Rare candor (editorial by Kareem Abdul-Jabar) from an MSM outlet about the growing divide between the increasing number of Americans below the poverty line and the .1% amassing ever-greater wealth and power for themselves (thanks largely to the Federal Reserve).
Dystopian books and movies like Snowpiercer, The Giver, Divergent, Hunger Games, and Elysium have been the rage for the past few years. Not just because they express teen frustration at authority figures. That would explain some of the popularity among younger audiences, but not among twentysomethings and even older adults. The real reason we flock to see Donald Sutherland’s porcelain portrayal in Hunger Games of a cold, ruthless president of the U.S. dedicated to preserving the rich while grinding his heel into the necks of the poor is that it rings true in a society in which the One Percent gets richer while our middle class is collapsing.
That’s not hyperbole; statistics prove this to be true. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center report, just half of U.S. households are middle-income, a drop of 11 percent since the 1970s; median middle-class income has dropped by 5 percent in the last ten years, total wealth is down 28 percent. Fewer people (just 23 percent) think they will have enough money to retire. Most damning of all: fewer Americans than ever believe in the American Dream mantra that hard work will get them ahead.
Rather than uniting to face the real foe—do-nothing politicians, legislators, and others in power—we fall into the trap of turning against each other, expending our energy battling our allies instead of our enemies. This isn’t just inclusive of race and political parties, it’s also about gender. In her book Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, Laurie Penny suggests that the decreased career opportunities for young men in society makes them feel less valuable to females; as a result they deflect their rage from those who caused the problem to those who also suffer the consequences: females.
There are millions of man-children in their late 20s and 30s still living in their parents’ basement, working shit jobs and wasting all their free time with porn and video games. Not the sort of breadwinners any girl in her right mind is going to want as a partner.
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Comment by MightyMike
2014-08-18 17:18:59
That’s a big problem. Those tattooed single moms are willing to allow these man-children to impregnate them, but not to settle down and form a nuclear family. The children who come into the world this way, of course, are very likely to become either man-children or single mothers themselves.
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2014-08-18 17:51:35
No no no, Mike, you’ve got it all wrong. The little hellspawn will get to our public school system, which will give them the skills, competencies, values, and true grit needed to go out and become productive citizens.
To me the hunger games is about The State-Corporate elite versus individual freedom. Not about capitalists versus poor. At most about crony capitalists versus the individual who wants freedom.
Have you actually read the books or seen the movies? The subtext is clear. The author’s father was an Air Force historian who taught her well about the excesses and rampant hedonism of empires in decline. As far as the “individuals wanting their freedom” they damned well better learn to join forces with all the other people who are getting relentlessly screwed by a larcenous and feckless system.
Occupy Wall Street was thoroughly infiltrated by the Free Sh!t Army. You have a “right” to free education and for me to pay off your student loans for that worthless degree you chose? If they would have stuck to opposition to crony capitalism, they might have gained more support from middle America.
No, but it’s role in promulgating economic policies that enrich the .1% while debasing the currency, promoting malinvestment and financial chicanery rather than productive enterprises, and rewarding CEOs who offshore manufacturing jobs and engage in financial speculation rather than long-term capital investment, is well documented.
This week Yellen will pretend to give a sh!t about the disappearance of living-wage American jobs, prior to showering the .1% with more free gambling money.
Fed Reserve is a different topic. It was disingenuous to mention it in your intro to the article.
I’m off to work now and won’t be posting for the balance of the day.
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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2014-08-18 15:11:26
The Federal Reserve’s policy’s are intrinsically related to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1% and the economic demise of the middle and working classes. Jabar mentions the effects without addressing the cause (because Time would never have printed his editorial had he highlighted the role of the Fed and its corporate and Wall Street accomplices).
“Then we’ll argue about whether there isn’t just as much black-against-white racism in the U.S. as there is white-against-black. (Yes, there is. But, in general, white-against-black economically impacts the future of the black community. Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.)”
Black against white has almost no measurable social impact. Really, Mr. Jabber? Just ask the whites who are affected, especially the families. But, you know, Eric Holder decreed that whites are not affected by racism, so the narrative has been formed.
Kent State and looting a convenience store are two very different things.
“Black against white has almost no measurable social impact.”
What about millions of white families who avoid living in black areas due to fear of black-on-white crime? Is that a consequence of black-against-white racism, or something else?
Comment by goon squad
2014-08-18 06:55:14
Whac-A-Stucco-Bear, you are not allowed to ask questions like that, because it is racist.
And speaking of racist, if I like my African-African neighbors (who were born in Nigeria and Sudan) better than my African-American neighbors, what kind of racist am I?
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-08-18 07:21:43
I once had the pleasure of living with two roommates of African descent, one from Nigeria and the other from the south side of Chicago. This was quite an interesting contrast in cultures.
Comment by palmetto
2014-08-18 07:24:45
Kent State = Michael Brown at Ferguson. Lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Comment by palmetto
2014-08-18 07:33:09
You’d probably find an interested contrast in cultures if you’d roomed with a polack from Buffalo and a toff from Belgravia, too.
Comment by palmetto
2014-08-18 07:46:26
Interested = interesting.
Comment by MightyMike
2014-08-18 07:59:27
What about millions of white families who avoid living in black areas due to fear of black-on-white crime? Is that a consequence of black-against-white racism, or something else?
Well, it could be a consequence of all kinds of things, depending on how you look at it. If they don’t actually know that black-on-white crime is more prevalent than black-on-black crime, then they’re just confused.
Comment by Oddfellow
2014-08-18 09:27:00
¨ it’s crucial that those in the wealthiest One Percent keep the poor fractured…so they never stop to wonder how they got so screwed over for so long.¨
Doing God’s work.
Comment by aNYCdj
2014-08-18 10:11:21
I just dont believe there is much discrimination based on race…..instead most people discriminate based upon lack of English skills.
Comment by aNYCdj
2014-08-18 10:14:17
Mike there was never any white flight that is a total lie.
Instead parents saw the next generation of kids on a Jail track instead of a college track and moved and so did black people
Comment by oxide
2014-08-18 10:40:32
The English skills is a bit complex. Obama is black but is well-spoken in English. The neighbors on my block have only passable English but that’s not their first language. Angela Merckel appears to have no English at all. How do you compare?
Comment by oxide
2014-08-18 10:48:55
How about a racism quiz: how many viewings of Hunger Games did it take to realize that a young black man outright kills a young white woman?
Comment by MightyMike
2014-08-18 11:14:24
Mike there was never any white flight that is a total lie.
That’s an awfully broad statement. What you’re saying is that a not a single white American family ever moved out of a neighborhood because non-whites moved in. Even if the main cause of white flight was economic, it’s highly unlikely that you’re correct.
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2014-08-18 11:22:04
Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.
A lot of white folk need to get real on racism in America. The last former American black slave died in just 1971. The Civil Rights Act was just in the 60’s. And some whites think all of these attitudes and effects have just “gone away” because they are told so by some angry white dudes? To equate the current and historical societal impact of black on white racism to white on black racism is a joke.
It’s actually comes close to bordering on one of the definitions of “insane”.
in·sane adjective in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction;
Ox…What was Malcolm X all about? Speaking English to become professionals and gain equal rights by showing “the negro” is just as capable as any other group.
Comment by aNYCdj
2014-08-19 04:58:22
Mike Mike Mike yes there were Archie bunker types but that was a small minority of whites…..it really was based on lack of achievement goals.
“Rare candor (editorial by Kareem Abdul-Jabar) from an MSM outlet about the growing divide between the increasing number of Americans below the poverty line and the .1% amassing ever-greater wealth and power for themselves (thanks largely to the Federal Reserve).”
The FED is definitely out of control and bears huge responsibility in the growth of the .1%, that’s for sure. Don’t forget the masters of the universe are also flooding our society with millions of the world’s poor and uneducated. They compete for entry level and low wage jobs with poor Americans, they also take a large portion of the finite resources dedicated to social and economic services.
Importing poverty and multiculturalism may create a permanent communist voting class, it may provide slave labor for the US chamber of commerce types, but it does nothing to improve the lives of poor black American citizens.
Importing poverty and multiculturalism may create a permanent communist voting class
Makes No Sense. USA’s history is in fact “importing poverty and multiculturalism.”
The difference now is not color. The difference now is a system that no longer rewards hard work because income and wealth inequality are off the charts.
Gross wealth and opportunity inequality can lead to communism way faster than a bunch of brown people.
Organized crime gangs in western Europe (mostly North African or eastern European) are becoming increasingly brazen in targeting the wealthy and their favored high-end stores as the dystopia created by the EU’s current political class continues to worsen.
More Enron-style shenanigans by the usual Wall Street suspects playing speculative games with the nation’s electrical grid. When this goes off the rails, taxpayers as usual will cover all bankster losses.
In 2169, people are born genetically engineered with a digital clock on their forearm. When they turn 25 years old, they stop aging and their clock begins counting down from one year; when it reaches zero that person “times out” and dies instantly.
Time has become the universal currency; it is used to pay for day-to-day expenses and can be transferred between people or capsules. The country has been divided into “time zones” based on the wealth of the population. The movie focuses on two specific zones: Dayton, a poor manufacturing area where people live day-to-day, and New Greenwich, the wealthiest time zone.
It’s available on Youtube these days; very prescient, IMHO.
In California, bids doubled this year for transmission rights, which were granted an exemption from Dodd-Frank rules by federal regulators and are overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Regardless, it just goes to show that crooked politicians and the lawyers who draft the legislation are the at the very core of the rot in this country.
In a free market, price discovery includes drops as well as rises. In a central banker-controlled plutocracy, asset bubbles will not be allowed to fall unless/until the .1% has secured their bets to the downside. The BOE will either have to print more money or watch gravity catch up to London’s housing market (especially now that sanctions are spooking the Russian oligarchs who are taking their ill-gotten loot elsewhere).
Thank you Ben, for answering me yesterday about the FASB rule. I didn’t see this until later.
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Comment by Ben Jones
2014-08-17 13:46:57
‘April 2, 2009 — The Financial Accounting Standards Board, pressured by U.S. lawmakers and financial companies, voted to relax fair-value accounting rules that Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. say don’t work when markets are inactive.’
‘Changes to fair-value, or mark-to-market accounting, approved by FASB today allow companies to use “significant” judgment in gauging prices of some investments on their books, including mortgage-backed securities. Analysts say the measure may reduce banks’ writedowns and boost net income. Firms could apply the changes to first-quarter results.’
…‘One of the dissenters, Thomas J. Linsmeier, argued that accounting rules already allowed the “fiction all banks are well capitalized,” adding that the changes would “make them seem better capitalized.”
———————
Better capitalized? I should say so! It’s like Toyota calling me up and saying that they “convinced” — i.e. $$$ — the Kelly car people to change the value of everything in th Blue Book to its new car value.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the banks pretty much had to run the table in order to create their bubble, and to sustain the bubble on the books even after it popped. Keeping just one safety in place could have stopped the whole thing. For example, requiring 3.5% cash down. Or demanding equal interest rates for all (what a concept). Or not allowing booking “deferred interest” as income now. Or requiring originators to season a mortgage by retaining 0.5% for 2-3 years. Or Congress attaching at least one string to that implied gaurantee of F&F. Or not allowing mark-to-market. Or — this would be my compromise — putting a sunsets on these relaxations.
Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of the Senate that the “banks own this place” and he was right.
Your link shows his contributors, not his votes. Your focus on his role as a prostitute misses the point. It’s the defense contractors, etc. who have the power. It he chose not to do their bidding, he’d probably gone at the next election.
keep it illegal in your states and keep sending all of your money here plz
‘there are many signs that legalized marijuana is increasing tourist visits to and interest in colorado, despite a reluctance by local officials to say so … that’s according to several recent national media reports on the matter … applications at colorado universities have increased by a third … denver was the third most popular spring break destination this year, ahead of any destination in florida, california and mexico’
Where can you not have a cistern? In my area, my commie local gov hands out rebates for cisterns and rain barrels. Not for water conservation — capturing water slows down stormwater runoff and prevents it from flooding streams and carrying too many pollutants to Chesapeake Bay.
In other countries, benevelent capitalist corporations like Bechtel don’t allow individuals (who are wanting freedom, as usual ) to collect rainwater because they control the bottled water supply.
China News China Home Prices Slip Again in July Developers Cut Prices as Sales Fall 10.5% Over First Seven Months of the Year
By Esther Fung
Updated Aug. 18, 2014 2:20 a.m. ET
A man talks on his phone near a new residential compound in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, May 11, 2014. The average price of new homes in 70 Chinese cities fell for the third straight month in July. Reuters
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China’s new-home prices fell in July in almost all cities that the government tracks as tight mortgage lending deterred buyers even as local governments eased property curbs.
Prices fell in 64 of the 70 cities last month from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data. Beijing prices fell 1 percent from June, posting the first monthly decline since April 2012.
“The falling trend of China’s property market has no sign of improving,” Shen Jian-guang, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd., said in a phone interview today. “The key issue is the mortgages, despite all types of local government easings. The high rate is damping sentiment of owner occupiers.”
…
Build it and they will come. Many residential and commercial projects, especially in China’s smaller cities, have gone up like that but now there are concerns they could bring down the economy. The latest China housing prices for July confirmed the property market is softening. Average new home prices in 70 cities dropped 0.9 percent in July from June, the third consecutive monthly drop.
…
* July home prices ease from June, third consecutive monthly fall
* Prices still up 2.5 pct on year but slowest gain in 17 months
* New home prices fell in 64 cities m/m in July vs 55 in June
* Price falls deepened in small cities, decline seen continuing (Adds market reaction, details)
By Xiaoyi Shao and Koh Gui Qing
BEIJING, Aug 18 (Reuters) - China’s new home prices fell in July for a third straight month with price declines spreading to a record number of cities including Beijing, underlining a worsening property downturn that is increasingly dragging on the broader economy.
Average home prices slipped 0.9 percent in July on a monthly basis, Monday’s data showed, as the declines spread to the largest number of cities since January 2011, when authorities started releasing the property price data.
“We expect home prices to continue to drop in coming months due to an increasingly pessimistic market sentiment,” said Yan Yuejin, a property analyst at real estate services firm E-House China in Shanghai.
“The possibility of further moves by the central bank to loosen monetary policy cannot be ruled out. That would put a floor beneath prices,” Yan said.
…
BEIJING, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) — China’s property sector showed new signs of cooling in July, with more cities reporting month-on-month price drops, official data showed on Monday.
Out of 70 major Chinese cities, 64 saw month-on-month price declines for new homes in July, compared with 55 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
Only two cities — Xiamen in southeastern Fujian Province and Dali in southwestern Yunnan Province — saw month-on-month price gains in new home prices last month, compared with eight cities in June and 15 cities in May, the NBS data showed.
New home prices in Xiamen edged up slightly by 0.2 percent month on month while Dali prices rose by 0.1 percent.
Hangzhou, in east China’s Zhejiang Province, saw new home prices drop the most among the 70 cities, down by 2.5 percent from June. Sanya, on south China’s Hainan Island, dropped by 2.4 percent month on month.
For existing homes, 65 major Chinese cities saw price drops in July, up notably from 52 cities in June, according to the NBS. Prices of existing homes in Shenyang in northeast’s Liaoning Province decreased the most by 1.5 percent from June.
Only one city, Xining in west China’s Qinghai Province, recorded a month-on-month price gain for existing homes in July, up slightly by 0.1 percent from June, the NBS said. However, on a year-on-year basis, new home prices in 65 cities are still higher than a year ago, with only three cities seeing a price drop in July — Hangzhou and Wenzhou in east China’s Zhejiang Province and Shaoguan in central China’s Hunan Province.
The growth rates in the 65 cities moderated significantly in July, said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS.
Liu said many home buyers were taking a wait-and-see attitude due to uncertain market prospects, which led to month-on-month drops in home prices in more Chinese cities.
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Smart money long gone from China property PUBLISHED: 7 hours 31 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 7 hours 22 MINUTES AGO
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has sold about $3.5 billion worth of property on the mainland and in Hong Kong since August last year, according to the South China Morning Post. Photo: Bloomberg
If Asia’s richest man is any guide, the smart money started leaving China’s property market a year ago.
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has sold about $3.5 billion worth of property on the mainland and in Hong Kong since August last year, according to the South China Morning Post.
Analysts say the sales, via the investment company Hutchison Whampoa and some real estate trusts which he part-owns, indicate a concerted strategy to reduce Mr Li’s exposure to the Chinese property market. Li himself doesn’t like the sales to be highlighted.
But he is not alone.
Other big property investors, while not necessarily selling out of China, have certainly been diversifying their portfolios away from its troubled real estate sector. And Australia is among the overseas markets being targeted.
Just last week, it was revealed Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group and the richest man on the mainland, has committed $1.7 billion to Australian real estate including the construction of a $900 million beachfront resort on the Gold Coast.
The investment is part of Wanda’s push overseas. In the last few years, it has spent $US2.6 billion on American movie theatre company AMC, bought British luxury yachtmaker Sunseeker and announced $US1 billion dollar hotel developments in London and New York.
Wang and others are looking abroad because in China, developers are struggling with falling prices, subdued demand and tougher credit conditions. Residential property sales fell 17.9 per cent in July from a year ago, while developers’ inventories of unsold properties are now 25 per cent higher over the same period.
On Monday morning there was more bad news as the National Bureau of Statistics reported home prices fell last month in 64 of the 70 surveyed cities.
Still, China’s biggest residential property developer Vanke is keeping the faith.
After reporting over the weekend a small drop in first-half revenue and a modest increase in profits, Vanke said in a statement that in the long term “China’s urbanisation still has a long way to go” and that would drive demand and “fuel expansion of this industry.”
But even Vanke acknowledges the current challenges.
“Along with the transition from the industry’s golden age to silver age, the market will face greater short-term volatility, and competition between enterprises will intensify in future.”
Some of Vanke’s competitors are already feeling the effects of the transition to “the silver age.”
…
Articles linked from Drudge note that 7 people killed and 29 wounded in Chicago shootings this weekend, and 2 killed and 13 wounded in New York City shootings in just eight hours this weekend.
Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this? Because he can’t make any money from it.
Because it wasn’t a White cop in a Black town run by Whites, shooting an unarmed 18 year old Black man 6 times (including the eye and top of the head) in a quasi-southern state where the last racial lynching was only in 1942 in country with a brutal history of such things happening again and again?
I’m just guessing here - just throwing out some possible ideas.
Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this? Because he can’t make any money from it.
That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think that protests are going to change the behavior of violent criminals. Unless you’re talking about protests aimed at getting the cops to focus on those violent criminals instead of shooting shoplifters.
It was pretty funny watching the race pimps gear up to run and do some rabble-rousing in Ferguson, only to be told to f*** off by the disillusioned protestors who are finally wising up to the fact that hope ‘n change and civil rights “activists” have done jack sh!t for black communities.
It was pretty funny watching the race pimps gear up to run and do some rabble-rousing in Ferguson
I know. They are too uppity for protesting a White cop in a Black town run by Whites, shooting an unarmed 18 year old Black man 6 times (including the eye and top of the head) in a quasi-southern state where the last racial lynching was only in 1942 in country with a brutal history of such things happening again and again.
hope ‘n change and civil rights “activists” have done jack sh!t for black communities
If you don’t think repeated and sustained outrage to the reality of white cops shooting unarmed black teenagers will cause more cops to think twice and more training on the subject, then you are not paying attention to the gradual shift in cops/black-folk race interactions over the decades.
And for those of you who can only accept the scripted narrative as written by the Media / Academia Race Hustlers Industrial Complex™, suggest that you go watch the 2014 Souper Bowl Coke commercial, it tastes great to wash down your Soma pills with.
obama owns this. this is the ‘fundamental transformation’ that you were promised. race riots across the usa, blanket amnesty for 20 million illegals, ebola outbreaks resulting in thousands of deaths and mass quarantines, this is the perfect combination of events to ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ that is the progressive blueprint for governing.
America owns the American 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Ugly Racism.
Sometimes Unfortunate Things Happen In The Heat Of A 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Racism
• Aug 14, 2014
By Thomas Jackson, Chief Of Police, Ferguson Police Department
As anyone in law enforcement knows, upholding the peace often comes down to making tough, split-second decisions. A police officer must assess his options quickly, especially when faced with resistance from potentially dangerous individuals. But try as we might, bad things sometimes happen in the heat of a 400-year-old legacy of racism.
It’s a situation every officer of the law will inevitably face: tensions escalate during questioning or an arrest when, suddenly, in the commotion of four centuries of bias against racial minorities in the United States, the situation takes a violent turn. When emotions run high, it just takes two seconds following dozens of generations of systemic social, economic, and political discrimination toward non-whites—particularly African-Americans—for things to get way out of hand.
Our officers here in Ferguson know that as well as anyone.
You don’t want violence, of course—no one does. But sometimes when you’re out there, in the middle of longstanding policies denying minority men and women the most basic human rights, you must take decisive measures. We train our officers to behave professionally and respectfully toward the communities that they serve. But no matter how much training and experience they may have, they are human beings who, in the bedlam of decade upon decade of racist enculturation and deeply institutionalized systems of inequality, may be involved in a tragic situation.
But it’s important to remember that for members of law enforcement, it’s life or death out there. Without any warning, an officer of the law can find himself in the mayhem of formal and de facto segregationist policies such as mortgage discrimination and redlining that made it impossible for people in the most dangerous neighborhoods to live anywhere else.
Goon, you seem like an intelligent enough fellow. Do you seriously believe that every bad thing that happens in our society is part of some evil design or the machinations of some hidden hand? Because it looks more like to me we’re just lurching from one grand cock-up to another.
Holders of China’s first corporate bond to default onshore met today in Shanghai, as investors look for clues on how the government will balance market liberalization with steps to maintain stability.
There was difficulty assessing the overseas assets of Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. and no specific restructuring plan emerged from the gathering, according to Wang Xuejun, an investor in attendance. The solar-panel maker will issue a statement by tomorrow at the latest, Vice President Liu Tielong said when reached on his mobile phone after the meeting. More than 10 police cars were on the street in front of the company headquarters today around 2:30 p.m. as the gathering took place.
While Premier Li Keqiang said defaults may be unavoidable in some cases after Chaori failed to make a full coupon payment on March 7, the country has averted similar cases since. Widespread bond nonpayments would cause financial market turbulence, which can’t be allowed when the economy faces “relatively heavy” downward pressure, according to a front-page commentary in a central bank publication today.
Chaori only paid 4 million yuan ($650,755) of an 89.8 million yuan coupon due in March on its 2017 bonds, becoming the first company to default on a yuan note onshore. Shanghai marked a milestone in corporate bankruptcy in June when a court accepted a restructuring application for the manufacturer.
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Bulletin U.S. stocks gain early; Dollar General, Family Dollar lead S&P 500 »
Why bulls are on borrowed time — but don’t know it
Outside the Box
This top trader sees 3 clear dangers for stocks
Published: Aug 18, 2014 5:01 a.m. ET
By Mark D. Cook
Three factors that put stocks in jeopardy are registering simultaneously, signaling a dangerous period for the market. Consider these three factors:
1. The Cook Cumulative Tick indicator (CCT) is at the greatest divergence ever seen since I began keeping records in 1986.
…
U.S. market history has seen only two previous occasions of the massive divergence, 2000 and 2007, which each led to greater than a 40% decline.
2. We have gone two full years without a 10% correction.
…
3. Market cycles are signaling an environmental change.
Bull markets do eventually end. Notable bull markets of the last 30-plus years have a shelf life. The longer they persist, the more ripe they become. The 1982-1987 bull market broke stock prices out of a long confinement below 1000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.63% The pent-up demand for equities generated a 200% gain during that span, the best percentage gain in decades. Stocks were the favorite asset of the 1980s. The period of late 1987 generated a harsh reality check to the buy-and-hold mentality. A 35% decline in prices was seen from late August until a bottom in December 1987.
The 1982-1987 bull market lasted five years, from August 1982 to August 1987. The 2002-2007 bull run bottomed in October 2002 and registered a top in October 2007, another five year span. Both of those bull markets ended in corrections exceeding 35%.
This 2009-2014 period is the longest continuous rally in more than 30 years, and comes at the tail end of the Fed’s quantitative easing. This current rally has exceeded five years, and gained almost 200%. Is too much inducement by the Fed a smart move?
Wise investors should heed these signs. History is a reference for the future; pay attention.
…
Have you snapped up any junk lately? As for myself, I’m planning to wait until Yellen & company announce when they are raising rates before considering any reallocation into high risk debt.
Markets Big Investors Snap Up Junk Bonds Institutions Take Advantage of a Recent Slide in High-Yield Bonds’ Price Triggered by Small Investors’ Selling
By Katy Burne
Aug. 17, 2014 9:03 p.m. ET
Large institutions are snapping up U.S. junk bonds, taking advantage of a price slide triggered by an exodus of individual investors.
Many big money managers say they remain bullish on these risky corporate bonds despite concerns that the market is overheated and worries that geopolitical unrest could fuel a rush to safer assets.
Their interest stands in contrast to a wave of selling by retail investors, who sucked almost $13 billion out of junk-bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the four weeks ended Aug. 6.
Analysts said upheaval in Ukraine, Iraq and Israel unsettled some investors, and concerns that prices were already too high drove some smaller investors to sell. They worried that the multiyear record-breaking run of junk bonds might be near an end.
That presented a buying opportunity for larger investors, who say the $1.6 trillion U.S. junk-bond market remains healthy and note that many bonds are now cheaper than before.
Gershon Distenfeld, who oversees $35 billion in junk bonds as director of high yield for AllianceBernstein, said his firm has been buying junk bonds of home builders and high-end retailers, anticipating they will benefit as the economy grows. It is avoiding energy companies whose profits are heavily reliant on natural gas prices and casino operators outside Las Vegas.
“Investors who panic in these selloffs—it’s the wrong thing to do,” Mr. Distenfeld said.
…
I snapped this at the fish market yesterday as it reminded me of all the suckers who bought a house in the last 15 years. SuckerFish with their heads on a platter.
no, but that modus hoperandi india pale ale (ska brewing company, durango, co) was p*ssed into two oceans from the summit of isolation peak on the continental divide…
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Comment by Blue Skye
2014-08-18 17:06:53
LOL!
My bottle cap is off to you. This Yankee has ceremoniously pissed into the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean on a bottle of Labatts.
Comment by MightyMike
2014-08-18 17:08:28
Congratulation to both of you.
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2014-08-18 18:10:41
I will be happy to mail you some of my 1996 vintage Hillary Clinton urinal pads.
More of the “we can’t find qualified people*” myth….
*At what we are willing to pay
http:/tinyurl.com/lp83u2h
It illustrates an issue I’ve been seeing in the aviation business. Management keeps cutting the pay of high skill/high stress/odd working hours employees (then beat them to death with overtime), until they say “screw it”, and take a slightly lower paying/low stress/better hours job.
After all, why would you work on airplanes for $15/hour (with all of the attached liability/risk/responsibility/lack of resources/expenses/etc), when you can make $12/hour slinging boxes into a truck for FedEx?
It highlights a part of the screw job that someone told me JB Hunt worked on their drivers 10-15 years ago (which I’m sure is still happening)…….hire newbie truckers, make sure they makes lots of money right off the bat, until they decide to go “all-in” and buy their own rigs. Then, cut off their trips, until they will drive trips for practically nothing, just to keep the cash flow going.
The same scam is being run on kids trying to go into “health care”, because of “forcast shortages of health care workers”.
As long as immigration policies remain as they are, there will be no such thing as “worker shortages”
Hey, Mr Stockman……history did not start on June 22, 1941.
http:/tinyurl.com/p6kp9op
For starters…..why are there so many ethnic Russians living in Ukraine? Might it have something to do with the Stalin/Russian induced famines and purges of the 1930s? And could it be possible that the Ukrainians might not feel a sense of community and brotherhood with Russians for many years after such an event?
In many places, Ukrainians and Byelorussians were greeting German soldiers as liberators, until the Nazis started eliminating them for “Lebensraum”
If you look at stock markets in socialist hellholes like Venezuela, they continued to soar even as ordinary people scoured the markets for non-existent toilet paper to buy with their rapidly depreciating currency. Coming soon to a crony-capitalist kleptocracy near you.
How’s that hope ‘n change working out for you, Black America? On an unrelated note, I see the Nasdaq hit a 14 year high today, so some of that one percenter wealth effect should be showing up for you any day now.
I own 315 shares of sdrl which is 40% of my holdings
and the dividend is just about to pay out
Warning, last week was a better entry point.
It could be getting a nosebleed soon.
Little Al, I don’t have time to brush my teeth, let alone invest in single issues. I’m one of the legion who defaults to mutual funds not only for my own account, but for the kids’ Roths as well.
That said, I eat up your recommendations! I look up the companies, and reverse engineer why they might be so well positioned. I learn something every time! Truth be told, I DO act on your recommendations in a small way, and have never regretted doing so. Gives me the impetus to keep an eye on the holdings in a venue which otherwise seem like a ship of fools.
In my case, I’m afraid you’re throwing pearls before swine. I would indeed have profited from acting more boldly on SDRL and Yamana. But none of us can change his DNA. Mine tells me to hold my nose every time I plunk some hard-earned cash down, lol!
Thanks for your efforts to help us stay one step ahead of the poorhouse.
As cash-strapped municipalities rely on police to shake down motorists for money, red-light camera vendors colluding with corrupt police officials are making bank.
Name:Ben Jones Location:Northern Arizona, United States To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a criminal terrorist organization.
Happy Monday
Marc Potok would like to have a word with you.
Here the SPLC’s report (warning: PDF file) on the sovereign citizen movement and recent events at the Bundy ranch:
http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/war_in_the_west_report.pdf
And an earlier link discussing this topic:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement
“Its the lot!”
Nnnnnnnope.
F R A U D
Housing fraud is a problem and you’re allowing it to enrage you.
Rare candor (editorial by Kareem Abdul-Jabar) from an MSM outlet about the growing divide between the increasing number of Americans below the poverty line and the .1% amassing ever-greater wealth and power for themselves (thanks largely to the Federal Reserve).
http://time.com/3132635/ferguson-coming-race-war-class-warfare/
Dystopian books and movies like Snowpiercer, The Giver, Divergent, Hunger Games, and Elysium have been the rage for the past few years. Not just because they express teen frustration at authority figures. That would explain some of the popularity among younger audiences, but not among twentysomethings and even older adults. The real reason we flock to see Donald Sutherland’s porcelain portrayal in Hunger Games of a cold, ruthless president of the U.S. dedicated to preserving the rich while grinding his heel into the necks of the poor is that it rings true in a society in which the One Percent gets richer while our middle class is collapsing.
That’s not hyperbole; statistics prove this to be true. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center report, just half of U.S. households are middle-income, a drop of 11 percent since the 1970s; median middle-class income has dropped by 5 percent in the last ten years, total wealth is down 28 percent. Fewer people (just 23 percent) think they will have enough money to retire. Most damning of all: fewer Americans than ever believe in the American Dream mantra that hard work will get them ahead.
Rather than uniting to face the real foe—do-nothing politicians, legislators, and others in power—we fall into the trap of turning against each other, expending our energy battling our allies instead of our enemies. This isn’t just inclusive of race and political parties, it’s also about gender. In her book Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, Laurie Penny suggests that the decreased career opportunities for young men in society makes them feel less valuable to females; as a result they deflect their rage from those who caused the problem to those who also suffer the consequences: females.
‘as a result they deflect their rage from those who caused the problem to those who also suffer the consequences: females’
because it’s the 0.01%ers’ fault that tattooed single moms can’t find husbands, lolz
There are millions of man-children in their late 20s and 30s still living in their parents’ basement, working shit jobs and wasting all their free time with porn and video games. Not the sort of breadwinners any girl in her right mind is going to want as a partner.
That’s a big problem. Those tattooed single moms are willing to allow these man-children to impregnate them, but not to settle down and form a nuclear family. The children who come into the world this way, of course, are very likely to become either man-children or single mothers themselves.
No no no, Mike, you’ve got it all wrong. The little hellspawn will get to our public school system, which will give them the skills, competencies, values, and true grit needed to go out and become productive citizens.
Oh, wait….
To me the hunger games is about The State-Corporate elite versus individual freedom. Not about capitalists versus poor. At most about crony capitalists versus the individual who wants freedom.
Have you actually read the books or seen the movies? The subtext is clear. The author’s father was an Air Force historian who taught her well about the excesses and rampant hedonism of empires in decline. As far as the “individuals wanting their freedom” they damned well better learn to join forces with all the other people who are getting relentlessly screwed by a larcenous and feckless system.
http://studentsforliberty.org/blog/2012/03/22/the-hunger-games-the-role-of-dystopian-literature-in-libertarianism/
Rather than uniting to face the real foe—do-nothing politicians, legislators, and others in power
Abdul-Jabbar has a very short memory. Occupy Wall Street did exactly that. And they were maced for it.
Occupy Wall Street was thoroughly infiltrated by the Free Sh!t Army. You have a “right” to free education and for me to pay off your student loans for that worthless degree you chose? If they would have stuck to opposition to crony capitalism, they might have gained more support from middle America.
Ox it was also that freak Halloween snow storm that make it easier for them to clear out the place.
I asked my mom she doesn’t remember any Halloween was cancelled for snow once or twice for a hurricane/storm , but never snow
The Federal Reserve was not mentioned anywhere in the article.
No, but it’s role in promulgating economic policies that enrich the .1% while debasing the currency, promoting malinvestment and financial chicanery rather than productive enterprises, and rewarding CEOs who offshore manufacturing jobs and engage in financial speculation rather than long-term capital investment, is well documented.
This week Yellen will pretend to give a sh!t about the disappearance of living-wage American jobs, prior to showering the .1% with more free gambling money.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-18/yellen-dashboard-warning-light-glows-as-millions-work-part-time.html
“No, but”
Fed Reserve is a different topic. It was disingenuous to mention it in your intro to the article.
I’m off to work now and won’t be posting for the balance of the day.
The Federal Reserve’s policy’s are intrinsically related to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1% and the economic demise of the middle and working classes. Jabar mentions the effects without addressing the cause (because Time would never have printed his editorial had he highlighted the role of the Fed and its corporate and Wall Street accomplices).
Time Magazine would never have printed an editorial pointing out the causative role of the Fed in our current economic inequality.
Why would they? They’re under the fed umbrella.
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
There’s a reason the MSM are corporate mouthpieces.
“corporate mouthpieces”
http://www.infowars.com/feinstein-youre-not-a-real-journalist-unless-you-draw-a-salary/
Here’s where he lost me:
“Then we’ll argue about whether there isn’t just as much black-against-white racism in the U.S. as there is white-against-black. (Yes, there is. But, in general, white-against-black economically impacts the future of the black community. Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.)”
Black against white has almost no measurable social impact. Really, Mr. Jabber? Just ask the whites who are affected, especially the families. But, you know, Eric Holder decreed that whites are not affected by racism, so the narrative has been formed.
Kent State and looting a convenience store are two very different things.
“the narrative has been formed”
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=443Vy3I0gJs
“Black against white has almost no measurable social impact.”
What about millions of white families who avoid living in black areas due to fear of black-on-white crime? Is that a consequence of black-against-white racism, or something else?
Whac-A-Stucco-Bear, you are not allowed to ask questions like that, because it is racist.
And speaking of racist, if I like my African-African neighbors (who were born in Nigeria and Sudan) better than my African-American neighbors, what kind of racist am I?
I once had the pleasure of living with two roommates of African descent, one from Nigeria and the other from the south side of Chicago. This was quite an interesting contrast in cultures.
Kent State = Michael Brown at Ferguson. Lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
You’d probably find an interested contrast in cultures if you’d roomed with a polack from Buffalo and a toff from Belgravia, too.
Interested = interesting.
What about millions of white families who avoid living in black areas due to fear of black-on-white crime? Is that a consequence of black-against-white racism, or something else?
Well, it could be a consequence of all kinds of things, depending on how you look at it. If they don’t actually know that black-on-white crime is more prevalent than black-on-black crime, then they’re just confused.
¨ it’s crucial that those in the wealthiest One Percent keep the poor fractured…so they never stop to wonder how they got so screwed over for so long.¨
Doing God’s work.
I just dont believe there is much discrimination based on race…..instead most people discriminate based upon lack of English skills.
Mike there was never any white flight that is a total lie.
Instead parents saw the next generation of kids on a Jail track instead of a college track and moved and so did black people
The English skills is a bit complex. Obama is black but is well-spoken in English. The neighbors on my block have only passable English but that’s not their first language. Angela Merckel appears to have no English at all. How do you compare?
How about a racism quiz: how many viewings of Hunger Games did it take to realize that a young black man outright kills a young white woman?
Mike there was never any white flight that is a total lie.
That’s an awfully broad statement. What you’re saying is that a not a single white American family ever moved out of a neighborhood because non-whites moved in. Even if the main cause of white flight was economic, it’s highly unlikely that you’re correct.
Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.
A lot of white folk need to get real on racism in America. The last former American black slave died in just 1971. The Civil Rights Act was just in the 60’s. And some whites think all of these attitudes and effects have just “gone away” because they are told so by some angry white dudes? To equate the current and historical societal impact of black on white racism to white on black racism is a joke.
It’s actually comes close to bordering on one of the definitions of “insane”.
in·sane adjective
in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction;
Take it from Louie CK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmzT4OV-w0
Ox…What was Malcolm X all about? Speaking English to become professionals and gain equal rights by showing “the negro” is just as capable as any other group.
Mike Mike Mike yes there were Archie bunker types but that was a small minority of whites…..it really was based on lack of achievement goals.
“Rare candor (editorial by Kareem Abdul-Jabar) from an MSM outlet about the growing divide between the increasing number of Americans below the poverty line and the .1% amassing ever-greater wealth and power for themselves (thanks largely to the Federal Reserve).”
The FED is definitely out of control and bears huge responsibility in the growth of the .1%, that’s for sure. Don’t forget the masters of the universe are also flooding our society with millions of the world’s poor and uneducated. They compete for entry level and low wage jobs with poor Americans, they also take a large portion of the finite resources dedicated to social and economic services.
Importing poverty and multiculturalism may create a permanent communist voting class, it may provide slave labor for the US chamber of commerce types, but it does nothing to improve the lives of poor black American citizens.
#ImportingPovertyFail
Importing poverty and multiculturalism may create a permanent communist voting class
Makes No Sense. USA’s history is in fact “importing poverty and multiculturalism.”
The difference now is not color. The difference now is a system that no longer rewards hard work because income and wealth inequality are off the charts.
Gross wealth and opportunity inequality can lead to communism way faster than a bunch of brown people.
Organized crime gangs in western Europe (mostly North African or eastern European) are becoming increasingly brazen in targeting the wealthy and their favored high-end stores as the dystopia created by the EU’s current political class continues to worsen.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/08/saudi-prince-convoy-robbed-paris-hold-up-201481871828799682.html
More Enron-style shenanigans by the usual Wall Street suspects playing speculative games with the nation’s electrical grid. When this goes off the rails, taxpayers as usual will cover all bankster losses.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-14/traders-lured-to-bet-on-power-overloads-worth-billions.html
Reminds me of the movie, IN TIME (2011).
In 2169, people are born genetically engineered with a digital clock on their forearm. When they turn 25 years old, they stop aging and their clock begins counting down from one year; when it reaches zero that person “times out” and dies instantly.
Time has become the universal currency; it is used to pay for day-to-day expenses and can be transferred between people or capsules. The country has been divided into “time zones” based on the wealth of the population. The movie focuses on two specific zones: Dayton, a poor manufacturing area where people live day-to-day, and New Greenwich, the wealthiest time zone.
It’s available on Youtube these days; very prescient, IMHO.
In California, bids doubled this year for transmission rights, which were granted an exemption from Dodd-Frank rules by federal regulators and are overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Wonder what the price tag was for that exemption.
Regardless, it just goes to show that crooked politicians and the lawyers who draft the legislation are the at the very core of the rot in this country.
Don’t confuse the monkeys with the organ grinders.
In a free market, price discovery includes drops as well as rises. In a central banker-controlled plutocracy, asset bubbles will not be allowed to fall unless/until the .1% has secured their bets to the downside. The BOE will either have to print more money or watch gravity catch up to London’s housing market (especially now that sanctions are spooking the Russian oligarchs who are taking their ill-gotten loot elsewhere).
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-17/london-home-asking-prices-plunge-most-in-more-than-six-years.html
Thank you Ben, for answering me yesterday about the FASB rule. I didn’t see this until later.
——————-
Comment by Ben Jones
2014-08-17 13:46:57
‘April 2, 2009 — The Financial Accounting Standards Board, pressured by U.S. lawmakers and financial companies, voted to relax fair-value accounting rules that Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. say don’t work when markets are inactive.’
‘Changes to fair-value, or mark-to-market accounting, approved by FASB today allow companies to use “significant” judgment in gauging prices of some investments on their books, including mortgage-backed securities. Analysts say the measure may reduce banks’ writedowns and boost net income. Firms could apply the changes to first-quarter results.’
…‘One of the dissenters, Thomas J. Linsmeier, argued that accounting rules already allowed the “fiction all banks are well capitalized,” adding that the changes would “make them seem better capitalized.”
———————
Better capitalized? I should say so! It’s like Toyota calling me up and saying that they “convinced” — i.e. $$$ — the Kelly car people to change the value of everything in th Blue Book to its new car value.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the banks pretty much had to run the table in order to create their bubble, and to sustain the bubble on the books even after it popped. Keeping just one safety in place could have stopped the whole thing. For example, requiring 3.5% cash down. Or demanding equal interest rates for all (what a concept). Or not allowing booking “deferred interest” as income now. Or requiring originators to season a mortgage by retaining 0.5% for 2-3 years. Or Congress attaching at least one string to that implied gaurantee of F&F. Or not allowing mark-to-market. Or — this would be my compromise — putting a sunsets on these relaxations.
Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of the Senate that the “banks own this place” and he was right.
“Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of the Senate that the “banks own this place” and he was right.”
+1 Money is the mother’s milk of politics.
Dick Durbin, for his part, preferred to prostitute his vote to defense contractors, trial lawyers, and big pharma/healthcare.
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2014&cid=N00004981&type=I
Your link shows his contributors, not his votes. Your focus on his role as a prostitute misses the point. It’s the defense contractors, etc. who have the power. It he chose not to do their bidding, he’d probably gone at the next election.
I’m guessing there’s a near-perfect correlation between the donations he collected and the votes he cast.
+1
keep it illegal in your states and keep sending all of your money here plz
‘there are many signs that legalized marijuana is increasing tourist visits to and interest in colorado, despite a reluctance by local officials to say so … that’s according to several recent national media reports on the matter … applications at colorado universities have increased by a third … denver was the third most popular spring break destination this year, ahead of any destination in florida, california and mexico’
http://m.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/broadway_17th/2014/08/more-signs-point-to-pot-boosting-colorado-tourism.html?page=all
But you still can not have a cistern in your backyard. Smoke pot, yes, but capture rainwater, no.
Where can you not have a cistern? In my area, my commie local gov hands out rebates for cisterns and rain barrels. Not for water conservation — capturing water slows down stormwater runoff and prevents it from flooding streams and carrying too many pollutants to Chesapeake Bay.
In other countries, benevelent capitalist corporations like Bechtel don’t allow individuals (who are wanting freedom, as usual
) to collect rainwater because they control the bottled water supply.
Open cisterns are dangerous for donkeys.
See why?
http://elifesmeaning.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/donkey-in-hole.jpg
How is the China housing market looking by now? (Please ignore if you’re not interested. )
China News
China Home Prices Slip Again in July
Developers Cut Prices as Sales Fall 10.5% Over First Seven Months of the Year
By Esther Fung
Updated Aug. 18, 2014 2:20 a.m. ET
A man talks on his phone near a new residential compound in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, May 11, 2014. The average price of new homes in 70 Chinese cities fell for the third straight month in July. Reuters
…
China Home Prices Fall in Majority of Cities on Weak Demand
By Bloomberg News
Aug 17, 2014 8:09 PM PT
China’s new-home prices fell in July in almost all cities that the government tracks as tight mortgage lending deterred buyers even as local governments eased property curbs.
Prices fell in 64 of the 70 cities last month from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data. Beijing prices fell 1 percent from June, posting the first monthly decline since April 2012.
“The falling trend of China’s property market has no sign of improving,” Shen Jian-guang, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd., said in a phone interview today. “The key issue is the mortgages, despite all types of local government easings. The high rate is damping sentiment of owner occupiers.”
…
Business
China’s House Prices Fall Further
August 18, 2014 1:11 AM
Build it and they will come. Many residential and commercial projects, especially in China’s smaller cities, have gone up like that but now there are concerns they could bring down the economy. The latest China housing prices for July confirmed the property market is softening. Average new home prices in 70 cities dropped 0.9 percent in July from June, the third consecutive monthly drop.
…
UPDATE 2-China home prices fall for third straight month in July
Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:27am IST
* July home prices ease from June, third consecutive monthly fall
* Prices still up 2.5 pct on year but slowest gain in 17 months
* New home prices fell in 64 cities m/m in July vs 55 in June
* Price falls deepened in small cities, decline seen continuing (Adds market reaction, details)
By Xiaoyi Shao and Koh Gui Qing
BEIJING, Aug 18 (Reuters) - China’s new home prices fell in July for a third straight month with price declines spreading to a record number of cities including Beijing, underlining a worsening property downturn that is increasingly dragging on the broader economy.
Average home prices slipped 0.9 percent in July on a monthly basis, Monday’s data showed, as the declines spread to the largest number of cities since January 2011, when authorities started releasing the property price data.
“We expect home prices to continue to drop in coming months due to an increasingly pessimistic market sentiment,” said Yan Yuejin, a property analyst at real estate services firm E-House China in Shanghai.
“The possibility of further moves by the central bank to loosen monetary policy cannot be ruled out. That would put a floor beneath prices,” Yan said.
…
China
Property activity continues declining as prices drop in more cities
English.news.cn 2014-08-18 13:36:53
BEIJING, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) — China’s property sector showed new signs of cooling in July, with more cities reporting month-on-month price drops, official data showed on Monday.
Out of 70 major Chinese cities, 64 saw month-on-month price declines for new homes in July, compared with 55 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
Only two cities — Xiamen in southeastern Fujian Province and Dali in southwestern Yunnan Province — saw month-on-month price gains in new home prices last month, compared with eight cities in June and 15 cities in May, the NBS data showed.
New home prices in Xiamen edged up slightly by 0.2 percent month on month while Dali prices rose by 0.1 percent.
Hangzhou, in east China’s Zhejiang Province, saw new home prices drop the most among the 70 cities, down by 2.5 percent from June. Sanya, on south China’s Hainan Island, dropped by 2.4 percent month on month.
For existing homes, 65 major Chinese cities saw price drops in July, up notably from 52 cities in June, according to the NBS. Prices of existing homes in Shenyang in northeast’s Liaoning Province decreased the most by 1.5 percent from June.
Only one city, Xining in west China’s Qinghai Province, recorded a month-on-month price gain for existing homes in July, up slightly by 0.1 percent from June, the NBS said. However, on a year-on-year basis, new home prices in 65 cities are still higher than a year ago, with only three cities seeing a price drop in July — Hangzhou and Wenzhou in east China’s Zhejiang Province and Shaoguan in central China’s Hunan Province.
The growth rates in the 65 cities moderated significantly in July, said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS.
Liu said many home buyers were taking a wait-and-see attitude due to uncertain market prospects, which led to month-on-month drops in home prices in more Chinese cities.
…
Smart money long gone from China property
PUBLISHED: 7 hours 31 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 7 hours 22 MINUTES AGO
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has sold about $3.5 billion worth of property on the mainland and in Hong Kong since August last year, according to the South China Morning Post. Photo: Bloomberg
If Asia’s richest man is any guide, the smart money started leaving China’s property market a year ago.
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has sold about $3.5 billion worth of property on the mainland and in Hong Kong since August last year, according to the South China Morning Post.
Analysts say the sales, via the investment company Hutchison Whampoa and some real estate trusts which he part-owns, indicate a concerted strategy to reduce Mr Li’s exposure to the Chinese property market. Li himself doesn’t like the sales to be highlighted.
But he is not alone.
Other big property investors, while not necessarily selling out of China, have certainly been diversifying their portfolios away from its troubled real estate sector. And Australia is among the overseas markets being targeted.
Just last week, it was revealed Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group and the richest man on the mainland, has committed $1.7 billion to Australian real estate including the construction of a $900 million beachfront resort on the Gold Coast.
The investment is part of Wanda’s push overseas. In the last few years, it has spent $US2.6 billion on American movie theatre company AMC, bought British luxury yachtmaker Sunseeker and announced $US1 billion dollar hotel developments in London and New York.
Wang and others are looking abroad because in China, developers are struggling with falling prices, subdued demand and tougher credit conditions. Residential property sales fell 17.9 per cent in July from a year ago, while developers’ inventories of unsold properties are now 25 per cent higher over the same period.
On Monday morning there was more bad news as the National Bureau of Statistics reported home prices fell last month in 64 of the 70 surveyed cities.
Still, China’s biggest residential property developer Vanke is keeping the faith.
After reporting over the weekend a small drop in first-half revenue and a modest increase in profits, Vanke said in a statement that in the long term “China’s urbanisation still has a long way to go” and that would drive demand and “fuel expansion of this industry.”
But even Vanke acknowledges the current challenges.
“Along with the transition from the industry’s golden age to silver age, the market will face greater short-term volatility, and competition between enterprises will intensify in future.”
Some of Vanke’s competitors are already feeling the effects of the transition to “the silver age.”
…
Crack….. crunch…..rip…..tear……
Tears.
You sound like my (former) wallpaper.
Another busy weekend on the mulch plantation?
Actually no. I finished up the redecorating. I have about a day of yardwork to do, but that’s it.
Articles linked from Drudge note that 7 people killed and 29 wounded in Chicago shootings this weekend, and 2 killed and 13 wounded in New York City shootings in just eight hours this weekend.
Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this? Because he can’t make any money from it.
+1
Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this?
Because it wasn’t a White cop in a Black town run by Whites, shooting an unarmed 18 year old Black man 6 times (including the eye and top of the head) in a quasi-southern state where the last racial lynching was only in 1942 in country with a brutal history of such things happening again and again?
I’m just guessing here - just throwing out some possible ideas.
Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this? Because he can’t make any money from it.
That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think that protests are going to change the behavior of violent criminals. Unless you’re talking about protests aimed at getting the cops to focus on those violent criminals instead of shooting shoplifters.
It was pretty funny watching the race pimps gear up to run and do some rabble-rousing in Ferguson, only to be told to f*** off by the disillusioned protestors who are finally wising up to the fact that hope ‘n change and civil rights “activists” have done jack sh!t for black communities.
It was pretty funny watching the race pimps gear up to run and do some rabble-rousing in Ferguson
I know. They are too uppity for protesting a White cop in a Black town run by Whites, shooting an unarmed 18 year old Black man 6 times (including the eye and top of the head) in a quasi-southern state where the last racial lynching was only in 1942 in country with a brutal history of such things happening again and again.
hope ‘n change and civil rights “activists” have done jack sh!t for black communities
If you don’t think repeated and sustained outrage to the reality of white cops shooting unarmed black teenagers will cause more cops to think twice and more training on the subject, then you are not paying attention to the gradual shift in cops/black-folk race interactions over the decades.
‘in a quasi-southern state’
Obama has had thousands of brown people killed, many of them innocent. He’s good at it. He said so himself, to a reporter.
I wonder if any of them got hit in the eye? Or were holding their hands up? Oh well, nobody cares about THOSE people.
For anybody else who is prepping for “Go Time” a repost of this Matt Bracken essay:
http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/bracken-when-the-music-stops-how-americas-cities-may-explode-in-violence/
And for those of you who can only accept the scripted narrative as written by the Media / Academia Race Hustlers Industrial Complex™, suggest that you go watch the 2014 Souper Bowl Coke commercial, it tastes great to wash down your Soma pills with.
Got 7.62×39?
speaking of ‘go time’
http://www.infowars.com/u-s-army-releases-action-plan-for-civil-unrest-during-ferguson-riot/
r.i.p. michael brown, you were just a pawn in obama’s go time game
department of homeland security agents pose as members of the new black panthers in the obama / holder false flag operation:
http://www.infowars.com/ferguson-riots-being-exacerbated-by-violent-provocateurs/
obama owns this. this is the ‘fundamental transformation’ that you were promised. race riots across the usa, blanket amnesty for 20 million illegals, ebola outbreaks resulting in thousands of deaths and mass quarantines, this is the perfect combination of events to ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ that is the progressive blueprint for governing.
molon labe
obama owns this
America owns the American 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Ugly Racism.
Sometimes Unfortunate Things Happen In The Heat Of A 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Racism
• Aug 14, 2014
By Thomas Jackson, Chief Of Police, Ferguson Police Department
As anyone in law enforcement knows, upholding the peace often comes down to making tough, split-second decisions. A police officer must assess his options quickly, especially when faced with resistance from potentially dangerous individuals. But try as we might, bad things sometimes happen in the heat of a 400-year-old legacy of racism.
It’s a situation every officer of the law will inevitably face: tensions escalate during questioning or an arrest when, suddenly, in the commotion of four centuries of bias against racial minorities in the United States, the situation takes a violent turn. When emotions run high, it just takes two seconds following dozens of generations of systemic social, economic, and political discrimination toward non-whites—particularly African-Americans—for things to get way out of hand.
Our officers here in Ferguson know that as well as anyone.
You don’t want violence, of course—no one does. But sometimes when you’re out there, in the middle of longstanding policies denying minority men and women the most basic human rights, you must take decisive measures. We train our officers to behave professionally and respectfully toward the communities that they serve. But no matter how much training and experience they may have, they are human beings who, in the bedlam of decade upon decade of racist enculturation and deeply institutionalized systems of inequality, may be involved in a tragic situation.
But it’s important to remember that for members of law enforcement, it’s life or death out there. Without any warning, an officer of the law can find himself in the mayhem of formal and de facto segregationist policies such as mortgage discrimination and redlining that made it impossible for people in the most dangerous neighborhoods to live anywhere else.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/sometimes-unfortunate-things-happen-in-the-heat-of,36690/
Goon, you seem like an intelligent enough fellow. Do you seriously believe that every bad thing that happens in our society is part of some evil design or the machinations of some hidden hand? Because it looks more like to me we’re just lurching from one grand cock-up to another.
China’s First Bond Default in Focus as Debtholders Meet
By Bloomberg News
Aug 18, 2014 2:58 AM PT
Holders of China’s first corporate bond to default onshore met today in Shanghai, as investors look for clues on how the government will balance market liberalization with steps to maintain stability.
There was difficulty assessing the overseas assets of Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. and no specific restructuring plan emerged from the gathering, according to Wang Xuejun, an investor in attendance. The solar-panel maker will issue a statement by tomorrow at the latest, Vice President Liu Tielong said when reached on his mobile phone after the meeting. More than 10 police cars were on the street in front of the company headquarters today around 2:30 p.m. as the gathering took place.
While Premier Li Keqiang said defaults may be unavoidable in some cases after Chaori failed to make a full coupon payment on March 7, the country has averted similar cases since. Widespread bond nonpayments would cause financial market turbulence, which can’t be allowed when the economy faces “relatively heavy” downward pressure, according to a front-page commentary in a central bank publication today.
Chaori only paid 4 million yuan ($650,755) of an 89.8 million yuan coupon due in March on its 2017 bonds, becoming the first company to default on a yuan note onshore. Shanghai marked a milestone in corporate bankruptcy in June when a court accepted a restructuring application for the manufacturer.
…
Do you consider yourself a bull living on borrowed time? Or a true believer that the stock market always goes up?
Bulletin U.S. stocks gain early; Dollar General, Family Dollar lead S&P 500 »
Why bulls are on borrowed time — but don’t know it
Outside the Box
This top trader sees 3 clear dangers for stocks
Published: Aug 18, 2014 5:01 a.m. ET
By Mark D. Cook
Three factors that put stocks in jeopardy are registering simultaneously, signaling a dangerous period for the market. Consider these three factors:
1. The Cook Cumulative Tick indicator (CCT) is at the greatest divergence ever seen since I began keeping records in 1986.
…
U.S. market history has seen only two previous occasions of the massive divergence, 2000 and 2007, which each led to greater than a 40% decline.
2. We have gone two full years without a 10% correction.
…
3. Market cycles are signaling an environmental change.
Bull markets do eventually end. Notable bull markets of the last 30-plus years have a shelf life. The longer they persist, the more ripe they become. The 1982-1987 bull market broke stock prices out of a long confinement below 1000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.63% The pent-up demand for equities generated a 200% gain during that span, the best percentage gain in decades. Stocks were the favorite asset of the 1980s. The period of late 1987 generated a harsh reality check to the buy-and-hold mentality. A 35% decline in prices was seen from late August until a bottom in December 1987.
The 1982-1987 bull market lasted five years, from August 1982 to August 1987. The 2002-2007 bull run bottomed in October 2002 and registered a top in October 2007, another five year span. Both of those bull markets ended in corrections exceeding 35%.
This 2009-2014 period is the longest continuous rally in more than 30 years, and comes at the tail end of the Fed’s quantitative easing. This current rally has exceeded five years, and gained almost 200%. Is too much inducement by the Fed a smart move?
Wise investors should heed these signs. History is a reference for the future; pay attention.
…
Have you snapped up any junk lately? As for myself, I’m planning to wait until Yellen & company announce when they are raising rates before considering any reallocation into high risk debt.
Markets
Big Investors Snap Up Junk Bonds
Institutions Take Advantage of a Recent Slide in High-Yield Bonds’ Price Triggered by Small Investors’ Selling
By Katy Burne
Aug. 17, 2014 9:03 p.m. ET
Large institutions are snapping up U.S. junk bonds, taking advantage of a price slide triggered by an exodus of individual investors.
Many big money managers say they remain bullish on these risky corporate bonds despite concerns that the market is overheated and worries that geopolitical unrest could fuel a rush to safer assets.
Their interest stands in contrast to a wave of selling by retail investors, who sucked almost $13 billion out of junk-bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the four weeks ended Aug. 6.
Analysts said upheaval in Ukraine, Iraq and Israel unsettled some investors, and concerns that prices were already too high drove some smaller investors to sell. They worried that the multiyear record-breaking run of junk bonds might be near an end.
That presented a buying opportunity for larger investors, who say the $1.6 trillion U.S. junk-bond market remains healthy and note that many bonds are now cheaper than before.
Gershon Distenfeld, who oversees $35 billion in junk bonds as director of high yield for AllianceBernstein, said his firm has been buying junk bonds of home builders and high-end retailers, anticipating they will benefit as the economy grows. It is avoiding energy companies whose profits are heavily reliant on natural gas prices and casino operators outside Las Vegas.
“Investors who panic in these selloffs—it’s the wrong thing to do,” Mr. Distenfeld said.
…
If you borrow enough time, you’ll die before you (personally) have to give any of it back. This underlying knowledge is how everyone sleeps at night.
Sounds oddly like you hope to die before your promises are called in! Don’t make that your only plan.
I snapped this at the fish market yesterday as it reminded me of all the suckers who bought a house in the last 15 years. SuckerFish with their heads on a platter.
http://picpaste.com/pics/d5ef782e4d79e3299271a234d347746f.1408378082.jpg
the gourmet life of the renter:
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20140614_183546_457-kN4HSNgQ.jpg
A fine variety of tater-less cuisine.
tater-less…
What about the Pringles?
Not
Paleo!
is that biscuit grass fed?….are the goldfish hand picked?
no, but that modus hoperandi india pale ale (ska brewing company, durango, co) was p*ssed into two oceans from the summit of isolation peak on the continental divide…
LOL!
My bottle cap is off to you. This Yankee has ceremoniously pissed into the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean on a bottle of Labatts.
Congratulation to both of you.
I will be happy to mail you some of my 1996 vintage Hillary Clinton urinal pads.
More of the “we can’t find qualified people*” myth….
*At what we are willing to pay
http:/tinyurl.com/lp83u2h
It illustrates an issue I’ve been seeing in the aviation business. Management keeps cutting the pay of high skill/high stress/odd working hours employees (then beat them to death with overtime), until they say “screw it”, and take a slightly lower paying/low stress/better hours job.
After all, why would you work on airplanes for $15/hour (with all of the attached liability/risk/responsibility/lack of resources/expenses/etc), when you can make $12/hour slinging boxes into a truck for FedEx?
It highlights a part of the screw job that someone told me JB Hunt worked on their drivers 10-15 years ago (which I’m sure is still happening)…….hire newbie truckers, make sure they makes lots of money right off the bat, until they decide to go “all-in” and buy their own rigs. Then, cut off their trips, until they will drive trips for practically nothing, just to keep the cash flow going.
The same scam is being run on kids trying to go into “health care”, because of “forcast shortages of health care workers”.
As long as immigration policies remain as they are, there will be no such thing as “worker shortages”
Hey, Mr Stockman……history did not start on June 22, 1941.
http:/tinyurl.com/p6kp9op
For starters…..why are there so many ethnic Russians living in Ukraine? Might it have something to do with the Stalin/Russian induced famines and purges of the 1930s? And could it be possible that the Ukrainians might not feel a sense of community and brotherhood with Russians for many years after such an event?
In many places, Ukrainians and Byelorussians were greeting German soldiers as liberators, until the Nazis started eliminating them for “Lebensraum”
Recommended: “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder
Stocks on a tear today as Wall Street traders salivate over the next gusher of free Fed gambling money they anticipate Yellen releasing.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-18/today’s-mindless-rally-its-jackson-hole-stupid
Try this link instead:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-18/today’s-mindless-rally-its-jackson-hole-stupid
We must be very near a high in the overall market.
If you look at stock markets in socialist hellholes like Venezuela, they continued to soar even as ordinary people scoured the markets for non-existent toilet paper to buy with their rapidly depreciating currency. Coming soon to a crony-capitalist kleptocracy near you.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-22/venezuela-about-run-out-food-despite-fresh-all-time-high-its-stock-market
A soaring stock market but no food on the shelves. Coming soon to a former Constitutional Republic near you.
Meanwhile, in A-Dan’s favorite Asian economic powerhouse, it appears systemic corruption is a bit of a problem.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/18/us-china-corruption-defence-idUSKBN0GI1Z220140818
Looks like the Chinese Generals use hair coloring products.
How’s that hope ‘n change working out for you, Black America? On an unrelated note, I see the Nasdaq hit a 14 year high today, so some of that one percenter wealth effect should be showing up for you any day now.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/18/protester-if-i-got-to-die-tonight-i-dont-mind/
London home prices take a hit as Russian oligarchs pull their money.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-18/uk-home-prices-have-biggest-august-plunge-record-russian-sanctions-sink
Diversification is the name of the game.
Last week, I gave a stock tip.
If anyone had listened it would have
yielded them several thousand dollars.
Here it is again
SDRL is a screaming buy!!!
Go shine some shoes, tip boy.
And you’re a screaming tard.
I own 315 shares of sdrl which is 40% of my holdings
and the dividend is just about to pay out
Warning, last week was a better entry point.
It could be getting a nosebleed soon.
Got tired of pimping your sister and decided to be a boiler-room pump & dump spammer instead?
Eat me pimp
Got tired of pimping your sister
?? Why??
Got tired of pimping your sister
?? Why??
What I mean is why would anyone say such a thing when a guy just touts a stock?
Seems way harsh for nada.
Little Al, I don’t have time to brush my teeth, let alone invest in single issues. I’m one of the legion who defaults to mutual funds not only for my own account, but for the kids’ Roths as well.
That said, I eat up your recommendations! I look up the companies, and reverse engineer why they might be so well positioned. I learn something every time! Truth be told, I DO act on your recommendations in a small way, and have never regretted doing so. Gives me the impetus to keep an eye on the holdings in a venue which otherwise seem like a ship of fools.
In my case, I’m afraid you’re throwing pearls before swine. I would indeed have profited from acting more boldly on SDRL and Yamana. But none of us can change his DNA. Mine tells me to hold my nose every time I plunk some hard-earned cash down, lol!
Thanks for your efforts to help us stay one step ahead of the poorhouse.
“Mine tells me to hold my nose every time I plunk some hard-earned cash down, lol!”
That’s exactly my approach to investing as well!
Neo-con stooge, Republicrat “opposition” candidate, and Wall Street fluffer John McCain continues his insatiable quest for endless wars for AIPAC.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article185085.html
Ground Control to Region IV
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Region IV?
Can you hear me, Region IV?
As cash-strapped municipalities rely on police to shake down motorists for money, red-light camera vendors colluding with corrupt police officials are making bank.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229311
phony scandals
phony scandals says phony scandals