Bits Bucket for October 7, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. Please visit my Youtube channel which you can also find here:
http:tinyurl.com/http-hbb-com
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
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
April 2025 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Cultural relativism = the greatest progressive lie ever told
“If I had a son, he’d look like Chris Harper Mercer” — Barack Obama
I agree. I prefer Humanism.
Change in tactics to now include a first shift.
Nice try but it’s the conservatives on this board who suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder.
They must have installed a Keurig coffee maker with unlimited free espresso in the Southern Poverty Law Center employee lounge, no better explanation for this flurry of posts before noon.
…. so much so Lola is vibrating around the lounge.
Cultural relativism = the greatest progressive lie ever told
That’s why we need to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran!
I know you’re joking but I agree with Goon here.
Cultural Relativism = any conduct by a culture is morally right if that conduct is the social norm within that culture. Under CR, the enslavement and harsh treatment of women and children under ISIS or Taliban are acceptable because that’s their custom.
Humanism — all humans have an innate right to respect and dignity, and there are basic moral absolutes which all are entitled to, such as freedom from enslavement. Humanism would therefore reject ISIS’s and Taliban’s conduct.
I was just playing with the meme mix. Since most of the people who obsess over cultural relativism are the same people who want to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran.
all humans have an innate right
Warmism > Humanism.
When Sky Wizard has had enough of humanoids destroying their own ecosystem and f*ing up all the other animals’ habitats, Zhe will shake them off the planet like a bad case of fleas.
Warmism > Humanism
You’re rejecting Anthropocentrism, which means we are not higher beings than animals and we subject to the laws of nature just as much as animals are.
I think your argument is compelling, that nature has an efficient way of curing overpopulation among all species, including us. Warmism is simply a manifestation of spoiling our own nest and overpopulation. Nature will find a way to cull the herd.
Cultural Relativism = any conduct by a culture is morally right if that conduct is the social norm within that culture.
Are you sure that that’s the definition? I’ve never seen it defined before. I wouldn’t use the word relativism to describe what you’re talking about.
I didn’t make it up: “Cultural Relativism is the view that moral or ethical systems, which vary from culture to culture, are all equally valid and no one system is really “better” than any other. This is based on the idea that there is no ultimate standard of good or evil, so every judgment about right and wrong is a product of society.”
It’s so ridiculous that I’m not going to bother Googling it. What that would boil down to is that nothing is right or wrong. The whole notion of right and wrong should be disregarded. So it’s a “view” that pretty much no one holds.
http://www.gocomics.com/saturday-morning-breakfast-cereal/2015/08/12
worst part goon is ohbama knew trayvon was a criminal, and should have been in jail that night and never would have met zimmerman.
if i had a son has to be the most offensive statement any president has ever said.
The Huffington Post bewails despite mass shootings Republicans won’t touch gun laws, fails to mention the overwhelming majority of gun homicides in this country are committed by fatherless young black males against fatherless young black males:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-violence-senate-republicans_56141558e4b0baa355ad8f37
We have more than 300 million guns in the US. On a per gun basis we are extremely safe.
God works in mysterious ways.
incorrect
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2012.xls
Matt Drudge (not a real journalist) interviewed by Infowars (not real journalists) about the sanitized corporate future of the internet:
http://www.infowars.com/matt-drudge-copyright-laws-could-outlaw-linking-to-websites
Matt Drudge you can not continue posting neocon propaganda and call yourself a libertarian, you headlined with a f*ing Weekly Standard link a few days ago. You do not direct web traffic to William Kristol and call yourself a libertarian.
From the GlobeandMail:
Foreign investors avoid taxes through Canadian real estate
Wealthy buyers taking advantage of loopholes by putting homes in the name of relatives or corporations
A Beijing-based private equity manager who bought a $2.3-million home in the hot Vancouver real estate market said he did that while earning just $19,000 a year. He also wired nearly $2-million to his family in Canada during the same period.
Jing Sun is among several foreign investors who bought property in Canada in recent years, but kept the extent of their wealth out of view of the tax authorities and the courts, a Globe and Mail investigation has found.
The Globe’s findings come amid a controversy in Vancouver, where many blame foreign buyers for soaring house prices that have made a single-family home unattainable for some long-time residents. The Urban Development Institute will tackle the topic for the first time in a sold-out public forum on Wednesday in Vancouver.
“$19,000 a year”
Would that by coincidence be just low enough that his family gets welfare from the Province?
More fraud going unprosecuted. The amount of blatant fraud going on in our society is shocking. Government benefits, taxes, and mortgages, anything you have to truthfully disclose finances then sign your name certifying it is true. We’ve even had people here slip up and admit to such fraud.
But some here are worried about some man bites dog story of a teenager who threw a snowball at a cop (and no one can tell what actually happened after the kid was arrested).
In the good old days, you could snowball a cop and all he’d do is beat the crap out of you.
We’ve lost that freedom.
Not in my town. He’d drag you home to have a chat with your father and then your father would….
“The amount of blatant fraud going on in our society is shocking.”
Why is it shocking? The fish stinks from the head. In other words, the example is set from the top. The top of government, industry, medicine, finance, etc. It might just be the only thing that is truly trickle down. Heh, it’s so obvious in the low quality of today’s immigrants, both legal and illegal, as they are a reflection of individuals in government. They want people just like themselves. Filthy, corrupt and rent-seeking.
I see it everywhere these days. On the ground. In business large and small, in everyday transactions between individuals. In the crappy quality of twerking entertainment. Nothing uplifting, everything degrading. Poisoned, malfunctioning products and services. Everybody is a star!
“The amount of blatant fraud going on in our society is shocking.” Why is it shocking? The fish stinks from the head
Because “Americans have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society.” This is not your daddy’s capitalism.
“Without being fully aware of the shift, Americans have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society … where almost everything is up for sale … a way of life where market values seep into almost every sphere of life and sometimes crowd out or corrode important values, nonmarket values.”
(USA’s brand of) Capitalism is killing America’s morals, our future. Our morality is now for sale to the highest bidder
http://investmentwatchblog.com/capitalism-is-killing-americas-morals-our-future-our-morality-is-now-for-sale-to-the-highest-bidder/
Corruption: “Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them … markets don’t only allocate goods, they express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged.” Also “corrupt the meaning of citizenship. Economists often assume that markets … do not affect the goods being exchanged. But this is untrue. Markets leave their mark.”
Inequality: “Where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means.” If wealth just bought things, yachts, sports cars, and fancy vacations, inequalities wouldn’t matter much. “But as money comes to buy more and more, the distribution of income and wealth looms larger.”
Morals degraded, now just commodities for-sale to highest bidder
Sandel warns that America’s new capitalist mindset is crowding out “nonmarket values worth caring about. When we decide that certain goods may be bought and sold,” they become “commodities, as instruments of profit and use.” But “not all goods are properly valued in this way … Slavery was appalling because it treated human beings as a commodity, to be bought and sold at auction,” failing to “value human beings as persons, worthy of dignity and respect; it sees them as instruments of gain and objects of use.”
Dont be a Lola…. Lola.
You have no idea. Government agencies defrauding other government agencies - it happens. Its happened for years. Lots of people in on it, all of them on your and my dime. You try to stop it, you get the hammer. Galts gulch gonna get mighty crowded if this isn’t turned around quick.
Another argument for radically shrinking government. It will grow as people want more protection, but right now its out of control, mafia style.
No mention of the Canadian tax lawyers who advertise in China?
China still dumping dollars to stem a complete rout in its Ponzi markets.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/china-economy-forex-reserves-idUSL3N1260OA20151007
So what happens when China runs out of dollars to sell?
It wasn’t that long ago that some were predicting the Yuan was going to replace Uncle Buck as the world’s reserve currency,
The sun will rise from the east and set in the west as usual. Their stomach will get hungry and need food. Life will go on without dollars. Most of the world gets by without dollars.
Another snooping drone shot down.
http://theadvocate.com/news/13641316-172/ascension-parish-resident-shoots-down
“The drone was flying about 20 feet over our Slip ‘N Slide.”
Blam, blam!
I thought it was a flying squirrel.
the potato gun should make a come back.
http://www.jbprojects.net/projects/potato2/
Matt Drudge calls out “sick” ‘Muricans for their willingess to overlook sleaze and crony capitalism to vote for the likes of Hillary. Testify, Brother Drudge. Idiots like the Obama Zombie, McCain Mutants, and Romney Retards have cost us the republic.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/10/07/matt-drudge-blisters-corporate-media-hillary-clinton-and-sick-americans-in-rare-interview/
Brother Drudge is a war-mongering neocon.
Don’t agree with him on some things, but he’s by far the most independent of all the media moguls, and is fearless when it comes to breaking the MSM’s journalistic omerta on stories that don’t fit their DNC talking points or oligopoly-dictated memes.
If someone posts neocon trash from the Weekly Standard, Washington Times, World Net Daily, I will specifically identify it as neocon. Seriously, William Kristol, the Moonies, Joseph Farah, are considered reputable sources of information?
The New York Times and Washington Post are just assumed to promote corporate statism in economics and foreign policy, with just enough social “progressivism” to remind their readers that they’re not Republicans. Madelleine Albright murdered 500,000 Iraqi civilians, but that’s just collateral damage to “progressives.”
I realize now, they’ve added a first shift.
LOLZ
Matt Drudge calls out “sick” ‘Muricans
The world knows who’s the party of sickly insane in today’s America, and who’s destroying our republic. As if Dems are the “same”. As if. You are blind if you can’t see the difference.
“I think it shows how insane Republican politics are at this point in history, how totally insane that they would have that man on, and he’s saying these things and then they’re nodding at him….“I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and those were some of the ugliest comments that I’ve ever heard,””
Outrage and disbelief after Ben Carson comments on Oregon shooting
Activists voice anger over Republican’s words on Umpqua Community College massacre: ‘Some of the ugliest comments that I’ve ever heard’
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/07/ben-carson-oregon-community-college-shooting-comments
The World knows sh*t.
It’s the job of “activists” to be outraged and angry. The only job most of them have, evidently.
Imagine how outraged these clowns are going to be when the Snap and Starbucks cards disappear along with their student loan checks.
FYI, you’re the blind one if you think that ether political party is “different” from the other one at this point in time.
you’re the blind one if you think that ether political party is “different” from the other one at this point in time.
Of course the political parties are different. Look at the ACA and Citizens United to see the huge difference
The World knows sh*t
Heck even the world knows there’s a huge difference between Dems and Repubs and the USA’s right-wing is kind of whacked.
President Obama was wrong: Australia is not like the US
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/president-obama-was-wrong-australia-is-not-like-the-us-20151002-gjztja.html#ixzz3nubL62p9
…Unlike Australia, the US is at war with itself, strongly divided on racial, religious, political and social lines. We have our problems, significantly worse in some places than others, but overall our gaps are bridgeable. The US seems to prefer to use its societal chasms as moats and defend their borders.
Dystopian view
The dystopian viewpoint is a significant theme in American literature, the assumption that the country is a disaster away from rape and pillage, from turning into plundering carnivores. Having never made peace with its past, which pretty much was one of rape and pillage, it hasn’t escaped it.
There’s an American brand that hasn’t evolved far from justifying slavery. It carries a fundamentalist certainty that is in equal parts both ignorant and frightening. The concept of American exceptionalism – that God has a chosen mission for the USA – is a dangerous adjunct.
It’s all fodder for the deranged fanatics of the American gun lobby, with a bible in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. It’s fuel for the paranoid interpretation of a line in the constitution that is a blatant anachronism.
you’re the blind one if you think that ether political party is “different” from the other
To further clarify. I’d say there’s not a huge difference that each party is in the pockets of the .01%, however given our limited and realistic choices, there still is a big difference in the political parties on some very important issues. Here’s just one example of many.
Watch Climate Denier Ted Cruz Bully Sierra Club President in Senate Hearing
http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/07/ted-cruz-aaron-mair-climate-change/
It’s painful to watch this Senate hearing as Senator and GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly pushes Sierra Club President Aaron Mair on climate change. Cruz relies on classic denier arguments, saying satellite data shows the Earth isn’t warming and that there has been a “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming, which NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has refuted.
Despite Cruz’s boorish and arrogant questioning, Mair maintains the Sierra Club’s straightforward position that they “concur with 97 percent of the scientists” who say that climate change is happening.
Listening to Jeb and Hillary, I must agree. They are the same game, different names.
But, only one of them thinks their sibling did a great job!! That is a huge difference.
Liquidate assets, retire debt and hold onto every dollar you’ve got. You’ll thank me later.
I still think farmland is good to own. And apartment REITs, crypto currency and precious metals are good to accumulate.
The problem is that all these “assets” are overpriced and falling in price relative to USD. Good strategy headed into credit expansion but not so good in deflation.
Precious metals are underpriced relative to stocks and real estate.
I agree, farmland is great to own, and so are Apt REITs. In Ventura County - So Ca (where we reside) developers are buying up fertile farmland. Then the REIT building festival begins. Sad.
lying.through.her.teeth.the.whole.time.
Sounds speculative…
Buy a home tomorrow! You’ll thank me later.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-best-day-of-the-year-to-buy-a-house-is-2015-10-01
crushing.housing.losses.
What an idiotic question.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-to-toyota-how-come-isis-drives-so-many-of-your-trucks-2015-10-07?dist=beforebell
What are they supposed to drive, Ford Fiestas?
I suppose I’ll now be considered a sympathizer as I putter through town in my ‘79 FJ55. I’ll set my expectations properly for the upcoming pat-downs…
Who’s selling them the black pajamas?
Who in their right mind wears all black in the desert sun?
With China dumping US debt, who is going to be financing our deficits? Will yields have to go up to make the debt more attractive?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/once-the-biggest-buyer-china-starts-dumping-u-s-government-debt-1444196065
I wish this dumb idea would just go away. It doesn’t matter if China sells their treasuries or not. There’s so much institutional cash floating around in the world the change in yields would be just a blip.
There’s so much institutional cash floating around in the world the change in yields would be just a blip ??
Exactly…..China selling T’s has little influence on our rates at this point in time….
What is happening is a sea change. China’s export machine is in freefall. Biggest credit expansion in history is rolling over. Who cares what the interest rate is when the defaults cascade?
Seems you missed the context of our discussion…We are saying that China selling treasuries will not have a effect on our bond market because of the abundance of liquidity throughout the world and our T’s being much higher than the other safe havens…
Dave, I got the context. I think it isn’t the main event.
What is happening is a sea change.
Another one? I’ve seen about 9 or 10.
‘I’ve seen about 9 or 10′
Not like this one you haven’t. No one has. There has never been a phenomenon like modern China and globalism, with all the interconnected markets like debt, currency and commodities. There has never been a country that stated, ‘oh, we wasted over $6 trillion dollars.’ That’s only what they admit. Formerly thriving economies are being sucked under all over the globe. Their criminals are fleeing every month taking over $100 billion out every thirty days. Sure, this happens all the time.
China Has No Good Plan to Deal With Its Achilles Heel
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-no-good-plan-deal-153620095.html
Who cares what the interest rate is when the defaults cascade?
People with adjustable rate mortgages come to mind. There are probably many others.
They will default too.
Well, if everyone is going to default then it seems to me the only place to hide is on your boat…
I do not have to hide from anyone but the taxman.
What is there to fear? Why hide?
Remember…. Nothing accelerates the economy like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels…. Nothing.
Put two Oligpopoly prostitutes working the same street corner and competing for the same “clients” and there’s bound to be a catfight.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/06/politics/marco-rubio-jeb-bush-attendance/index.html
And this:
http://nypost.com/2015/10/02/secret-service-agents-hillary-is-a-nightmare-to-work-with/
“After studying the Secret Service and its relationships with dozens of presidents, vice presidents and their families, Ronald Kessler’s astonishment at Hillary Clinton’s inhumanity should reverberate in every American’s head.
As he told me: “No one would hire such a person to work at a McDonald’s, and yet she is being considered for president of the United States.”
As much as this is more or less a Fox News article, I’ve read similar things before by former staff. It boggles the mind that she polls so high, but then, I guess it is a reflection of a good part of the body politic.
Some of that it was probably made up. In any case, the PTB doesn’t care one bit about whether politicians are nasty or nice to staff when they decide who to support. The purpose of article like this is to get the hoi polloi to focus on unimportant nonsense, so that the elites are free to run the country without interference from the population.
“nasty or nice”
+1 Just like the CIA propping dictators: She may be a b*st*rd, but she’s our b*st*rd…
A few weeks ago Hitlery strolled through a babe in New Hampshire. The media showed how the gawkers were roped off. Like literally.
Best news all day:
“Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Wednesday banned his country from any more negotiations with the United States, less than three months after Iran and six world powers reached a landmark agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/iran-ayatollah-khamenei-no-us-talks-negotiations-214495
Neocons, the Neville Chamberlain reference propaganda doesn’t work. When Mike Huckabee pimped the fear and said he “looked in the oven door” it’s too bad he didn’t trip over his shoelaces and fall into it. There is nothing Christian about Christian Zionism, it is an apocalyptic death cult of voodoo and witchcraft and sorcery, with a $600,000,000,000+ war machine behind it.
Iran will be subject to the same nuclear inspections as Israel, which is zero. F* you neocon hypocrites.
beautiful.
A nuclear Iran is the best check against ISIS expansion.
The headline of this article is titled: The Islamic State is raping 8 year olds and the world is doing nothing
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/vian-dakhil-yazidis-islamic-state-213226
ISIS? Not America’s problem
Nuclear Iran? Not America’s problem
Israel? Not America’s problem
If Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham need a war for this, let them recruit their own private army and make Sheldon Adelson pay for it.
Indeed, not our problem. In a world of limited resources, a wise nation keeps their powder dry and picks their conflicts very carefully.
We’ve got Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah on one side, fighting Al Qaeda, ISIS, and our fake allies in the region on the other. I say we pull out, come home, and pop some corn. Chess Master Obummer has won again.
lol@Lola
Never mind Social Justice™ for a minute, if there was any real justice, Richard Perle would die in prison.
I’d like to see a well publicized perp walk, maybe arrest him in the middle of his grandkid’s birthday party, toss him in the paddy wagon and give him the same “rough ride” that Baltimore PD gave Freddy Gray. We’ve got room for him here in Florence, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”
Just lovely
Thanks.
I like your anger.
SCDave, I heard an interesting “on the ground” comment the other day about office space in Silicon Valley.
The vacancy rate that is reported is in the mid-single digits.
However, lots of space that is being leased is future expansion for tenants. If you add back in that dark space, the vacancy rate is high teens+. I had heard that tenants were warehousing space…I hadn’t heard the magnitude.
We saw this play before in 1999…it doesn’t end well.
Exactly. We have Pets.com V2.0, times infinity! Read geekwire dot com for the latest gee-whiz “we will deliver beanie-babies to your door within the hour” internet startup ideas . . .
The next dot-com crash is going to make the first one look like child’s play.
With the way housing demand is collapsing and prices reversing and headed down, you may be right.
CA still seeing multiple offers, and bidding wars.
Are you sure?
US Housing Demand Plummets To 20 Year Lows
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0q8fIAsczFk/VUANHEhSbnI/AAAAAAAAjRs/oANwXOUviGw/s1600/MBAApr292015.PNG
yep, reported from the front lines.
30 year lows in Californica
yep, reported from the front lines.
I was in the Bay Area a few weeks ago. That is pretty much all they talk about, when not talking about work. I saw old apartment complexes being torn down and replaced with tiny houses on postage stamp sized lots for 1 million plus. All the young pups sounded desperate to get onto the “property ladder”. They really believe that prices will go up forever.
Yep, in all the desirable towns in CA. Even Sac is has bidding wars on properties near the old downtown.
East Ventura County (So Ca) is still selling SFHs, but the sizzle has cooled on the over heated market. Our floor plan is now $540K (w/o a cement pond), down about $25K from the summer high. Personally, pools are a pita, but some young pups don’t know how much.
Mafia- What makes you such an expert on Ca? Those of us who experience the front lines, are in a better position to report on it. I’m just saying.
Boots on the ground data my friend…. so why lie?
He is the classic “sour grape.” Mafia wants Armageddon, he is bored.
Crawl up out of that dark sewer and cheer up and remember…
Falling prices of all kinds is positively bullish and good for the economy.
before or after the layoffs?
Prices are super cheap in Cuba.
huh?
The layoffs already occurred my friend….
Remember….
Labor Force Participation Rate Plummets to 38 Year Lows As Housing Prices Fall
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
I actually disagree redmondjp. I’ve said similar things about housing (that this cycle won’t be as extreme as the last one), and gotten skewered for it…but at the risk of drawing similar fire…
This tech bust won’t be as bad as the one in 1999. Hear me out.
In 1999, companies expanded who didn’t really even have a viable product (ie. something, or some service that was more valuable than the cost to produce the product or service). Webvan, Pets.com, etc.
What’s the saying? If your cost is greater than your revenue, you have a hobby, not a business?
Webvan and Pets.com were very expensive hobbies. When they failed, they left giant gaping craters behind them–they went from taking lots of space to taking NONE. And during dotcom 1.0, there were LOTS of hobbies, and few businesses.
I think this downturn will be more akin to what is happening with Groupon and Zynga.
They have businesses (not hobbies), but it just turned out that the early projections of profitability were far too rosy. Sure, there will be Webvan examples this time around too (what was thought to be a business was actually a hobby), but I think there will be far more businesses that simply end up being much less profitable than people thought.
It’ll be bad, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be worse than the dotcom bust.
One small snippet.
During the dotcom boom, it was common that landlords would take stock/warrants instead of (in addition to) cash as compensation for rent. The euphoria was rampant…property owners were throwing caution to the wind.
I don’t hear those same stories today. Landlords certainly are happy about the high rents, but they are more sober about tenants likelihood of failure…so they are taking cash, thank you very much.
.com bust was partially driven by the Y2K scare, every co had to buy new equipment, museums, schools, etc…..
then the spending stopped.
deliver beanie-babies to your door within the hour
Lemme guess, this internet startup is really an app which connects the closest beanie-baby warehouse with whatever free-lance delivery boys happen to be on-call and in the vicinity?
Piecework, on-call, migrant, non-benefit sharing economy. At this rate, global warming won’t matter because we’ll be living in isolation in caves high up in the cliffs before the waters rise.
Pretty much . . . but hey, we have to have apps to navigate in our new global economy, right?
I see a lot of startups geared at tech nerds who are cooped up in condos and don’t have cars - “Hey, here’s a great idea - let’s write an app so I can find a guy with a pickup to pick up a used couch I found on CL!”
yep, the failure of Trickle Down Economics is a painful lesson.
… but are you sure.
San Franscisco, CA Housing Prices Plunge 12% YoY As Defaults Ramp Up
http://www.zillow.com/noe-valley-san-francisco-ca/home-values/
What Baby Boomers’ Retirement Means For the U.S. Economy 2014
By BEN CASSELMAN
For decades, the retirement of the baby boom generation has been a looming economic threat. Now, it’s no longer looming — it’s here. Every month, more than a quarter-million Americans turn 65. That’s a trend with profound economic consequences. Simply put, retirees don’t contribute as much to the economy as workers do. They don’t produce anything, at least directly. They don’t spend as much on average. And they’re much more likely to depend on others — the government or their own children, most often — than to support themselves.
The older population is much more likely to have health insurance coverage than younger counterparts. Almost all Americans (93 percent) age 65 and older were covered by Medicare in 2011. And 86 percent of retirees also have supplementary coverage that fills in some of the gaps and cost-sharing requirements of traditional Medicare.
Unfortunately, all this SS and Medicare is going to swell the national debt even more. Can’t wait to watch conservatives blame King Trump for doubling the national debt to $32 Trillion to pay for all these non-producing societal leeches.
What Baby Boomers’ Retirement Means For the U.S. Economy 2014
By BEN CASSELMAN
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-baby-boomers-retirement-means-for-the-u-s-economy/
Welfare explodes.
The oldest baby boomers have already turned 65, and the older population of the U.S. is beginning to swell. The age-65-and-older population grew 18 percent between 2000 and 2011 to 41.4 million senior citizens, according to a recent Administration on Aging report. And these numbers are expected to further balloon over the coming decade as baby boomers continue to reach traditional retirement age.
Low incomes. Most retirees have very modest incomes. The median income for people age 65 and older was $27,707 for males and $15,362 for females in 2011. The typical household headed by someone age 65 or older had a median income of $48,538. The median income increased by 2 percent between 2010 and 2011 after adjusting for inflation. Almost 3.6 million elderly people (8.7 percent) lived below the poverty level in 2011.
Reliance on Social Security. The most common source of retirement income is Social Security, and 86 percent of people age 65 and older receive monthly payments. And Social Security is responsible for 90 percent or more of the income received by 36 percent of beneficiaries. Only about half (52 percent) of retirees receive income from their assets. Even fewer retirees receive monthly payments from private (27 percent) or government (15 percent) pensions. “The boomers will be the first generation to overwhelmingly not receive some sort of guaranteed benefits from employers,” says Ken Dychtwald, president of the consulting firm Age Wave and author of “A New Purpose: Redefining Money, Family, Work, Retirement, and Success.” “We now live in a 401(k) world where people are responsible for our own savings, and baby boomers have not done a very good job. It’s a generation that is going to struggle in old age in the absence of reliable anchors and support systems.”
I would go live in Mexico if all I had was SS.
And what savings they do have earns .5% interest…
Got Alpo?
Got more welfare? And people wonder why the numbers go up? Follow the boomers.
The working cohort is also at a high spot.
With some forethought, persons can live quite well on $20,000 or less each. Quite well, and in the USA. The exceptions are the mindless debt donkeys and other assorted spendthrifts who never learned to make provision for themselves in the least, nor to buy only what they could actually pay for.
I’m not talking about the seriously infirmed.
Welfare explodes.
…….
“The boomers will be the first generation to overwhelmingly not receive some sort of guaranteed benefits from employers,”
That above is an important connection. Pensions gone -”welfare” explodes.
Now, if one believes in the main reasons for The Constitution - “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,, then one would believe it is the obligation of the government to explode “welfare”.
Why? Because it was government policies that promoted an economic system that gutted pensions and our middle-class economic base. Other countries still have pensions and higher pay, why not the USA? Because of government polices.
Therefore if government abandoned the elderly’s “welfare” after gutting the pension systems and the economy in favor of the rich, it would be going against about 3 main points of the Constitution’s mission statement.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/landlords-hike-rents-8-090035135.html
rents are used to calculate inflation right ? or will they change it out again ?
People can argue that home prices go up because people are speculatively buying properties with the hope that they can sell it for more later. Therefore, bubble mentality can be a driver for home prices.
What other than supply and demand explains this kind of rent growth?
Greed? If all the landlords jack up the prices then the renters are screwed. If the landlords are REITs and rich people that can wait it out, then there is no alternative. Plus all the jobs are in certain areas, where the rents are sky high.
A friend’s wife used to work for one of the apartment complexes in silicon valley. She said it was in her weekly duties to call all the other ones (competitors) and they had a spreadsheet to fill out. They gave all their rent prices, any upcoming specials and other deals and all traded this info into spreadsheets for their managers. It’s called price fixing.
I had a storage unit in Chesapeake VA. I had moved from a different company. Guy in office was on the phone and hung up and I recognized that he was talking to the competitor down the street.
It’s in their best interest not to undercut each other.
All of that market control falls apart with higher vacancies.
It just takes one apartment owner who needs higher revenues (to cover debt service, etc.) to make it all tumble down.
If you are dealing with a market with higher vacancy, knowing what your competitors are doing allows you to undercut them to get your occupancy up–and those who have the least desirable properties will do just that in order to survive.
As you note, it’s the same thing with self-storage–if the market vacancy is too high, it’s a race to the bottom.
It’s also the same with office buildings. You know what your competitors are asking in terms of rent, and you can choose to compete with them on that basis, or not. If the market vacancy is low and you have deep pockets, you hold your prices higher. If the market vacancy is higher and you have a weaker hand, you drop your rent to fill the space.
In other words, it’s all friendly until supply increases (or demand weakens). Then it becomes cutthroat.
The stock market is on a 3-week up and up…
so much for all those losses people were crying doom and crash…
It looks like nothing is going to crash..
everything looks peachy: homes going up, unemployment down, stocks, rents, going up…
Up and to the right.
Are you with us, or against us?
rates will stay low until the next POTUS is chosen, then they can blame him for the recession.
Profits before people.
Fatter interest rates accelerate the economy my friend.
Watch out for this December, though. I expect a lot of saber-rattling about another government shutdown (would be very bad for the Christmas shopping season). The tin can currently sits on December 11.
Chinese markets reopen tonight. This should be interesting.
Deutsche Bank whiffed….
http://www.businessinsider.com/deutsche-bank-just-announced-a-massive-write-down-and-the-stock-is-getting-crushed-2015-10
Lynnwood, WA Housing Prices Plunge 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/picnic-point-north-lynnwood-wa/home-values/
Diversity is our strength.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/unclean-syrian-woman-who-escaped-to-germany-after-gang-rape-found-stabbed-to-death-in-suspected-a6685011.html
Broke, deadbeat Argentina panhandling China for more “loans.”
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/10/07/argentina-asks-china-for-more-money/
Broke, deadbeat Argentina panhandling China for more “loans.”
Argentinians are not deadbeats. Argentinians are largely victims of decades of fascism and predatorial capital. Why should Argentinians have to pay back money they don’t have, to pay the debt substantially composed of money borrowed by war mongering, right-wing governments that they never elected. Why? Debts are written off all the time, except lately when capital rules more than it ever has.
Dictatorship, Democracy, and Globalization: Argentina and …
https://books.google.com.br/books?isbn... - Traduzir esta página
Klaus Friedrich Veigel - 2010 - Business & Economics
Argentina and the Cost of Paralysis, 1973-2001 Klaus Friedrich Veigel ... the military was widely seen as the main cause of the high foreign debt and … in the South Atlantic War, the Argentine military government realized that it needed to move …
Whats that smell? Burnt hope and change:
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that members of HMSA, the state’s largest health insurer, will see a 27 percent increase in rates, and Kaiser members will see a 34 percent increase starting next year.
Whats that smell? Burnt hope and change:
Why would the right’s criticism of Obamacare premium “increases” mean anything to any thinking person?
I mean is it like they have a plan to make it better? Or like they care about the uninsured so they criticize the ACA because they have a better plan?
The right doesn’t give a cr@p about the uninsured, so why should anyone care that they complain about the cost of a plan that they have no plan to improve?
It’ dumb imo. The right has no plans for their own hope and change for health care. Heck even the right’s brain surgeon’s are dumb.
Let’s see if the increases stick (they need to justify them as I understand under the ACA).
If they DO stick, it’s simply evidence that one big premise of the ACA is wrong–namely that there is enough of a “stick” of penalties to convince the “young invincibles” to join up and not cause premiums to rise fast due to only the sick joining. At least in the case of states with demographics like Hawaii.
And the problem with premiums rising this fast is that it means that even though the penalties ratchet up, they may not ratchet up enough to get more “young invincibles” to join.
I agree with you on one thing…if you want to complain, propose something different. However, since the Obama administration shoved this through against screams from the right, it’s tempting to point out things like this (when they occur–because 30% rate increases are not universal).
How did premiums increase in MA? Any idea?
How did (ACA) premiums increase in MA? Any idea?
Re
IDK but Kaiser’s been pretty objective and ACA premium increases nationally have (so far) been much less than before ACA and the Recession.
Analysis of 2016 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplaces Jun 24, 2015
http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/analysis-of-2016-premium-changes-and-insurer-participation-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marketplaces/
…..This brief presents an early analysis of changes in the premiums for the lowest- and second-lowest cost silver marketplace plans in major cities in 10 states plus the District of Columbia, where we were able to find complete data on rates for all insurers. It follows a similar approach to our September 2013 and 2014 analyses of Marketplace premiums.
…In most of these 11 major cities, we find that the costs for the lowest and second-lowest cost silver plans – where the bulk of enrollees tend to migrate – are changing relatively modestly in 2016, although increases are generally bigger than in 2015. The cost of a benchmark silver plan in these cities is on average 4.4% higher in 2016 than in 2015. These premiums are still preliminary in some cases and could be raised or lowered through these states’ rate review processes, and it is difficult to generalize to all states based on this small sample of states where all rate filings are available. We also find that the number of insurers participating has stayed the same or increased in 9 states, while insurer participation decreased in Michigan and the District of Columbia.
the Obama administration shoved (The ACA) through against screams from the right (to just let uninsured Americans die)
Without any real alternative, (there was and is none) those screams are political and immoral.
How’s that hope ‘n change working out for ya, ‘Muricans?
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/10/07/welcome-to-the-recovery-homelessness-amongst-students-doubles-since-before-the-recession/
Corp profits at all time highs, yet more poor…..hmmmmmm
why doesn’t it, what it the word?…..trickle???
lol@Lola.
How socialism always ends when the productive have nothing left to steal and stop producing since the parasites will get the fruits of their labor anyway. Watch and learn, Comrade Pelosi.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-07/venezuela-isnt-looking-too-hot
Any bagholders take Jim Cramer’s “advice” on buying Yum?
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/10/07/jim-cramers-yum-my-advice/
I know I’m a nerd when I think Yum as a Linux repository application. Used on some Falcons such as Centos.
This looks awesome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh0piQN1_LY
One excellent Michael Shannon film deserves another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUraDx3oFVg
Thanks, that looks awesome too. I’ll check that out next week.
I am flying this weekend, so I am excited to get caught up on some movies… I’m really looking forward to watching the Fishbone documentary.
I’ll catch the one you recommended, Muggy, though it probably won’t do my blood pressure any good.
Now why would BlackRock be pressing it’s Congressional prostitutes to shut down the stock market if stocks start dropping too fast?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-07/blackrock-calls-for-halting-the-stock-market-to-avoid-volatility
HOUSING BUBBLE CONTAGION GOES GLOBALLY VIRAL, INFECTS BERLIN!
The Cubs have not won the World Series in 106 years but we just had a 1,000 year flood so you never know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_k_VG6Syc - 320k -
The Cubs looked good tonight.
So how goes the stroll Lola? Are you ready to raise the bar for yourself?
Bernanke is about to be on the Late Show with Steven Colbert. Right now.
Admits there are two illuminati on the Fed.
Implies he’s one of them (”two of us”). Whaddya think, Jeff?
Otherwise a worthless interview.
The first rule of Illuminati is, you don’t talk about Illuminati.