Bits Bucket for October 24, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
A wise man said repeatedly:
“Whatever you do, stay out of debt and hold onto every penny you’ve got. You’re going to need it.”
And I am.
Thanks HA!
A very wise man indeed.
The Unions doing what they do best.
Sending good jobs elsewhere
————————-
Union demands send Japanese firm, jobs packing from California town
Fox News | October 23, 2014 | Perry Chiaramonte
The California city of Palmdale was ready to roll out the red carpet this summer when a Japanese company agreed to build a $60 million factory on a city-owned, vacant parcel on the southwest side of town — but now the company is taking its project out of state and critics say union greed is to blame.
As many as 300 people were slated to work at the 400,000-square-foot plant, painting and wiring light rail cars under a huge contract with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It was a coup for Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, and a plan that seemed to suit Kinkisharyo International, which last year moved its U.S. headquarters from Boston to El Segundo, Calif.
“I believe this is just the beginning of a manufacturing renaissance here in the Antelope Valley,” crowed Ledford in June.
“We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” added Palmdale Economic Development Director Dave Walter. “So many people and organizations played huge roles in making this a reality.”
But a newly formed environmental group — which critics say is a front for a local union — had other ideas.
The “Antelope Valley Residents for Responsible Development,” a group backed by the International Brotherhood Workers Union Local 11, produced a 588-page appeal claiming that construction of the proposed factory would violate state environmental laws, by, among other things, kicking up spores. What the union really wanted, according to Kinkisharyo officials, was clearance to organize the plant without any interference from the company. When Kinkisharyo officials balked, the project suddenly became a potential environmental hazard.
The Antelope Valley has been filling with the human dregs that greater Los Angeles has deported due to cost of living issues. The Japanese manufacturer will be better off elsewhere.
The Antelope Valley has been filling with the human dregs that greater Los Angeles has deported due to cost of living issues.”
yea too bad many years ago that was a great place ( except for the wind )
pre 1980
That’s a poorly written piece of news. What are the merits of the environmental argument? It’s also quite extreme politically. In countries like the UK even Conservative members of Parliament recognize the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively. This article claims that trying do such things is greedy.
they’ll go to a right to work state like VA or TX
Why stop there? Mexican wages are far lower.
Yes, but if Comrade Pelosi and her oligarch patrons, in concert with the DNC’s GOP accomplices, can flood the US with cheap Mexican labor, that accomplishes the same objective.
You don’t seem to understand the concept of a “closed shop”
and the requirement of forcing you to join an organization and pay money to that organization as a CONDITION of employment.
No, I’ve heard of the concept. I’m not sure how it relates to your Fox News article or my comments on it.
If you want to zoom out and look at the big picture we can note here that the decline of unions is one of the major causes of the decline of the American middle class over the past 40 years. In general, things that lead to reductions in unionization, such as your concern about closed shops, benefit the wealthy at the expense of Joe Six Pack.
That idea that unions held up the middle class doesn’t explain at all why people in jobs or professions that never had anything to do with unions declined right along. Most likely the cause is something else.
Blue, labor jobs and professional jobs declined at the same time, but for different reasons.
Blue collar union jobs declined because foreign labor was cheaper. We know those stories.
White collar non-union jobs declined because of technology. Once the R&D people proof-of-concept and optimize a product or process, the company goes to cheaper workers and rewards the expensive R&D people by firing them. That applies to traditional engineering processes, chemical processes, medicine and drugs, and hardware and software.
One does not have to explain the other.
That idea that unions held up the middle class doesn’t explain at all why people in jobs or professions that never had anything to do with unions declined right along.
That’s why I write “one of the major causes of the decline of the American middle class” above. It wasn’t the only cause, but it was a important one.
The environmental concerns might be valid or not.
CEQA allows lawsuits like this to stop development all the time (I’m going out on a limb, but not much of one, to assume that this law is citing a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act). To my understanding CEQA is so broad that there are no penalties for frivolous lawsuits, so what typically happens is the lawsuits delay development by 6+ months (or years). Later, with a few small tweaks (and huge legal bills), the project moves forward.
If you are a business on a timeline, this is a deal-killer.
Suze Orman: Our economy’s most dangerous threat
CNBC - Suze Orman - 10/23/2014
If one were to ask me what I think is the most dangerous threat to our economy, the answer is very simple: student loans.
As I write this, we have more than $1.2 trillion of student loan debt. About 10 million federal students loans are taken out annually, and then there are the insanely dangerous private student loans on top of that staggering number.
And while 6.7 million borrowers in repayment mode are delinquent, the sad fact is that many lenders aren’t exactly incentivized to work with borrowers. Unlike all other forms of debt, student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. Moreover, lenders can garnish wages and even Social Security benefits to get repaid. A new report by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau details just how bad the situation is for private loan borrowers. (From Oct. 1, 2013, through Sept. 30, the agency handled about 5,300 private student loan complaints, an increase of nearly 38 percent from the previous year.)
Even if you don’t have student loans, or know someone who does, you better believe this huge debt load is impacting your financial well being. When students of the greatest nation on Earth are buried with student loans, their ability to buy a home, to have disposable income, to be a vital participant of the economy, is greatly reduced.
All those student loans pay some bloated bureaucrats’ salary at all those institutions of higher thievery.
College is a scam.
i thought obama wrote off the student loans to get some votes?
I know it doesn’t start till 2015 but on facebook libs were elated!
Don’t get excited, mostly refi’s…
How many are liberating their new found equity???
————————–
Mortgage applications surge 11.6% on lower rates
Housing Wire | 22 October 2014 | Trey Garrison
Mortgage applications increased 11.6% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 17, 2014.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 65% of total applications, the highest level since December 2013, from 59% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 9.4% of total applications, the highest level since June 2008.
Divided SEC adopts mortgage rule, decries lax lending
Reuters | 22 October 2012 | Sarah N. Lynch
U.S. securities regulators adopted a rule on Wednesday designed to avert another financial crisis, but two officials dissented, saying it did not do enough to discourage banks from lending to borrowers with shaky credit and then passing the mortgage risk to investors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the so-called “risk retention” rule by a 3-2 vote, while the U.S. Federal Reserve unanimously adopted it later in the day in a public board meeting.
The rule requires banks to keep at least 5 percent of the risk on their books when they securitize loans. This “skin in the game” is aimed at aligning the bank’s interest with investors that buy the loans.
But two Republican commissioners said they could not support the rule in part because they believe its exemption for low-risk mortgages is too broad and does not sufficiently crack down on lax underwriting standards. They also said the rule perpetuates the dominant role of government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae in the housing market.
When this rule was being thrashed out, banks balked at keeping even the measly 5% of the loans they make.
Long ago, Polly made a good point that even that 5% risk retention was limiting. 5 cents of every dollar on the books eats into their reserves that they are required to keep. So that places an upper limit on the number of dollars they can loan — and the amout of fees than can collect — before they use up their allotted reserve.
Meanwhile, back when they could sell 100% of every loan, they could have theoretically loaned out infinite dollars and collected infinite fees, which is why they went hunting for somone, anyone, to borrow.
I liked yesterday’s suggestion of making the banks retain 50% instead of 5%. That would use up the reserves VERY quickly, so banks would have to be very choosy about their borrowers.
That 50% I suggested just seemed like a good compromise. Those of us backing sensible, sustainable lending practices think the bank should hold on to 100%. The banks think they should not have to hold anything. Let’s meet in the middle! I’m a reasonable guy.
“I liked yesterday’s suggestion of making the banks retain 50% instead of 5%.”
Really? Suppose the very next day your house was worth about 20% of what you bought it for. Would you “like” it then?
Banks weren’t balking at the 5% retention. They were balking at one of the requirements being a 5% down payment to make a loan “qualified”.
The risk retention requirement is ONLY for loans that don’t qualify under QRM. The retention is 0% for loans that do qualify under QRM.
Since QRM has effectively been neutered (with no down payment requirement), now the risk retention requirement isn’t 5%, or 50%, but effectively 0%.
Dodd-Frank…fail.
By the way, risk retention of 100% is also called a balance sheet lender, the way it used to be. Due to securitization, this became less and less the norm.
Ultimately, in my opinion, this should be up to the investors who are buying the securitized loans…they are the ones getting burned if the loan pools don’t work. If you don’t like the fact that lenders are keeping 0% of the loans they make…don’t buy the debt, or demand higher yields.
Where the focus should have been is with the rating agencies. People holding the purse strings to the capital buying the debt used AAA ratings as a warm blanket, giving themselves the comfort to provide OPM to buy the loans without getting fired if it all went south.
Without fully documented loans, with income supporting payment at the highest possible monthly payment, it should be illegal to rate the loan pools…without supported ability to repay, the loans are speculative, and should have a speculative risk–unrateable.
What got us into the most trouble was NINJA loans, Option ARMs, etc. These loans should not be part of rated loan pools. If people want to make those loans, fine, but they should not have the blanket of an AAA rating to be able to offload them, they should need to vigorously justify why the loans are reasonable on the merits of the underwriting, NOT a complicit rating agency who is getting paid by the entity selling the paper.
Yes, the banks were balking at the 5% retention. But they figured that if they were stuck with 5% retention, they could try to make the requirements so toothless that the 5% retention would never be revoked.
I don’t think they won a victory. QRM isn’t even close to being neutered. Take a look at those other requirements. How many of those people who drove up prices during the bubble could have qualified, even with no % down? Most of them couldn’t even afford the first fully amortized payment, which is why they bought with I/O’s and neg-ams and teaser rates the rest of the baloney.
“Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.”
Allowed? How magnanimous of them.
—————–
‘Calibration error’ changes GOP votes to Dem in Illinois
LiveLeak, Watchdog.org | 10/23/2014
CHICAGO — Early voting in Illinois got off to a rocky start Monday, as votes being cast for Republican candidates were transformed into votes for Democrats.
Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library.
“I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan said. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”
The conservative website Illinois Review reported that “While using a touch screen voting machine in Schaumburg, Moynihan voted for several races on the ballot, only to find that whenever he voted for a Republican candidate, the machine registered the vote for a Democrat in the same race. He notified the election judge at his polling place and demonstrated that it continued to cast a vote for the opposing candidate’s party. Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.
I’m shocked!
Turn the tables and this is front page news.
I work on programming of touchscreens (industrial), amongst other things. Yes touchscreens need to be calibrated. But this is at the lowest level in the signal chain, at the hardware level. If the calibration was off, every screen’s layout would be affected in the same exact way, geometrically speaking, so many of the screens would yield incorrect results. Sounds suspicious to me.
One word for you - chicago.
The most transparent administration in history…
Not even a smidgen of corruption…
We have nothing to hide…
————————-
Obama Claims Executive Privilege Over 15,000 Fast and Furious Docs
Washington Free Beacon | 10/23/2014 | BY: CJ Ciaramella
The Obama administration is claiming executive privilege over more than 15,000 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, including correspondence between Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife, according to records received Wednesday night by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The 1,307-page Vaughn index lists 15,662 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious that the Obama administration is asserting executive privilege over—the first time that full list and description of the records has been released.
“Obama’s executive privilege claims over these records are a fraud and an abuse of his office,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement. “There is no precedent for President Obama’s Nixonian assertion of executive privilege over these ordinary government agency records. Americans will be astonished that Obama asserted executive privilege over Eric Holder’s emails to his wife about Fast and Furious.”
That’s okay.
The Secret Service has been taken out to the woodshed and shot for allowing The Messiah to be in harm’s way. So, let’s call it equal.
Fast and Furious?
That’s just a phony scandal.
Why Madrid’s poor fear the Vampire Squid and Blackstone, aka Fed-backstopped slum lords extraordinaire. Note that Reuters - a flagship of the oligarch-owned media - has taken to blocking comments below stories like this that mention Goldman Sachs or bankster involvement in buying up distressed properties.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/24/us-spain-housing-specialreport-idINKCN0ID0GP20141024
Russian ruble getting crushed. What happens if they default to screw over western banks?
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ruble-hits-new-record-lows-2014-10
Didn’t Russia default on its debt about 16 years ago?
Is Russia Heading for a New 1998 Crisis?
By Robert Person
Oct. 23 2014 19:43
Last edited 19:43
Not since the financial crisis of August 1998 has Russia faced the very real possibility of a currency crisis that could seriously threaten the fundamental stability of the country’s economic and political system.
Though the ruble’s loss of 20 percent of its value this year falls well short of the 70 percent collapse in 1998 and is even lower — in relative terms — than the 30 percent decline experienced in 2008, there are key parallels between the 1998 crisis and the crisis developing in Russia today. Both Russia’s leaders and citizens would do well to remember the lessons of August 1998 as they face the coming storm.
There is a wide range of macroeconomic forces that can influence the exchange rate through supply and demand for the national currency. Importantly, most of these forces lie outside the control of the government. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 issued a collective wakeup call to international lenders as they realized the mistake of their myopic enthusiasm for investment in developing economies.
Having awoken to the fundamental weaknesses in these economies, investors became risk averse toward developing economies — Russia included — almost overnight. Russia’s access to foreign borrowing was cut off at the very same time that oil prices — the country’s eternal economic crutch — were declining. Falling oil prices meant fewer dollars coming into Russia, thus strengthening the dollar against the ruble, as well as less revenue going into state coffers. The foundations of a debt crisis were set.
By 1998, years of post-Soviet economic decline, a costly war in Chechnya and unsustainable social spending had nearly bankrupted the Russian state. The government and many private firms were heavily burdened with foreign loans denominated primarily in dollars with few willing lenders remaining.
…
New York Throws 3 People Into Quarantine After Ebola Patient Travels All Over The City
BI - AP | 10-24-2014 | Jonathan Lemire
NEW YORK (AP) — A doctor who became New York City’s first Ebola patient was praised for getting treatment immediately upon showing symptoms, and health officials stressed that the nation’s most populous city need not fear his wide-ranging travel in the days before his illness began.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor’s diagnosis Thursday, even as they described him riding the subway, taking a cab and bowling since returning to New York from Guinea a week ago. De Blasio said all city officials followed “clear and strong” protocols in their handling and treatment of him.
Remarks by the President on the Ebola Outbreak (38 Days Ago)
White House.gov | September 16, 2014 | Barack Obama
THE PRESIDENT: First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States. In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home. We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus. We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely.
Can you believe this guy? A DOCTOR, for chrissakes! A real, honest to God, Jim Jones Clones death wisher. Give the POS quarantine on a raft in the East River.
It is all contained…
——————-
Can You Get Ebola From a Bowling Ball?
New York Times | 23 Oct. 2014 | DONALD G. MCNEIL JR.
Although the surface of a shared bowling ball is a likely place to find germs — and some people avoid bowling for this very reason — it is extremely unlikely that Ebola could be passed that way. There is no evidence that it has been passed, as colds or flu sometimes are, by touching surfaces that someone else touched after sneezing into their hand. Ebola is normally passed through contact with blood, vomit or diarrhea.
Remain calm. All is well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro
“…After Ebola Patient Travels All Over The City”
Hopefully he avoided Wall Street, or else the Ebola-driven financial panic may soon resume.
No, see, a POS like this can’t even do us the courtesy of visiting Wall Street or City Hall, or even visiting his Congresscritter to debrief.
Oh, NO, he’s got to go bowling and take the subway, share the love with the regular folks the like of which never did anything to him.
Doctor my arse. An attempted murder-suicide is what he is.
If this is what they teach in medical school, we’re done for.
Eeee-bowl-a. Is this a joke? Some kind of punchline trying to slur Italian Americans?
Ebola 200, that guy.
Shillow….. I bet my zuppa di pesce is better than yours. And my marinara. And my pizza.
The solution?
Stop printing money
Stop bailing out banks
Stop guaranteeing bank loans…
——————
World faces $650 billion housing problem
CNBC - Ansuya Harjani - 10/24/2014
A staggering 330 million urban households around the world live in substandard housing or are so financially stretched by housing costs they forgo other basic needs like food and health care, according to McKinsey.
Urban dwellers globally fork out $650 billion more per year on housing than they can afford, or around 1 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), McKinsey estimated in a new report, highlighting the enormity of the affordability gap.
More than two-thirds of the gap is concentrated in 100 large cities. In several low-income cities such as Lagos and Mumbai, the affordable housing gap can amount to as much as 10 percent of area GDP.
Based on current trends in urban migration and income growth, the affordable housing gap would grow to 440 million, or 1.6 billion people, within a decade.
This trend will exact an enormous toll on society, the report warned.
“For families lacking decent affordable housing, health outcomes are poorer, children do less well in school and tend to drop out earlier, unemployment and under-employment rates are higher, and financial inclusion is lower,” it said.
The belief that major cities no longer have land for affordable housing is a myth, it added. Even in cities such as New York there are many parcels of under-utilized or idle land-including government-owned land-that could support successful housing development, the report said.
“The belief that major cities no longer have land for affordable housing is a myth, it added. Even in cities such as New York there are many parcels of under-utilized or idle land-including government-owned land”
There it is.
There is no shortage of land considering 95% of the entire globe goes undeveloped.
Exactly!
http://www.faircompanies.com/videos/view/containertopia-cargo-container-tinyhome-town-on-oakland-lot/
The thing that makes me laugh about this video is that these young programmers think they’re “innovating” and “experimenting” with their lifestyle. I hate to tell them, but they can find the same “experiment” in many parts of rural US and most especially in the favelas of Brazil.
The only “experiment” here is that they’re choosing to live cheap and keep the money they make from “programming”, which in itself is OK. And they’ve given themselves “incredible permission” to do that.
Gawd, I hate new age buzzwords. And no way a composting bucket will do it for me. First case of the runs and I’m outta there!
What idiots.
This “tiny house” nonsense is exactly that. I sat down to watch an episode of whatever it was on TV about tiny houses. The owners/mortagees…all so proud of themselves for being eco-conscious, all the while installing granite countertops, stainless appliances, etc.
Their 500-square foot shack ends up costing $200K.
If they were actually eco-conscious, they would spend their money on something other than their own egos. All that energy spent and wasted (quite literally) in amassing money, only to be spent on something both frivolous and over-the-top.
These people make me ill.
My apologies to the people on the site palmetto posted.
I was wrong about them - but not about the uppity/eco-types on tevee.
Yes, these young people are just trying to solve a problem, and while I do admire them for it, I wish they realized that what they’re doing is done by many poverty stricken people who don’t have any other choice.
It is interesting to note that they’re up against an age old problem: how to get enough clean water.
I applaud them for rejecting “corporate housing” and, to some degree, thumbing their noses at “zoning”.
With that said, there is a company down here in Florida that actually puts together container homes, often joining more than one container together, and modifying them. Very well built, very livable, wouldn’t mind having one myself.
There are many rural areas where there are very few construction rules. Northern Idaho is where my family has just bought. The only drawback is the growing season is short.
“construction rules”? LOL
I dunno…some of these tiny houses look pretty cool, and represent a rejection of mindless consumerism and life as a debt slave.
http://www.improvisedlife.com/2012/04/25/tiny-homes-simple-shelter/
could you provide a link to my $5,000 lot in central aspen?
It’s different there?
i’ll take a $5,000 lot in central telluride or crested butte if you can’t find me one is aspen.
link please?
It’s different there too?
You really got to see Denver now.
$400,000 new crack shacks thrown up on postage size lots and selling in bidding wars. 24 inch centers for floors and wall (trampoline anyone?). Cheapest construction I have seen in a long time.
And from the front porches of these shacks you can literally see 1000’s of acres of undeveloped land….
What’s the demand looking like in denver? 3 yr lows? 5?
Because when you’re the vice president’s son, the law that apply to the 99% don’t apply to you:
http://michellemalkin.com/2014/10/22/the-hunter-biden-chronicles/
If you like your crony capitalism, you can keep your crony capitalism.
The housing “recovery” has been cancelled due to data revisions!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-24/housing-recovery-has-been-canceled-due-data-revisions
It’s all utter bullsh*t.
The government gets existing house sales data from the NAR. It’s unclear where they get new house sales data.
So… it’s unsurprising the data may well be mere sales/political propaganda for that month.
Governments are keenly interested in property taxes. So, they certainly have the data without having to rely directly or indirectly on sales associations.
New home sales were hot, but turns out, they’re a miss! Miss! It’s all a colossal crock, 24/7!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-24/new-home-sales-miss-august-drastically-revised-lower
Unexpected!!!!
Oil seems poised to plunge below $80/barrel. If it manages to do so, is there another floor in sight?
Cheaper oil
Many winners, a few bad losers
A lower price will boost the world economy and harm some unpleasant regimes—but there are risks
Oct 25th 2014 | From the print edition
THE collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had many causes. None was as basic as the fall in the price of oil, its main export, by two-thirds in real terms between 1980 and 1986. By the same token, the 14-year rule of Vladimir Putin, heir to what remained, has been bolstered by a threefold rise in the oil price.
Now the oil price is falling again. Since June, it has dropped from about $115 for a barrel of Brent crude to $85 or so—a reduction of roughly a quarter. If prices settle at today’s level, the bill for oil consumers will be about $1 trillion a year lower. That would be a shot in the arm for a stagnating world economy. It would also have big political consequences. For some governments it would be a rare opportunity; for others, a threat.
…
Is your portfolio positioned for a major stock market correction?
Bond funds add Treasurys in prep for market shock
Thursday, 23 Oct 2014 | 10:01 AM ETReuters
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) .
Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. corporate bond funds this year are adding Treasurys to their holdings at more than twice the rate of corporate debt amid concern that the struggling European economy and potential changes in Federal Reserve policy will drag down profits at U.S. corporations.
Through September, corporate bond portfolios boosted their holdings of U.S. government debt by 15 percent, compared with a 6.5 percent increase in corporate bonds during the same period, according to Lipper data. The funds now hold about $13 billion in Treasurys, 15 percent more than the $11.3 billion they held at the end of 2013.
Corporate bond funds typically invest in a range of debt that includes mortgage-backed securities, U.S. Treasurys and bonds backed by student loans, credit cards and auto loans. Some corporate junk bond funds have guidelines that allow them to buy individual stocks. The move to buy Treasurys, which are more easily traded than most corporate bonds, show that managers anticipate market turmoil that could lead to redemption demands from investors.
…
Does the stock market have you frozen with fear? That’s OK
Published: Oct 24, 2014 11:18 a.m. ET
By Chuck Jaffe
Columnist
You typically can’t see complacency without looking in the rear-view mirror.
So when investors get closer to year’s end and look back on the last few weeks of market action, the question is what they will see in hindsight.
Chances are, whatever happens with the market will be less impactful on their future than how they react — or don’t — to what has been going on.
Right now, all signs point to investors doing nothing. If the market’s decline is over, that’s the right move, but there is plenty of disagreement as to whether the worst is over, or just beginning.
…
I honestly think the Plunge Protection Team is now engaged and has stock investors’ backs. So you’d better buy now or hence forth watch your dollars drop in value relative to Wall Street gambler winnings!
Housing Slaves, endless printed petro dollars and the housing bubbles all across the world…
And all we get is a T-shirt and Dubia.
———-
Slaves of Dubai
Vice | 8/8/2012 | Ben Anderson
Most people know Dubai for its massive skyscrapers and luxurious hotels, but few know that the city was built by modern-day slaves.
For months, the BBC’s Ben Anderson hung out around the glittering, insane towers springing up in Dubai trying to infiltrate the community of expatriate workers who are putting them up. What he found when he finally got in was that the jewel of the Arab world is almost entirely built upon imported slave labor…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU
If the corporate oligarchs who have captured both parties get their way, imported slave labor will be shoring up “shareholder value” here, too.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/10/23/roach-scurries-around-city-council-chamber-as-pest-control-boss-testifies/
And it is proved out that the ROACH on the wall had all its digits intact!!!
Rock on Rahm!!!
Realtors are liars
The 23 year old intern in our office is looking to buy in the $300-400K range next year.
Your intern is brain dead.
How dare you say that about a savvy under-30-year-old prospective buyer? She iz working off an entirely new model that you don’t understand (called “usin’ other people’s money to buy a house I can’t afford”).
‘Merica f*** yeah
“TLC has cancelled “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” TMZ has learned, in the wake of a story that Mama June is dating a convicted child molester who sexually abused one of her relatives.”
https://www.tmz.com/2014/10/24/here-comes-honey-boo-boo-cancelled-tlc-mama-june-child-molester-dating/
4:20 in Region VIII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyGdhvtklc8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKWpQDBvBbM
I love me some me.
Terrell Owens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44syOEAE0sA - 225k -
Region VIII
What would the best description of the housing market presently be?
Scared? you should be.
But what’s a precise, realistic number, and for what duration?
Nouriel Roubini fears deflation.
Supposing that scenario is accurate what is the most likely outcome.
When I was on the Spanish Riviera this summer, I saw real value in the crashed housing market. There were good condos for 250, but there was so much inventory, you begin to wonder. I made a friend who bought a 1700 century ranchette 40 miles from Sabanillas which seemed like a killer idea. It seems they picked it up at next to nothing. Nothing beats the Basque country though. I even got a t-shirt that I’m going to wash the car with in 10 years.
$250 is about what a condo in Spain is worth.
The Fed also fears deflation and will do all within its power to steer the economy away from deflation.
So an important question to consider regards the sustainability and likely consequences of the Fed’s anti-deflation measures.
I make no claims because I’m not an expert.
A wise man who lived through the depression said repeatedly:
“Debt is a moral falling”.
Hows that working out for you Tard?
So what’s your number. I think you’re scared to say.
Oil Tard oil!
Oops…
Cheaper oil
Winners and losers
America and its friends benefit from falling oil prices; its most strident critics don’t
Oct 25th 2014 | CAIRO, CARACAS, MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON |
IN EARLY October the IMF looked at what might happen to the world economy if conflict in Iraq caused an oil-price shock. Fighters from Islamic State (IS) were pushing into the country’s north and the fund worried about a sharp price rise, of 20% in a year. Global GDP would fall by 0.5-1.5%, it concluded. Equity prices in rich countries would decline by 3-7%, and inflation would be at least half a point higher.
IS is still advancing. Russia, the world’s third-biggest producer, is embroiled in Ukraine. Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and Libya, oil producers all, are in turmoil. But the price of Brent crude fell over 25% from $115 a barrel in mid-June to under $85 in mid-October, before recovering a little (see chart). Such a shift has global consequences. Who are the winners and losers?
…
The Who - Who Are You?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TuPQvzO5Js
A song for those who are feeling down…
I’ll Be Fine
A video from same group, also good:
Love Letter
I’ve always loved that video. Isn’t that the last one where Keith Moon was alive?