The Housing Bubble

Hold onto your cash. You’re going to need every penny of it.

Prices of houses are already dropping, open your eyes.

Awwww…. Still smarting from your losses? Well that’s what get when you play.

Remember…… Houses result in loss.

Nice to see you back, mike.

BTW, I was one of the ones who encouraged you to sell—but if you recall, I said pretty directly that by holding, you were merely another speculator, and speculators win sometimes and lose sometimes. And I also thought it would go up further before turning around.

I do think you are better off choosing a more sustainable life, such as you have now, over one where your “earnings” were driven primarily by the insanity of mania and money supply.

Sorry you are in the wrong industry at the wrong time;

Very interesting question that he raises, HA: how secure do you feel in your chosen profession, as demand for building should in fact fall if the housing market takes another dive.

I’d really value hearing your perspective on this point.

Mutual admiration of shills society.

Wow, now I’m a shill? Show me a single post from me that shills for the REIC.

You will fail to do so—because there are none. You are quite possibly delusional. I have been advocating for sane lending and sane house prices here for almost a decade now.

Obvious to everyone here and its news to you? Lolz

Wow, now I’m a shill?

Folks here lately seem so quick to dismiss someone’s message by calling them a troll or shill, rather than discussing the comment itself. Common on the internet, of course, but it’s a shame to see so much of it here.

Prime most certainly isn’t a shill, Favela, especially given he currently doesn’t own a house and actively speaks as to why he doesn’t.

It’s a shame the HBB doesn’t have accounts with “join dates” so we can track all these new aliases, and folks wouldn’t be calling long-time posters “shills”

Its pretty simple my friend……..when you come here and and attempt to distort the truth, you’ll get hammered.

‘Folks here lately seem so quick to…it’s a shame to see so much of it here…It’s a shame the HBB doesn’t have…’

You know, I used to make a meager living from this blog. Now, I provide it as a favor to people, and even spend hours on the side researching and putting together posts. And many more hours moderating the comments. My all this complaining! Why don’t I just ditch the bits bucket? Why even have comments at all? I didn’t have them when I started. I can turn them off in a second.

My all this complaining!

Ben, I wasn’t complaining and certainly wasn’t meaning to voice a lack of appreciation for you providing this blog as a place for us to post.

Please consider that I was simply opining as to a way of addressing some of the perceived issues in this forum.

If this is really how you feel, why don’t you just turn off the comments? If you’re at the point of attacking a long-time poster for simply lamenting something that would be nice to have (not criticizing you, or demanding it), it seems better for your mental health.

‘attacking a long-time poster’

I didn’t ‘attack’ you. Just sitting here on a Sunday morning, volunteering my time like I’ve done for 10 years.

I didn’t ‘attack’ you.

Fair enough - you did not attack me. Guilt-tripping? Threatening perhaps?

Presumably you get something out of keeping this blog running. There’s a reason you actively post here…so why make statements such as “I can turn them off in a second?”

I don’t see anywhere in this thread where someone (myself included) is complaining about how this blog is run, or that you should do something differently. What I do see is some folks in this community trying to keep the level of discourse high, and about ideas, and discouraging others from making personal attacks.

‘Presumably you get something out of keeping this blog running’

That’s a good question. When I started this blog, it was a way to examine an issue that had been at the back of mind since 1998, when I first got the idea there was a housing bubble. Having lived through the disaster that was the oil states bubble in the 80’s, I recognized what to me was exuberance, especially when I moved to Arizona. But I also remembered the heartache. I mean gut wrenching, suicide provoking, life destroying economic calamity that followed that bubble. I was between jobs and had just discovered blogs. (I had another one before this blog.) So I set out to try and document the bubble, if there was one. No comments, no ads. Just me sifting through the internet, reading Moody’s PDF’s, looking for clues. What I found was far larger than anything I ever imagined.

Why I still do it? I guess the best answer I have is wanting to finish what I’ve started. I want to tell this story in my own way from where I started to its end.

‘why make statements such as “I can turn them off in a second?”

What is a blog like this? Servers, time and money spent. Time and intellectual input from individuals around the world. But the core of what I want to do doesn’t involve these comment spaces. I provide them because I have a real appreciation and fondness for the posters here. Sure they’re cranky sometimes, I’m cranky sometimes. We all get out of line somewhere. We have our train wrecks, pick ourselves up. We’ve shared our life stories, loss of jobs, loved ones. Some posters have passed away.

I read the comments to articles online. These well financed organizations have paid moderators, and I see all sorts of awful conduct. My point is, the contributors to this blog are pretty darn well behaved. Back when I spent 14 hours a day moderating and otherwise working on this blog, I could delete maybe 100 or more “offensive” comments a day. But I simply can’t do that anymore. So appreciate what you’ve got here, warts and all. Appreciate the people, even if you don’t like them, or put them on ignore. Because there will be a day when this blog ends. I just hope that will happen when the mania has ended as well.

Ben, I appreciate the candid response.

I also appreciate that you started and continued to run this blog. I have learned a lot from your posts, the linked articles, as well as from the motley crew that posts here.

I agree that the personal “relationships” with posters here, and ability to follow each others’ lives (well, what each of us share) is valuable. It truly is a community, and the effort you’ve put into moderation, as well as the effort you’ve put into not silencing different perspectives, is largely to be credited for that.

I don’t believe I expect anything from you, and I do appreciate the blog as is. I come and I go, sometimes turned off by the tone of conversations and political orientation of the posters here, but inevitably find myself coming back.

I’m glad that you keep this place up and running, and do appreciate the effort it takes. Having one place that documents the events, news coverage, and effects on the lives of the posters here over time is and will be incredibly valuable.

“sometimes turned off by the tone of conversations and political orientation of the posters here,”

And as far as I can tell, that is the only legitimate part of your beef. Everyday, without fail, all the empty pockets, all the paid hacks, all the want something for nothing sloths, the LIEberals and corporate repukes, all of which make up the statist pigs that created this ongoing disaster, spam this place. Everyday. And every spare moment I have, I will troll them, harrass them, expose their lies and drag their names through the dirt. Why? Well why not?

As author of a useful tool like the JT extension, you and everyone is welcome to use it and should. Many claim to use it but strangely enough, they complain about the very individuals they claim to ignore. Having a few ounces of street smarts and a nose for BS precludes the need for the JTE but most just don’t have a BS detector. So use the JTE.

that is the only legitimate part of your beef

My “beef”, if I have one, is that folks are incredibly quick to label a poster a “shill” if that poster says something at odds with their point of view, playing the ad-hominem game.

There are places where there are bidding wars and houses sell within an hour. That doesn’t mean there aren’t places where housing demand is down, or there’s plenty of inventory. It simply means there are variations. Shades of grey.

And there’s a reason the JT extension doesn’t simply remove posts by ignored commenters. It’s because even the “annoying” (an individual assessment, to be sure) posters add something of value, and it’s often worth skimming what they have to say, and even engaging them from time to time.

An echo chamber is a boring place. Much is to be learned from having a reasoned conversation with someone who holds an opinion different from your own.

My calling Prime a shill was a mistake and I apologize. Crimney what a thread. I got confused and blame it on the lack of enuf coffee and a slight hangover. Somehow I was thinking you were that guy from the other dY who posted about selling a PHX house and making 140k.

Prime you were the one recently married, I’d hate to harsh that, so please accept my apology.

Now apologies are worthless usually without some recompense. So by way of restitution, I will refrain from commenting on anything about Lola (except his alcoholism and lies) for two weeks.

My “beef”, if I have one, is that folks are incredibly quick to label a poster a “shill” if that poster says something at odds with their point of view, playing the ad-hominem game.

Point of view? There is no “point of view”. There is data and truth. You understand the end result of mixing a little bit of truth with a whole lot of lies. Right?

There are places where there are bidding wars and houses sell within an hour. That doesn’t mean there aren’t places where housing demand is down, or there’s plenty of inventory. It simply means there are variations. Shades of grey.

And cherry picking those exceptions and characterizing them as the general trend is another problem here and it’s one a few of us will flush out daily.

You know whats on the menu of the shills and fraudsters, it’s no mystery to you.

“So appreciate what you’ve got here, warts and all.”

This wart appreciates it.

Thank you Ben Jones

What I do see is some folks in this community trying to keep the level of discourse high, and about ideas, and discouraging others from making personal attacks

Very selectively, Personal attacks on conservatives are fine, at least you never have complained. When you attack Rio for personal attacks you might have some credibility. This is just a distraction to get the discussion away from Obama’s epic fail.

He/she is bending over and waiting for the change, we are beyond hope.

Why the personal attack’s ?? Just brings the intellectual quality of the blog down…I scroll through HA’s endless loop posts but what purpose is served with elementary schoolyard personal attack banter ??

Attack the message ?? Fine….Attack the person or a group of persons, that just instigates a bunch of arrow throwing…Worthless information…

Lola was engaging in personal attacks long before people responded and he still does.

He has always been nice to me

TMI, I thought bend was a location.

I have disagreed with Rio on substance any times, but have always had a cordial debate.

These homophobic attacks cheapen the blog. I want to ask very clearly that you guys stop. I know some very nice people who are gay; some I know from work, some I know socially. The fact that you guys consider this a reasonable way to attempt to denigrate someone is somewhere between sad (for the ignorance displayed) and despicable (for the hate displayed).

Can you please just stop?

No. It is an attack on Lola’s constant lies. Gay’s got nothing to do with it anymore than alcoholism.

He is a high net worth individual who lives in Brazil with a hot Brazilian wife sipping (guzzling) rum drinks and eating mangos.

The personal attacks are how the PTB keeps us divided, fighting amongst ourselves, and distracted from their theft. It’s how they made sure the Tea Party and Occupy movements never joined together, which would have been the PTB’s worst nightmare.

No. It is an attack on Lola’s constant lies.

Then call him a liar. I don’t see how calling him a transvestite hooker says anything about lying.

Wield the truth as a weapon, not lies of your own.

It is no difference than calling Amy a whore. Lola is not a real person and I see no reason to treat him/her like one.

It’s stuff like homophobia and racism that are the most effective tools for keeping the people divided, fighting amongst themselves, ignoring the theft that is going on openly.

No one is ignoring the theft and people like Obama love to distract people from the theft by calling his opposition racist and homophobic.

When has Obama ever false accused someone of being racist? I think that argument is a complete fabrication.

Homophobic and racist comments make it hard to recommend a blog to people at work, for instance. Therefore such comments make it harder to disseminate information about the theft to the general public. That’s an effective way to continue the theft.

And you determine what is a false charge?

Can you give an example of the president falsely accusing someone of racism?

He acts through surrogates to have plausible deniability but his entire 2012 was built around it along with war on women, and homophobic themes http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/the_obama_campaigns_racial_slander_strategy.html

No. It is an attack on Lola’s constant lies.

Then do it while he’s actively posting in a given BB, not when he’s not around. The little side circle jerk you guys have going on when he’s not around is patently Bush League.

Economies around the globe on the edge of implosion and you guys are arguing about queers. You’re the problem.

¨Economies around the globe on the edge of implosion and you guys are arguing about queers. Youŕe the problem.¨

And why are we arguing about queers? What do they have to do with the credit bubble, its causes, and ramifications? Nothing, of course. So why do some people keep bringing them into the conversation? All it does is divide and distract. Just as the PTB would like.

Who cares why. Don’t be distracted by it.

sheep get tied up in these useless conversations.

Sheep get herded, divided, and distracted by PTB shepherds who know the sheep buzzwords. If you want to ensure the PTB keep scamming us, then help them divide us according to color, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. If you want to stop their scam, then stop helping them divide our ranks.

So the answer is no. A link is provided to another wacky right wing web site. The writer makes sure that we don’t forget the president’s middle name and tell us, “There aren’t enough ‘racially resentful whites’ to matter. They represent the tiniest fraction of the American population.” Just reading following the people who post here disproves that statement.

This is dumb: Then do it while he’s actively posting in a given BB, not when he’s not around.

I do post when he’s around.

But mostly, I post early in the AM and then later in the PM. Then throughout the day on weekends or on a holiday. Why? Hmmm.

Then do it while he’s actively posting in a given BB, not when he’s not around

How do you know he is not posting under another name?

Why do you attack someone for being gay, when it has no relation to the housing bubble?

Why does he attack people for being racist when it has nothing to do with housing?

How do you know he is not posting under another name?

Ever notice how he can’t resist responding to you? That’s how I know.

I do post when he’s around.

Okay, how about this? Post that crap ONLY when he’s around. And as Prime stated, call him a liar and leave it at that…

Multiple people have asked you two to stop posting homophobic slurs. Is there a reason you can’t, or should we turn to Psyche 101 to help guide the answer?

Tired of political correctness and censorship

But if Lola apologizes for calling me a racist, I would stop the jokes.

Why not stop the jokes so you don’t needlessly splinter the opposition to the PTB’s theft?

Because if homophobia and racism have no real definition and once you give into the political correct police you have given them a weapon to shut you down. If the Pope says the bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong is that homophobic? If I say that the policies of the federal housing organizations to encourage minority ownership helped lead to the housing bubble and should not be repeated is that racist? Why can you only make jokes about white male Christians?

tried to answer but it will not post

realtors are liars. And so is Lola

LIEberal Lola defenders puhleez. You all could care a flaming thong’s worth about that shill liar. What you are really trying to do is pile on hoping to censor a point of view you disagree with and not one about gays.

Multiple people have asked you two…

Lola claims I am on ignore so I don’t need to worry.

“What you are really trying to do is pile on hoping to censor a point of view you disagree with”

BINGO. And it ain’t gonna happen.

Repeatedly insinuating a dude is a cross-dresser is your “point of view”?

I couldn’t care less what you or Dan’s opinions are. I even agree with many of them, but common courtesy in the discourse on this site doesn’t make you guys victims…

Thank you for your attempts here, Oddfellow, PIC, and sleepless.

The personal attacks are why I’ve not been spending as much time around here, too. It’s a shame because there are a lot of posters here to have interesting things to add to the discussion.

As Oddfellow so aptly stated, let’s not be divided amongst ourselves. We should keep our eyes on those in power (not the Democrats or Republicans — nonsensical, divisive, corrupt “Two Party” system that it is, but the corporate/banking elite who control them) and not let them get away with this theft.

jose,
I read your post in response to mine. Good points.

I heard a little Hispanic girl (5 years old) say that her mom, dad, brother and her, had just gone to Disneyland. $100 a ticket minimum and they were on an EBT card and the SNAP program. Daddy was at work, and Mommy told me (no shame)she wanted to stay home and raise her kids for now. Wow, Disney on welfare, how cool is that.

Inchbyinch, perhaps you haven’t run the numbers, but many women are working for a negative income. The cost of childcare, work clothing, transportation, etc. can easily cost more than a lower-paid worker can make.

She could easily be making the best decision, given the circumstances. Also, kids with parents at home tend to do better in school and life than latch-key kids.

Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled reproducing masses yearning to feed at the taxpayer trough.

BTW, a poem is not an immigration policy.

Massive immigration, both legal and illegal, is incompatible with a welfare state.

These creatures will be the death of our liberties, what few we have left. The more crowded a country, the less free it is.

give them a food stamp application and free trip to the emergency room for a checkup.

They are willing to steal and rape too.

World War Z.

jose,
We’ve discussed that poem at the base of The Statue Of Liberty being imposed into our national documents. When I correct people, they become embarrassed.

I was at a Ca state agency for 5 minutes last week. It was a mix of a trash freak show and a Spanish speaking give away. Lots of recipient new Hondas and Nissans in the parking lot. I became germ phobic as my thoughts connected to the demographics. Even saw a lady (Spanish)with a medical mask on. Scary chit. (She looked unkept, but not in a big “C”/chemo way)

If they do have amnesty I predict the end of consent of the taxpayers. I predict a huge tax revolt.

I predict that the sheeple remain sheeple. Occam’s Razor.

I predict a huge tax revolt.

With withholding from paychecks, I don’t see how this happens.

Bill, I know you’re all about minimizing your tax profile/liability, but that’s not always possible. How does one minimize their tax liability on a windfall of ISOs, for example? Such events pad the coffers of CAs budget, for sure.

And tax revenues aren’t even necessary. We’ve clearly seen that the federal reserve can simply monetize the debt/budget of the US federal government. Me paying less in taxes isn’t going to change policy, as far as I can tell.

So how do you see a tax revolt happening, and actually changing anything???

“jose,
We’ve discussed that poem at the base of The Statue Of Liberty being imposed into our national documents. When I correct people, they become embarrassed.

I was at a Ca state agency for 5 minutes last week. It was a mix of a trash freak show and a Spanish speaking give away. Lots of recipient new Hondas and Nissans in the parking lot. I became germ phobic as my thoughts connected to the demographics. Even saw a lady (Spanish)with a medical mask on. Scary chit. (She looked unkept, but not in a big “C”/chemo way)”

Yeah, they should be embarrassed. Pablum in, pablum out. But that’s part of the plan. Dumb down people with slogans and “correct think” and they’ll accept anything, including their own degradation.

I’ve seen some of these slatterns at my own local clinic and out and about in the area. I might not mind so much if I saw any real signs of desire for betterment in terms of lifestyle, intellect and education, but what I see more often is a desire for subsidized degradation, and the desire to impose that degradation on citizens of the host country.

I also have a problem with the way their children are used for fun and profit, such as the woman (and I use the term loosely) who sets up a “produce” stand in a nearby parking lot and uses her daughter (who looks to be about five or six years old) as a shill to attract retired people to buy fruit and vegetables at her stand. In the incredible heat of summer.

Drumminj, the revolt need not be in the form of withholding taxes.

There are so many ways to revolution. Use your imagination and figure. Many nonviolent ways of making life unbearable for statists and bureaucrats.

And I made a major step in the last few months to disengage and not sanction. At a, cost but now I have a lot more freedom. And my freedom is accumulating.

And my freedom is accumulating.

I’m curious how you reconcile your freedom “accumulating” and the fact a significant portion of it (from what I understand) is in electronic accounts which can be frozen in an instant.

I recall that you, like me, are distrustful of retirement accounts/having tax policy between yourself and your savings, but presumably some of your “freedom” is subject to the whims of tax policy.

It’s not that I disagree with you, more that as each day goes by, I feel that any way of flouting/avoiding “the man” is simply an illusion

Don’t stay under the dark cloud. Government is not the only entity attacking our liberty. Our own personal choices most often are self limiting

I posted a list of things over time that increase individual liberty. The most obvious to us all: rent.

Bravo DrumminJ.

Unless we want to rein on the Fed and its criminal activities, nothing will change.

There are more people protesting the Fed these days but sadly they are in Germany.

Make no mistake, this is not a “humanitarian” crisis. It is a deliberately manufactured crisis, and those involved, whether active or passive, are committing treason, pure and simple.

This whole debacle began with the sainted Ronald Reagan, who, by signing into the law the first massive amnesty, started the chain that led to what we have today. Some say he was gulled by Teddy Kennedy and assorted other Democrats, but I don’t give an eff what his excuse was. Clinton upped the ante with NAFTA. Jorge W. Bush started to put the whole shebang on steroids.

The current suit in the White House hates this country with a passion, as do his henchmen and his wife and his chief advisor, the crazy woman who runs the whole show. And she DOES run it, she makes the decisions, it’s time people recognized it.

The goal is nothing less than the collapse and degradation of the US.

You actually have a point there about NAFTA. If forced small Mexican farmers to compete with giant American agribusiness, which impoverished them and sent them trekking northwards.

Exactly. Great example of what goes around, comes around, except it didn’t affect the Clintons in the least.

Many Mexicans were very happy to live in their own country, and at least make a living off their own piece of land. Instead, they’ve been consigned to the corporate fields and orchards, and the US subsidizes the labor for big ag. Washington and Big Ag tore Mexico apart, and the Mexicans are returning the favor in spades. Except they’re not paying back the correct individuals.

jose and all,
The fact Ca was only part of Mexico 25 years and has been part of the US 170+ years alludes RAZA. When I hear we stole Ca back, I want to smack the ignoramuses.

If this was Mexico’s land to date, Ca would be a sewer. Oh wait, the state in many areas is a sewer. The coastal upscale areas are still incredible in scenery and culture. Wish I was rich.
It occurred to me at 50, I took the path of least resistance, not like my family tree.

Marin County is pretty much like much of Southern California used to be 50 years ago. It’s so full of white progressives that there are too few racial minorities. That is how the progressives like it. Always pretending to be for the underdog and multi culture when it is so obvious that they cannot stand living among people of color.

HA
BS. I had a licensed guy quote the job. (has to be compacted and EQ safe) You’re the one full of it. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

HA -
Time to learn something, my dear. If we found a construction site that had to dump dirt, it would cut down on the cost, but it’s still $1,000’s. Stick to what you know, dogs and Doritos.

Maybe it uses an air to air heat exchanger?

I hope so other wise why not just let the sun warm the pool directly?

Deep end is 9 ft deep. The sun will not warm it.

Secondly, here’s the product.
http://www.amazon.com/10-PACK-Solar-Sun-Rings/dp/B004VNU6U6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1403491279&sr=8-2&keywords=solar+rings+pool
It’s not like you guys know what you accuse me of not knowing. OK, I get it, legends in your own mind. Trouble is, it’s just in your mind.

My neighbor has these, and although these don’t make her pool super warm (44,000 gal pool) they brought the temperature up 7 degrees in a few warm days. Not bad!

The people with hoarded money got to build their hoard because somebody else did some spending.

Darrell, is that you???

The hoarder’s motto is the same as Harry Truman’s motto, and this mottos is “The buck stops here”.

“Darrell, is that you???”

And not such a good thing for countries such as Australia that sells raw material to China and thus are indirectly dependent on the West continuing to remain nuts with their borrowing and spending.

That was then, this is now.

The current account balance and the growth rate is now not then. China is moving up the manufacturing ladder, from making t-shirts, to vehicles, construction equipment, and now planes and high tech goods.

Good for China. Now all they need is a market to sell into, a market that has money to spend.

What China could do to keep their economy growing is to spend money they do not have to build things they do not need such as lots of infrastructure - maybe something that some people might think of as Ghost Cities.

Oh, wait …

If you Wiki-up “GDP” you will learn that:

“GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result. They are the production (or output) approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach.

“The most direct of the three is the production approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The expenditure approach works on the principle that all of the product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people’s total expenditures in buying things. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors (”producers,” colloquially) must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers’ incomes.”

There are three approaches to determining GDP, let’s take one, the “income approach”, an have some fun with it:

First, divide your country’s workforce into two groups and supply both groups with shovels. One group’s job is to dig holes, the other group’s job is to fill them in. Also, be sure to pay each member of each group a good wage.

Since each member of each group gets paid good money to do all this digging and filling the total income for the two groups will be large and, because we are using the income approach to determine GDP, the growth in GDP will be large. But, really, the real world net product of what was produced will end up being zero.

Another way would to maybe pay one group to break glass windows and another group to replace them.

Or maybe pay one group to build ghost cities and, sometime later on, pay another group to demolish them.

Frederic Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy. Statists gotta ignore reality.

Better to waste money on infrastructure than hire an army of social workers and people to redistribute money like we do in the US. During our so called recovery we have lost 6% of real income since 2009, the average Chinese worker sees his real income rise by about 10% per year, China must be doing something right.

What’s really neat about using the “income approach” in calculating GDP is this approach doesn’t take into account the source of the income, only its amount; It doesn’t matter if the root source of income is earned money or if it is borrowed money.

And since one person’s spending is another person’s income and it is income that determines GDP (if you are using the income approach) then the same amount of GDP can be produced whether the source of this income is earned money or whether it is borrowed money.

So I suppose that if one is clever enough then, as measured by the growth of GDP, a leader of a country could really and truly borrow his country into prosperity.

Workers that had poor quality bikes 30 years ago, now are buying BMWs, I do not think fixing broken windows or digging and filling holes has caused that.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101745986

BMW sales in China.

So I suppose that if one is clever enough then, as measured by the growth of GDP, a leader of a country could really and truly borrow his country into prosperity

If you could we would have prosperity because that was Obama’s plan. We are the debt leader not China, as I showed above China is still running a large current account surplus, normally when you are growing rapidly you run deficits. But it shows that China is still producing goods that the world wants at prices the world is willing to pay. You are projecting Obamanomics on China but their economics is closer to Reaganomics and thus is successful. China needs people that can pay, that is increasingly the Chinese since their pay is up 20 fold in a few decades, they have already caught up to Brazil and soaring past it since they have not engaged in redistribution of income policies, poverty is being eliminated by economic growth not by governmental theft. I believe in taxation for the common good: roads, schools, reasonable defense spending etc. However, taxing people to redistribute to another is governmental theft and illegal if done by the federal government since it is not authorized by the U.S. constitution.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/bmw-lines-factory-china-build-all-new-minis

Link will post soon, I am sure there is “ghost” housing in the town and a wasteful bullet train to the city:

The all-new Mk3 Mini is set to be built in China, according to City analysts. A recent report on China’s auto industry by Bernstein’s analysts says that the new Mini range and its front-drive BMW sister cars will be made at BMW’s joint-venture Tiexi plant in Shenyang, north-west China, from 2015.

Bernstein quotes local sources as saying that BMW has already allocated space at Tiexi for a big expansion in production, while the new paintshop has much greater capacity than would be needed for current production levels.

Bernstein says that building the new front-wheel-drive family of cars in China is driven by a number of factors. Firstly, demand for the Mini in China leapt massively between 2010 and the end of last year, and the country is now Mini’s fourth largest global market.

And it is not just BMW:

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/21/305477501/business-news

No it is about the epic fail of the Obama administration and the use of government agencies to suppress the normal response to epic fail.