The Housing Bubble

Realtors Are Liars.

Jingle Male, don’t worry, I’ll help you refute his redundant lies.

I got your back too, bro!

All real estate is local, especially around Sacramento!

Sacramento’s real estate investment gains are in the bag.

I’m underwater.

This is so heartwarming! Its like a telethon for Realturds and all the stars have come out to help. Lets get those phone lines humming and those pledges rolling in folks- we’ve got 24 hours to help Jingle’s kids before prices fall any more.

Sacramento is the hottest real estate market in America, you can’t not make money in Sacramento.

OK, I’ll admit it…I literally laughed out loud.

http://youtu.be/SReQ6XNhB_E

My Dad told me you cannot loose in Real Estate. Shave your dog and sell the fur!

My Dad is richer than your dad.

The local Kroger in my little burg (AKA King Soopers) is well stocked. Lots of end caps, special displays, etc. Safeway also seems to be well stocked.

when i worked for tarp bank several years ago, it was in a former shoe factory. this building was about a quarter mile long, and the carpets were color-coded at intervals so you’d know where you were going to locate your desk.

Early in college I worked for a summer at GMAC Mortgage in Horsham PA, packaging up physical mortgage paperwork and logging it into MERS. (90%+ of the mortgages were in random CA, NV, and AZ counties no one had ever heard of.) The building was very large (single story), many large corridors with cubicle farms on either side. I had no idea WTF was really going on, it was 2002, I don’t think anyone knew what the big picture was. The great thing was that I could work so much quicker than the other employees doing my job, allowing me to disappear for 30 min here, an hour there, etc. There were thousands of employees and sky high turnover so no one noticed.

I wonder what % of those mortgages ended up as foreclosures.

It’s still pretty funny that Walmart’s corporate headquarters looks pretty much like one of their Walmart Supercenters.
—–
It’s called branding. Did you think some place that billed themselves as a ‘low cost’ retail sales company would have a home office that looked like the Taj Mahal?

That creates internal mental conflict, and fosters distrust between hq and the field.

It’s called branding. Did you think some place that billed themselves as a ‘low cost’ retail sales company would have a home office that looked like the Taj Mahal?

————–

Plenty of companies that pay low wages have very nice headquarters locations. Walmart’s HQ looks like it is about to get overrun by a stampede once EBT benefits are put on cards.

Plenty of companies that pay low wages have very nice headquarters locations.

True, but I think HBB_Rocks made a very good point, and maybe they’re smart enough to see it when other companies aren’t.

I know manufacturers’ sales reps who have pitched/sold to Wal-Mart. It’s pretty bare bones, no conference rooms with leather chairs. More like folding tables under fluorescent lights.

How many WalMart “associates” will ever get to see Galactic HQ? And will knowing that the accountants, finance and supply chain folks who work there have a shabby cubicle really make them feel better about their $9.70 wage?

I doubt it’s for the associates. It’s for the next layer up…

They are harvesting a mindset, and have to go all in or it frays at the seams. That’s why it’s a generally a deadend strategy and every business doesn’t do it.

No. I am not the reason I am just the means. The reason lies with the actions of the donkeys.

Mr. Banker Sir,

Please proceed with this lesson.

What causes donkeys to do this? A mental deficiency?

The donkeys were getting plenty fat for the slaughter. It would be an act of mercy for Mr. Banker to stop short at putting them on a diet.

“What causes the donkeys to do this? A mental deficiency?”

More like an educational deficiency. If debt donkeys were smart then guys like me would starve.

What’s wonderful about our educational system is those that graduate from it think they are much smarter than what they actually are. This gives guys like me the edge; All I have to do to agree with them that they are smart, that they deserve to have everything that they want because, after all, they have earned it. After I get them to nodding their heads up and down a bit in agreement I simply place before them a printed piece of paper that has a dotted line at the bottom, hand them a pen and - amazingly - they then sign the dotted line and - presto! - they then belong to me.

Well, actually they themselves do not belong to me, only a chunk of what they will earn over many forthcoming years will belong to me. Which is better for me because if they belonged to me then I would have to spend money on them in taking care of them. But because they do not belong to me they - after I get mine - will have to somehow take care of themselves.

Are you feeding donkeys MIR 162 corn?

China just rejected a ship load of it

You, Dianne, along with the rest of the folks in Congress are my favorite employees.

Buying a congressperson is the best investment a banker can make.

If this slowdown gets any worse I may have to lay off a few Congressmen.

that will get their attention!

Does this prove you were overbilling for many years based on labor you didn’t need to complete the job?

And you can be fired if you don’t produce (theoretically) which is one big advantage over a regular fedgov employee.

“I am a W2 employee of the contractor, so I don’t invoice anything.”

Someone in your org does.

If the contract allows for 100,000 labor hours in a year, and the employees work 80,000 hours, only 80,000 hours are billed.

Yes, contractors can be fired (we fired one a few months ago for incompetence), we work subject to Colorado’s right-to-work laws.

The billing is done from contractor HQ back in Northern Virginia, conveniently located near the Pentagon.

I get to “train” one of my government colleagues this week, she has been here for about 10 years, I have been here less than a year and half. Except that we are not allowed to call it “training”, as contractors are not allowed to train or assign work to government employees.

Except that we are not allowed to call it “training”, as contractors are not allowed to train or assign work to government employees.”

when I was in my twenties I used to run qualification tests in front of government inspectors who had no clue on what i was testing. The concept of Phase was impossible to explain to one guy in his 40’s although I tried mighty every day.

I was young I didn’t care. Now it would really piss me off to have that guy watching me test and asking so many lame questions.

Ether is not an “underlying asset”. This is a bizarre mania.

‘The underlying asset is a cryptographic file and the computational power (and real-world power consumption) required to “mine” it.’

In other words, the underlying asset is equally worthless as the shiny yellow metal, except that you can’t see it, weigh it, touch it, stare at it, count your coins made of it, or wear it as jewelry.

In other words, the underlying asset is equally worthless as the shiny yellow metal, except that you can’t see it, weigh it, touch it, stare at it, count your coins made of it, or wear it as jewelry.

Not really. Gold has industrial uses. And unlike bitcoins, you can hide it and easily trade it.

“Not really.”

You really missed my point, which is that bitcoin is actually quite a bit less useful than gold is.

You really missed my point, which is that bitcoin is actually quite a bit less useful than gold is.

Really? Interesting. Can you pay for your takeout with gold? No.You can with bitcoin.

Can you send gold instantly to someone in another country, like say a family member who needed money? No. You can with bitcoin.

Bitcoin is digital, which means anywhere there is an internet connected device in the world, one can send and receive bitcoin. One can do this without interference from governments or fees from banks. How is that not useful?

How many merchants, online or otherwise, are adopting “pay by gold”? How many are adopting bitcoin?

Northeastener —

I didn’t mean to suggest bitcoin doesn’t have its advantages as a currency (by the commonly-accepted definition, not the tj non-definition). Rather just pointing out that its ephemeral nature makes it intrinsically worthless, aside from its currency properties.

not the tj non-definition

you mean not by the wacked out non-understanding, don’t you?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+many+bitcoins

They can always arbitrarily change the rules later on, or at least announce they did so — not sure any actual change is required…just telling the masses they did something should suffice, as there is no way to independently verify an imaginary quantity which only exists in the fundamental ether of cyberspace.

Or am I missing something?

The underlying asset of bit coin is the promise that there are (or will be) only a finite number of them created.

Wrong. As I stated, the process of “mining” bitcoins requires physical inputs like servers. Those servers require electrical power, cooling, etc. Additionally, as the cryptograhpic hashes become more complex, more processing power is required to mine effectively.

Absent of supply and demand, there is an underlying cost to “mine” bitcoins, just like there is an underlying cost to mine gold, pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, or build a house. As to the promise of a finite number created, that just serves as a method to limit supply… just like there is a finite amount of gold available to mine or oil to drill.

They can always arbitrarily change the rules later on, or at least announce they did so

No, they can’t. Bitcoin is an open source, decentralized implementation of a cryptocurrency. The number of available bitcoins is based on the reward for block mining. As the bitcoin wike states:

“Eventually the reward will go from 0.00000001 BTC to zero and no more bitcoins will be created.
The block reward calculation is done as a right bitwise shift of a 64-bit signed integer, which means it is divided by two and rounded down. The integer is equal to the value in BTC * 100,000,000 since internally in the reference client software, all Bitcoin balances and values are stored as unsigned integers.”

Scarcity is built into the cryptocurrency. A natural limit to the supply of bitcoins… at about 21 million, as the block reward shifts. Changing that would require a change in the implementation which I see as impossible as any individual change would invalidate that particular peer amongst the remaining peers.

“Scarcity is built into the cryptocurrency.”

John Law would have had a heyday with this!

Scarcity is built into the cryptocurrency meme, as scarcity adds value. Just ask the hoarders who are holding homes off the U.S. residential market!

Just wait for the Olympics in Brazil, that oughta be a real gas.

BTW, I probably will not be able to post for the next few hours so anticipating the response from Rio and a few others on this board who may try to claim that wealth is more concentrated in China than Brazil, here is this statistic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

If you look at the numbers you will see that there is more income inequality in Brazil than in China. They have a lower Gini score and the lower the score the less income inequality. Thus, just comparing the per capita income actually under estimates how much better China’s worker’s are paid than the worker slaves in Brazil. Despite this per capita income is the best measure if not a perfect measure. Brazil is an example of the Animal Farm novel in real life.

Hmmm… according to the chart the US and Mexico have comparable GINIs, yet no one is sneaking into Mexico from the US to work.

Because GINI just addresses the inequity of wealth not the level of wealth for the entire country. In a socialistic state that is pure but makes everyone destitute, it would still rank high on the GINI scale. Similarly, in a capitalistic society where even the poor have a decent standard of living compared to the rest of the world but some people are really rich you will have a lower reading than the destitute socialistic country. It often comes down to do you value equality more than ensuring the most productive society.

If cops are entering houses without a warrant, that’s a serious issue. If they were wearing standard blue police uniforms, I don’t think that would be any better.

“This type of thing should scare the f..k out over everyone in this country.”

It should but it doesn’t.

This type of thing gets filed under phony scandals.

“Iran should have nukes.”

The best way to destroy Iran is with high fructose corn syrup, fast food franchises, pornography, the Kardashians, music, etc., and get rich doing it.

What he said.

The future belongs to the young. If this country had a lick of sense, it would be making this country as “young-friendly” as possible.

What used to be great about the US was that you could get away from “tyranny”, be it Hitler or Stalin, or the tyranny of old people, and old ways of doing things.

Political and business isolation just plays into the status-quo die hards hands.

In this case, the “right people” being an unarmed black guy.

Not to beat this dead horse any more, but that unarmed black guy was a thug with a criminal history who assaulted the wrong white guy. A jury of his peers found Zimmerman not guilty. The police didn’t want to charge Zimmerman in the first place, based on the evidence at hand, it was only after political pressure was put on them by the race baiters that Police eventually charged him.

So, as far as the NRA and every lawful gun-owner is concerned, justice was served.

As far as thugs go, here’s another one you may not have heard about. NYPD officer beaten-to a pulp

I guess this thug doesn’t deserve to be shot in your world, right? I mean, he’s unarmed…

NERDS!!!

Self-professed and proud of it…

And referring to the US as “America,” as in the title of her book, is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

FWIW, in Latin America yanks are referred to a “norteamericanos”.

Apparently pension is calculated on 1)highest income 2)years service credit and 3)age. When you stop working (separation date) the service credit and income is frozen but your age keeps going up as long as you haven’t collected retirement. You can retire (start collecting income) at any time after the separation date and they work with your current age to calculate retirement income. So it will be more but I have not done the math yet. It seems a lot like the social security system.

Another question, should you assume HR is looking out for your interests (employee friendly) or are they pushing what is good for the company (who employs them)? I think I may have answered my own question.

Now, would the parents of the youths playing the ‘Knockout’ Game be eligible for a “basic income” check?

If so, could it be garnished to pay for the victims of the ‘Knockout’ Game? I guess you couldn’t do that because then the parents of the youths playing the ‘Knockout’ Game would be back under the poverty line.

I’ve got it!

Let’s pay the parents of the youths playing the ‘Knockout’ Game double, that way they can pay restitution and remain above the poverty line.

Alarming ‘Knockout’ Game Sweeping the Nation?

Police say roving bands of youths are reportedly preying on passersby with the aim of knocking them out with one punch—sometimes fatally.

By: Lynette Holloway
Posted: Nov. 17 2013 1:19 PM

Shot from surveillance video of “knockout” game
YouTube

An alarming new “game” that has reportedly caused deaths in Syracuse, N.Y.; St. Louis, Mo.; and Hoboken, N.J., is sweeping the nation, according to CBSDC, as roving bands of youths prey on unsuspecting people walking the streets.

The so-called “knockout” game involves groups or individuals who randomly target strangers, with the ultimate goal of knocking them out with a single punch as they walk by, according to CBSDC, which cites a report from New York-based CBS 2. The report highlights troubling footage of teens participating in the attacks.

Forty-six-year-old Ralph Santiago of Hoboken, N.J., was a victim, found dead with his neck broken and head lodged between iron fence posts, according to NJ.com. Moments before his gruesome death, surveillance video shows Santiago walking in an alleyway in daylight, and just as he’s about to pass a group of teens, one lodges the fatal, knockout blow, CBSDC reports.

Why?

“For the fun of it,” one teen said in the video.

“They just want to see if you got enough strength to knock somebody out,” said another.

Read more at CBSDC.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/Breaking/2013/11/alarming_knockout_game_sweeping_the_nation.html - 87k -

another reason not to wear headphones while walking around downtown and to pay attention to your surroundings.

After last nites brutalization, the only thing the cross-dressing Lola will be capable of doing is clicking his heels together while saying, “I’m a GovLover”.

Of course, the die-hards of the Right see no contradiction in any of this.

Want a government-less society? Move to Somalia, Besides, there isn’t a dimes worth of difference between conservative Muslim crazys, and conservative Christian crazies, so you should fit right in.

But none of them will stand up for their principles, because they have the best of both worlds here…….Government policies that force people to have kids they don’t want/can’t afford, followed by policies where the same government throws the same kids under the buss after they are born.

My business is a fine example of the hypocritical thinking. None of these airplanes would be worth a damn without government bought and paid for infrastructure. But any time fuel taxes/user fees are broached, the owners have a big hissy fit, and start taking up the “benefits to society” operations of these airplanes generate.

Did you know that maintenance and parts sales on these airplanes are not taxed in most states? A classic “race to the bottom scenario”. One state figured they could rob Peter to pay Paul (Texas, as I recall) and exempted taxes on maintenance and parts sales. Now they are all doing it, to keep the business.

Yeah, I play the tax-dodging game, on the owners behalf. Saved the guy $100K+ in state sales taxes in 2012. Do I like it? No. Because I know the states are making up the shortfall by higher taxes on the peons.

I might add that this sales tax exemptions typically only apply to aircraft ABOVE a certain gross weight. IOW, turboprops and business jets.

The J6P/ Piper Cherokee owner doesn’t get it

Even though some reptiles don’t want to believe it, giving a minimal gov’t benefit (I suggested 800/month, but whatever, it could be higher or lower) would cost far less than our current system.

Moreover, if you just stop giving any safety net benefits, you’re looking at skyrocketing crime, the costs of which would outweigh the taxes given to benefits. The fact is, very little of our taxes is spent on this, much more is spent on the military. And much more would be spent on police and jails if we had no safety net… state prison costs something like $50k/yr per inmate or more in most states. Federal prisons cost even more than that. Factor in parole officers, the court system, sheriffs, etc.

Another thought - maybe we can just stay home all day and night and protect our houses with our own guns. Then we won’t need the police at all. We also won’t be able to go out and enjoy life, but hey, it’s all about “saving money” and “having lower taxes”, no? Any suggestion that there are _reasonable_ trade offs is like kryptonite to a reptile.

Wake up guys, there are trade offs.

I have a better way of saving money and reducing crime. When someone turns 18 years of old and has an IQ test result of 85 or less, we offer he or she $30,000 to be sterilized. This number gets reduced by $1,000 a year for males and $1500 per year for females to reflect fertility. Within 15 years you will see less crime and dependency. The reduced population will also lessen pressure on the environment. Also, it is the gift that keeps on giving since there will be no children to breed more children. Oliver Wendell Homes said it best, three generations of idiots is enough. Of course, unlike his decision, I want to keep this voluntary.

he or she+ him or her.

BTW, what makes anyone believe that if we give a gang banger $1000 a month he will not commit crimes so we will save on prison? Seems to me that the most likely result of this guaranteed minimum income is to encourage even more illegal immigration into this country by the least skilled and educated. Someone on this board a few days ago said that we should not discourage immigration into this country we should just make sure that no one gets benefits once they get here. While from an ivory tower I would agree that it is the benefits that are the problem, I do not see how we can ever keep them from using government to vote themselves access to other people’s money. This is just one more example of this and it is done in some countries.

Another thought - maybe we can just stay home all day and night and protect our houses with our own guns. Then we won’t need the police at all. We also won’t be able to go out and enjoy life, but hey, it’s all about “saving money” and “having lower taxes”, no? Any suggestion that there are _reasonable_ trade offs is like kryptonite to a reptile.

It’s called owning and carrying guns, having a large dog or two, and an alarm system. Pretty much covers all the bases. You can leave your house at will, knowing that the alarm and dogs protect your property and the guns protect your family. Didn’t require any additional taxes or more handouts to the mouthbreathers. I guess those “self-help” solutions don’t lend themselves well to the progressive-statist narrative that only government solutions are valid and that requires more taxes.

Want a government-less society? Move to Somalia

LOLZ. When have libertarians or the Tea Party ever said they want Somalia, or no government? Libertarians and Tea Party types aren’t anarchists. They want less government intrusion in their lives, not complete anarchy. Seems a bit of a stretch to compare wanting less government intrusion from the complete clusterf**k we have today to Somalia.

You mean like they do in legit banana republics and dumps like Russia?

Sounds sweet. But not everyone wants to live like tea trash. This is a case where the European and Japanese models are clearly superior and the “do it yourself” is for idiotic 3rd world countries.

I sure given the thug a thousand a month would have prevented this:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/18/Exclusive-Border-Patrol-Agent-s-Killer-Was-Illegal-Alien-On-Supervised-Release-by-U-S-Authorities

Given=giving

LOLZ. When have libertarians or the Tea Party ever said they want Somalia, or no government?

There’s a guy who participates on this blog who claims that taxation is theft. Presumably that means that he wants no taxes, and therefore no government.

Oliver Wendell Homes said it best, three generations of idiots is enough. Of course, unlike his decision, I want to keep this voluntary.

I Googled up that three generations quote. It leads a Wikipedia article about a supreme court case Buck v. Bell. This is from the article:

Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectual disabled, “for the protection and health of the state” did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve the human race by eliminating “defectives” from the gene pool.

…

The ruling was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In support of his argument that the interest of the states in a “pure” gene pool outweighed the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued:

Holmes concluded his argument by declaring that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”.

Gee, talk about a proponent of big government! You’re some piece of work, Dan.

There’s a guy who claims Hitler was a socialist. Presumably that means he wants no social programs, and therefore no naziism.

Hmm, see where that type of thinking breaks down?

There’s a guy who claims Hitler was a socialist. Presumably that means he wants no social programs, and therefore no naziism.

You’re not making sense. First of all, the people who say that Hitler was a socialist are generally against social programs. If they say such a thing and are still in favor of some social programs, they must believe either a) that the existence of some social programs does not constitute socialism or b) that socialism is OK.

If someone says that taxation is theft, I assume that he thinks that theft is undesirable. Otherwise, what is the point of making such a statement? If taxation is theft and theft is undesirable, then taxation must also be undesirable.

‘people who say that Hitler was a socialist’

Good grief, it was in the name of the party:

‘The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers’ Party existed from 1919 to 1920. The term Nazi is German and stems from Nationalsozialist.’

‘Advocacy of a form of socialism by right-wing figures and movements in Germany became common during and after World War I, influencing Nazism.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party

This is just more evidence that there is no left or right. Political opinion and history is too diverse to fit into two pigeon holes.

I wasn’t addressing whether such an assertion about the Nazi Party was valid or not. I was responding to mathguy’s straw man argument. It occurred to me though that the North Korean government calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. If one looked into the way that North Korea operates, a lot of evidence could probably be found to show that North Korea is neither democratic or a republic. The lesson could be that we shouldn’t put much faith in the names that murderous dictator types give to parties or governments.

Nazi Germany was certainly socialist. I don’t see what was right wing about them. But I don’t know what the heck right wing really means.

But I don’t know what the heck right wing really means.

Ben, you’re correct. there are many confusing definitions out there. right wing to me is conservatism, which is concerned with mostly fiscal responsibility, and strict adherence to the constitution. social issues are mostly a non issue. individual freedom. individual sovereignty.

here’s a site i’ve put up before but i don’t know if you’ve seen it, so i’ll put the address up again. if you answer the questions honestly, you’ll see where you fall on the political scale (left, right, authoritarian, liberty). no one has to know your score, but at least you’ll know how others would commonly see you politically, if they knew all your views.

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html

I do not know how you can say that spending more or less on social programs results in more or less crime since there is no empirical evidence of this. However, I think that if you look at people that are arrested you will find out that many are directly or indirectly benefitting from existing benefits. How many crack houses are run out of section 8 housing, for example? My way actually has some hope of actually reducing crime. Numerous studies have shown a link between abortion rates and a reduction in crimes. I want to target the group where abortion reduces the rate of crime. I think that there is no need to kill anyone including the unborn to get the beneficial result of reducing the group of people most likely to be involved in street crime i.e. low IQ, uneducated people.

Lastly - for those of you who want to have essentially no safety net/transfers, I assume you want to pay more for police, security, and incarceration? Because it costs us much, much more to put extra police on the streets and to incarcerate people. I think it’s safe to assume that higher rates of petty and property crime would drive up insurance rates and business costs (security guards) so that would be passed along as well.

Was crime, especially violent crime, as prevalent before we had welfare, section 8, SNAP, disability, etc? What did people do 100 years ago, before we had all these handouts? Was it chaos in the streets? Did we incarcerate as many people per capita? Your argument is a straw-man and is false…

Statists gonna state…

“Why is that a conspiracy?”

When an autopsy photo is altered to make it look like the front of the head was gone instead of the back, what would you call it if not a conspiracy? Federal art work?

November 6, 2013

With the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK approaching later this month, three-time Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone says that the Zapruder film was tampered with.

Appearing on Democracy Now, Stone said that the infamous Zupruder footage, which shows Kennedy being shot in the head from the front, was altered after it was seized by the CIA and the Secret Service.

“It was altered a bit I think – there’s a lot of evidence to that effect,” said Stone, who directed the 1991 blockbuster JFK.

In another interview with Huffington Post Live, Stone repeated the claim that the tape had been tampered with.

The Zapruder film wasn’t aired on network television until 1975, nearly 13 years after the assassination.

Although there were numerous eyewitnesses to the JFK assassination itself, many of them died under mysterious circumstances.

Between the winters of 1963 and 1967, 15 JFK assassination witnesses who’d been interviewed by the Warren Commission, Dallas Police, or the FBI died prematurely and in bizarre ways.

When an actuary calculated the odds of this occurring naturally, it came out at one hundred thousand trillion to one (100,000,000,000,000,000 to 1).

NIXON jokes about LBJ killing JFK - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJIb73SPzkE - 129k

Nixon’s Dirty Trickster: LBJ Killed JFK | Interview with … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeDRov7zutY - 146k - Cached - Similar pages
Nov 4, 2013

Ask not what your country can do for you … Ask what you can do to get more free cheese from your country.