At Its Peak Or Beginning A Downturn
A report from the Tennessean. “Some things are more predictable than others. The topic and timing of this week’s column is one of those. For the last several years, David and I have attended a late summer conference in steamy Austin, Texas. Keller Williams Realty International’s (KWRI) Mega Agent Camp is routinely packed full of insights. One of the most valued presentations is always the market update presented by KWRI chairman and co-founder Gary Keller. As always, Keller’s presentations take an historical look at where we have been and then challenge us to draw reasonable assumptions about the future. The starting point was a broad-based question posed to all in attendance: Where are we in the housing cycle?”
“Nationally, the current market is at its peak or beginning a downturn. The market traditionally works its way through the cycle every seven years, so this should come as no surprise. The indicators of a downturn have already begun to surface in several markets across the U.S.; fortunately Middle Tennessee is lagging behind. Increasing days on the market, flat or increasing inventory, coupled with a slowdown in sales units and drop in average price are indicators that a downturn is imminent.”
Bloomberg on California. “Stacey Smith and her husband looked at about three dozen homes in the San Francisco Bay area and lost a bidding war before finally purchasing a four-bedroom house in June for $1.5 million — 40 percent more than the asking price. Their search wasn’t in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. It was just across the bay in Oakland, which has supplanted its pricier and better-known neighbors to become the region’s most heated real estate market.”
“‘Something we had to wrap our head around really quickly was the fact that we were automatically going to bid at least 30 percent over asking,’ said Smith, a 50-year-old strategy consultant who moved from San Francisco in search of more space for her family’s three kids. ‘It’s the new normal.’”
“The median home price in Oakland has soared 178 percent since 2011, almost double the gain in San Francisco, Paragon Real Estate Group data show. ‘Most markets would be pleased if they averaged asking price, or 1 or 2 percent over asking price,’ said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at Paragon. ‘To see things averaging 9 to 17 percent over asking price is virtually unheard of. It’s the highest I’ve ever seen.’”
From Community Impact on Texas. “Previously the top single-family housing market in the U.S., the Greater Houston area fell behind the Dallas-Fort Worth market early this year, according to Metrostudy. The Houston market had 27,263 new homes under construction during the first quarter of this year—down 3,089 from the same time period in 2015. Similarly, the Conroe, Montgomery and Willis area saw a decline in new home construction during the second quarter of this year.”
“‘We built a lot of new communities with the goal of capturing some of the people that would be relocating to work at the new ExxonMobil campus, but that has not materialized in the volume that we thought it would,’ said Metrostudy-Houston Regional Director Lawrence Dean. ‘While the new home market is still going strong, we probably built too many new subdivisions and too many lots at the same time. It will take a little bit longer to build and sell the homes than we thought.’”
“‘It has been a pretty significant shift in the market,’ Gracepoint Homes President Tom Cox said. ‘The buyers that are above $450,000 are very discretionary buyers, and they are in a significant holding pattern right now.’”
“Additionally, homeowners who are looking to sell their homes are having a difficult time in the current market because homebuilders offer incentives to sell their inventory, such as paying bonuses to real estate agents and covering closing costs for homebuyers, said The Woodlands Realty Realtor Marisol Luyckx. ‘Homebuilders give a significant amount of incentives to real estate agents as well as buyers, so it is difficult to compete when you have a home for resale,’ Luyckx said. ‘That is when you know that [builders] are desperate to get rid of their inventory. If [homes] were selling quickly, they wouldn’t offer those things.’”
‘Something we had to wrap our head around really quickly was the fact that we were automatically going to bid at least 30 percent over asking…It’s the new normal’
You gotta roll with it Stacey. Just don’t take the dishwasher when you walk away.
Sure housing markets go from 200k to 600k in just a few years all the time.
“discretionary” = not buying
Ben Jones she is a “strategy consultant” LOLZ.
Her best strategy would have been to leave the Bay Area.
Wouldn’t that mean she’s a ‘loser”?
Is this $400,000 tiny house in Oakland the perfect starter home?
“This Oakland property with a cozy two-bedroom house and detached studio separated by a sea of concrete might not be your dream home.
But if you’re looking to squeeze into the hot Bay Area market and have a downpayment saved up, it could provide a doable scenario.
The property was listed earlier this month at $400,000, meaning you need at least $80,000 to put 20 percent down (as long as there isn’t a bidding war) and call it your own.”
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/tiny-house-Oakland-real-estate-starter-home-9180188.php
loved the barbed wire on top of the fence and the heavy duty burglar bars on the nabe’s windows.
Hehe… at least they recognized that the place was so small that they made a separate mother-in-law unit out back.
Oakland = dead honkey
You wouldn’t want to buy that house for $80,000. In fact, you wouldn’t want to live there for free. Unless you’re dark-skinned, sporting a gold “grill” and pants on the ground, you don’t want to be in the vicinity of that neighborhood- because you’d probably be “caught dead” there.
The proper terminology is that one “was in the wrong place at the wrong time”. My other two favorites are “gunshots rang out” and the ever popular “violence erupted from the streets”.
Unless you’re dark-skinned, sporting a gold “grill” and pants on the ground, you don’t want to be in the vicinity of that neighborhood- because you’d probably be “caught dead” there.
That sounds unlikely.
‘Something we had to wrap our head around really quickly was the fact that we were automatically going to bid at least 30 percent over asking…It’s the new normal’
This was the line that shocked me too. And it’s shocking in so many ways, from the couple collectively “wrapping their head” around something that is not a “fact” to “automatically” bidding “at least 30 percent over asking.” There’s nothing “normal” here. What I find hardest to believe is that someone with such faulty logic can even make enough to buy an affordably priced house, never mind one in the most expensive market in the country…
“wrapping their head” around something that is not a “fact” to “automatically” bidding “at least 30 percent over asking.” There’s nothing “normal” here’
Even if one doesn’t think it’s a bubble, what are the chances that the price will overshoot where it ends up?
‘What I find hardest to believe is that someone with such faulty logic can even make enough to buy an affordably priced house, never mind one in the most expensive market in the country’
When I was working for a dotcom, we hired a deliver guy on the spot because he knew a little Flash programming. The next day we hired his unemployed friend. It was one in a long list of things that kept me up at night (because it was my job to keep the bills paid). Of course the whole thing went away in less than a year.
The Kaitlyn Vestal mantra has taken hold and people are making over priced decisions with OPM. Sometimes, “you just gotta roll with it”.
And I remember a friend of mine in Gilbert said he wouldn’t pay more than $200,000 for a house. He said this back in 2006. I still think at least for the Phoenix area you shouldn’t pay more than $200,000 for a house.
wage slave
nouninformal
noun: wage slave; plural noun: wage slaves
a person wholly dependent on income from employment, typically employment of an arduous or menial nature.
“…shouldn’t pay more than $200,000 for a house.”
What percentage of the local Phoenix population can honestly afford to repay a $200k mortgage?
I don’t know. I do know back in 2001 I worked with a guy in his early 20s who bought a $200k house with his girlfriend in North Phoenix. It was priced about right in those days and probably bubbled to $400,000 in 2006.
I know a divorcee who bought a Mesa, AZ spec house close to $200k after losing a Manteca, CA to foreclosure. She still has the Mesa place, but she is house-poor these days and past her prime now too; no more glass-slipper fittings.
“bought a $200k house with his girlfriend”
Good god, woman! Rings and papers. Rings and papers.
If she lowers her standards enough I’m sure she can find a thirsty chump willing to put a ring on it.
There is a lot of paperwork involved in buying a house.
Zillow Home ID: 8161763
Its price history is all over the place. Was on the market for well over $300,000 in 2014 or 2015. dropped price to $160,000 and on the market again for $215,000
azdude jump on that!
I have been interested in buying in that neighborhood for awhile. It is in 85044 just near the western boundary of that zip code.
A family member of mine just paid about $295k in Tempe for a house listed at $254k.
I would put a hold on all major purchases for the next 6 - 12 months. Just my opinion/observation.
next 6 - 12 months.’
Maybe longer ? This reminds me of ~2005. Amazing its happening again so soon after the last bubble. Is it all really bad FED management of the money supply or a sea change in the new information age versus the old manufacturing age ?
IDK
It’s nuts in our area now. Used cars/trucks 30% overpriced. Price per square foot on housing shot up by $50 in one year. Signs posted for carpenters, just need to apply. It appears the memory of 2008 has faded enough for people to pile on the credit again and banks are more than happy to oblige.
“Signs posted for carpenters, just need to apply.”
Yep… make ‘yer X right here on the dotted line.
Solid candidates for the last greater fools.
is this an article or placement ad
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-home-sales-fell-july-140048421.html
usually they scrub the phone number etc.
‘homeowners who are looking to sell their homes are having a difficult time in the current market because homebuilders offer incentives to sell their inventory, such as paying bonuses to real estate agents and covering closing costs for homebuyers, said The Woodlands Realty Realtor Marisol Luyckx. ‘Homebuilders give a significant amount of incentives to real estate agents as well as buyers, so it is difficult to compete when you have a home for resale,’ Luyckx said. ‘That is when you know that [builders] are desperate to get rid of their inventory. If [homes] were selling quickly, they wouldn’t offer those things’
This is the stage where the builders screw their own customers, minting FB’s left and right.
“schlonged”
That word. We have the best words.
Like in Naples Florida, when the builders are undercutting the existing market, the collapse is near.
Doesn’t look like condo market in Naples is doing much, i have a family member selling no activity for a couple of months now. don’t see many Pendings either.
Incredibly Cape Coral (I sold there last year at 50K profit in one year) still I see a lot of pending at the lower end, with very limited inventory. Rinse and repeat.
“schlonged”
Action word… verb.
Love the passive tense.
People were schlonged.
Bad decisions were made.
Etc.
Past participle.
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WoQZKZkNs
BUT STAWKS cause yellen is going to talk friday!
Yep. Expect another relief rally when she surprises markets by revealing that recent Fed chatter about any rate hikes in 2016 was just a bluff.
I read the other day that a proposal to reform to Fed has been floated. The key take-away has nothing to do with the viability of continued radical policy, or debating what role the Fed should play in the economic life of the nation, or if it should be audited; rather, the conclusion is that the institution needs more diversity and inclusion. That will fix everything!
Much of the conventional Western left has completely abandoned any economic underpinning to its ideology, instead constructing a new doctrine based on racial and gender identity politics.
the conclusion is that the institution needs more diversity and inclusion.”
Too much White privilege huh ?
How about a fed core sample
Say 10 billion randomly selected from the 4,4 trillion
Any bids at 4,5,6 % ?
“…the conclusion is that the institution needs more diversity and inclusion.”
How are you going to get that without more qualified diverse job applicants?
I nominate smelly Mel watt
Welfare mortgages for all
“… the institution needs more diversity and inclusion.”
Is that PC for too many jooz?
Don’t think so. Here’s a link:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/26/news/economy/federal-reserve-janet-yellen-diversity-dnc-warren/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom
“Republicans routinely trash the Fed’s leadership. But now, Democrats aren’t going easy on Fed Chair Janet Yellen either. In her testimony to a Senate committee in June, Yellen was asked about the Fed’s lack of diversity three times.
‘The leadership across the Federal Reserve System remains overwhelmingly and disproportionately white and male,’ Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressmen John Conyers, both Democrats, wrote in a letter in May to Yellen.”
You want to see some real money creation just add diversity; a mulatto fed isn’t the answer.
DEBT JUBILEE B@TCHEZ!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/05/could-national-debt-forgiveness-help-kickstart-the-american-economy/#78bf0d5256f0
WHY IS IS JUST FOR HOMEOWNERS WHO OVERPAID?
Honestly, I like the jubilee idea. Every 20, 30 years, all debts noncollectable. Are we really smarter than people 2000 years ago? And what we have today with our Fed and Keynesian abuse/misuse aint working.
The first jubilee can’t be today, though, it has to be 20, 30 years in the future.
Good for you. For anyone that owes you, send them a paid in full receipt.
^^^^^^^^Yeahhh boyeee :flava-flav voice:
Honestly, I like the jubilee idea. Every 20, 30 years, all debts noncollectable.
Sure, it would purge the system of debt on a predictable schedule; however, think about the effects it would have on the origination of new debt, in the years leading up to the Jubilee Year… Constrained much, you think?
‘the effects it would have on the origination of new debt’
Japanese bonds had a mini-crash recently when the central banker announced helicopter money was “probably illegal.” An editorial I posted at the time mentioned that they were seriously considering it showed how far into goofy land we had gone. It also said such policies would be the end of central banking. After all, we could just get an organ monkey to turn the presses and let the money fly out the window.
In an advanced economics course I took, there was a chapter on the Japanese bubble episode. The book smugly stated such a thing could never happen in the US (zombie corporations, etc) because our accounting rules wouldn’t allow it. As we saw, FASB is no longer an independent rules body and anything can and will go. Take the GSE’s; under any number of interpretations they should have been shuttered years ago. Yet our entire economy rests on their 30 year loans. These house prices and the loans on them are simply fantasy numbers. Government bonds are even more of a fantasy because they will never be repaid. Rolled over yes, maybe, but never repaid.
“probably illegal.”
How about central banks directly buying corporate bonds? It seems like the central bankers basically write their own laws these days.
“…such a thing could never happen in the US (zombie corporations, etc) because our accounting rules wouldn’t allow it.”
If you don’t like the rules of the game, change them or ignore them.
Problem solved.
Probably a jubilee should be every 10 years. Eight fat years, two lean years. There must be something in nature, sun spots, human aging, whatever, a natural business cycle where growth just doesn’t grow to the sky.
The biggest problem is the court system and the time it takes from the day I stop being paid what is owed to me, to the day I get POSSESSION to whatever collateral exists.
If you want to buy real property you can buy less than 100% interest in the first 10, 6 years, and then in year 11 you can buy additional interest, so on and so forth.
There is something natural, it’s called a RECESSION.
Correct.
It’s always the MT Pockets looking for something free.
It will be the government jubileeing away your social security and medicaid
Xactly. And when that runs out they come gunnin’ fer ‘er 401K!
But hey, at least you can let your tears fall on granite countertops.
That’s only until they take your house.
They already own the ground under it.
Xactly. And when that runs out they come gunnin’ fer ‘er 401K!
Think you got that backwards; they will come for your 401K in order to prop up SS.
Shouldn’t it include all debtors who pay usurious interest rates Megabank, Inc, who got the money for free from the Fed? I’m talking about credit card debt, student loan debt, auto loan debt, payroll loan debt. None of it is fair under the rigged system.
I want cash back on everything I DIDN’T finance!!!
How much you wanna bet that article was written by a Millennial in the hole about 85K with college and CC Starbucks debt???
Oh good gosh, you’re right! Here’s the self-written bio of Erik Kain:
————
“I cover the video game industry, write about gamers, and review video games. You can follow me on Twitter and hit me up there if you have any questions or comments you’d like to chat about. Disclosure: Many of the video games I review were provided as free review copies. This does not influence my coverage or reviews of these games. I do not own stock in any of the companies I cover. I do not back any Kickstarter projects related to video games. I do not fund anyone in the industry on Patreon.”
———–
And check out his avatar/pic. Dude with bad beard, black knit hat, and hi-def earphones. Right out of Millenial Central Casting.
I’ve never understood why those hats are worn indoors.
It helps them keep warm because they don’t eat enough red meat.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Talk about a massive scale moral hazard! The only way people learn to turn the ship around is good old fashioned budgeting, live within your means and use cash.
I like personal responsibility much better than handouts.
It betters the chances I don’t get stuck paying a deadbeats bills.
Drudge revives an article from 15 months ago on the Real Journalists’ money trail:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228
http://picpaste.com/sheldon_of_the_empire.jpg
Got Realm?
The report struck a prescient note when it observed that “the process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event–like a new Pearl Harbor.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
No “smaller government” or “less regulation” or “lower taxes” happening here:
“A week after the Air Force declared its version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet ready for limited combat operations, the Pentagon’s top tester warned that the U.S. military’s costliest weapons program is still riddled with deficiencies.
“In fact the program is actually not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver” the aircraft’s full capabilities, “for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion by the scheduled end” of its development in 2018, Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational testing, said in an Aug. 9 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.
“Achieving full combat capability with the Joint Strike Fighter is at substantial risk” of not occurring before development is supposed to end and realistic combat testing begins, he said of the F-35.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-24/lockheed-s-f-35-still-falls-short-pentagon-s-chief-tester-says
Chuck Yeager on the F-35: “Waste of money.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-air-force-legend-general-142648567.html
A poster said this on the previous thread:
‘If Hillary ends up in the White House, that’s it for the US.’
While anything could happen, it could be just more of the same. (Such an outcome would definitely mean a lot more dead brown people). But let’s ask ourselves: what is the dominant economic force of our lifetimes? Globalism. Globalism in a world order where the US is the sole military superpower. Tom Barrack said at the GOP convention that globalism had failed. Either it has or it hasn’t. This election is a referendum on the current world order. Either we step off or we keep going. This neoliberal model is concurrent with central bank money creation we’ve never tried. The Japanese and Europeans are running out of stuff to buy with fiat. What will happen is probably to be determined by if globalism is failing or has failed and where we are in regards to it when that comes home.
The Foreign Invasion of American Politics
Foreign free riders hate Trump and love Hillary – with good reason
by Justin Raimondo
‘As one of my Twitter followers put it so succinctly: “Globalization: Where leaders from any country get to pick US Presidents.”
I liked this part:
‘Chaly doesn’t get it, but that’s not surprising – he’s a foreigner, after all. Trump doesn’t care about the “bipartisan” consensus that has ruled Washington and mandated US intervention in every two-bit border dispute. The whole point of the Trump campaign, and the reason for his overwhelming victory in the primaries, is that the bipartisan internationalism of the past is over, finished, kaput. Trump isn’t buying into the new cold war hysteria being drummed up by the political class: he has said he wants to get along with the Russians, and for that the Mookarthyites in the Democratic party and their journalistic camarilla are up in arms. Well, let them rant and rave all they want: the American people couldn’t give a sh*t about Ukraine – a ramshackle “nation” of corrupt oligarchs, neo-Nazi skinheads, and a national “cuisine” consisting of greasy dumplings and sour cabbage – and if that be “isolationism,” let Hillary Clinton and her neocon allies make the most of it.’
‘a national “cuisine” consisting of greasy dumplings and sour cabbage’
The whole point of the Trump campaign, and the reason for his overwhelming victory in the primaries, is that the bipartisan internationalism of the past is over, finished, kaput.
This is incorrect. I was speaking to some Trump supporters in my neighborhood. One was concerned that the rich pay too much tax and thought that a $15 minimum wage would be too high. Others thought that Hillary would try to take their guns away. A number hate all Muslims and think that we should save money by dropping pork products on Muslims instead of bombs. One guy said that it was important to note that that’s not racism because Islam is not a race.
Ending internationalism was not an important reason for Trump’s victory.
Yes it is. What is the issue that put him in front in the first place? Ending illegal immigration. The second big issue was our trade deals suxs and we gotta renegotiate or do away with them. On both issues, a globalist would demand the opposite; amnesty and more enlarging upon NAFTA and WTO. Actually one must be anti-globalism to go there.
No more regime change and no more policing the world. Globalism is built upon this arrangement. It is very easy to see that at the root of Trumps major issues is anti-globalism.
“Ending illegal immigration.”
Donald Trump’s ‘Softening’ on Immigration Is His Latest Flip-Flop
By Meghan Keneally
Aug 24, 2016, 11:04 AM ET
…
Yes, the media demoralization attempts continue. Last night I watched part of his rally in Austin. He lead a large and diverse crowd in a “build that wall chant”. Followed by “and who’s going to pay for it?” “Mexico!” the crowd roared.
Bipartisan internationalism may be losing popular support, but its purveyors are powerful people who aren’t going down without a fight. That’s why we’re told that Trump is Hitler, Putin is Hitler, and Assad is Hitler.
Maybe legal immigration and any foreign trade at all is some form of internationalism. Or maybe everyone has their definition, as they did with socialism eight years ago.
Whatever, it might mean, according to Raimondo a Hilliary victory will indicate that the American people want global internationalism. If she fails to deliver it, she’ll be unfaithful to her voters.
“Yes, the media demoralization attempts continue.”
If the MSM lies about what Trump said, can’t he sue them?
It’s quite likely that Raimondo has never actually eaten Ukrainian food. Maybe he should try some. He might end up changing his whole position on the matter.
That’s why we’re told that Trump is Hitler, Putin is Hitler, and Assad is Hitler.
Glenn Beck pointed out that Hitler’s movement was called National Socialism. Thus Obama, the socialist, is just like Hitler. The nicknames Hillary Clinton from the right wingers include Hitlary and Killary.
‘the American people want global internationalism’
As you demonstrated recently, most people don’t know what globalism is. They may have positions around its implications; off-shoring, illegal immigration, lower pay. This is why globalism supporters speak a different language: free trade, multi-culturalism, a rising tide lifts all boats, etc. It’s up to the listener to decide who’s talking horse hockey.
I don’t disagree that comparisons to Hitler unfortunately have become routine across the political spectrum. But a talk radio host saying it and the U.S. Secretary of State saying it are not the same.
But a talk radio host saying it and the U.S. Secretary of State saying it are not the same.
Are you referring to Hillary or John Kerry? I have seen lately that Gary Johnson called him a fascist and Cher compared him to Hitler. All of this controversy could be good for him when does another season of The Apprentice next year.
As reported by Real Journalists (yeah, I voted for Nader in 2000):
“A vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein in November is the equivalent of a vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump. It is the equivalent of a vote for a conservative majority on the Supreme Court; for the end of immigration reform; for torture; and for climate change denial.
Dr. Stein is a good and serious person running a destructive and not-serious campaign, the only result of which be will be to take progressive votes away from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, helping elect Trump and bringing to the powers of the presidency everything he represents.
Fortunately for progressivism and America, almost all of those who agree with Stein’s progressive positions on issues are following the lead of Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and supporting Clinton for president. It is not even a close call on the merits, nor is it a close call on the politics.
It is almost certain that the vanity candidacy of Ralph Nader in 2000 elected George W. Bush president. Heaven help America and the world if a similar result occurs in 2016!”
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/292453-jill-stein-helps-trump-as-ralph-nader-helped-bush
Jill Stein said that if elected she would cut the Pentagon budget in half.
Ajamu Baraka, “Uncle Tom,” and the Pathology of White Liberal Racism:
“Perhaps the best example of this sickening tactic came on CNN’s Town Hall with Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka. The host, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo – brother of Democratic New York governor Andrew Cuomo – deliberately decontextualized Baraka’s use of the phrase “Uncle Tom” to describe President Obama. An obvious smear intended to discredit the Green Party ticket in the eyes of Black (and liberal white) voters, Cuomo smugly implied that Baraka’s usage of Uncle Tom was, in itself, racist.
But even a cursory analysis of the term, the context in which it was used, and Cuomo’s intent in raising the issue, not only vindicates Baraka’s usage of Uncle Tom, it reveals the deep-seated racism of Democratic party shills, and American liberals in general.
Does anyone doubt that, from a purely objective perspective, President Obama has indeed abdicated his responsibility to improve the political, economic, and social lives of Black Americans? A quick look at the statistics for Black America reveals that, if anything, the lives of black people have gotten considerably worse under Obama: life expectancy, per capita wealth, employment levels, infant mortality, children in poverty, etc. all point to a deterioration of the living conditions for Blacks under Obama. Do these facts constitute betrayal of black people in the pursuit of serving the white establishment? Certainly, Ajamu Baraka argued that they do. It is hard to counter his assertion.
And how about Obama’s merciless slaughter of black and brown people around the world? From the lynchings, rapes, and murders of black Libyans carried out by Obama’s proxy terrorist forces during the regime change operation against the Libyan Government of Muammar Gaddafi, to the drone bombings of black and brown people all over the world, to the continued militarization of the African continent under the auspices of Obama’s AFRICOM: Do these policies and actions taken by the first black president constitute a betrayal of people of color in the service of the white ruling class and the Empire? Baraka has argued that they do.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/24/ajamu-baraka-uncle-tom-and-the-pathology-of-white-liberal-racism/
Does anyone doubt that, from a purely objective perspective, President Obama has indeed abdicated his responsibility to improve the political, economic, and social lives of Black Americans?
Obama has a specific responsibility to blacks that differs form any responsibility to other Americans? This writer is disappointed that Obama is not a statist collectivist.
I just re-read Paul Theroux’s “Dark Star Safari” and recommend this book highly.
MikeyMite maybe you should do a bong hit, put your feet up, put your headphones on, and listen to some Marvin Gaye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbHeNkqRWtI
The irony is that, without the presence of Gary Johnson, Trump likely would be leading in nearly every poll. Shouldn’t these pundits be celebrating Johnson as an American hero, then?
I don’t know about national polls, but electoral-vote dot com has all the state polls, which are what counts. If the election were held today, and if every Johnson voter held his nose and voted for Trump, Clinton would still win in a squeaker, with 280 EVs.
Really, that’s not very good for Clinton.
Hey Donk.
A lot of those Johnson voters would probably stay home if they didn’t have him as an option.
Sorry.. my friends who are Stein supporters were Bernie supporters until he sold out to the pantsuit and a lake house.
They HATE Hillary and have no intention of voting for her.
In fact, my Green/Stein/Bernie friends and I get along and have thoughtful dialogue while our Hillary friends flip out at the slightest questioning of her. My Green/Stein/Bernie friends know how corrupt Hillary is and admit it, rather than defend it. With that honesty, we can actually respect and discuss each others opinions rather than score gotcha points in red team/blue team tournament.
What are these a-holes screaming at Stein supporters worried about anyway? If it’s a given Hillary is going to trounce Trump by 10+%, why the hell do they care if people vote third party?
I am leaning towards voting for Stein. I’ll never vote for Trump, and I find Clinton repulsive.
The Bernie “revolution” ended with his Clinton endorsement. That’s like Lenin taking the sealed train to Petrograd, stepping onto the platform, and endorsing the czar.
OMG, a politician taking money from an entity that wants a favor!
Wow, this is something brand new. Old Drudge has really uncovered a scandal with his investigative original journalism.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Drudge is not a journalist and has never pretended to be one. He is an aggegator of the work of journalists, in terms of posting headlines and links to articles that he feels may be of interest to his audience.
“OMG, a politician taking money from an entity that wants a favor!”
I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Why so cynical? It’s harmful to you as a citizen.
Sometimes the links are to clearly biased sources…but if you recognize that, and do a little work, you can find out what is BS, and what is real.
Clinton Cash is clearly put together by someone baised in opposition to Democrats…however, it didn’t stop the NY Times from picking up on one of the more outrageous claims (Uranium One), doing their homework, and finding out…that it was true.
And yes, I’ve been hearing a lot of the “we just have to live with corruption in politics” in the justification for voting for HRC.
No, we don’t need to live with it. When corruption is uncovered, the ramifications should be severe…like the person doesn’t get votes at a minimum, and gets prosecuted when the evidence is strong enough.
People on the left have been unbelievably critical of the Kochs for pushing money into politics. At least they have been doing it publicly. There has been HUGE amounts of money going to the Clintons through back channels, and there has been nary a peep from the people who have been so critical of the Kochs.
t didn’t stop the NY Times from picking up on one of the more outrageous claims (Uranium One), doing their homework, and finding out…that it was true.
Vast right wing conspiracy. Hillary would never do such a thing.
“OMG, a politician taking money from an entity that wants a favor!”
I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Why so cynical? It’s harmful to you as a citizen.
It’s not illegal.
It would be illegal in 3rd world. We have legalized bribery in Amerika. Exceptionalism!
It’s not illegal.
Yep, foreign governments can lobby in the U.S. with ca$h.
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought political bribery was illegal.
Taking money from someone who wants a favor is not illegal.
Taking money from someone in connection with granting said favor IS illegal.
http://bribery.uslegal.com/federal-laws-on-bribery/
“Bribery is the practice of offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting something of value for the purpose of influencing the action of an official in discharge of his/ her public or legal duties.”
There is illegal activity, and there is unethical activity.
The Clintons are experts at skating that line.
For those who scream they should be put in jail for their illegal activity, I would submit that fortunately, we live in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty, and the presumption of innocence would work in the Clinton’s favor in a big way…especially given arguments they could make (have been making).
[For Uranium One for instance, HRC didn't approve the deal...but in the past, she had acted to block such transactions. How do you prove that the money filtered to their foundation (which employs family), and through a big fat speaking fee to Bill ($500k for one speech), caused her to NOT act in this case? How do you prove that money caused someone to look the other way, when in the past they didn't look the other way?]
For those who claim the Clintons are ethical politicians…well, you can’t fix blind and stupid.
Good for you, RW. Facts and logic are the way to go.
Yes, but facts and logic point to the Clinton machine being corrupt, self-serving, and shady.
It doesn’t mean I don’t think their activities haven’t been criminal, it just means I think they would be hard to convict.
At a minimum, anyone with a brain and eyes should conclude that they are corrupt and doing everything they can to keep their unethical and corrupt behavior hidden from the public.
private server and scrubbed e-mails before release…many of which include evidence of pay for play
Canadian entity to shelter identity of foreign donors during HRC’s stint as SoS
Brother given board seat to company that was awarded gold mining license in Haiti post-quake
etc.
Why this doesn’t disqualify her to be president is shocking to me.
http://circa.com/politics/election-2016/clinton-warned-in-2009-memo-that-russian-uranium-moves-were-bad-for-us-europe
Incompetence? Or corruption?
There is no third choice.
Real Journalists provide a lengthy narrative on how the rent is too damn high:
“Housing is generally considered affordable if a household allots no more than 30 percent of its income to home payments and utilities. By that standard, more than half of renters in New York City are “cost-burdened” and may find it hard to pay for other necessities like food, clothing and medical care.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/23/nyregion/100000004606700.mobile.html?_r=0
their rent pays pensions
Tumwater, WA Prices Tank 13%YoY On Cratering Demand For Housing
http://www.zillow.com/tumwater-wa/home-values/
Oh you slay me, HA! Tumwater? I drove through there yesterday - it’s where the old Olympia Beer Brewery is. “It’s the water” was their sales slogan.
Boots on the ground data my friend. Boots on the ground data.
Issaquah, WA Housing Prices Crater 7% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/issaquah-wa-98027/home-values/
Have you driven through Issaquah, lately, HA?
Because Zillow hasn’t.
Get back on your meds.
Falling housing prices my good friend.
Seattle, WA Housing Prices Plunge 9% YoY; Housing Inventory Balloons To Record Size
http://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa-98102/home-values/
You are lying again. Inventory is NOT at record levels - nowhere near it! The number of active listings right now in King County is in the 3500 range.
Record levels? That would be above 6500. We are nowhere even near that, so not even close to being a record level.
Stop lying and get back on your meds.
HA, I’m guessing that was you on the ZeroHedge forum today. Your comments were cracking me up. I was getting a safety check on my car and the people waiting in the lobby with me counldn’t figure out what was making me laugh so much.
There’s plenty of creative writers over there. And they too should be familiar to you.
HVAC Question: I’m going to decide on an heat-pump/air-handler (r-410a) upgrade, but I’m undecided on the compressor; which is better and why: two-stage or variable speed?
FWIW, I am looking at Carrier or Trane, higher end equipment. The heat-pump would be 2-ton, and the air-handler a 2.5-ton due to attic routed ducting.
“Nationally, the current market is at its peak or beginning a downturn. The market traditionally works its way through the cycle every seven years, so this should come as no surprise. The indicators of a downturn have already begun to surface in several markets across the U.S.; fortunately Middle Tennessee is lagging behind. Increasing days on the market, flat or increasing inventory, coupled with a slowdown in sales units and drop in average price are indicators that a downturn is imminent.”
IS THIS THE BIG ONE!!!!!!!!!?????
This is the big one!
Listen to your betters:
“Simply put, patriarchy is a system of domination and control that privileges cisgender men at the expense of everyone else (though notably to varying degrees and in different ways, since the benefits of patriarchy exist at intersections of other forms of domination and oppression).
Patriarchy, as is the case with other related systems of oppression like White supremacy, relies on violence (both literal and symbolic) deployed against cisgender women, transgender people, and gender non-conforming people in order to maintain supremacy.
Considering that cisgender men like myself are socialized in the context of the violence of patriarchy, we need to own the fact that cis-masculinity is fundamentally oppressive and violent.
With this in mind, it’s important that I situate myself within my positionality. As a White cisgender man, the following is based not only on my perspective as a person with many privileges, and as such, my comments are limited to ways that cisgender men are taught to be abusive. Inevitably, then, this article is limited and is meant as a call for reflection and action from cisgender men.
And here’s what cisgender men such as myself need to consider: if patriarchy is fundamentally violent and oppressive, then we have a responsibility to consider the ways that we might be complicit in that violence — simply by living out the patterns of how we were taught to be men.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-utt/5-common-behaviors-cis-me_b_11666636.html?
The article author is a Diversity Consultant and Sexual Violence Prevention Educator. LMFAO at this beta looser. And BTW, your girlfriend isn’t at trivia night with her girlfriends on Thursdays, she’s in a hotel room with Chad TC getting what you can never give her…
The abusive behaviors he identifies as patriarchal, such as “emotional manipulation” and “being controlling,” are shared by both men and women, whether gay or straight, and regardless of race, ethnicity or culture.
Is Vancouver’s Luxury Market Not as Red Hot as We Think?
“Over the last month, prices for luxury condos and townhouses have still been on the rise. But a small number of very high-priced homes, he said, have either sold for less than their asking price or haven’t sold at all, and removing those top-dollar sales from the market has made it appear that the overall price is being driven down. Meanwhile, Mr. Allen said, prices for homes at less than the very top of the market are continuing to rise.
The British Columbian government’s newly imposed tax on high-end foreign buyers is creating additional uncertainty at the top of the market, he said. Buyers are increasingly reluctant to commit—Canadians because they are waiting to see what will happen, and foreigners because they are weighing whether moving to Vancouver is worth paying the extra tax.
The number of high-end listings, Mr. Allen said, has been going up as sellers dip their toes in the water to see if there are interested buyers. The result, however, has been fewer trades and longer times spent on the market. When luxury homes do sell, he said, it’s because the owners were motivated to make a deal and were willing to settle for less.”
http://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/37605-is-vancouver-s-luxury-market-not-as-red-hot-as-we-think
Real Journalists conveniently omit rent, college tuition, and health insurance from this Fed-fellating kool-aid narrative:
“For the Federal Reserve to succeed in its mandated bid to anchor inflation higher, it needs to overcome a big demographic hurdle: millennials don’t expect prices to rise anytime soon.
There’s a good reason for that: Americans who entered the workforce from 2000 onwards have experienced a benign inflation climate, with core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price inflation averaging just 1.7 percent, below the Fed’s 2 percent target. And the PCE rate hasn’t breached 2.5 percent at any point since the turn of the millennium.
That compares with an average 4.3 percent annual core PCE growth between 1965 to 2000, the adult life-span for the majority of the baby-boomers’ generation.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-24/won-t-someone-at-the-fed-think-of-the-millennials
I have variable and like it
Article for all the badge lickers and uniform fetishists who love love love Big Government and un-Constitutional civil forfeiture laws:
“A federal appeals court says law enforcement officials in Kansas cannot stop and search motorists for having nothing more than out-of-state license plates from states that have legalized marijuana.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday says the officer’s reasoning would justify the search of citizens from more than half of the states in the country.
The court reinstated the lawsuit filed by a Colorado motorist against two Kansas Highway Patrol officers who stopped and searched his vehicle while he was driving alone at night on I-70 in Kansas.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/23/kansas-cops-cant-stop-drivers-based-on-license-plates-from-states-where-marijuana-legal/
California is the most impoverished state in the country:
“If the state’s revamped standardized tests are accurately measuring what they set out to measure, fewer than half of public school students in California are on track to be ready for college after graduation.
The good news, if there is good news, is that’s an improvement over last year.
Across the state, 48% of students met English language arts standards and 37% met math standards, according to the test results released Wednesday morning. That compares with 44% in English and 34% in math last year.
Despite evidence of growth, this year’s scores still indicate a serious achievement gap between students of different ethnic groups.
That gap remains large: for example,73% of Asian students met the English standards, compared with 31% of black students. And 67% of Asian students met the math standards, versus 18% of black students. In Los Angeles Unified, black students had both the lowest scores of any racial group and the smallest gains.
While some chalk up the educational achievement gap to wealth, poor black and Latino students fared worse on these tests than poor white and Asian students.
“This is shocking. It’s not a pretty picture,” said UCLA education professor Tyrone Howard. “We are not doing an adequate job educating poor kids, black kids, Latino kids.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-caaspp-test-scores-california-20160824-snap-story.html
“That gap remains large: for example,73% of Asian students met the English standards, compared with 31% of black students.”
Wow, and the Asians are either 1st or 2nd generation English speakers, while the Africans are about 30th generation. What could be holding them back?
What could be holding them back?
“a system of domination and control that privileges cisgender men at the expense of everyone else (though notably to varying degrees and in different ways, since the benefits of patriarchy exist at intersections of other forms of domination and oppression)” ???
Oh wait, wrong narrative.
Our parents taught us math at home using flash cards, took us to the public library once a week, and we never had cable TeeVee growing up.
“Oh wait, wrong narrative.”
That’s hillaryious
Also check the average IQ by continent. It’s illuminating! It turns out, those racist British colonizers from previous centuries were correct . . .
On a related note, just the other day they decided to reinstate the California teacher’s tenure rules which make it impossible to fire anybody, after something like a year on the job, regardless of job performance.
Basically, as a teacher, you get a free ride for life, with no effort at all.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/22/490991086/california-teacher-tenure-laws-upheld
No wonder the students are so stupid. Their teachers have zero incentive to do anything. They are little more than baby-sitters now.
What’s the solution they say? Of course, more money. Always more money.
If I had children, I would never send them to a public school, or some wacky new-age private school either. Maybe home-schooling.
Another reason why CA devolved in to a third world ghetto and the most impoverished state in the US.
Public sector unions are scarier than all last and Isis combined
Back in the late 80’s, as a sophomore in high school (public school, north of Los Angeles).
My history teacher was an old crusty bastard, obviously drank too much, had those visible blood-vessels on his nose from years of too much drinking, and he used to take smoke breaks in the middle of class. I almost joined him a few times.
He was a fountain of good stuff though. I loved his class. He made us read books like Brave New World and other trippy stuff, blew my mind at the time. He was the kind of unvarnished kind of guy who just spoke his mind and didn’t even care.
One of the weirdest things he told us once, I still remember it to this day. At the time, there was a lot of gnashing about violence in prisons and jails. He prepared a speech for us one day and said his solution was: Give the violent criminals three chances. If they can’t control themselves, then forcibly inject them with heroin. State-administered heroin injections. Forever. Basically, turn all the violent people in jail into heroin addicts. No more violence!
I’m not even kidding, that’s what he said one day, to all of us in the class.
I don’t think I agree with that, but damn, he was right in a way. It would solve it. I love those old crusty bastards. They tell it to you straight.
LOL.
Anyway, sorry for wasting bandwidth.
“If they can’t control themselves, then forcibly inject them with heroin.”
Thorazine works wonders for the uncontrollable.
The rent is too damn high:
“At first, Jamie Kahn tried ignoring the repeated knocks on her front door. It was September 2015, and the 52-year-old Santa Cruz woman had recently faced an unexpected 40% rent increase that she could not afford.
After missing a rent payment, her new landlords in the northern California beach city quickly moved to evict the single mother and her two children. Kahn thought that if she refused to open the door and accept a summons, she could bide some time to fight the increase from $1,400 to $2,000 a month. She was wrong.
Court records show that a process server repeatedly showed up, and the Kahns ultimately had no choice but to vacate their home of six years. Her 22-year-old daughter subsequently moved into a small back porch room in a neighboring city. Her 19-year-old son crashed on couches. Kahn, meanwhile, moved into her black 1995 Camry station wagon – where she has been sleeping ever since, often stationed in Walmart parking lots.
“California is a monster. If you don’t keep up, you end up on the streets, and nobody cares,” said Kahn, a college graduate who previously worked two jobs in Santa Cruz. “This is a public health issue. It’s a catastrophe.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/24/california-homelessness-santa-cruz-housing-affordability
“Santa Cruz is feeling that pressure,” added Downing, who argued in her letter that Palo Alto has fundamentally failed to fix its housing crisis by blocking new developments. “Santa Cruz is at least trying.”
LOL.
Santa Cruz historically has been one of the WORST communities to try to add supply. They’ve been blocking development for decades.
http://www.beyondchron.org/santa-cruz-where-the-left-and-no-growth-politics-meet/
You can’t simply flip a switch to add housing supply. The process takes YEARS. It took years for them to screw up their market, and it will take years to fix it.
The horrible irony of all of this is the very people who left Silicon Valley years ago to live in a quieter town, were the same ones that implemented policies to slow growth, and are now getting crushed because housing shortages are driving up prices that they can’t afford.
‘housing shortages’
I used to post FB stories from Santa Cruz all the time. Oh the whine! Funny how no one was talking about a shortage then.
From the Bloomberg link:
‘Blackstone has teamed with CityView, a property company started by former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, to build a 423-unit apartment complex in Oakland. The $175 million project at 3093 Broadway, due to be finished in 2018, is the first development in the city for the world’s largest alternative-asset manager.’
‘Jon Gray, Blackstone’s billionaire head of real estate, said he thinks Oakland may become the next Brooklyn — a comparison that has frequently been evoked in recent years as the city comes into its own as a hot spot after previously being overshadowed by its glitzier neighbor.’
‘Boston Properties, the largest publicly traded U.S. office owner, signed a letter of intent to invest in a 25-story residential development in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, Chief Executive Officer Owen Thomas said.’
“Given the high cost of multifamily product in the San Francisco market, we believe we can deliver high-quality units that are approximately at a 20 percent discount to San Francisco rents in a location that is a 16-minute transit ride from the Embarcadero BART Station in downtown San Francisco,” he said’
It’ll be cheap to live there, if you don’t get shot.
The housing shortage in CA has been developing for decades and there was plenty of talk of housing shortages prior to the bubble years.
This article is from 1993 (reprinted in 1997):
http://www.abag.ca.gov/services/finance/fan/housingmyths2.htm
The opening paragraph says it all:
“In the past 20 years, California’s housing prices have steadily outpaced its residents’ incomes. Housing production hasn’t kept up with the influx of new families from around the world and household growth within the state. And the location and type of new housing does not meet the needs of many new California households. As a result, only one in five households can afford a typical home, overcrowding doubled in the 1980s, and more than two million California households pay more than they can afford for their housing.”
Here is an article from January 2004:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-01-05-granny-flats_x.htm
The applicable quote:
“California, which is adding about 500,000 residents a year, is in the thick of a housing shortage.”
They also note Santa Cruz in that article.
And here’s an article from September 1998 specific to Santa Cruz.
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.24.98/studenthousing-9838.html
“INFORMATION ABOUT RATES of increase in residential rents in Santa Cruz County is almost entirely anecdotal. But discussions with several local Realtors and property management firms, including Brezsny and Linda Reid, a property manager at Sherman and Boone, suggest that rents in the broad market have gone up by as much as 50 percent in the last four years.”
“Rita Law, owner of Kendall and Potter Property Management, says the market “has never been so crazy.” She says that while things have settled down in recent weeks, the most recent run-up in rental rates began around January. A normal year will see rental rate increases of about 5 percent, Law says, but since last fall she estimates rent increases have gone up as much as 25 percent in some cases.”
50% in 4 years!?!? This article is from 1998, not 2016 (or 2005).
And the parting paragraphs:
“MARY THUERWACHTER of Legal Aid likens the affordable housing situation to Samuel Clemens’ comment about the weather: everyone talks about it, she says, but no one does anything about it. With UCSC students now scrambling for places to live, it seems an opportune time for public officials, developers and the public alike to do some soul-searching and ask themselves: What can be done to bring sanity back to the housing marketplace? How and where can new, affordable housing be built? It is the number one crisis facing Santa Cruz today, and yet the silence surrounding the issue is deafening.
“If somebody has money, they’ll find a way to build [housing],” Thuerwachter says, “but that’s not what’s needed. We don’t need to try to build more housing for San Jose commuters.”"
The fundamental shortage in CA housing was the tinder, terribly lax underwriting standards was the lit match for the housing bubble in California in the mid-2000’s.
But even before the match was lit, CA housing was expensive, primarily due to overall supply/demand dynamics in large part driven by restrictive development policies, many of which are still in place today.
With rampant fraud, brown envelopes passed around and a statewide foreclosure moratorium, not to mention 4 million mortgages in default, do you expect anything different?
Ehhh not really. It takes us 60-80 days from mass excavation to punch list to build a typical structure, start to finish, anywhere in the country.
Everyone cuts the water use in half and then you build double the amount of homes and are right back where you started from .
Just a thought
“This is a public health issue.”
Looking for an excuse to get a front-row seat at the trough, eh phats?
If she tried that, then she probably gave up. The article states that she’s moving to New Mexico this month. Good for her. It’s about time they went Oil City.
Here’s an article for those interested in such things:
Washington’s Sunni Myth and the Middle East Undone
‘The war in Iraq helped create a sense of “Sunni-ness” among otherwise un-self-conscious Sunni Muslims, and it also overturned an order many took for granted. To make matters worse, not only were Shia Islamist parties (such as Dawa and the Supreme Council) brought to power (as well as Sunni Islamist parties such as the Islamic Party), but Sunnis bore the brunt of the occupation’s brutality (while Shias bore the brunt of the insurgency’s brutality).’
‘The result is that we now see Sunni identity in the way that the Saudis have been trying to define it since they began throwing around their oil wealth in the 1960s to reshape Islam globally in the image of Wahhabism. Haddad explains: “[T]he anti-Shia vocabulary of Salafism has clearly made some headway in Iraq and indeed beyond. This is only to be expected given that Salafism offers one of the few explicitly Sunni and unabashedly anti-Shia options for Sunnis resentful of Shia power or of Sunni marginalization.”
‘In other words, we now see a Sunni identity in Iraq that dovetails with Saudi Wahhabism. And the response in the West is to reinforce this!’
Huh? ‘Merikans can’t be bothered to distinguish any of that.
They’re all brown, so it’s time to drone strike some weddings and funerals. Sikhs (from Punjab state, northwest India) are brown too. They’re not muslims and they’re not Arabs, but they have beards and wear turbans so they should probably get droned too.
I thought the policy makers/decision makers all graduated from ivy-league schools. What gives?
Huh? ‘Merikans can’t be bothered to distinguish any of that.
This don’t apply to Obama. He’s Kenyan.
There’s goes the argument that O’care is smart.
Oh no, it supports the argument. Americans are dumb, so we needed a foreigner to fix health care. Also, Obamacare was based on something that Mitt Romney implemented in Massachusetts. Many of the ideas behind that legislation came from two guys at a conservative DC think tank. One of those guys is British, so another smart foreigner was involved.
Irrelevant.
Cleveland’s dead malls featured on premiere of Viceland’s ‘Abandoned’
“America is fascinated with abandoned buildings. Haunting photos of places like Rolling Acres Mall and Geauga Lake have gone viral in recent years.
Now Viceland, the cable offshoot of Vice.com headed by film director Spike Jonze, examines that fascination with its new docuseries “Abandoned” starting Friday, Sept. 2 at 10 p.m.
The premiere episode, entitled “Ghost Mall” and airing next Friday, focuses on Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.
“This area has had a lot of hard times,” McCrank explains in the opening scene, filmed in the fall of 2015. “It went from a boom town to a bust town and it seems to be still recovering from that. I’ve seen a lot of dead malls. To me, this is really extraordinary. We really wanted to explore them and figure out why this phenomena is happening here.
“There’s a trail of abandoned malls across America and Northeast Ohio is the mecca,” he says.
http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/08/viceland_abandoned_malls.html#incart_river_home
[Bloomberg]
Katia Dmitrieva
“Home prices in the U.S. rose 5.6 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, extending gains that have cut into affordability for many buyers.
Prices increased 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous three months, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said in a report Wednesday. In June, prices climbed 0.2 on a seasonally adjusted basis from May. The average estimate of 21 economists was for a 0.3 percent gain.”
Massive losses
The median is still going up in Houston, BTW. Or at least it was a month or two ago:
‘That is when you know that [builders] are desperate to get rid of their inventory. If [homes] were selling quickly, they wouldn’t offer those things’
FHFA’s HPI is an index, not a price metric.
This is an example of QE causing deflation:
‘We built a lot of new communities with the goal of capturing some of the people that would be relocating to work at the new ExxonMobil campus, but that has not materialized in the volume that we thought it would,’ said Metrostudy-Houston Regional Director Lawrence Dean. ‘While the new home market is still going strong, we probably built too many new subdivisions and too many lots at the same time.’
QE happens. China pours 100 years worth of cement in 3 years. Commodities boom. Exxon plans campus. China slows down. Then downer. Exxon scales back campus.
‘we probably built too many new subdivisions and too many lots at the same time’
Prices fall.
So it should be asked, why didn’t China just keep creating money and pouring cement? Their companies are saddled with huge debts and over-capacity that makes profit impossible.
QE => Cheap lending => Overinvestment => Overcapacity => Deflation => More QE.
Where does the cycle end and how?
1980-2012 QE and Fed Interference => Cheap lending => Overinvestment Overseas =>Mass Layoffs=>Overcapacity => Deflation => More QE
No need to worry about exporting US jobs. It already happened.
Ben Jones: This is an example of QE causing deflation:
The economy is like a plant - it grows towards the sun (profit-making opportunities). If profit making opportunities are QE and de facto transfer payments, it grows towards profiting off those.
I wonder if QE-focused business crowds out other types of economic activity.
Well, the economy growing. That’s the good news.
Just heard a radio ad here in Mass to “Get in on the house flipping seminar now! Get in with our investment team, and learn our 3 easy step program!” Lol. I know everyone here comments on the house flipper ads/schemes, but its just so rich. As if they have a secret to buying a home on a cheap loan, buying SS appliances from Home Depot and cheap backsplash kits, then putting a fresh layer of crap Pergo flooring. Oh don’t forget fresh paint.
I see the same bs around here. They have big seminars about the get rich quick scheme of flipping houses.
They need people to unload their houses onto.
They want to sell you books and dvds.
They are like the hustlers selling gold mining equipment to the gold miners.
The money is to be made selling the books and DVDs, not by flipping houses.
Exactly like Amway - you don’t get rich selling laundry soap.
Millenials Tapping Equity
Buncha idyits. My generation , already engulfed in student loan debt, taking out more loan debt to explore the world and discover themselves. Sigh. I hope I don’t have to bail them out.
“It mystifies me that they’re taking out additional debt,” said Jackson Mueller, deputy director of the FinTech Program for the Center for Financial Markets at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that aims to increase global prosperity.
A guy who was recently hired was out of work and behind eight months on the mortgage. Once re-employed he was given a chance to refinance his house into a lower payment. Did he use the imputed income to create a rainy-day fund? Heck no… that $20k motorcycle beckons, and the dealer made the payment fit! Also got some leather saddle bags and bar-end tassels. ‘Merica.
“In short, the global bond market has become a giant volcano of uncollectible capital gains. For example, long-term German bunds issued four years ago are now trading at 200% of par.
Yet even if the financial system of the world somehow survives the current mayhem, the German government will never pay back more than 100 cents on the dollar.
What that means is there will eventually be a multi-trillion dollar bond implosion as speculators and bond fund managers alike scramble to cash-in their capital gains at the first sign that the global bond markets are breaking and heading back to par or below. And it is not just the “winners” who will be stampeding for the exists.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/bubbles-in-bond-land-a-central-bank-made-mania-part-3/
This is another reason they cant raise rates. It would unwind this bond ponzi scheme.
These folks have been buying bonds for the capital appreciation, not really the yield. They have pushed up the values way further than the par value the issuing entity will pay back when the bond matures. It seems like a matter of time before sh@t hits the fan.
I read that this bubble we are in today is more of a bond bubble than anything else. Housing and stocks a long for the ride.
This can’t be true, can it?
Maybe I don’t understand the terms.
Let’s say today I want to purchase a U.S. Treasury Note. It’s going to mature on August 24, 2026, and I will receive $10,000 on that date.
Say I am willing to pay $9,000 today to receive $10,000 in ten years. The “par” value is $10k, right?
Are you telling me these Germans are paying 20,000 EU today to receive 10,000 EU in 10 years?
With 70 million boomers taking up residence in a grave at a rate of 11,000/day, did you really believe housing prices weren’t going to fall?
Sorry but KISS stole their look from George Clinton and Parliament:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0JKEhZDjU
Sunnyvale, CA Housing Prices Plunge 5% YoY As Speculators Dump Housing Inventory
http://www.zillow.com/sunnyvale-ca-94086/home-values/
Great site. looks like the bubble is about to pop. Great links to the “early” evidence.
DEBT SUPERNOVA ?
Isle Of Palms, SC Housing Prices Sink 4%YoY As Coastal Housing Market Tanks
http://www.movoto.com/isle-of-palms-sc/market-trends/
Sad pandas in Poland:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/results-of-big-dig-for-nazi-gold-train-revealed/ar-BBw0M0B
Yep… all Germany’s fault whether it happened or not.
What’s with all the CraterRage around here today?
How about a few more soothsayer donkey(isms)?