Bits Bucket for September 5, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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With so much new residential construction in China sitting vacant, is there any chance Chinese builders will shift focus to California for new opportunities?
Chinese builder Landsea to invest $1 billion in U.S. housing market
China’s Landsea Group enters U.S. home-building market
A rendering of Landsea Group’s development in Dublin, Calif. (Landsea Group)
By Tim Logan
September 4, 2014
* Chinese home builder Landsea is starting its U.S. investment with three projects, including two in California
* Landsea’s move is one of the first entries by Chinese developers into the U.S. single-family home industry
* The number of Chinese-owned firms with an L.A. County presence has more than doubled in the last five years
A Chinese home builder is poised to invest $1 billion into the U.S. housing market, starting with two developments in California and one in New York.
The venture, by Nanjing company Landsea Group, could signal the beginning of a wave of Chinese investments in single-family homes in the U.S., part of a larger influx of Chinese money.
Landsea — which builds about 12,000 houses a year in mainland China and also develops in Hong Kong and Germany — comes to the U.S. amid signs that the red-hot market at home is cooling off. Building costs in China have soared in recent years, and lately prices have started to fall in many cities.
“The Chinese housing market is slowing down. In the U.S., it’s coming up,” said John Ho, managing director of the company’s U.S. subsidiary, at a celebration Thursday at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
“We saw an opportunity to diversify.”
…
whats a fair price for your house in your neighborhood?
Zillow sez $600K+ — up by 50% since the Bernanke targeted QE3 on housing prices beginning in January 2012.
P.S. I personally don’t put much stock in the Zestimates. We need to sell my folks’ home in the Midwest early next year. The Zestimate for their home is 28% inflated above the price of any recent comp within a 10 mile radius.
what price would you think about buying at in your s cal neighborhood? 200k?
Even if you discount the Zestimate, think about that. 50 percent increase. What if it is only 1/2 that? Still massively unsustainable. The real estate market does not work on a plateau or where there are only plus or minus 5 percent changes in price. It is like a shark that stops swimming.
This is what the bubble blowers have created and why all this donkeyism being defended here by shills their dupes is wrong.
Selling a house is super easy. Dutch auction will find you the market price.
people are afraid of all the legal forms and usually dont know where to find them
“Fair” has noting to do with it. We and all our competitors are profitable at $55/square foot.
mobile homes at 55?
permits and fees plus land will run you 100/ ft before u put up a 2×4 in placer county.
You were schooled on that one a while back. A building permit is $500.
Nice try though.
750k
My Zestimate went up again… to a figure so inflated as to look ridiculous. 25% in 2.5 years??? Come ON. The only way my house would appreciate like that is if I had added on a master suite or a made a legal rental in the basement.
Why are you Zillowing your house?
Because hbb asked. And to remind myself that I’m not underwater. And to follow trends. Why do people keep posting articles about China or Australia? Are they going to buy there?
The fact that you couldn’t be made whole if you sold today is the definition of underwater.
Honk Honk!
‘Why do people keep posting articles about China or Australia’
It’ll become clear soon enough.
“It’ll become clear soon enough.”
Can’t wait to say, ‘We told you so,’ again.
could signal the beginning of a wave of Chinese investments in single-family homes in the U.S., part of a larger influx of Chinese money.”
Beginning ?? helloo…
The US needs money so why not sell out the last of the middle class lifestyle to over crowded china ? Then India ?
There are places in Irvine CA I don’t think they speak English anymore or Spanish
Ghost cities model coming to the US? Oh, joy…
This is funny. The Chinese are going to help crash the market by selling AND building. I wonder if they’ll be confused about the way losses work.
Landsea is building 200 SFHs in Simi Valley (So Ca). I believe the planning commission already approved it. I’m hoping it’s not on or near the Rocketdyne accident area. I would hate to think the new owners would glow in the dark.
Let me guess: they will bring their own Chinese labor, who once their construction jobs are complete will become undocumented migrants and wage slaves.
Local
Chinese Firm To Build 200 Homes In Simi Valley In Billion-Dollar US Investment
September 4, 2014 8:30 AM
SIMI VALLEY (CBSLA.com) — A Chinese home-building company is breaking ground on dozens of new homes in Simi Valley as part of a $1 billion plan to invest in the U.S. housing market.
KNX 1070’s Ed Mertz reports the Landsea Group looks to expand its investment in America even as the housing market in China continues to cool.
…
Ronald Reagan is buried in Simi Valley. I imagine he will turn over in his grave when Red Chinese firms begin new home construction nearby.
It seems that people pay a big premium for s cal real estate cause they think it will keep going up at much higher rates than everywhere else.
I have to imagine as prices go higher a lot of people will leave looking for affordable housing. Is there going to be enough rich people to offset the people that will leave?
A friend of mine was telling me there small house roughly 1500 sq ft in el cajon ca is worth 400k. I’m thinking 200k at most.
With demand for housing collapsing to 20 year lows in CA, it seems people think housing is toxic. We agree.
It’s not what they think about housing, it’s what they think about the prices. Anything which is overpriced suffers a demand shortage.
It seems that people pay a big premium for s cal real estate cause they think it will keep going up at much higher rates than everywhere else.’
Chinese don’t want to live in Arizona Too many crazy red necks with guns, etc.
They’re scared of AZ, but they like south central LA? Boy, the Chinese must be REAL stupid.
“…they like south central LA?”
I recall them snapping up investment properties around Detroit…for a while, at least.
The Reagan Library is a shrine around here. We use to live in Wood Ranch, an upscale area across the road from the Reagan Library. The RL is a cool place to visit ONCE.
Is the eurozone economy saved, now that QE is in place?
ft dot com > Comment >
Opinion
September 3, 2014 7:08 pm
Quantitative easing would sow the seeds of crisis not recovery
By Michael Heise
The policy could push the eurozone in the wrong direction, writes Michael Heise
The sun shines behind the euro sign outside of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt Main, Germany, 01 August 2013. ECB announced the interest rate has remained at the record low level of 0.5 percent even though there are signs that the economy is improving in the euro zone. EPA/BORIS ROESSLER©EPA
The fear of a descent into Japanese-style deflation is starting to influence monetary policy making in the eurozone.
Inflation in the currency union continues to creep downwards, standing at 0.3 per cent in August. The European Central Bank is contemplating whether to follow the central banks of the US, the UK and Japan in implementing a programme of quantitative easing, buying assets in large quantities.
But such a strategy would not prevent a Japanese-style “lost decade”. It may in fact lead to the very predicament it aims to avoid.
There are several reasons why the ECB should not go down the route of QE. First, the recent low inflation rates are in part a result of the decline in oil and other commodity prices. They also reflect necessary adjustments in the eurozone periphery – wage moderation and the impact of structural reforms are feeding through into lower prices across the board, which is exactly what countries such as Greece and Portugal need to restore competitiveness and bolster purchasing power.
There is no sign of a vicious circle of falling inflation expectations and consumer restraint. Inflation rates will gradually climb again as the economy recovers.
Second, although the ECB has several options when it comes to implementing QE, there are serious objections to all of them. Buying asset-backed securities or corporate bonds would expose the European taxpayer to credit risk. If the ECB bought bonds issued by eurozone governments in proportion to each country’s output, its intervention would be focused on Germany, where bond yields have already hit rock bottom, with the 10-year yield now below 1 per cent. But any programme of asset purchases that concentrates on the slower-growing economies would result in a politically unacceptable redistribution of risk in the eurozone and set the wrong incentives for fiscal policy.
Third, the impact of further monetary easing on output and price levels would be negligible. That is because the recession in many parts of the eurozone is caused by the hobbling effect of the unsustainable amounts of debt that were built up by public and private actors during the boom years. Over-indebted households and companies are unlikely to pile up more debt; on the contrary, they are trying to pay it down. This makes monetary policy ineffective.
Fourth, the collateral damage from ultra-loose monetary policy is accumulating. Risks to financial stability are growing as investors are piling into riskier assets in search of higher returns. Already, some assets such as junk bonds are trading at what look like inflated prices.
Fifth, further monetary easing would delay the much-needed adjustments in the balance sheets of European banks and companies. An abundance of cost-free liquidity from the central bank enables commercial lenders to continue propping up weak creditors. It is exactly this type of “zombie lending” that has curbed growth in Japan for more than a decade.
…
Is this the game? They do their QE, then things slow down, then we do ours, then that momentum runs out. Then they do another one and on and on?
4 September 2014 Last updated at 10:38 ET
Robert Peston, economics editor
ECB’s last roll of the dice
ECB president Mario Draghi said the bond-purchase initiative is a break from the bank’s history
Today is a big day in the history of the Eurozone, for three reasons (always good to have the big three).
First an ideological Rubicon has been crossed by the European Central Bank (ECB) - because in trying to cut interest rates and increase the supply of credit in a stagnating Europe, it is engaging for the first time in a form of quantitative easing.
For the avoidance of confusion, its QE will be purchases of private sector bonds - what are known as asset backed securities - rather than government bonds.
But as the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said in his press conference today, this bond-purchase initiative is a break with the ECB’s history, in the sense that the bonds are being bought rather than pledged to it as collateral for cheap loans.
Risk transfer
The significance, as I am sure you don’t need telling, is that the risk of the bonds or private sector loans going bad will transfer to the European Central Bank when it buys such bonds, rather than (as hitherto) simply holding them as security.
Or to put it another way, Eurozone governments - and the German government in particular as the biggest shareholder in the ECB - will now be taking the risk of lending to businesses and (presumably) households, and will incur losses if the loans are not repaid.
…
Draghi Sees Almost $1 Trillion Stimulus as QE Fight Waits
By Simon Kennedy
Sep 5, 2014 2:14 AM PT
Mario Draghi signaled at least 700 billion euros ($906 billion) of fresh aid for his moribund economy and left a fight with Germany over sovereign-bond purchases for another day.
Pledging to “significantly steer” the European Central Bank’s balance sheet back toward the 2.7 trillion euros of early 2012 from 2 trillion euros now, the ECB president yesterday announced a final round of interest-rate cuts and a plan to buy privately owned securities. His mission: to revive inflation in the 18-nation euro area.
Fully-fledged quantitative easing as deployed in the U.S. and Japan wasn’t enacted amid a split on the 24-member Governing Council, with Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann opposing the new stimulus and others seeking more. The latest round of measures pushed the euro below $1.30 for the first time since July 2013 and sent European bond yields negative.
The steps “probably reflect that President Draghi does not have unanimity, or a large enough majority for quantitative easing,” said Andrew Bosomworth, a Munich-based portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co. and a former ECB economist. “The ECB is ready to do more if more is needed.”
…
2:24 pm ET Sep 4, 2014
Central Banking
Does the ECB’s New Stimulus Amount to QE?
By Matthew Dalton
After years of reluctance, did the European Central Bank finally announce a quantitative easing program on Thursday? That depends on your definition of QE, which must rank as one of the most vaguely-defined terms in economics.
But broadly speaking, it seems like the ECB finally crossed the Rubicon into the territory of quantitative easing, even if President Mario Draghi didn’t explicitly label Thursday’s moves as such.
What is QE?
It isn’t just a central bank buying bonds. For example, the Federal Reserve in normal, noncrisis times buys and sells short-term U.S. government debt to set interest rates. It was only after the crisis hit in 2008 that the Fed started to buy significant amounts of other stuff: first, $600 billion of mortgage-backed securities and debt issued by the U.S. government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae (FNMA -4.07%) and Freddie Mac (FMCC -3.56%); later on, hundreds of billions of longer-term U.S. government debt and other assets. With short-term rates basically at zero, the Fed needed some other tool to boost the economy. Buying a broader range of assets other than short-term government debt should help drive down interest rates across the economy, bankers and economists believe.
Yet former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in 2009 said that what the bank was doing didn’t count as “pure” quantitative easing. “Our approach—which could be described as ‘credit easing’—resembles quantitative easing in one respect: It involves an expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet. However, in a pure QE regime, the focus of policy is the quantity of bank reserves, which are liabilities of the central bank; the composition of loans and securities on the asset side of the central bank’s balance sheet is incidental.”
Mr. Bernanke seemed to be splitting hairs. Here’s a rough definition: QE is when a central bank buys a quantity of assets other than short-term government debt to set monetary policy.
…
Ya gotta love an article about mortgage resets which uses a photo of a twister as a metaphorical reference to the content.
Black Knight: HELOC Reset Storm Approaching
by MortgageOrb.com Tuesday September 02 2014
In July, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a report warning mortgage servicers to prepare for the resetting of millions of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), out of concern that a high percentage of borrowers could end up defaulting on these loans once the higher interest rates become effective.
“Mortgage borrowers may face challenges as [HELOCS] near their end-of-draw periods,” OCC officials wrote in their bulletin dated July 1. “As HELOCs transition from their draw periods to full repayment … some borrowers … may have difficulty meeting higher payments resulting from principal amortization or interest rate reset, or renewing existing loans due to changes in their financial circumstances or declines in property values.”
…
This is what HELOCked borrowers facing resets have in store.
As someone’s father-in-law said, “fugg ‘em.”
“Ya gotta love an article about mortgage resets which uses a photo of a twister as a metaphorical reference to the content.”
A twister seems like a surgical strike whereas a HELOC hurricane would present a wider swath of RESET destruction.
‘Mortgage crisis’ is coming this winter: Bove
Jeff Cox
Tuesday, 2 Sep 2014 | 11:33 AM ETCNBC.com
A toxic brew is bubbling in the housing market that will lead to a mortgage crisis by winter, banking analyst Dick Bove said.
Now that the Federal Reserve is nearly done with its monthly bond-buying program, which includes mortgage-backed securities, and Washington continues on its quest to unwind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, conditions could get dicey in the home loan market.
Bove envisions a scenario in which long-term financing, like the ubiquitous 30-year mortgage, that has come with fixed interest rates is endangered as mortgage buyers dry up.
“This means there will be less money available to fund housing, and the terms of the available funds will be considerably more onerous than what was available under 30-year, fixed-rate loans,” Bove said in a report he sent to clients Tuesday. “This means higher monthly payments and lower housing prices. It means a crisis in the mortgage markets—and the economy.”
…
4:31 pm ET Sep 3, 2014
Housing
How Taxpayers Subsidize Freddie Mac
Because of a relatively obscure quirk in the mortgage market, taxpayers in effect subsidize Freddie Mac (FMCC -3.56%) to the tune of $400 million to $600 million annually, according to an Urban Institute report released Wednesday.
Freddie Mac, along with competitor Fannie Mae (FNMA -4.07%), plays a central role in the bond market by backing and issuing securities whose payments are drawn from homeowners paying off their mortgages.
Freddie and Fannie’s securities trade separately. However, their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in August unveiled a plan to combine them and opened a 60-day comment period on the proposal. Unlike broader housing-finance reform, which so far hasn’t received enough congressional support to move forward, the proposed single security could happen without legislation, the FHFA says.
The issue is extremely important to bond investors, who trade the securities, and somewhat important to borrowers, whose rates could be affected by changes in the mortgage-backed securities market. The change could also mean the end to a long-held competitive disadvantage held by Freddie Mac, which the report says has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being lost annually by taxpayers.
The report was co-authored by Laurie Goodman, director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at Urban, and Lewis Ranieri, who is chairman of Ranieri Partners and co-inventor of the mortgage-backed security.
Here’s what’s going on and why it matters.
…
Mountain View, CA Sale Prices Plunge 13% QoQ
http://www.zillow.com/mountain-view-ca/home-values/
Home prices are not falling in Mountain View.
And they’re going to continue falling until they reach the bottom.
Remember….. housing has yet to bottom.
The only thing reaching the bottom is your head because it’s shoved so far up there that you’ll never realize that renting is throwing money away and paying your landlord’s mortgage.
Falling housing prices angers you Amy.
Arlington, VA Housing Prices Plummet 15% YoY As Inventory Skyrockets 111%
http://www.movoto.com/arlington-va/market-trends/
Home prices are not falling in Arlington.
Housing prices are falling nearly everywhere.
Why buy when you can rent for half the monthly cost? Buy later after prices crater for 65% less.
Getting a little testy, are we sweetie?
Can’t get your burger-flipping and phone bank operator ‘clients’ to bite on those $500K starter homes any more? (aka ‘the pool of 1st-time homebuyers’)
Learn a real trade and maybe you’ll get a job where they let you deal with professionals for clients.
Are you still sleeping in your leased Lexus, Amy, or did they repo it?
HSBC - the British bank that recently paid a slap-on-the-wrist fine for laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels - is addicted to Chinese QE. What happened to the stodgey, conservative banks of old?
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/09/04/hsbc-turns-into-china-stimulus-junkie/
Under Obama’s “Hope and change Goldman Sachs can believe in” only the top ten percent of Americans saw their income rise while the rest fell further behind.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/4/incomes-fell-most-families-past-three-years-while-/
Oh yeah? Well Ronald Reagan was president 30+ years ago, so it is obviously his fault.
Saint Ronnie is innocent. It’s all Dubya’s fault.
The last time a Republican won the presidency without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket was 1928.
Ronald Reagan was president 30+ years ago, so it is obviously his fault.
You sound like Reagan’s director of the OMB.
David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/08/01/206517/david-stockman-how-gop-destroyed-the-economy/
The “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”
Cue the FoxNews denunciations.
David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, has dared to call out his own party for creating our current economic problems. His NYT op-ed, “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse,” begins:
IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing.
Given our long-term deficit problem, Stockman said it is “unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.”
….Here are some more excerpts from Stockman’s must-read piece:
More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts “” in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance “” vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.
This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one….
The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.
Well that didn’t take long - each QE is have less effect than the one before.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-05/europe-stock-futures-fall-before-u-s-data-ukraine-talks.html
‘President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain have called on NATO to reject “isolationist” impulses and confront the rising terrorist threat posed by Sunni militants in the Middle East’
Does it say in the constitution that the President has to ask NATO to go to war? And why is that our “biggest ally in the region” never gets dragged into these things?
Anyone else notice how Obama’s MSM lapdogs have turned on him since he went wobbly on the AIPAC-neocon agenda?
Abraham Foxman would like to have a word with you.
I don’t know who Foxman is, but I’m asking seriously. If Israel is our biggest ally in the region, how come they never get involved in these things? We’ll drag Germany in, Greece, Canada, even Japan. It just doesn’t make sense that it’s never even mentioned. It’s not like they are afraid to shoot, and we often hear that they can turn Iran into a greasy spot.
I agree Ben….And, on a bigger scale, why is it that china never does squat to assist in matters that effect the whole world…Terrorism for instance…Is it because their borders are so closed that they do not worry about it and their attitude is why should we spend one Renminbi on the middle east ??
They sit back and let everyone else do the heavy lifting while they focus only on themselves…Time to take the gloves off with those ba$turds…
Foxman is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, which was founded as a well intentioned civil rights organization. This article discusses what it has become today:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/12/adl-spies/
‘why is it that china never does squat to assist in matters that effect the whole world…Terrorism for instance’
They just shot several hundred “terrorists” down.
China isn’t an ally of the US. In fact, Obama is doing his Asian Pivot to challenge them. They don’t have ships or troops in Iraq. We do, and more arriving every day.
‘matters that effect the whole world’
I can’t remember the global vote that put China in charge of such things. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the US winning a vote like that either. When you say effect, how so? Like a guy getting his head cut off? Foley was captured in Syria, IIRC. Do you know that 190,000 people have died in Syria during this civil war? The US and others have been aiding the “rebels” for a long time, including this ISIS bunch.
It’s regime change. Where have we heard that before?
And do the deaths of 190,000 “effect the whole world” less than one man (who chose to be over there, BTW) being killed on youtube?
If Israel is our biggest ally in the region, how come they never get involved in these things?
Maybe it’s because some of them have read The Book of Revelation. Maybe it would quadruple the size of isis.
Armageddon (from Ancient Greek: Ἁρμαγεδών Harmagedōn,[1][2] Late Latin: Armagedōn[3]) will be, according to the Book of Revelation, the site of gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or symbolic location. wiki
China isn’t an ally of the US.
This Map Shows Which Countries Prefer China Over The US
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-shows-which-countries-prefer-china-over-the-us-2014-9
The power struggle between China and the U.S. was thrust into daylight last week when a Chinese jet intercepted a U.S. naval patrol plane over the South China Sea. After the fact, the U.S. military said its plane had been flying routine patrols in international airspace. The Chinese military said the airspace was theirs and that the U.S. needed to stop conducting close surveillance of its territory.
China’s economy is poised to surpass that of the U.S. sometime early in the next decade, and the jet intercept is just the latest signal of a geopolitical shift that has forced the U.S. to share the world stage with the East Asian superpower.
It makes sense, then, that other nations would choose sides. So who’s the favorite?
“Anyone else notice how Obama’s MSM lapdogs have turned on him since he went wobbly on the AIPAC-neocon agenda?”
Maybe the Messiah is doing a shake-down a-la JJ Rainbow style?
They are still carrying plenty of water, just ramping up for the Lame Duckacy.
I stand corrected. Obama just saw the light. The MSM will love him anew.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-press-conference-isis-ukraine-nato-iraq-syria-2014-9
Mitt Romney editorial argues for more Military-Industrial Complex™
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-the-world-needs-a-mighty-us-military/2014/09/04/f5234064-342d-11e4-a723-fa3895a25d02_story.html
More oligarch financial chicanery that will end up falling back on taxpayers.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-04/secret-network-connects-harvard-money-to-payday-loans.html
make everything more exspensive by printing lots of currency and people have to get loans, nice!
Health care is now 18% of GDP, just wait until ‘Merica eats its way up to making that 30%, LOLZ
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/04/the-states-where-americans-are-the-most-and-least-obese/
Please stop fat shaming. Where is our Social Justice Warrior to fight for the underprivileged fat people?
Nobody is shaming, it’s a celebration of American Exceptionalism.
This is what the Permanent Democrat Supermajority looks like:
http://www.picpaste.com/fat-kid-mcdonalds-769134-769471-QBobqw5y.jpg
Even mentioning fat or obesity on the internet is shaming.
‘a 2010 study published in the journal obstetrics & gynecology found that nearly 40 percent of overweight women and 10.5 percent of obese women believed themselves to be underweight or of normal weight.’
http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/most-americans-are-overweight-but-dont-know-it-140617.htm
I’m doing my part… started exercising more and eating less. So far I’ve lost almost 7 lbs in 2.5 weeks. No fad diets, no pills or shakes. Just more running and less calories.
My goal is to lose 30lbs and get back to my prime, post-Army Basic training weight.
My goal is to lose 30lbs and get back to my prime,
It was easy when I moved to Rio - the heat, diet and lifestyle is an automatic program. Beans, beach, walking no high fructose corn crap.
“My goal is to lose 30lbs and get back to my prime, post-Army Basic training weight.”
+1 Wow!
After 20 years of not moving iron, we recently resumed, heavy weights and all. I’m developing a pump and vascularity already and down to 215 from 224. 204 is my old and new target. 248 is my hideously obese high.
Lola isn’t factual on much but (s)he’s spot on with the corn syrup. I’ve sworn off domestic Coke for breakfast and now drink the Mexican version. I’m down to a half bag of Cheetos per week from a full bag daily. NFL Sundays will never be the same.
Northeasterner, use myfitnesspal.com and you will stay on track. I lost 12 lbs in three months. I thought I was buff in May. But I am very toned now. I figure 9% body fat. I completely stopped added sugar and keep my sodium under 2000 mg daily. Yes I count sodium.
I am starting to see defined abs in my mirror.
Dialysis and mobility scooters at no-cost to you!
Hold onto and save every penny you can get your hands on. You’re going to need it.
If your paranoia ever comes true then I would certainly rather have hard assets than paper.
U and paranoid bill should convene.
Gold and cash equivalents is aways a good idea Poet.
And stay healthy, eat right. No more cheetos
“No more cheetos”
“No more cheetos”
… grimace
With demand collapsing in every sector of the economy and oversupply skyrocketing, just what is it you think is going to happen?
more printing and more debasement of your currency?
With simply leads to ever collapsing demand.
Hang on to your dollars.
Oh bugger! Everything was coming up roses, and now this…
Bulletin
U.S. stocks fall after weak jobs data; Gap, Michael Kors lead S&P decliners
Economic Reports
‘Disaster in August jobs!’ and more payrolls reactions
Published: Sept 5, 2014 9:10 a.m. ET
Robert Schroeder
Politics reporter
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Here’s a roundup of comments about Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report, showing 142,000 jobs were created in August — far fewer than expected by economists. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 6.1%.
…
Call me when the down passes 14K.
Economic Report Get email alerts
Hiring slows as U.S. adds 142,000 jobs in August
Published: Sept 5, 2014 9:17 a.m. ET
Unemployment drops to 6.1% to match a six-year low
Fast food workers demonstrate outside McDonald’s downtown flagship restaurant in Chicago. Companies are hiring more workers in almost every industry, but they aren’t offering much better pay than they were a few years ago.
JeffryBartash
Reporter
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Hiring in the United States slowed in August as the economy created just 142,000 jobs, marking the smallest gain since December.
The deceleration in hiring last month ended a six-month streak in which the U.S. added at least 200,000 jobs a month, the best stretch of job creation since 2006. The number of jobs created also fell well short of Wall Street’s forecast calling for a 228,000 gain.
The disappointing employment report drove a gain in bonds, as yields for the 10-year Treasury (10_YEAR, -1.51%) fell. U.S. stock futures (SPY, -0.21%) held to a tight range.
…
I guess walmart and mcdonalds cut back hiring?
Look at the other thread, construction cut back hiring. Construction job losses have been accelerating in Az. And that only went thru July. When the construction job losses in Az for August come in then you will know why investors, banks and hedgies are dropping prices drastically now to get the sh-t out of the goose.
Unemployment at a six year low! Mission Accomplished.
How do housing prices and other costs of living now stack up to in 1989?
The American family makes $200 more a year than it did in 1989
By Rex Nutting
Published: Sept 5, 2014 7:50 a.m. ET
$200/yr leveraged 50X means $10K more per year in mortgage payments! Yay!
The American family makes $200 more a year than it did in 1989
Report Card:
34 years of following Supply-side economic philosophy: F
linked from drudge, which should be obvious, because anytime you see the cbslocal dot com domain, you know it’s a drudge link
‘the nation’s capital ranks second in a list of ‘the 10 snobbiest cities in america,’ according to rankings from movoto. only san francisco prevented washington from claiming the title of the us’s snobbiest city.’
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/09/04/d-c-ranked-one-of-americas-snobbiest-cities/
Give Drudge some credit. Terrible jobs report but he’s still sensationalizing the death of a sour old crone.
Posted September 4, 2014 - 3:49pm Updated September 4, 2014 - 7:08pm
Nevada’s share of Tesla plant could hit $1.3 billion
By SEAN WHALEY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
CARSON CITY — Gov. Brian Sandoval will ask state lawmakers next week to approve a deal to bring a Tesla battery plant to Nevada that will result in essentially no taxes being collected from the electric car manufacturer for nearly a decade.
In exchange for a package of tax breaks and credits that could reach $1.3 billion, the company would build its Gigafactory in Storey County east of Reno, bringing 6,500 high-paying jobs and a $5 billion near-term investment. Total investment is expected to reach $10 billion over time.
The state and local tax breaks could ultimately total $1.1 billion over 20 years, and tax credits $195 million.
The proposed incentives include sales and use and property tax breaks along with hiring and investment tax credits.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/nevada-s-share-tesla-plant-could-hit-13-billion
As my partner noted on this, the press is playing this as money that the state is paying to Tesla…however, if Tesla never moves there, it’s money that the state would have never gotten in the first place.
It’s not the same as raising $1B in new taxes on the citizens to pay for a giant government boondoggle.
In the meantime, it will increase employment in Reno by about 10%. That’s really a big deal.
The deal goes to vote on Tuesday…I’m assuming the governor has the backing of all the right politicians–probably just a rubber stamp at this point.
because warmists gonna warm
http://www.businessinsider.com/99999-certain-humans-cause-global-warming-2014-9
Cartoon of the day from your friend resident of the State known as ILL-ANNOY!!! This is what happens when you have the likes of Quinn and MAD-AGAIN running the asylum.
Good day peeps!!!
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/leaving.jpg
Monterey County, CA Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY As Housing Inventory Billows Statewide
http://www.zillow.com/monterey-county-ca/home-values/
Home prices are not falling in Monterey.
Amy… help us get the word out there and post it on all the major internet outlets.
Sammy:
Yesterday, you failed to read my comment and implied that my owning neighbors just don’t like me because of my personality. If they are similar to you, then certainly they would not like me. You are a misogynist, and I am a feminist, so that would preclude any liking between people like me and people like you. Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually like girls?
Anyway, learn to read.
And crater.
I like girls. You might be just a liiiiiiiiitle too spunky, though.
“I am a feminist”
LOLZ
I love women who know how to be women. I steer clear of needy, neurotic, insecure harpies who suck the life out of whatever hapless soul they latch onto.
I have yet to meet a “feminist” who didn’t have a very unfortunate physiognomy. I think we’re getting to the root of your bitterness.
Never Let A Woman In Your Life
Published on May 16, 2012
This a song type narration by Prof. Henry Higgins in the all time Great musical “My Fair Lady”.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/six-figure-incomesand-facing-financial-ruin-1409936418
Why this bubble is never going to end:
————————————–
“I felt entitled,” says Sylvia Flores, who is 40 years old and lives in Oceanside, Calif.
Sylvia Flores ran up some $300,000 in credit-card debt before deciding to put her financial house in order about three years ago, after getting divorced and remarrying. It wasn’t her first brush with borrowing woes—Ms. Flores declared bankruptcy in 2005 after amassing about $500,000 in debt.
————————————–
Wiped out some portion of $500k in debt in 2005, and then was allowed $300k more in credit card debt by 2011. Must be nice.
“Sylvia Flores ran up some $300,000 in credit-card debt before deciding to put her financial house in order about three years ago, after getting divorced and remarrying.”
Who would marry a woman with $300,000 in credit-card debt?
Who would marry a woman with $300,000 in credit-card debt?
Someone with a similar level of financial sense?
Region VIII checking in.
Crap jobs number, stock market goes up.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229377
More “fundamental transformation” - record high joblessness.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/record-92269000-not-labor-force-participation-rate-matches-36-year-low
The participation rate in that article includes nearly every one over the age of 16. It’s a useless statistic. Its increase represents the aging of the population. A more useful rate is available. It just includes people in the age range 25 to 54. It’s up a couple percent from its recession low. This represents a feeble recovery, but it is an improvement.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L65tEV-TRAY/VAm4BZ–JlI/AAAAAAAAgfU/xltA3-v8_-s/s320/EmployPop2554Aug2014.PNG
It just includes people in the age range 25 to 54. It’s up a couple percent from its recession low.
So it is fine, in your opinion, if the population aged 55-65 are unable to find gainful employment?
I agree that trimming the 16-25yr range from the computation might make sense; I disagree on trimming everyone who is 55 and still a LONG way from collecting SS.
I agree that trimming the 16-25yr range from the computation might make sense;
Better yet, how about we only trim the young ones who are in school? Unemployed at 19 and not getting an education should still count as unemployed and “not participating”.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-these-amateur-home-flippers-found-their-niche-in-real-estate-155020348.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/04/it-only-takes-10400-to-be-richer-than-most-millennials/