Bits Bucket for May 22, 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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PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 May, 2014, 4:44pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 May, 2014, 4:44pm
China real estate is now like Dubai before the crash
China’s first bond defaults since 1997 have occurred. Photo: Reuters
There has been an eerie calm in Chinese real estate for the past couple months. People have noticed that real estate developers are cutting prices. They have noticed that banks are pulling back on lending. They have noticed that China’s first bond defaults since 1997 have occurred. It’s like everyone has stopped (or at least slowed) the real estate game they have been happily playing for the past decade and are quietly re-assessing the situation.
In October 2008, those of us in Dubai noticed a similar calm. For six years, we had enjoyed a housing boom. And we had all become well-versed in the rationalizations for why the housing bubble wouldn’t collapse (i.e., “it hasn’t crashed so far”, “the government wouldn’t allow it”). That had all ended the month before when housing prices unexpectedly began to fall. And what followed was a similar eerie quiet, like everyone was rethinking and holding their breath.
By December 2008, prices for new Dubai developments had dropped 40%. Real estate stock prices were in free fall. And publications such as the Economist were leading with headlines like “Has the Bubble Burst?” The calm was over and everyone was starting to take action.
In January 2009, foreigners began to leave the country in droves, abandoning their leased cars at the airport by the thousands. State-backed real estate companies began to realize they were facing massive lay-offs. Many real estate developers realized they weren’t going to be able to survive their debts at current housing prices. And the overall government debt at 150% of GDP suddenly went from a theoretical to a very real problem.
By July 2009, Dubai was a ghost town. The roads were no longer congested. It no longer took an hour to get across town. The restaurants and malls were spooky-quiet. Hotels were 50% cheaper than the year before. And apartment prices continued to drop by a cumulative total of 60% over the next year. The city would subsequently spend the next 3-4 years working out its debt and housing supply situations.
China today has some important similarities to that initial calm period in Dubai in October 2008.
…
“In January 2009, foreigners began to leave the country in droves, abandoning their leased cars at the airport by the thousands.”
Funny how the RE carpetbaggers manage to get to the exits first.
And they all seem to have landed on the West Coast!
Is China’s housing bubble popping?
By Matt O’Brien
May 15 at 8:30 am
China’s housing boom is turning to bust — again — and it isn’t clear how far it will fall this time. Nor is it clear how much we should worry about it. China’s economy is big enough for everyone to feel it if it falters — it’s surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest trading country — but the good news is that the rest of the world isn’t exposed to its housing market like they were to ours.
…
CLICK!
Remember….. If you have to finance it for 15 or 30 years, it’s not affordable nor can you afford it.
(Reuters) - Europe’s election marathon kicks off on Thursday as polls open in Britain and the Netherlands, where far-right, anti-EU parties are forecast to top the ballot, spearheading a surge in protest-voting across the continent.
After two months of campaigning that opinion polls suggest has largely failed to inspire the electorate, up to 380 million Europeans will vote in 28 countries, choosing 751 deputies to represent them in the European Parliament.
With Europe struggling to recover from economic crisis, including record-high unemployment and negligible growth, the election is expected to produce a surge in support for Euroskeptic parties on both the far-right and left.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/us-eu-election-idUSBREA4L00P20140522
Nathan Folks
Yeah, I read it. Amputee crisis actors.
His mini bio on IMDB reads like that of a grifter with a drug problem. Lots of loose “associations” with famous people but no real body of work. Executive producer, umm yeah.
Nathan Folks
Producer | Writer | Director
Producer (8 credits)
2013-2014 Twisted (TV Series) (executive producer - 19 episodes)
- A Tale of Two Confessions (2014) … (executive producer)
- Danny, Interrupted (2014) … (executive producer)
- You’re a Good Man, Charlie McBride (2014) … (executive producer)
- The Son also Falls (2014) … (executive producer)
- Danny Indemnity (2014) … (executive producer)
Show all 19 episodes
2012 The Prosecution of an American President (Documentary) (executive producer)
2011 Without Men (co-executive producer)
2010 Anderson’s Cross (executive producer)
2008 Charity Poker Festival (TV Movie) (producer)
2004 Last Goodbye (producer)
2004 Willowbee (Short) (executive producer)
1997 Executive Power (Video) (co-executive producer)
2004 Last Goodbye (casting: Los Angeles)
2006-2007 Entourage (TV Series) (location provided by - 20 episodes)
- Adios, Amigos (2007) … (location provided by)
- The Prince’s Bride (2007) … (location provided by)
- The Resurrection (2007) … (location provided by)
- The Return of the King (2007) … (location provided by)
- Gotcha! (2007) … (location provided by)
Show all 20 episodes
2005 The Family Stone (special thanks)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0284306/bio - 50k
Anderson’s Cross - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson’s_Cross - 39k -
Last Goodbye (2004) - IMDb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372375/ - 95k -
Without Men (2011)
Cast: Christian Slater,Guillermo Díaz,Eva Longoria Parker,Maria Conchita Alonso,Judy Reyes,Douglas Spain,Camryn Manheim,Paul Rodriguez,Yvette Yates,Fernanda Romero,Kate del Castillo,Ray Santiago,Mónica Huarte,Oscar Nuñez,Mina Polanko,
Director: Gabriela Tagliavini Producer:
Producer Kurt Kelly, Nathan Folks,
Without Men Movie 2011: Cast, Director, Producer, Plot & Credits
movieclips.com/Pmd2-without-men-movie-videos/ - 97k -
Twisted (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_(TV_series) - 142k - Cached - Similar pages
… David Babcock; Adam Milch; Gavin Polone · Charles Pratt, Jr. Nathan Folks … On July 30, 2013, Twisted was picked up for a full season and the second half of … The series focuses on charming sixteen-year-old Danny Desai (Avan Jogia), …
Like I said, “executive producer” hah! What does that mean? It means he was a hanger on who got a credit for being a hanger on. How do I know this? Look what he himself most recently produced. A charity poker tournament movie. Just some friend of Sheri Lansing.
So did Ben go? I hope he didn’t have to, but if he had to I hope he did.
There are only mandatory evacuations for Oak Creek, with pre-evacuations for some subdivisions on the south end of Flagstaff. The fire burned around 4,000 acres yesterday. It’s more humid today and the wind is slightly lower, blowing southwest instead of southeast toward Flagstaff. The fire is picking up as judged by the smoke. They say 0% contained. I’m guessing today will be pivotal in how this thing ends up.
“They say 0% contained.”
That can’t be good.
The best way to understand it is that it was a mania that those in authority thought was a good idea or otherwise deliberately wanted to preserve so law was promulgated to that end.
The end result will be disastrous for many.
“The end result will be disastrous for many.”
Why are you so pessimistic?
So far the bailout authorities have done a great job of propping up the bubble’s skeletal remains. What makes you believe they will ever fail in this endeavor?
It’s interesting that the term “debt slave” is not a single word, as in “debtslave”, in that being a single word connects and expresses the reality of the situation.
On the other hand the single word “homeowner” is a word that disguises the reality of the situation.
“Homebuyer” would be a better term to use in most cases because it more accurately describes the situation for most “homeowners”.
But if one is to use the correct term then one may end up causing a bit of independent thinking among the population of potential marks, er, potential customers, and this independent thinking may lead the customers to question the entire charade.
It’s better (and more profitable) to keep everyone dumbed down.
Don’t worry, they’ll fix it in the 13th edition of the Newspeak dictionary.
You read my mind!
When I was a lass, my step-monster used to tell me that I needed to “dummie up”. That was her way of expressing the general disdain that is carried in society for intelligent people. I’m not even joking.
I think there is a natural tendency in human society for people in the club to keep others in a state of dumbness. And those outside the club can sense this, and so they do it willingly, in hopes of getting a treat.
What annoys me is the way that many people use the word home to mean house. So a builder build homes, not houses. And a person who lives in an apartment or townhouse doesn’t have a home and is therefore homeless.
bankers have you you right where they want you.
“bankers have you you right where they want you.”
True, and it is sooooo easy to do.
The Great American Dream Machine churns out the dreams and the great multitudes of American lemmings latch onto one or two of them and then these lemmings bring these dreams to me so they can be realized.
And they realize these dreams of theirs by making a few dreams of my own come true, and they do this by signing a few dotted lines here and there.
Their dreams may fade but my dreams don’t; As long as the ink on the dotted lines don’t fade my dreams remain intact.
“don’t fade” = “doesn’t fade”
Back to the oven, Mr. Baker. Bake me a cheeto!
The bankers do the bidding of the 1 percent. They always use patsies to divert attention from what would cause people recognize the plutocracy. Only the little people work for a living. Now the boogeyman is bankers. Next in the playbook, war.
“The bankers do the bidding of the 1 percent.”
The entire rest of the population does the bidding of the 1 percent.
And everyone but just a few are convinced that this is how it should be.
But the 1 percent are tricking the rest into hating you rather than your puppet masters.
Why would anyone expect jobs to come back in the U.S. economy, given how much money is getting funneled down the real estate rat hole?
Outside the Box Archives
May 22, 2014, 6:30 a.m. EDT
5 reasons the housing market will be just fine
Opinion: Once jobs come back, Americans will start buying homes again
By Tim Mullaney
Housing is once again the paramount issue for the recovery. Investors get anxious whenever a real estate report is released. Even Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen flagged housing as a problem in congressional testimony earlier this month.
But there’s little wrong with housing that more jobs won’t cure. The industry doesn’t need to get back to 2005 or 2006 levels. Gone are the days of 7.08 million existing-home sales and single-family new-home sales flirting with 1.4 million a year. Housing just has to run north of recent numbers, about 4.6 million existing-home sales annually and 400,000 new single-family houses.
There are lots of reasons why it should, beginning with accelerating job growth. But there are also five reasons specific to housing that should stem worries.
1. Affordability is really, seriously good.
The median 2013 first-time home buyer had income of $64,400, according to the National Association of Realtors. With a clean balance sheet, Bankrate.com says that buyer can afford a $259,672 home. The national median house price is $198,500. And it’s still 35% cheaper to buy a house than to rent a home nationally, according to Trulia.com.
…
2. Student loans matter, but less than you may think.
Student loans are No. 1 on the Worrywart Hit Parade lately. The average undergraduate who borrows money for college piled up $29,400 in debt as of 2012, according to the Project on Student Debt — about $300 a month for a standard 10-year repayment. Why is this not a huge deal?
…
3. Where have buyers been? In grad school.
Concern about first-time buyers has been driven by NAR stats showing the percentage of first-time buyers to all buyers slipping to 38% from 40%. That’s not huge, especially when you look at the 1.8% annual climb in graduate school enrollment, to 1.7 million, between 2002 and 2012, according to the Council of Graduate Schools.
…
4. The car recovery shows the way for housing.
There’s been a wave of pop psychology holding that millennials love cell phones too much to want cars or homes. Eh. Don’t take it seriously.
…
5. Easier housing credit is coming.
Car credit got easier beginning in 2012 — and housing credit is following.
Last week, Federal Housing Finance Agency Chairman Mel Watt said FHFA is taking technical steps to make mortgage lending easier for banks. They’re already easing: The average credit score for loans acquired by Fannie Mae has declined 16 points, to 741, in the past year; the share of loans going to borrowers with sub-700 scores on the 850-point scale is nearly 17%, up from 7% in last year’s first quarter.
It’s about time. Of Fannie-owned loans made since 2009, far less than 1% are seriously delinquent, a quarter of pre-bubble norms. One reason: Fannie-backed lenders kept raising standards into 2012. Credit has been too tight, and policy makers are finally loosening it.
No one would deny that housing had a brutal bust, leading to a painful and very slow recovery. But every metric that looks bad looked even worse in 2012, including this week’s stories about still-underwater borrowers. And with employers adding 288,000 new workers in April and May, and unemployment-insurance claims at seven-year lows, the job outlook looks better.
Affordable houses, easing credit and more jobs. We could improve some things about that outlook, beginning with better pay raises. But the big three are enough, and that will show soon, regardless of April’s housing reports.
…
Thanks for posting some positive real estate news. The doom and gloomers here can just keep paying their landlord’s mortgages, while smart homeowners will build equity with every mortgage payment and have their home values increase by at least 10% every year.
Don’t be silly Hoaxide. Remember, falling housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels is positively bullish and good for the economy.
With that in mind, sit back and rent for half the monthly cost and cheer up!
I snapped up some REIT shares on the news of a renewed loosening of credit, but so far they have dropped every day.
At what point will the masses catch on that U.S. real estate can only go up from now on?
What REITs did you buy that you thought loosening credit would move?
At this point, I don’t think looser credit will move REIT shares all that much. Most have them have “right sized” the amount of debt they have and fixed their interest rates for a relatively long time (meaning that lower rates won’t help their cash flow much, nor will they borrow more debt).
What will drive REITs are rising rents…which I personally think is happening now.
I’m not gambling on fundamentals.
Rather I’m gambling on the Keynesian beauty contest which I expect to ensue once the masses catch wind that Mo Credik Mel is gonna loosen credi smore. Watch for the MSM to pick up this story over the next coupla months.
Regarding loosening of credit, the lending institutions are becoming more aggressive about it. A former Wells Fargo CEO had this gem:
The United States is at risk of becoming a nation of renters because of the “totally unnecessary” constraints that continue prevent lenders from giving out mortgages, former Wells Fargo chairman and CEO Richard Kovacevich told CNBC on Thursday.
Kovacevich blames two factors, starting with the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul act. “The litigation risk … says we should not make any loan that a borrower can’t repay.” He joked about that being a great idea, and then turned serious, saying: “I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101697193
I know, right? Making loans that people can repay? Crazy talk, in today’s innovative financial world where the taxpayer carries the repayment risk, not the lender.
It’s a great system if you’re a loan originator/lender.
So, when former bank CEOs come out and makes blunt statements like that, it suggests a full court press in the lobbying world to make it so.
And here’s the other theoretical problem with modern economics:
• Money printing and debt juices the economy today.
• There’s a consequence to both of these things.
• Keynes said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” A concept which underpins a lot of the novel economic approaches taken by the central bank and the government.
HOWEVER… a human lifespan is about 80 years today, on average. We’re probably NOT going to be dead in the next 5, 10, 20, 30 or more years. That “long run” Keynes was talking about.
Spending some more time considering the “long run” would be a useful thought experiment among modern (Keynesian) economists.
This aggressive ignoring of the long run is little different than an impulsive teenager’s YOLO cry. Or a drug addict’s lack of concern when he sticks the needle in his arm - “We’re all dead in the long run, what does this matter?” Well… what matters is the health in that long term that the typical person will experience.
FYI - I’m not completely incoherent - the post that was supposed to follow up is still in the queue.
• Money printing and debt juices the economy today.
Here’s what’s interesting. We keep calling it “money printing” and that’s what I thought it was too. But the Fed says it isn’t because the US treasuries (And GSE debt?) it has bought are not permanent, but they will sell them in the future - therefore they are not “printing money” but fulfilling their role of providing stability through unstable times. The Fed says the inflation rate is backing them up in this assertion that they are not “money printing” (or monetizing the debt).
This long term chart below shows the US treasuries held on the Fed’s balance sheet and we can see that in the 2000s the percentage held was higher than it is now. Now I don’t know if this chart includes the GSE debt but we can see that the balance sheet has fluctuated greatly over the decades and it is even declining lately. (According to this chart).
So it would seem that if the Fed reduces its balance sheet of US Securities in the future, (in which we’re all dead) then they are not printing money but if the hold them permanently they are printing money.
Here’s the Fed’s charts and story on the subject. Thoughts?
Is the Fed Monetizing Government Debt?
Story:
http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/cb/articles/?id=2346
Chart:
http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/cb/2013/a/images/monetizing_fig_1_800px.png
The financial crisis and Great Recession have magnified public scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, a consequence of the extraordinary actions the Fed has taken since 2008.
Among the Fed’s actions—specifically those by the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee), the Fed’s monetary policymaking body—has been the increase of the U.S. monetary base. Since August 2008 the Fed has tripled the monetary base from about $0.8 trillion to $2.7 trillion, of which $1.2 trillion was used to purchase U.S. government bonds (i.e., Treasury debt).1
Rio is correct. The Federal Reserve does not print money. Only the Treasury Department can do that, on order of Congress. The Federal Reserve merely exchanges Federal Reserve notes for treasuries, or the other way around. The Federal Reserve may also lend its notes to banks. It’s the lending part that makes it look like printing money, due to fractional reserve banking. However, once you get back to the fact that it’s all backed by treasuries (i.e., government-paid interest), then you can see that the Federal Reserve does not print money.
RioAmericanInBrasil: Here’s what’s interesting. We keep calling it “money printing” and that’s what I thought it was too. But the Fed says it isn’t because the US treasuries (And GSE debt?) it has bought are not permanent…
That the Fed is printing money to buy government debt is not a secret: “America’s Federal Reserve is still printing money to buy bonds and has made it clear that it will not raise short-term rates at least until unemployment, now close to 8%, falls to 6.5%” — The Economist
The article is disputing something very specific - claiming that the government is not engaging in something called “monetizing the debt” - and they go on to (re)define the term to mean that if they don’t hold on to government debt permanently, then they’re not monetizing the debt.
Sounds like the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. “We’re monetizing the debt by printing money to buy government debt, but you can’t call it “monetizing the debt” because we’re not going to hold the debt permanently.”
I’m just trying to accurately describe what they’re doing. Heck, even the Fed gave what they’re doing a name - Quantitative Easing.
Pretty good schooling of Lola.
And on Lola’s schooling, let me say this. He always does this, talks out of his Mango and then the next day posts some of his internet research, which in and of itself shows that he didn’t know what he was talking about in the first place.
‘Spending some more time considering the “long run” would be a useful thought experiment among modern (Keynesian) economists.’
Easier housing credit is coming ??
This guy ask why do we have fixed rate mortgages (FRM)…
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/GWSCIY/B5X63A/NGFHX2/KERTFW2/2O9YYB/AZ/h
Why would anyone just assume that jobs will “come back”? This is a crazy level of ignorance.
Even if the official U-6 drops down to 2005 levels, it will be - at least in part - due to lower labor force participation. But even beyond that, if we “want” roughly 2/3 of Americans to “own” their homes, we need people who have below-median incomes to be doing better. I really don’t see that happening. Below-median income types are going to be hit by more downsizings and instability simply because technology will be able to do more and more of their work in the short- to medium-time frame.
A lot of households around the median income also rely on the second income of a (often) wife who works part time in a fairly low-paying job. Again, these are precisely the jobs that are most vulnerable to elimination or consolidation due to tech.
That article is just so stupid… hard to believe this is where our media is these days.
The median 2013 first-time home buyer had income of $64,400.
This is a wonderful little bit of sophistry. Not the median income of the populace, the median income of someone who already bought. The median college bound senior had an SAT score of X, but what about the whole senior class. Self selection bias?
My guess is that this is the income for both spouses, where applicable. Even more sophistry.
Nice guess, but that’s not what the article says. Median household income is not median income. Like when I say “one”, it is taken for granted that I am talking about “positive one”, not “negative one”. Furthermore, the sentence is written with the word “buyer”, which is singular.
Seriously? A married couple is considered a single buyer. The only term I’ve seen to describe the income of one person is “per capita,” not just median income. And do you really expect today’s real journalists to be that precise with their grammar anyway? I’m with Joe.
personal income
Married couple = 2 buyers. They each have to sign their own dotted line.
Student loans are No. 1 on the Worrywart Hit Parade lately. The average undergraduate who borrows money for college piled up $29,400 in debt as of 2012, according to the Project on Student Debt — about $300 a month for a standard 10-year repayment. Why is this not a huge deal?
If the grads could find non menial jobs, $300 a month wouldn’t be an issue. But when you have 3 part time jobs, folding sweaters at The Gap and at other fine retailers for $8.50/hr, then $300 a month is a very big deal.
In other words, the median first-time home buyer had an income that is waaaaaayyyyyy above the median. So where are the rest of the workers? Hint: They are not out looking for a house to buy.
From Wikipedia: “The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062[6] ($32,140 for those age 25 or above) in the year 2005.”
Yes, I realize the above data are 9 years old. This article from 2012 has a median personal income of $26,989. Not much difference in 7 years:
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2013/09/29/what-is-your-us-income-percentile-ranking-n1712430/page/full
The Atlantic has become obsessed with reparations.
—————–
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 21, 2014
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Liberace!
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-hah! Declare bankruptcy and dissolve the corporation.
The David Chappelle clip on reparations was priceless. Have to admit, it might be one way to end the endless recession.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg6J1Skptbs
The David Chappelle clip on reparations was priceless. Have to admit, it might be one way to end the endless recession.
I don’t believe in reparations per se but it would be a Demand side action as opposed to a Supply side action.
George W. Bush’s $600 tax “refund” checks given out were a Demand side action but long-term Demand side actions that would bolster the middle-class would include higher pay, US job protection and promotion and higher taxes on the rich to be invested in programs to do the above and more.
Lola in favela;
Craving ATM moolah.
Soros is the Don;
Lola’s just the pawn.
Round his ankles pants,
All he does is rants.
Do my African neighbors who were born in Sudan and Nigeria get to pay reparations to my other African-American neighbors?
They will be exempt. It’s the whitey who pays it.
With that said I am in favor of reperations as long as the offsprings of the individuals/business/government who bebenfited from it directly foot the bill.
For example, If whitehouse or senate building was built by slaves, sell the suckers and use that money to pay the reparations.
If people thought the Elizabeth Warren dust-up was bad, can you imagine all the folks coming forward to claim they have a certain percentage of African blood, even when they look like Snow White?
Actually reparations should have been made immediately, post Civil War. Or, Stinkin’ Linkin’ could have cut to the chase and just signed the Emancipation Proclamation and delivered that money. Which he could have done, and it would have cost far less than the war, in both money and lives.
Actually reparations should have been made immediately, post Civil War.
Yup, that train left the station a long time ago.
What the hell was Johnson’s war on poverty if not reparation?
Better yet, make the ungrateful bros an’ hos pay reparations for the entire costs of Lincoln’s war, including death benefits to every northern family that lost kin.
What the hell was Johnson’s war on poverty if not reparation?
Better yet, make the ungrateful bros an’ hos pay reparations for the entire costs of Lincoln’s war, including death benefits to every northern family that lost kin.
It was a war on poverty, not a war on black poverty. That’s a nice bunch of racist nonsense. With the number of people on the HBB spouting such hateful BS, it’s hard to imagine that some people actually think that anti-black sentiment is no longer an significant phenomenon in American life. You crackpots probably represent tens of millions of dopey whites, some of whom are in a position to discriminate against blacks in employment, housing or law enforcement.
Don’t be a Lola.
What do you object to?
Dump that shanty.
The Atlantic was always very progressive for its time. However, out of the current crop, I can only stomach James Fallows and Megan McCardle (big fan of hers ever since college).
There is something very different about today’s shitlibs where they try to demonize alternate viewpoints and scare moderates into silence. Look at the list of founders below… quite a bit different than the current roster of contributors.
———————————–
“The other founder sponsors were a group of prominent writers of national reputation, who included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Greenleaf Whittier. Lowell was its first editor.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic
One could argue that Affirmative Action is a form of reparations.
Or, (President Lincoln) could have cut to the chase and just signed the Emancipation Proclamation and delivered that money. Which he could have done, and it would have cost far less than the war, in both money and lives.
Your above scenario is a fantasy that doesn’t jibe with the historical situation’s possibilities. IOW - wasn’t ever gonna happen.
But if you believe the fantasy, then you’re actually saying the Civil War was really about slavery and property/property reimbursement much more than being about States Rights.
So in that light, your fantasy does hold some truth.
I am part American Indian and I ask for no handouts. Reparations are BS.
All we have to share now is debt. Does anyone want an outsized share of that?
The trouble is that no one trusts black people with money. Whites, yellows, and browns will never agree to pay black people so they can better their lives. We all assume that the black people will spend it all on drugs and easy living.
The trouble with black people is that they are humans. They don’t fit neatly into a tight little box so as we could define them.
Public Service Announcement:
Plex is now supported on Chromecast. https://plex.tv/features
Even less of a reason to have cable. With Plex app, you can pull videos off of any website and save them to later stream to your television (or any other screen you want).
As Comcast buys Time Warner Cable and AT&T merges with DirecTV, there’s never been a better time to cut the cord and leave these anti-competitive deadbeats on the side of the road.
Cash and precious metals in your possession - are king. Debt is for donkeys.
Bill, something I’ve been meaning to ask you…
You often post about how our government has become communist, how we’re all surrendering control and how evil the people in power are.
But from what I understand you are actually a contractor for the department of defense. If you yourself can’t resist some money to sell the rest of out, then why do you expect anyone else to do the right thing? The corporations and the politicians are getting more power and more money to chisel us and our rights. They do it for money, and you help them for money. What makes you any different from them?
Your words may be different, but your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.
You only read what the local haters type. I am not a defense contractor. I used to be. My work is totally commercial.
Do me a favor and hate on oxide, rio, Colorado for repeating lies. I know they are aware they are lying. They continue because they know it bothers me. They can just go eat a tird.
Do me a favor and hate on oxide, rio, Colorado for repeating lies
Ooh! I feel special now.
Unlike you, I never worked for the government, not even as a contractor. I was never a collaborator, willing to sell out my fellow countrymen for a dollar.
Ah but IIRC, your son is in the military. Do you hate him?
And country cats. Why does everyone always discriminate against cats by using generalized terms that end in the word “men”? It should be “countrybeings”.
I guess Colorado’s son works for no pay.
I am not a defense contractor. I used to be.
Now that’s funny coming from a self-described “hired gun”. As if your said current job going commercial was a personal moral decision based on your “libertarian” and anti-government persona. And you’ll never work for what you say you despise again. You’ve really walked your talk.
“I’m not hungry. I used to be.”
What a dunce you are Lola. An incorrigible dunce.
A dunce who is living the mania, in a city that is an open sewer, in a house he could sell, in a city that he came to, to take care of his mom, who actually doesn’t live there, giddy to be a 1%er and hating the 1%.
The problem with being a liar is that it is very hard to keep things straight.
High net worth individual in favela, with a hot Brazilian wife. Remember that one?
Yet when challenged to post a simple photo, the ducking and weaving began. lol…. remember that? but but but! Joe Blow will donate $500 blah blah blah…
There is nothing wrong with “providing” for the defense. Do you expect your defense unpaid for?
Well, bill, knock has a point. Providing for “defense” of what?
All wars are bankers’ wars. Now, if someone was providing defense from bankers, that would make sense. But I don’t see anyone doing that.
Understand, I’m not dissing you here. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
In anarcho capitalist theory there are scholars who explain why private armies are needed in anarchist societies and how the need can be filled by insurance companies. I will have to revisit it. Otherwise every household can be its own army. But probably would not be able to defend against big armies. That is one justification the scholars use for private defense.
So did you change your mind about taxation being theft?
MM. Nope.
That means you were paid with stolen money. It didn’t properly belong to the government when they had it, so it didn’t properly belong to you when you received it. If the good, decent people who work in the private sector want get that money back that was stolen from us, we need to find out where you’re keeping those gold coins that you’re always talking about and seize them. That would be a completely ethical thing to do, since a large portion of your assets were stolen from us.
So why are you not a libertarian? Why do you vote for wealth confiscation?
Mm i smell bullshlt. So why are you not a libertarian? Why do you vote for wealth confiscation? No you continue to defend the very same people who rob taxpayers and redistribute to others. You list an argument. Go away.
I left out a few words there in my post at 12:29:31. If a person considers taxation to be theft, then that person should agree with what I wrote.
I don’t say that taxation is theft, so it’s not relevant to my voting habits.
So why are you not a libertarian?
He is a libertarian. So am I. Nancy Pelosi’s now a huge libertarian. Everyone can be a libertarian now. Thank you Bill!
You’ve shown us how easy it is to be a libertarian no matter what we do or how we live.
And your support of the ACA falls right in line with your championing of the rugged individual’s ability to stick-it-to-the-man and start their own business without fear of catastrophic medical bills stealing their hard earned money.
Well done!
So then you are for redistribution. Then pot meet kettle.
BS detection all the way into the rex. You cannot be for socialized health care and be a libertarian at the same time. Violation of the N.A.P.
So then you are for redistribution. Then pot meet kettle.
Does that mean that you’re in favor of distribution as well?
“If a person considers taxation to be theft, then that person should agree with what I wrote.”
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
I don’t hate either. In my opinion, there’s nothing inherently wrong with working for the goverment. It’s Bill who thinks that.
MM again you slander me. I don’t think it’s wrong to work for the government. I never said it’s wrong.
If you had a brain you would know that the constitution says “provide for the common defense.” Lotteries, whatever fundraising by voluntary means could fund the defense.
If you were a real commie you would work for free. And you would beg for food. But you are a p*ssy lib. You have as much craziness as Pelosi. Nevertheless you expect defense against invaders should be done for free.
I guess since you are a nutter you expect others to work for free, but not yourself. “Provide for the common defense” necessitates paying for it in some form. I call for voluntary payment. Not taxes.
I never said that anoyone should work for free. I explicitly wrote that there’s nothing wrong with working for the government. You can say that you prefer that the government raise all of its funds voluntarily, but the government doesn’t do that. The government that you worked for raises its revenue through taxes.
Once again, I’m not claiming that you did anything wrong. You’re the one who says that taxation is theft, so you’re the one who says that you were paid with stolen money.
I should have been more explicit. You never said that it’s wrong to work for the government. You just think that it’s wrong to work for the government as it currently exists today.
By the way, the constitution also allows the government to collect taxes. And I never claimed that there’s anything wrong with the existence of the defense department.
Hate the game not the players.
A man’s gotta eat.
More internet mischief
BOSTON (Reuters) - EBay Inc said that hackers raided its network three months ago, accessing some 145 million user records in what is poised to go down as one of the biggest data breaches in history, based on the number of accounts compromised.
It advised customers to change their passwords immediately, saying they were among the pieces of data stolen by cyber criminals who carried out the attack between late February and early March.
EBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller told Reuters late on Wednesday that those passwords were encrypted and that the company had no reason to believe the hackers had broken the code that scrambled them.
“There is no evidence of impact on any eBay customers,” Miller said. “We don’t know that they decrypted the passwords because it would not be easy to do.”
She said the hackers gained access to 145 million records of which they copied “a large part”. Those records contained passwords as well as email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses and other personal information, but not financial data such as credit card numbers.
I wanna cheap house.
Warmists gotta warm.
Liberal Group Accused of Lighting Fires in California to Promote Global Warming
Posted about 3 days ago | 7 comments
Fire burns near a US marine corps base at Camp Pendleton, CaliforniaSan Diego, CA–Officials in San Diego are asking for the public’s assistance in seeking members of a liberal eco-terrorist group accused of allegedly lighting multiple fires across Southern California with the intent of raising awareness of Global Warming. One arrest has been made, and authorities are seeking information on other individuals who may be involved.
…
Brilliant.
We had to destroy the village to save it, or something?
It takes a village to drown a baby.
Was riotard arrested yet?
Oh no.
In 2002 the Rodeo–Chediski Fire in AZ was started by two people. One, an out of work Indian who worked on fire fighting crews and two, a lost lady that started a signal fire. It burned an area of about 60 sq miles and as soon as it got near roads/water, then they were able to knock it down.
If the environmentalists have done this, they should be spending the rest of their lives in an urban gulag.
“If the environmentalists have done this, they should be spending the rest of their lives in an urban gulag.”
As much as I am hoping and praying it was the work of enviro-terrorists, I suspect otherwise.
I rather myself a social liberal and fiscal conservative. I object to psychopaths being referred to as “liberals”.
According to Wiki, Frederik Bastiat no longer is labeled a “liberal,” but a “classical liberal.”
So a “classical liberal” is one who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I guess whoever put that into Wiki had the ulterior motive of sealing in the theft by the big government (conservers of the state - who I really think are more aptly labeled “conservative”) types - of our label that properly applies to us: “liberal”
The libertarians also conceded the theft of our label. Shame on them.
“Voluntaryist” is my identity. Big government Riotards, try to steal that!
The number of housing units for sale near my job and pod is growing. Same old stuff is sitting there, with new stuff cropping up.
U.S. Total Gasoline Retail Sales by Refiners
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=a103600001&f=m
You could ski that hill.
Everyone Must Check In
Are you still underwater, six years after the gret big crashola?
Don’t feel bad…you are hardly alone!
I guess $7.3 billion in negative equity for San Diego County, alone, is no big deal, right?
The situation reminds me of how the Salton Sea was formed…as the aftermath of a flood that occurred many decades ago!
55,000 in SD underwater on mortgages
By Jonathan Horn
6 a.m. May 22, 2014
Nearly five years after the Great Recession, more than 55,000 San Diego County homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, says an analysis released this week by the real-estate website Zillow.
The report found that in the first quarter of the year, 12.6 percent of homeowners with mortgages in San Diego County owed more on their properties than they were worth, down from 21 percent a year earlier.
The drop in those underwater was aided by big home price appreciation in 2013, which during the summer peaked at 24.1 percent year-over-year. Still, the annual gains slowed in the second half of the year, and weren’t enough to get everyone’s value to recover to a point that they could sell their home for a profit or at least break even to get out of their loan.
By March, the end of the first quarter, median home values had reached what was then a post-Great Recession high of $427,000, a 12 percent jump from a year earlier. Appreciation, however, is expected to flatten out more this year, and because of that Zillow predicts that by the first quarter of 2015 that 10.9 percent of homeowners with a mortgage will still be underwater in San Diego County.
Many of the areas with the most negative equity contain tract homes, built during the housing boom that led to the recession. These include eastern Oceanside, Otay Mesa, and Chula Vista, where many overpaid for tract homes, aided by loans that required little to no down payment.
“Those houses got bid up the farthest, the fastest. They’re the ones who were the most vulnerable to swings of the market” said Mark Goldman, a loan officer and real-estate lecturer at San Diego State University. “A lot of the people who bought there bought way beyond their means to repay and they were using the nothing down, stated-income loans and those were the markets that got hit the hardest.”
Nationwide, 18.8 percent of homeowners with a mortgage, or 9.7 million, were underwater on their loans, down from 25.4 percent in the first quarter of 2013.
Negative equity is especially hitting the lower end of the market, Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said in a statement. That’s because people who owe more on their homes than they are worth don’t list them for sale. That drives prices higher and can keep first-time buyers out of the market.
“The unfortunate reality is that housing markets look to be swimming with underwater borrowers for years to come,” Humphries said. “It’s hard to overstate just how much of a drag on the housing market negative equity really is, especially at the lower end of the market, which represents those homes typically most affordable for first-time buyers.”
In San Diego County, homeowners collectively had $7.3 billion of negative equity in the first quarter. Additionally, more than 3,162 of them were at least 90 days late on their mortgages, generally the time a bank files a notice of default, triggering the 90-day foreclosure process. Both default notices and foreclosures are currently at pre-recession levels, real-estate tracker DataQuick reports.
…
Are you betting for or against housing?
May 22, 2014, 11:13 a.m. EDT
Big investors are betting against housing
Jeff Gundlach, Larry Fink warn on sector; Bill Miller is still positive
By Ben Eisen, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Some of Wall Street’s most vocal investors are betting against housing, saying the recovery has fizzled out.
Earlier this month, DoubleLine Capital founder Jeffrey Gundlach took to the podium at a highly watched investment conference to suggest shorting the popular SPDR S&P Homebuilders exchange traded fund (XHB +1.89%). He pointed to a concern, cited by others, that would-be young buyers are shunning mortgages.
BlackRock (BLK +0.20%) CEO Laurence Fink said Tuesday that the housing market is “ structurally more unsound ” than prior to the financial crisis due to its reliance on Fannie Mae FNMA -0.69% and Freddie Mac (FMCC -1.15%), according to news reports. He did sound a more optimistic note on Homeownership reviving.
Real-estate investor Sam Zell says he expects the Homeownership rate to drop as low as 55% as more people delay marriages.
But there are also some long bets out there.
Former Legg Mason Chief Bill Miller, a housing bull, said last week that the bearish positions of Gundlach and Zell are wrong. He expects continued strong demand for housing, and said he’s betting on mortgage insurers, home builders and subprime servicers, according to Bloomberg News.
And Pershing Square Capital Management’s Bill Ackman recently trotted out a 110-slide presentation on the value of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNMA -0.69%) and Freddie Mac (FMCC -1.15%), saying he’s ready to sit down with the government to work out a deal.
As investors take sides, Federal Reserve officials are doing so too. Charles Plosser, president of the Fed Bank of Philadelphia says housing fundamentals “remain sound” on Tuesday, while New York Fed Bank President Charles Dudley said later that day he believes there’s a “deep and protracted” housing downturn.
For market participants, the current time period reflects uncertainty — and a touch of fear — about whether the housing market is improving fast enough to push broader U.S. economic growth toward liftoff. Investors are taking the pulse of business conditions after a cold winter to gauge when and how the Fed will normalize its monetary policies, in turn guiding the future of the five-year-old bull market in stocks and the direction of bond yields. That’s making housing a key factor that could aid or stifle growth.
Because the housing market is a cyclical driver of the economy, it tends to lead the way in the wake of a recession. But as growth picks up, it usually cedes its influence to other sectors. That handoff is an event investors are waiting for.
“Housing typically leads the economic recovery because it is the most durable of all expenditures that consumers make,” said Kirk Barneby, portfolio manager of the Centre Active U.S. Treasury Fund.
…
“Big investors are betting against housing”
Don’t fight the Fed!
This is huge
HP may cut up to 16,000 more jobs as results disappoint
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hp-may-cut-16-000-000745622.html
Saw this too. The real economy sucks. The tech bubble is bursting at the same time as housing.
Good thing they bought that old Palo Alto house with the garage out back; they might end up where they started.
Posted above:
Last week, Federal Housing Finance Agency Chairman Mel Watt said FHFA is taking technical steps to make mortgage lending easier for banks. They’re already easing: The average credit score for loans acquired by Fannie Mae has declined 16 points, to 741, in the past year; the share of loans going to borrowers with sub-700 scores on the 850-point scale is nearly 17%, up from 7% in last year’s first quarter.
It’s about time. Of Fannie-owned loans made since 2009, far less than 1% are seriously delinquent, a quarter of pre-bubble norms. One reason: Fannie-backed lenders kept raising standards into 2012. Credit has been too tight, and policy makers are finally loosening it.
I doubt this less than 1 percent figure, but maybe if most all were going to 700 plus credit scores. What’s the volume though, everything I see is FHA 3 percent downs.
A score of 700 isn’t exactly fog a mirror. And without fog a mirror it all collapses. Most who want houses have them, except the fog a mirror crowd. Stated income drove the mania before. Let’s see them bring that back.