Bits Bucket for September 26, 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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1st post
CRATER
Enrage-A-Tater.
Crater
Donate to the Wigs for Bald Eagles fund. Click on Ben’s link.
Duluth, GA Sale Prices Sink 10% YoY; Housing Demand Collapses 18% Statewide
http://www.zillow.com/duluth-ga/home-values/
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/State/State_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
garbage
Data Az_Fraud data. Stick with the data!
Key Largo, FL Sale Prices Crater 17%QoQ; Down 13% On Month
http://www.zillow.com/key-largo-fl/home-values/
A M Y
SHEEP
B R O K E
F R A U D
If I have to stop this car, then you are ALL getting smacked.
Are we there yet?
Goon hit me.
funny
Charlie Bit Me!
Another day in paradise
Asking prices for houses in England and Wales flatlined in September for the first time in 19 months, according to a survey on Friday that showed a small fall in prices in London.
Property data company Hometrack said house prices stagnated in September for the first time since January 2013, after rising 0.1 percent in each of the previous two months.
London was the only region in which house prices fell - by 0.1 percent - with fewer than 1 percent of London postcode districts reporting higher prices.
The survey is the latest sign that Britain’s housing market has cooled after strong house price growth in the first half of this year, hit in part by tougher checks on mortgage applicants and more sellers putting their properties on the market.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/uk-britain-economy-houseprices-idUKKCN0HK2SU20140925
soaking up the free healthcare ?
dental looks good
“dental looks good”
The Queen’s subjects have the fugliest looking teeth.
Teeth with character
Can prices fall “small” in London? I’ll bet that “small” turns big pretty quick.
Almost October. Never been a better time to buy stocks or real estate.
daytrading is back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRUqBm9GFI#t=1027
Mark Hulbert
Opinion: Wild stock market ride is just beginning
By Mark Hulbert
Published: Sept 26, 2014 5:50 a.m. ET
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wild-stock-market-ride-is-just-beginning-2014-09-26?dist=beforebell
How long can you keep creating currency to patch holes?
Sounds like the QE3 taper is proceeding right on schedule, to the considerable consternation of Wall Street.
can folks continue to get rich off creating more currency? Seems like the people who are doing well are well connected to the printing press.
Is this why the founders wanted the currency backed by something?
Seems like we have a small group of people controlling the currency and who gets what?
You’re boo hooing again Az_Fraud.
your a waste of time
Data Az_Fraud. Don’t let it crush you.
A coworker recently opined that everyone’s 401k is tanking. The market is at all-time highs. I need it to tank so I can buy value. If this is the general definition of “tanking”, then I’d hate to hear what people think about a true correction.
People have a hard time remembering 6,500 back in 2009?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!
“can folks continue to get rich off creating more currency? ”
It doesn’t matter how much currency there is. It matters who has the most of it.
Is this a good time to DCA into stock market riches?
Seem’s like a lot of these publicly traded companies are extremely overvalued but everyone is looking the other way.
The FED keeps encouraging this casino like atmosphere.
I wish. How am I ever supposed to get ahead with prices like this?
Gold is dipping again and stock futures are up after yesterday’s minor hiccup. As I said, never been a better time to buy stocks…
Now stock futures are tipping to red.
Spoke too soon?
I decided that I better stop having an opinion about the stock market. The people who matter (TPWM) are reading my comments and making everything happen backwards. It’s all a part of an intergalactic experiment, with me at the center of it. I’m convinced.
This won’t end well.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-25/5-us-banks-each-have-more-40-trillion-dollars-exposure-derivatives
When is the U.S. banking system going to crash? I can sum it up in three words. Watch the derivatives. It used to be only four, but now there are five “too big to fail” banks in the United States that each have more than 40 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives. Today, the U.S. national debt is sitting at a grand total of about 17.7 trillion dollars, so when we are talking about 40 trillion dollars we are talking about an amount of money that is almost unimaginable. And unlike stocks and bonds, these derivatives do not represent “investments” in anything. They can be incredibly complex, but essentially they are just paper wagers about what will happen in the future. The truth is that derivatives trading is not too different from betting on baseball or football games. Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized gambling, and the “too big to fail” banks have transformed Wall Street into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will), the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than words can describe.
If they are “too big to fail,” then they are “bailout-worthy” — i.e. if a derivatives crash leaves them bankrupt, the printing press will be used to rescue them.
So where is the problem?
There is something wrong with a legal system that allows banks to have exposure to derivatives, while still allowing them to be too big to fail. IMO, if you are going to take that kind of risk, then you are a cowboy and you’d better carry your own sourdough starter.
Hogwash.
Underlying values would have to crash and banks would have to be stuck with the paper.
The crashing part might happen within some underlying “commodities” but it would be scalable - I think I read the global is about 3 T in exposure !
Do you really think the banks would take ownership ? After how many years of court fights ?
Simple lack of leverage without libor ability would crash the banks much faster.
Its called a run on banks.
Generally caused by a lack of confidence.
Is crony capitalism destroying your GDP numbers? No problem: boost them with drugs and prostitutes as vice replaces the oligarch-looted productive economy. Spain (with a Goldman Sachs alumni as its leader, unsurprisingly) just added billions to its GDP that way. Coming soon to a Wall Street-looted economy near you.
http://rt.com/news/190772-spain-gdp-crime-boost/
I’d prefer the drugs and ho’s. At least that economy is based on goods and services.
What are these banks doing, other than coming dangerously close to unconstitutionally coining their own money?
Apple fanbois are wringing their hands.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/iphone-6-bendgate-and-ios-8-glitch-take-bite-of-apple-as-nearly-23bn-wiped-off-stock-market-value-9757068.html
If the same software glitch happened with microsoft or anybody else for that matter it would not have made much news…Many are just looking for an opportunity to take Apple down…Like the bending Iphone 6…When is the last time you took your cell phone in your hands and tried to bend it ?? Whomever, is just looking to find “something” wrong…Trying to kill the momentum…If their is a software glitch, apple will fix it…If a “bending” Iphone is really a design flaw, apple will fix it…I will be buying the new apple Iphone product soon…I have ‘zero” concern about it “bending”…
You don’t need a reason to take Apple down, it’s taking Apple fanboys down a peg. They are as bad as crossfitters, they just can’t shut up about it.
The iphone was cool back in ‘07. It hasn’t been doing anything leading edge in years. Ooooh bigger screen! Yeah, Android phones did that 3 years ago…..beyond that, what is the big deal with the iphone
Nobody cares about the latest cell phone or app. Just not important to a person’s life. Might as well drone on about blenders or hem lengths.
Has the flight to quality (and safe haven) begun? Precious metals are the ultimate antidote to the Fed’s deranged money-printing.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/24/us-usa-mint-coins-idUSKCN0HJ23B20140924
Yes. And $17.7 trillion in debt and growing by over $2 billion per day. And still the average Joe is supporting the expensive meddling in other nations.
The last time this happened, the housing market crashed. Be afraid, Amy. Be very afraid.
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/09/25/last-time-this-happened-the-housing-market-crashed/
Homebuilder KB Homes, when it reported earnings for the quarter ended August 31, revealed that the average price of the homes it sold rose 9% to $327,000. In the West, prices jumped by 20% to $579,700. With these juicy price increases, sales in dollars were up 7% from a year ago. But the number of homes it sold actually declined by 2%. That’s how the housing market in America operates these days – even at the high end that KB Homes serves.
At the same moment, the Commerce Department reported that new home sales suddenly jumped by 18% in August from July, and a breath-taking 33% from August last year, after having been in the doldrums or declining for months (PDF). But the margin of errors are elephantine (±16.3% and ±21.7% respectively), so a grain of salt comes in handy.
With such an enormous jump in sales, if it doesn’t get revised back down next month, you’d think that inventories of homes for sale would have been drawn down during the month. On the surface, that happened: supply dropped from 6 months to 4.8 months. But…
even at the high end that KB Homes serves ??
Just the opposite….KB Homes is the low end builder….
Silicon Valley. Haven’t been up to Santa Clara for over a year my new boss doesn’t fly me up there.
Guy I work with is renting his San Carlos ( up the peninsula I think I got the name right?? ) house out and buying another one in Carmel Valley near Del Mar. Doesn’t want to sell the San Carlos house in case he wants to move back.
These are million dollar homes. Oh well that’s the way most high tech people think a million is no big deal so why not own 2 ?
Yeah, right. He is keeping it because he thinks the price will go up. If he wanted to move back, then he could just sell the existing house and buy another one later. Can’t break even on the rent, so why keep it? Just a hassle.
…
I was wondering why all these news sources seemed to be reporting on an alternate reality.
More on KB..
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/homebuilders-look-out-below/
I recall in 2006 San Diego and Las Vegas were the first two areas where new house prices were being cut by those builders. That to me was the beginning of the end of the bubble.
So townhouse a few doors down is for sale at $490K. Zillow says owner bought at $500K in 2005.
Asking rents are normally around $2300-2400 but I rented mine via craigslist for $2050. Always paranoid I’m going to have to pay more.
Lots of for sale signs but I’m new and can’t really judge.
Rather be in detached housing product, and it’s hard having a bunch of friends over because parking is limited. All the guest spots are taken all the time by other residents.
One neighbor is cool, another one isn’t (maybe they don’t like renter scum who knows.) Very diverse and transient.
Looking for ways to increase my salary.
Then meet your friends at a public place and save a large fortune by staying out of a corrupt housing market rife with fraud.
Monthly carrying costs on $500k mortgage at 5.5% interest:
$1500 interest
$625 likely property taxes
$400 likely maintenance (averaged throughout the years)
$IDK homeowner’s association dues
The rent is eaten up by carrying costs even before you get to the HOA fees, my man. No wonder they’re willing to eat $10k on the sale. They are going to lose more than that if they keep the gator any longer. They have lost more than that already.
“Lots” of For Sale signs is never good in September.
When residents fill the guest spots, that’s a sure sign that your nabe is packing 3 incomes in one house. Are the cars lucky duck mobiles? As a side note, in DC area, detached homes aren’t much better for parking. DC detached was built up during the 1-car era, so all the driveways are 1 car wide. I’ve seen nabes where the residents “paved” half the front yard with 200 square blocks from Home Depot.
A large, nice-looking, well-kept house went up for sale for a short time recently in my nabe. They decided to rent it out instead. The owners took about a month to make that decision, probably because they’re underwater. The new tenants are 3-4 single adult males. We predicted on this blog that McMansions would be converted into multifamily homes. It is happening now.
“Looking for ways to increase my salary.”
Be as mobile as possible. That’s the Bill in LA way.
One neighbor is cool, another one isn’t (maybe they don’t like renter scum who knows.) Very diverse and transient.
I am proud to be renter scum and driver scum (driving an old paid off Toyota economy car).
The exit from my complex heading west is very busy with cross traffic and since my complex is surrounded by $500k and up houses, the motorists are usually home moaners. And half of them are rude, refusing you to merge in - I can read their minds: “renter scum!”
The fact is the apartments where I live have some very decent people. And these people would be evicted if they did not pay their rent. Not so for some of those deadbeat nabes. The home moaners in the cars who snub us are unaware of how more civilized we are than they are.
I’m probably thought of a scum to all my colleagues. I’m one of 2 out of 16 of us who is neither married nor has kids. And I drive the least expensive car. On my white board is an Arab proverb I picked up from a license plate in Irvine: “The greatest tranquility is when we deire nothing.”
Well I do desire one thing: financial freedom. Most of the people I work with are snobs. But they do not know my net worth. They have no need to know.
But I owe my colleagues this: They usually do not put more than 40 hours in per week and neither does the boss. They are too busy with their families. And maybe that’s why they resent me. I have so much spare time and spare change. They don’t know my net worth but I can work out 90 minutes per day. I don’t have to answer to anyone at home. I can do whatever I want
Most of the people I work with are snobs. But they do not know my net worth. They have no need to know.
I guess we should feel privileged that you reveal your financial secrets to us online. At least tell me that they know about the master-swimmer whole grain six-pak!
Maybe, just maybe, your colleagues don’t give a rat’s ass about your marital status, your renter status, or your net worth. Just sayin’….
You have a point there, Ray. These are, what, educated Californians who are baby boomers or younger. It’s quite possible that most of them don’t care about Bill’s marital status, etc. Maybe Bill just likes to presume that.
Bill seems rather self-absorbed. Just an observation. Though he’s one of the good guys and he’s carrying the fire.
^
He carries water for the cause which is far more important than my or your personal opinions of him.
Lawnmowership is way too underrated.
LOL! Best one yet.
I’m about to patent emo grass. It cuts itself.
“I’m about to patent emo grass. It cuts itself.”
+1 Or stops growing at a certain height.
article discusses the fed’s alleged policy of 2 percent inflation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/25/why-is-2-percent-the-federal-reserves-inflation-target-because-it-is/
not happening at the grocery store
or at the gas pump
or in college tuition
or in health insurance
Colorado higher education price index more than doubles for 2014
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2014/09/25/colorado-higher-education-price-index-more-than.html
Median household income here $52,000
Median price of shack here $280,000
“This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush, 2008
When the Frauderal Reserve discusses inflation, they’re talking about wages.
Debt donkeys gonna donk
Article notes that 4.8 percent of metro Denver shacks are underwater, compared to 10.7 percent nationwide
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_24570236/number-homes-underwater-denver-metro-decline-dramatically
Buy a $500,000 starter home today with no down payment and you will be hundreds of thousands of dollars underwater within a year
There is no such thing as “pent-up demand”
And realtors are liars
D-FW homebuilders end strong summer
Nelson said Weekley has sold 40 homes locally in the last three months and is expanding its locations to include more urban neighborhoods in Dallas.
Weekley’s new neighborhood off Northwest Highway in Lake Highlands is already topping expectations, he said. “We haven’t even broken ground on the model and already have seven sales,” Nelson said.
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/residential-real-estate/20140925-d-fw-homebuilders-end-strong-summer-with-plans-for-more-gains.ece
nothing like adding inventory to an already burgeoning inventory.
Ben said yesterday that he is seeing thousands of housing units under construction in Texas. I think he said it was the Dallas area, not sure. Too hard to click back.
The builder in the article above is doing some in-fill building. There was recently a corner lot in the same area with a strip mall that was razed and used for small lot homes. Those homes sold out quickly and went for well over $500k. They aren’t building 1,000’s of homes on these infill projects, only dozens.
The developments with 1,000’s of homes are all in outlying areas.
It doesn’t matter whether the 1000s are being built by one developer or a thousand developers. The point is that there are thousands of them under construction.
Where they’re being built tends to matter.
“Where”. Go look at Ben’s post. They’re all over the place.
We used to talk a lot about diffusion on this blog. If a nabe is desirable but expensive, then a lot of people will be incentivized to move to another nabe that is slightly less desirable, but much less expensive. When a lot of people move to a different hood, the different hood becomes more desirable as an artifact. Everyone who thinks that “it’s different” in their little burg is simply wrong. You are not isolated from your surroundings.
“Where they’re being built tends to matter.”
Nonsense.
A distinction without a difference.
I think he said it was the Dallas area, not sure. Too hard to click back.
The Housing Bubble Comment Search Engine at your service.
Can’t post the URL as a link because it looks like Ben is absent today and I believe he still manually approves links, so:
southrustern.com/hbbcmt/index.cgi
Don’t let the door smack you in the @ss on your way out you racist rabblerouser
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/obama-loses-heat-shield-as-holder-departs-white-house.html
Sipping on some Arizona Iced Tea brand Watermelon Fruit Punch mixed with Skittles and Promethazine with Codeine, it’s the Social Justice Warrior™ breakfast beverage of choice yo
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-will-not-be-kind-to-eric-holder-2014-9
Holder’s resignation comes on the heels of a ruling today by a federal judge that the contempt of Congress citation against Holder can proceed to the next level.
http://www.examiner.com/article/networks-fail-to-report-reason-for-holder-resignation
Holder lied, and Congress cried?
They actually ousted him because they found out that he allowed the NSA to spy on Congress and the Prez. Congress initially thought that the NSA would only spy on other people, but Holder lost control and all those NSA people went around spying on whomever they wanted. Now that Holder is gone, they will get someone who promises to prevent NSA from spying on the people who matter.
“House leaders had been stymied by the refusal of Holder and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to comply with requests for appropriate documents in the ongoing investigations into the Fast and Furious debacle”
But that was a phony scandal.
Can you afford to retire? Probably not
Tens of millions of baby boomers are broke broke broke
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-you-afford-to-retire-2014-09-26
Retirement was a post World War II anomaly
A nation of broke @ss loosers
Because tens of millions of them followed the pack and chose to have more kids than they could afford. So of course they saved for the kids’ college and spent it on their college. Then could not afford their own retirement. Now many are thinking their kids owe them a retirement! LOL
I heard arguments “If you don’t have kids who will take care of you when you are older?”
I respond: “If I need a slave I will hire one who consents to slavery”
It’s as if some people think the purpose of having kids is to have slaves for you when you are older.
Another reason boomers cannot afford retirement: TOYS! boats, BMWs, houses, vacation houses. So that they can appear rich. And the secret (like the tv commercial of the guy on the riding mower) “they put themselves in debt up to their eyeballs.”
NOT ME!
Bulletin Shares of Pimco owner Allianz fall 2.9% »
The Tell
The Markets News and Analysis Blog
Bill Gross and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year
September 24, 2014, 4:34 PM ET
Forgive Bill Gross if he feels 2014 is becoming his own, personal annus horribilis.
Today, it was announced that one of the most world’s most renowned fund managers has left Pacific Investment Management Company, which he helped found, to join Janus Capital. The stunning move, which was revealed via a press release from fund manager Janus, comes as a tumultuous year for Gross marked by a less-than- amicable departure of his top lieutenant Mohamed El-Erian earlier this year.
The announcment of Gross joining Janus comes on the heels of reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission was probing PIMCO. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the regulator is investigating whether bond giant PIMCO, which Gross runs, artificially boostedthe returns of its $3.6 billion Pimco Total Return Fund. Investigators are examining whether the fund bought investments at discounted prices but relied on higher valuations when calculating the value of its holdings shortly later. (Pimco says it’s cooperating and that it believes its pricing procedures are “entirely appropriate.”)
One regulatory probe does hardly a horrible year makes when you run a world-beating operation the scope and size of Pimco and have a decades-long, wildly successful trading record, but it seems a theme is developing. The Financial Times makes the point twice in one paragraph, calling Gross “a man on the back foot” who is in the midst of “a bad run.”
…
home depot shareholder value
1.346 billion shares outstanding
1.346 * 91.90/share =123.146 billion
shareholder equity= 12.52 billion / 1.346 billion shares= $9.34
So we have a company with a book value of 9.34 trading at 91.90
So where is the other value coming from?
I’m assuming the discounted value of future earnings?
In 2014 I guess they are scheduled to make about 4 bucks / share.
So annual revenue of 4* 1.346 billion = 5.384 billion in annual earnings
So that gap of market value of 123.146 billion- 12.52 billion (shareholder value) is 110.626 billion
110.626 value of the company is from discounted earnings
Basically that future earnings stream is valued at 110.626 billion
Anyone have a good calculator for discounting a future income stream?
What is a historical value of a company based on book value?
91.90/9.34= 9.84 times its book value
Save every dollar you can get your hands on. You’re going to need every last dime.
Arizona: This might help - just pulled this from Ritholz’s site.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/09/what-is-the-impact-of-those-buybacks/
Drill baby drill
“Switching from coal to natural gas for power generation won’t do much to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and might even raise them slightly, in part because it will discourage the use of carbon-free renewable energy, according to a study released Wednesday.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/09/140924-natural-gas-impact-on-emissions/
Warmists gonna warm
LOLZ
It takes a whole lot of dino fuel (all of it consumed up front) to make solar panels. The positive offset comes slowly, over 20-30 years.
It’s worse than that. It takes a whole lot more dead dinosaurs to make the replacement panels that are required after the first ones die in ten years.
Or get broken when they’re taken off and put back on (by roofers who know nothing about specialty electric power systems) when the roof needs replacing. 95% + of residential solar is a total waste. That’s why I got out of the business.
Commercial can make sense in some cases, because the bulk of the power is consumed during the same hours as it is generated. Plus you’ve got dedicated maintenance personnel on board, it’s just one more system to keep an eye on. Well, at least as long as you avoid the low quality Chinese panels. Good luck with getting even 2 years before they start giving out.
Does it take dino fuel to create the infrastructure that enables widespread use of the other available energy types?
Absolutely, no one claims otherwise. With solar we’re supposed to believe it’s all or mostly free, and it’s not in the least.
It takes just as much infrastructure to support utility-scale solar (new transmission lines, hundreds of miles across the desert, square miles of former open space now off limits where the panels are installed). Another total waste for the amount of power that can be harvested.
With commercial, all the infrastructure, both to accommodate the panels and to consume the electricity generated, is already in place, at the proper size and scale. Land-use wise you’re not taking up any more natural space, the damage environmentally and visually has already been done.
I wouldn’t have devoted ten years of my working career to alternative energy if I didn’t believe in it’s potential. Unfortunately, our current policies and incentives are what you get when activists set the strategy rather than the engineers.
The point of solar is that it’s renewable, not free.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s renewable, if over the total life cycle of a system (of any size) the total renewable energy returned doesn’t offset the non-renewable energy invested. That’s what is known as a shell game. (”If we make the price of houses stay artificially high, everyone will think we’re in a recovery”. Same mentality, different field.)
If RE is well thought out, it can work in some cases like i mentioned. Mostly, it just doesn’t. I understand that people don’t believe that to be the case, and no one wants that to be the case, but the physics is what it is. Waste with noble intentions is still waste.
Our energy policies don’t take this into account; therefore we have stupid energy policies that burn billions of $$ and tons of dino fuel, and don’t return a net benefit. And sadly in cases like Solyndra, they don’t return any benefit at all.
“But it doesn’t matter if it’s renewable, if over the total life cycle of a system (of any size) the total renewable energy returned doesn’t offset the non-renewable energy invested.”
There it is. Further to the point…. there will never be a sustained adoption of any of these alternative energy options. Driving a Prius might look cool and it is kind of cool(quiet, much less vibration) but it’s more costly per mile for the end user than an equivalent $hitbox(weight, class) when all costs are compared.
All your base are belong to Goldman Sachs
http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-lewis-the-ray-rice-video-of-wall-street-has-arrived-2014-9
Because pigmen gonna pig
Speaking of Pigmen pigging, the Fed and the Vampire Squid, Goldman Sachs, were caught on tape making shady deals. Of course Goldman fired the examiner who refused to alter her notes and play along with the sleaziness, and now she’s sueing the bastards. Fat chance, but I admire anybody with a spine who stands up against these grifters.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/09/26/rolling-highlights-from-the-audio-of-the-new-york-fed-examiner/
The financial sector have been The Untouchables for a long time. Lany Breuer and Eric Holder confirmed its status. The Inside Job documentary, William K. Black’s commentary and just watching the Fed and government’s deferential behavior is stunning to anyone watching it. The government, central bank and big players act in concert as they do in Russia and China.
Carmen Segarra’s tapes presents it as a tidy package. Tim Geithner claimed he was never a regulator although he served as head of New York Fed whose mission statement says that it is in fact a regulator. Not merely a candy store for Wall Street.
That many government agencies and the central bank are under regulatory capture, is made more apparent to those not paying attention.
The Pigmen are incredibly fortunate, in that the zombiefied ‘Murican electorate - the ‘tards who voted for Obama, McCain, and Romney - are docile sheep who continue to enable a system that’s fleecing them.
This cut and pasted from yesterday in a post…..
“Accordingly, many investors are still buying new bonds but keeping a close eye on metrics such as corporate leverage—or use of borrowed money—as well as share repurchases and company cash holdings.”
Call me ignorant or the village idiot but I have a tough time understanding the language that the world of finance uses for something that is not too obvious to neophites like me - ex. ‘corporate leverage = borrowed money’.
Is there a thesaurus of finance terms out there somewhere that would help me to decipher all this inside language? Words mean things. What I do know is when your outgo is greater than your income you are in trouble.
Heh, my dad used to use the saying “When you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshot.”
Got it!
‘What I do know is when your outgo is greater than your income you are in trouble.’
Not any more! We’re in a new paradigm!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/real-estate-crash/article20741872/
Is there an MSM outlet that still allows comments? I am boycotting the ones that don’t allow them, but I think it’s all of them.
The comments sections are usually far more revealing than the articles themselves. Especially when some corporate media shill puts out the standard elitist propaganda line and the comments section lights up with people blasting them and telling it like it is. Priceless!
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes
And “Boom” goes the dynamite.
Looks like I’ll be downloading “This American Life”.
This won’t be dynamite. In a country with a rule of law, yes, Goldman and the Fed would be worried by having their colllusion exposed. In today’s crony-capitalist America, this will all be swept under the rug. The sheeple might look up from their grazing, momentarily perceiving something looks amiss, but then will go back to their DWTS and trusting their Republicrat shepherds to leadth them to green pastures.
Unfortunately, I think you’re right.
In a country where 95% of the electorate - the Obama Zombies, McCain Mutants, and Romney Retards - voted to continue bending over for the Wall Street-Federal Reserve looting syndicate, I know I’m right.
Pigman sues neighbor because he can’t sell his overpriced house due to the neighbor’s renovations. I love it when these vampires go at each other.
http://www.businessinsider.com/dick-snyder-suing-ues-neighbors-2014-9
How Goldman Sachs controls the New York Fed.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-26/how-goldman-controls-new-york-fed-475-hours-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes-explain
When nearly a year ago we reported about the case of “Goldman whistleblower” at the NY Fed, Carmen Segarra, who alleged she was wrongfully terminated after she flagged “numerous conflicts of interest and breaches of client ethics [involving Goldman] that she believed warranted a downgrade of Goldman’s regulatory rating” and which were ignored due to the intimate, and extensively documented on these pages, proximity between Goldman and either one-time NY Fed Chairman and former Goldman director Stephen Friedman or current NY Fed president and former Goldman employee Bill Dudley, we said:
as everyone knows, both Bill Dudley and Stephen Friedman used to be at Goldman, and as we noted Dudley and Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius periodically did and still meet to discuss “events” at the Pound and Pense.
So while her allegations may be non-definitive, and her wrongfful termination suit is ultimately dropped, there is hope this opens up an inquiry into the close relationship between Goldman and the NY Fed. Alas, since the judicial branch is also under the control of the two abovementioned entities, we very much doubt it.
There was hope, but as we said: we doubted it would lead to much more. It didn’t: in April, the NY Fed won the dismissal of her lawsuit.
If you like your crony capitalism, you can keep your crony capitalism.
http://nypost.com/2014/09/26/tapes-showing-meek-oversight-of-goldman-are-about-to-rock-wall-street/
Wall Street is about to be rocked by secretly recorded audio tapes that purport to show a too-cozy relationship between the New York Federal Reserve Bank and the financial institutions it is supposed to regulate.
The 45 hours of tapes, made by Carmen Segarra, a former NY Fed worker, capture former co-workers, whose job was to keep banks like Goldman Sachs in line, instead deferring to the banks, being unwilling to take action and being extremely passive, according to public radio’s “This American Life,” and ProPublica which obtained the tapes and is scheduled to air a program about the matter Friday night.
Segarra, ironically, was hired by the NY Fed in October 2011 to help toughen up their oversight. She was fired in 2013 after, she claims in a lawsuit, she tried to get Goldman to toe the line on regulations.
Region VIII checking in.
Whodini - The Freaks Come Out At Night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLYC7ltxOrk
Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded
Recorded in 1987:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxmaYKK2DPc
Eazy E - Eazy Duz It:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6XlAgDqP6g
the Bureaucrats - the Grown Up Age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wicY5twL34
Los Angeles, CA Sale Prices Dive 7% YoY; Collapses 20% QoQ
http://www.zillow.com/los-angeles-ca-90046/home-values/
take your bs elsewhere else
Embrace the irrefutable data Az_Fraud.
Allhambra, CA Housing Prices Sink 3% YoY As Demand Collapses To 20 Year Lows
http://www.zillow.com/alhambra-ca/home-values/
The European Central Bank (ECB), run by “former” Goldman Sachs banker Mario Draghi, wants to shower the pigmen with more stimulus, aka free gambling money.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/coene-says-ecb-willing-to-weigh-more-stimulus-if-needed.html
Mexican’s fleeing the corrupt oligarchy in their home country can always join Pelosi’s DNC permanant supermajory and help consolidate a full oligarchical takeover of our economy as well.
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/09/25/slimlandia-the-land-of-mexican-oligarchs/
Despite being Mexico’s second richest man and owning one of the world’s largest mining groups, German Larrea is an enigma. Until this month the only photo that existed of the media-shy recluse was a blurry black and white image.
All that has now changed: his name and a new photo – one taken of him schmoozing with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at a recent meeting of Citibank’s Mexican division, Banamex – are plastered across the front and financial pages of Mexico’s daily newspapers.
This new wave of unwelcome public attention is the result of what many are describing as the worst ecological disaster in Mexican history. On August 6 the Buenavista del Cobre mine belonging to Larrea’s flagship company, Grupo Mexico, the country’s largest mining and infrastructure company, spewed 10 million gallons (40,000 cubic meters) of copper sulfate acid into the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers, turning the waterways orange and poisoning the water supply of 24,000 people in seven communities along the rivers.
It’s going to be a thing of beauty when public labor union members, who turned a blind eye to the corruption and incompetence of Democrat-controlled public labor unions and slavishly voted straight Democrat in return for the promise of lifetime entitlements and benefits funded by future generations, find out the oligarchs have looted their pension funds and those promises aren’t worth the paper they were printed on.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-26/public-pension-funds-face-2-trillion-shortfall-moodys-warns
“Despite the robust investment returns since 2004, annual growth in unfunded pension liabilities has outstripped these returns,” Moody’s warns in its latest report on the state of public pension systems. As Bloomberg reports, the 25 biggest systems by assets averaged a 7.45% return from 2004 to 2013, but liabilities tripled over the same period leaving them facing a $2 trillion shortfall as investment returns can’t keep up with ballooning obligations. The top 25 funds account for 40% of the entire US public pension system with Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Louisiana at the top of the ‘most underfunded’ list.
It’s going to be a thing of beauty when public labor union members, who turned a blind eye to the corruption and incompetence of Democrat-controlled public labor unions
I meant, Democrat-controlled municipalities.
More sound and fury, signifying nothing.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-secret-tapes-of-fed-meetings-on-goldman-prompt-call-for-us-hearings-2014-9
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An influential U.S. senator wants to hold hearings into “disturbing” issues raised by secretly taped conversations between Federal Reserve supervisors and officials at Goldman Sachs Group Inc , a bank the Fed was tasked with policing.
Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, on Friday called for hearings after portions of the recordings from 2011 and 2012 were made public. Fellow Democrat Sherrod Brown, also a committee member, called for a “full and thorough investigation” into the allegations they raised.
Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against her former employer, recorded the conversations and provided them to the investigative news outlet ProPublica and the public radio show “This American Life” to illustrate what she saw as an inappropriately close relationship between regulator and bank.
The tapes appear to show an unwillingness among some Fed supervisors to both demand specific information from Goldman about a transaction with Banco Santander and to strongly criticize what Segarra concluded was the lack of an appropriate conflict-of-interest policy at Goldman.
Slap-on-the-wrist fines with no criminal charges, as usual. That’ll teach ‘em.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/26/banks-fine-currency-rigging
Six major banks caught up in the investigation into rigging the currency markets are being pressed by the regulator to agree to fines – possibly of as much as £1.8bn – in the next eight weeks.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) held discussions with each of the banks this week to warn them that they faced multimillion-pound penalties that could surpass the £160m levied on the Swiss bank UBS for rigging Libor – the biggest fine the UK regulator has imposed.
Journal
China’s market worries
China seems to have successfully deflated a massive real estate construction bubble fueled by years of cheap credit. But that’s resulted in a market slump, leaving a growing army of unemployed migrant construction workers.
Is China still assured to achieve 7.5% GDP growth FOREVER?
Finance More: China Stimulus Xi Jinping
Wall Street Thinks China May Have To Do The Unthinkable
Linette Lopez
Sep. 23, 2014, 9:54 AM
It appears China’s leaders are now willing to do what was once unthinkable and allow the country’s growth to fall below its stated 7.5% target for 2014.
This represents a major policy shift for a country that one famous investor once joked “is the only major industrialized country that knows its annual GDP on January 1 of that year.”
The government would be letting growth slow to reform the economy, moving it from one based on property development and foreign investment to one based on consumption.
But there will be pain until that reform is completed, and indicators are already signaling that the economy is going south.
Since July, all signs point to a major slowdown in China. Last month’s industrial production was especially horrid, showing that activity had lowered to levels unseen since 2008. Growth in everything from fixed-asset investment to gambling revenue to Scotch Whisky sales, and, of course, to China’s infamous property development sector has fallen dramatically.
China’s corporates are in pretty bad shape, too, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.
But that isn’t going to spur China’s government into action. For the first time in recent memory, President Xi Jinping has signaled that it may be OK if the country misses its target.
It has been a quick change. In May and June, Xi was demanding that officials “lower the cost of financing,” and he reiterated that local governments had “inescapable responsibilities to achieve the economic growth target (of 7.5%) set at the NPC meeting,” Barclays pointed out in a recent note.
Basically he was saying “reform be damned,” we need to keep this economy moving.
In September, however, Xi and the media that his government controls changed their tune. Earlier this month, the government’s publication, Xinhua News Agency, accused those calling for fresh stimulus after September’s bad data dump of “failing to clearly see the Chinese economy’s new normal.”
Around the same time, Xi himself tried to sound calm, saying economic indicators were “still within a reasonable range” and that China would maintain “prudent monetary policy” and “targeted easing,” Barclays notes.
Measures for “targeted easing” in the event of nasty data surprises, like the one the world had this month, are not enough to lift China from the doldrums, and they’re not meant to be. For now, China’s citizens will just have to tough it out as the economy rebalances.
“We believe the government will support the property market with measures such as mortgage rate cuts or lower down payments, but don’t think these can change the picture,” Barclays said. “We do expect more investment spending in place, e.g. on railways, public housing, and environmental or clean energy projects, to cushion the slowdown … We see an increasing probability that the government may set a lower GDP growth target of 7% for 2015.”
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RU ready for China’s Minsky moment?
US, China, Europe nearing ‘Minsky moment’: Economist
Matt Clinch
17 Hours Ago
CNBC.com
The world’s three economic superpowers - the U.S., China and Europe - are heading for a major collapse in asset values because their economic models favor consumption instead of productivity, one economist has warned.
“We’re still not wise enough to realize that our current model is a ‘Ponzi’ scheme rushing toward its inevitable ‘Minsky moment’,” Steen Jakobsen, a chief economist at Danish investment bank Saxo Bank, said in a research note on Friday. The term “Minsky moment” refers to a phrase coined for the Asian debt crisis of the late 1990s by Pimco’s Paul McCulley.
Unsustainable debt will be the cause of the crash, according to Jakobsen, and will occur when the cash returns on assets become insufficient to service the debt taken on to acquire those assets in the first place. He gives no timeframe for his thesis but says that the problem of huge debts has been swept under the carpet by central bankers and policymakers and will come back as low inflation or even deflation.
“We’re still working with the same dog-eared script we were introduced to all of five years ago,” he said. “Maintain sufficiently low interest rates to service the debt burden, pretend to have credible plan, but never address the structural problem and simply buy more time. But while we were able to get away with this theme for an awfully long time, the dynamic is now changing.”
Central banks across the world launched bond-buying programs following the economic crash of 2008. Aside from injecting fresh funds into the economy, some economists have argued that bond-buying could also have deliberately helped to stoke inflation, which then erases sovereign debt – as debt loads lose their value when consumer price growth is strong.
High-profile economists including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have warned on the potential for “secular stagnation,” when a lack of investment in a developed economy leads to falling incomes and stagnant demand.
Jakobsen calls debt the “elephant in the room” and uses a simple equation on the U.S. economy to put across his point. He argues that U.S. productivity growth is low when if you consider that any shortfall in growth is being made up by increased debt.
“The move onto the internet has ironically made us bigger consumers and less productive. Had we remained at pre-1970s productivity, the U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) would have been 55 percent higher and the outstanding debt to GDP would be easily fundable,” he claims in his note.
“No serious policymaker or central banker is talking about the truth told by simple maths and hoping that things turn out well. Hope is not good policy and it belongs in church, not in the real economy.”
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