Bits Bucket for January 1, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! Cheers to the best Housing Blog in the Nation. I look forward to a fantastic 2014.
Feliz Año Nuevo!
Happy New Year to you, too, Ben and thanks for all your work and dedication. Hope this year is better than the last.
Let’s hope the wolf stays away from the door this year.
Healthy New Year to all….
Happy New Year to you, Ben, and also to all my other HBB friends. May this year bring you many good things.
It’s 45 minutes past midnight on January 1st, 2014 in California. Has the Housing Rebubble popped yet?
4 Reasons the Housing Bubble May Pop in 2014
by Rick Aristotle Munarriz
Dec 30th 2013 11:00AM
The housing rebound is on a roll. Home prices continue to inch higher, and the number of indicators showing economic improvement suggest we’ll enjoy an even rosier 2014, when the Fed won’t have to do quite as much to keep the good times going.
However, there are also more than a few hints that in the year ahead, the housing market’s rebound may take a breather — or we may experience something far worse. Let’s take a look at some of the warning signs.
…
As usual, the media is priming the public for what is already in play and in progress. Prices are falling everywhere, the public thinks they’re going up(thanks lying housing media scum)….
Whac, you left out the last line of Munarriz’ article:
The housing market bubble may not pop in 2014, but it’s highly likely that it will lose some of its sudsy essence.
Journalists have a habit of closing financial news articles with lines which reveal that what they just wrote is pure conjecture and they haven’t a clue about what is actually occurring. I saw no value to including the confessional.
You’re watching…
A housing bubble ahead?
FBN’s Peter Barnes breaks down the October Case-Shiller housing report.
Date Dec 31, 2013
Duration 1:47
Conclusion: No bubble ahead, because we have no more sub-prime liar loans……..
Outcome: Price declines accelerate.
‘No bubble ahead, because we have no more sub-prime liar loans’
I’ve pointed out a few times Harp/Hamp, etc are as bad as any subprime loan. Because the borrowers are already FB’s seems to make this OK in the minds of most, but the overall effect will be the same.
That aside, because I read a lot of articles on the subject, I am familiar with the “Is it a bubble?” headline. Which almost always is put together entirely to say that there isn’t: “Because…”
It’s like there is a magic bullet that proves once and for all there can be no bubble. There’s all sorts of these magic bullets for all sorts of bubbles. But let’s take subprime loans. Does China have subprime loans? Dubai?
Were there subprime loans at work in the tech stock bubble? Hmm, the silver bullet doesn’t work there.
What this boils down to is a backward looking logic. Subprime was the cause of the US housing bubble, it has been proclaimed. Therefore, eliminate subprime loans and you can’t possibly have a bubble!
Never mind that the majority of foreclosures have been prime loans.
I was thinking recently about how things went down in Phoenix/Tucson the past few years. From 2010 on it was a little feverish. But when did it cross the line from bullish to bubble? Because it’s in the minds of many individual participants, we’ll never be able to say for sure. For me, it was when I found myself standing in the front yard of a Tucson dump early one morning with a Chinese lady who spoke no English and bought the place on the spot for way more than it was worth based on rents.
If these reports wanted to get down to the heart of the matter, they might start with a definition of a bubble. From there, they would see that no subprime loan is required. No one dynamic from past bubbles is needed. Nor is it necessarily an indicator. If Apple stock goes above some bubble era mark, I don’t care. But when I see money losing tech companies raise billions in a very short period of time, with no firm prospects of when profits will emerge, I take notice. Similarly, when I find reports of people camping out for $900k houses in California, writing love letters, or 145 offers on a DC house, I suspect something is going on.
+infinity, Ben.
Sub-prime was the icing on the cake, the last death throes of the bubble as it pulled in the less-and-less eligible toward the end.
But sub-prime was not the cause of the bubble, nor is it necessary for a bubble. It was more just a symptom of the late stages of bubble-thinking.
Bzzzzt. Wrong answer.
Sub-prime liar loans are a sufficient but not a necessary condition for a bubble to occur.
And besides that, just because there is no current reporting on sub-prime liar loans doesn’t mean we don’t have them any more.
Enjoy whistling during your strolls past the graveyard in 2014.
Ben’s examples go straight to my point about the logical flaw in JingleMale’s argument: Widespread subprime liar lending was only one factor among many that led to the Housing Bubble — i.e. a sufficient but not a necessary condition for a bubble to occur. I’d add that subprime liar lending was an effect of easy money with an implicit too-big-to-fail guarantee in case systemically risky lending institutions incurred massive bad gambling debt, not a primary cause.
Widespread subprime liar lending was only one factor among many that led to the Housing Bubble ??
I think HELOC’s were even a bigger problem…They were making loans on equity that was not there AND taking a secondary position on the beneficiary ladder…
Sub-prime liar loans are a sufficient but not a necessary condition for a bubble to occur.
Heck, 30 year, fixed rate mortgages, which are pretty much non-existent outside the USA, are not a requirement.
If I were to narrow down the cause of the bubble to ONE factor, it would be that there was NO private entity who actually held a mortgage loan to term. If your loans come in one door and out the other without leaving any residue behind, you don’t care about quality, simply volume. All of the shenanigans were offshoots of this single cause.
Pull you heads out of the rearview mirror and look through the window because there’s a sinkhole dead ahead.
“ONE factor, it would be that there was NO private entity who actually held a mortgage loan to term”
That is a bit of hyperbole, Oxide, and I know for a fact it is not true - at least not around here. It may well be the case in the overheated DC market and that tells you something, wouldn’t it?
Housing market could face new bubble, home price expert warns
Staff reports CNBC.com
17 hours ago
The housing market could be in the early stages of yet another bubble, warned Robert Shiller, co-founder of the closely watched Case-Shiller index on home prices.
“In the housing market, it has its own momentum right now as people see it coming back. We’re sort of in the beginnings of another housing bubble,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist told CNBC on Tuesday.
…
“…sort of in the beginnings…..”
pretty definitive statement!
Why would you expect clueless financial journalists, who are merely passing on information they heard from ‘real estate experts’ second hand, to make definitive statements? My impression is that lots of the ‘real journalists’ who make a living by writing about this stuff don’t actually understand the situation at all.
I need to apologize for not paying attention, as that was a direct quote of Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller.
He obviously is not clueless, but he is very cautious with his statements about where housing is headed.
“He obviously is not clueless, but he is very cautious with his statements about where housing is headed.”
Too cautious, IMHO.
Would you let him set up you up for a blind date?
Would you let him set up you up for a blind date?
“You sort of… maybe… kinda… possibly… might like her.”
My MIL and FIL met on a blind date. I guess the matchmaker, a gay Utahn in Mormonville, knew his business, as my inlaws have been together for almost fifty years already.
Opinion
Wallison: Get Ready for the Next Housing Bubble
Mel Watt is a long-time champion of mortgage quotas for affordable housing. Here we go again.
By Peter J. Wallison
Dec. 4, 2013 6:48 p.m. ET
By banning filibusters of most executive-branch and judicial nominations, the Democrats have done historic damage to the Senate. This will have long-term consequences for the nation, but the most significant initial fallout will likely be the confirmation of Rep. Mel Watt (D., N.C.) to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Since these two government-sponsored enterprises became insolvent in September 2008, FHFA has also been their conservator, with the power…
“Get Ready for the Next Housing Bubble”
Hmm, what would be a good thing to do if you need to “get ready” for another housing bubble?
Why sell and get what you can get of course.
Of course you would. That’s what all people who live in fear will do.
Only Dumb-Borrowed-Money holds onto to a depreciating asset while the losses grow.
Make lots of real estate investments and hope for the best.
These 17 countries may have housing bubbles. If they pop, God help us all.
By Neil Irwin
December 2, 2013 at 1:39 pm
Nouriel Roubini was one of the most presciently pessimistic analysts of the global economy in the run-up to the global financial crisis. And now he thinks it’s happening again.
Roubini doesn’t see bubbles in the places where they were most severe in the pre-2008 period. He doesn’t mention the United States or Spain or Ireland. Rather, Roubini sees housing prices getting out of whack in quite a few small and mid-sized nations that are well-governed and managed to avoid the worst economic effects of the financial crisis: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the London metropolitan area in the U.K. He adds some key emerging markets that show the same dynamic: Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Israel, and major urban centers in Turkey, Indonesia, India and Brazil.
In this view of the world, a better question might be where in the world is there NOT a housing bubble (the answers, apparently, are the United States, southern Europe, Russia and all of Africa).
…
“Roubini doesn’t see bubbles in the places where they were most severe in the pre-2008 period. He doesn’t mention the United States or Spain or Ireland……”
I do find it interesting that when the US market tanked in 2008-2010, many other markets continued to bubble and were unaffected by the U.S. housing bust.
I wonder why he thinks that when these smaller markets bust they will have much effect on the U.S. market.
Yet the housing correction resumed it’s decline in the second half of 2013.
“He doesn’t mention the United States or Spain or Ireland……”
Here is yet another example of uncritical thinking that leads to a wrong conclusion. Absence of evidence that Roubini thinks there is still a U.S. housing bubble in the U.S. is not evidence of absence.
Happy New Year, Whac-Prof-CIBT-GS (MFTRWIU?). Sit back, relax, and watch the pretty bubbles as they grow to unimaginable sizes. Black Swan City, here we come.
Although the housing market apparently is bubbly again, at least the stock market is on a sound and prosperous basis.
Stocks soar in 2013 as fear bubble pops
More stock investors put aside fears of another economic and financial crash, driving the Dow and Nasdaq to record highs. But bond, commodity and emerging-market investors didn’t fare as well.
It was extraordinarily difficult to lose money in major U.S. stocks this year as cash poured in. Above, a trader is ready to ring in the new year while working on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. (Seth Wenig, Associated Press / December 31, 2013)
* Stock market notches its best year since 1995
* October housing price data show ‘boom is fading’ October housing price data show ‘boom is fading’
* Millions of Americans lack basic financial literacy, studies show
By Tom Petruno
December 31, 2013, 6:20 p.m.
When Wall Street finally stopped living in fear of another bust, the opposite happened: a market boom that propelled U.S. stocks to their biggest rally in at least 16 years.
Share prices ended Tuesday with more gains, capping a stunning advance that drove the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index up 29.6% for the year to all-time highs.
The narrower Dow Jones industrial average rose 26.5% in 2013, ending Tuesday up 72.37 points, or 0.4%, to a record 16,576.66.
It was extraordinarily difficult to lose money in major U.S. stocks this year as cash poured in. Within the S&P 500, 457 stocks rose for the year, or 91%, the largest number since 2003.
The gain in the S&P 500 was the biggest since 1997. The surge helped further rebuild the retirement savings accounts of millions of Americans — or at least, of those who’ve been patient enough to hang on.
The catalyst for the powerful advance was more what didn’t happen than what did: After four years of constantly looking over their shoulder for another economic and financial crash, more investors embraced the idea that the world wasn’t ending soon after all.
“We’ve been watching a bubble pop all year. The bubble was in fear,” says Eddy Elfenbein, editor of the popular Crossing Wall Street blog.
…
Got back into the Dow in 2009 at $9,000. Many people still thought the sky was falling and called me an idiot. 83% ROI. I’d rather be lucky than good…..and I feel lucky.
I am going to be even luckier in 2014 and re-balance a bit….into some different assets.
Are the gains enough to offset your losses on your depreciating houses?
Well HA, my gains on housing are enough to offer Ben a $1500 tip for his sage advice in 2006. And that was just on one house. I have no loses. My gains in housing exceed the gains I made in stocks. Buy when others fear: Warren Buffet school of investing.
That and a dollar gets you a cup of coffee around here.
“Got back into the Dow in 2009 at $9,000. Many people still thought the sky was falling and called me an idiot. 83% ROI. I’d rather be lucky than good…..and I feel lucky.”
Unless you somehow knew the Fed was going to institute quantitative easing to massively reflate U.S. housing and stock prices, you should indeed feel lucky.
Jingle Bail = Blog Liar
Indeed. Established long ago.
Aljazeera America
Opinion
The coming stock market collapse
by David Cay Johnston @DavidCayJ
December 31, 2013
Tech stocks have returned to bubble levels, thanks to PR, weak financial journalism and cheap credit
Irrational exuberance is back on Wall Street, encouraged by cheap credit lavished on heavily leveraged speculators, lax accounting rules and the unfortunate tendency to confuse the true value of stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, long a bellwether of the stock market, started the year at 13,416. Last week it hit 16,478, which is 2.5 times its low point during the Great Recession in 2009.
Given rather modest job growth, government spending cuts that have weakened the economy and other lukewarm measures of domestic and global economic growth, this rise in the Dow is difficult to explain based on rational expectations.
But the Dow’s striking 23 percent rise this year is nothing compared with the steep prices of many specific stocks, at least when traditional measures of valuation are applied.
These sky-high valuations get little skeptical coverage in the financial press, which has acted more as lapdog than watchdog in the past decade. Instead of barking warnings, many Wall Street reporters wag their tales in ways that please the speculative crowd, which, at great profit, feeds them market-moving tidbits along with a pat on the head.
A key element in today’s irrational exuberance is the rise of novel ways of valuing companies that gloss over key facts.
In the 1990s the stock bubble expanded as companies persuaded journalists to shift focus from traditional measures such as net profits and net earnings per share. A new standard — earnings before extraordinary items — became a common measure, even though some companies reported extraordinary items with almost the regularity of quarter financial reports.
Accounting rules also let companies count services traded with customers as revenue, as the Global Crossing debacle showed. The telecommunications giant’s stock collapsed from a high of $61 per share to $5 in November 2001, leading to its bankruptcy in January 2002. Worse, companies like Enron, the Houston-based energy-trading firm synonymous with the corporate-fraud epidemic of the early aughts, hid liabilities off their balance sheets, distorting public information and thus investment decisions.
The current irrational exuberance shifts the focus away from PE, or price-to-earnings ratios, a traditional measure of stock value. I call the new measure for stock values PR to reflect both the ratio of price to revenues as well as the sheen publicists get paid to put on goods and services that produce no profit.
For well more than a century, the overall PE of the Standard & Poor 500 has averaged about 15. Last summer, that PE stood at a relatively high 17, as calculated by professor Robert J. Shiller of Yale University, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research into asset valuation.
Shiller created a measure called PE10, which smooths out the figure by measuring current stock prices against inflation-adjusted average earnings for the previous 10 years.
Shiller’s PE10 in December reached 25.4, a figure that suggests share prices will come down unless profits soar. Corporate profits are already at record levels, so big growth in profits seems unlikely, given the weak recovery from the Great Recession, the end of jobless benefits for 1.3 million people and other economic factors.
But a PE10 of 25 appears absolutely reasonable compared with some prices the market has put on individual stocks.
Consider Facebook, which went public in May 2012. Its stock price has more than doubled this year. Its traditional PE stands at a whopping 113.
Only speculators would buy companies with no profits. And only subsidized speculators would bid up prices on companies like Twitter.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg just unloaded 41.4 million Facebook shares for $2.3 billion, ensuring that even if the stock price collapses, he will remain wealthy. Insider selling is, traditionally, a sign that a stock is overpriced.
…
“….Insider selling is, traditionally, a sign that a stock is overpriced….”
Not true. An insider will sell for many reasons. Zuckerberg sold to pay his tax bill.
What is true is an insider will BUY for only one reason.
Very true, Jingle.
I remember all the articles in the popular press in early-mid 2009 stating that all the insiders were selling stock. Hard to say if that was really true or not. However, when articles like that become published and routine, it is usually a good contrarian indicator…and do exactly the opposite what the masses are urging you to do.
Heard on the Street
Bursting the Stock-Market-Bubble Bubble
By Justin Lahart
Dec. 15, 2013 1:46 p.m. ET
No, stocks are not in a bubble. But that doesn’t mean investors must like them.
With the S&P 500 up a blistering 25% this year, and with stocks like Tesla Motors (TSLA -1.32%) sporting valuations that strain belief, the word “bubble” has been getting batted around a lot lately. Case in point: Over the past three months, a Factiva search returns 391 news articles with “bubble” in close proximity to “stock market”, up from 130 over the same period last year.
Given that the dot-com stock bubble occurred during the professional lives of many, if not most, people investing today, the idea that what’s happening now is similar is odd. The S&P traded at 28 times prior-year earnings at its peak in 2000 compared with a price/earnings ratio of 17 now. The Nasdaq Composite’s ratio was 142 at its peak compared with 22 now.
Nor should the fact that some companies’ shares seem bubbly be taken as a reason to be in a lather about the overall market. Think about the great enthusiasm investors showed for bowling-company stocks in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
…
how much money will the janet print when these asset bubbles finally break? Its in the best interest of the economy not to let these bubbles harm the economy.
Market is ignoring the bubble in housing: Pro
Published: Thursday, 26 Dec 2013 | 2:16 PM ET
By: Bruno J. Navarro | Online Producer
Making the bear case on housing, with Mark Hanson of Mark Hanson Advisers. House prices are more expensive than at the height of the bubble in 2006, he says.
While the data supporting the case for a housing bubble are out there, few people are actually paying attention, real estate advisor Mark Hanson said Thursday on CNBC.
“According to our research, house prices on a monthly payment basis today, with rates at 4¾ percent, are more expensive than they were in 2006 at the height of the bubble. And that’s because from 2003 to 2006, people used other than 30-year fixed-rate loans,” he said.
…
Besides the change in the mix of mortgage lending duration from short-term (e.g. payment option ARMs) to long-term (30-year fixed), the other change to bear in mind between the pre-2008 collapse peak in U.S. housing prices to the current higher peak price level is that incomes are lower now and unemployment is higher than was the case before 2008. In short, the fundamentals to support the current return to peak bubble pricing are basically nonexistent.
Happy New Year, Ben! May you and all the other HBBers out there have a healthy, happy 2014!
Think about it…..The Fed is buying a half TRILLION in mortgages every year.
They are making the market. Nobody else. And when they stop, you’ll know it.
Why would they ever stop? I see no indication, other than occasional jawboning by peripheral FOMC members, that they ever plan to do so.
“So do you really think wages are going to double or triple to meet inflated prices of everything? Of course not. Prices will fall by 50% to meet existing wages as demand continues to collapse.”
Exactly.
China has local government debts of 17.7 trillion yuan ($2.9tn), up 70% from three years ago, according to an official report.
China’s government asked the National Audit Office (NAO) in July to do a round-up of the debts outstanding at a local level.
The report showed some local governments were using new loans to repay more than a fifth of their debt.
China has a total government debt of about 58% of its economic output.
Persistent fears over the level of non-performing bad debt have affected perceptions of the world’s second-largest economy, as some worry whether the loans can be paid back.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25553058
Happy New Year
China is hardly the only nation that is piling on debt in a desperation attempt to forestall economic collapse.
Always remember: There are no atheists in foxholes.
Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes Staff
Bringing You The Bull And Bear Case From The Markets Desk
Markets | 12/18/2013 @ 2:37PM |10,126 views
Long Live The Bernanke Put: FOMC Tapers QE As Fed Balance Sheet Nears $4 Trillion
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke seems to have gotten back his touch. After having lost control of the market earlier this year indicating the FOMC could decide to taper quantitative easing before the end of the year, on Wednesday the Chairman managed to spark a big rally on Wall Street while reducing the level of monetary accommodation.
Regardless, while Bernanke managed to begin the process of exiting an ultra-accommodative monetary stance before passing the reins to Janet Yellen, the FOMC went to great lengths to make it clear it remains in full support of the market, pledging to keep rates low “well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6-1/2 percent [threshold],” and promising the more QE could be in the cards. As the market roars on betting on the Bernanke put, Yellen may still be stuck between a rock and a hard place as she is tasked with normalizing monetary policy.
Bernanke finally did it. After warning investors early in 2013, the outgoing Fed Chairman initiated the feared taper, cutting its asset purchases by $10 billion a month starting January. After months of market turmoil, followed by an unprecedented run into record territory, investors were finally prepared to stomach a $10 billion reduction in the pace of asset purchases without freaking out. After an initial slip, the Dow went on a triple digit rally while shares in major banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America jumped. Gold prices swung violently but were trending higher, while the yield on 10-year Treasuries moved up to 2.9%.
Is this a victory for Bernanke? To a certain extent, yes. The Chairman’s words earlier this year, first disclosing the intention to taper in Congressional testimony, led to an aggressive tightening of financial conditions that hurt interest rate sensitive sectors of the economy, particularly by pushing mortgage rates dramatically higher. Even in the face of a more reluctant FOMC, markets freaked out.
The decision not to taper on September had the opposite reaction, unleashing the bulls who helped push the stock market to record highs once again. With the Fed concerned that QE was becoming marginally less effective, and possibly toxic in that it could fuel asset bubbles, managing to taper without spooking the market is a win for Bernanke & Co.
…
You are quite right. Being a trustee of a family trust with substantial assets, it’s a record keeping nightmare. The depreciating assets in the trust(housing) are the most time consuming and costly to deal with. Through property taxes and depreciation, they drain off the cash and cash equivalent assets which I believe is the ultimate purpose of the crappy concept of a living trust. They are a tool of the state.
Considering a large number of trusts are entering probate anyways(the fundamental reason for having a trust), you avoid nothing with a trust. What should have been done? Liquidate and distribute the assets to survivors upon death.
Trusts, reverse mortgages and mortgages are all wallet draining bad ideas.
You better believe it Mister.
Made a mistake in calculating my current asset allocation. I am happy to have 31% of my net worth in short term government securities and cash.
Safe assets are king in the face of 5 years of a stock bull market.
And very glad to have cash!
So the best advice going for 2014 and later is dump that depreciating shack for whatever it can fetch.
And remember… like there is no “shortage” of houses, there is no shortage of land. There is a globe full of it and 95% of it goes undeveloped.
Got up this morning and turned on the radio. Almost immediately, this was on:
…..A string of hurricanes and floods over the past decade has drained FEMA’s insurance fund. Meanwhile, people keep rebuilding in flood zones, in part because FEMA offers cut-rate prices on one-fifth of its policies. At the hearing, Fugate made it clear that this is bad policy: “The moral hazard of subsidizing risk is, we’re going to rebuild right where we were, just the way it was, and we’re going to get wiped out.”
The weird thing in this case is that Fugate was trying to convince Congress not to undo what it had just done. The 2012 law Congress passed — the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act — instructed FEMA to charge more realistic insurance rates that are in keeping with the rates private companies would charge. Congress said, in effect, “It’s OK to stop subsidizing those policies.”
So FEMA did just that. In 2013, it began phasing in higher premiums — mostly for second homes and for properties that have changed hands since then. In some cases, premiums went up by thousands of dollars.
Right away, the phones in Congress started ringing — ringing so much so that Congress called Fugate in to demand a stop to the very law it had passed. Among the most outraged was Maxine Waters — the co-sponsor of the Biggert-Water’s Act. At the hearing, Waters described her law as “well-meaning,” and then scolded Fugate for not coming to Congress earlier to explain just how high the premium increases would go (though they were specifically called for in the Biggert-Waters Act).
“Let me just say,” she told Fugate, “all of the harm that has been caused to thousands of people across the country –[who] are calling us, [who] are going to lose their homes, [who] are placed in this position — is just unconscionable.”
Now Waters and other members are calling for a lengthy “affordability study” to see just how high rates might go. They also want FEMA to finish updating its flood maps to see if people who are not in a flood zone now will end up in one.
FEMA’s Fugate told Waters he doesn’t think much of this plan. “If we are going to continue to do this,” he explained, “if we wait until all the maps are updated, it will indefinitely delay implementation.”
“It is buyer’s remorse by the lawmakers,” says Stephen Ellis, who monitors the ups and downs of flood insurance for a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense. “I mean, they did the right thing,” he says. “And then that kind of outraged some of their constituents, who have howled quite loudly, and now they’re talking about undoing those reforms.”
…..Meanwhile, Congress has drafted a new bill to delay the Biggert-Waters Act of 2012. Sponsors want to hold off on rate hikes while the National Academy of Sciences spends two years studying the issue. When the NAS is done, Congress would then spend a year or so reviewing that study. Given that the Biggert-Waters Act expires in 2017, that delay could solve Congress’ problem with its angry constituents.
Happy New Year, coastal home owners.
Maxine Waters.
What a surprise!
Lol.
Furthur evidence that our elected officials are deeply immersed in the era of “We have to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it”.
Strongly suggest you call your Congress critters and tell them to vote against the new bill and let those FEMA employees implement the one that they passed before. Don’t know if it would work, but given the way this looks to be headed, it can’t hurt.
“Strongly suggest you call your congress critters …”
Yeah, right, as if they care about anything I have to say.
“Yeah, right, as if they care about anything I have to say.”
They have other priorities. You and I aren’t on that list.
Polly, you must have missed this post by Muggy! It appears the flood insurance will exceed the rental income for the house he occupies in FL. His last sentence is incorrect, if this is the case!
___________
December 30, 2013
A Window Of Opportunity For Sellers
__________
Comment by Muggy
2013-12-30 04:55:30
Flood insurance for the house I rent (3/2 1,300 sq ft) is expected to be $15k/yr.
___________
Comment by JingleMale
2013-12-30 06:47:37
That payment seems quite excessive. What is your rent?
___________
Comment by Muggy
2013-12-30 15:32:52
“What is your rent?”
Just a over a G a month.
The owners are frozen, and we are frozen. There is no way we could afford to buy this place with a mortgage, and pay that much in insurance. The owners would have to sell to a cash buyer, and I don’t think they’d be willing to take that kind of hit.
They own outright, and could rent this thing for… forever.
____________
Operating expenses exceed rental income stream in all cases at current asking prices.
The price Muggy quoted still seems crazy to me. If the house is worth $150,000 ($115/SF) and flood insurance is $15,000/year, the owner should just pay himself the premium and in 10-years, he will have saved $150,000….the cost of a new home!
Something is not adding up, but when the government is involved, not much does!
“His last sentece is incorrect, if this is the case!”
If this is the last sentence you are talking about …
“They own outright and could rent this thing for forever …”
… then Muggy is correct IF the owners decide to become self insured.
If you are buying (as opposed to have already bought) - buying, meaning in the process of paying for the house - meaning making monthly house payments, then the insurance you buy goes to protecting the true owner, which if you are buying, happens to be the lender.
If you have already bought - meaning you have paid cash or have made all your monthly payments - then you can be self insured if you choose to do so, meaning you don’t have to have insurance if you so choose.
At least this is how I understand it to be.
Same rule goes when you buy a car on time. You generally have to have collision insurance if you buy a car via monthly payments because the true owner of the car - who is the lender of the money you used to buy the car - needs to have his collateral for the loan (which is the car) protected.
Another case whereby cash rules, BTW. A cash buyer doesn’t have to bear the cost of insurance unless he wants to. This is not the case for the how-much-a-month folks.
Combo, you are absolutely correct. If Muggy’s owners self insure, they will be fine…..(unless the house gets wiped out sometime in the next 10-years by a flood or hurricane). Thanks for clarifying.
“A cash buyer doesn’t have to bear the cost of insurance unless he wants to.”
The insurance liability is there whether or not the owner pays premiums. What the option to self insure buys is avoiding the layer of fat in premiums that goes to the insurance company’s bottom line.
” If Muggy’s owners self insure, they will be fine….”
They have no choice. Rents in my ‘hood around in the 1,200-1,500 range for non-waterfront. Nobody is going to rent my house for $2,600 month.
So muggy the house is basically worthless……ok maybe a few thousands to cover closing costs…
Not so much… they own outright. They can continue to rent to me, or at market, or sell for about 1/2 of what they could have gotten before Biggert-Waters.
Sounds like she didn’t have a clue about what her own Act would do.
“Sound like she didn’t have a clue about what her own act would do.”
She, Maxine, doesn’t have a clue about much of anything except keeping her voters happy; She enjoys amassing something like a seventy percent of the votes whenever she runs for re-election.
And this, this getting re-elected, is her job - this is what she does for a living just as does most all the other Congress critters.
What’s neat, from Maxine’s point of view, is all she has to do is tell her supporters that if a mean ol’ Republican gets in office instead of her then their welfare and other such goodies will be cut and this cut money will go to the rich instead of them. She raises the alarm, the voters keep her voted in.
But at the same time, in a Republican district, a well-entrenched Republican will raise the alarm that if he is not voted in then their taxes will go up to support all the welfare receipants in voting districts such as Maxine’s. He raises the alarm just as Maxine raised the alarm and he repeatidly gets voted in just as Maxine repeatidly gets voted in.
And so there they are and there they stay - Democrat and Republican - Liberal and Conservative - both life-long members of the same club, a club of which they are members but we are not.
But, nevertheless, we still get to pay the dues.
What’s interesting is most everyone agrees that members of Congress should be changed regularly just as diapers should be changed regularly and for the same reason EXCEPT when you are talking about their own Congressman.
Most everyone likes their own Congressman, they just don’t like everyone else’s Congressmen. And this suits the Members of Congress just fine since the numbers of voters they need to please is narrowed down to just one voting district. And if they get the chance to Gerrymander the voting district (and as Members of Congress they definitely get the chance) then they will get to choose just who it is that they have to please and just who it is that they don’t have to please.
And so here we are.
The similarity includes the smell.
The problem is that government has treated insurance as a social program rather than a financial instrument.
I think they might try phasing in these rate hikes or phasing out FEMA Flood Insurance, letting the market take over.
If insurance is a social program then the risk pool is managed for poltical reasons rather than for economic reasons.
If insurance is a financial instrument then the risk pool is managed for financial reasons rather than for political reasons.
The risk pool for financial reasons can be managed by the insurance applicant by opting out of the risk pool. This option can act to put pressure on insurance rates.
But if thee risk pool is for political reasons and there is no choice of opting out then there is no opting-out pressure put on insurance rates and thus rates can go to whatever level the PTB decide they should go.
(As we are currently in the process of discovering.)
Should the federal government subsidize flood insurance?
FBN’s John Stossel weighs in
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1938066980001/should-the-federal-government-subsidize-flood-insurance/
“Got up this morning and turned on the radio. Almost immediately, this was on:”
Bless your heart for that reminder, as I almost forgot to tune in:
The Capitol Steps On the Air
Hillary and Obama Tune in that old-time radio for the two yearly editions of the Capitol Steps’ “Politics Takes a Holiday” broadcast on July Fourth and New Year’s Eve. The shows are broadcast on most of the stations listed below.
We post broadcast times as we receive them, usually a week or two before the air date. If there is no time listed, your station may still be carrying the show. A lot of stations are too busy worrying about Rush Limbaugh’s latest slur to let us know, so call them and tell them to contact us with their broadcast details.
Help roast 2013 to a crisp with the Capitol Steps and our annual year-in-review awards ceremony. It’s all in our hour-long special, “Politics Takes a Holiday!” This year will feature all-new awards, such as:
“Best Moment in Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour Filibuster”
“Most ‘icky’ Tweet from Carlos Danger”
“Best Thigh-Reducing Exercises to do While Waiting for Healthcare.gov” and, of course
“Best Reason to Spy On the American Public — Because You Can!”
Go ahead, tweet it on Twitter (but please, please don’t attach any photos!!!)
It’s been a great year for job creation…although of course many of the jobs created were for comedians!
Listen on-line: this year’s and last year’s New Year’s Eve broadcasts are available for download. If you want to be sure to never miss a show, then get the free iTunes download here and subscribe to the podcast, or use this RSS feed. Subscribe to us also on YouTube.
MP3 audio file New Year’s Eve 2013/2014 Edition: New!
Politics Takes A Holiday!
Recorded live at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC.
(One hour: 57 MB)
“Given that the Biggert-Waters Act expires in 2017, that delay could solve Congress’ problem with its angry constituents.”
What a joke. How do taxpayers in Flyover Country feel about paying the insurance premiums on homes in the path of future hurricanes around NOLA, FL or the Eastern Seaboard?
Happy New Year from comrade Obama, I’m living it up with Hawaiian weather.(I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve been here. So has the media he,he,he.)Have fun all you chumps back in the northeast and upper midwest paying those sky high fuel prices. Pretty soon everything will go up after I decimate the dollar. Take that Ronald Reagan!!
HI housing. The disaster that it is, fraught with risk and loss, built-in.
Peter Tosh - Legalize It:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABc8ciT5QLs
http://www.thecannabist.co/
Makes too much sense to legalize it….To many entrenched interests that will have none of it…
Los Angeles Median Housing Prices Down 18% Since May 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/los-angeles.htm
HA, you are such a Burdbrain. You are quoting MEDIAN and LIST PRICE. Your stats are just like you……….MEANINGLESS.
And they’re falling.
“…stats…MEANINGLESS.”
I’m looking forward to the point when the MSM feels compelled to report on the echo bubble collapse out of fear that failing to do so would make them look foolish.
Seattle WA Median Housing Prices Down 18% Since April 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/wa/seattle.htm
Seattle Median $/sq-ft is down also, but only about one-fourth of the amount that it is UP in the past two years. So the victory is very very small, as of yet.
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/wa/seattle.htm#city=&time=5Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
Palo Alto CA Housing Prices Down 10% Year Over Year
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/palo-alto.htm
Phoenix AZ Housing Prices Down 13% Since May 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/az/phoenix.htm
Tampa FL Housing Prices Falling Fast; Down 22% Since July 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/fl/tampa.htm
Washington DC Housing Prices Down 10%; Declines Accelerating
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/dc/washington.htm
New York City Housing Prices Down 13% Year Over Year
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ny/new-york-city.htm
Atlanta GA Housing Prices Down 16% Since June 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ga/atlanta.htm
Does anyone know if Eddie was able to exit from his Atlanta real estate investments before prices started heading south again earlier this year? Enquiring minds want to know.
Do you have any Movoto stats to post for Sacramento? I’d enjoy JingleMale’s explanation of why they are wrong or irrelevant.
Oh wait…
Sacramento Real Estate Trends & Statistics
W.O.W-
Sacramento Housing Inventory Up a WHOPPING 81% and climbing.
Holy cow, the $/sqft chart does suggest that Jingle has been doing well the past couple of years:
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/sacramento.htm#city=&time=5Y&metric=Median%20%24%2Fsqft&type=0
Down slightly the past 4-5 months, but up dramatically from 2010-2011.
And he’s a trollholio like yourself.
And we don’t believe jingle balls anymore than we believe you.
And we don’t believe jingle balls anymore than we believe you.
Hey, I’m just linking to the SAME EXACT WEBSITE that you linked to—what, a dozen times today? So you trust their median price data, but you don’t trust their price-per-sq-ft data?
You like to pick and choose which stats to believe, now, dontcha? Even when they are from the exact. same. source.
And we don’t believe jingle balls anymore than we believe you.
p.s. You don’t have to believe me—and I don’t care if you do.
But look at the data; it speaks for itself.
I don’t. Nor does anyone else.
“So, did ‘ya sell that Spokane place yet?”
“Na…prices haven’t come up enough…yet.” (they’re upside-down, and making two mortgage payments; blue collar peeps)
I’m at a woman’s cubicle updating the security communication certificates for the new year. It’s late afternoon, and the updates are installing correctly, id card authenticates properly, good to go. And the husband, who had the day off walks in; brief introduction ensues.
“So honey…what have you been up to?”
He leans over and lays a fat wireless GM key on her desk. It operates a new four door, diesel pick-up truck.
“Give me call if you have any trouble, thanks!” (wow, I’m outta there)
People are smart.
“…a new four door, diesel pick-up truck.”
Hmm, $40,000 w/ zero down at 2% for 5 years = $700/mon for 60 months…..$42,000.
That is a great deal…..for GM!
Why bother worrying about home equity when you can blow that kind of money on trucks!
I thought married folks make that kind of decision together. (again, wow)
You should maybe suggest he get a huge set of testicles to hang way down low on the rear of the truck so as to match the richard that sits behind the wheel.
+1
Yes Combo, the blue plastic ones so they can match his as he gets squeezed tighter and tighter by his foolish spending!
“…a huge set of testicles to hang way down low…”
Common site on the rear end of trucks in Phoenix. Fatsos behind the stearing wheels.
last year my county raised re taxes 4.4%
this year? I’m betting most counties go big !
Not in California…..the county cannot raise taxes more than 2%/year, not to exceed market value.
However, the counties now use and index based on your purchase price, so if your values goes from say $600,000 to $300,000 (hey, it could happen….in 2008), the county will increase your “index” 2% a year:
$600,000 purchase in 2006
$703,000 “index” value in 2014.
So the tax in 2008 was $3,000 (1%), but as the value recovers, your tax comes up too. So in 2014 the tax bill could go as high as $7030 using the index. This is a 134% increase off the bottom.
Just another way the FB that hung in there and made payments gets screwed for not walking away. The new buyer in 2008 (at $300,000) will pay a tax bill of $3500 in 2014, or 50% of the FB that stayed with his house. HARP modifications have no effect on the property tax bill.
Perhaps if the .01% had paid a little more to the locals when they moved car production to Mexico, we would not have had so much illegal immigration. Of course, depressing wages on both sides of the border does inflate profits:
http://news.msn.com/in-depth/nafta-didnt-close-mexico-wage-gap
Wages for college grads in Mexico, even for those with STEM degrees, are less than US minimum wage.
If you’ve been sitting on the fence, 2014 is the year to buy a home.
Don’t wait until after the Super Bowl and get caught in bidding wars.
Buy now or be priced out forever!
Trust us; I dare you.
You can trust me, your local banker.
I have access to a huge pile of OPM I will allow you to tap into for the next, say, thirty years or so. For a price, of course.
Call me, maybe we’ll meet up for coffee (I might even buy).
Redmond OR Housing Prices Down 16% in 2013; Declines Accelerate
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/or/redmond.htm
I wonder if someone will notice this. The Fed has held interest rates in effect below zero as rents have soared, housing prices have soared, and stock prices have soared. Food prices and energy prices are expected to rise as well.
But the minute wages start to rise, the Fed is likely to increase interest rates to zero to prevent “cost push” inflation.
Depressing wages relative to capital gains and rent income may not be what the Fed is trying to do. But this time, if it works out that way again, the organization may find itself with a bigger attack from the left than it has faced from the right.
Yet there are no sales at those prices so what happens?
Prices fall.
Y’all worrying about the weirdest things..
This is what s important….
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/31/California-New-Laws-for-2014-Effect-Transgender-Rights-to-DUI
The guys in Sacramento are idiots…
Who put them there? Just look in the mirror to find out who is the real idiot.
In my case, my official residence is Arizona. 2012 was the last time I voted. I quit sanctioning the State and giving the State one more human drone-worth of confidence that their rigged system is fooling the people.
The left faction who has not been bribed by the real estate industry you mean. Those are the greenies and Kucinich disciples and the commie “peace and freedom party.” the lamestream leftists are heavily bribed (lobbied) but they know the Democrap Party would die if the principled left would take it over.
“I wonder if someone will notice this.”
You, sir, are an indefatigable optimist.
Happy New Year! Cynics claim government was bribed to back claims that daily oatmeal lowers blood pressure and LDL. Well to those on medicine it’s worth a try. I am getting better at steel cut oatmeal. I finally made even better oatmeal than Starbucks this morning. Call daily oatmeal a new years resolution, although I began this on November 1 2013.
Now I just have to figure how to measure the proper amount and not waste so much
1 c. steel cut oats
4 c. water
1/4 t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 cup raisins or chopped dates
1. Pour water into a large pot; add salt, vanilla and cinnamon, then bring to a boil over high heat.
2. Add oats and boil until mixture begins to thicken (~ 2 minutes).
3. Reduce heat to medium low, allowing mixture to simmer.
4. Cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent oats from sticking.
5. Stir in dried fruit, turn off heat, and allow a couple of minutes for liquid to soak into fruit before enjoying.
Makes four servings, and stores in refrigerator for at least a week.
That is deelish!
You tried it already!? Good for you.
For those who haven’t experimented with steel cut oats, it is a bit like tofu: It only tastes as good as what you cook with it.
What’s the big deal about “steel cut”, anyway? What does it actually mean? And how does it differ from “regular cut”, or whatever the alternative is?
I’m going 99% paleo for the next 7 and half months (until the Pikes Peak Ascent Half Marathon), oatmeal will be sadly missed, but the white flour and white sugar won’t be.
Eat Cheetos. They’re good for you.
Carbs before and after a workout are okay with me. Otherwise it’s fruit, fresh veggies and fish, poultry, or beef at lunch and in evenings.
Be prepare to spend more on your food. Quality meat/fish and quality vegetables aren’t cheap.
Good luck, squad. Just be careful… there is a 3-6 week transition period where your training will suffer. Don’t be tempted to carb up to improve your training, or you will screw up the transition and fall off paleo. It’s better to train only lightly, or stop altogether. Ramp up the training only after you feel fully Paleo. Don’t let Bill sway you. There are some people who have the genetics that allow them to eat lots of carbs and still stay thin; but most people don’t. Listen instead to your own body.
“steel cut oatmeal”
If you like a mouthful of cork.
Try my recipe before you decide.
Exactly W-A-B! Mr. Canusi does not cook oatmeal right. If it’s like a mouth full of cork it’s all dried out and obviously not enough liquid was used in its cooking.
Found this on the web. The night before, bring water to a boil in a saucepan, just enough water for the oatmeal to be covered. Then pour in the oatmeal and stir. Let it boil for a minute. Turn off the burner and cover the saucepan.
The next morning the water is probably all absorbed. Add more water, enough for ten minutes of cooking the oatmeal. Let the heat be enough where you see bubbles popping. Keep stirring every so often to prevent sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. That’s it!
Not cork.
“Mr. Canusi does not cook oatmeal right.”
I take exception to that. I cook the best danged bowl of microwave. oatmeal. ever.
A key difference between cooking traditional steel cut oats and microwave oatmeal is that the former takes a bit of planning and organization to prepare it properly. That’s what I like about it: I’ve noticed that almost everything worthwhile in life requires some amount of concerted effort to obtain, and the sense of satisfaction that comes with attaining a goal is hard to replicate with quick-and-easy substitutes.
I eat it raw - make my own muesli.
Recipe:
4 tbsp raw oats
1 tbsp chopped nuts
1 serving chopped fresh fruit of your choice
half a lime
1-2 tbsp honey (to taste)
Mix above ingredients together. Eat.
Hope and Change
“Apple on Tuesday strongly denied knowledge of an alleged National Security Agency program that allows the government to penetrate and spy on iPhones.
“Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone. Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products,” the company said in a statement.
Apple’s denial follows a string of reports in Der Spiegel about the NSA’s highly classified hacking arm, called Tailored Access Operations. That unit has worked, according to the German magazine, to exploit weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows, Cisco’s routers and Apple’s iPhones — the latter through a program codenamed DROPOUTJEEP, which may have allowed the NSA to tap into older versions of the device’s operating system.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/apple-nsa-iphones-101636.html?hp=l4
If I were a foreign gov and business (and even people), I would boycott US high tech companies all together…including FB and Goog.
Re-posting Jeff’s Fukushima report from yesterday. Important stuff. If you live on the West Coast, maybe you can rent yourself out as a human glow stick.
Former MSNBC Host Told Not to Warn Public About Fukushima
“Because the official government position is that it’s safe”
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
December 31, 2013
Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur was told not to warn the public about the danger posed by the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant during his time as a host on the cable network.
“I was on MSNBC at the time when this happened, I said, “Don’t trust what the Japanese government is saying, they’ll say trust what the electric power company is saying. Go, go, go, get outta there. Get as far away from that plant as you can. It’s literally a core meltdown.” And they always don’t want people to panic, so they were always like, “Oh it’s going to be okay.” [...] I’m like, “You’re crazy man, don’t be anywhere near that reactor.” And I remember at the time, of course not at The Young Turks, but on cable news, people were like, “Hey Cenk, you know, I don’t know that you want to say that, because the official government position is that it’s safe.” Oh, is that the official government position? Now go explain that to the people who served on the USS Ronald Reagan.”
Uygur previously revealed how MSNBC president Phil Griffin ordered him to tone down his show because “people in Washington” were concerned about Uygur being too combative towards “those in power.” Despite the fact that his show had good ratings, Uygur walked away from the network to create his own online broadcast.
Uygur’s reference to the USS Ronald Reagan concerns recent revelations that 71 U.S. sailors who helped during the initial Fukushima relief efforts returned with thyroid cancer, Leukemia, and brain tumors as a result of being exposed to radiation at 300 times the safe level.
The sailors are suing the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which repeatedly lied in an effort to downplay the severity of the situation.
Now that radioactive debris is hitting the West Coast of North America, numerous different animals and sea life are suffering from mysterious diseases, including 20 bald eagles that have died in Utah over the last few weeks alone.
Top scientists have warned that if another major earthquake hits Fukushima, which is almost inevitable, it would mean “bye bye Japan” and the complete evacuation of the west coast of North America.
Hm, took a long time, but I guess Hiroshima and Nagasaki is coming back to bite the US. What goes around, comes around, eventually.
Homeless recruited for Fukushima clean-up
Published: 30 December, 11:04 AM
(Page 1 of 6)
| SINGLE PAGESENDAI — Mr Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men.
He isn’t a social worker. He’s a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential labourers that Mr Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan’s nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of US$100 (S$128.86) a head.
“This is how labour recruiters like me come in every day,” Mr Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold.
It is also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialised world: working on the US$35 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to clean up radioactive fallout across an area of northern Japan larger than Hong Kong.
Almost three years ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami levelled villages across Japan’s northeast coast and set off multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Today, the most ambitious radiation clean-up ever attempted is running behind schedule. The effort is being dogged by both a lack of oversight and a shortage of workers, according to a Reuters analysis of contracts and interviews with dozens of those involved.
In January, October and November, Japanese gangsters were arrested on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi’s network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project.
In the October case, homeless men were rounded up at Sendai’s train station by Mr Sasa, then put to work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima City for less than minimum wage, according to police and accounts of those involved. The men reported up through a chain of three other companies to Obayashi, Japan’s second-largest construction company.
Obayashi, which is one of more than 20 major contractors involved in government-funded radiation removal projects, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the spate of arrests has shown that members of Japan’s three largest criminal syndicates — Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai — had set up black-market recruiting agencies under Obayashi.
“We are taking it very seriously that these incidents keep happening one after another,” said Mr Junichi Ichikawa, a spokesman for Obayashi. He said the company tightened its scrutiny of its lower-tier subcontractors in order to shut out gangsters, known as the yakuza. “There were elements of what we had been doing that did not go far enough.”
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/homeless-recruited-fukushima-clean - 88k -
In the Twenties the Texas Banking Association offered rewards for dead bank robbers and no rewards for live ones. All of a sudden lot of dead “bank robbers” were presented to the Banking Association so as to have the rewards collected.
It turned out that some of these bank robbers weren’t bank robbers at all: Some of them were indigents looking for work and were promised work if they would show up in front of a bank at, say, four in the morning then from there they would be taken to the work site. Then, while still at the bank, these guys would be killed and burglary tools would then be planted on them and the reward would then be collected.
Word got around that some of the bank robbers were being set up but the Texas Banking Association really DID NOT CARE. From their point of view bank robbings in Texas dropped off (and they had) and so their reward program was working just fine. But the law was changed anyway.
This info was obtained from a book I read a long time ago about the Texas Ranger Frank Hammer (one of the guys who nailed Bonnie & Clyde), for those who care.
Correction: The name is Frank Hamer, not Frank Hammer.
If you want to read about what I said then go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hamer
Go to “Law Enforcement Career” and scroll down about half way.
Heh, doesn’t surprise me. The gobmin used unwitting servicemen for LSD experiments (and anyone who has ever eaten or drank something with a mind altering substance in it, and didn’t know it at the time, can relate to the scariness of that) and poor black folk in the south for VD experiments. And that’s just what I know about.
Now that radioactive debris is hitting the West Coast of North America ?
Gee’s Palmy…Does this mean I should not go down to Pismo Beach for the next three days ?? I was looking forward to tossing the tennis ball on Avila Beach with the German Short-Hairs….:)
Fukushima where the wind comes sweeping down the plain
Where you are exposed to radiation at 300 times the safe level
When the wind comes right behind the rain
Fukushima ev’ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Fall right out of the sky
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand
There is work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima
And when we say
Yeow! A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY
We’re only say-in “you’re doing fine Fukushima,
Fukushima OK”
Nothing to worry about on the West Coast of North America.
US Government Orders 14 Million Doses of Potassium Iodide
Huge purchase linked to ongoing Fukushima crisis?
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
January 1, 2014
The Department of Health and Human Services has ordered 14 million doses of potassium iodide, the compound that protects the body from radioactive poisoning in the aftermath of severe nuclear accidents, to be delivered before the beginning of February.
According to a solicitation posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the DHHS asks contractors to supply, “potassium iodide tablet, 65mg, unit dose package of 20s; 700,000 packages (of 20s),” a total of 14 million tablets. The packages must be delivered on or before February 1, 2014.
Potassium iodide helps block radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid gland and is used by victims of severe nuclear accidents or emergencies. Under current regulations, states with populations living within 10 miles of a nuclear plant are encouraged, but not required, to maintain a supply of potassium iodide.
A search of the FedBizOpps website returns no other results regarding the purchase of potassium iodide from any government agency, suggesting that the DHHS bulk buy of the tablets is unprecedented in recent times.
The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has prompted concerns that the purchase is connected to the threat posed by radioactive debris washing up on the shores of the west coast or the potential for another natural disaster occurring in Japan which could impact the U.S.
“Governments usually respond to disasters very similarly; first move is to avoid panic,” writes The West Wire. “The Japanese didn’t want to panic the world, or tarnish their honor and now, as a consequence of their reluctance, Japanese citizens and international aid personal find themselves in a horrible state of being.”
“Panic is usually avoided by keeping their citizens as blind to the truth as possible, until confrontation with the truth becomes inevitable. The crucial question at this juncture; “would our government be reluctant about warning us of potential disaster, in an attempt to avoid panic?” 14 million doses of Potassium Iodide say that might just be the case.”
Last month it was revealed that 71 U.S. sailors who helped during the initial Fukushima relief efforts are suing the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) after they returned with thyroid cancer, Leukemia, and brain tumors as a result of being exposed to radiation at 300 times the safe level.
TEPCO has repeatedly been caught lying in their efforts to downplay the scale of the disaster. In September it was confirmed that radiation readings around the power plant were 18 times higher than previously reported by TEPCO. After a tank leaked 300 tonnes of toxic water in August, groundwater radiation readings at the plant soared to 400,000 becquerels per litre, the highest reading since the nuclear accident occurred in March 2011.
Top scientists have warned that if another major earthquake hits Fukushima, which is almost inevitable, it would mean “bye bye Japan” and the complete evacuation of the west coast of North America.
Now that radioactive debris is hitting the West Coast of North America, numerous different animals and sea life are suffering from mysterious diseases, including 20 bald eagles that have died in Utah over the last few weeks alone.
What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation?
Posted on December 1, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
II. How Much Radiation Will We Be Exposed To?
There are 2 ways that Fukushima radiation has traveled from Fukushima to Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, Washington, Oregon and California: (1) by air; and (2) by water.
By Air
We noted 2 days after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami:
Pollution from Chinese coal factories routinely hits California. For example, Mongabay noted in 2008:
Previous studies have documented that dust from Asia — especially from deserts and industrial regions of China — routinely crosses the Pacific Ocean on prevailing winds to sully the air over the western U.S.
And see this and this.
As the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory wrote last December:
About a third of the airborne lead particles recently collected at two sites in the San Francisco Bay Area came from Asia, a finding that underscores the far-flung impacts of air pollution and heralds a new way to learn more about its journey across vast distances.In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the California Air Resources Board tracked variations in the amount of lead transported across the Pacific over time.
***
It’s well known that particles and other aerosols cover long distances through the Earth’s atmosphere. But the details of this transport, such as that of the lead particles’ 7,000-mile journey from the smokestacks of China to the west coast of North America, are largely unknown.
In fact, the jet stream passes right over Japan. The jet stream was noticed in the 1920′s by a Japanese meteorologist near Mount Fuji, and the Japanese launched balloon bombs into the jetstream to attack America during WWII.
If radioactivity got blown by surface winds up into the jet stream, it could spread widely.
Health Canada (the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for national public health) notes that – while people may naively assume that radioactive plumes are weakened and diffused before they hit the West Coast – there can be “sharp features” with higher concentrations hitting North America in certain areas.
This has happened, to some extent. For example, radiation from Fukushima was directly deposited into the kelp off the Western coast of North America … especially in Southern California. Fish that eat the kelp have also gotten exposed to the radiation … as have the animals that eat those fish. Moreover, Seattle residents may have been exposed to some Fukushima radiation soon after the accident.
Plutonium was also released into the air. For example, the Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology in Vilnius, Lithuania reported in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity:
Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011.
***
The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.
(“Pu” is short for plutonium.) Fukushima is 4,988 miles from Vilnius, Lithuania. So the plutonium traveled quite a distance.
Tepco – the operator of the Fukushima plants – has been pouring tons of water on the reactors every day. So this is helping to keep the aerial releases down.
However, the Japanese government has embarked on a massive program of burning radioactive waste throughout Japan. This is idiotic … and is releasing some radiation into the air.
In any event, unless the Fukushima fuel pools collapse – or the government increases the amount of radioactive materials which it burns – the air will not be the main route for the spread of radiation to Hawaii or the West Coast.
By Water
The jet stream can carry radiation through the air from Japan to the West Coast, as noted above. A similar dynamic is present in the water, as well.
An ocean current called the North Pacific Gyre is bringing Japanese radiation to the West Coast of North America:
The leg of the Gyre closest to Japan – the Kuroshio current – begins right next to Fukushima:
While many people assume that the ocean will dilute the Fukushima radiation, a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation.
Nuclear expert Robert Alvarez – senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999 – wrote:
According to a previously secret 1955 memo from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission regarding concerns of the British government over contaminated tuna, “dissipation of radioactive fall-out in ocean waters is not a gradual spreading out of the activity from the region with the highest concentration to uncontaminated regions, but that in all probability the process results in scattered pockets and streams of higher radioactive materials in the Pacific. We can speculate that tuna which now show radioactivity from ingested materials [this is in 1955, not today] have been living, in or have passed through, such pockets; or have been feeding on plant and animal life which has been exposed in those areas.”
The New York Times reported in 2011:
F. Ward Whicker, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University who developed a leading model for following radiation through the food chain …. said. “There can be hot spots far away from an accident, and places in between that are fine.”
The Congressional Research Service noted last year:
There remains the slight potential for a relatively narrow corridor of highly contaminated water leading away from Japan …
Transport by ocean currents is much slower, and additional radiation from this source might eventually also be detected in North Pacific waters under U.S. jurisdiction, even months after its release. Regardless of slow ocean transport, the long half-life of radioactive cesium isotopes means that radioactive contaminants could remain a valid concern for years.
Physicians for Social Responsibility notes:
An interesting fact for people living on the US west coast is also included in the UNSCEAR [United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation] report: only about 5% of the directly discharged radiation was deposited within a radius of 80 km from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. The rest was distributed in the Pacific Ocean. 3-D simulations have been carried out for the Pacific basin, showing that within 5–6 years, the emissions would reach the North American coastline, with uncertain consequences for food safety and health of the local population.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/fukushima-radiation-hits-west-coast.html - 495k -
“What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation?”
It’s the radioactive tuna fish!
Uh, I noticed that Chicken of the Sea has been pushing their solid pack cans of tuna in olive oil lately with a 50 cents coupon. At a final price of 89 cents I thought it was a good deal. I ended up buying a few months worth because I was on a tuna kick over the summer, looking for cheap, easy protein to consume on the fly with my work out needs. Now I am not so sure Chicken of the Sea put those coupons on the cans to be so swell.
Dan — if you ever get around to checking out Andrew Tobias’s book, The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need, you will discover he recommends tuna as an investment. It serves two useful purposes: Food storage + inflation hedge. By contrast, you can’t eat your gold.
P.S. In case you think tuna is a less valuable investment than gold, think again: One fish can fetch well north of a million bucks!
Albeit bluefin tuna doesn’t store as well as gold does.
Bluefin tuna sells for $1.76 million in Japan
Take Two | January 8th, 2013, 8:59am
JAPAN-LIFESTYLE-FISHING-AUCTION-NEW YEAR
YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images
An employee (R) of sushi restaurant chain Sushi-Zanmai shows the head of a 222-kg (488-pound) bluefin tuna purchased for a record price which will be sliced up for customers at the main restaurant of the chain near Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market on January 5, 2013. The 222-kg bluefin tuna was traded at 155.4 million yen (appx. 1.8 million USD) at the wholesale market earlier in the day, nearly three times the previous high set last year.
At a large annual auction last weekend, a single 489-pound bluefin tuna sold for a record $1.76 million dollars. That’s a whale of a price for a single fish. Conservationists say the demand and rising price for bluefin tuna is decimating the fish’s numbers around the world. Here with more on the plight of the bluefin tuna is Richard Ellis, author of the book “Tuna: A Love Story.”
…
‘ I finally made even better oatmeal than Starbucks this morning.’
I am shocked that people still buy oatmeal in a tin from McCann’s:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&hs=qTk&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=mccanns+oatmeal&spell=1&sa=X&ei=MjvEUvnIBPHmsATUsYGYDQ&ved=0CCkQvwUoAA#q=mccanns+oatmeal&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=shop
when you can buy the same stuff for about $1.50/lb. out of the bulk Whole Foods bin. I guess it a packaging thing to some people.
Heard over Xmas at a friends that Danish butter is the best. Not the same as regular butter. Not same as steel cut oats too, but in case you are looking for a new butter cultivar.
The bulk bin at Whole Foods is where I get my steel cut oats.
I do like the Danish real butter. Every now and then I like to fry up an egg. All those things the “experts” cautioned folks about (high fats) 40 years ago are not really bad at all, considering the obesity epidemic did not start until they persuaded people to go to margarines, eat more carbs and less meat and less dairy.
Thousands Oaks CA Housing Prices Crumbling; Down 24% Year Over Year
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/thousand-oaks.htm
Simi Valley CA Housing Prices Fall 14% in 2013; Declines accelerating
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/simi-valley.htm
Do you eve look at the garbage you post? According to this the median price went from $480K to $550K to $460K all within a span of a few months. You’re either the biggest fool or the most naive fool in the land if you think prices swing that wildly.
For your fertile imagination Mr. Slithers.
http://picpaste.com/pics/1954b2986d360c87785a18f9aef8903d.1388594139.png
Down 14% Year over year…. and falling.
Would you consider leaving your wife to be with me?
I didn’t have to leave my wife to be with you; Why should anyone else?
OMG, Amy - I thought you were either 1) a suburban breeder in a hick town or 2) parodying same! I had no idea you were - umm - an actual person who was NOT a suburban breeder in a hick town.
My apologies. Despite the apology, your posts do still come off spectacularly trite and off the mark. Treacly, even. To those of us who can - you know - run the numbers.
“You’re either the biggest fool or the most naive fool in the land…”
That right there proved he was wrong!
Moorpark, CA Housing Prices Down 26% Since 2010
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/moorpark.htm#city=&time=5Y&metric=Median%20List%20Price&type=0
Irvine, CA Housing Inventory Balloons 113%; Housing Demand Collapses
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/irvine.htm
LOL. According to your “data”, price is up 15% since 2009.
Wow, talk about a housing crash.
But as you know, inflated prices result in collapsing demand.
Remember…
You can ask $50k for your 14 year old Honda Civic but where are the buyers at that price?
So it is with other depreciating assets like houses Mister Slithers.
“LOL. According to your “data”, price is up 15% since 2009.”
Got cherry picked dates?
Alameda CA Housing Prices Down 18% In 2013
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/alameda.htm
Escondido, CA Housing Prices Fall 20% in 6 Months; Inventory Skyrockets 70% Year Over Year
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/escondido.htm#city=&time=6M&metric=Median%20List%20Price&type=0
According to zillow our old 1400 sq ft shack in Escondildo is worth 400K
Yet not a buyer in sight at a fraction of that amount.
Any year is a great year when your net worth increases by more than your income. Whether by $1 or by $221,863.30!
Mine did not go up by $221k morethan my income though. But my net worth went up by that amount compared to previous year end.
Bill, buy my Honda. Or my Chevy. PULLLEASSE.
I am glad your net worth went up. Not being sarcastic. My goal is not as lofty. I’ll be happy to find a new job in 2014 and move on to getting back to hiking more and ignoring the noise that MainWall Street generates by the NSA load.
Keep your cars. Don’t get new.
You should be seeing annual auto insurance drifting down and down.
When you buy another one you will see insurance (surprise!) go sky high again.
Why don’t we call it what it is? It is not a housing bubble. It is a land bubble. You can build a house on raw land still. I imagine the cost of building one is about $55/foot^2 according to one of you’s.
I have not priced the contracting costs of building, say a spec, house, but the components are commodities. Wood, cement, dirt (?), nails, shingles, labor (cheap labor, too), appliances, tile, rugs, etc. All commodities. It is the land.
We have a land bubble. How would that go over with the media meme?
“No, Biff, that house is not the problem. It is the land. The land is over-priced. I can build a house anywhere. Getting the land is the problem. “
Kudos for Movoto for quickly getting the truth out there about the echo bubble collapse! As documented in the graph posted blow, the San Diego median list price was $575,000 as recently as April 2013. It’s subsequently down by $99,000 or 17.2% — no big deal to deep-pocket investors, I’m sure.
San Diego Real Estate Trends & Statistics
San Diego Median List Price
$476,000
It seems odd that the median list price in San Diego is $476K when the median sale price is only $415K. Are typical sellers reducing their list prices by $61K (12.8%) before finding a buyer, or is it more that the homes listed for above market price simply aren’t selling?
HOME PRICES UP, BUT RATE OF INCREASE HAS SLOWED
County’s 0.3 percent rise more like normal market
By Jonathan Horn
12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2014
…
DataQuick, another home-price monitor, reported that the median price in San Diego County in October was $412,750. In November, the median price rose to $415,000.
Repost.
Is it better to buy or to rent?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=1&
It’s better to rent.
Always better to rent.
The “other” tab is the killer of the idea of your SFH as an investment. When you see the preplaced 4% of the annual gain on your wealth, that is too small. You figure on your annual average percent gain based on your investment allocation. Mine is 8%. And inflation rate of 3%. I also put in $294,000 for a house and NO financing. I would put 100% down payment on a house. Did not even plug in maintenance costs (NYT’s is 0.5% annual indexed to inflation). I also put in $2,390 monthly rent (it is because I rent two apartments. Even with all this:
Renting is ALWAYS better than buying.
Bill, you are not using Oxymath. You have to put in a pretty big rental number to make this work, and a yearly increase in rent from here to eternity. You are on the right track though with no maintenance expenses.
I used 2% yearly increase on rent and 1% yearly house appreciation. 2% yearly is fair. That is how my Phoenix rent has gone up the last 7 years.
Renting is almost always better.
In addition to having so much money left over after “throwing money away on rent” every month that I don’t know where to throw it, renting means a relative lack of surprises, if you’re in the right rental.
One exception, when my downstairs neighbor had water leaking through his bathroom ceiling, my landlord (my employee) had to enter my apartment without notice while I was at work to shut off my water. To get to the shut off valve, he had to empty a closet full of skis, climbing gear, guns, tents, snowshoes, boots, et cetera. I was disappointed he didn’t put it all back in the closet as tidily as I keep it, but he stopped my neighbor’s apartment from getting flooded.
When I lived with the ex in the house she owned (Cape Cod built about 60 years ago), there were always surprises. And they always seemed to happen when we got home from being away for a few days, or be discovered as soon as I put my feet up with the remote in my hand.
Another important advantage about renting instead of owning: In case your financial situation deteriorates, you can downsize to rent a cheaper place.
Contrast that to my poor neighbor who is going through foreclosure and moving to Houston. It turns out the current crop of buyers doesn’t want to pay more than $527K for her foreclosure home that she bought for $240K back in 1999. What will happen to her if she doesn’t manage to sell now and prices continue to decline? This become your landlord’s problem if you move on in life after renting.
wait 3 years after your foreclosure and buy another home.
It turns out the current crop of buyers doesn’t want to pay more than $527K for her foreclosure home that she bought for $240K back in 1999.
I take it she cash-out refi’ed it up to the $527K wishing-price that she would like to unload it for?
“I take it she cash-out refi’ed it up to the $527K wishing-price that she would like to unload it for?”
I don’t get into discussions with my Ownership Society member neighbors about how badly they cashout-financed themselves into the poor house, but I can only imagine that she did what most everyone else did and put herself into an underwater position despite her low initial basis. Otherwise why wouldn’t she just sell for what the market will bear instead of hoping and wishing for an above-market offer that sticks from a greater fool with a box of money and a bucket of stupid?
“Low” comparatively but high relative to reproduction costs.
Hmm…my reply was not posted here.
Here were my criteria:
no financing - pay with cash
purchase price $294,000
inflation rate 3%
annual appreciation on house 1% (to follow Case-Shiller)
rent increase 2%
rent $2,350 (I rent two apartments)
rate of return on investments 8% (5% over inflation rate)
Condo fee common charge (HOA) $650
tax bracket 28%
property taxes 1.35%
Conclusion: Renting is better ALWAYS
So okay you say unfair because of HOA. I’ll take that away and put 0 but might as well go to one two bedroom apartment which is in Phoenix at $1,050.
And I still win by renting instead of buying!
“And I still win by renting instead of buying!”
BILA = WIN
(Posted in case Goon is too high to manipulate the keyboard.)
not today.
on a related subject, if you were gonna get high and go see a movie at the theater, the wolf of wall street is a great movie to get high and go see at the theater. getting high to go see a three hour movie about people getting high = win.
not that i know anything about that personally, that’s just what somebody told me.
“…he wolf of wall street is a great movie to get high and go see at the theater.”
I don’t toke these days (day job rulz), but I’m a little jealous of anyone who could do so and go to see a Leonardo DeCaprio movie while stoned. Sounds like a great time!
I “only inhaled” in the dazed and confused 70s.
I too am envious of those who can do it. Though even if I was my own boss or retired I would not smoke the stuff - as a swimmer I highly value my lungs.
“…in case Goon is too high…”
Is he in ‘green’ Colorado?
Whac, there in San Diego I betcha the average purchase price of a SFH in your neighborhood is FAR above $294,000. In my OC neighborhood the average purchase price is $500,000.
You are way better off renting than buying.
When we moved in here, a couple we knew bought a place a few doors up the street from us for $500K. She’s a nurse and her ex is a peace officer. They were so broke after buying the place they didn’t have enough money to purchase a kitchen stove. Before their finances stabilized, they were divorced and she had moved to an apartment.
Doh!
You will always remember that one! Wow!
Renting is better ALWAYS ??
Interesting…Always in Capital letters to drive emphases to the point….
Q; If you were Bill Gates, would you rent or buy ??
But I’m not Bill Gates. As you wish, let’s up the ante:
Hermosa Beach: Rent $9,500. Comps on either side: $4.3M, $4.4M, 5.4M:
Still better to throw away $9,500 per month on rent.
Monterey (17 m drive):
Rent: $3,000
Buy $806,000
Still better to rent
Del Mar: Rent: $10,000
Buy: 2.83m
Still better to rent
San Francisco, Marina Dist:
Rent: $9,500 (3bd / 4 bath)
Buy: $3.55m (4bd /3.5bath)
Still better to throw the money away on rent.
Bill Gates & Co are rich for a reason; they’re smart enough not to throw good money after bad on depreciating assets like houses.
I remember reading back a few years ago Warren Buffet sold a house in Southern California because he said the real estate market was overheated. I like Warren Buffet only because he’s an atheist. I don’t think he always times the markets right but he did this time.
Well here I found the link
http://www.bornrich.com/laguna-beach-home-billionaire-warren-buffett-sale.html
in 2005 Warren Buffet sold his $5,000,000 Laguna Beach McMansion.
He bought it for $1,100,000 in 1996.
The buyers of that same mansion in 2005 - well they priced it to sell in 2011 at a loss.
But I’m not Bill Gates ??
That is not the question I asked you thought now is it…You are trying to ake the case with your “ALWAYS” statement…So, If you “were” Bill Gates would you rent or buy ??
I would rent. And they would be mostly furnished but I would bring an SUV full of mementos to “add” to the rental to make it feel like home - family photos, pictures, and so on.
Besides, Bill Gates is a liberal. So he must be backing the “global warming” thing. You don’t want to commit 30 years in an area that may turn into no man’s land (if you believe in the theory of GW).
Renting is is less costly at current grossly inflated asking prices of resale housing. ALWAYS
And remember….. Resale housing is priced at levels 40% HIGHER than new construction.
Financial freedom is always better than debt slavery. A simple loss is always better than a leveraged loss.
Once again, Fellini was a true visionary.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/01/gay-marriage-rose-parade/4278471/
Interesting climate story from earlier in the week.
***
The driest of dry years on the Central Coast
By John Lindsey
Special to The Tribune
December 28, 2013
From San Francisco to Los Angeles and for most areas in between, 2013 will go down as the driest calendar year on record.
San Francisco rain records stretch back to the gold rush era of 1849. This year, only 5.6 inches of rain has fallen. That’s an absurd 3.4 inches less than the previous dry record of 9 inches of rain recorded in San Francisco in 1917.
Downtown Los Angeles has only seen 3.6 inches, making it the driest year on record since 1877 when their rain records started.
From January through December, only a skimpy 4.5 inches of rain has fallen in San Luis Obispo, the smallest amount of the wet stuff to date since record keeping began in 1870 at Cal Poly, home of climatology in the city. The previous driest year on record was in 1898, when nearly 7 inches of rain were recorded at Cal Poly, smashing the previous record by 2 ½ inches!
Normally, San Luis Obispo receives 22.4 inches of rainfall per year.
Paso Robles has had only 1.9 inches of rain this year, or about 15 percent of normal.
Santa Maria has had 3 inches of rainfall, their driest on record since the early 1900s.
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant has recorded just 2.9 inches of precipitation.
Santa Barbara avoided their driest calendar year on record when a storm produced nearly an inch of rain the day after Thanksgiving, but it didn’t produce much rain in San Luis Obispo County.
So why are we seeing this record-smashing dry weather?
For most of 2013 the southern branch of the polar jet stream has remained north of our latitude out over the eastern Pacific Ocean due to a persistent ridge of high pressure along the west coast. The polar jet stream travels in a wavy or even looping pattern at great speeds around the northern hemisphere in a west-to-east pattern at elevations of 6 to 9 miles.
As the wave amplitude of the jet stream increases, the air flow may transform from a wavelike structure to that of a counter-clockwise circulation, producing storms. These mid-latitude Pacific storms and the southerly winds and rain they bring have mostly stayed north of the California-Oregon border.
Historically, winds along our coastline at the Diablo Canyon meteorological tower blow about 60 percent of the time out of the northwesterly quadrant, and about 23 percent of the time, the winds blow from the southeast. These southeasterly winds are also called pre-frontal winds and often bring rain.
This year, the southeasterly winds have only blown 8 percent of the time. To make matters worse, this December has seen a much greater occurrence of Santa Lucia (northeasterly or offshore) winds.
These winds often produce low relative humidity levels, cold nights and warm afternoons. In fact, the coastal valleys and beaches of the Central Coast have experienced record-breaking heat this last week with temperatures reaching the mid-80s in the coastal valleys day after day.
Without any rains, this offshore flow is freeze-drying our vegetation. Robert Lewin, Cal Fire chief for San Luis Obispo County, said, “Since June the Central Coast fuels (vegetation) have been at critically low moisture; fortunately we have kept the fires from becoming more destructive. This long ongoing fire season has forced our men and women to spend many weeks away from their loved ones; we appreciate their commitment and understanding.”
Bill Tietje is an Area Natural Resources Specialist with the University of California at Berkeley, stationed at the UC Cooperative Extension office in San Luis Obispo. He has recently received numerous reports about oaks appearing in bad shape.
Ranchers and farmers throughout the county of have told me that they have never seen anything like this. Many of these fine agriculturalists have been working the land for more than 75 years.
So what does January through March hold in store for us?
The latest guidance from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (CPD) is now calling for “below normal precipitation” for Central and Southern California during the heart of our rainfall season. You might recall, last month the CPC was forecasting “equal chances of equal, above- and below-normal precipitation.”
After reviewing all the rainfall data records stretching back for hundreds of years, even the driest years had at least a few significant rain events. Some the longer-range models indicate an unsettled weather pattern with a good chance of rain by mid-January. I hope and pray they verify.
John Lindsey’s column is special to The Tribune. He is a media relations representative for PG&E and a longtime local meteorologist.
Going to be a bad fire season this year. My part of Orange County has lots o’ trees and shrubs. So I’m no fan of this dry weather.
The rain you missed fell in the NE.
I know what my first post will be tomorrow.
You’ll probably still be waiting in line for a table at Applebee’s then, according to the self-proclaimed economists who troll this blog.
The line is longer at ski slopes in Atlanta.
So our neighbors are moving to Houston after getting foreclosed (at least according to Zillow). The “foreclosure estimate” is $527K, but apparently they managed to spark a bid war with their listing, with the first and second bids coming in at $580K and $540K, respectively.
Sadly, when the “winners” learned there was $40K worth of air space to the next bid, they backed out of the contract, leaving our neighbors in the lurch, as the second bid is no longer available, either.
I wonder how many San Diego home buyers might have missed the memo that the current median home sales price is coming in at $415K?
It’s unimaginable really. There isn’t a house on the planet worth $580k…. even brand new.
She bought it for $220K back in 1999, and San Diego prices seem to finally be headed back that direction now that the dead cat bounce appears to be over.
And it was probably overpriced at $220k.
“It’s unimaginable really.”
+1 Agreed.
I’ve done many foolish and dangerous things over the years, but nothing on that scale. But then again it’s California, and if you squat long enough they might even pay you to move.
Somehow value of the home in question magically “improved” from $424K in December 2011 to $549K as of a couple of months ago — at least that’s what Zillow sez.
Zillow also indicates the home was “worth” $600K as of December 2005. Funny, isn’t it, how the “value” of a home can fluctuate to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and +/- 30% or so, over just a few short years!
Sadly, when the “winners” learned there was $40K worth of air space to the next bid, they backed out of the contract, leaving our neighbors in the lurch, as the second bid is no longer available, either.
Awesome. It’s no fun to learn that you are the biggest fool in an auction, and the winners apparently learned the right lesson from realizing that. $40K is ALOT (sic) to overpay.
Interesting that the second-highest bidder also got cold feet, considering that they could have interpreted that $40K delta to mean that they got a screaming deal! Some other fool thought it was worth _that_ much!
One of the realtards clearly violated their code of ethics. These are supposed to be blind bids. The “winner” has no right to know the amounts of the other bids (unless they are higher). The sellers should sue.
Blaming this national disaster on NAR is “shortsighted” eh?
NAR provides forward guidance. And they do an enormous amount of economic reporting. ALL of which is grotesquely biased and dangerous. David Lereah quietly side-stepped off the scene after he had personally caused billions in aggregate damage to suckered Americans. So the NAR does indeed share a large portion of the blame.
California Assoc of realtors is the most corrupt out of all NAR proxies.
bitcoin?
Umm… google litecoin
It was a matter of time. A host of electronic currencies competing against government-controlled fiat.
I was thinking this would take three years for a competitor of bitcoin to appear. I never cease to be amazed.
In 1980 very few people would ever think that by the end of the 80s the Iron Curtain would fall and that young Europeans would be using heavy hammers to crack the Berlin Wall.
The totalitarian regimes were the first statist regimes to crumble. But that is not enough for individual liberty.
The drones killing innocent women and children in the middle east, the “Patriot Act of 2001″ in the guise of fighting terrorists from “abroad,” the NSA web spying and iPhone spying and email spying.
And competing free electronic currencies.
I will go out on a limb and say that “progressivism,” which is really a “kinder, gentler statism” in the guise of “we’re here to serve and help you” - well that’s going to be dead. within a decade.
Borders will wither away. That is the first hallmark to human freedom - an end to nation states and where wealth will move freely, despite the thugernment’s desperate efforts.
There will be “growing pains” in the form of staged terrorist attacks and serial shootings, in the next ten years to try to coax the populace to give up more freedom for more security, but it won’t be enough to counter the freedom movement.
Governments will dissolve I think. Yes that’s out on the limb.
I will go out on a limb and say that “progressivism,” [...] - well that’s going to be dead. within a decade.
Optimist.
Bitcoin is toast, once it dawns on the masses that a virtually unlimited number of rival ecurrencies can potentially be created out of thin air.
W-A-B
I think you are right.
There will be better tougher e-currencies out there.
Care must be taken though. NSA might control LiteCoin - or they might control Bitcoin.
But the NSA cannot control the world market place. It is an arrogant idea that they can. Truth always outs. The most honest product wins in the market place. So too will it apply to currency.
In the 90s the digi-cash movement and PGP and “Pretty Good Idaho” were focused on coming up with pure anonymous cash. So that each side of the transaction would not know the physical location of the other side. This is the direction we are heading. It will kill government.
It may be sooner than later. It may be in my lifetime.
“pretty good idaho” - actually it’s “Private Idaho”
This used pseudonyms and remailers. I experimented with this stuff in the 90s. The problem is sometimes a node would be down and you would not have a workable email address mickeymouse@anonymous.com
The beauty of it is that the encryption mechanism prevented the e-mail recipient and sender from knowing each other’s address (if the recipient also had a pseudonym). They would not be traceable.
Asymmetric key encryption is part and parcel of PGP. By “asymmetric” it means you have a “public” key and “private” key. Symmetric is less safe. It’s a single key.
Awesome stuff and it’s all mathematics.
Awesome stuff and it’s all mathematics.
And all based on the mathematical beauty of trap-door/one-way functions.
And all likely rendered equally useless if quantum computing becomes sufficiently viable to reverse the one-way-ness of those trap-door functions.
The fundamental problem is competition. Gold investors will rightly point out that there are no close substitutes for gold. Any appearance that the same applies to Bitcoin will be dashed to smithereens once enough rival geeks succeed in replicating the Bitcoin creator’s business model.
Bitcoin is toast, once it dawns on the masses that a virtually unlimited number of rival ecurrencies can potentially be created out of thin air.
PB, I agree that an unlimited number of rival e-currencies schemes can be created; what I think your analysis might be missing, however, is that creating one is not the same thing as establishing a sufficient critical mass for it to be useful and self-sustaining.
I think the e-currencies will likely have network-effects—in other words, the currency is useful to each user in proportion to the number of other users/stores/services that will accept it for payment.
If that is the case, then I would expect one or a small number of such e-currencies to prevail, and the exchange rate of all other lower-adoption e-currencies to be sufficiently disadvantageous that it is not worth the electrical current required to mine the other less-adopted e-currencies; that will prevent them from gaining the critical mass required to become viable.
Time will tell, though… I could be wrong.
“I think the e-currencies will likely have network-effects—in other words, the currency is useful to each user in proportion to the number of other users/stores/services that will accept it for payment.”
Many people I know hate Microsoft and claim to prefer linux or Apple computer systems but nonetheless use Microsoft due to network effects. I suppose the same logic could extend to currency systems.
2013: The year of bitcoin
December 31, 2013, 4:18 PM
2013 was quite possibly the year of bitcoin; it was the year in which its price skyrocketed above $1,000 as it simultaneously moved from the dark corners of the Internet to dinner-table discussions.
Bitcoin is open-source software that has been trumpeted as both a virtual currency and a payment system that could revolutionize the way money is sent around the world. In its early years — think 2009 — bitcoin was known among people on cryptography mailing lists and perhaps those who bought drugs over the Internet. Now, bitcoin-related companies are attracting investments from venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and accredited investors can purchase shares in a bitcoin trust.
One bitcoin recently traded at $731.00 on Bitstamp, a bitcoin exchange. Here’s a chart of bitcoin’s surge this year from CoinDesk’s bitcoin price index:
CoinDesk
Bitcoin’s wild ride in 2013
Unlike the U.S. dollar and other government-backed currencies, bitcoin has no central bank; it is created through a process called mining in which a computer tries to solve a cryptographic problem. The difficulty of the problems increase with time, which is essential because the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million.
And as bitcoin’s price has increased, so has the scrutiny from governments and regulators. Federal authorities shut down Silk Road, the bitcoin-only online drug market, in October. The New York State Department of Financial Services said in November it would consider issuing a specific license for virtual currencies and there were hearings in Senate on virtual currencies like bitcoin.
Elsewhere, banking authorities in China, India and Europe issued warnings about the risks associated with bitcoin. Developments in China took a bite out of the bitcoin rally, which was supported in part due to increased Chinese demand, and raised questions about what geographic region could attract the next round of bitcoin mania.
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Don’t take any wooden nickels.
Or bitcoins.
December 17, 2013, 2:05 PM
Hamptons Seller Tries a New Pitch: Buy My House in Bitcoin
By Candace Jackson
CONNECT
Brown Harris Stevens
This Southampton, N.Y., home is on the market for $799,000—or an equivalent value in bitcoin.
Virtual currency for a physical house?
The seller of a Southampton, N.Y., home is asking $799,000 for his ranch-style four-bedroom home—or its equivalent value in bitcoin. It’s one of the first homes on the market testing the digital currency, which was introduced in 2009 and is not backed by a central bank or government. The virtual currency is created by a computing process known as ‘mining,’ and can be traded online through unregulated Internet exchanges.
“There’s room for more than one currency,” says Philipp Preuss, the home’s seller, who says he would also accept a combination of bitcoin and cash. The bitcoin price, he says, will likely be determined by the currency’s average exchange rate on the day of closing.
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craptastic
?
Although a collapse of the Thai baht sparked the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, I doubt it could happen again.
Thai stocks, currency plunge over election uncertainty
Thu Jan 2, 2014 3:03am EST
Thai police officers gathers at the Royal Plaza near the Government House in Bangkok December 30, 2013. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom
By Viparat Jantraprap and Martin Petty
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai stocks and the baht currency tumbled on Thursday as uncertainty deepened about a February election that anti-government forces are determined to block in their bid to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The benchmark index dropped 2.7 percent to a four-month low of 1,263.72 before the midday break and the baht lost for a 10th straight day against the dollar. Investors are worried a February 2 poll will not go ahead, leaving Yingluck’s government exposed to prolonged attacks by opponents.
National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattanatabut said on Thursday security agencies were considering declaring a state of emergency after protesters said they would try to “shut down” the capital from January 13.
“The situation has intensified,” Paradorn told Reuters. “We may need to call for tougher measures and security agencies have planned for that.”
The latest bout of political tumult erupted in November after a blunder by the ruling Puea Thai Party, which tried to push through an unpopular amnesty bill that would have annulled the jail sentence of Yingluck’s self-exiled brother and former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, the divisive tycoon at the heart of eight years of on-off conflict.
Protesters say Yingluck is a puppet of Dubai-based Thaksin, who they call a corrupt crony capitalist who has subverted a democratic system that needs to be suspended and overhauled.
Backed by Bangkok’s conservative elite, their broader aim is to neutralize the power of Thaksin’s political juggernaut, rooted among the rural poor in the populous north and northeast, which has won every poll since 2001.
Yingluck dissolved parliament on December 9 to defuse massive street protests. However, calling a new election she is almost certain to win has had the opposite effect, sparking deadly clashes, mysterious shootings and concerns about military intervention or legal paralysis. …
Got shrinkage?
Singapore Economy Shrank Last Quarter as Manufacturing Faltered
Sharon Chen, ©2014 Bloomberg News
Published 9:11 pm, Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — Singapore’s economy shrank for the first time in five quarters after its manufacturing and services industries weakened, a contraction that may be short-lived as the global recovery strengthens.
Gross domestic product fell an annualized 2.7 percent in the three months to Dec. 31 from the previous quarter, when it expanded a revised 2.2 percent, the trade ministry said in a statement today. The median of 11 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 1.3 percent contraction.
Singapore’s economy is set to benefit this year from recoveries in the U.S. and Europe, even as companies in the city-state grapple with rising costs and curbs on cheap foreign labor. The island’s trade promotion agency said in November exports will rebound in 2014 after contracting last year, easing pressure on the central bank to allow the currency to weaken to support overseas shipments.
“External demand will be improving,” Glenn Maguire, a Singapore-based economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said before the report. “That we can have the U.S., Japan and Europe all expanding and growing positively in 2014 suggests that Asia, not just Singapore, should be seeing a fairly firm production and export outlook.”
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Asia’s manufacturers buoyant at end 2013, China a question mark
By Aileen Wang and Se Young Lee
BEIJING/SEOUL
Thu Jan 2, 2014 2:07am EST
An employee welds a water turbine at a factory in Jinhua, Zhejiang province May 23, 2013. REUTERS/William Hong
(Reuters) - Asia’s manufacturing sector ended 2013 on a strong note, with expansion hitting multi-year highs in export-driven Japan and Taiwan, but signs of moderation in China raises concerns about the outlook for the new year.
Both official and private measures of manufacturing activity in China fell in December, reinforcing views the world’s second-largest economy lost some steam in the final quarter of 2013.
The HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for China slipped to a three-month low of 50.5 in December, consistent with a dip in the government’s PMI to a four-month low of 51.0. Still, both held above the 50 point level that separates expansion from contraction.
“The economy is still growing, no doubt, but the growth momentum has weakened,” said Yao Wei, economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.
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