Do I Take The Offer, Or Do I Run The Risk Of Not Selling?
A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. “The man on the phone is cheery and confident, with the practised ease of someone accustomed to calming anxiety. There is no need to worry, he says. Buying a home in Vancouver is simple. His company will dispatch people to the airport, then guide an inexperienced buyer through the entire process. No other company will be involved, he promises.His colleagues will come every day to arrange showings and, when a suitable home is found, arrange negotiations with the seller’s agent, he says. ‘Our staff will participate in the whole process, and arrange for you to apply for a loan at the bank,’ he says to a Globe and Mail reporter posing as a buyer.”
“Specializing in Vancouver real estate, Vanfun tells clients it offers the array of services any agent in that city might, down to a website constantly updated with new home listings, each tagged with their MLS number. There’s one key difference. Vanfun isn’t licensed to deal in British Columbia real estate. Neither is the voice on the phone, a man named Ronald Lok who boasts on social media that he is a Canadian permanent resident who has sold at least one multimillion-dollar home in Vancouver. Mr. Lok is not licensed in China, either, according to an online database maintained by the China Institute of Real Estate Appraisers and Agents.”
“In interviews with The Globe and Mail, as part of an ongoing investigation into problems that have emerged in the red-hot property markets of the British Columbia Lower Mainland, Vanfun representatives say they have worked with not just several, but hundreds of agents in B.C. Vanfun has marketed not just single-family homes, but also new apartment complexes, and developers in Canada have partnered with the Shanghai-based company to sell their properties in China, as they sought to capitalize on foreign money in the Vancouver region.”
“Mr. Lok, too, claims success after success for Vanfun property sales on his WeChat. In March, he posted photos of an ocean-view home in West Vancouver bought for $8-million by a person with a Chinese name. One other post shows a document detailing the options selected on a new $1.2-million Aston Martin Vantage. When The Globe and Mail subsequently asked Mr. Lok for comment, he denied involvement with the $8-million home. He cut off the conversation moments later, without answering whether he was licensed in Canada or China.”
“David Wang, the Vanfun co-founder, said he sees no reason to do anything differently. ‘Why would I change my operational model?’ he said. ‘It’s been working well for four or five years – why would I change it?’”
Reuters on China. “A wave of restrictions imposed on housing markets in major Chinese cities last week have unnerved some buyers and developers, cutting the area of new homes sold in places such as Beijing and Shenzhen by more than half. More than 20 cities have imposed measures, including higher mortgage downpayments, to cool hot property markets that have raised official alarm in Beijing and fresh concerns about China’s ballooning debt.”
“Last week was a public holiday to mark National Day, traditionally a high season for property sales. Property agents said prices of new homes sold in the southern city of Shenzhen and in Beijing dropped 20 percent last week to entice buyers, compared with the previous week. ‘The new tightening measures are quite stringent,’ said Alan Cheng, general manager of realtor Centaline Shenzhen. ‘It’s a blow to confidence and people are worried that prices will drop, so they are observing from the sidelines now.’”
“In Shenzhen, a development called ‘Mountain & Sea’ went to the market on Sunday and was the first new launch since the tightening measures last week. According to data provided by realtor Hopefluent Real Properties, 62 percent of the 548 flats had been sold. But Andy Lin, Hopefluent’s market research director, suggested that was not necessarily good news for the development. ‘I had estimated a selling price of 63,000 yuan before. It’s now dropped by around 20 percent,’ Lin said. ‘At this price, a 62 percent selling rate is very low.’”
The New Zealand Herald. “More Auckland homes appear to be failing at auction, say industry players who suggest new LVR restrictions are doing their job of slowing down city investors. This week, interest.co.nz reported that, of 130 Auckland properties auctioned around the city by Barfoot and Thompson last week, an overall 39 per cent sold under the hammer. Recent figures cited by another auctioneer showed 45 per cent of homes being passed in on the North Shore, along with 40 per cent in central and eastern areas, and 28 per cent in South Auckland.”
“Mortgage adviser Bruce Patten estimated around half of homes currently going to auction in Auckland were selling. ‘The problem you’ve got at the moment is vendors have expectations of the price their neighbour got back in March and think that’s what their house is worth,’ he said. ‘It was never worth that, and most of them, within two or three days, are coming to the realisation that, do I take the offer that’s on the table now, or do I run the risk of not selling?’”
From the Australian. “More than 170 off-the-plan apartments have been listed on a new online service in the past two weeks, as mostly Chinese investors rush to find new buyers in the wake of the lending freeze by Australian banks. The Melbourne-based online property portal Aofun, which primarily offers real estate services to Chinese buyers, launched a so-called ‘nominee sale platform’ at the end of last month, as many off-the-plan apartments were not able to settle and would be brought to the market again, chief executive Jason Zhu said.”
“‘This is purely driven by demand. Most buyers who list with us are hit by the lending freeze; they are just trying to resell under financing pressure. No one can really tell how serious the problem will be, but with so many new apartments bought by overseas buyers, I would say many of them will find it hard to settle,’ he said.”
“The extent of the impact on Australia’s property market remains unclear, but could be severe given that overseas buyers comprise about 30 per cent of the new apartment market. At some individual projects, the portion can be 50 per cent or even 100 per cent, industry experts say. In the current market, most original buyers are prepared to lose some of the deposit they paid, which means many apartments were selling at a discount to the contract price, Zhu added.”
“Mr Li, a sales representative in the telco industry who declined to give his first name, is one reseller who would rather lose money to offload the Melbourne CBD apartment his parents bought for $440,000 two years ago. They failed to settle the purchase in July because of the lending freeze, and since then have been desperately looking for a new buyer through their agent. ‘We can only get 30 per cent of our deposit back now, but it’s good that we finally found a buyer,’ said Mr Li.”
‘Mr Li…who declined to give his first name (I wonder why)… is one reseller who would rather lose money to offload the Melbourne CBD apartment his parents bought for $440,000 two years ago. They failed to settle the purchase in July because of the lending freeze, and since then have been desperately looking for a new buyer through their agent. ‘We can only get 30 per cent of our deposit back now, but it’s good that we finally found a buyer,’ said Mr Li.’
Gosh Mr Li, if that’s your real name, this means you gave up all that sweet, sweet equity from the skyrocketing Aussie market the last two years, on top of most of your deposit.
‘Police in China’s southern province of Guangdong have busted underground banks that handled 230 billion yuan ($35 billion) in illegal money transfers this year, state news agency Xinhua reported, underscoring the challenges Beijing faces in blocking illicit outflows.’
‘Police arrested 350 people suspected to be involved in 140 cases of underground banking and money laundering, Xinhua said, citing the Guangdong provincial public security department.’
‘Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based watchdog, estimated that in the decade between 2004 and 2013 China was the world’s biggest source of illicit outflows, accounting for about 28 percent of the $4.885 trillion in illegal funds moving from the 10 biggest source economies.’
Is this a lot? Because it might explain some things.
“Because it might explain some things.”
Such as the day a couple of years ago when I hurt myself helping the single Californian mom who used to be our neighbor move her entire household to an apartment, to make way for our new Chinese neighbors to overpay the comps by ten percent in order to purchase half of a duplex.
There’s nothing new about Chinese folks coming to California, but the crazy amounts they have recently paid to buy homes here is a recent development.
$488 billion/year. I think we dropped about $150 billion a year in the Iraqi war, it would be like having 3 of those going at the same time!
Bush War is at $6 trill.
“Bush War is at $6 trill.”
That’s our infrastructure rehabilitation… all of it; twice.
On the previous thread there were a few posts regarding HOUSING interjected among all of the mostly partisan political babble posts.
Is it possible to keep this thread on the discussion of HOUSING?
Thank You
The clearest indication of character is what people find laughable
J.W. von Goethe
It’s the season. I tried deletions, showing how stupid arguing on the internet was, I even got rid of the bits bucket. It’ll be over pretty soon and people will start to wake up to the fact the global housing bubble has popped.
Has there ever been a GLOBAL housing bubble before?
Only for the past twenty years. Is your real name perhaps Rip Van Winkle?
Good question. I don’t think so.
“It’ll be over pretty soon and people will start to wake up to the fact the global housing bubble has popped.”
The house across the street from me sold in a few days and there is nothing left to buy around here because the dribble the foreclosed inventory out strategy from 2009 worked so well. (and it did work well)
I am thinking of selling the house I bought 4 1/2 years ago and banking just about as much money I paid for the shack. The only thing holding me back is the rents, I would have to leave the area.
And falling prices of all items gets the cowards, DebtDonkeys and MT Pockets spun up into a frenzy.
“…..had estimated a selling price of 63,000 yuan before. It’s now dropped by around 20 percent,’ Lin said.
Wow, a flat in Shenzhen sells for $7,500? That’s HA pricing! Seems like a good deal.
Megamike48,
A not insignificant part of the problem is that government now is so omnipresent in housing that there’s really no escaping political discussion. Like it or not, approve of it or not, it’s going to be there.
How can it not? Government is the major player. Many people deeply resent it and are going to respond accordingly. People other than themselves are deciding what is good for them, and oftentimes, it is not good for them.
More government = less prosperity for most, with hand-picked winners in many instances.
Under such circumstances, one can expect that that’s where conversation will go. It’s the logical outcome. Ain’t it grand?
The same is true of the medical industry.
And the higher education industry.
The more government controls - it more it destroys.
Not to mention that the global housing bubble is a creation of central banks worldwide, and the central bankers are in charge of things in most western countries, via the government.
You can always use the JT extension to ignore (mute) the folks who are the worst offenders. Have a look here: Joshua Tree Extension on Chrome Store
Very effective—thanks, drummin!!
But a certain well-known poster keeps making up new names to try to get around this . . .
It takes about 2 seconds to add his latest alias to the block list.
It’s not about user names my good friends. It’s about falling prices. Falling housing prices. Falling asset prices around the world and it enrages you. Remember…… Nothing accelerates the economy, creates jobs and raises the standard of living like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.
It takes about 2 seconds to add his latest alias to the block list ??
Yes but how do you know its him ?? Even he has the limited capability to change his posting to sound a bit rational…
On the rare occasions that he sounds rational, you shouldn’t need to ignore his posts, right?
Thanks so much! Could you add a feature that we can block any post that mentions Trump or Hillary? : >
Only a few more weeks!
How bout them falling housing prices!
Newcastle, WA Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/newcastle-wa/home-values/
Oh bugger…not more “worse than expected” gloomy economic news out of China! How bad can the picture get before bluebirds resume chirping?
Financial Times
Markets
Stocks slide after poor China trade data
Industrial commodity prices and bond yields dip on growth fears
Global Market Overview
35 minutes ago
by: Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator
Thursday 10:35 BST.
Stocks, commodity prices, and government bond yields are moving lower as poor China trade data revive concerns about the health of the global economy.
Investor nervousness is encouraging buying of perceived havens like gold and the yen, while sterling is slipping back towards 31-year lows.
Beijing said that exports in September dropped 10 per cent from a year earlier, a much worse performance than expected, and that imports contracted 1.9 per cent, painting a picture of weakening foreign and domestic demand.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, Capital Economics China economist, cautioned against jumping to conclusions in spite of the disappointing data. “Unless there is evidence of a renewed slowdown in the broader economic data we still expect resilient activity to result in some upside to import growth in the coming months, not least given that the sharp drop in global commodity prices at the end of last year should provide a more flattering base for comparison,” he said.
The mainland Chinese stock market also adopted a stoic stance — the Shanghai Composite adding 0.1 per cent as shares in some state-owned companies were supported by restructuring hopes.
But elsewhere, growth-focused assets are taking the China trade news on the chin.
…
Oh bugger…not more “worse than expected” gloomy economic news out of China! How bad can the picture get before bluebirds resume chirping?
Twitter is blocked in China.
Time to start looking ahead to winter hibernation already again. Yawn…
Dow futures fall by 100-plus points as Fed, China fears bite
By Victor Reklaitis
Published: Oct 13, 2016 5:02 a.m. ET
Analyst: ‘Divided Fed is really bad for the market’
Bloomberg
Fed chief Janet Yellen shown touring a manufacturing lab in Chicago.
A selloff in U.S. stock futures was taking hold Thursday, pointing to a tumble at the open as investors found little to cheer in the Federal Reserve’s latest thoughts or in fresh Chinese economic data.
…
Oops, they did it again — stocks flirt with lofty levels not seen in 15 years
By Sue Chang
Published: Oct 13, 2016 9:43 a.m. ET
S&P 500’s valuation is 14% from tech-bubble peak, says analyst
AFP/Getty Images
Last time stocks were this expensive was 15 years ago when Britney Spears rocked the world.
…
Lions and tigers and inflation, OH MY!Sovereign Bonds
Inflation fears cast shadows over long-dated bonds
Financial Times
Prices for 30-year debt sold by US, Germany and UK heads for steepest monthly fall in a year
3 hours ago
by: Elaine Moore in London and Robin Wigglesworth in New York
Investors are selling out of long-dated government bonds as worries about the corrosive effect of inflation start rivalling with central bank stimulus as the driving force in capital markets.
…
A lot of lifelong Democrat public union members who turned a blind eye to corruption, patronage, and graft since their salaries and pensions depended on it, are going to be dying poor, bitter, but wiser in the ways of Ponzi finance and consequences.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-12/loyalton-california-pensions
But…but…Nobel Peace Prize!
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-strikes-radar-sites-in-yemen-after-iran-backed-houthi-militants-launch-failed-missile-strikes-2016-10
More Kabuki theater from the Fed. Yellen the Felon can’t and won’t raise rates until the bond market forces her hand, or unless her fellow Goldman stooge, Crooked Hillary, loses to Trump.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/12/federal-reserve-policymakers-say-september-interest-rate-rise-a/
Freight volumes - which unlike our Soviet-style statistics depict the true state of the physical economy - have now dropped to near-depression levels. Hope n’ change, Bitchez!
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/10/12/freight-railroad-shipment-decline-coal-oil-intermodal-soon-autos/
Just this past weekend, I picked up a brand new 24″ Sanyo television for $79 and a brand new 15″ Lenovo laptop for $189. Never heard of the latter, but at that price, I decided to take a chance. We’ll see.
Lots of stuff sitting around in warehouses, perhaps?
Lenovo bought IBM’s thinkpad line back in the early 2000s I believe. Never owned one, but always assumed they were decent quality.
we bought a lenovo desktop from staples on clearance no problems in 3 years…..
wish they would make a basic windows mac mini style…..just need to run 1 program, no sense wasting a full desktop and all the electricity…..was also thinking buying an older mac mini and using bootcamp to run window 7
Take a look at their “Tiny” desktops. HP also makes ‘em. Laptop parts in a small metal case, basically. They get the job done.
I visit and work with Lenovo in China occasionally. I don’t know if it’s the IBM legacy or what, but they seem to be a little easier to work with (for me as an American anyway) than the other similar Chinese customers that are homegrown.
They bundle a lot of crapware on their PCs and laptops.
lenovo is kewl
Yeah, the IT guy on our office recommends Lenovo. I recently bought an HP that has worked out well, of course, it is brand new so it better right?!? Acer is crap based on my first hand experience.
yikes
ain’t hidin dat,yo
Nobody could have seen it coming!
China may be brewing a big correction for U.S. stocks
I see yellen buying some more bonds to pay for more principal reductions.
This is a criminal waste of valuable nutritional resources, although a natural consequence of crazed agricultural subsidies on steroids.
I think I hear that farmland price bubble popping…
America’s dairy farmers dump 43 million gallons of excess milk
By Kelsey Gee
Published: Oct 13, 2016 7:29 a.m. ET
Prices drop and supplies bulge; putting more butter in McMuffins and cheese in tacos
Farmers in the U.S. are pouring out tens of millions of gallons of excess milk, amid a massive glut that has slashed prices and has filled warehouses with cheese.
More than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed, or have been lost on truck routes or discarded at plants in the first eight months of 2016, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is enough milk to fill 66 Olympic swimming pools, and the most wasted in at least 16 years of data requested by The Wall Street Journal.
…
Seems like Gropergate is blowing wide open.
I thought you wanted to talk about wars/economy…or other bigger stuff.
That was just an observation…not meant to be a conversation starter.
You want to post an observation of Bill Clinton being a pedophile and a child rapist on top of being just a “normal” rapist?
And how Hillary defended and enabled him?
Didn’t think so…
Old news
Oh come on, PB - Billy Boy going almost two dozen times on the pedophile express plane is old news, but trump supposedly groping somebody on a plane three decades ago is not?
Get real.
And Trump accuser (and ugly hag I might add - knew from the second I saw her Trump would never touch that with a 10′ pole) is surprise - a secretary at the Clinton foundation!
https://twitter.com/Bernies4_Trump/status/786598212605927426
It turns out that it’s a big, absurd lie. Yet millions probably believed it. There’s a sucker born every minute.
ou Dobbs is, theoretically, a journalist.
He hosts a show on Fox Business Network. And on Thursday morning, he shared to Twitter the apparent home phone number of Jessica Leeds, the woman who has accused Donald Trump of groping her on an airplane over 30 years ago.
Doxxing Leeds is gross enough. But I also want to note that Dobbs did so in the service of spreading an obviously false claim about her.
Dobbs shared a tweet purporting to show that Leeds’ phone number from a web search matches a Clinton Foundation phone number from WikiLeaks releases.
Suspicious, right? Except the phone numbers are not the same, as Dobbs would have realized if he spent 30 seconds examining the conspiracy-nut blog post the tweet linked to.
Only five of the 10 digits of the two phone numbers match.
Three of the five matching digits are “212.”
Congratulations, Lou Dobbs. You figured out that Jessica Leeds lives in Manhattan, and the Clinton Foundation is also located in Manhattan. Very suspicious.
http://www.businessinsider.com/lou-dobbs-trump-gop-2016-10
Mike, you are working overtime today. Did they raise your budget?
I was thinking about how bogus this all is. First of all, isn’t it amazing that out of five people, none went to the police all those years ago. Not one thought about later and went to the police before the statute of limitations were up.
Secondly, in this country you are innocent til proven guilty, right? So these women, instead of going to the police and giving the accused a chance to defend himself in court, instead waited all these years and just happen to pop up a couple weeks before the election, knowing there isn’t anyway in hell to respond in a legal manner. Why I can smell that Clinton BS way down here in Arizona.
Ben, nailed it. Just saw this going around on twitter:
Billionaire surrounded by 1000s of hot women for 40 years.
Zero assault claims until Mid October 2016 as he closes in on presidency.
Sounds legit!
But what do you expect from a guy who still claims the Affordable care act is working? Hes a paid liar.
Why do you believe everything you hear from the lame stream media?
#shelookedeleven
Gropergate
+1
White House Watch
White House Watch: Trump Takes the Lead
Thursday, October 13, 2016
The full results from Sunday night’s debate are in, and Donald Trump has come from behind to take the lead over Hillary Clinton.
The latest Rasmussen Reports White House Watch national telephone and online survey shows Trump with 43% support among Likely U.S. Voters to Clinton’s 41%. Yesterday, Clinton still held a four-point 43% to 39% lead over Trump, but that was down from five points on Tuesday and her biggest lead ever of seven points on Monday.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/white_house_watch_oct12 - 124k -
“Rasmussen Reports”
Where is Albuquerque Dan when you need him to assert that Rasmussen is the best poll?
Clinton campaign mocks Catholics, Southerners, ‘needy Latinos’ in emails
By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times - Updated: 8:19 a.m. on Thursday, October 13, 2016
Wikileaks Releases Another 2,000 Podesta Emails In Part 6 Of Data Dump
by Tyler Durden
Oct 13, 2016 9:42 AM
Nearly 100,000 Pennsylvania Voters Switch From Democrat To Republican
CBS ^ | 10.12.16 |
Posted on 10/12/2016, 6:48:33 PM by pissant
HARRISBURG (KDKA) – Nearly 100,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched to Republican since the beginning of the year.
What’s more: The Pennsylvania Republican party says more than 240-thousand new voters have joined the party since last November.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDvF0NtgdU - 171k -
Three years from now, when Hillary is in the second half of her first term, Rush Limbaugh will still be using the term needy Latinos.
This sponsored post paid for by Correct The Record.
MikeyMite, you’re an employee, so get over it.
And here’s some gangsta rap written by a (now dead) black man from the projects in New York City (you’ve never set foot there, just watched it on PBS and heard about it NPR):
Biggie — Everyday Struggle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rogvlB2SP4k
Predictable MSM and Clinton Campaign Roll Out Trump’s War On Women…
Manufacturing a 30-year-old groping/touching incident
The Last Refuge - October 13, 2016 99 Comments
Seriously. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Donald Trump’s factualpolling statistics are blowing Hillary Clinton out of the water. Compounding the problem for Team Clinton is the abject lack of enthusiasm for her.
If you want another way to spot it, notice every single overreaching, over-the-top, gas lighting effort being exhausted by the media and political action groups in a desperate attempt to tamp down Trump’s supportive numbers. If Clinton was really winning by these margins the media sells, there would not be half of this effort.
I have never heard this term gaslighting until quite recently.
Here’s a definition:
manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.
Try to gaslight Trump would be a waste of time. He’s full of absurd self confidence.
He’s a gaslighter…not a gaslightee.
Ah, the young, Gas lighting, its from a play back in the 30’s and the was a film adaption with Ingrid Bergman in the 40’s. I’m not
that old but remember the movie from my babysitting days was before cable.
My better half hadn’t heard of it either when I jokingly accused him of trying to do it to me.
Gaslighting is changing the past, moving items around, and other games to make the targeted person think they are going crazy. The term is used in my Narcissistic Personality Disorder books. A relative has the disorder. I know the term quite well.
Triangulation means communication is conveyed through a center party, so that person controls their “flying monkeys”. (wizard of oz bad witch had them)
Trump’s already won.
#nomorerinos
and has filled warehouses with cheese ??
Whats the shelf life of cheese if its vacuum sealed ?? Seems to me that this “food” could be shipped off to a poor country where it would have no impact on the price of the remaining inventory…Is it not feasible or lack of respect for the bounty that you have and being put to a productive use…
Which “poor country’s” cheese industry do you wish to destroy?
poor starving people and children do not have the means to buy cheese 2-fruit so its zero sum but you knew that already didn’t you..Its like saying the local food bank is destroying Safeway…Weak..
Govt interference in the market created this waste. Just like they’ve destroyed every other sector including housing.
Does not change the situation…Until policy changes, why throw it away…Thats the real “waste”…
Spoken like a typical progressive marxist.
No idea how markets work.
No idea on 2nd and 3rd order effects
No idea how their policies destroy.
We just had such good intentions…
Once you dump your free cheese on a country and destroy the existing cheese industry there, what are you going to do to help these folks?
And who will provide the cheese for next year?
your problem is you have too much cheese in your refrigerator so you cannot possibly understand what it is to be poor & hungry…
If it’s such a great idea get your wallet out. . .
2banana, right now I think Haiti might appreciate some cheese after the hurricane destroyed lots of infrastructure. Not sure if they have a domestic cheese industry. It is alleged, though, that US rice exports have damaged their domestic rice industry over the years,
Nice strawman.
The original progressive silly idea was to dump surplus America cheese on some unnamed “poor country” as a win-win…
Mine is not a strawman argument, but rather a counterexample to your thesis. I simply point out that there exists a countriy that is a worthy and needy recipient of the cheese surplus, and that this country has little or no dairy industry that would be affected. My particular example was hurricane-ravaged Haiti.
A strawman argument is one that argues against something that the opponent did NOT claim in the first place. You need to read up on logic.
Don’t be a DebtDonkey.
Do you think Tom’s shoes program is good? Or bad?
If you are not familiar, they give one pair of shoes away to poor people in the third world for every pair they sell here.
Sounds great until you hear from people who live in those poor countries.
You want to be charitable? Great. Give money. Don’t decide what poor people need and give them those things, give them money so they can buy what they really need–after all, they know that much better what they need.
To decide whether that shoe program is a good idea would take some research beyond reading your one sentence description. Your theory would imply that we should get rid of the food stamp program and give people money instead.
I believe there was an in-depth discussion about these types of programs either on EconTalk, or Freakonomics podcasts.
The shoe program floods these countries with free shoes periodically, and so if you are an entrepreneur with a shoe store, you have intermittent times during the year where your business dries up completely. That instability is terrible and can cause some of these stores to fail. So, instead of these countries having a stable supply of surviving shoe stores, they have intermittent shoe handouts, and struggling shoe store entrepreneurs.
There would be more stability if Tom’s simply took the money they spent on making the free shoes and sent it to these poor countries instead.
Some people would use the money to buy shoes, but others might use the money on medicine, or books, or food, if that was their need that week. Otherwise, you might have someone dying of starvation who has brand new kicks.
A friend of mine is a retired SEAL (retired very high ranking), and based on his experience overseas, he doesn’t believe force will fix the middle east, but economic development. But it is hard to have businesses develop if we continue to “help” them by completely f’ing up their markets.
“we should get rid of the food stamp program and give people money instead.”
Yes, this might actually be a lot better. As it is, one of the big issues with food stamps is that people find ways to sell the food stamps for money (ads on Craigslist for example).
They aren’t doing this because they are starving (if they were starving, they would use food stamps for food). They are doing this because they have other needs that are more acute than food (clothing, shelter, utilities, etc.). And for $100 of food stamps, they might only get $70 in cash–because selling food stamps is a black market, and illegal. Wouldn’t the person be better off if we just gave them $100 in cash?
There are some folks out there with “radical” ideas on minimum basic incomes, negative income tax rates, etc., but the ideas aren’t that crazy, when you think about the alternative being a patchwork quilt of federal programs and subsidies with massive overhead and fraud.
The concept is that people get a basic level of income from the government, and they use this for whatever they want, food, clothing, shelter, etc. However, the structure is such that people still have an incentive to work, because getting a job won’t lose them benefits. They won’t keep 100% of the first marginal dollar they earn, but they might keep 95% of that marginal dollar. So, they get a basic subsistence level of resources, and they do better as they earn more.
And before you think I’m completely off my rocker, in exchange for this new system of subsidy, we get rid completely of SNAP, Section 8 vouchers, Earned Income Tax Credits, etc., etc., etc. We shrink government while providing a more flexible safety net.
We have one concept that doesn’t discourage work, or try to determine what each family needs most. People get cash, and can determine what they need most.
As usual you dont know what youre talking about. Heres how it works from a friend that works at a supermarket:
Supermarket charges outrageous prices for some stuff. Stuff rots on shelves, due to overpricing. They “donate” it to local food bank (along with some good food) and write off the donation. Local food bank passes along good food, sez to government “see how much we received (counting both good and rotted food), see how much we help people, we need more taxpayer moneyz!” and government gives it to them. Its a big scam that helps the poor some, but not much.
This is what burns me about supermarkets, Kroger and Safeway the worst: They’ll have a “sale” on meat, say, ribeye steaks for $6/lb. In the markdown bin they’ll have ribeye steaks “marked down” from $9/lb to $7/lb - MORE than the new steaks. Of course they don’t sell.
This has been going on for at least 12 years. I used to bring it to the attention of the store managers, but they couldn’t care less.
Many of the people in poor countries are probably lactose intolerant and won’t be able to use the milk.
hey donk.
Well, at the risk of offending megamike, I’d like to point out that the
Wikileaks “Podesta Files” is a gift that just keeps on giving, in which we discover that the Clinton camp pretty much despises everyone, even their “allies”. It’s not just the deplorables, or the bucket of losers, it’s Catholics, Latinos, Southerners, beauty pageant contestants, Bernie supporters, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Jake Tapper, even Sidney Blumenthal.
What’s that sound I hear? Oh, that’s the sound of the two party/uniparty system imploding.
is a gift ??
A gift from whom should be the real concern….
More gifts are necessary. Get this stuff out in the open so everyone can examine.
Get this stuff out in the open so everyone can examine ??
Fine…Can’t wait for the Wikileaks on Trump side…And if it does not happen, what does that tell you ??
What do you call the leak of the video from 2005?
What do you call the leak of the video from 2005 ?
Did you miss this part in my post;
“Can’t wait for the Wikileaks on Trump side” You suggesting Wikileaks leaked the video ??
No, I’m suggesting the MSM is serving the Wikileaks role.
Also, recall the leak of the tax return document? Also from the MSM.
And if it does not happen, what does that tell you ??
Maybe they hire better security people? Or maybe they’re smart enough to use a cloud provider that understands security for their email services, rather than trying to run their own servers poorly?
No, I’m suggesting the MSM is serving the Wikileaks role ??
Well they are not hacking the emails because they would get caught just like the Russians did with the Hilary side…Unlike the Russians, the MSM would go to prison for that…
Maybe they ??
Or Maybe they have no interest in toppling Trump…The Russians want him to win…
scdave–
A very cynical part of me believes that Wikileaks as the source for HRC dirt tells us a lot about the MSM.
If I had really good dirt on HRC, do you think I’d send it to the NY Times? Um, no. They would spin, spin, spin the story to cast her in the best light…and by the time anyone tries to write anything otherwise about the information, the news cycle is over, and the story is over.
I would be better off simply releasing the raw data into the ether, and let the bloggers get ahold of it.
If, on the other hand, I got my hands on a few pages of a Trump tax return, or a video showing exactly what kind of scumbag he is, I would definitely send it to the NY Times.
Rental Watch
Your entire post reeks of common sense.
Nobody knows who the hackers are. Read what the experts say; they all say it is impossible to know at this point. That this has been repeated over and over again shows a typical Clinton tactic; make it up, spin it, tell it a different way, but above all repeat it like it’s the truth until the election. Which at some point it will be looked at critically and the lies don’t matter anymore because the media has always, for decades ran cover for the Clinton’s. The rules don’t apply to them and never have.
Obama doesn’t like the Clinton’s probably because he had to run against them. They pulled the same crap with him; “he doesn’t have birth certificate” - a Blomenthal deal. The picture of him in Muslim clothes - that was the Clinton’s too. He fought back. Used the race card and really pissed off The Bimbo bonker.
The timing of these slanders is always interesting; why not pull stuff out when Trump is running the Miss America pageant? Or on TV? Or during the primaries? So here’s some accusations, decades old some of them. So were the accusations against Bill. I knew about these in the 90’s. Note that the media rarely mentioned them. The rapes, the little girl who got a dirty deal from Hillary in a rape trial. How many people knew about these decades old charges before the last debate? And look how quickly these 30 year old allegations about Trump got around: hours?
This is typical Clinton sleaze tactics. I’ve watched these two bums for a long time and there isn’t any line they won’t cross or lie too big if they think it can gain them more power.
MOAR Wikileaks incoming!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/wikileaks-releases-another-2000-podesta-emails-part-6-data-dump
A gift from whom should be the real concern….???????
Who cares? That’s just an effort to distract from the contents.
‘the two party/uniparty system imploding’
Maybe. This guy is a part of it:
Are We the Washington Generals?
Robert Weissberg
‘For nearly a half century the Right and Left have battled over Big Ideas and, at least to me, it is abundantly clear that “conservatives” (regardless of particular stripe) have suffered one defeat after another. Whether in the universities, government regulations, the mass media or the popular culture, let alone transforming the English language into Newspeak, I’ve given up trying to identify a single major conservative victory.’
‘It’s hard to capture the enormity of this ineptitude but I recently had a Eureka moment when a small Internet item mentioned a basketball team whose very name invokes futility—the Washington Generals. The Generals were created in 1952 as “competition” for the Harlem Globetrotters, a talented all-black team notable for showboating antics, many of which violated the rules of the game. The Generals were the fall guys as the Globetrotters engaged in spinning balls on their fingertips or just horsing around. Perhaps to rescue the Generals from eternal infamy, their name was occasionally altered— sometimes they were the New Jersey Reds, the Baltimore Rockets or the Atlantic City Seagulls. No matter, between 1953 and 1965 they won a total of six games while losing more than 13,000 though another account puts the victory total at one and defeats at 16,000.’
‘Now, if the war of ideas were a shooting war, after 50 years of endless defeats our side would conduct a thorough investigation which would undoubtedly bring court marshals, public apologies or even a few instances of hara kiri or seppuku. Surely there must be somebody responsible for today’s college PC campus mess, cries of endless micro-aggressions, mindless multicultural babble, suppression of free speech and the enshrinement of across-the-board diversity as a compelling state interest? Who permitted genitalia to become socially constructed? The catalogue of such drubbings is almost endless. Remember when Congress created committees to expose who lost China or how the backward Soviet Union stole the A-bomb? Today’s situation is far worse.’
‘Alas, I have yet to see a formal inquiry into how “our side” by which I mean all the so-called conservative think tanks, private foundations, both “intellectual” and more popular magazines, newspapers and other self-defined champions of conservative ideals managed to achieve a Washington Generals-like win/loss record.. And keep in mind that the hapless Generals were paid to lose so they cannot be faulted; by contrast, hundreds on “our side” were paid, often handsomely, to win or at least make a good show of it.’
‘While waiting for an official investigation into how thousand of muddle-brained Marxist faculty triumphed over erstwhile defenders of Western Civilization, let me offer some preliminary speculations.’
It’s interesting that all these Republican guys and gals dumping on their nominee are for open borders and globalism. Just like the Democratic nominee. And we only definitively found her position on that from secret emails that were hacked. A public and private position, don’t you know.
My paper contained a typically belligerent op-ed piece from arch-neoconservative theorist Robert Kagan today, praising Ms. Clinton’s anticipated foreign policy and accusing the GOP of “cowardice and opportunism” by not condemning Trump strongly enough. The short bio which followed described Kagan as “a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy” at the Brookings Institution, and a speechwriter for former Secretary of State Shultz. How about “Robert Kagan is a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and ardently supported the Iraq War”? This guy’s swimming in blood, and he wants more.
Who cares? That’s just an effort to distract from the contents ??
I care…You don’t because it works in your favor as a trumpeter…Common Wiki…Hack into Trumps side emails…Oh…You can’t…Putin will have none of it…
“Putin will have none of it…”
I’ll just let that hang out there.
I’ll just let that hang out there.
LOL Putin is the rope the whole dem establishment and its minions have chosen to hang their neck around with. Never seen such a collective suicide attempt.
I’m not a Trumpeter, and I think the revelations are great. Lots of us believed that HRC and the CGI was corrupt, and that the left rigged the election in her favor.
With the revelations, it is harder and harder for people to dispute this. As such, she will not be perceived to have the people’s “mandate” and not be able to progress her agenda as much as she would like.
And that’s good.
I wonder what kind of information we could get if Wikileaks hacked the emails of Trump, Bannon, Conway & Boris….Since the communists want Trump to win, we will not see any of it…
Wikileaks doesn’t hack. Russia hasn’t been communist for decades. Many Clinton donors are, however, still kingdoms that execute gays, fund ISIS, etc.
Since the communists want Trump to win, we will not see any of it…
You reveal your stupidity with each post.
Many Clinton donors are, however, still kingdoms that execute gays, fund ISIS, etc.
No. Trump is the worst human being in the mankind. Hope he gets hacked and we hear all of his lewd comments regarding women.
I suspect that can’t get much worse and he’s now innoculated against any further revelations in that area. Everybody knows he’s horrible and will move on to looking at other issues.
“Everybody knows he’s horrible and will move on to looking at other issues.”
Says the guy who spent time in China serving the globalists.
Wikileaks doesn’t hack ??
Irrelevent…Without wanting to provide a equal offering of Trump hacked emails Wikileaks is just aiding and abetting the Russians for the same agenda…
Just a few highlights from the first 3 dumps:
Iran treaty discussion; Hillary wants sanctions and military threats
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2016
Media collusion with Podesta getting drafts of NYT articles before they’re published
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844
In depth email dictating to Hillary what her stance on Israel should be
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2034
Vice does what Soros tells them
>https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/910
Discussion of a potential book topic regarding dirty Clinton money
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/118
Climate change is a problem till it effects Hillary, then everything is “negligible CO2″
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2039
Clinton oppressing Palestine (buying American Jewish votes by being good for Israel)
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/30
CTR are “Nerd Virgins who never see the sun”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/141
Israel finds Hillary “Easy to work with”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/346
ISIS Funded by the Saudis and Qatar
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
Bill Clinton is damaging for Hillary:
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2301
Discussions about reforming laws regarding guantanamo bay (GTMO) and torture with reference from the “National Security Team”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2257
Working for the Clintons drives staff to suicide attempts
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3332#efmAdAAmB
Hillary’s stance on gay marriage appears to be one of those “public/private” policy divides she has
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631
General campaign strategy along with discussion of expanding intelligence agencies
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2091
Clinton taking FARA money
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2783
Insider trading (Illegal for politicians in countries that aren’t America)
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2205
Soros affiliated company priming for legal costs
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3098
Lawyers questioning the legality of the email leaks
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4099
“When you say red army, you mean the base of the democrat party right?”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2893
Clinton was “almost totally dependent on Republicans nominating Trump”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3990
Democrats believe the media is biased against them
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2351
Clinton is “hard to confront and reason with”
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2874
Why doesnt Hillary turn the server over to a third party? (Staffers believe the FBI will leak the emails)
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4697
Hillary not allowed to side with Apple on security issues
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4381
Top Secret Emails Include Drone Talk
>https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5194
Judges should see negative political consequences in ruling against the government
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4976
Media not allowed to freely report on Clinton; she dictates the when and how
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5240
Hillary “hates everyday Americans”
(This one actually refers to a slogan she was using so the context matters, quoting it out of context is for bantz)
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4433
Hillary feels the need to seed and coordinate chants at her rallies
>https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4518
But its all the Russians fault. Riiiiggggghhht.
I’ll just add it could be the russians - although they did score that sweet deal for our uranium courtesy of . . . Hillary! It could also be the Israelis, Iranians (less likely), or even NSA/other insiders. Or none of the above. My money is on someone who is outside US jurisdiction OR inside but essentially “above the law” - deep state/intel.
It says a lot when the response of the left to the leaked e-mails is to repeatedly invoke Russia and Putin, rather than address the substance of the messages. I’m not convinced that Russia had anything to do with this. Communists? What is this, the John Birch Society?
“Everybody knows he’s horrible and will move on to looking at other issues.”
Says the guy who spent time in China serving the globalists.
Ummm…yeah. I get paid to go help people who buy machines to test hard drives. Not following on how that’s a bad thing.
But its all the Russians fault. Riiiiggggghhht.
No they are altered, anyway. LOL
Trump doesn’t have anything to reveal, hacked or otherwise.
The Clintons have a machine that’s been around looong before emails. There’s probably MILLIONS of electronic communications regarding policy and election strategies.
Do you really think Trump has EVER had a strategy beyond the next 24 hours? He just goes out there and presses the buttons that work: build a wall, our trade agreements suck, Clintons are criminals, etc. Enough to get him 40% of Republican primary voters.
“Do I Take The Offer, Or Do I Run The Risk Of Not Selling?”
In answer to the question posed at the top of the blog, always take a reasonable offer, always. That goes for pretty much anything in life. Never wonder “What If?”, it’ll just drive you crazy.
But if you want to stay in the same area, and have to pay exorbitant rents to do so, is that really a win? How much are you going to lose paying rent until prices drop to the point that you can buy back in? Or how long until rents drop significantly?
I’m paying $1250/month PITI for my house that I bought in 1998. If I was renting it, it would cost $2K/month. Houses in my neighborhood have appreciated by $100K in the past year. If I wanted to move to a lower-cost-of-living area, it would be a slam-dunk to sell and beat feet ASAP before things correct.
But I have no plans of moving as my wife and I both have jobs in the area, and I like where I live (plus house is almost paid off). I’ve been playing out this decision for the past ten years, and I always end up deciding that the do-nothing alternative works the best for me.
Thanks for bringing it back to real estate Palmetto.
Yesterday I was reading some Fibonacci chart guys who said if the Dow closes below 17992 or the S&P below 2116, it’ll set up a big drop.
Dow 7000.
Yep, that’s where it should be, somewhere between 7000-9000.
What does it do after it gets to DOW 9000? Go up 5% a yr?
Looks like HSBC has reached a similar conclusion:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hsbc-red-alert-ready-severe-123507005.html
Anyway, I’ve got to eat a little crow, I had been predicting the meltdown for late August/September some time, on account of this sort of thing seems to match up with recent election cycles. I have begun to wonder if the market is so manipulated that they’re holding off until Trump actually takes office. To, you know, “send a message”.
Kunstler has been forecasting a steep drop in stock markets for so many years in a row that he jokes about it. Keynes wrote that markets can remain irrational longer than people can remain solvent. To that I would add “especially when they are rigged and manipulated.”
Yellen the Felon will do whatever she has to do to levitate these Ponzi markets until her fellow Goldmanite, Hillary Clinton, is safely installed in office.
Nearly 100,000 Pennsylvania Voters Switch From Democrat To Republican
CBS ^ | 10.12.16 |
Posted on 10/12/2016, 6:48:33 PM by pissant
HARRISBURG (KDKA) – Nearly 100,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched to Republican since the beginning of the year.
What’s more: The Pennsylvania Republican party says more than 240-thousand new voters have joined the party since last November.
The party says that the surge in Republican registrations is nearly twice the number of newly registered Republicans compared to both the 2008 and 2012 numbers combined.
The party says the new numbers come from the Pennsylvania Department of State which shows that 97,607 Democrats have actually switched to Republican.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburgh.cbslocal.com …
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3479836/posts - 15k -
I surprised it is not more than that.
Obama call PA residents “bitter clingers”
Hillary threaten to bankrupt them and put them out in the street if they had anything to do with coal.
From Hillary’s emails it is clear she hates these people.
The feeling is mutual…
From the Podesta files, it’s pretty clear that her crowd hates just about everyone. The condescension drips like venom from their fangs.
They act very much like, well, rapists. Gang rapists who assault and maim their victims and then laugh and gloat about it after the fact, and on top of that denigrate their victims in the most disparaging terms possible. That’s where the real rape culture is.
Qualifications?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_urvjCXg6c
What is that Podesta did that is like rape?
I was explaining it to a friend last night. The current state of the left is that they have no principles, they only lust after power. Thats why they can defend Bill Clinton against any women, while attacking Trump and taking money from Saudis. Theres no logic to their position, and they can turn on a dime to suit their needs. Everyone is just a tool for them to use to maintain or increase their power (women, jews, blacks, gays, the children, illegals, etc). It must go back to some deep psychological issues from childhood where they need to control everything, because its got to take a ton of energy and be very stressful dealing with this garbage virtually 24/7, and always having to look over your shoulder. An entire life built on lies and deceit has to be miserable.
Oh, heck, YEAH! Why do you think one of the emails from Doug Band to Podesta talked about the woman with the Clinton Foundation who drove her car to the water’s edge on Staten Island and was ready to drive herself into the drink and commit suicide?
As I’ve posted below, one of the things I’m getting a bang out of with the Wikileaks email dumps is knowing how some of these players have been exposed as far as their attitudes towards each other. The damage that has been done to the internal workings of this cartel is not to be underestimated. They now have no idea who they can trust and each one is a possible enemy to the other. That right there is the true story of how this whole thing comes apart for them.
Wikileaks and whoever the hackers are have done an enormous public service, in that they exposed the sordid DNC and Clinton secrets that the lapdog media actively covers up.
Obama call PA residents “bitter clingers”
Hillary threaten to bankrupt them and put them out in the street if they had anything to do with coal.
From Hillary’s emails it is clear she hates these people.
The feeling is mutual…
The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Hillary leading by 8.7%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5964.html
Donald Trump is your next president. Get over it and get on with your life.
Have you decided yet what you’re going to write on this blog when he loses?
Accept it and move on.
If she wins you mean? It won’t affect my life much. But the neocons will be back in the white house. Neocons don’t threaten me much, but they will kill hundreds of thousands, maybe millions more brown people. I thought a lot about what Tom Barrack said at the GOP convention. He said globalism had failed. A few weeks ago you didn’t even know what globalism was and now lots of people are talking about it. What Clinton doesn’t know is what the globalists call US “primacy” no longer exists. We live in a multi-polar world. We no longer tell everyone what’s going to happen in Syria for instance. If globalism has failed, and I think it has, we’ll just see a futile opening of the borders, more jobs go overseas or down south. But the globalists will simple preside over the decline, they can’t stop it. In all honesty I think whoever is elected is going to see some bad days ahead. Too much can kicking, money printing and killing has occurred.
‘Mr. Lok, too, claims success after success for Vanfun property sales on his WeChat. In March, he posted photos of an ocean-view home in West Vancouver bought for $8-million by a person with a Chinese name. One other post shows a document detailing the options selected on a new $1.2-million Aston Martin Vantage. When The Globe and Mail subsequently asked Mr. Lok for comment, he denied involvement with the $8-million home. He cut off the conversation moments later, without answering whether he was licensed in Canada or China.’
‘David Wang, the Vanfun co-founder, said he sees no reason to do anything differently. ‘Why would I change my operational model?’ he said. ‘It’s been working well for four or five years – why would I change it?’
It’s all been just a crooked set up all along. No Vancouver, your shacks and air boxes aren’t special. It’s just really easy to launder money there.
BTW, hats off to the Globe and Mail again for the continuing investigative journalism.
Copper Crashes To 1 Month Lows
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/copper-crashes-1-month-lows
DocCop sez fall.
__________________/
1 month? Ho hum.
Gold will drop below $1200 pretty soon I think. It’s a good buying price now. Want to buy GDXJ and AUY again but they have more downside ahead.
is there any such thing as a gold co w earnings/dividend
rational balance sheet ?
Oh dear. . .
US Import Prices Drop For 26th Straight Month As UK Exports Most Delfation
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/import-prices-deflate-26th-straight-month-uk-exports-most-delfation
Municipal benefits are getting wacked here in my little burg.
Pension Benefits In Tiny California Town To Be Slashed As “Ponzi Scheme” Is Exposed
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-12/loyalton-california-pensions
Four pensions equal the entire town’s budget.
Aren’t public union goons grand?
And it’s for the children.
where’s scdave? is he buyin
loves those ps unions
He’s up above complaining that Wikileaks isn’t being fair to Hillary on account of no Trump emails.
Let him tell it to CNN, NYT, WaPo, NBC, CBS, Politico, Salon, ABC, HuffPo, even Fox.
being fair ??
Has nothing to do with being fair…Has everything to do with “why”…
And many believe that the questions being raised of “why” is simply a deflection of the actual facts revealed by the Wikileaks release.
The main push from the MSM over the Podesta leaks is not about their content, but about how Russians are trying to influence our election.
However, the MSM never talked about how the source of the Trump tax return information was trying to influence the election, it was about the information itself (spun to a population who generally doesn’t understand tax code).
Why are people coming forward with dirt on Trump now? Of COURSE it’s to try to influence the election. Who are these people and what are their motivations? Why is no one asking these questions?
Is it because people think that Americans trying to influence American elections through illegal release of private (but accurate) information is fine?
Apparently so, given your line of questioning. That, and …..grrrrrrr……RUSSIA! PUTIN! EVIL! (which makes one wonder why the left laughed at Romney when he commented on Russia being our biggest geopolitical foe globally)
If anything, all of these releases are making more clear about what this election is about.
Is your view that an experienced and corrupt politician is better than an inexperienced and sexist one? You vote Clinton.
If your view is the opposite, then you vote Trump.
If you think both are appalling, then you stay home, or vote for a third party.
Has nothing to do with being fair…Has everything to do with “why”
…………………………
Could it possibly be that the “why” is that people have had enough of the lower-taxes-and-billion-dollar-toilet-seats reckless fiscal policies of the “Daddy Party?”
A $1 million bet: The anatomy of a high-end house flip
CNBC - Diana Olick - October 13, 2016
Last June, Dana Rice, a real estate agent and house flipper, was deep in the throes of a massive remodeling project.
She had bought a 1938 home in an upscale neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland, for $600,000 and intended to flip it for a hefty profit. Four months and $400,000 in construction costs later, Rice put the home on the market last weekend for $1,469,000. A million dollars of her money is at stake.
Rice added significant square footage, along with high-end finishes throughout. The so-called industrial cottage-style home is now 2,650 square feet with five bedrooms and three bathrooms. There is a small back patio, but the yard was sacrificed to make the home larger.
House flippers in the second quarter of this year saw an average gross profit of $62,000, up from $57,900 in the second quarter of 2015. That gross profit represented an average 48.8 percent return on the original purchase price, up from a 47.5 percent a year ago.
“Home flipping is becoming more accessible for smaller operators thanks to an increasingly competitive lending environment with more loan options for real estate investors, who are also benefiting from the historically low mortgage interest rates,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “That favorable lending environment for flippers has helped to fuel the recent flipping frenzy we’ve seen over the past five quarters.”
Close to 40,000 investors, both individuals and institutions, completed at least one home flip in the second quarter of this year, the highest number in nine years. Home flipping peaked about 10 years ago, during the height of the housing boom, when mortgages were easier to pick up than a quart of milk. That is not the case today.
While the turnout Sunday was good, there were no immediate offers. Rice, who admits to selling homes recently in the area in just a few days, said she is not worried:
“Location and quality will always win the day. And location — did I say that already?”
I rather like that house, but not for $1.469 million. Five hundred and fifty-four dollars per square foot? And look at the nearby similar sales. She’s asking more than $700,000 more than the “Zestimate.”
I’d say a big loss is about to rear it’s ugly head.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4916-Crescent-St-Bethesda-MD-20816/37170019_zpid/
There are always losses associated with housing. It’s just a matter of scale.
Here’s a good one on Obama threatening members of the Supreme Court over the ACA:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7520
“As Jennifer will remember, it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court, warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off.”
And speaking of the Supreme Court, there’s this:
The discussion of “wet works”, days before Scalia’s deatrh:
From:elmendorf@teamsubjectmatter.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com
I am all in
Sounds like it will be a bad nite , we all need to buckle up and double down
From: John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 4:36 PM
To: Steve Elmendorf
Subject: Thanks
Didn’t think wet works meant pool parties at the Vineyard.
That’s a creepy one. Wet Work. Well, they can forget that. Scalia always slept with a pillow on his face.
warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off.”
A court that responds to political pressure is already politicized. As if the Supreme Court hasn’t already been political for decades. LOLZ.
some news from da beeg city
Uber and Lyft are demolishing New York City taxi drivers
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-lyft-demolishing-york-city-200900395.html
as a deregulation Aryan I approve.
next lets get gov out of housing
tight inventory here w no price movement=weird
hitlery coming
22151
70% gov workers
0 layoffs
db pension
not a worry in the world
tight inventory with no price movement = prices topping out
Are you sure? Looks like it’s prices are falling.
Oakton, VA Housing Prices Crater 11% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/oakton-va/home-values/
Seems like a Mighty good time to ask for a raise.
Hillary Pays Her Trolls HOW MUCH?!
Clinton pays large amounts to her team of trolls that respond to negative internet posts
Infowars Nightly News - October 13, 2016 0 Comments
A significant portion of online support for Hillary Clinton is manufactured by paid “astroturf” trolls: a large team of supporters who spend long hours responding to negative news on the internet about her.
The Clinton SuperPAC Correct the Record, which is affiliated with her campaign, acknowledged in an April press release that it was spending $1 million on project “Breaking Barriers” to pay people to respond to negative information about Clinton on social media sites like Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter.
That amount has since increased to over $6 million.
Funny how Trump doesn’t have to pay the legions of posters who see right through The Narrative and are calling out the BS and speaking truth to power.
‘The problem you’ve got at the moment is vendors have expectations of the price their neighbour got back in March and think that’s what their house is worth,’ he said. ‘It was never worth that’
Alright, which one of you guys is this?
‘China’s total debt grew 465 percent over the past decade, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Total debt rose to 247 percent of gross domestic product in 2015, from 160 percent in 2005, with corporate debt jumping to 165 percent of GDP from 105 percent.’
“China is still being kept afloat by a housing bubble and massive state stimulus,” said Michael Every, head of financial markets research at Rabobank in Hong Kong. “The export backdrop merely underlines some of the downside risks to GDP growth ahead. Expect the yuan to move down with it.”
ProShares UltraShort FTSE China 50 (FXP)
‘“Contemporary living in Surf Pines!” teases the Airbnb listing for a four-bedroom house on Sea Breeze Drive with an open floor plan, wonderful art work and an awesome view. Jill Storey is renting out her home as a vacation rental for $300 a night, plus a 9.5 percent county room tax.’
‘But Storey has not paid a penny in county room taxes since she started listing the property in 2014. The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, hoping to set an example, took the unprecedented step Wednesday night of authorizing a foreclosure lawsuit in Circuit Court to collect $7,845 in unpaid taxes.’
‘Storey admits she ignored the county’s tax liens. Informed of the foreclosure action, Storey said she intends to pay the back taxes as soon as possible. But she thinks Airbnb should collect the room taxes and pay the county, not homeowners renting out their property.’
“I’m paying them,” she said, “and it’s a lesson learned.”
No Jill. You are collecting the taxes just not paying them. Some places would throw you in jail for this.
not the first time old jill has run afoul of the law:
http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20150130/on-the-record-jan-30-2015
Trump would never be elected mayor of any town–too close to home. But POTUS, seems so far away.
Boise, ID prices are still way about 2012 prices.
He’s already conquered your skull. Anything is possible.
The only winner here is me.
So, Elizabeth Warren is the darling of those fighting against Wall Street.
Lots of breathless discussion about how she is so great taking Stumpf to task over the Wells Fargo fraud.
And now she’s tweeting about it.
I ask a very simple question: Where was her criticism of Jon Corzine over MF Global?
Completely absent.
Another example of cronyism in DC.
Of course, Corzine backed Warren for VP.
Where was her criticism of Jon Corzine over MF Global?
GREAT point, RW!!
Back to your regularly scheduled program related to housing:
http://www.bkfs.com/Data/DataReports/BKFS_MM_Aug2016_Report.pdf
Interesting dive into refinancing activities/data.
It’s been a busy but revealing 5 weeks so lets get back to the business of housing shall we?
Cupertino, CA Housing Prices Crater 11% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/cupertino-ca/home-values/
Mafia I don’t see anything that says 11%
Our good friend Karen put this together just for you.
https://snag.gy/m5EzRB.jpg
Change the first graph to “median list price”, then click on “view data table”, and then click on “Cities”.
In among all the green arrows in the year-on-year column, there are a few red ones, with the largest being Cupertino, down 11%.
The problem with this kind of cherry picking though, is that if you go down to the “median list price / sq ft” graph below, then click on “view data table”, and then click on “Cities”, you’ll see that Cupertino’s median list price per square foot is up 2% year-on-year.
So, the conclusion shouldn’t be that home prices are cratering, but that prices are approximately flat when comparing like-sized homes, but smaller homes are on the market this year as compared to last.
Nothing to cherrypick. Conclusion is prices fell 11%. It is what it is.
Definition of “Cherry Pick”:
“selectively choose (the most beneficial items) from what is available.”
Zillow lists data for 200 Cities in CA. Of those 200, only 8 showed a year on year decline in median list price. You chose the lowest number of those 8 (i.e. the one that was most beneficial to your argument).
That is the very definition of Cherry Picking the data.
And prices fell 11% in Cupertino. No big deal.
‘the one that was most beneficial to your argument’
And in the post above I’ve really cherry picked; I got one, ONE! Chinese FB dude losing his ass. FB’s are like cockroaches; if you see one there are hundreds, maybe more.
And in the post above I’ve really cherry picked; I got one, ONE! Chinese FB dude losing his ass. FB’s are like cockroaches; if you see one there are hundreds, maybe more.
That is very true. My guess is if you had a list of all Chinese “investors”, you would find FAR more than one FB.
But in the case of Mafia, he didn’t pick one City at random, he looked through the entire list to find his gem. And the entire list of 200 had only 8 negative, and he picked the worst.
And prices fell 11% in Cupertino. No big deal.
It’s not a big deal that the median list price went DOWN 11% year on year when you consider that median list price per square foot went UP 2% per square foot in Cupertino over the same timeframe.
It’s falling transaction prices that is important here. $/sq ft will fall as demand plummets and transaction prices continue to fall.
What additional items were include in a sale where the transaction price fell YoY and the $/sq.ft. rose?
‘That is very true’
I knew that years before you came to this blog. Trolls used to throw that stuff at me all the time. Anecdotal stuff can be the most revealing and statistics, especially house statistics are lagging and misleading at major market turns. Did you know the median in Houston is still going up? One and a half years after the market went into the crapper? The people who still have money are buying mansions at a discount while the rest of the market falls away. Median goes up.
The people who still have money are buying mansions at a discount while the rest of the market falls away. Median goes up.
Ben, wouldn’t price-per-sq-ft be a more meaningful metric to watch in such a situation? PPSF should show the market falling away, even at the high end, based on your description.
Falling housing prices my friend. Falling housing prices.
Re: Zillow: has anyone else run into the same problem I have with the graph/table that shows Zillow’s “Value”, median list, and median sale prices? I used to be able to see all three, but at some point the median sale price option got greyed-out; that’s the only one that I’m actually interested in. Is there something that you need to do to see their median sale price data now?
With the way sale prices are cratering, they probably don’t want to create a stampede among the DebtDonkeys. Sadly, DebtDonkeys don’t understand that nothing accelerates the economy and creates jobs like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.
‘California’s booming, yet many of its cities aren’t feeling it. From Yreka, near the Oregon border, to El Centro, just north of Mexico, more than 80 local governments are asking voters next month to approve sales-tax increases, the most on record. While some aim to boost spending on roads or other projects, most measures would just provide extra cash. In Ridgecrest, Fairfax, and Fountain Valley, officials say the revenue would eliminate budget deficits or prevent cuts to police and fire departments.’
‘The governments’ revenues aren’t keeping up with rising expenses, including for employee pensions, despite the thriving technology industry, home-price gains and rapid economic growth in much of the state. That’s due in part to the landmark property-tax limits California voters approved almost four decades ago that have prevented municipalities from reaping windfalls as the housing market rebounded from last decade’s crash.’
If it’s booming, sales taxes should be too. If it amounts to buying and selling each other houses (or pretending money losing companies are worth billions), I can see the problem.
It looks like the poorest most impoverished state in the US is about to get even poorer.
Californica…… just dry up and fall off.
Palo Alto and Modesto are like two different planets. One is suffering, one is full of millionaires.
No more mandatory sales taxes. Weed will be legal soon and taxed. Cigarette tax going up to. Sure, give us a soda tax. Yes all of the gov workers work at 50% and get pd at 100%. Nothing new.
Rain coming tomorrow. 1/2 to 1inch
ps. did everyone with a Costco memb get a Costco VISA after AMEX dropped the ball? 4% back on gas…etc….
Yes, I didn’t have the AMEX but got the VISA and love the 4% back on gas, since I am 3 miles away from two different Costcos with gas stations now.
I had a Shell Visa back in the 1990s that use to give a nice rebate on gas, but they scaled that back to almost nothing over the years.
The CBS Evening Clinton Infomercial I mean CBS Evening News at this point is a joke.
Pretty, pretty good…(LD) MICHELLE OBAMA DELIVERS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL SPEECHES OF ALL TIME.
Kids, stay in school.
If Trump could rap, Michelle would have invited him to white house for a party.
Me and my homies like to play this game
Some call it Amtrak but we call it the train
New Castle, CO Economy Accelerates As Housing Prices Plunge 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/new-castle-co/home-values/
One of the things that I’ve been enjoying hugely in this whole Wikileaks thing is watching the vipers in the nest turn on each other. It really has to be seen to be believed. Not only do they hate all kinds of American citizens, but apparently they hate each other and snipe about each other all the time. They thought it was behind each other’s backs, but, SURPRISE!
You have no idea what kind of distrust and turmoil this is causing, because you’re not hearing about that part. I would imagine there are some long knives out for Podesta, that’s for sure. And that Doug Band guy. Here Chelsea Clinton has been called a rich spoiled brat by one of her parents’ close associates. Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark. We learn that Robby Mook and Cheryl Mills can’t stand each other. And don’t get me started on that Palmieri beyatch. There’s gonna be some folks who will not be happy with her.
Everything the Clintons touch turns to schitt.
Wilco — Summer Teeth (1999):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FjhhllsOH8
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, don’t ever forget that…
the Vancouver bubble pops…. Then China….. then USA….2017!
Reagan stabilized the deficit and Clinton eliminated it, and then it exploded under Bush [II] and has remained relatively high under Obama. Obama has a better record there than Bush.
Housing kiddo….. housing.
Conroe, TX Housing Prices Crater 7% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/conroe-tx/home-values/
and Clinton eliminated it,
Clinton didn’t eliminate it—the tech stock bubble taxable gains did! So if he gets the credit (in your opinion) for the deficit-reducing bubble, does he also get the blame for the post-bubble carnage, in the interest of fairness and balance?
Cake — Friend Is A Four Letter Word:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj1Kx7AI_rw
I deleted myself off of Facebook yesterday (is that even possible?)
So many fake people and political bullshit, such a waste of time…
The only business relationships I’ll ever enter into again are with blood relatative family. Trust nobody, believe nothing.
Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Will Bill Clinton ever atone for all the women he has sexually assaulted and raped? Doubtful…
Ben Jones, with your blog host gracious permission, everybody who votes for Hillary deserves to watch their daughters and wives raped by Syrian regfugees brought here with a green light by Obama and Hillary.
LMFAO at you, all of you
Lock and load.
What happens to crony capitalism if its enablers in the DoJ and FBI unexpectedly find themselves facing a long-absent little something called accountability?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/trump-attacks-fbi-doj-corrupt-hillary-investigation-“it-was-crime-highest-level”
One of the best possible reasons to vote for Trump: Yellen the Felon would, at a minimum, be under close and hostile executive scrutiny, and might finally have to answer for the Fed’s swindles against the 99%.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-13/citi-is-worried-about-the-political-winds-blowing-against-yellen
unload your shack at any price!
Will Sharia law and police no-go zones be bullish for London’s housing bubble?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/10/13/high-immigration-levels-london-population-10-million-2025/
Vancouver and Toronto housing bubbles still inflating.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/10/13/no-plateau-house-price-bubble-vancouver-toronto-canada/
Hillary Clinton’s neocon Axis of Evil.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/13/hillary-clintons-axis-of-evil/
Last stoopid Youtube post tonight (thank you Ben Jones)
Local H — Manifest Destiny (Part 2) 1993:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGPt8QDBv-4
Where were you in 1993? I was in Northeast Ohio, watching the local manufacturing economy get eviscerated by NAFTA. Watching friends’ dads get laid off, because globalists.
Even if Hitlery wins, this sh*t isn’t going away.
You’ve been warned…
The subprime auto bubble is developing stress fractures.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/subprime-auto-securitization-ponzi-shows-signs-cracking-delinquencies-rise
What happens when all the Fed’s asset bubbles and Ponzi markets pop at once?
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct16/3-bubbles10-16.html
The WSJ finally addresses the trans-Atlantic revolt against central bankers and the crony capitalist status quo, claiming that “conservative” leaders are standing up for those losing out due to low interest rates - what a crock. The Establishment conservative cucks have always been the controlled opposition and Judas goats, while nationalist-populists - anathama to sellout Establishment cucks - have mobilized popular anger against the globalists and banksters and their pet politicians and media presstitutes.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-trans-atlantic-revolt-against-central-bankers-1476228642
WikiLeaks: Qatar Gave Clinton Foundation A Million Dollar Check For Bill’s Birthday
Kevin Daley
Legal Affairs Reporter
10:50 AM 10/13/2016
New emails released by WikiLeaks in connection with its dump of John Podesta’s email server indicate that Qatar, an Islamist state in the Persian gulf, gave former President Bill Clinton a check for $1 million for his birthday.
The email indicates foundation officials also met with representatives from Brazil, Peru, Malawi and Rwanda to discuss donations and philanthropic strategies for the Foundation.
“[Qatar] Would like to see WJC ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday in 2011,” Ami Desai, director of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation, wrote in 2012.
The email was sent to a number of Clinton aides, including Doug Band.
In another email two years later, Hillary Clinton noted that Qatar aides and abets the Islamic State and Sunni terrorist groups.
“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Clinton wrote. (RELATED: Hillary In Leaked Email: Saudi Arabia And Qatar Are Funding ISIS)
The thread also indicates that Qatar allocated $20 million for development in Haiti, after a massive earthquake devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation and left nearly a quarter million dead. Desai indicated the Qataris “would welcome our suggestions” as regards investment priorities.
The foundation’s activities in Haiti have been the subject of press scrutiny in recent days.
Haitian civil rights activist Ézili Dantò criticized what he describes as a “pay to play” environment in Haiti facilitated by the Clinton Foundation.
“I think when you look at both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, that line was pretty faint between the two,” Jake Johnston, analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, according to ABC News. “You had a lot of coordination and connection between the two, obviously. And I think that raises significant questions about how they were both operating.”
The email thread also indicates foundation officials attempted to schedule a meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. “I pitched CGI, again, and will continue to do so,” Desai wrote.
Rouseff has since been impeached for corruption, though the allegations concerning her administration had not surfaced during the time the email was written.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/13/wikileaks-qatar-gave-clinton-foundation-a-million-dollar-check-for-bills-birthday/#ixzz4N1OX0N87
Supposedly a video exists showing Bill Clinton having unlawful carnal knowledge of a 13-year-old girl on the Lolita Express belonging to his oligarch crony and possible blackmailer, convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein. Although FBI Director Comey and DoJ head Lorreta Lynch would doubtlessly decline to prosecute regardless of cut-and-dried evidence of lawbreaking.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2922773/Newly-released-flight-logs-reveal-time-trips-Bill-Clinton-Harvard-law-professor-Alan-Dershowitz-took-pedophile-Jeffrey-Epstein-s-Lolita-Express-private-jet-anonymous-women.html#ixzz4N1IsiPzE
Watched a little of the Bronco Charger game and some Denver lineman got flagged for giving a Bronco linebacker a face wash on the bottom of the pile.
They used to call that… Giving Him The Business
Ref Is Giving Him The Business - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eslz06J9hFw - 305k -
President Hillary Clinton will be unable to fully implement her and the DNC’s collectivist kleptocracy as long as producers retain the means to resist forcible “redistribution of the wealth”. We must disarm the populace…for the children.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/feingold-hillary-might-issue-executive-order-guns/
What Yogi Berra said.
Breitbart news, so loathed and feared by Hillary and the lapdog media, is breaking new records as huge numbers of Americans are becoming awake and aware and seeing through the lies and journalistic Omertà of The Narrative.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/10/13/breitbart-news-received-200-million-pageviews-september/
I understand how HRC faithful can claim that Bill’s transgressions are not HRCs character flaws.
And then I see claims like this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/10/michael_issikoff_says_nbc_is_sitting_on_devastating_tape_of_juanita_broaddrick_.html
At the time of the interview, there was no reason for her to bring HRC into the discussion to ruin her presidential aspirations…it was 17 years ago. As such, one can’t argue that she’s only speaking out to damage HRCs chance at the presidency.