Bits Bucket for September 10, 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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11 ways you know you live in a country run by idiots:
1. If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally, you live in a country run by idiots.
2. If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion, you live in a country run by idiots.
3. If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor or check out a library book, but not to vote on who runs the government, you live in a country run by idiots.
4. If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy leaders in Egypt, you live in a country run by idiots.
5. If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat, you live in a country run by idiots.
6. If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched, you live in a country run by idiots.
7. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more, you live in a country run by idiots.
8. If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of grade school for saying his teacher’s “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, you live in a country run by idiots.
9. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing and free cell phones, you live in a country run by idiots.
10. If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working, with 99 weeks of unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can’t find work, you live in a country run by idiots.
11. If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government, you live in a country run by idiots.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-09/11-ways-you-know-you-live-country-run-idiots
What do you say about a citizenry that allows itself to be run by idiots?
‘the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter’ — winston churchill
The Ice Bucket Challenge gets more attention than the midterm elections.
Then again, none of the plutocrats that actually run the country are on the ballot.
Exactly Ben. The Congress and President perfectly represent this country. The voters are the idiots. The Congress and President are only the agents of the voters.
This nation has been dumbed down for decades and the lowest form of humans are the ones who think voting makes a difference and they are the ones who vote.
Here’s George Carlin on voting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
The Congress and President are only the agents of the voters.
That is hilarious. Yea right. Our current politicians represent the interests of the majority of voters. Got it.
If hard work and success are met with higher taxes,
Taxes for the rich are at an all-time low. That’s a country run by idiots.
Wait, if taxes for the rich are at an all-time low, but average Americans are still shilling for lower taxes for the rich, then maybe our country is not run by idiots.
If you believe that “taxes on the rich” will not be utilized as a spin vehicle to raise taxes on the middle class, then maybe YOU are an idiot.
If you believe that “taxes on the rich” will not be utilized as a spin vehicle to raise taxes on the middle class, then maybe YOU are an idiot.
Who cares about spin this, spin that? That just clouds the main issue. Let’s look at facts and history.
If you believe taxes can’t be raised on the rich without raising taxes on the middle-class, or that raising taxes on the rich without raising taxes on the middle-class has not been done in the past, then maybe YOU are an idiot.
The income tax was passed as a 1% tax on income of the 1% to pay for ww1 in 1913. A constitutional amendment had to be passed to allow it because the writers of the constitution originally saw that direct taxes would be (ab)used to tax the regular citizen. Now tell me how that didn’t propagate to become a general income tax on the middle class with huge paperwork burdens and all kinds of incentivized deductions in the income tax code?
I’m dying to see.
Btw, if you’re calling for a return to a 1% income tax on the top 1% of income and eliminating all other income taxes, then I’m willing to champion your cause. Perfectly happy to have the rest of the revenue made up by a financial transaction tax of 1% also btw.
Perfectly happy to have
How about being “perfectly happy” to join the modern world of which you and yours benefit from. Grow up. The world is not “putting you down”.
The same slack-jawed wonders who fell for hope ‘n change in 2008 and 2012, or the even worse alternatives of McCain and Romney, will shamble into the voting booth in 2016 to vote for Hillary or Jeb Bush - the same candidate, in other words. And once again they’ll subsequently realize they were sold a bill of goods, though they lack the mental capacity to see the link between their votes and America’s accelerating decline.
George Carlin in “Why I don’t vote:” If you have selfish ignorant citizens you’re going to get selfish ignorant leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA
“11 ways you know you live in a country run by idiots”
And sadly enough, it’s possibly even worse on the local level.
The threat of ‘big small government’
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-29133755
It has long been an assumed truth in US politics, particularly in conservative circles, that the most effective government is local government.
But has the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager and the subsequent violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, exposed this belief as fundamentally flawed? What if local government, closest to the people, can be the most oppressive?
“The city’s white-dominated council governs a mostly black city, and its oppressive, biased justice system is an instrument of fiscal (in additional to social) domination. Court fines account for a fifth of the city’s revenue. Police officers disproportionately search black drivers, even though they disproportionately discover contraband among white ones. The city issues three warrants per household, and its draconian justice system appears designed to bleed its victims.”
The New Republic’s Franklin Foer comes to a similar conclusion:
“What Ferguson shows is that the heart of the problem is, in fact, small government - the cops, prosecutors and their bosses with an inflated sense of their powers. The great and growing threat to liberty in this country comes from states and localities run amok.”
Americans are surrounded by “big small government”, he says. “We simply haven’t trained our minds to notice it.”
What all this means, perhaps, is that, as a polity, we’re unhealthily obsessed with the federal government”
It isn’t the federal government that overregulates certain professions - plumbers, beauticians, and taxi drivers, for instance - it’s local governments. It isn’t the federal government that drives up housing costs with burdensome zoning regulations, he says, it’s local governments.
Foer also identifies civil forfeiture laws as a source of small-government oppression.
“Authorities can unilaterally confiscate cash or property that it considers illegally begotten; many states then place the proceeds straight into its own coffers to fund further crime-fighting,” he writes. Government authorities often can do this without even presenting criminal charges.
I think that few would argue that local government is better by definition, it’s not. The argument is that there is a higher probability of success at the local level if the citizens actually mobilize and try to do something about it when it’s bad.
OTOH, if the citizens sit back and let government happen to them, the end result is much the same on every level.
Another way of putting it is that the effects of bad local government are more acute, whereas national government spread their misery out over a much wider area.
“Another way of putting it is that the effects of bad local government are more acute, whereas national government spread their misery out over a much wider area.”
Well said. And it can get awfully acute. I posted about shakedown cities yesterday, but in some localities it’s really more of an American apartheid system, or a modern-day bureaucratic plantation system. I’ll re-post the links.
How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty
by Radley Balko
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/
St. Louis County Sounds Like One Big Shakedown Racket Targeted at Black People
by Ben Mathis-Lilley
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/09/04/st_louis_fines_system_washington_post_reports_on_tickets_arrests_in_ferguson.html
I posted about shakedown cities yesterday, but in some localities it’s really more of an American apartheid system, or a modern-day bureaucratic plantation system.
America practices institutionalized racism. Institutionalized racism has not gone away in America. Brazil has racism, but I’m not aware of any institutionalized racism in Brazil on any scale close to those St. Louis institutionalized racism examples. (Talk about continually beating an already oppressed people into the ground.) Pathetic.
Americans are surrounded by “big small government”
This is true. What a lot of conservatives complain about is “big small government” but they mistakenly blame the Federal Government.
“We simply haven’t trained our minds to notice it.”
Yes. Please see above.
What all this means, perhaps, is that, as a polity, we’re unhealthily obsessed with the federal government”
To a great extent, yes.
Arbitrary police fines (as revenue-raisers) had already been blamed for increasing tension between authorities and the community in Ferguson: now the city is planning on collecting even more money through policing. What could possibly go wrong?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/ferguson-courts-system-fines-residents-council
Do you buy into a stock market rally you simply don’t believe is legit?
Do you pay 3x for a depreciating asset like a house knowing the losses built in?
The UK’s establishment political parties - the Tories, Labor, and Lib-Dems - issue a plea for Scotland not to go its own way. Maybe if these parties had governed for the benefit of the nation and it’s people instead of for the City of London banksters, Goldman Sachs, the EU, and the globalists, things wouldn’t have come to this.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c43c9a14-3846-11e4-9fc2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3CubVxQG2
“There is a lot that divides us – but there’s one thing on which we agree passionately: the United Kingdom is better together,” the three main political party leaders said in a joint statement. “Our message to the Scottish people will be simple: ‘We want you to stay’.”
I’m Scottish on both sides of the house. When I was growing up, I was taught to favor independence for the Scots.
And, whenever “Scotland the Brave” was played on our radio, everything came to a screeching halt. We stood at attention and listened. That was Mom’s rule.
I am Scottish as well, Skye being the island of my family.
I’d love to see the centuries of colonization by England come to an end, although I doubt my cousins are up to the shock.
I had one set of Scottish grandparents (the other Irish.) A few times in the 70’s my grandmother and great aunt took me with them to visit the relatives; they all were fervently in favor of Scottish independence. It was funny being called “hen”.
My grandparents’ parties were like this scene in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” -
We Have a Piper Down - only in a Manhattan apartment. We’d also go to Madison Square Garden to see the Black Watch.
Maybe if these parties had governed for the benefit of the nation and it’s people instead of for the City of London banksters, Goldman Sachs, the EU, and the globalists, things wouldn’t have come to this.
The leaders of the Scottish independence movement want to remain part of the EU, and also NATO. They also want to continue to use the British pound as their currency, even when they’re no longer part of Britain. That last part would be the most foolish of their “globalist” policies.
They could bring back the pound scotts on par. The Scottish banks already issue currency, all they have to do is change the engraving a little. All the pound currencies are from the Roman lira. It didn’t hurt England to keep using the pound after Rome fell apart.
If the “on par” part meant that they would declare to the world that their pound would always be exactly equal in value to the British pound, their monetary policy would be determined by a foreign government. That wouldn’t really be true independence from London.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-10/black-swan-scotland
The market does not like uncertainty, and even if Scots vote for continued union, the polarization on both sides will continue to create problems.
Buenos dias Region IV
Para Espanol, marque el numero dos
Another day, another bevy of news on crashing commodities prices…
If this trend takes hold, I may soon be able to actually afford to fill my gas tank again!
RPT-COLUMN-Lower commodity prices no longer sparking higher Chinese imports: Russell
Tue Sep 9, 2014 8:00am EDT
By Clyde Russell
LAUNCESTON, Australia, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Commodity producers worried about the outlook for Chinese demand have another reason to fret, with the relationship between pricing and import volumes appearing to break down.
China’s imports of crude oil, iron ore and coal have followed a fairly consistent pattern since the 2008 global recession, rising when prices decline and moderating when they increase.
But this year has seen an almost complete breakdown of this inverse correlation for coal, and what may be the start of a similar process for iron ore and crude oil.
The conventional wisdom in the coal industry up until this year was that once it became clear the market was oversupplied, the best option for miners was to push for export volumes while trying to lower operating costs.
The theory was that if the coal was cheap enough, China, the world’s biggest importer, would soak up the extra volume, allowing for economies of scale and ultimately survival in what had become a structurally low-price environment.
This worked quite well, with coal imports rising in tandem with price declines.
When the price of spot thermal coal at Australia’s Newcastle port, an Asian benchmark, starting dropping from its post-2008 high of $136.30 a tonne in January 2011, Chinese buying jumped.
Coal imports rose from 6.76 million tonnes in February 2011 to 35.1 million in December 2012.
The Newcastle price was down to about $86 a tonne by the end of last year and Chinese coal imports reached a record 35.9 million tonnes in January this year.
However, since then, coal imports have been dropping steadily, falling to 18.86 million tonnes in August, the lowest since September 2012.
This decline has happened despite the continued slump in prices, with Newcastle coal dropping to $67.45 a tonne in the week to Sept. 5, a four-year low.
IRON ORE ON THE SAME PATH?
…
Repost from yesterday
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-09/single-americans-now-comprise-more-than-half-the-u-s-population.html
The top-rated article comments are enlightening
Singles have more fun and are less likely to be obese.
Singles have more fun
Link?
Regarding less likely to be obese - no link but this is from my observation over four decades. In my 20s I was working out regularly. I noted a colleague and his wife were obese (each happened to be born on the same day of the year I was born, but one of them was a year older than me). A few years later my colleague would be coaching his kids swimming. He was still obese.
30-somethings - they were both sedentary and did not want to go out in the evenings.
40-somethings. Fat.
50-somethings - grossly fat.
All married.
Even myself when I lived with my girlfriend she was an incredible cook. She could have opened her own restaurant. I did not notice until my supervisor mentioned I should be near 200 lbs - last time I checked I was 172. By golly he was right. And later pictures of my girlfriend - she also gained weight and I did not notice. We were both gradually gaining fat. We had each other. We won our trophies so no longer needed to be looking good for the hunt.
Now about the “fun” part - no link, but chronic or serious illness is certainly no fun. I had an girlfriend (different one) who went through Chemo and radiation a couple months ago. Because she was sedentary and ate food that “tasted good” most of her adult life. She even told me years ago when we were together she’s a hedonist. It’s fun to feel great after a very healthy lunch - low sodium, moderate calories, whole foods. It’s fun to accomplish lifting heavier weights than the previous week or doing more pushups. It’s fun to see your abs becoming defined. It’s fun to not feel like your at death’s door, but several years younger.
………….It’s fun to see your abs becoming defined…………..
Dude, who cares about your abs?
I asked for a link that said “singles have more fun”. You said it. I don’t believe it.
Yes the comment section makes that article into the hall of fame posts. Thanks for posting.
Also still have the link Oxide put on HBB - from NYTimes on buying versus renting. Makes me rent forever.
The top-rated article comments are enlightening
Wow, there was a lot of shaming there by the White Knights. But the handwriting is on the wall, the current generation of men are not interested in marriage. And no amount of insults will change that.
Still looking for the Unicorn™
Never married
Does not have kids
Does not want kids
No tattoos
No depression/anxiety meds
Show me a woman under age 35 like this and that’s the Unicorn™
If you go young enough, you can probably find one with those characteristics, except for the middle one. A pretty large portion of all females of child-bearing age want to have kids. On the other hand, if you go old enough, the middle one won’t matter.
In some ways, though, your list indicates pretty low standards. You don’t include high school graduate, no criminal record, or no STDs.
Tattoos are a reliable indicator of education level, bad credit, daddy issues, criminal record, and/or promiscuity/STDs
That’s why they’re called Unicorns™
In my early 40s I had a 50-something Brazilian girlfriend. She was in terrific physical shape and (ahem) very frisky. So age is not really an issue.
daddy issues,
Oh come now—a touch of daddy issues isn’t always a bad thing…
Because 84 month auto loans are for loosers
http://www.businessinsider.com/luxury-cars-dont-impress-smart-people-2014-9
And Bill in Los Angeles = WIN
Subprime Auto
Driving an old economy car with a bland paint job makes me unattractive. I like that.
Every other twenty something pecker-head up here has a maturity issue, a lower lip packed with tobacco and they’re driving $50k pickup trucks.
I have more respect for Orange County residents than Los Angelenos. The home moaners in OC typically drive average cars, although you see some big shot upscales occasionally. In L.A. it’s the opposite. It’s like the article said. The younger people and renters tend to drive very high end cars. My apartment complex in L.A. was surrounded by BMW’s, Jaguars, Lexus, Audis, Infinitis, although a few Hondas, Toyotas, pickup trucks, and Nissans. My former colleague in L.A. always reminded me “In L.A. you are nothing if you have an economy car.” He drives an Infiniti G35. About 9 years old maybe but he pays a fortune for routine maintenance. 20-something young software hotshot at that company bought a brand new Infiniti G37 for $40,000 two years ago.
I laugh in my 2003 Toyota economy car.
• As the bubble ramps up, the sheep are being fattened, and they’re happpy.
• As the bubble deflates, the sheep are slaughtered.
Bubbles are a very good way to transfer wealth from outsiders to insiders, with the occasional lucky outsider making a post-bubble profit as well.
I just saw another piece from popular left-leaning economist (Nobel Laureate) in which he said that bubbles aren’t necessarily a bad thing: It’s not a bad thing for the Davos crowd with whom he hobnobs, that’s for sure. For the average citizen, bubbles strip wealth from them. For the society at large, bubbles cause malinvestment, which can hinder future economic growth.
Bubbles are the trick of making a the bubble participants feel richer while all the time they are actually becoming poorer.
precisely. It’s all a means to divert attention from the price.
“As the bubble deflates, the sheep are slaughtered.”
As the bubble deflates, debtors and lenders are skinned alive.
A house for sale here in MoCo, MD sold in 2006 for 610K
In February it was ‘offered’ for sale at 570K. The listing said “Won’t last. Offers reviewed after three days”.
The price continued to drop.
Today it is for sale at 450K. “Buyer wants offers. Possible short sale”
This downturn is going to be fun.
Whatever house it is, it is almost certainly not worth $570K and the realtor knows it. They have to start there, looking for an idiot buyer to pay off the bad 2006 mortgage.
That said, what was the Zestimate of this house in 2011-2012? Some analysts have pegged 2011-2012 as the bottom of the market. This “downturn” could very well stop at the 2012 mark.
Also, how old is this house? Short sales are notorious for being trashed and needing $30K worth of work. That will also be reflected in the price.
“This “downturn” could very well stop at the 2012 mark.”
That wouldn’t be very entertaining. Nor would it be healthy to continue levitating the market at manic levels on and on at any cost. The longer a real correction is postponed, the more pain builds for later.
2011 (and 2004) price levels are just one step down from bubble peak and an hundred above anything sustainable.
Donk….. The small decline in prices still resulted in resale prices 250% higher than long term trend. That’s the fundamental of your problem. You overpaid by a huge amount.
I’ve never look at Zillow nor do I have any desire to do home research on there. I’m a firm believer that it’s only as valuable as what you can get paid for it. I know economist will disagree with me on that, but I’ve always gone with “the past doesn’t reflect the future” - or to quote Jim Leyland from the Tigers “That’s yesterday’s breakfast”. 2006 and 2014 prices are already ‘Yesterday’s breakfast’.
And this house, with zero curb appeal has been remodeled a lot. So much so that the realtor has put pictures of the inside on the outside fence. And what is this realtors little slogan on her website? “Dedicated to keeping your home values high”
Absurd.
There isn’t a house on the planet that we can’t build for half that amount.
Hint….. it’s not “the land!”either.
Your have never put a 2×4 have you?
A closer look at some of our “allies” in Ukraine. Oddly enough our MSM never reports on this aspect of the story or the implications of the score-settling to come.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis
More evidence of the asset bubbles Yellen doesn’t see: $1 million for a Manhattan parking space.
http://www.businessinsider.com/42-crosby-street-parking-spaces-for-1-million-2014-9
The oligarchs won’t like this - Scottish nationalist leaders laughs off the idea of London collecting Scotland’s share of the national debt.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/scottish-independence/salmond-accused-of-laughing-off-national-debt-with-what-are-they-going-to-do–invade-joke-9723997.html
Those enamored of China’s ability to build empty apartments, empty malls and empty train stations are missing the big story, which is China’s boom is unraveling one person and one trade at a time. While the production of new subway systems and empty cities is definitely impressive, those focusing on capital projects are missing the erosion of faith in the China Boom story and the erosion of the foundations of the Boom Story: foreign direct investment, shadow banking, the real estate bubble and a central planning-dominated economy.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.mx/2014/09/how-china-boom-unravels-one-person-at.html
Number of aging Americans paying student loans soars
People aged 65 and older still carrying some $18.2 billion in unpaid student loans
by Scott Malone | Reuters | September 10, 2014
The rising cost of higher education is dogging Americans into retirement, with people aged 65 and older still carrying some $18.2 billion in unpaid student loans, according to a federal report released on Wednesday.
While the Government Accountability Office report noted that relatively few U.S. households headed by people 65 or over are carrying student loans, the value of the unpaid debt had spiked from $2.8 billion in 2005, before the financial crisis.
That debt is concentrated in a small number of homes. Just 4 percent of households headed by someone 65 or older carried student loan debt as of 2010, up from 1 percent in 2004.
U2 needs to hang it up, they haven’t recorded anything worth listening to since Rattle & Hum. Hanging with the i-Phone-6 launch and Davos crowd is a real turnoff to your fans, and your music sucks
A corporate band pimping itself to a corporate behemoth. And a 50-something guitarist who still calls himself “The Edge.” Wanker.
And speaking of wankers, Piers Morgan’s tenure as CNN’s in-house anti-Second Amendment propagandist - which crushed his already anemic ratings - is a distant memory, as his faithful shilling of the oligarchy’s party line caused disillusioned viewers to switch off en masse. Safe to ignore, indeed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/rupert-murdoch-on-unemployed-piers-morgan-once-talented-now-safe-to-ignore-9724332.html
“And a 50-something guitarist who still calls himself “The Edge.”
How about the Stones still doing it after all these years. Fred and Wilma, Barney and Betty.
The Stones don’t give themselves gay names like “The Edge” or prance around like posers pretending to be socially conscious. With Mick & the boys, they are what they are. Hedonistic dinosaurs.
Stones don’t give themselves gay names like “The Edge” or prance around like posers
No. I love the Stones’ music but Mick’s prancing live has always detracted from the great music. IMO
And before they sucked, when they were good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0k1uk4Sihk
Iggy & the Stooges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH6iDPhUjWs
Oh my, Amy. Remember, cat food isn’t just for cats.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-mortgage-applications-fall-latest-week-mba-111208002–sector.html
Cratering housing demand is a painful reality. And it’s not going to stop until prices fall to early 1990’s levels.Tune in tomorrow for more compelling data sure to enrage useless lying realtors and hopeless home debtors.
See you bright and early.
It isn’t that housing demand is cratering, it’s the reality that in the Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen economy, living wage jobs and the middle class are disappearing. The current prices are unsustainable in the current economic death spiral.
President Liar is on pimping more bloodshed.
Good job CIA.
Cops Can Take Your Stuff Without Convicting You of Anything
http://www.vice.com/read/cops-can-take-your-stuff-without-convicting-you-of-anything-908?utm_source=vicefbus
I recently started slowly moving out of 52-week Bills and into 2 year notes.
http://tinyurl.com/q9jqgoz
The chart above is of the last four years. Rates are slowly moving up again after bottoming for about sixteen months. If I had 3 years worth of cash I’d be in 3 year notes, which yield double the 2 years.