Bits Bucket for December 12, 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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Reporting on Ferguson can be bad for your future.
Morning Mix
Fox News journalist Dominic Di-Natale, 43, an apparent suicide
By Lindsey Bever December 12 at 2:50 AM
Fox News correspondent Dominic Di-Natale, 43, who most recently reported on the protests in Ferguson, Mo., has died, Fox News reports. He was found dead Wednesday in Jefferson County, Colo., after an apparent suicide, the county coroner told the news network.
Di-Natalie owned property in the area. A friend alerted authorities to check on Di-Natale, according to the network, concerned about his state of mind after “serious undisclosed health issues.”
“We were extremely saddened to learn of Dominic’s passing and send our deepest condolences to his family and friends,” Fox News said in a statement. “He was an esteemed journalist and an integral part of our news coverage throughout the Middle East.”
…
he earns a hug from the gentle giant from beyond the grave
We can’t breathe
http://www.businessinsider.com/black-congressional-staffers-walk-out-over-police-violence-2014-12
Cant believe it turned into a race issue. Why aren’t white people protesting over the police brutality?
Cuz they’re at work?
Heard some poll results on NPR recently that the majority of whites surveyed agreed with the Michael Brown verdict, but did not agree with the Eric Garner verdict.
72 million whites (close to Germany’s pop.) are not working. At least 100 could have gone to a protest. Is that too much to ask?
“Heard some poll results on NPR recently that the majority of whites surveyed agreed with the Michael Brown verdict, but did not agree with the Eric Garner verdict.”
The main problem is that neither were verdicts.
I think many people (regardless of race) agree that there was enough witness testimony corroborating the officer’s story for the Brown situation to NOT have a trial.
However, how the Garner case was presented to the Grand Jury in a way that made it difficult to move forward, and it’s unclear to most average Americans as to why there will be no trial in that case.
In BOTH cases, the DA seemed overly friendly to the police. In the case of Brown, the friendliness probably didn’t matter based on the testimony. In the case of Garner, the friendliness may very well have been the difference between a trial, and no trial.
IMHO, at a MINIMUM, the relationship between the DA and police needs to be addressed in cases such as these.
Don’t let the falling oil prices worry you, as they will very soon be back above $100/bbl.
Cuz AlbqDan said so.
Markets
Oil’s Drop Spills Into Other Assets
Crude Falls Below $60 a Barrel, Pressuring Stocks and Oil-Linked Currencies
By Nicole Hong and Josie Cox
Updated Dec. 11, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET
The benchmark U.S. oil price tumbled below $60 a barrel for the first time in five years, intensifying the pain across financial markets and jolting the central banks of some oil-dependent economies into action.
The decline in oil weighed on U.S. stocks on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up as much as 225 points on strong U.S. economic data before paring gains amid a renewed descent in crude. The blue-chip index ended up 63.19 points, or 0.4%, to 17596.34.
Stocks of oil-producing companies and currencies of oil-exporting countries dropped as investors braced for sharply lower revenue, a result of the fastest selloff in oil prices since the 2008 financial crisis.
The drop in crude oil comes as policy makers are grappling with low inflation and sluggish global growth, although it is proving to be a boon to consumers who are benefiting from the lower cost of gasoline and other fuels. Officials are concerned about the prospect of deflation, a damaging spiral of falling prices and slowing spending, in some regions of the world such as Japan and Europe.
Due to a snowballing decline in oil prices, U.S. energy companies have begun to cut drilling, lay off workers and slash spending. WSJ’s Erin Ailworth reports. Photo: Getty
“I don’t want to say this is Wall Street versus Main Street, but Main Street will see the positive effects in their pocketbooks while Wall Street’s more focused on the clouds rather than the silver lining,” said Drew Matus, an economist at UBS.
…
“Or maybe not, because if said Keynesian US consumer is drowning his sorrows from declining alcohol prices in, well, alcohol, all shall be well if on the side said consumer orders some steak: with a price increase of 28.6% from a year ago, this is the biggest annual jump in beef prices since 2003. ”
I can afford some more steaks at costco thx to falling gas prices.
PLINY THE ELDER TOO!
A few years ago when gold was falling like a rock, and people were talking about under 1000 dollar gold, Whac asked at price will you buy gold. I said under $1200. I set that price based on all in production costs. Did it go lower than that for a while? Sure, but it had to recover since people do not produce goods at a lost for a long time. Similarly, under $80 is not sustainable in the short term and under $100 for the longer term. Picking the exact bottom is a fool’s game, determining production costs and buying when a product is selling below that price is the intelligent way to invest.
What makes you think you know what production costs are?
What makes you think I cannot calculate them?
Then lets see it.
“I said under $1200.”
And coincidentally, that is where the price remains today, a few years later!
And on the flip side, I’ve seen many posts here talking about the next stock market crash based on 1-2 day swings of 2-3%. Frankly, I don’t see how Dan’s opines about 7% growth in China are any different from predictions about stock market doom.
Or environmental catastrophe for that matter.
Truth is, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow.
The real concern is the erosion and loss of your basic freedoms. That actually IS happening.
“under $80 is not sustainable in the short term and under $100 for the longer term.”
Yes, and for this reason gator-feeding landlords should be increasing rents on their properties. I mean, losing money month after month after month just isn’t sustainable.
/sarc
No. We’re not going to ignore the price fixing at grossly inflated levels.
Whac and the difference between gold and oil is oil is far below production costs. Some day gold will trade far above production since that is how new capacity is created to meet demand. It is called a business cycle, you should Google it.
Your production cost calculation.
Saudi production costs average $10-$20 a barrel,
He doesn’t have a production cost calculation, because he is nothing but a straw man construction king, building a foundation upon lies.
Also, let the abdan straw man define “short term” and “long term.” He won’t, because he tries to hedge his comments in order to WEASEL out of them at a later date when they prove false. This guy is a narcissistic tool.
ABQ Dan…. your production cost calculation.
Thanx
It is such a ridiculous request since every well or oil sands field has a different costs. I have read reports for oil fields that run in the hundreds of pages and you want me to post the world’s calculation on a blog. It just shows me you know nothing about the production of oil.
Saudi production costs average $10-$20 a barrel,
And if you read Twilight in the Desert, you will know how close its fields are to exhaustion despite it trying to deny it.
Sure, but cost are $10-20 until then run dry.
I agree oil, peaked. Except for the stuff in the Arctic.
are the saudis trying to lowball everyone?
We are essentially out of conventional oil and so are the Saudi’s. Their claim to be able to produce two million barrels more than they are producing is doubted by many, include me in that group. There is no economic reason for what the Saudi’s are doing since they should not be pushing their old oil fields as hard as they are, they are going to increase the water cut and destroy the fields prematurely. No this is all about politics. They hate the Shiites in Iran, Iraq and the ruling government in Syria. Russia is an ally of them because it knows Iran and Iraq have the real oil reserves not Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s want to force Russia to at least abandon Assad so the majority Sunni population will rule instead of the Pro-Shiite Assad. He belongs to a sect aligned with Shiites.
Saudis
‘We are essentially out of conventional oil and so are the Saudi’s.’
Well, you do know more than the Chinese government.
BTW, there’s no shortage of oil and there never has been.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia from the book and I have friends that were friends with the author, they do not doubt his intelligence or his honesty:
In 2005, Matt Simmons wrote a book called Twilight in the Desert. In it, he summarized what he learned about Saudi Arabian oil production by reading 200 academic papers. He concluded from his analysis that the oil extraction techniques being used there were techniques that one might use if the fields were quite depleted. Because of this, he doubted that we should believe stories that Saudi oil production can be greatly expanded. Instead, he raised the possibility that in the not too distant future, Saudi oil production will suddenly decline. Matt’s research underlying the book was no doubt behind his concern that oil reserves and oil production rates are not audited.
BTW, there’s no shortage of oil and there never has been.
There is a shortage of cheap oil.
Well, you do know more than the Chinese government.
Actually, I am sure the Chinese government knows exactly what I know that is why they are trying to buy up as much oil as they can at these prices.
‘There is a shortage of cheap oil.’
I’ve heard this my entire life. But back in the 80’s, some guys would get together and decide to drill here or there in Texas and, up from the ground comes the bubblin’ crude.
The oil industry is like real estate; someone is always trying to tell us we’re running out of something. And define cheap. If there’s oil under the ocean, what was paid for it? Nothing. It’s just the cost of extracting it. Like taxi’s, a government can tax it, or find some way to make it expensive, but the cost basis is low.
A few years ago I drove back to north Texas. I passed by Electra. Pump jacks working everywhere. Electra is one of the oldest fields in Texas.
Ok if field development is “different” for every field, go ahead and select one field and show me development costs line for line.
Any environmental cost to all this “cheap, never ending oil?”
they will require you to buy a gas mask sold by haliburton.
Falling oil prices - the benefits and the costs
Tumbling energy prices may seem like an unadulterated boon - but the bad news may outweigh the good
Oil well - nodding donkey
By Jeremy Warner
6:40AM GMT 12 Dec 2014
Here’s a startling statistic. Since July, the plunge in the oil price has engineered a net transfer of income from energy producers to consumers worth close on $1.5 trillion a year. The figure is reached by taking the fall in the oil price – around $42 – and multiplying it by global demand – around 94 million barrels per day. Add in the declining cost of coal and natural gas, and the net transfer is even higher – possibly something equivalent to the entire annual GDP of Britain.
Not that you’ll necessarily see this in your fuel bills. Already Britain’s big utilities will be lining up their excuses for failing to hand on the full extent of these falling global prices; long term forward contracts will have locked many of them into much higher prices than now rule.
The same is true of airlines, where fuel costs are a substantial proportion of the overall price of a ticket; many will already have bought their fuel forward at a higher level. There is a big difference between the current price for oil and gas, and the one many big users are contracted to pay.
None the less, for the global economy as a whole, the plunge in the oil price – dragging other energy costs with it – is a seismic and potentially transformational event. Down the decades, we’ve seen many upheavals in oil markets, but few to compare with the speed and depth of the latest correction. It’s like the oil price shocks of the 1970s, only in reverse, with consequences – many of them unpredictable – which may be of a similar order of magnitude.
…
There are going to be plenty of nodding debt donkeys who wished they hadn’t bought those fracking high yield bonds before the aftermath of this oil crash finishes playing out.
Whomever thought RV cities for miles, and $18 per hour Dairy Queen jobs were sustainable long-term needs to have their head examined. Oil prices have been in a MASSIVE bubble.
ft dot com
Last updated: December 11, 2014 10:49 pm
US oil price below $60 a barrel
Gregory Meyer in New York and Neil Hume and Anjli Raval in London
US crude closed below $60 a barrel for the first time in five and a half years, sliding amid new concerns consumption will lag far behind surging output.
Ian Taylor, chief executive of Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trading house, said on Thursday that official estimates on consumption had been overshooting actual demand and suggested the cheapest oil since 2009 could linger.
“Over the last few months it’s become increasingly clear that demand predictions have been and continue to be consistently on the high side,” he told the Platts Global Energy Outlook Forum in New York.
Vitol daily delivers more than 5m barrels of oil, or about 6 per cent of the global physical market. This gives it a privileged vantage on trends in supply, demand and inventory.
Mr Taylor’s comments echoed others in the physical oil market. Alex Beard, head of oil at the commodities trading house Glencore, said at an investor day on Wednesday that “We are in for a period of low prices and capital discipline across the market”, although he warned that the lower prices went the sharper the eventual rebound would be.
Nymex January West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, surrendered early gains to end down 99 cents at $59.95 a barrel on Thursday. Brent, the international crude marker, also headed south, falling 56 cents to $63.68 a barrel. Both contracts settled at the lowest levels since mid-July 2009.
The declines came on top of falls of more than $2 on Wednesday after the Opec producers’ cartel said demand for the group’s crude in 2015 would be the lowest in a decade and below current levels.
Official forecasts from bodies including Opec and the US Energy Department contend world oil consumption will rise by 1m barrels per day next year, Mr Taylor said.
But he said that two factors — the weakening of large economies in Asia and Europe and steady improvement in energy efficiency — were challenging these assumptions. Demand will grow by only about 600,000 b/d this year, he said.
…
“the eventual rebound…”
See, a return to permagrowth is inevitable!
No doubt there will be violent swings in this and many other things as the shock of having built enough housing for double the world’s population shreds the machinery of construction and the financiers behind it.
Region VIII -
Please keep us posted on the affect of the declining oil on real estate prices, jobs and economy out there. If this continues and the dark clouds continue to build on the horizon I say again - I see history repeating itself here - all them developments and all them recent arrivals may see hard times ahead.
NYMEX Crude Oil
$59.20
LATEST PRICE IN USD
-$0.75 / -1.25%
TODAY’S CHANGE
-$38.33 / -39.30%
ONE YEAR CHANGE
Don’t look now, but NYMEX Crude is already down to $58.67 before the opening bell on Wall Street.
What the smart money is doing: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-12/schwarzman-says-energy-is-best-opportunity-in-many-years.html
Holding onto every dollar you can and staying out of debt is what the smart money does ABQ Dan.
oil is definitely a buying opportunity. Maybe a good time to dollar cost average in. I wouldn’t go all in here. There seems to be more downside to this selloff.
5 years of speculation can take awhile to unwind.
Seems like the big banks make more money rigging markets and investing than they do loaning to consumers.
Why buy today when you can buy later for less?
That would be pretty dumb, wouldn’t it?
And the Chinese are not dumb, they know when prices are not sustainable from Bloomberg:
The number of supertankers sailing to China jumped to a record in ship-tracking data amid signs that the oil-price crash is spurring the Asian nation to stockpile.
There are 83 very large crude carriers bound for Chinese ports, according to shipping signals from IHS Maritime, compiled by Bloomberg at about 8:30 a.m. today in London. The ships would transport 166 million barrels, assuming standard cargoes, the largest number in data starting in October 2011. The cost of hiring the vessels surged to the highest in almost five years, according to Baltic Exchange data.
+1
Dumb money is taking their cues on what to do from falling knifecatcher encouragement stories like your Bloomberg post.
whats your forecast for oil? Are you on the bandwagon now? Why didn’t you see the collapsing oil price coming?
We called it right here Poet.
Price fixing isn’t as complicated as you think.
We did?
I remember NO predictions on HBB about a 40% drop in oil prices.
Perhaps I missed those comments? Could be.
If they do exist, I’d like to read our comments about oil. Date and times, please. Anyone? Thanks in advance.
You’ll have to go back and look but crude price fixing was discussed in reference to retail gasoline prices hitting $1.80/gal in the northeast.
When?
I’m not about to “go back and look” over a period or weeks or years.
I want someone here to state specific when and where anyone on this board predicted the massive drop in oil prices that we are seeing today.
I don’t recall seeing any such thing.
Better that none of us here let our egos get inflated. No need to do everyone else here a disservice.
Do a search. It’s all there.
http://www.southrustern.com/hbbcmt/index.cgi
Thanks, I will. I’ll start looking tomorrow.
If I find anything, I’ll provide you specifically with dates and times.
I never heard mention of it either. It certainly has never been a theme of discussion that I recall.
I would agree that, at a general level, most HBB regulars would have been quick to say that the expected debt explosion and sharp deflationary correction would extend to oil price deflation also. Not that they ever said as much, but that’s how we call things here. But who actually said that oil (as opposed to housing, stocks or credit) would likely lead the way down? No one that I know, and I’m not conducting a search to find out. Who cares?
Housing prices are rolling over, headed for a crash. OTOH, oil is actually crashing, here and now. That’s OK, maybe we missed it. So did everyone else, everywhere, to my knowledge. Even Abq boy, and he never misses anything!
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-08-15 08:20:20
‘The junk bond market is issuing record amounts of debt at insane rates, and some companies won’t be able to pay that back.’
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8550#comment-2366852
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-21 12:42:35′
‘I can’t help but feel the thinnest ice is under junk bonds.’
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8611#comment-2378978
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-10-14 12:07:44
When I read what the Saudi’s were doing the other day, I thought just what this guy is saying about fracking:
‘Gartman suggested not ascribing too much to the drop in crude oil prices. “I don’t think that the crude oil market is indicative of economic weakness,” he said. “I think the crude oil market is indicative of excessive inventories of crude, and even more coming at us in the fact that the Saudis would like to push crude oil prices down to stop fracking and to do damage to the Iranians and to do damage to the Russians.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102083900?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=102083900#.
This happened in the 80’s. The Saudi’s and others drove the price of oil down to squash producers in Texas, etc. Held prices down long enough to kill them off, then went back to business as usual. They can afford to do that. Fracking is expensive and relies on junk bonds. Boy, could there be a mashup coming out of this.
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8648#comment-2384214
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-11-08 09:12:48
‘Price fixing?’
OPEC has been around for a while. I grew up in the north Texas oil patch and can remember the embargo’s. Prices up for years, everybody drilling. Then OPEC pulled on the rug. What most of us were unaware of was how much debt the oil state economies had taken on, and the related real estate bubble/S&L fraud, etc. Had Texans pocketed that cash and refused to go into debt, it would have hurt, but not sunk the economy. Leverage is a wonderful thing when you’re up, not so great when you’re down.
A couple months ago I was on a flight over Midland, Texas. For probably 20 minutes I looked down on a vast maze of connecting dirt roads to little pads with wells on them. Tight together like small tiles on a floor. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
‘One area of concern for us is the impact of lower oil prices in high yield debt market. Lower oil prices portend lower margins and thus less cash flow for debt servicing. A lot of issuance in the high yield debt market has gone to funding E&P companies as demonstrated by the Oil & Gas 14 % composition in the HYG - iShares High Yield ETF, only slightly behind the Utility Sector. For now there does not appear to be too much disturbance in the junk market but we would be wary owning shares of E&P companies with high levels of DEBT/EBITDAR and DEBT/Total Capital, relative to peers.’
http://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-opportunity-and-risk-in-the-oil-patch-170217923.html
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8689#comment-2390608
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-10-01 10:26:21
Dallas (greater) is headed for some problems. When I was there last week, new road construction was everywhere. New retail, new houses, especially on the fringe. Then I looked up some house listings; price reductions everywhere. If those developers have overestimated demand, and I think they have, it’ll be like the 80’s again.
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8627#comment-2381485
‘Comment by Ben Jones
2014-07-31 07:50:37
‘In recent years, common wisdom held that the Permian Basin’s best days were behind it, along with most of Texas oil. That was before the shale boom erupted. Fracking in Barnett in north Texas, the Eagle Ford in south Texas and the Wolfcamp and Spraberry shale formations in the Permian Basin led to an energy renaissance. Now more than half the rigs in the country are in Texas, and 563 of those — more than half the rigs in the state — are in the Permian, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. For places like Midland and Odessa, built on oil, dependent on oil and obsessed with the stuff, this was the boom they’d been praying for since the big bust in the 1980s.’
‘But there’s always a price. With prosperity comes inflation. Rental costs have soared along with the larger paychecks for some and the billions of dollars invested by oil companies. Odessa is the second-fastest-growing metro area in the country, and Midland is third, according to a U.S. Census Bureau population study.’
‘As Ed Hirs, an economics professor at the University of Houston, puts it: “You’d best be a heart surgeon or an oncologist if you want to live out there and you aren’t in the industry.” There are increases in pay, but in some situations they aren’t enough to close the cost-of-living gap created by inflation. People can work at fast-food joints making $16 an hour and still not be able to afford to live in the area.’
‘The story goes differently if you’re in the oil industry, says Hirs. “The world is their oyster right now,” he says.’
‘Oil company officials are publicly predicting that the expansion will last for decades, that there are enough untapped shale formations to keep economic activity thrumming for years. History says that won’t be the case because booms always bust and the wells needed to reach shale formations are incredibly expensive to drill, at about $7 million each. Oil has hovered around $100 a barrel for years, which makes drilling a shale well profitable, but if the price ever falls to $50 to $60 a barrel, oil companies will lose money and Odessa and Midland could go from boomtowns to ghost towns overnight.’
‘Painter thinks of that whenever he drives past the RV parks with hundreds of people packed into spaces of flat, arid land. If it all ended, some of those people would doubtless be able to leave, but just as many others would be trapped in West Texas and they’d have a nightmare on their hands, he says. Some observers say the boom will never end because it’s being driven by advances in drilling technology and not the price of oil.’
‘Malugani didn’t stay to find out. At the end of the school year, she packed up her things and drove to Boise, Idaho. People asked her what it was like living in Odessa, and she tried to explain the adrenaline in the air, the way everyone, even the kids, is focused on the slick black crude trapped in dense, brittle rock hundreds of feet below. “I tried to explain it to people, but they didn’t really understand. Until you’re in it, living it, experiencing it, you don’t understand.”
http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8524#comment-2361839
Comment by Ben Jones
2014-07-31 07:56:35
‘Think the oil boom is soon to bust? Experts say think again. “It’s not going to go away anytime soon,” said Jim Peach, professor of economy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.’
‘The news might be a welcome sign for supporters of this booming industry. However, the boom could continue to cause a strain on local residents who are on a fixed or lower income, even if more residential units or commercial businesses enter Carlsbad, Peach said. More hotels or RV parks may not be the ticket to lower the cost of living in the area.’
“Will that be enough?” Peach said about the potential of new housing and commercial sites. “I’m not sure. People should expect to see continued high prices.”
‘Peach said predicting the oil industry is risky business, because oil barrel prices drive the industry. Currently, the price for an oil barrel is around $100, which is good, Peach said.’
‘The housing market is a long-term investment, according to Peach, and the unpredictably of the oil industry might deter developers from putting that much investment into Carlsbad. He said Carlsbad has a diverse economy that includes potash, tourism and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which would help if the oil industry slumps.’
‘He added that other residential units, like apartments and RV units, don’t require the same type of investment, which could be an indication on why more hotels and temporary housing units are headed into the city than housing units. Currently, four hotels are under construction in Carlsbad.’
‘Peach said he looked at recent hotel price in September when he plans to visit for Mayor Dale Janway’s Oil and Gas Summit. He found a room at $379 a night. “That’s like prices you would see in D.C. (Washington), New York, or L.A., not Carlsbad” Peach said.’
“Jim Peach, professor of economy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.”
Sounds pretty close to Albuquerque!
‘I want someone here to state specific when and where anyone on this board predicted the massive drop in oil prices that we are seeing today.’
‘I don’t recall seeing any such thing.’
Well?
OK Ben, you win. My main point is, a lot of people seem to be absolutely certain as to what’s happening right now, and why, and what’s going to happen next, but none of those big talkers seemed to have any idea this was coming. I never considered you to be in that group in the least, you’re much more careful with your claims. And as you just pointed out, you’re one of the few (only?) that was even hinting in this direction. At least that I noticed.
Let me narrow my own claim - was anyone (including yourself) on record earlier this year calling for specifically for a crash all the way to sub $60 WTI by this Christmas? And I don’t mean just on this blog, I mean anywhere. I think whoever did should be getting some serious recognition about it at this point.
”Jim Peach, professor of economy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.”
Sounds pretty close to Albuquerque!
Whac, your knowledge of geography matches your knowledge of economics and politics, which means it is nonexistent. Yes, you must work in public education in California.
Yeah, here’s one example I blogged about late in October:
From Macleans in Canada. “Back in the 1980s, Ron Carey was sitting in a Calgary bar with a fellow oilman, reflecting on the great oil bust that had levelled Alberta’s economy, when he came up with the idea for a bumper sticker that would capture the grim mood in the province: ‘Please God, let there be another oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.’ Three decades later, Carey, now 75, has watched another boom grip the province and is ready to print another run of those stickers if need be.”
“That’s because he sees worrying signs of another bust on the horizon: soaring wages, ‘ridiculous’ house prices and people living ‘high on the hog’ because they assume the good times will go on forever. ‘There’s not many people out there today who even remember,’ he says. ‘It’s 34 years ago. Most of the people who went through that mess are either retired or close to retiring. So you have a younger generation that doesn’t even know what a real recession is.’”
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=8671
Notice he saw a problem from the behavior of people, not knowledge of what OPEC might do. I could see “high yield” bonds, known to those who’ve been around a while as junk, were being issued willy-nilly for many months at really stupid low rates. With the Fed operating like a drunk sailor, it wasn’t hard to see the risks were being ignored. It’s just a matter of time before something blows up. Here’s what I gather; it won’t just be the oil field that defaults on these bonds. Silicon Valley will have you know what running down their legs before this is over. And that is going to scare the markets into putting risk premiums on the table. Goodbye low interest rates. The panic is in the leveraged. It doesn’t matter what the business is. You see crazy borrowing, people living it up and bam! Watch out for that tree George.
This one really has me scratching my head and noodling. It’s fascinating. I never thought this fast and deep a price move was possible, and that’s from someone who tends to expect these types of responses in general.
People with a certain sort of outlook that many of us share will talk from time to time about “black swans”. The kind of thing that “comes out of nowhere”. (Not always out of nowhere, but you know what I mean.) I think we may be staring right down the barrel of a big one right now, for real. It has all the necessary qualifications, including catching so many off guard.
“I never thought this fast and deep a price move was possible”
Why? Given everything you know, how well you’re aligned with reality, why did or does it seem improbable?
Wait till these people building thousands of lux condos in downtown Miami get smacked. I mean Jeebus, it just crashed a few years ago!
Good question HA. That’s what has me noodling. I guess there are so many other insanely overpriced assets out there to pick from (excess empty housing, social media stocks, stocks in general, junk HY debt, etc) that I figured one or more of those was bound to lead the charge down. It seemed too obvious.
I have thought energy to be overpriced, though not insanely so, like housing, for instance. And of all the inflated asset classes, energy has the most real intrinsic value IMO. So I guess I figured energy would naturally follow after the real implosion got started for other reasons. I never imagined energy might lead the way, at least in the public face of things. But that is what’s happening.
“It seemed too obvious.”
There it is.
I’ve been calling an oil crash here for years, and on Marketwatch. Like real estate, I could never say when, but I could say for sure it would.
This one really has me scratching my head and noodling. It’s fascinating. I never thought this fast and deep a price move was possible
This evening I paid $2.279/gal unleaded regular in NE OH. A huge price collapse in gasoline also happened between 11/2008 and 1/2009, early in that month I paid $1.399/gal in NW Louisiana.
Is your memory working?
My memory’s just fine. 2008 was a crash from a exponential blow-off price top, said price top occurring in the face of a completely collapsing financial sector due to a severe housing crash that was 2-3 years in the making by that point, with the country entering recession.
I guess I should have said possible under the present set of circumstances. Again, if you read what I’ve been saying, I’m not surprised that this might happen, I’m surprised that it’s out in front, right at this moment.
Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone Group LP (BX), said it’s going to be the best time in many years to invest in energy.”
Will Blackstone have to sell the housing rentals to raise cash to buy up the energy sector deals ? Have they already sold them off ?
I have a limit buy order for Chevron at $70 per share. 4% yield not bad but this looks like a cycle. If I don’t get the limit I still have the $7,000 cash.
Big oil is in favor of war.
what do you think about oil etfs? chevron is god in CA.
Bill, I saw your comment about HESS yesterday.
I also owned Hess; sold it when it dropped to $90. Made a good chunk of change.
You are looking at potentially buying back in at $55. Why that number?
I just dropped my buy to $52 on HES - It’s just a good 50% haircut. I owned HES a year or so ago and made some money back then.
azdude, I haven’t looked into ETFs on energy yet. But that might be an interesting thing.
Exxon is also big in Cali. Particularly in the South Bay part of LA where I hung out a few years.
Crude Oil 58.36 -2.65%
$2.59/gal
Costco
12350 Carmel Mountain Rd & Rancho Carmel Dr
Rancho Bernardo
kane2
1 hour ago
Got affordable gasoline?
I have so much money left over after making my weekly trip to the Costco gas station that I could drown myself in Starbucks lattes purchased with the money I save!
Apologies.
Why did ADan leave the blog and then why did ADan return?
I am fascinated by this. Really. I’m at the point, now that he’s back, that I am only reading ADan’s posts here. There are certainly enough of them
And while reading his post’s I’m trying, with no real results yet, to correlate his China themed posts with actual Chinese news here in China.
Maybe, if I look closely enough and think carefully enough, I will understand where he’s coming from and what his motivations are for posting about China. China is fascinating, I understand that. Its economics will impact all of us but WTF?
Discussing Chinese expat money in RE is one thing but where does ADan’s obsession with China come from?
ADan, are you Chinese or have Chinese ancestry? If yes, then that would go a ways in explaining some of it.
Try drinking more, as that may further your understanding of his insights.
+1 pint
Unfortunately, I wont be a part of any ongoing discussion as I’ll be asleep soon enough.
But I hope to read some interesting posts tomorrow.
I am not Chinese and why not ask about whac’s obsession with China, his comments are the mirror image of mind? Why did I leave, you saw the exchange from August posted. Why did I come back, I have some spare time and decided to see what was being discussed on the board, I had rarely checked since I had no intention of posting. SCDave and others, were calling me out, so I posted and I have had plenty of time to post this week. It is simple as that.
You’re also posting here because I’m allowing it and paying for it.
+1
Why have the chinese amassed so many treasuries? Do they like the yields?
Glad to have dan back. He is a competent poster.
I’m not obsessed with China; rather my fascination is with folks who can’t see crashes in progress which appear as plain as the noses on their faces to anyone with his eyes wide open.
7% growth is hardly a crash. Retail sales in China are up about 12% year to date, what should be clear is China is moving for just an export economy to a country where internal consumption becomes more and more important.
12 December 2014 Last updated at 04:11 ET
Linda Yueh
Chief business correspondent
The China Price: The global impact of Chinese deflation
A sales girl packs goods in a supermarket in Huaibei, central China’s Anhui province China’s consumer and producer prices are closely-watched economic indicators
Is the “China price” back? After years of hearing about rising wages ending the era of the China price when cheap exports lowered the prices of global manufactured goods, it seems that China has a surprise for the world. Deflation, that is, falling prices, is an issue for the world’s second biggest economy, just as it is for many others.
That was the topic on this weekend’s In the Balance on the World Service. It certainly resonated with me as I presented the programme from Tokyo. After its early 1990s crash, Japan has struggled with deflation for 15 years and has not yet been able to turn it around.
In China, there’s deflation in factory prices, which have fallen continually for two and a half years, and the increase in the consumer price index (CPI) has slowed to 1.4%, the lowest since the 2009 global recession.
…
They have deflation does that in any way mean they do not have 7% growth? No, it means they have cheaper raw material inputs and more efficient production (new plant and equipment will do that).
“No, it means they have cheaper raw material inputs and more efficient production (new plant and equipment will do that).”
You are confusing wholesale and retail prices. Check out plummeting Chinese housing prices, for instance.
All you need to know is China is a creditor nation and US is a debtor nation. China is in better shape than USA. That’s all we need to know. Sure China will crash, so will US. China is in better shape to recover from that crash, USA not so much. End of Discussion.
Now let’s get back to the perpetually high stock market brought to you by the Federal Reserve. Some recovery, right? No wonder some people think we are in better shape than China. Suckers!
“Customers who used to wager on casino tables are probably now sitting at home betting on stocks,” said Tai Hui, Hong Kong-based chief Asia market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. “Investors are levering up on margin trading, or ‘using a small knife to cut a large tree.’”
All you need to know is China is a creditor nation and US is a debtor nation. China is in better shape than USA.
The standard of living of the typical Chinese person is still much lower than the American standard of living. An interesting question is whether China can achieve, in our lifetimes, a first world level of prosperity the way that Japan and South Korea did a few decades ago.
Provided that China has a political stability, has access to Energy at a reasonable cost and doesn’t entangle itself in mindless wars, I see no reason China won’t achieve the first world quality of life in next 15 to 20 years.
May not even take that long as we are slowly getting poor each year and China is getting richer by the day.
It will be interesting to see if they can do that. So much of their economy depends on paying their workers so little. In order to have a much higher standard of living, those workers would have to get paid a lot more. To make that possible, consumers in the export markets would have to be willing to pay a lot more for Chinese-made goods.
I read somewhere that people started noticing in the 1970s that Sony televisions had better picture quality than American TVs. And the 1970s was also when American drivers began to appreciate Japanese cars in large numbers. I think that China needs something similar - to have people buy Chinese stuff because of its quality, not just the low prices.
China has one other major hurdle to overcome - it’s air pollution. It’s atrocious by anyone’s standards.
Not unusual for a rapidly emerging economy to evolve this way, and they can certainly deal with it over time. It’s a shame though, that they’ve put so much of their recent treasure into building cities that no one lives in, as opposed to making their existing cities far more livable.
https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/
World oil demand will be over 94 million barrels by the end of 2015, putting around 1% of production into storage is the norm, not a glut. the PTB can spin this any way they want but this is nothing more than economic war on Russia and a lesser extent on Iran and it will end suddenly just like it started. Neither the U.S. or Saudi Arabia want to push to far and end up with a shooting war, they just want better leverage. Moreover, the US economy is being damaged and Saudi Arabia is losing money so they both have reasons to reach a truce.
“The supposed housing recovery storyline continues to be beaten like a dead horse by the Wall Street media (CNBC) and the shills at the NAR. Anyone with a functioning brain (eliminates CNBC bimbos, hacks, and Ivy League economists) can see there has been no real housing recovery.”
Foreclosure starts rising for first time in 27 months;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/98629779-4013-4f52-9ee6-a41cde939c72/stitch?storyguid=0f024050-80ac-11e4-94c1-3857f6a2e144&siteid=nwhpf
It’s not a war Adan, it’s a train wreck. Manias end. Yours will too.
The price of gasoline will be back up quick but the demand from the SUVs will be around for the life of the vehicles:
http://news.yahoo.com/gas-prices-falling-americans-rushing-162010242.html
Falling prices of all items ABQdan.
Still falling!
It has little to do with production costs, and lots to do with high risk, highly leveraged financial gambling activity.
Crude Oil - Electronic (NYMEX) Jan 2015
Market open $57.99
Change -$1.96 -3.27%
Volume 294,119
Dec 12, 2014, 1:24 p.m.
Quotes are delayed by 10 min
Previous close $ 59.95
Day low $57.34
Day high $59.57
52 week low $57.34
52 week high $102.53
Oil is down by nearly another 4% to another 52-week low today. And on another topic, the Fed is talking about near-term rate increases, which would hammer another nail into the oil price mania’s coffin, not to mention the price of gold, as once the period of extraordinarily low rates ends, nobody is going to want to hold on to assets with zero returns aside from highly-volatile capital gains or losses.
Nonetheless it would be insane to think this could continue!
If Cosby drugged you and Clinton or Filner grabbed you, please call Saul.
Only Cosby can end this madness.
what is the statute of limitations on rape? He will never be prosecuted as a criminal. Civil cases will try and get some of his cash. I wonder how much he is worth?
Renting is getting more expensive ??
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/98629779-4013-4f52-9ee6-a41cde939c72/stitch?storyguid=76b66db4-813a-11e4-b358-a677207bc7d7&siteid=nwhpf
It’s going to have to get alot more expensive for buying to make sense Dave.
Remember… current rental rates are half the cost of buying.
If your not handy you can go broke owning a home. If you have to call someone anytime there is a problem you need to keep renting.
Will Russia defaults (corporate more likely than national) to western lenders be the start of a systemic crisis?
http://www.businessinsider.com/rouble-is-tanking-again-despite-central-bank-rate-hike-2014-12
I’d love to see it.
I’d like to see oil drop to $10 a barrel again as it did during the last Russian currency crisis.
And you are insane enough to think it will happen.
Prices are falling and a demand cratering ABQ Dan. This is good news!
“The United States should lift the ban on exporting oil and natural gas because it could bolster national security and create jobs, former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told CNBC on Friday.
“OPEC is diminished as a cartel but not out of the picture,” he said in a “Squawk Box” interview. The U.S. should “reach out to the European Union to be the main suppliers of natural gas to Europe instead of the Russians.”
That’s right. Lets get these prices down much lower to establish some demand.
We can only hope, HA.
What needs to be taken out to the woodshed and shot is our insane reliance on credit. Not entirely, course, but a considerable haircut would make our economy more viable/based on fundamentals.
Since, as a country, we’re too stupid to rein in credit voluntarily, we’ll have to let falling prices put the check on credit.
We’re not about to kick our heroin habit without its users suffering considerable pain, apparently.
“And you are insane enough to think it will happen.”
And you are sufficiently blinded by your own beliefs to assume it can’t.
It can’t because it is far below the actual production costs of oil sands etc., no one will produce at the those levels, people will produce below the all in costs but not their actual production costs. If I lose more money actually producing than doing nothing, I will do nothing. If you do not understand that you should not be posting on economic matters.
If you don’t understand that crazy, highly-leveraged speculative financial gambles can lead to market behaviors that don’t fit the standard predictions of neoclassical economics, then you should limit your lectures to the classroom.
So how does russia get the rouble up?
What are the options on the table?
Why does it have to? Russia’s budget is in rubles, the ruble has fallen against the dollar more than oil has fallen. Thus, it can cover its budget since he is receiving dollars for the oil exports. Now, there are reasons to manage the decline to avoid too much inflation but its allows Putin to rebuild his armed forces much more cheaply and to substitute Russian goods for Western goods both things he wants to do.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/russia-rouble-idUSL6N0TW0KE20141212
Japan is trying hard to get its currency lower. No one in the msm is saying the yens fall is a disaster for the country. Pitin can take the fall in the currency easier than Obama can take our falling stock market.
but its allows Putin to rebuild his armed forces much more cheaply ??
While the economy is sprialing into recession….Does not make for happy campers outside of the military…
57 roubles = 1 dollar or a rouble is .01754 dollars
so if russia sells a barrel of oil for lets call it 57 dollars how many roubles should he get when that 57 usd is converted?
how many roubles will he get if rouble went to 70 to 1?
“go broke owning a home…”
Unpossible! Just go take another HELOC. You are the HELOC king. Buy a bottle of wine, call the plumber, sit back and watch your net worth climb to the sky.
pliny the elder!
Have you gone straight?
FWIW I live walking distance from Russian River brewing where Pliny the Elder beer is made and dispensed…a few times a year people line up and wait in line for hours to buy some when a new batch is made and I’m always reminded of the “sheeple” term I learned here, the scene is a lot like when a new iphone is released and the isheep line up.
If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years. It’s as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress.
stocks and home appreciate cause of currency inflation.
currency loses value as more currency is created.
so that dollar you have under your mattress from 1980 wont go as far as it did in 1980. in order for that dollar to keep its value it would have to earn as much as the currency is being inflated.
Where can you still a dollar today that will keep up with the mandated 2% / year currency inflation?
That’s not inflation.
*Learn* the difference.
If your not handy you can go broke owning a home ??
Buy a condo…
Better yet, rent a condo for half the cost of buying it.
In the many years since I bought my home, the only thing I’ve called a repairman for was the A/C breaking. Not everyone lives in the Money Pit movie, despite what the HBB thinks. Unless you buy a really old house, repairs are a minimal expense.
Nope, often that is not the case, lots of recent residential construction was built with crappy materials by unskilled labor, MAJOR faults can show up within a few years. Many houses going back to the to ’70’s are built from T-111 siding and have lots of rot and repairing that right with all new siding is expensive.
My last place was 70 years old and over 10 years ownership repairs ran about $10K, about average…and half of that was for a new sewer lateral required by the city after a mandatory inspection (which my sewer line failed) when I sold the place. I did do a LOT of work myself so it probably would have been more like $15K if I’d hired it all out. I actually enjoyed most of my repair and improvement projects and had an excuse to buy LOTS of tools…hope to buy a place after Bubble 2.0 pops and get a chance to use my tools again.
Some of the things I’ve done to my house in the 35 years I’ve owned it:
- replaced the roof
- replaced the hot water heater 3 times
- replaced the washer and dryer twice
- rebuilt the back yard fences
- remodeled the kitchen
- remodeled one of the bathrooms
- replaced the carpet twice
- minor plumbing repairs
- re-wired most of the house to bring it up to code
- replaced the garage door opener twice
- replaced all the window treatments ( blinds and curtains)
- a variety of landscaping projects
- exterior and interior painting
I did all of these things except the roof myself and derived a lot of satisfaction from the process. Even when it came to the roof, I removed the old roof myself before paying a contractor to install the new roof.
If you’re not up to tacking these sorts of things, then you probably shouldn’t own a house.
Sure over 35 years some work will be needed. However over that same 35 years, rents will have increased by 100% at least, while your mortgage payment stays the same, renters will have received $0 tax deduction while you received hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax deduction, and years 31-35 while your mortgage is paid off, the renter is paying rent every month.
So you have to buy a new water heater every 10 years and new carpet? Chump change compared to the savings of owning vs renting over 35 years.
exactly renting is a temporary gig , u dont want to make it permanent.
I paid off this house in 10 years so I’ve had no mortgage for the last 25 years.
I should have made it clear that the things on the list are very minor when you consider that they are spread out over 35 years. They are just a sample of some of the things you would expect to have to deal with if you owned a house for a significant amount of time.
I personally am glad we bought this house and I enjoy maintaining it.
When I die I want to go where Rascal and Dozzer went.
Tarara and family
It won’t be today but when you can…
Don’t cry because it’s over, Smile because it happened.
-Dr. Seuss
It’s only been about 24 hours, so I’m still expecting to see him, then remember. I haven’t been able to put his stuff away yet. The cats haven’t seemed to notice but that’s cats.
When I die I want to go where Rascal and Dozzer went.
Me, too. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
Sometimes I wish I could just passively accept what my government monarchs and their mainstream media mouthpieces feed me on a daily basis. Why do I have to question everything I’m told? Life would be much simpler and I could concentrate on more important things like the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass, why the Honey Boo Boo show was canceled, the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, whether I’ll get a better deal on Chinese slave labor produced crap on Black Thanksgiving, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, fantasy football league standings, the latest NFL player to knockout their woman and get reinstated, Obama’s latest racial healing plan, which Clinton or Bush will be our next figurehead president, or the latest fake rape story from Rolling Stone. The willfully ignorant masses, dumbed down by government education, lured into obesity by corporate toxic packaged sludge disguised as food products, manipulated, controlled and molded by an unseen governing class of rich men, and kept docile through never ending corporate media propaganda, are nothing but pawns to the arrogant sociopathic pricks pulling the wires in this corporate fascist empire of debt.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2014/12/11/should-you-believe-what-they-tell-you-or-what-you-see/
“The willfully ignorant masses, dumbed down by government education, lured into obesity by corporate toxic packaged sludge disguised as food products, manipulated, controlled and molded by an unseen governing class of rich men, and kept docile through never ending corporate media propaganda, are nothing but pawns to the arrogant sociopathic pricks pulling the wires in this corporate fascist empire of debt.”
Truly, a beautiful thing, a work of art.
Dumb ‘em down, and prosper.
++1 and then some
For some time I’ve been telling friends that intelligence is a curse. They don’t believe me.
Region VIII news
“To afford a median-priced rental in metro Denver, earners need to make $35 an hour, or almost 4 1/2 times Colorado’s minimum wage, according to an analysis by Zillow released on Thursday.”
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27118702/renters-need-make-35-an-hour-afford-housing
You could have bought a home a year ago for 10.6% less, and if you wait another year you’ll pay at least 3.6% more.
http://www.zillow.com/denver-co/home-values/
Why buy when prices are falling?
Warmist Warming Friday
“Yesterday, I joined an estimated 15,000 people who took to the streets of downtown Lima, Peru for the largest climate march ever in South America. This People’s Climate March in Lima comes on the heels of the recent massive People’s Climate March in New York. Citizens of the Americas have united their voices. Governments and their negotiators gathered in Lima for the UN climate conference must produce a meaningful agreement that will save our planet from the devastating effects of climate disruption.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-peterman/peoples-climate-march-in-_b_6307366.html
Enviro-Nuts = Religious Fanatics.
Which category do you fall in? Answer: Both.
Your walkscore sucks, happy Friday
This message was not approved by real journalists
“the problem for Democrats is that Gruber is not stupid. By all accounts, he is knowledgeable, candid and willing, on occasion, to criticize the Obama administration — an advocate for Obamacare without being a shill. But he is perfectly representative of a certain approach to politics that is common in academic circles, influential in modern liberalism and destructive to the Democratic Party.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-gruber-reveals-the-arrogance-of-liberals/2014/12/11/1464877e-8165-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html
Arrogance of liberals? Isn’t that redundant, LOLZ
Because who needs economic fundamentals when you’ve got “juice”
Wall Street Journal subscriber pay wall article blurb
“U.S. families’ debt burdens have settled at their lowest levels in over a decade, putting the economy on a stronger footing relative to global rivals going into 2015.
With home values rising, Americans are beginning to borrow more, a development that could help lift spending and juice the U.S. economy.”
You aren’t actually expecting mulitinational billionaires to pay their American employees more?
No. We’re expecting prices to continue falling like they are.
What’s falling are homeowners’ mortgage balances as they build equity with every mortgage payment.
Los Angeles, CA Sale Prices Plunge 10% YoY; Demand Craters Nationally
http://www.zillow.com/los-angeles-ca-90026/home-values/
With home values rising, Americans are beginning to borrow more, a development that could help lift spending and juice the U.S. economy.”
How is borrowing more and buying gadgets(you don’t need) made in China Juice the US economy? I know it will juice China’s economy.
I must live on alternate planet or some %shit like that.
Add “free trade” and decades of Marxist feminism and this is what you get
New York Times - The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html?abt=0002&abg=0
Of course, it will be up to younger generation males to straighten this out.
Silent and Boomer males allowed this to happen to their younger brothers. Sold them out in exchange for DIINKs lifestyles and the massive asset price increases/profits. Well played.
See rj chicago’s post below
The fortunes of today’s younger males is not just the fault of older females.
It’s also the fault of older males.
Both have royally screwed half of the population.
And continue to do so.
And speaking of Marxist feminism
Bloomberg - Sex Assaults Heighten Anxiety as Students Apply to U.S. Colleges
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/photo/2014-12-12/sex-assaults-heighten-college-admissions-fears-as-deadline-looms
When men and lawyers successfully discover ways to sue women for emotional harassment and assault (which is coming), this will wane.
Until then, it’s open season and men will continue to check out. (It’s time for women to foot the bill for the next hundred years or so anyhow.)
Until then, it’s open season and men ??
Yep…Just a claim of assault can get you arrested or at the least, get your name dragged through the media & internet….
“If it was a free market and central banks were not allowed to intervene anymore then we would be very bearish as the global financial system is still extremely fragile and not sustainable. “
The howling from the price pimps is like an audio clip out of a horror movie.
Living in a rental will never feel like a real home.
Walla Walla, WA Sale Prices Crater 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/walla-walla-wa/home-values/
Another day of playing World of Warcraft in mom’s basement?
Mercer Island Sale Prices Plummet 11% YoY; Inventory Billows As Sellers Slash Prices
http://www.zillow.com/mercer-island-wa/home-values/
Working in real estate will never feel like a real job.
First things first, honey.
Maybe you can work a double today at Wendy’s and hit 30 hours for the week.
Haven’t worked in a restaurant in 40 years now, sweetie. Nothing wrong with it though - was a good way to get started, and at least it’s more honest than working in real estate!
I washed dishes 40 years ago. A good way for a college kid to get an all you can eat dinner. Only paid a couple of bucks an hour, but I tried to be the best pot scrubber ever.
Yep. And watching how hard a business it is to run, it taught me that this wasn’t something I wanted to pursue as a career goal.
Hmmm……any connections here - seems the gubmit in its relentless attack on the family, on men and on women is gonna see a train wreck that can only be solved by a Dickensesque future in America - the unknowing ones who have played the divorce game for whatever reason are now playing this game out only to see ‘a quiet distress among the ex-rich”.
The future’s so bright…I gotta wear “blinders”!!!!
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/12/04/The-Sexodus-Part-1-The-Men-Giving-Up-On-Women-And-Checking-Out-Of-Society
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/12/09/The-Sexodus-Part-2-Dishonest-Feminist-Panics-Leave-Male-Sexuality-In-Crisis
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/quiet-distress-among-ex-rich.html
For men, it’s a losing proposition to get married. It’s why many men won’t.
How many guys do you know say something like “I was lucky to find her”?
What he is really saying is “I’m not Brad Pitt or George Clooney, so I’d better sign her up to a long term contract” before she sees something better.
(Note: I include myself in this group)
Like most everything else, marriage has been sold to the wretched refuse, because there is money to be made on the fantasy.
When you are in your 20s and stupid, you fall into the trap of “letting the little head do the thinking for the big head”. There were all kinds of signs before I got married that things were probably going to go to hell eventually, but I was too wrapped up in the fantasy to pay attention to them.
That and the “make me happy” trap. Your “job” is to “make her happy”. And it follows that if she isn’t happy, for whatever reason, it’s “your fault”.
What women don’t seem to realize is that as a guy gets into his late 30s and 40s, he loses his tolerance for putting up with endless BS, just to get laid a few times a year.
Sure, I’d like to have a “soulmate”……or even just a girlfriend. Ain’t gonna happen. Not a huge demand out there for overweight old guys with no money.
The good news is that I can do things that I’d never have been able to do if I was still married (and still owned a house, which seems to be a mandatory if you are married). Just pack a bag and take off a week or two, to wherever I want to go? Check. Buy a Dodge Challenger I’ve wanted since about 1971? Check. Bi-weekly trips to “Half-Price Books”. No problem.
Take my advice , my friends. Having a partner can be great. But being alone is a lot better than being in a crappy relationship.
Men should never marry at least until mid 30’s. We get bored too easily with one woman.
Happiness comes from magic rays of sunshine that come down when ya feelin blue.
X-GSfixr…Don’t you have a couple of daughters ??
Three……32, 25 and 21.
The youngest just moved in with me, after I’ve been telling her for a year that she needs to move to a city where:
- The job market is a lot better, and
- The tips from customers are a lot better. (She serves/bartends (she doesn’t want to go $200K in debt for a degree that will enable her to get a $10/hr job).
Of course, this brings up issues…….
Fixr: “BTW……there’s something we didn’t discuss before you moved in. We don’t have a contingency plan for what you are going to do, should your Dad have a “lady friend” over for the evening or overnight”.
Daughter #3: “(Five minutes of uncontrolled, hysterical laughter)…….. Okay, and what do you think the chances of that happening are????….. (more laughing)”
Fixr: “Infinitely Remote……but that’s beside the point….”
Oh, the stories I could tell………
Your mileage may vary. Veteran of marriage here, with three adult daughters, who have from time to time crash landed here.
The cabin cruiser is my game changer..
Remarkably attractive woman siting next to Skye on airplane: Are you on a business trip?
Skye: Yeah, headed back to my boat. Going to go cruising up to the white sandy dunes.
Somewhat more interested woman: Do you do that often?
Skye: Yeah, I live on the boat.
Woman: Need a girlfriend?
Skye: Maybe. Sometimes. Can you swim?
Woman: Oh yes.
Skye: Well, there is a dress code and your skin is rather fair.
Woman: That’s what sunscreen is for…
One other thing about living on the boat, daughter doesn’t need an exit plan. Dad has one.
Only about three months of this snow nonsense and it will be spring.
“When you are in your 20s and stupid, you fall into the trap of “letting the little head do the thinking for the big head”
That’s why I always told myself I’d never get married until I was at least 30 years old. I stuck to it and my marriage has been great.
Any time I see a 22, 23 year old getting married I cringe. Marriage itself isn’t the problem, it’s the wrong people getting married at the wrong time that’s the problem.
As fro that 50% statistic everyone throws around, it’s quite misleading for several reasons, mainly that people who get divorced tend to get divorced often, which skews the overall divorce rate. Take 10 people who get married. 2 of those people get divorced, remarked, divorced again. So you have 4 divorces out of 10 people, = a 40% “divorce rate”. But really only 20% of people got divorced.
But why let facts get in the way of a good myth?
….
A spokesperson for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics told me that the rumor appears to have originated from a misreading of the facts. It was true, he said, if you looked at all the marriages and divorces within a single year, you’d find that there were twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1981, for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate. Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.
Some researchers have relied on surveys rather than government statistics. In his book Inside America in 1984, pollster Louis Harris said that only about 11 or 12 percent of people who had ever been married had ever been divorced. Researcher George Barna’s most recent survey of Americans in 2001 estimates that 34 percent of those who have ever been married have ever been divorced.
The other thing about the oft-quoted divorce stastistic is that it doesn’t apply to a number of age and income cohorts. Essentially, the higher your family income, the lower the chance of divorce. Those marrying in their 30’s and early 40’s are also less likely to get divorced.
That and the “make me happy” trap. Your “job” is to “make her happy”. And it follows that if she isn’t happy, for whatever reason, it’s “your fault”.
Sounds like emotional harassment to me…..psychological harassment as well.
I don’t see how sexual harassment is any more or any less damaging than emotional harassment.
That’s what the media says. Look at TV commercials and what is the man’s role? To do something that makes the woman happy. And if he doesn’t….oh boy, he’s in TROUBLE!! Yuk, yuk, yuk, look what a dummy that guy is.
If you’re a man and you fall into that media-made BS, too bad for you. If you’re a man and you have 1/2 a brain, you realize marriage is a 2-way street, a partnership where each side’s “job” is to make the other person happy while also making themselves happy.
This means that if I want to go out with my friends on a Friday night, I don’t have to beg and plead for “permission” from my wife. Nor does she if she wants to go with her friends to some artsy fartsy poetry reading. My happiness isn’t defined solely by what she does or vice versa. We are two people with two sets of interests that sometimes match up and sometimes don’t.
That’s not to say that a husband should go out with his drinking buddies 7 night a week. But it also means not living the sitcom life where the dumb husband is nothing more than his wife’s poodle that is obedient without question.
We all figure this out eventually. but there are new crops of 20 year olds showing up every year.
Family and Society perpetuate the “marriage myth” for their own selfish reason.
Both of my older daughters lived with their boyfriends 2-3 years before they got married (married at 28 and 25). Not the way I was raised, but today’s reality almost requires it. A lot of people’s effed up issues can be hidden for a short period of time, but after you’ve lived with them a few month’s, the real deal starts to come out.
The youngest, OTOH, thought it would be a good idea to marry her high school boyfriend, when he was on a 30 day leave from Korea. Ask me how that turned out.
(For starters, her sisters and their husbands had a betting pool going, on how long it was going to last.)
50% of all marriages end in divorce, and 70% of those divorces are initiated by women. Every day, more and more young men wake up and realize that it’s just not worth it. It’s much easier to spin plates and keep a FWB on call than bother with relationships.
Enjoy the lonely decades of cats and boxed wine and Sex and the City DVDs, ladies, and be sure to thank a feminist for it.
can a woman turn a man gay?
According to my youngest, guys can turn women gay. At least temporarily.
My daughters best friend just had a bad breakup. She decided to get her hair cut in a short “Mohawk” style, and start wearing flannel shirts. She looks like Aileen Wuornos.
They were at a bar the other night, when a guy approached her friend, and asked her “Is she (Daughter #3) with you?”.
She says, “Yeah, that’s my bitch” Rotflmao.
A single man can be wealthier than a man who was ever married and is married in the following way:
rent a room in a house - usually it’s month-to-month
drive a cheap unimpressive car
move to where your next job is and repeat the rent a room deal
have a career in the STEM field in a blue state city - high wages
invest in stock index funds with the money you save
When you live within 15 miles of where you work you extend the life of your car and have more time to spend at the gym working off the fat. The money you save by living cheap can make you a multimillionaire at 40.
I knew a few guys who rented rooms from home owners and built up a lot of money when they were young.
Being a single educated male with high tech skills is lucrative.
“I have so much money left after “throwing money away on rent” every month that I don’t know where to throw it”
You better believe it
Bill, aside from living in a room in someone else’s house, how does being married or single affect the other things on your list?
Are you saying no married people live in blue states, work in STEM, drive old cars or invest in stocks? Come on dude. You’re grasping at someone who is grasping at straws with this one.
Slithers, Slithers, Slithers. Single and no children results in a far less costly lifestyle and much higher standard of living.
A wise man once said, “Hold on to every dollar you have and stay out of debt. You’ll be glad you did.”
He’s right.
An anecdote about Joe and John
Joe and John are software engineers. They work at the same company
Joe is 28, has two kids, a wife, and works in Redondo Beach. Commutes from Laguna Hills, CA (not unrealistic, lots of people drive that distance) so that his wife and him can afford a house.
John is 28, single, rents a room in Redondo Beach.
Joe is chubby, sedentary, no time to workout. Commute is 50 miles.
John is thin, rides his bike a lot, runs, plays beach volleyball on weekends. Commutes 5 miles.
oops - big opportunity shows up in Santa Monica. At least a 15% raise.
Guess who is more likely to take that opportunity?
You have heard the saying “the plural of anecdotes is not data”, right?
From a CDC study on obesity:
“Results—Regardless of population subgroup (age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, education, income, or nativity) or health indicator (fair or poor health, limitations in
activities, low back pain, headaches, serious psychological distress, smoking, or leisure-time physical inactivity), married adults were generally found to be healthier than adults in other marital status categories.”
Not in my experience. Most of the single guys I know are thin. And that’s across all age groups. Thin in the healthy sense. And non smokers. Most of the married guys I know in all age groups are overweight.
keynesian bill,
do you think we should print some more cash and bail out your oil stocks?
I honestly wish there were a way to cut my car registration and insurance in half by reducing my car usage… nope..
Marriage - even harder to jump into once you have a pool of assets.
And you are on the hook, for all of your wife’s mistakes and or lawsuits she gets in.
Attorneys ruin everything.
According to Valizadeh, today’s sexual marketplace represents a Pareto distribution in which “20 percent of the top guys have access to 80 percent of the best women,” which has the effect of leaving women holding out for the perfect man, a man who of course never comes. ”
Just let the top earners marry more than one women. They can afford to have lots of kids which we need anyway to keep the economy going.
I think wolf packs work like this only the alpha male can mate. Just think a nation of all Bankers children.
An addendum to my earlier post -
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/us-military-has-1000-full-time-22000-part-time-sexual-assault-response-coordinators_821223.html
How long before the first gay man accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and raping him?
I wouldn’t mind getting raped by Lisa Bonet back in the day
She wouldn’t even spit on you. Get over it.
Obviously, a fan of “Angel Heart”
I doubt it. The victimology is clear. All women of young age; mostly teens, obviously star struck and looking for parts in his show and some help or both from him.
Unfortunately, we all got raped by Bill Cosby.
Add it to the list of things we were sure of that were actually not true. The list seems to cast a long shadow.
Unfortunately, we all got raped by Bill Cosby.
Have you contacted the police?
You remind me of Alpha Sloth. Were you around then?
Well,
both banged out, old, has been wenches, and gay men share an affinity for attention whoring and drama queening.
just sayin.
Spot on. Testify, brothah!
Yup, voting republicans will fix it.
Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For
Cause everything was swell during the Bush yrs when the GOP had full control!
/
What is it that Combotechie often says?
I remember now
Poof!
Anyone watching the junk bonds tanking? (energy loans)
you should buy some. oil if a finite resource. they will come back. tkae advantage of the fear and liquidation.
falling knife thang, i am not a gambler
Rather wondering where the contagion will spring next. The fracking bonds were doomed before the oil price dropped, because of the fraud over depletion rates. They will now dissolve more quickly.
“Game changer: I changed my entire philosophy on debt. I started making minimum payments on my student loans, picked up a “Stock Investing for Dummies” book, and put whatever extra money I made into the stock market.”
shoeshine moment or what?
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. A very lucrative business model indeed. It can be your business model too if you can buy enough politicians.
Yep.
Dropping 4% a day, baby!
Vote: How low will oil prices fall?
Published: Dec 12, 2014 12:54 p.m. ET
What’s on the horizon for oil prices?
By Silvia Ascarelli
Senior news editor
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The pressure on crude oil prices accelerated on Friday, driving the U.S. benchmark under $58 for the first time since May 2009.
A trigger for Friday’s losses in light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January (CLF5, -4.10%) was yet another cut in the outlook for global oil demand, this time from the International Energy Agency. But prices have been under pressure this year on the back of the U.S. shale boom, stagnating oil demand growth mostly in Asia and Europe, and the reluctance of large Middle Eastern producers such as Saudi Arabia to intervene to cut the global supply glut.
So just how far will oil prices fall? While Wall Street analysts debate the question, MarketWatch is giving you a chance to weigh in. If you like, offer your reason in the comment section.
…
I dont want people to lose their jobs. Dovish yellen wont let prices crash. there is a limit. deflation is evil. there is a wrinkle in you thought process. Do u want me in a soup line?
That’s funny. You were mocking us while you were HELOCing your way to fine wine on our backs. Now we should buy your soup?
“Do u want me in a soup line?”
Yes.
I voted “Under $40″. I would have voted lower, but that was the lowest choice category offered among the choices.
And also the most popular one.
With today’s close of $57.49, oil is less than nine* more 4% drops from dipping under $40!
* log(40/57.49)/log(0.96) = 8.89.
Everyone Must Check In
And just for MacBeth, because he hates hip-hop
“Check yo self before you wreck yo self”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aAbOgdbTbM
Update from my corner of the world:
- Marital stress, partly driven by not owning a home
- Discontinued a long-time work relationship after being called a “poor provider” for “not buying my family a home.”
- Laying low and getting results at work… my staff expanded and I am now overseeing two millenials. Kill me. I also oversee an x’er (easy going) and a near retirement boomer (skills like no other, proper, on-task, etc.)
- Son tested into gifted
- Crazy Cuban neighbor split, trying to rent home at an outrageous rate
- Neighbors to the south were evicted, new neighbors are sketchy as hell
- I finally bought an iPhone (mostly quick photos)
- Gulf Blvd. through Gulf Beaches (Pinellas, Co. FL) is piling up with For Sale signs again
- It all feels very 2006/7, which means 2008 is right around the corner
- The only person I know that bought recently is a DINK couple with no plans for kids, no debt… used VA loan because despite being DINK, couldn’t cobble together a substantial down payment.
Resist. Refuse. Drink box wine. Mountain bike a little.
#Donthiremillenials
#yourenothiringanyway
#OMG!
#checkoutmyinstagram
#youlllovemycat
#IDGAF
#2014
#Muggywashere
“#Muggywashere”
Comebackmoreoften. Imissyourposts.
“- Marital stress, partly driven by not owning a home”
If it wasn’t for not owning a home it would just be something else. Any couple that has celebrated a 50th wedding anniversary has gone through some sh#t to get there.
“- Son tested into gifted”
Hell yeah!!! Congrats!
You should be proud and a little arrogant because you know where the genes came from.
That is what’s important, the rest of it is just noise.
crater
Bond Report
10-year Treasury yields fall most in a week since June 2012
Published: Dec 12, 2014 5:39 p.m. ET
Greek 10-year bond yield moves lower after gaining 200 basis points in three days
By Joseph Adinolfi
News editor
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The 10-year Treasury yield recorded its largest weekly decline Friday since June 1, 2012 as falling oil prices caused investors worldwide to buy Treasurys, overshadowing a slate of strong U.S. economic data.
The benchmark 10-year yield declined 9.5 basis points to 2.085%, according to data from Tradeweb — just above an 18-month low.
“Yields are certainly capturing the flight to safety we’ve seen in financial markets because the ongoing slide in oil is compounding fears of deflation in parts of the eurozone, Russia, Japan and even China,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions.
The five-year Treasury yield was down nine basis points to 1.543%, its lowest level since Dec. 1, while the 30-year yield was down 8.7 basis points to 2.739%, its lowest level since December 2012.
On the short end of the curve, the two-year yield shed 6.4 basis points, falling to 0.544%, its lowest level since Dec. 4.
Bond yields move inversely to prices.
…
phony scandals