The Housing Bubble

Just for kicks, I recommend everyone do a zillow map search on Phoenix. Include the sales over last 6 months. Lotsa lotsa red houses out there for sale…not quite so many yellows.

It’s so red you gotta wear shades

Paradise Valley actually is pretty nice but it was like a ghost town when I was there in Summer 2011. Same for Squaw Valley. So many foreclosures, so many failed condo conversions, so many empty homes period.

They’re all over the country…… millions of them.

“Lotsa lotsa red houses out there for sale…not quite so many yellows.”

My favorite Zillow for-sale color code is code blue, for ‘premarket.’ It’s a pleasant-sounding euphemism for a home either in pre-foreclosure or foreclosed status.

Just how low is the labor participation rate, we have to be knocking on great depression levels?

Watch for an increasing number of stories about how the elitists are eating each other.

We can also expect increased whining from elitists about the lack of “convenient and cheap” entertainment options, increased ObamaCare costs (just wait until 2015…we ain’t seen nothing yet!), etc. Poor darlings.

Big Government = Titanic. Too bad there’s such a shortage of deck chairs. Too bad, so sad.

The housing market: Playing musical deck chairs on the Titanic since 1993.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.

You don’t say.

Does this also mean that there’ll be less in the way of tax revenues, too?

All of this is okay. We can just tax the newly unproductive to cover the costs of our pals in Washington.

Or steal their 401Ks.

They do a survey of households. It’s not based on the number of people receiving UE.

“Borrowing to pay for a rapidly depreciating asset like a house at a massively inflated price puts you in a hole that you’ll never escape from.”

BINGO

http://www.realtor.com/home-finance/buyers-basics/

You can trust us! Honestly!

From Amy’s link above: The good news is that over the years new and innovative loan programs have evolved which require a 5 percent down payment or less. In fact, a number of programs now allow purchasers to buy real estate with nothing down.

So that’s the good news, but here’s the bad news: Suzanne researched this.

I agree fully. The MSM only exposes a “scandal” when there’s little downside for them and their advertisers.

Indeed.

NeoCons = Progressives.

Never forget that Christy was welcomed with open progressives arms when he announced he would jump ship. Why was he so readily accepted?

These NeoCons and Progressives are the same people. None are in favor of liberty for individuals.

Exactly. The PTB want a Hillary vs. Christy race that way they cannot lose.

That is exactly right, Dan.

How better to protect and advance the monied socialists in Washington?

The richest yet least profit-generating metropolitan area in ALL of the United States supports a Clinton vs. Christie showdown.

Why is that?

How does the vast majority of Washington D.C. vote at election time? What philosophy do those living in the D.C. metropolitan-area share?

They laugh at you as they avail themselves to public freebies and cheap, gold-plated health care plans.

They laugh at you. Never forget that.

is christy on nutri system?

Here’s why the Christie debacle is important: because of the old saying “From little acorns grow mighty oaks”. Sure, Benghazi, drones, bankster crime and domination, massive illegal immigration, illegal military actions, the NSA and on and on, ad nauseum.

But all these issues grow from small incidents and situations and people just sigh and say “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. HAH! A stupider saying there never was. Absolutely sweat the small stuff, because it’s when people are small and vulnerable and on the way up, it’s when issues are minor and in the stage of being seeds of destruction that you can stop them in their tracks. Once they get out of hand, they become too unconfrontable to stop or change easily. It’s in the incipient stages where you want to do something. Nipping things and people in the bud, so to speak. People like the Hitlers, Pol Pots, etc. get where they do because no one ever had the guts to tell them “No!” somewhere along the line.

I recall here in Florida, on the local level, how one politician eviscerated the campaign of a challenging wannabe up and comer who had the potential to be a real d*ck politically. He was made such a laughingstock he’ll never go on to do further damage and I sighed with great relief.

And don’t forget that the way to attack what looks like a large, impossible problem or situation is to start with some small aspect of it. That’s how Rudy Giuliani (like him or not and I don’t particularly, but I give credit where credit is due) turned around New York, by eliminating the car window washing shakedown artists. And it went up from there.

So bring on the Christie show. Sweat the small stuff, so you don’t get fried by the big stuff.

‘Here’s why the Christie debacle is important’

Causing traffic problems for your political opponents is chicken feed to compared to setting the IRS on your political opponents. Still, I hope Christie is toast.

“A few months ago, Christie engaged in a very public debate with libertarian Republican Sen. Rand Paul, disdaining libertarianism as a “dangerous thought” and opining that the whole issue of government surveillance of American citizens was an “esoteric intellectual debate” of no consequence to hardheaded realists like himself. Such a loose attitude toward the arbitrary exercise of power is perfectly understandable in someone who still insists a plot to exact political revenge at everyone else’s expense was a “traffic study.”

In Chris Christie’s world, there are no constraints: stop traffic to get back at a political rival? Spy on Americans? Violate the Constitution? Violate the trust of the people who elected you? You just go right ahead – because you’re Chris Christie, for Pete’s sake! Rules are for the Little People! When you’re a high-ranking member of the political class – when the “donor class” comes begging to you to run for the highest office in the land – the rules don’t apply. You’re exempt – just ask James Clapper.

Christie exemplifies everything that’s wrong with America, not only politically but psychologically: putting aside his “big government conservatism,” the man’s a bully. The problem, however, is that America loves a bully. Videos of Christie going ballistic and telling off various of his constituents for daring to question his ultimate wisdom are part of what made him famous – and attractive to the “donor class” as a putative presidential candidate. And while he’s kept his (horrible) foreign policy views relatively close to his vest, so far, if he’ll cause a major traffic jam in his own state to spite a political rival what would he do to spite a rival nation – and what kind of consequences would it augur for the rest of us?”

“However, the real point is that his behavior is indeed all too relevant to national issues currently confronting us because it epitomizes everything Americans hate and fear about the governing class. This is why 72 percent of Americans, asked what is the biggest threat to the United States, answered their own government.”

“Bridge-gate tells us everything we need to know about what kind of President the Governor would make – and it isn’t pretty. Aside from his vindictiveness and disregard for ordinary people, Bridge-gate underscores Christie’s penchant for secrecy: the incriminating emails, subpoenaed by a state Assembly panel, are redacted in key parts – especially when it comes to discussing Christie and his role in all this.”

“What Christie’s advisors did wasn’t just morally reprehensible: it’s a criminal act to engage in political retaliation against the entire population of a town under color of authority.”

“If we can sum up the lessons of Bridge-gate, they are, in no particular order:

1. The rest of the country would be better off if we took up Barry Goldwater’s old suggestion and sawed off the Eastern seaboard.
2. Chris Christie is a big fat liar.
3. Karl Rove sure knows how to pick ‘em!
4. There’s nothing moderate about your archetypal “moderate.”
5. Extremism in defense of moderation is no vice.”

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/01/09/lessons-of-bridge-gate/

NeoCons = Progressives

They probably only overlap on 20% of the issues therefore they are much more different than alike. Here’s generally accepted descriptions of Neoconservatism and Progressivism:

Neoconservatism is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s….

……Neoconservatism generally endorses free markets and capitalism, favoring supply-side economics…..

……. Many of its adherents rose to political fame during the Republican presidential administrations of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. During the George W. Bush administration, neoconservatives played a major role in promoting and planning the invasion of Iraq.[1]

Neoconservatives frequently advocate the “assertive” promotion of democracy and promotion of “American national interest” in international affairs including by means of military force.[2][3] The movement had its intellectual roots in the monthly review magazine Commentary.[4][5] The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, claims that most influential neoconservatives refer explicitly to the theoretical ideas in the philosophy of Leo Strauss (1899–1973).[6] wiki

————————————

Progressivism is a general political philosophy based on the Idea of Progress that asserts that advances in science, technology, economic development, and social organization, can improve the human condition….

……The contemporary political conception of progressivism in the culture of the Western world emerged as part of a response to the vast social changes brought by industrialization in the Western world in the late 19th century, particularly out of the view that progress was being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism with out-of-control monopolistic corporations, …..

….. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from barbaric conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.[1] Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread from Europe to across the world.[1]

Sociologist Robert Nisbet finds that “No single idea has been more important than…the Idea of Progress in Western civilization for three thousand years.” and defines five “crucial premises” of Idea of Progress as being: value of the past, nobility of Western civilization, worth of economic/technological growth, faith in reason and scientific/scholarly knowledge obtained through reason, wiki

Jeebus, I hate having my eyes glaze over while I scroll through a buncha crap so I can reply to Ben’s post. Cripes on a cracker. Anyway…

“Causing traffic problems for your political opponents is chicken feed to compared to setting the IRS on your political opponents. Still, I hope Christie is toast.”

Chicken feed. With all due respect, Ben, yes, it’s chicken feed compared to the IRS situation, but my point was (and the post you made actually illustrates it) the time to do something about an issue or person is when you can, when it’s small, before it gets to the slaughterhouse stage. The Christie thing is a gift, a chance to put period to someone who would absolutely use the IRS and other tools to stifle dissent, most cruelly.

If people can’t get away with “chicken feed”, then the using tools of suppression like the IRS becomes less likely, if not impossible.

Sweat the small stuff, mop up that chicken feed, so it doesn’t morph into feeding bodies to the lions.

jose canusi: So bring on the Christie show. Sweat the small stuff, so you don’t get fried by the big stuff.

Absolutely true.

Also, I’ve discovered that there are two components to good leadership: 1) Having the right values (which the pols simply state in their commercials) and 2) strong managerial ability.

I liked Bush and his values but he was an awful manager, surrounding himself with miserably incompetent advisors.

In the Christie incident, he either knew about the situation and knowingly attacked the populace he is supposed to be leading while trying to wound his rival (which also occurs with government shutdowns). Or he didn’t know and is an awful manager.

I was pretty excited about Christie, but it’s over.

From the Bob Gates book: “Such difficulties within the executive branch were nothing compared with the pain of dealing with Congress. Congress is best viewed from a distance—the farther the better—because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

I was more or less continuously outraged by the parochial self-interest of all but a very few members of Congress.”

Everyone is self interested. But we demand leaders be better than us. When they’re worse than us (but they’re better b•stards), the country is going to have problems.

‘I was more or less continuously outraged by the parochial self-interest of all but a very few members of Congress.’

Hey, even homeless people fight each other over corners to panhandle at. You can not go wrong having contempt for a politician. That includes ones that formerly sold real estate to build their wealth.

“I liked Bush and his values”

Really? Someone should have said “NOOOOOOOOOO” to Bush when he wuz but a pup. No one ever did, unfortunately, and as a result the Middle East has been turned into more of an abbattoir than it already was.

I remember reading an excerpt from a book on Bush, relating youthful incidents such as tennis opponents letting him win, or do over a game he lost, until he won. Obviously no one ever taught him about things like good sportsmanship and not to be a spoiled brat and throw tantrums. But that’s just small stuff. Too bad his parents didn’t see fit to put in a tad of discipline. Too bad people just kept finding him jobs instead of letting him sink to his own level.

Bush should have gotten a big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, but everyone kept telling him yes, even CONgress.

Anyway, I just read some online comment where a poster dubbed this dust-up “The Fat and the Furious”.

Lol, what’s scary is that guys like this, when they are cornered, tend to lash out. Fortunately he doesn’t have access to the button. But he could make things pretty miserable for others in the process.

“But he could make things pretty miserable for others in the process.”

Sometimes a fortuitous side effect of these types of situations is when the cornered individual sees themselves as besieged when others who have done far worse seem to keep escape with no penalty, and perhaps they even gave a quid pro quo to such. When they’ve got nothing left to lose, they start spilling the beans.

“You think that was bad? Wait’ll you hear this!”

There is no honor among thieves.

“Rules are for the Little People!”

+1 Literally from Christie’s POV. Hehe.

Just so we are clear, are those coaches teachers also, so the salary includes teaching plus the extra after school hours for football?

I think so but really don’t know.

And it also appears if only 5 of the 500 in only 5a and 4a make 100K + then it is NOT correct that high schools in Texas often pay their coaches a six figure salary. They probably make less than cops or firefighters.

2011 prediction.

From that link why Mann does not want to release the raw data, computer programmers will especially enjoy this link:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/

Scientists say prepare for more extreme weather and we’ve seen it. Freak Hurricane Sandy, Freak Typhoon Haiyan, Freak Polar Vortex Midwest freeze, Floods, Fires, Polar Ice melting at record pace.

They’re frying eggs on shovels in Australia, Rio was the hottest place on the planet about a week days ago causing sprinklers to go off in Rio’s best mall, they might have to ration power and up north has the worst heat/drought in 50 years.

And some people think a cold snap in one small part of the northern hemisphere debunks a climate changing theory that is supported by over 90% of the entire world’s scientific institutions? It boggles the mind the mind bending, anti-science mind messing Americans are constantly subjected to.

But here’s my take. I think the science clearly points to global warming. But even if it doesn’t, I think that all this pollution we have pumped into the air is messing with our weather - making it more extreme, whether we are heating, cooling or staying the same.

NASA - More Extreme Weather Events Forecast
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/science/climate_assessment_2012.html‎
Jan 16, 2013 - Get ready for more extreme weather and increasingly serious impacts on health, the economy and the environment, courtesy global climate …

Get used to ‘extreme’ weather, it’s the new normal | Connie …
http://www.theguardian.com › Environment › Climate change‎
Sep 19, 2012 - Connie Hedegaard: Scientists have been warning us for years that a warmer planet would lead to more extreme weather, and now it’s arrived.

Extreme weather: Get ready to see more of it, scientists say - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/unusual-world-weather/
by Moni Basu - in 349 Google+ circles
Jul 12, 2012 - Climate change increases the chances of extreme weather, something that parts of the world have experienced lately, scientists say.

Australia swelters after record hot 2013; farmers slaughter cattle, bushfire warning
Reuters ‎- 2 days ago
The heatwave is moving east across Australia, prompting health … “You hear stories of people frying an egg on a shovel, so we set up a shovel

Brazil Drought and Heat Waves Raise Risk of Power Rationing | The …
riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/front…/brazil-may-face-power-rationing/‎
Jan 7, 2013 - Brazil may introduce power rationing for the first time since 2002, as heat and a drought in the Northeast have severely diminished reservoir …

Floods in Brazil, heat wave in Argentina | Brazil Sun
http://www.brazilsun.com/index.php/sid/219442255/scat/24437442923341f1‎
4 days ago - Heavy rains across the eastern part of the Minas Gerais, Brazil, caused widespread flooding and …

Another lie, like Acid Rain and Second Hand Smoke.

swelling ranks of Baby Boomers entering their prime working years.”

Most must be about 60 by now and that is not prime working years.

I am not saying they are in their prime. I am saying that we were told in the 1980’s when the baby boomers retire it would be great for the younger generation. Due to demographics Obama should have had an easy time to achieve low unemployment. That we are still at a 6.7% unemployment rate shows just how pathetic this “recovery” has been and ineffectual his policies have been.

That we are still at a 6.7% unemployment rate shows just how pathetic this “recovery” has been and ineffectual his policies have been.

An economic system can never have full unemployment after 33 years of supply-side economics funneling most the nation’s wealth to the rich. We did it.

We are living the results of a failed, 3 decade economic experiment with voodoo economics.

A-dan-

The baby boom retirement demographic is just taking hold.

Labor force participation rates:
55-59 years old: 71.0%
60-64 years old: 55.3%
65-69 years old: 31.6%

Those turning 62 this year (those who can start getting benefits) were born in 1952. There were 3.913MM births in 1952.

There were about 3.9 to 4.2MM people born annually from 1990-1995 (folks entering the workforce to replace those leaving).

In 1950 there were just 3.6MM people born…in other words, until approximately 1952, recent age cohorts were larger than boomer cohorts.

From 1952 to 1964, the number of people born was mostly over 4MM (and reaching as high as 4.3 in 1957 and 1959). New age cohorts will have a harder time keeping up with retirees going forward.

This dynamic beginning to play itself out is part of the reason why we are having lower unemployment rates with weak job growth. The Fed did a report recently that points to retirement of boomers as the main reason the labor force participation rate has been falling since 2012.

After a while, unemployment rates will be below 6%, and then below 5.5%, and people are going to wonder why folks aren’t re-entering the labor force (especially as wages tick up at a faster rate)…it’s because they are RETIRED, not discouraged.

Yes, Rental Watch, I think you’re right. I think there are quite a few people retiring earlier than they expected. If you ask in a survey why they’re not working, they might respond “Because I gave up looking for work,” but they will not re-enter the work force because they have actually retired, whether they planned it or not.

Agree Uncle Fed…take a look below at the change in labor force participation rates those from 50-59 declined the most month on month…seems like an increase in early retirement.

I wonder if there is any data out there related to the numbers of large corporations offering early retirement programs with their pensions. My dad worked for one such large company, and I seem to recall several times where early retirement was offered (company pays out a lump sum of cash, and it reduces the pension obligation, etc.).

This occurring late in a year might might make sense (for corporate reporting purposes)…and if those 50-somethings took the cash, they wouldn’t necessarily be looking for a new job right away–out of the labor force for at least December.

Not quite a conspiracy theory, but could explain part of the participation rate reduction for folks over 50.

The loaded boomers retired in the first decade and drove the bubble and are now transitioning to assisted living facilities. Those that remain are loaded down with debt with broke d1ck jobs.

One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

“The Carter was also a time when households could get by on one income. Since then prices have adjusted to two incomes.”

+1 An amazing drop in standard of living in just one generation.

“Since then prices have adjusted to two incomes.”

All the more remarkable given that many households these days consist of never-been-married or divorced single income units.

I agree Biggs…a major player in the LED business is CREE…they not only make bulbs, but they sell the LEDs that go into other bulbs. Going to LEDs just gave GE a major competitor.

The lightbulb was GE’s version of Gillette’s razor blades…I also nearly replaced all my lights with LEDs…very few incandescent bulbs left in my house.

That’s right. Throw good money after bad on overpriced junk.

Your math would be different if your marginal cost of electricity was $0.35916 per kWh.

And yes, that’s the number for the highest marginal rate from PG&E.