The Housing Bubble

Rockville, MD Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY At Peak Of Market; Excess Empty Inventory Balloons 47%

http://www.movoto.com/rockville-md/market-trends/

buy a house today , be part of the next bailout?

Are you positioned to weather a 20%+ stock market collapse?

Fang nu

“A mortgage slave is someone who spends more than 40% of his or her disposable income on a home mortgage. People may become mortgage slaves by purchasing a house with a very low down payment and spending twenty to thirty of their golden years working extremely hard to afford very high monthly mortgage payments.”

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Mortgage_slave

Fang nu

“A 1,076-square-foot apartment in one of China’s most affluent cities today costs about 40 years’ annual income…The ‘housing slaves’ term is quite reasonable because it will put a lot of burden on home buyers if housing payments are more than half their incomes…”

Some poster here claimed that Chinese are all so rich because they save 30% of their income, make huge cash down payments and pay their houses off in less than 10 years.

Takes a lifetime to pay off a house…oops.

Borrow the down payment from a “shadow bank” or Mom…oops.

Mortgage payment 70% of income…oops.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-28/chinas-legions-of-housing-slaves

Oh my, Fang nu.

“This young couple has now joined the ranks of the Chinese “house slaves”, or what we call “mortgage slaves” in the U.S. The total household income of this couple is RMB 8,000 per month, before taxes and their mortgage payment consitutes more than one half of their monthly income. They are in their early thirties. How will they save for their child’s education? How will they save for retirement? How will they save for medical emergencies? How will they save for the care of their four parents? How will they even live a normal life with about RMB 3,000 per month in disposable income? No one knows other than to say that they will suffer.”

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/12/the_impacts_of_chinas_real_estate_crash_a_hard_rain_is_gonna_fall.html

“The story above is being repeated in every city in the coastal provinces in China.”

“Where is my permiso?”

CHILDREN CROSSING BORDER: ‘OBAMA WILL TAKE CARE OF US’

Border Patrol vet says immigrants ‘coached’ on how to game system

Published: 13 hours ago

McALLEN, Texas – In an exclusive interview with WND and Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, a 13-year Border Patrol veteran revealed many in the recent surge of illegal immigrants, including unaccompanied minors, are coming prepared to game the U.S. immigration system, even repeating the mantra, “Obama will take care of us.”

“I don’t usually get into the political part of it,” explained Chris Cabrera, now a vice president in the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307, “but I find it odd that their whole thing is, ‘We are going to get amnesty when we get here. Where is my permiso? Where is my permission to go north so I can get my medical care and my schooling and all that? President Obama is going to take care of us and make sure we’re all OK.’

“Whether it’s the adults or the young kids, one thing we consistently hear is, ‘Obama will take care of us,’” he explained.

He also suggested the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors illegally entering the United States appear to have been coached on what to say when they cross the border.

“The ‘magic words’ are something along the lines of ‘asylum,’ or ‘political asylum’ or to say ‘fighting in my home country,’” Cabrera said. “They know these words … because we can’t send them home because it’s too dangerous back there.”

The only way to stop the flow of illegal immigration and child smuggling across the border, he says, is to eliminate the entitlement mentality with a return to strict, border enforcement.

“What needs to be done is 100-percent detention and 100-percent removal,” Cabrera says.

Watch video of Stockman’s interview with Cabrera and the situation at the U.S. border below:

“We’ve never had the number of unaccompanied children like this crossing the border illegally and just turning themselves in, like we’re seeing now,” he said.

Cabrera also indicated that the paperwork required for each immigrant is “very long and involved” in that takes a Border Patrol agent between two-and-a-half to three hours, sometimes even four hours per person.

“When you start multiplying three hours times 1,200 to 1,500 persons in custody, it’s just overwhelming,” he said. “The McAllen Border Patrol station has hit in the recent past 1,500 a day, and sector-wide, from Rio Grande City to Brownsville, we’ve seen up to 3,500 [immigrants] a day.”

He confirmed FEMA agents are now involved, working with the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, of the Department of Homeland Security to relocate the unaccompanied minors to detention centers.

“Once we finish the processing, the unaccompanied minors are handed over to ICE,” he said. “But now FEMA has stepped in, along with the Americorps young men and women especially working with the younger children. The Coast Guard is assisting too, using some of their aircraft to transport them around the country.”

Cabrera acknowledged a change in policy in which the detained illegal immigrant unaccompanied minors are being shipped out of Border Patrol detention facility in vans, instead of buses, “to keep it under the radar and maintain a lower profile.”

WND inquired where these Central American unaccompanied minors who entered the country illegally were being shipped after they left the Border Patrol facility.

“Previously, four or five years ago, the Border Patrol very heavily scrutinized where detained illegal agents were being sent after being processed by us into the United States,” he explained. “I believe now it’s so crowded and overrun that nobody in the Border Patrol has the time or the resources to do it. Some are taken to another Border Patrol processing center and from there to a detention center. Some are taken to buses and trains and let go, but from there nobody really knows where they go.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/children-crossing-border-obama-will-take-care-of-us/#6k7HL1drWr0g8Hsc.99

Fang nu nation.

“This is the apartment that I rent in the Ruijing part of Xiamen. It’s a two bedroom, 82 square meter sh*t hole on the first floor of a 15 year old building. It’s location isn’t bad, but in no way could it be considered downtown. When I was going through the proceedings to rent the place I found out that the owner was trying to sell it, so I casually asked the real estate agent how much it was on the market for…”

http://www.vagabondjourney.com/this-is-what-a-300000-house-looks-like-in-china/

“Eventually, even the “secure” firms will become unsound, as the assets which bring them security will fall out from underneath them, and they, too, will be forced to sell off in order to maintain their reserves.

Every housing bubble in history has followed this pattern, and China’s will be no different.”

http://shadetreeeconomist.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/more-signs-of-cracks-in-the-chinese-housing-market/

Real journalists frame the narrative that it’s for the children

“Some people considered the factory a good source of jobs,” said Kelly Canavan, a longtime resident and local activists in Accokeek, Md, the company’s home since 1977. “But a lot of other people have been disturbed that this huge gun factory is right here, extremely close to a lot of children and families.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/beretta-to-move-manufacturing-jobs-out-of-maryland-blames-gun-laws/2014/07/22/4e91665e-11eb-11e4-8936-26932bcfd6ed_story.html

Angry Fang nu.

30,000 Chinese strike against Nike slave wages.

$240/month!

“A lot of this has to do with the fact that a lot of factories are closing down or relocating, or changing ownership … Five years ago, [strikes] were all about wage increases. But the focus of workers’ concerns now is very much on what happens if the factory closes down.”

http://thefederalist-gary.blogspot.com/2014/04/30000-chinese-strike-against-nike-slave.html

What those Fang nu need is a $300,000 starter home!

In case you missed this over the weekend:

‘House prices are falling in parts of London for the first time in two years as the capital’s “sealed bid frenzy” comes to an abrupt halt, a report says today.’

‘Across London as a whole, prices did not rise at all in July and fell “in localised markets where demand has cooled the most”, according to property data firm Hometrack. The biggest falls have been for larger properties in W and SW postcodes in central London, according to Hometrack’s director of research, Richard Donnell.’

‘He said buyers were being far more cautious after a long run of post-recession price rises that reached a peak earlier this year. He said: “The housing market runs in cycles and it has been such a strong upward trend everyone is now thinking, ‘it can’t keep heading for the stratosphere. Do I want to get into a sealed bid situation and pay 15 per cent more than I was planning to?’”

‘The slowdown in central London has been exacerbated by a “glut” of properties on the market priced at more than £2 million. Managing partner Camilla Dell said: “It has started to become more of a buyers’ market for the first time in a long time, particularly in the super prime upper end of the market - £10 million and above.”

“Indeed, we’re currently in the midst of a search for a client looking for a house in Mayfair or Belgravia from £20 million up to £100 million and there are well over 20 houses for sale in this price range. If there are sanctions against Russia which mean that certain Russians might be exiled from the UK, this could create even more supply on the super prime end.”

“Many high end developers are now struggling to find buyers for their trophy mansions, and are having to become more realistic with their asking prices. As such, I believe we could see significant price drops at the super prime end of the market. Indeed, one house in Mayfair has already had a significant price reduction from £120 million down to £95 million.”

It’s almost like an old slapstick film, where the guy steps on the end of a board and it smacks him in the face.

Chinese Coal Companies Hit By Slowing Demand

http://www.worldcoal.com/news/coal/articles/World-Coal-Chinese-coal-companies-hit-by-slowing-demand-coal1130.aspx

Did you tell me I can’t? I’m telling you I can and will. Just because you told me I can’t.

“Weak US + Slowing China = big EU Trouble”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7c8cf3e4-01e1-11e4-ab5b-00144feab7de.html

LVMH Sales Slow In Hong Kong As Chinese Demand Drops Globally”

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1558885/lvmh-sales-slow-hong-kong-chinese-demand-drops-around-world

“China’s H1 Gold Consumption Down 20%”

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-07/24/c_133507521.htm

Renting is king.

Cash is queen.

Obama is the joker.

Bill Gates’ tech worker fantasy: Column

Ron Hira, Paula Stephan et al. 5:25 p.m. EDT July 27, 2014

Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a “shortage” of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. This claim is echoed by everyone from President Obama and Rupert Murdoch to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

Yet within the past month, two odd things occurred: Census reported that only one in four STEM degree holders is in a STEM job, and Microsoft announced plans to downsize its workforce by 18,000 jobs. Even so, the House is considering legislation that, like the Senate immigration bill before it, would increase to unprecedented levels the supply of high-skill guest workers and automatic green cards to foreign STEM students.

As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry’s assertions of labor shortages.

Stagnant wages

If a shortage did exist, wages would be rising as companies tried to attract scarce workers. Instead, legislation that expanded visas for IT personnel during the 1990s has kept average wages flat over the past 16 years. Indeed, guest workers have become the predominant source of new hires in these fields.

Those supporting even greater expansion seem to have forgotten about the hundreds of thousands of American high-tech workers who are being shortchanged — by wages stuck at 1998 levels, by diminished career prospects and by repeated rounds of layoffs.

The facts are that, excluding advocacy studies by those with industry funding, there is a remarkable concurrence among a wide range of researchers that there is an ample supply of American workers (native and immigrant, citizen and permanent resident) who are willing and qualified to fill the high-skill jobs in this country. The only real disagreement is whether supply is two or three times larger than the demand.

Unfortunately, companies are exploiting the large existing flow of guest workers to deny American workers access to STEM careers and the middle-class security that should come with them. Imagine, then, how many more Americans would be frozen out of the middle class if politicians and tech moguls succeeded in doubling or tripling the flow of guest workers into STEM occupations.

Redundant reforms

Another major, yet often overlooked, provision in the pending legislation would grant automatic green cards to any foreign student who earns a graduate degree in a STEM field, based on assertions that foreign graduates of U.S. universities are routinely being forced to leave. Such claims are incompatible with the evidence that such graduates have many paths to stay and work, and indeed the “stay rates” for visiting international students are very high and have shown no sign of decline. The most recent study finds that 92% of Chinese Ph.D. students stay in the U.S. to work after graduation.

The tech industry’s promotion of expanded temporary visas (such as the H-1B) and green cards is driven by its desire for cheap, young and immobile labor. It is well documented that loopholes enable firms to legally pay H-1Bs below their market value and to continue the widespread age discrimination acknowledged by many in the tech industry.

When considering the credibility of the industry’s repetitive claims of “shortages,” it is worth recalling its history of misbehavior in hiring and employment. The most recent example was the proposed $300 million legal settlement of a class action against companies such as Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe for anti-competitive collusion to suppress the pay of highly skilled employees, including unlawful agreements to not recruit each others’ workers.

IT industry leaders have spent lavishly on lobbying to promote their STEM shortage claims among legislators. The only problem is that the evidence contradicts their self-interested claims.

http://www.usatoday.com/…/13243305/ - 98k -

China’s Shaanxi Coal Sees H1 Net Profit Down 65-75%

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL4N0Q328U20140728

Got cash?

“Sharp Falls In China’s Once Booming Property Market”

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28244140

Much like hopelessly indebt fools in the US, Joe Ho Fun realized that all he can afford is a cup of tea after committing a lifetime of labor to a rapidly depreciating asset like a house.

‘Zombie’ Homes Without Owners Forgotten By Banks

July 25, 2014 2:11 PM

newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/07/25/zombie-homes-without-owners-forgotten-by-banks/ - 100k -

Whirlpool Cuts Outlook As China Sales Plunge

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/23/us-whirlpool-results-idUSKBN0FS0Z020140723

Where is my permiso?

Everyone must check in.

Do you want me to read the card?

“Great Wall Motors Says Profits Hit By Plummeting Sedans Sales In China”

http://www.ibtimes.com/great-wall-motors-says-profits-hit-plummeting-sedans-sales-china-1636726

“Shares In Chinese Billionaire Cao Longxiang’s Pharma Firm Dive To ‘14 Low”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2014/07/24/shares-in-chinese-billionaire-cao-longxiangs-pharma-firm-dive-to-14-low/

Why work anymore?

Just vote the right way and life is good…

—————————

Poor families use ’supervouchers’ to rent in city’s priciest buildings
Crain’s Chicago Busness | 7-28-14 | Alby Gallun

The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents.

But that’s not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center.

Yet some landlords say it’s a mistake to use scarce tax dollars to pay ultra-high rents for a fortunate few when more than 15,000 people sit on the CHA’s voucher waiting list.

“This is nuts,” says landlord Tony Rossi, president of Chicago-based RMK Management Corp., who describes himself as a liberal Democrat. “In a situation where you’re dealing with a low-income person, do they really need a 25th-floor apartment with a lake view? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

It doesn’t make any sense to U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, either. The Peoria Republican last month pushed a measure through the House to curb the payments and says he is seeking an investigation by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which pays for the voucher program and sets many of its rules.

The CHA says in a statement that the “exception payments” for high-cost apartments cover less than 2 percent of the authority’s roughly 38,000 outstanding vouchers. The higher payments—known as supervouchers—are necessary to help low-income residents move into better neighborhoods, which have few affordable housing options, the authority says.

Still, the image of a person on public assistance living in a luxury apartment building could generate a political problem for HUD and the CHA.

In Washington, Mr. Schock’s proposal would prohibit exception payments above 120 percent of an area’s fair market value calculation. The measure is not expected to go far in the Senate.

ANOTHER STATE DEPARTMENT HOAX?

What are we to make of this?

Another State Department Hoax?

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | INFOWARS.COM | JULY 28, 2014

I have an email that purports to be from the State Department Press Office. It is dated today, Sunday, July 27, 2014 at 8:45 AM EDT

It reads:

State Department Press Corps:

Sharing with you the attached document with DNI images — evidence of Russia firing into Ukraine.

Regards,

State Department Press Office

There is a 1.1MB file attached with pictures and a few words saying that the pictures indicate Russian firing into Ukraine territory.

As one with news and government experience, I am confident that information as important as this purports to be would not be released in this way. For several days reporters have been asking State Department press office spokeswoman Marie Harf for evidence to back her claims that Russian military is attacking Ukrainian forces. Harf has told the reporters that she cannot provide evidence. In other words, Harf’s evidence is like John Kerry’s evidence that he could never provide that Assad had used chemical weapons.

Suddenly the evidence appears in an email and is spread via social media. This is not credible. Such evidence if it actually exists would be released in a Washington press conference by top government officials with experts present to explain the meaning of the photos to the journalists and to answer questions. No real journalists, if any are left, are going to believe that such hot information would be released in an email. Moreover, the photos are meaningless to the uninitiated, and there is no way to judge their authenticity.

Additionally, it is not credible that such important information would be released at a news dead time–8:45 AM EDT on a Sunday morning when the West Coast is still asleep.

What are we to make of this?

One explanation is that kids, unaware of the seriousness of the matter, concocted a hoax for fun.

Another explanation is that unable to substantiate any of its charges against the Russian government, the State Department decided to use social media to spread disinformation in behalf of its propaganda assault on Russia. It was Geoffrey Pyatt, the US Ambassador to Ukraine who posted the images on Twitter. Pyatt was Victoria Nuland’s partner in orchestrating the coup against the Ukrainian government.

As of 5:45PM EDT Sunday, no State Department official of which I am aware has verified that this is a State Department news release. Indeed, email on Sunday morning is such an unprofessional way to release important news that I do not believe even the incompetent Marie Harf could be responsible for releasing information that was valid in this way.

The import of the “news release” is to use social media to build the image of a dangerous Russia among an unsophisticated public independently of having to convince reporters. Once this image is created, Washington can use it to build public support for its purposes, such as more military spending or sending US troops to Ukraine.

In my opinion, it is reckless for Washington to convince Russia that Washington is going to continue to lie in order to discredit Russia in world opinion and to continue to dismiss out of hand Russia’s protests. Washington is conveying to Russia that Washington has launched a very aggressive propaganda campaign against Russia, a campaign that could easily push the world to war.

In my day, if Washington had such information as the email purports to be, Washington would have used the information to defuse the situation. The Russian ambassador would have been called in and asked to explain. The ambassador would understand that he needed to tell the Kremlin to back off or the information would be released in a news conference.

Today, with the Obama regime seeking confrontation with Russia, the regime would have released the information in a press conference with all the important bureau chiefs present. For journalists of my vintage, releasing it in an indiscriminate email targeted to social media would have completely discredited the information.

The UK Daily Mail took the bait, reproducing the images and reported them as official government releases, but the State Department has made no official statement in behalf of the email, instead passing inquiries off to the US embassy in Ukraine. Russian media have skeptically reported the charges, thus helping to spread the propaganda.

From Bloomberg we are ignoring the Obama economy while we argue over China, perhaps Whac wants that:

Fewer Americans than forecast signed contracts to buy previously owned homes in June, a sign residential real estate is struggling to strengthen.

The index of pending home sales declined 1.1 percent from the month before after rising 6 percent in May, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected sales would rise 0.5 percent.

Limited availability of credit and sluggish wage growth are making it harder for prospective buyers to take the plunge, threatening to throttle the pace of the housing recovery. Continued gains in employment and a bigger supply of available homes will be needed to help accelerate the industry’s progress, which Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said is lackluster.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see much of an acceleration in housing demand going forward until we get a significant improvement in the labor market and the income part of it in particular,” said Yelena Shulyatyeva, a U.S. economist at BNP Paribas in New York, who forecast a 1 percent decrease in pending sales. “An uneven recovery in the housing market is really one of the biggest concerns of the Fed.”

Stocks dropped as industrial shares sank and investors watched crises overseas before a Federal Reserve policy decision this week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.5 percent to 1,968.1 at 10:20 a.m. in New York. The S&P 500 Supercomposite Homebuilding Index declined 1.8 percent.

crater

Private contractors strike again — $300 MM spent on a Social Security computer system that DOES NOT WORK (exact quote: “limited functionality”).

But let’s keep cutting the government and then immediately hiring private companies at higher cost, while simultaneously losing the ability to control the progress made on the projects.

—————–

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-social-security-system-failure-20140724,0,4255296.story

“As of June, more than 660,000 claims were waiting awaiting an initial decision, with an average processing time of 110 days. Another 955,000 cases waited an average of 413 days on appeal.

The Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, which was hired as the lead contractor for the computer system, described the project as a “highly available, scalable and modern web-based system.”

The project was expected to save Social Security money by eliminating the need to maintain 54 separate systems, and allow the agency to process claims “faster and with higher consistency,” the company wrote in a 2011 news release.

The McKinsey report recommend that the agency decide whether to keep the current contractor, use multiple vendors or chose a new one. Regardless of that decision, the report called on the agency to strengthen management of the vendor.

Steve Field, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, declined to answer questions about the project, saying only that the company is “committed to delivering on this program and for our customer.”

The report also found that the project remained in the beta testing phase after six years with “limited functionality” and more than 380 outstanding problems. The rollout date over the life of the project was “consistently projected to be 24-32 months away.”

Slithers

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Was watching an old John Wayne movie from 1963 with my son I mentioned world population back then was 3B.

the future looks crowded

IN EVENT OF EMERGENCY, ILLEGALS TO BE EVACUATED BEFORE CITIZENS
‘For everyone’s safety..’

In Event of Emergency, Illegals to be Evacuated Before Citizens
Image Credits: Public domain

by ADAN SALAZAR | INFOWARS.COM | JULY 28, 2014

Should a hurricane or other life-threatening, catastrophic weather event impact South Texas, illegal aliens occupying various shelters will be first in line to get “to safer ground,” a National Weather Service coordinator says.

At a meeting last week, emergency managers in the Rio Grande Valley region addressed the reality that, in addition to picking up the tab for putting the immigrants up, they have also accepted responsibility for their safety. That means ensuring illegal aliens have a safe evacuation from temporary and permanent shelters during an emergency.

“You have extra sheltering areas and detention centers right here,” NWS Coordinator Barry Goldsmith told KRGV News. “And are they able to withstand the wind, are they able to withstand flood waters nearby to get humanitarian relief.”

Goldsmith is worried that if a hurricane or other emergency hits, the evacuation of some 4,000 illegal aliens could be impeded by citizens also trying to reach safety.

One way to ensure the illegals remain safe is to evacuate them before the general population receives evacuation orders, Valley city leaders have concluded.

“The entire Valley detention areas will be evacuated first,” says Goldsmith. “In other words, before the public gets their mandatory evacuation, the plan is to get all these unaccompanied women and children out of the Valley and to safer ground.”

The city and federal officials say by getting unaccompanied alien women and children out first, they are trying to avoid a Hurricane Rita-type situation, where more than 100 people died during the mass exodus of 2.5 million people from the Houston area.

The decision, which appears to have been made sans public input, illustrates how the establishment is seemingly taking better care of people in the country illegally, while military veterans and destitute American citizens continue to be cast by the wayside.

“In 2009, for example, former Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki and President Obama announced a goal to end Veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, giving the administration a little over six years to shelter the nearly 75,000 vets who were homeless in 2009,” explains Infowars’ Kit Daniels.

“But it only took the White House a month to shelter thousands of illegal immigrant youth, showing what the administration can do when it’s politically motivated.”

Facilities which could be repurposed to house homeless vets, such as the compound being used to house nearly 2,000 minors at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, for instance, operate at a tax payer cost of over $250 per child daily, or half million per day.

What SCUMBAGS our media has become. The holocaust of the Palestinian children continues on and the media is paying more attention to the plane that was shot down in Ukraine. Don’t we have any decent humanity, empathy, sorrow and shame left? If the roles were reversed and Israeli children were being killed all worldwide hell would breakout. I guess brown people are disposable as the Jews are superior.

The Middle East needs more psychiatrist than they need guns.
Just my 2 cents

The graph in the article is illustrative. So, this is what I was talking about the other day regarding the new incarnation of dodgy financing in the mortgage industry. It’s more dramatic than I envisioned. The bottom line here is that at these prices and interest rates, there is no private profit to be made in mortgages. That’s a data point.

Is the Private Mortgage-Bond Market Dead or Dormant?
Nick Timiraos
1:36 pm ET Jul 28, 2014

It’s been nearly seven years since the market for so-called private-label mortgage bonds, or those that aren’t backed by government-related entities, dried up. For years, government policy makers and financiers have speculated over when those markets might meaningfully revive.

But given the weak issuance of such private mortgage-backed securities since the financial crisis deepened, there’s a good case to be made that that market is dead, said Joseph Tracy, a senior adviser at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, at a conference sponsored by Zillow last week in Washington.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/07/28/is-the-private-mortgage-bond-market-dead-or-dormant/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Feconomics%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Real+Time+Economics+Blog%29

As Linda Ronstadt sang, so glad living in the USA:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/woman-and-two-children-killed-by-mob-in-riots-over-blasphemous-facebook-post-in-pakistan-9633511.html

I frankly don’t get the China pimping thing. But then I guess I never got the Rasmussen poll fluffery, either.

Why are some people so extremely convinced about the correctness of their views? Isn’t it embarrassing when they later on have egg all over their face because their opinions were baseless?