices since the late 1930s. Nothing goes up for ever; trees do not grow to the sky and, as with any PONZI scheme, the last ones in are left holding the bag.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101141921
Completely OT, but I thought this was an interesting article about stock buybacks.
I think the Citigroup screen is interesting…largest 50 companies that have reduced share count by 5% or more over the prior year. Their 13-year track record for that screen has returned an average of 13.6%.
Perhaps an interesting strategy for taxable accounts? A way to get a dividend indirectly without paying tax (except when/if you sell appreciated stock).
Any opinions out there on investing in buyback companies?
Looks like PowerShares has an ETF with the same strategy, ticker PKW.
I can’t stand paying the 0.7% annual fee though…I think I would just poach the holdings and make my own portfolio. Less tax efficient, yes, but more frequent rebalancing (if that’s what I want to do…).
Marines are riflemen first and foremost.
Pop quiz: Can anyone explain why, with prices in major metro areas at all-time highs, inventory has evaporated overnight?
In my area in LA, the appreciation on starter-luxury properties (small condos $700k, fixer houses $1.2m and up) in the last 6 months has been completely insane. Way more insane than 06/07. I’m seeing flipped houses double in price in 6 months and condos priced hundreds of thousands of dollars above thier peak 06 bubble prices and still getting offers. Yet the number of new listings in the last month has imploded to less than half of the norm. Same story in SF and, to some extent, NYC.
I get that banks hold tremendous shadow inventory, and the foreclosure pipeline is stopped dead, and there are lots of people underwater. But that didn’t seem to be a problem in the last few months, when new listings were double what they are now. Plus, these asking prices exceed even the most bloated mortgage, so where are all the people eager to sell their properties for all time highs?
I’d love to hear people’s theories on this. Why aren’t homeowners/investors selling?
And how might this affect the bubble bursting? Demand may be collapsing, but if inventory collapses along with it, can this thing go on for longer than anyone thinks?
We were talking about this yesterday in the office, but it’s not just in major metros. We were looking at similar data in tertiary markets. When looking at current listings compared to the last month’s sales, the “months of inventory” even in these places appears to be 3 months or less.
Personally, I think the issue is lack of new home development (bear with me).
My parents would like to sell their paid-for house to move into a smaller one. However, the big problem is that there are so few listings that they don’t know where they would move. So, they haven’t listed their home for sale.
Same story with a person in my office. His kids have moved out, and he would like to downsize, but there are so few listings, he doesn’t know whether he could find another place.
If you believe that there is enough inventory held by banks that they would solve this problem, then that’s the bottleneck.
I don’t believe this based on the data that I’ve seen for CA (total homes held by lenders, vacancy rates in the state, etc.), so my belief is that more development needs to occur to increase inventories sufficiently to free up some of the potential sellers that would like to move.
Wait until the echo bubble pops and investors dump their holdings. Till then, end users would be well advised to sit on the sidelines.
Here are the two problems that I see with the “investors dumping” theory:
1. In the grand scheme of things, investors who bought a lot of homes don’t own a very big part of the market;
2. The first thing a “buy-to-rent” investor will do when they go to sell a home is kick out the tenant, followed by a week to a month of home preparation. From the time the tenant is kicked out to the time a home is listed, there is one additional person looking for a place to stay, but NOT an additional home on the market. Is this really a path to an increase in supply without increasing demand?
“Is this really a path to an increase in supply without increasing demand?”
It would depend on how many degrees below freezing demand was at that point, and how many snails are concurrently executing the same planned exit from their rental property investments, timed to simultaneously hit the finish line after a week to month of preparation plus time to kick out the once-and-future tenant and put the home up for sale. It’s not how long it takes one snail to finish the race that will matter, but rather how many snails are sliding their way to the finish line at about the same time.
Then comes the very simple question:
How many homes are there that could potentially be “dumped” on the market by these investors at one instant? And would it make a difference?
Let’s say there are 1 million dumped on the market overnight. Would it make a difference?
As an example, CA has about 10% of the country’s housing stock. This would be an extra 100k homes dumped on the market immediately…2.5 months of sales…the difference between a seller’s market (<3 months of inventory) and a neutral market (about 6 months of inventory).
And the next question:
What is the alternative to selling if too many are trying to sell into a weak market? Answer: Do what you were doing before…rent the house. These would not be FORCED sales. If all these investors decided to dump all the homes at once, and it caused a major market disruption, do you think they would:
a) continue with the sales process and tank the market?; or
b) pull back and sell over a much longer period of time?
If you don’t think “b”, why not? Isn’t that what you are claiming banks did (and are continuing to do) starting after the crash (which appears to be working)?
‘How many homes are there that could potentially be “dumped” on the market by these investors at one instant?’
A flood of homes on the market doesn’t have to occur instantaneously for there to be massive losses by all the greater fools who thought they would get rich by going long ‘house.’
“b) pull back and sell over a much longer period of time?”
If everyone is doing it, then after a long period of time, there are likely to be too many sellers compared to the number of buyers. You can wait a long time to sell a house, but you can’t wait forever. If millions of people are playing this game, or a few large players are playing it with millions of houses, no matter — there will eventually be a glut.
“Do what you were doing before…rent the house.”
With so many smart people doing this, renting should be cheaper than owning for years to come. Case in point: We are about to renew our lease at the same rent level for about the fifth year in a row (I’ve lost track!)…
Foreclosure moratoriums.
And remember…. there are 4.4 MILLION excess, empty and defaulted houses in your state.
“Can anyone explain why, with prices in major metro areas at all-time highs, inventory has evaporated overnight?”
It’s a short squeeze. Happens all the time in the stock market, but only recently in housing since Wall Street has entered the game.
How do you “short” a house?
‘How do you “short” a house?’
There are a couple of ways to go short ‘house.’
1) Simplest: Rent, don’t own.
2) Buy CME puts on housing (but not advised when the Fed is working 24/7 to keep housing prices inflated above fundamentals).
3) Go short REIC stocks (homebuilders, mortgage banks, etc).
4) Approach Goldman Sachs about setting up a deal to take the short side of a bet on high-risk mortgages (already been done, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work again if housing gets sufficiently bubbly in the present episode).
Here is some information that might be helpful. I don’t gamble in this market, so you will need to find somebody else to explain how to do so.
How does any of that have to do with individuals choosing not to sell their home?
And how can there be a “short squeeze” in single family houses?
A short squeeze, is prices are driven higher because market participants are forced to buy something, no matter what, because they have already borrowed that something, and sold it to get the cash, and they are essentially getting a margin call, and they need to deliver the “something” back to the person from which they borrowed. So, they are essentially forced to buy that “something”, no matter the price.
All these “Wall Street” types may be placing bets on housing in various ways, but none of them to my understanding would ever situate themselves where they are FORCED to go out and buy a single family house.
They’re underwater. Just like you.
‘A short squeeze, is prices are driven higher because market participants are forced to buy something, no matter what, because they have already borrowed that something, …’
I’m using a broader definition of ’short’ than you are. But up to the point where the above quote ends, you provide a nice description of the panic currently facing renters (aka ‘home borrowers’) who are desperately trying to buy a house by any means possible, before prices go up another 20%.
“How does any of that have to do with individuals choosing not to sell their home?”
Why sell now if you believe you can get another 20% by waiting another year?
Thanks all for the thoughtful replies.
Rental Watch - You have a really good point. If there is nothing decent to buy, then why sell? Of course this means that a lack of inventory begets more lack of inventory, so perhaps this could be a persistent problem… (Comparing to 06, I remember the really bad quality inventory coming out of the woodwork at the height of the bubble that is similar to the bad quality on offer now, but at least there was a lot of it!)
Whac-A-Bubble - Very interesting perspective - this absolutely *feels* like a short squeeze, in which sane investors are shaken out of their sanity into capitulation in this crazy market!
So what does this mean going forward? Are we in for a decade of low inventory, low demand and low sales? Will prices ever come down, or is this a game of musical chairs in which the music has stopped (ie, those already in houses will sit on them for 20 years while new buyers are stuck paying crazy prices for the few bad properties that become available?)
Careful.
“Rental Watch” can’t be trusted.
Decade of low inventory? Nonsense. There are 25 MILLION excess empty houses in the US today…. and growing.
“Very interesting perspective - this absolutely *feels* like a short squeeze, in which sane investors are shaken out of their sanity into capitulation in this crazy market!”
Glad to know at least some posters are bright enough to grasp what goes over Rental Watch’s head.
“…or is this a game of musical chairs in which the music has stopped…”
Click on the charts Mr. Ben Jones himself posted below for your answer.
From what I’ve seen, we’ve had too many years where land development was essentially stopped. It does take time for that machinery to get started again (the entitlement processing time is not short in many municipalities). So, I suspect that it won’t be decades of low inventory, but I’m willing to bet that 2014 is also pretty weak from a new development standpoint. 2015 will be stronger as projects are entitled/re-entitled and construction is started.
I do think that real estate markets cease to function well without enough supply, in much the same way that employment markets cease to function well when unemployment is too low. Do you fire a mediocre employee if it is viewed as nearly impossible to find any replacement (let alone a better one)? You’ve got to have some level of people/homes looking for a job/owner to not have a sluggish market.
I know the media tells you it is hard.
It is not.
Look up “three gun” and expand from there.
Most game run when shot and often require a second shot on the move.
It is elementary skills.
Believe as you like, running rabbits are shot multiple times by many nine year olds…many times a day.
Recoil is a tool if used as one. Sight picture is what recoil.destroys, nothing serious. If his shots had been in a one inch circle…theory abounds. Those wild shots were absolutely how any skilled rifleman would/could have landed them.
They only require a second shot if you’re a crappy hunter. Let me guess, you’re a texan?
shooting moving rabbits from 90 yards?
hmmm…?
You sell the place.to a.subsidiary of yourself to drag up the price on the other fifteen you bought in the neighborhood.
Then fools rush in.
What’s that old saw that stock traders use to decide when to buy? Was it “Buy High, Sell Low” or something like that?
$277 billion into stock funds so far this year; highest since 2000
October 29, 2013, 12:03 PM
Here’s one more piece of evidence that investors are going gaga for stocks (as if the 32 record closes for the S&P 500 this year, including on Monday, a Nasdaq Composite up 30% and fat valuations for unprofitable tech companies weren’t enough): Huge inflows into stock funds this year.
The wall of cash into U.S.-listed mutual funds and ETFs (including those that invest overseas) has hit $277 billion, and that’s with just over two months to go in the year, according to TrimTabs Investment Research. That’s the most for one year since $324 billion for all of 2000, which of course is the year the last tech bubble burst.
About one-sixth of that money has been invested this month. TrimTabs says the net $45.5 billion through Oct. 25 is the fifth-highest monthly inflow on record. (The two biggest monthly numbers also came this year: $66.3 billion in January and $55.3 billion in July). A big driver has been the Federal Reserve’s surprise decision not to begin tapering its monthly bond purchases, which means interest rates are likely to stay low for longer (and making safe-haven bonds less attractive).
The story is the same in Europe, where money has flowed into stock funds for 17 straight weeks, including a record $5 billion in the latest week, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Since June, inflows have totaled $83 billion.
But as is often the case with mom and pop investors, their timing may be less than impeccable. If it’s not another case of “buy high and sell low,” it may at least be “buy high”.
…
Maybe take that as the first bell ringing? Last call could be, uh, when Twitter shatters IPO records?
The epitome of everything shitlibs have been striving for, summed up in the bio of one NYU Philosophy PhD student:
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/philo.people.zacharyperry
(Goon, you really need to see this)
The magnitude is so large — it’s never happened before — that it’s an act of faith that they have all the tools to prevent another boom and bust and inflation.’”
1937……….. then the war was the end game
I really think inflation is going to start taking a big toll on business soon.
You can keep raising prices and more and more people quit buying what you have.
I have cut back on several things as prices have gone up.
I havent flown n years.
Cut way back on eating out for sure.
Lots of other things too.
Me too. Every other day I turn my underwear inside out.
“1937……….. then the war was the end game”
- Pre-computers
- Pre-QE1, QE2 and QE3
- It’s different now!
Atlanta, Georgia - great Halloween home. May not be my flavor, but I can appreciate it. http://www.redfin.com/GA/Newnan/155-Greenville-St-30263/home/23518514
Built in 1842.
Figures you’d dump every last penny you got on a 200 year old firetrap.
The plunge in yesterday’s Pending Home Sales index confirms my thesis that the housing market is tanking:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1782172-the-plunge-in-the-pending-home-sales-index-confirms-my-housing-market-thesis
Tanking?
And why do you think that is?
When resale housing prices are triple construction costs(lot, materials, labor and profit), the entire market collapses.
Oh dear.
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/dana-point.htm#city=&time=5Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/napa.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/palo-alto.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
Be sure and check out the price reduced line at the bottom.
Oh my word…..
Sit tight because it’s underway folks.
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/pebble-beach.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/san-clemente.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/thousand-oaks.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
If you go to the 5-year view, the Bernanke Fed housing stimulus echo bubble shows up very clearly after January 2012.
I’m wondering how the resident real estate prostitutes plan to ’splain away those precipitous drops after early 2012, coupled with a rising rate of new listings each month.
Can’t wait to see how these charts look with October 2013 added!
Typo alert:
“…precipitous drops after early 201
23,…”March 2013 $417/sq ft
October 2013 $372/sq ft
Annualized rate of price decline over seven months:
((372/417)^(12/7)-1)*100% = -18%.
Napa’s in da crapa.
Dana Point is crashing hard!
April 2013 $568 per sq ft
October 2013 $462 per sq ft
Annualized rate of price decline (projected off 1/2 year):
((462/568)^2-1)*100% = -33.8%.
Still overpriced at $426 per square foot, but significantly less so than a short six months ago.
Meant to say at $462 per square foot (but Dana Point will still be overpriced at $426 per square foot)…
Hey HA. You are weird and a liar. I have proof.
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-10-28 08:52:41
Ben’s going to get $500 thanks to Jingle. And thanks to you being a disrespected, paranoid clown.
http://vejoaovivo.com.br/rj/rio-de-janeiro/rua-bolivar-42-copacabana.html
I hope this cam is really live. I will walk past this street webcam at about 2:30 pm Rio time (2 hours later than USA eastern standard time. About in half an hour. I’ll be wearing a green rolling stones t-shirt with the big red lips logo and a wide brim white panama hat. (Damn, I’m gonna look like a Gringo) I will be pulling a black carry on luggage because I’m going to take care of some business out of town for a few days. I’ll stand by the manhole cover. If someone can capture the image on the screen and post it to this blog for jingle, Thanks and thanks jingle!!! YOU ROCK!
…………..
Comment by Ben Jones
2013-10-28 09:33:59
I saw him. He waved at the camera.
We all saw a street bum yesterday. And the same street bum today.
Post the photo RioTard.
We all saw a street bum yesterday. And the same street bum today.
Clown. If you saw that you wouldn’t have lied about such almost 12 hours later. Liar.
Don’t mess with Rio. You will lose again.
Post the photo. Save yourself Riotard.
Save yourself Riotard.
I did…..
Yesterday
You posted a streetcam link.
Save yourself and post a photo.
Post the photo RioTard.
Comment by Ben Jones
2013-10-28 09:33:59
I saw him. He waved at the camera.
We all saw it.
Now post a photo. Man up.
School Test Teaches Kids: “Commands Of Government Officials Must Be Obeyed By All”
Papers produced by global education corporation; Part of ‘No Child Left Behind’ program
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Oct 29, 2013
A parent of a ten year old was shocked to discover a grammar and writing test paper that their child brought home from school reads more like document from an authoritarian country such as China.
The parent sent a portion of the test paper to Infowars, revealing that it contains sentences such as “The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all.”
The paper uses such sentences and asks school children to replace certain words in order to make the sentence contain a possessive noun.
Others within the paper include:
“The job of a president is not easy.”
“He makes sure the laws of the country are fair”
“The wants of an individual are less important than the needs of a nation”
Here is the portion of the paper Infowars received:
Upon further investigation it appears that the paper is part of a set produced by Pearson Education, a global corporation that provides education publishing and assessment services to schools in the US and the rest of the world. Pearson is the world’s largest for-profit education business.
The particular sentence about everyone obeying government commands appears in other Pearson papers, such as this fifth grade grammar test.
According to the company’s Wikipedia page and its website, Pearson owns leading educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, BBC Active, Bug Club, eCollege, Fronter, Longman, MyEnglishLab, Penguin Readers, Prentice Hall, Poptropica and Financial Times Press. Pearson is part of Pearson PLC, which also owns Penguin Books and the Financial Times.
In 2010, Pearson also negotiated a 5 year, $32 million, contract with the New York State Department of Education to design tests for students in grades 4-8.
Some have criticized the company’s test papers. Last year papers designed for NYSED were found to contain over 30 errors. Writing for the New York Times, Gail Collins noted:
“We have turned school testing into a huge corporate profit center, led by Pearson, for whom $32 million is actually pretty small potatoes. Pearson has a five-year testing contract with Texas that’s costing the state taxpayers nearly half-a-billion dollars.”
Collins outlines the fact that Pearson is being contracted under the controversial No Child Left Behind program set up by the government in 2001:
“This is the part of education reform nobody told you about. You heard about accountability, and choice, and innovation. But when No Child Left Behind was passed 11 years ago, do you recall anybody mentioning that it would provide monster profits for the private business sector?”
Collins continues:
“[Pearson's] lobbyists include the guy who served as the top White House liaison with Congress on drafting the No Child law. It has its own nonprofit foundation that sends state education commissioners on free trips overseas to contemplate school reform.”
Ah… all becomes clear. Government contracted education papers telling children that they must obey the commands of the government. Nice.
Along with enforcing government mandated rules such as banning packed lunches, this will be seen by many as yet another example of how the nanny state is encroaching via the public education system.
It’s a concept also being promoted by the mass media. Earlier this year, MSNBC ran a segment pushing the notion that kids belong to the “collective,” and that the “idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families” should be eliminated.
These revelations also remind one of Common Core, federally mandated education principles, which are effectively dumbing down students by standardizing education across the board and shutting out diversity in teaching.
Do you think Leslie Appleton Young is a liar and a fraud?
Do California home owners faithfully feed the squirrels, as stipulated in their purchase contracts?
Maybe this time is different, but normally over 400 HBB posts in one day is a sign that somewhere around the globe, an asset bubble is deflating.
BlackRock’s Fink on ‘bubble-like markets’: Fed needs to taper
October 29, 2013, 8:32 PM
The Fed is contributing to “bubble-like markets,” BlackRock BLK CEO Laurence Fink told a panel Tuesday in Chicago, according to Bloomberg.
“It’s imperative that the Fed begins to taper,” he reportedly said. “We’ve had a huge increase in the equity market. We’ve seen corporate-debt spreads narrow dramatically.”
When Fink warns that “we have issues of an overzealous market again,” he’s worth listening to, considering that BlackRock, with $4.1 trillion in assets, is the world’s biggest money manager, as Bloomberg data shows.
Of course, Fink isn’t the only one warning of a prospective bubble. With the S&P 500 knocking out yet another record high on Tuesday — its 33rd record close this year — and the Dow also repeatedly pushing into uncharted territory, calls for caution are to be expected. Not to be deterred, however, investors have sunk $277 billion into stock funds so far this year — a number we hadn’t seen since 2000.
– Shawn Langlois