Bits Bucket for August 3, 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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Wake up lazy bonz!
Coffee time! Just finished mine on a wintery-looking day in Cali - just wish we had the winter temps to go with it.
Have you kissed a government agent’s boots yet today?
“We tortured some folks.”
Tea Party members? I thought the IRS just denied them non-profit status?
The government also meddled in their medicare, causing untold anguish and gnashing of teeth.
Kenneth Rapoza Contributor
Investing 7/30/2014 @ 10:36AM
For Rich Chinese, U.S. Becoming Giant Monopoly Game
If they could buy Broadway and Park Avenue, they would. Rich Chinese investors are the biggest buyers of high-end luxury real estate in New York. And on a national level, they replaced Canada as the leading foreign buyer of American properties.
“The Chinese like anything new, and they like brand named locations like Central Park South,” says Dottie Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman, one of the leading real estate brokers in the city.
The property market in China, coupled with a stronger currency, is also enticing Chinese millionaires to buy homes here. Beijing no longer permits individuals to own more than two properties, even as an investment. So a growing number are going abroad as cash buyers.
“I’ve seen Chinese buyers for years, but the problematic real estate market in China has sent them to us,” Elliman says. “They’re parking money in the property market as investments and also using it as a short-term home for their college-aged children.”
An Aerial view of the Upper East Side of Manhattan with Central Park in the center. Wealthy Chinese now dominate the $20 million+ market in one of the richest zip codes in the world.
Last year, China accounted for $12.8 billion of the $68.2 billion in foreign real estate transactions, according to the National Association of Realtors. For the last 12 months ending in March, China accounted for $22 billion of what is now a $92 billion market. Moreover, Chinese purchasing power moved them from a 19% share of the market last year, to a 24% share so far this year.
Thanks to all the money the Chinese are spending on penthouse suites in midtown Manhattan, the median price of a home purchased by the Chinese is greater than all the other top international markets. On average, China home buyers dished out over $523,000 for a home, more than the U.K. ($350,000), India ($342,000), Canada ($212,000) and Mexico ($141,000).
In New York’s super high-luxury housing market, the Chinese have surpassed the Russian oligarchs. For new properties costing over $20 million, China is the main foreign customer these days, says Martin Purcell, a broker for Rutenberg Realty.
When the newly renovated Bank Building on 300 West 14th Street was turned into condos and ready to market, the Chinese came knocking for one bedroom $7 million real estate. “It used to be that they would just appear out of the woodwork, but now everyone in the real estate market is going to the Chinese and marketing their product directly to them in China,” says Purcell, who advertises on Juwai, a popular real estate website. ”Some of these guys are buying property sight unseen,” he adds.
…
Calling them “well-connected Chinese embezzlers parking their ill-gotten loot and themselves beyond any future prosecution” would be more accurate than “investors.”
So maybe if we got lists of Chinese buyers and published them on the internet they will get in trouble in their country?
Off with their heads!
Not likely. China is a throughly corrupt crony-capitalist kleptocracy masquerading as a “People’s Republic.” The PRC’s ruling elites are up to their eyeballs in graft and embezzlement and their economic “growth” is built on stimulus and fake statistics. A few trillion in looted public funds are hardly a matter of accountability or consequences, as the Fed and Wall Street have demonstrated since 2008.
Are you suggesting that forecasting growth would be tantamount to forecasting what fake statistics claim growth to be?
O’ so the numbers are fake and they are all still poor making ten cents an hour and they are buying up property all over with non-existent wealth? And all the Chinese cities with the beautiful new buildings, roads and high speed rail do not really exist, they are just fake? And all the analysis outside China that support the Chinese figures are wrong, despite getting millions of dollars a year to project Chinese GDP, they have all been fooled by the fake data? Yea, whac/stucco, what you will say to avoid admitting you were wrong.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-08/01/content_18227778_10.htm
Ten best emerging markets. Strange socialist leaning Brazil is not on it.
But when interest rates go up to at least normal levels (5% federal funds rate and higher rate for 30 year mortgages), not even the high end property will be immune from the cratering RE prices.
Isn’t it about time the Chinese build the tallest skyscraper in the world?
The competition to build the world’s tallest phallic symbol is underway.
Skyscraper Mania Grips China as Ambitions Trump Economy
By Bloomberg News Jul 23, 2014 10:38 PM MT
A watermelon farmer rides his motorcycle through the land where Sky City is supposed to be built in Changsha, China, on July 1, 2014.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
The Guangzhou International Finance Center (IFC), center, stands in the central business district of Guangzhou, China.
The eastern Chinese city of Suzhou isn’t even the biggest in Jiangsu province, yet it’s joining a national rush for the sky with what’s slated to become the world’s third-tallest building.
By 2020, China may be home to six of the world’s 10 highest skyscrapers, including Suzhou’s 700-meter (2,297-foot) Zhongnan Center. Developers finished 37 structures higher than 200 meters, or about 50 stories, in China last year, the most in the world, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a non-profit organization that maintains the world’s largest free database on tall buildings.
China is witnessing a skyscraper boom, with lesser-known cities like Suzhou vying to erect ever-bigger structures and counting on the prestige and potential commercial benefit those mega-buildings may bring. Construction has been fueled by a tripling in property values since 1998 and government policy that moved 300 million people — almost the entire population of the U.S. — into cities since 1995.
“What’s happening in China is similar to what happened in the U.S. 80 to 100 years ago, on a different scale,” Antony Wood, the council’s executive director, said in an interview in Shanghai. “Cities are competing both within China and also globally for attention and for the appearance that they are first-world.”
…
Chicoms have gone nutz, it’s mass insanity you’re seeing here, the herd stampeding.
China’s Subprime Moment Arrives
Is the Chinese housing bubble finally bursting?
By Valentin Schmid, Epoch Times | July 25, 2014
Last Updated: July 25, 2014 3:01 pm
People walk past empty apartment buildings and streets in the “ghost city” of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, Sept. 12, 2011. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
For years now the terms “Chinese housing” and “bubble” were invariably uttered together; sometimes with exclamation marks and sometimes with questions marks. In 2014 another word has been added: burst.
“As for the housing market, the average estimate of a price correction appears to be 20–30 percent over a two-year timeframe,” Junheng Li of JL Warren Capital writes in a note.
A correction roughly similar in size of the price decline the United States national housing index suffered after its bubble popped in 2006. Just by looking at the numbers, however, it appears that China’s bubble is even bigger than all previous real estate bubbles.
HSBC compared the total value of residential housing to total GDP and found that China has surpassed the level Japan saw before its stock and real estate markets collapsed in 1990. At that time, all residential real estate in Japan was worth 3.7 times its GDP. Hong Kong at 3 in 1997 and the United States at 1.7 in 2006 pale in comparison.
Rising more than 300 percent since the year 2000, prices in some areas have suffered sharp corrections from time to time only to then recover swiftly. In 2014, however, the decline in prices seems to be broader and sustained according to data published for the month of June.
Compared to May, prices fell in 55 of 70 cities according to the National Bureau of Statistics as developers introduced discounts to boost sales. June marks the second consecutive month showing a decline in national prices (-0.46 percent). Even Tier 1 cities such as Shanghai (-0.6 percent), Guangzhou (-0.6 percent) and Shenzhen (-0.4 percent) were affected.
Despite the cuts, analysts from Société Générale state transaction volume declined and inventory has reached a record high.
An executive at a Shanghai real estate company told the 21 Century Business Herald on the condition of anonymity, “We can indeed feel that the industry has truly gone downward since the end of 2013.”
…
As for the housing market, the average estimate of a price correction appears to be 20–30 percent over a two-year timeframe,” Junheng Li of JL Warren Capital writes in a note.
Exactly the number I am using which still results in China growing around 7% to 7.5% over the next two years. How many times are we going to say the same thing? If you have different numbers state what you believe will happen.
Really, you have no basis for your predictions aside from the official party communications. Prices go up 300% and can only “correct” 20 to 30%. You are not predicting, you are parroting.
Politics and Policy
Home-Price Growth Slows Sharply, Case-Shiller Says
Index Says Year-Over-Year Growth Rate Is Lowest Since February 2013
By Kathleen Madigan
July 29, 2014 9:00 a.m. ET
Home prices across the U.S. slowed sharply to a single-digit pace in May on a year-over-year basis, the slowest rate since February 2013, according to a home-price report.
A survey covering 10 major U.S. cities increased 9.4% in the year ended in May, said the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index survey released Tuesday. The 20-city price index increased 9.3%. That is down from a 10.8% yearly pace in April and much lower than the 9.9% expected by economists.
On an unadjusted basis, the 10-city index and the 20-city composite each increased 1.1% in May over April. Seasonally adjusted, both indexes declined 0.3%.
Past increases in home prices coupled with stagnant wage growth have recently eroded housing affordability. Home sales have struggled in the first half, and early data suggest more problems in the third quarter. The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that pending home sales fell 1.1% in June to stand 7.3% below year-ago levels.
“Housing has been turning in mixed economic numbers in the last few months,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “Prices and sales of existing homes have shown improvement while construction and sales of new homes continue to lag.”
…
buying a house will be the best decision you have ever made. Quit kicking tires and make it happen!
Why buy when you can rent for half the cost?
I’m just gonna pee on the tires and go home.
Getting tired of living on rice and beans, realtor boy?
No, he’s trying to unload his mortgaged sh!tbox.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG is obviously a racist.
“BUREAUCRACY IS OUT OF CONTROL,” MARTIN ARMSTRONG BLASTS “OBAMA SHOULD JUST RESIGN”
“Bureaucracy Is Out Of Control,” Martin Armstrong Blasts “Obama Should Just Resign”
by MARTIN ARMSTRONG | AUGUST 3, 2014
Obama should just resign. He is outrageous. He supported the NSA and has claimed the CIA does not spy on Congress. Well, the Inspector General has released his report and oops – yes the CIA spies on Congress.
Let’s get real here. I have reported that for 2 years speaking and communicating with people on the House Financial Services Committee (banking), they were telling me that the NSA was sweeping up even their emails and phone calls way before Snowden. I was told that point-blank and not in confidence. Therefore, EVERY journalist had that SAME info and refused to report it. Snowden had to go to the Guardian in Britain to get the story out because WE HAVE NO PRESS WITH INTEGRITY that is still standing in the United States.
Now they are all reporting the CIA spies on Congress. The executive branch led by the President controls the Judiciary as well and it is at war with Congress. Obama has used the NSA, IRS, and the CIA to attack everyone. These people behind the curtain are the unelected. They threaten and blackmail people as part of their routine. I have seen this first hand and you do not grasp pure evil until you see it in their eyes.
These types of people see themselves so above everyone else and bask in their power to destroy anyone or anything they deem inappropriate. Where this will all end is written in history and it is never pretty.
Obama is either a stooge or part of the real danger to the survivability of our nation long-term.
Jeff, a buddy of mine forwarded these to me. Thought you might be interested. They were written back in 2009, but are a fascinating look at the history of the Venice, Florida airport. Start connecting the dots and it’s almost too incredible to be believed. Connected dots from Kennedy to Mohammed Atta. Whew!
http://www.madcowprod.com/09082009.html
http://www.madcowprod.com/09212009.htm
Thanks palmetto
Here is something you can send to your buddy.
USA Prepares Radio Show (Commercial Free AUDIO) Friday …
thevictoryreport.org/…tm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prepares-commercial-friday-august - 74k -
1:11:04
USA Prepares Radio Show (Commercial Free AUDIO) Friday August 1 2014:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RonGibsonCF - 449k -
Didn’t Martin Armstrong spend a few years in prison for some sort of alleged financial malfeasance?
Temecula, CA Housing Prices Plunge 7% YoY; Inventory Balloons 96%
http://www.movoto.com/temecula-ca/market-trends/
bs
dump that shanty. Just walk away.
still kicking tires after 10 years? U sound like a real success story.
sit up straight and eat your Crater Taters.
Santa Maria, CA Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY
http://www.movoto.com/santa-maria-ca/market-trends/
Beaverton, OR Housing Prices Sink 5%; Inventory Skyrockets 49% As Excess Inventory Hits Market
http://www.movoto.com/beaverton-or/market-trends/
Mrs. Beaverton, meet Mrs. Craterton.
Hi. Hope everyone is well. Been months since I’ve read or posted. But this is too good to not to share. One for the RE always goes up in price file.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/49-51-Appleton-St-Unit-8_Arlington_MA_02476_M38837-93227?row=8
Purchased at the height of the 2005 bubble for $392K. They have been trying to sell it for 3 or 4 years. The condo fee is astronomical - close to $1000. Those large old frame buildings very expensive to heat.
Yeah, this “trendy” stuff gets done in hot markets but the buyer pool is fairly shallow…
Now that they dropped the list price by $60K to $269K, is there any chance it will sell?
BTW, $269K is 31% below $392K, where they bought. And the condo still won’t sell.
Seems like the buyer got stucco.
My guess is they put down 1/3 and would be relieved to eliminate the debt which would be about the $269K they’re asking. I have seen the apartment at open houses. It might sell for around $269K. No bargain given the high condo fee. Interesting space but no bathtub. Just a shower. I see this in renovations and new construction. Have only a shower and no tub A) makes the bathroom look larger. B) Is less expensive than installing a tub. C) Would be a deal breaker for me. What if you want a hot bath, want to soak your sore foot, leg, etc.. wash you dog, etc…
Is it safe to assume last week’s stock market plunge was just the beginning?
An interesting question. What do your sources tell you?
Aug. 3, 2014, 8:16 a.m. EDT
Warning: That plunge in stocks is just the beginning
Investors brace for the return of volatility
By Ben Eisen, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — If the ups and downs of the past week have taught investors anything, it’s that there are cracks in this 5 1/2-year-old bull market.
The lesson for investors? Tread carefully.
Stocks took a tumble as a raft of economic data sparked fears the Federal Reserve could speed up its timetable for raising interest rates. The S&P 500 index took its biggest weekly hit in more than two years, losing 2.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, sliced through its 50-day moving average and erased the gains that had tenuously built up this year.
“It reminded people that the stock market can actually go down. It seems like a lot of people had forgotten,” said Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.
This past week saw a number of economic indicators: a robust 4% expansion in second-quarter GDP suggested a resurgence in economic activity, while a jump in a highly-watched wage index was a sign that employee earnings, the holy grail of labor market growth, was finally picking up. Even Friday’s soft jobs report didn’t undo the worries about the Fed.
Bracing your portfolio
Indeed, investors should expect more volatility, not less, as the Fed moves closer to rate hikes, analysts say. The central bank is generally expected to begin raise its key lending rate in the middle of next year.
“Every time we see data really heat up, it will really spook investors and keep a cap on the equity market for the time being.” said
That’s not to say all market participants are calling for a steep drop. “We see the mid-cycle rally as having plenty of room to run before we get a 10%-plus correction,” said Binky Chadha, a particularly bullish strategist at Deutsche Bank, in a Friday report .
Still, the trepidation in the market may leave it open to the kind of knee-jerk reaction seen on Thursday, when the Dow skidded 317 points for its biggest one-day loss since February.
“A very small impetus can have an exaggerated effect. That may be the kind of market we are in for the rest of the year,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman Private Banking.
…
Traders should be mostly in cash. Investors should stay in and reinvest dividends and gains.
time to hose some speculators?
“Investors brace for the return of volatility”
I love volatility, especially the kind where the stock market craters like 900 points in a day, and bankers are jumping off buildings.
“I love volatility, especially the kind where the stock market craters like 900 points in a day, and bankers are jumping off buildings.”
+1 Capitalism needs days like these once in a while.
This stock bubble is ‘beyond 1929 and 2007,’ says John Hussman
July 27, 2014, 3:58 PM ET
John Hussman can generally be counted on for a bearish take on the stock market. But his latest weekly commentary letter is a doozy, with some particularly pointed remarks aimed at investors who continue to believe valuations are fair in stocks.
The economist runs Hussman Funds, and since the financial crisis he’s been a prominent critic of Federal Reserve policy. His investment choices are concentrated in “defensive” positions in stocks and U.S. Treasurys. And if you take a look at his writing, it’s no secret why. Here’s the money quote from the latest commentary:
…
I feel a lot of people are going to get hosed again. Where did they find this new group of sheep? millenials?
They’re just starting to make a little money to put away for retirement, only to get shorn before they even have much wool.
Next cycle, the shearing will hit bone.
“Next cycle, the shearing will hit bone.”
That’s not a shearing, that’s a dismemberment.
A lot of the plunge was on geopolitical instability as well as fears (well-founded) regarding another systemic crisis in the Eurozone’s supposedly recovering financial system. Now the Oligarchs-that-Be are promising that Portugal’s Banco Espirito will be bailed out “without using taxpayer funds” - however, the sheeple of Europe, especially the populace of the PIIGS, will see right through that patently false claim as the “former” Goldmanites who head up EU central banks, i.e. Draghni, will continue to find creative ways to transfer bankster liabilities onto the public ledgers.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-03/portugals-insolvent-banco-espirito-santo-be-bailed-out-resolution-fund-become-100-sh
I hope so. I would like to own dividend-paying stocks at a price that annually returns something more than a panhandler’s hourly rate.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/that-plunge-in-stocks-is-just-the-beginning-2014-08-03
The oligarchy’s financial media is trying to drum up fear, which makes me think they’re trying to get the muppets to sell into or short the market before Auntie Janet, on orders from her Wall Street controllers, floods the markets with more QE.
We all know the iceberg looms ahead: the only question is, how long can the Fed and it’s Wall Street accomplices engage in financial chicanery on behalf of the .1% before the Ponzi finally implodes?
http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/this-market-is-a-titanic-in-search-of-an-iceberg/#.U95zLf21xHg
repeat after me genius:
lather, rinse, repeat
RealtorBoi…… don’t you have any skills?
So I was out doing some late-night spying on the hood last night. I already told you there are two vacant rental houses with no signs in the yard. I also already told you guys that there is one house for sale and one for rent. What I discovered last night was even more sininster.
There is a house that was recently purchased by a person named Kami, but Kami never moved in. I know this because the HOA around here hires a service to stand in for what would normally be a welcome committee. I guess people are too cold nowadays to be on welcome committees, so they just hire services to do it. The welcome service has been leaving little dated notes on Kami’s front door, so I know that Kami hasn’t been there. Dead plants in planters all around the house. Auto lights come on at night, but there is no one there. When, oh when, will Kami come home?
maybe she fell into a big crater.
It’s an “investment.” Kami is just going to leave it vacant for a few years, then sell it for hundreds of thousands more than he/she paid.
Given the systemic corruption among southern Europe’s political class, I suspect that more unpleasant surprises lie ahead for the PIIGS fraud-riddled financial systems.
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/07/29/big-trouble-in-catalonia-as-godfather-of-independence-movement-confesses-to-tax-evasion/
A middle-aged woman (clerk) at an office building I frequent told me several months ago that she was over-worked and considering quitting. This past Friday I saw her in the parking lot climbing out of a brand new Cadillac ETS. When I congratulated her she said the air conditioning had gone out in her other car. WTF? Ever listen to or read ‘da news?
She probably has a working husband.
And the galactic sense of entitlement so prevalent among American suburban housewives.
Are you illiterate? She’s an overworked middle-aged clerk, not a housewife. Normally, this means that she spent her youth raising kids, so now she has to work hard in her old age for peanuts. It never ceases to amaze me how many men feel that they are entitled to be served by women for free.
It never ceases to amaze me how many men feel that they are entitled to be served by women for free.
Then, stop doing it.
PropagandaDan:
WAT
- Auntie
Men are entitled to women who know how to be wives, just as the ladies are entitled to men who know how to be husbands, fathers, and bona fide members of the male species.
Most modern American suburban women are neurotic, shallow, vapid, self-absorbed harpies who have no more sense than an egg has hair. Their vanities and insecurities drive most advertising and consumption, as well as (increasingly) public policy like our “everyone’s a winner” educational system. Their emotion-based votes give us disasters like Clinton and Obama. A spouse and a wife aren’t remotely the same thing.
I rest my case: the infamous Century 21 “Suzanne Researched This” ad that came out at the peak of the bubble and was unintentionally way too honest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20n-cD8ERgs
Pretty accurate right there.
Let me guess. The way to be a wife is to give everything you have to your husband in exchange for nothing? Correct? Unfortunately for you, there is no reason in the world for any woman to actually do this. That’s why you are so single and bitter.
“A spouse and a wife aren’t remotely the same thing.”
Of course that makes no sense, but I would not expect more from your typical selfish, demanding, and PERPETUALLY SINGLE whiny male. Just accept the fact that your wife didn’t want you or need you, and move on. Stop trying to take it out on your superiors (women).
blah blah blah. Husbands and wives should be true life partners, covering down on their own respective roles and responsibilities while supporting/uplifting their better half. It’s a pretty simple concept that certain bitter menopausal hags in here never quite grasped.
I hate it when people hate the word “selfishness,” particularly when they make a blanket application, applying it to people who do not aversely affect others when acting in their self interest.
Why is not aversely affecting others while acting in your own self interest immoral?
…crickets.
Whatever you say, chief. Now, back to the topic at hand….
Hey SAMMY:
If you promise to stick to the topic at hand (the friggin housing bubble), then I promise not to show you up for the idiot that you are.
PS: Women are not to blame for all of society’s ills, and men are not better than women. So STFU.
Many men and women are in a fierce competition to prove who can be more dysfunctional.
Do you mean the AC went out and she cannot afford to fix it? Maybe it had just gone out and she had not had a chance to take it to the shop. You can’t assume things about people’s finances.
I now see that you mean the new Cadillac is a replacement. When you said “other car” I assumed she still had it. Not sure what you are getting at, actually.
“Not sure what you are getting at, actually.”
Low-salary clerk w/new Cadillac? Move on folks, nothing to see…
How were we supposed to know she was low-salary? You didn’t say that. Clerk is not synonymous with low pay. Court clerks make a lot of money. How do you know how much money she makes?
But she could be married to a husband with a high salary.
FWIW, most clerks I know must have “office automation” skillz to qualify for the job; a nice figure helps eliminate the hiring competition. Fast forward ten years, and there will be a local high capacity laser printer (no walking), a electric oil-filled upright heater under the desk to keep the fructose laden blood flowing past the cankles, medical velcro wrist supports, a large goodie bowl filled with chocolate and no more flowers (hehe).
But, rms, how would that affect this woman’s ability to purchase a Cadillac? Everyone gets old, and most people get fat. They may or may not become poor in the process.
‘everyone gets old, and most people get fat’
the former is unpreventable, the latter is easily preventable.
unless you’re too lazy to put the fork down and go get some exercise.
I’ve noticed a lot of retired professional athletes putting on mucho weight after they retire. I would have thought they would take better care of themselves.
California, already plagued with insufferable Californians, now faces an insufferable craft beer shortage.
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/07/31/beer-crisis-in-california/
Where does this inferiority complex come from? Why do so many people have such a problem with the fact that other people live in California? Are you looking for someone to blame, Ramond? Did something go terribly wrong in your life, and you are mad because it appears that Californians are better off than you? Have you always wanted to be a Californian, but couldn’t? Just wondering.
PS: Based on your misogynistic comment above, I already know that you are divorced, and your ex-wife found you lacking in the finance department. Is that why you hate Californians? Because they represent wealth to you, and that’s what got you dumped?
There is nothing wrong with Californians. To generalize any group is prejudicial. Tell that to Hessel.
Flyoverlander angst. They know they can’t make it out here, but see others doing well, which is intolerable.
You don’t know very much, do you? I’m happily married and doing just fine financially, much to your dismay. I grew up in California and still know a lot of great people there, who see how the state is in a terminal decline primarily due to the policies carried out by the state’s Democrat political class. So I don’t “hate” Californians; I just wish the majority would accept responsibility and accountability for what they’ve let their state become, and change the attitudes and pay-no-heed-for-tomorrow lifestyles and outlooks that got them into that predicament.
When your state isn’t taking in more in federal tax that it pays, you can talk to Californians about responsibility.
Why is it so many teabillies are drawing social security and medicare while they get apoplectic about all the freeloaders in the world?
Bottom line (from the voluntaryist techno geek perspective) is to earn as much moolah as you can, save as much moolah as you can in your 401k, then on retirement you live in a no tax state.
Blue states along the ocean tend to be where rent is cheap and salaries are huge. Anti government types got it wrong to be in red states all their lives when they could squirrel away money, live cheap, and enjoy great weather like California coastal.
Weather can be great in a red state such as Arizona and the sunsets can be great, but in the summer not so. That is why it’s reasonable to me to retire in Arizona and go on 4 month vacations up and down the Pac coast on retirement. And I can keep my scary looking firearms with high capacity magazines because I’d be an Arizona resident. State taxed at 3.4% instead of 10% on my 401k when I take distribution.
OK Raymond, then take responsibility for your happily married “housewife”, and buy her a new Cadillac already. BTW, Have you discussed your feelings about women and California with your “housewife” and Californian “friends”, or do they even know who you really are?
My observations are informed by real-life situations I see and encounter all around me. I drive a 12-year-old car with 166,000 miles; my wife drives a 2012 import with 36,000 miles so she doesn’t need a new Caddy. I don’t make a habit of discussing my “feelings” with anyone but close confidantes: that’s one of many differences between men and women. And while this doesn’t fit your pre-conceptions, I know a great many women for whom I feel tremendous respect, and a great many men who are useless POSs. If someone is vapid, shallow, and mindless, as attested by their attitudes and actions, I’m not inclined to share airspace with them much less try to engage them in conversation on their mental and character shortcomings. Now you, on the other hand….
Sammy:
You are the one who initiated the attack against “women”, dearest. Have I mentioned how vapid, shallow, and mindless the average suburban American husband is? Have I?
Do you hate men, Auntie? We’re not all bad. I actually cook, clean, do all household chores, and take care of myself. I’ve never asked a woman to look after me, or taken her for granted. I lived with one for several years. She really appreciated me doing a lot of her laundry, etc., but kind of took me for granted at times. Course, there was that one time where I put her expensive wool sweater on high heat in the drier, and turned it into toddler size, but my intention was good. The problem was that I never bought the cow, and the cow got pissed.
I hate men who take it upon themselves to use every opportunity to disparage “women”, and blame them for everything. If you scroll up, you will discover that Sammy Schadenfreude decided to inject his misogyny into a conversation about possibly poor people with Cadillacs. Men like him are a waste of flesh; I will not allow my gender to be bowled over by the likes of him. He will sup his dirt, and he will like it.
At least Bill has come around to admitting that he chooses not to have a family because he just doesn’t want to. He used to be just like Sammy; he would act like “women” caused him to be single, but he has become more honest with himself. I got no prob with that.
I think it boils down to the fact that there are a lot of sleazy men and women in this country. A lot of people are looking to see how much they can get out of a person rather than what they can offer. It’s hard to find really solid relationships anymore. Most of my married friends have divorced and re-married. It seems most people are not committed in the least, and will bolt if they find someone they feel is an upgrade (which usually is NOT the case).
“And I live in beer-paradise, the crazy state of California.”
-1 Try Oregon for great beer.
Meanwhile, the crony capitalist establishment GOP is playing up corporate raider Romney as its Great White Hope for 2016. We the People are so f**ked.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-democrats-avoid-obama-romney-is-in-demand-on-the-midterm-campaign-trail/2014/08/02/e71a8446-198e-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html
500,000 people in the Toledo area are without safe drinking water due to algae blooming on the Great Lakes. And what is causing said blooming? Why, run-off of nitrogen-based fertilizers from factory and commodity farming. It seems our “cheap food” isn’t so cheap when you add up the incalculable environmental and ecological costs our agribusinesses and their bought-and-paid for congressmen are doing their best to conceal. Traditional farming methods (as practiced by family farms of a bygone era) would do much to undo this damage, but that would also mean more expensive (albeit healthier) food supplies.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/half-a-million-people-without-water-as-toxins-contaminate-ohio-city-water-supply-9644829.html
Another long-term consideration to add to RE purchase criteria: how safe and sustainable is the water supply?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/toledo-water-pollution-farming-practices-lake-erie-phosphorus
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229261
For decades agribusinesses, thanks to their ownership of politicians, have had a free pass for scams like ethanol as well as the environmental damage and horrific conditions for livestock (and farm laborers) on their agribusiness hellholes. Now, finally, the sheeple of Toledo, at least, might have reason to get fired up and demand farmers and agribusinesses, among others, be held liable for the consequences of their profit-above-all fecklessness regardless of damage done to surrounding communities and ecosystems.
The people of Toledo, having gotten a wake-up call in the form of being told their water is unsafe to drink, are showing a sudden interest in Things that Matter (as opposed to DWTS).
https://twitter.com/hashtag/emptyglasscity?src=hash
No China pimp today. What a nice change. The China pimping is becoming unbearable.
China following the supply side model is growing 7 times as fast as Brazil using the socialistic demand side model. That is probably an understatement since Brazil appears to be heading for a recession. That is what you hate.
At least you know your name and game, pimp boy.
All you are capable of is group think. If telling the truth is being a pimp, I am nationwide.
Which means it is time for the Obama song:
Well I was rollin’ down the road in some cold blue steel,
I had Biden in back, and Yellen at the wheel.
We going downtown in the middle of the night
We laughing and I’m jokin’ and we feelin’ alright.
Oh I’m bad, I’m nationwide.
Yes I’m bad, I’m nationwide.
Easin’ down the highway in a new Cadillac,
I had a fine Fox reporter in front, I had three more in the back.
They sportin’ short dresses, wearin’ spike-heel shoes,
They smokin’ Lucky Strikes, and wearing nylons too.
‘Cause we bad, we nationwide.
Yeah we bad, we nationwide.
Well I was movin’ down the road in my Tesla solar powered,
I had a shine on my boots, I had my sideburns lowered.
With my New York brim and my gold tooth displayed,
Nobody give me trouble cause they know I got it made.
I’m bad, I’m nationwide.
Well I’m bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, I’m nationwide.
Right on cue!
Yeah, China is just an oasis of prosperity and stability.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/03/us-china-attacks-xinjiang-idUSKBN0G301H20140803
Every where you have large numbers of Muslims, you have violence.
Yes, that’s it, it has nothing to do with systemic discrimination and marginalization by the Han Chinese government and majority. It’s cause the Uighurs are “muzzies.” I see it so clearly now.
ISIS has a number of Uighurs in its ranks. So what did the Syrian and Iraqi Christians do to them?
Meanwhile, in Albequeruedan’s Chinese centrally-planned miracle of never-ending growth, the ATMs just stopped working.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-03/glitch-halts-all-atm-online-operations-chinas-2nd-largest-bank
Hope that article is more reliable than the last one in that publication that claimed a 2/3 to 75% decline in gasoline consumption in the U.S. when the actual number was less than 6%.
No, he’s back. We just learned where he got his marching orders to predict a “20-30% decline over two years”. He gets all of his supposed predictions from the Communist party of the People’s Republic of China. They give the propagandists some time to work it into the dialog before telling the journalists to write official articles about it.
If you read my e-mail from yesterday, you would know that based on the data that came out yesterday, I actually think the 20 to 30% prediction is probably pessimistic. That number actually came from sources outside of the Chinese government.
e-mail=post
Riiiiiiiiggghhht, sure it did. I believe you, man.
What you think I am sending you e-mails?
I’m expecting a 50% increase in the number of monkeys flying out my butt, too.
I thought his information was from Rasmussen, the most accurate predictors on the planet. I stand corrected.
Whac, along with the Nobel price in economics for estimating Chinese growth for this year and next which now seems to be the consensus, you can include one for science because CAGW continues to be proven wrong:
Posted on August 2, 2014 by Anthony Watts
clip_image002_thumb.pngEl Niño has not yet shortened the Great Pause
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Remarkably, the El Niño warming of this year has not yet shortened the Great Pause, which, like last month, stands at 17 years 10 months with no global warming at all.
Taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on Remote Sensing Systems’ satellite-based monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset, there has been no global warming – none at all – for 214 months. This is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for about half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Great Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
There he goes again, arguing with an imaginary opponent.
The more I look at the unemployment report the worse it looks. Wages up 1 cent an hour for all workers, the 4 cent report is just for production workers and their supervisors. Work week hours for production workers actually dropped and for all worker was flat. Weakest “recovery” ever, Thanks Obama. From the BLS:
In July, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was 34.5 hours
for the fifth straight month. The manufacturing workweek decreased by 0.2 hour in July to
40.9 hours, and factory overtime edged down by 0.1 hour to 3.4 hours. The average workweek
for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was 33.7 hours for
the fifth consecutive month. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
In July, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up
by 1 cent to $24.45. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.0
percent. In July, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory
employees increased by 4 cents to $20.61. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)
service jobs dont pay a mortgage. There must be 25% unemployment in CA at least. The good jobs seem to be working for the govt now. Since they can just have the FED print some cash they can keep these folks paid well through a recsession.
The private sector cannot keep up with the bloated payrolls so printing makes up the difference now.
“service jobs dont pay a mortgage.”
Apparently you don’t hobnob with the strawberry pickers.
A._Fraud,
Housing prices are falling anyways.
Remember. …… If you have to finance it for 15 or 30 years, it’s not affordable nor can you afford it.
K E Y S T O N E T O N I G H T?
The authorities are digging…. turn yourself in before it’s too late.
“Realtor Used Code Words to Plan Sex With Girl, 13″
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/269677681.html
service jobs dont pay a mortgage.
That’s another useless generalization.
how r your crater taters tonight magic mike?
Construction slowdowns hitting bubble markets in Abu Dhabi (and China).
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-03/abu-dhabi-shares-decline-tracking-emerging-markets-dubai-gains.html
A scumbag banker and sociopath (redundant, I realize) gets busted for fare-dodging in the UK - only the little people should have to pay full price for public transportation - and gets canned by Blackrock, one of the very worst of the Wall Street grifters (and a beneficiary of millions in US taxpayer bailout money).
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/08/03/fare-dodging-cost-this-millionaire-banker-his-job/
Portugal’s Banco Espirito (the catastrophically misnamed “Holy Spirit” bank - home of the same moneychangers Jesus drove out of the temple with a whip, if scripture is to be believed) getting bailed out by Portugal’s Central Bank (taxpayers, in other words) to the tune of $6.6 billion. This should goose the markets a bit tomorrow…until the other cockroaches make their appearances.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-03/portugal-takes-over-banco-espirito-santo-in-6-6-billion-bailout.html
At least one Fed- and central bank-blown asset bubble - the artwork bubble - is evidently coming back to earth, as “investors” pass on ludicrously overpriced collectibles.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-01/unsold-warhol-nickel-vanishes-in-opaque-online-auction.html
crater
I smell a Rat.
Ebola patient walks into Atlanta hospital; wife sees him through glass
By Jason Hanna and Faith Karimi, CNN
updated 11:41 AM EDT, Sun August 3, 2014
Atlanta (CNN) — A medical plane whisked an American infected with Ebola from Liberia to Georgia on Saturday, the latest leg of a race to save the first known patient with the deadly virus to be treated on U.S. soil.
Shortly after the plane landed, an ambulance rushed Dr. Kent Brantly from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital. He’s one of two Americans sickened by the deadly viral hemorrhagic fever last month while on the front lines of a major outbreak in West Africa.
Video from Emory showed someone in a white, full-body protective suit helping a similarly clad person emerge from the ambulance and walk into the hospital.
Hospital visitor: ‘Oh, my God’
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/02/health/ebola-outbreak/index.html -
Would you rather we abandoned him to his fate in West Africa? It’s tragic that he contracted the disease, but bringing him home for treatment - or possibly to die - at least gives medical science a hope of better understanding what they’re dealing with.
But just a few days ago the CDC was telling us that Ebola was contained within Africa:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ebola-terror-gatwick-passenger-collapses-3977051
There is nothing in the article to suggest that the woman may have had ebola. She almost certainly did not. I realize that you need something to pin on Obama, but this ain’t it. You were doing better when you were talking up China and denying global warming. The ebola virus is just not going to get people hating against the Prez.
“…pin on Obama.”
The man is the root of everything wrong in ABQDan’s life.
LOL
Obama put ebola in the drinking water so he can control our minds!
http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/ebola-madness-is-epidemic/