A Housing Cartoon from 1993

in

Oranges taste better than houses.

But please, no tangelos.

That Krugman graph is visually frightening. This graph should be posted on the grave of all homebuilders.

Orlando, FL is also in "Orange County" (same story about the groves changing into housing), so the cartoon could apply there too.

Interesting. During the 1990 crash, you can see that investors were monitoring price rate-of-change but probably didn't understand the nature of the inflection.

Notice the buying spike about 1/2 down the curve in Spring, 91. I'd expect to see the same thing in this crash.

We're probably not quite to the half-way mark yet.

Yeah, but can you grow oranges in soil that has had houses on top of it? That's the sad side story to something like this.

Evidently cartoonists could draw better 15 years ago.

JW,
As long as there are no cold snaps, the oranges should do just fine. Unfortunately, orange prices aren't good. Maybe they should plant corn instead.

"
We're probably not quite to the half-way mark yet."

In my ag county / Silicon Valley bedroom county, latest figures show that median home prices dropped from $757K to %600K YOY from June to June. If it drops another $157K, it'll be just about where it was seven years ago, before the madness started.

But given the credit crunch and an increasingly tapped-out consumer base, it might not stop there. We'll see.

"As long as there are no cold snaps, the oranges should do just fine. Unfortunately, orange prices aren't good. Maybe they should plant corn instead."

Almonds, if the climate's right. California's built a huge export market for almonds in Asia and elsewhere.

BTW, I think that farmer is flipping us off. Let's beat him senseless and take his overalls.

I justify my $1750/mo rent by thinking if the house I want to buy is falling 4%/yr -- which it certainly is -- then it's like getting free rent, more than free rent if you count the lower tax and interest costs.

hmmm. yes. looking at the chart, things could be worse this time. :l

Almonds have gotten big in Fresno. Takes 10+ years to get your orchard production going tho.

Semi OT -- A few years ago, CA was complaining that all almonds aren't created equally, and theirs (Blue Diamond?) are much better. Must have worked.

Another 30% decline expected in LA?

PK steals so much from CR and DB it's disgusting. NYT and snoozepapers going the way of Disco.

Kudos.

I'm no ag guy but I think a) BD's got a corner on the buying & processing market and b) they ship year-old almonds for their non-brand customers, saving the new stuff for BD-brand.

that cartoon is a reference to the Irvine family, and The Irvine Company that once owned most of Orange county.

"James Irvine died in 1886. The ranch was inherited by his son, James Irvine, Jr. who incorporated it into The Irvine Company. James, Jr. shifted the ranch operations to field crops, olive and citrus crops."

eventually they got into development themselves, and actually planned Irvine California.

"The layout of Irvine was designed by Los Angeles architect William Pereira and Irvine Company employee Raymond Watson, and is nominally divided into townships called villages. The townships are separated by six-lane streets. Each township contains houses of similar design, along with commercial centers, religious institutions and schools. Commercial districts are checker-boarded in a periphery around the central townships.
Pereira originally envisioned an Atlantis-like circular plan with numerous man-made lakes and the university in the center. When the Irvine Company refused to relinquish valuable farmland in the flat central region of the ranch for this plan, the University site was moved to the base of the southern coastal hills. The design that ended up being used was based on the shape of a necklace (with the villages strung along two parallel main streets, which terminate at UCI, the "pendant")[citation needed]. Traces of the original circular design are visible in the layout of the UCI campus and the two man-made lakes at the center of Woodbridge, one of the central villages."

Anonymouse - Paul Krugman is one of the very few economists (or columnists) who has been talking about the housing bubble for years. Also I've seen him give credit to blogs.

I'll agree with you on the rest of the NY Times opinion section, though.

"Pereira originally envisioned an Atlantis-like circular plan "

Hhmmmm. An "Atlantis-like" circular plan. Where does he get his information?

Almonds and oranges, hmm... I think I'll invest in honeybees. CCD resistant of course.

OK, this one's labeled "humor", and so I guess I'm not off topic.

Check this out -

Trump Tower builders dug deep for financing
By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer
In print: Friday, July 18, 2008

Desperate to salvage the $300-million Trump Tower Tampa with last-ditch financing, SimDag, the Tampa developer of the proposed deluxe skyscraper, sought a nine-figure loan from Providence Funding Inc.

Based in South Bend, Ind., Providence bills itself as a faith-based lender. Its chairman identifies himself as "the Very Reverend Father Barney."

With creditors baying for satisfaction last spring, SimDag principals Frank Dagostino and Jody Simon took the plunge. They paid Providence $150,000 as a "loan commitment fee" to secure $200-million in financing for the 52-story condo tower.

But Father Barney, the reassuring figure in the black clerical garb and white collar, is actually an ex-convict named Barney Canada. He spent three years in federal prison in the early 1990s for stealing millions of dollars procuring phony loans for businesses just like SimDag....

Trump Tower builders dug deep for financing - St. Petersburg Times

I'd build me one of them nifty shipping container condo things.

Cheers,

Americans stash away 1.5 trillion dollars in tax havens
AFP: Americans stash away 1.5 trillion dollars in tax havens

"The evidence we have been able to obtain breaks through some of the wall of secrecy to show that these two banks have employed banking practices that facilitate, and have resulted in, tax evasion by US clients," said Senator Carl Levin, who led the six-month investigation.
The offshore tax evasion problem is of "staggering proportions," said Senator Norm Coleman.
"These tax havens hold an estimated 1.5 trillion dollars in American assets, resulting in lost taxes of roughly 100 billion dollars," he said.

Bob Dobbs: Almonds, if the climate's right.

AND, if there any honeybees still alive to pollinate the almond trees after bee colony collapse disorder wreaks its havoc. There is no economic solution to pollination with the bees. (and this is literally a birds and bees story).

The seven-day average yield on money market mutual funds fell in the week ended Tuesday to 1.84 percent from 1.89 percent the previous week, said Money Fund Report
Forbes.com File Not Found

Scary trends for mortgage bond yields.

I guess people now want more compensation for default risk but the US government doesn't want people to get more compensation for default risk.

If you stop mono-cropping you get plenty of bees and other pollinators. I have a very diverse organic garden, and many bees.

Right now we need to quit mono-cropping houses and develop a more diverse economy.

The beautiful thing about almonds is that they are machine harvested, hulled and shelled. Something Americans can do well with little sweat involved. As opposed to the cashew which must be hand shelled since it is so delicate.

They're not making any more orange groves.

Bee keeping has got to be good right now, prices up-bees down-demand up..

hmmm..mixing it up with bees sounds easier than playing wall street..

donna, it must have been very interesting 600 years ago in North and South America when there were NO HONEY BEES. I am glad that the Europeans introduced them along with Eurasian crops that benefit from their pollination but the hype over honey bees is a little silly since they never existed in the Americas before.

Hey, if bees sting you they die soon after. They have more honor than any Wall Street crook.

I think CR is on track here, focused on the fact that this economic meltdown is a slow grinding down event that takes years. With money mkt yields at 1.84% and falling, along with home prices falling, with the dollar falling, etc, it seems as if people are complacent and even optimistic about future growth, perhaps in denial and thinking that write downs of a few trillion have no long term consequences. That is funny IMHO, because you probably do have time to grow oranges and make more of a profit there, than in housing!

However, as we see in this story, risk is everywhere:

AGRICULTURE
Insect found in Tijuana poses risk to California citrus trade
Bug in Baja a risk to California citrus trade - Los Angeles Times

The disease, known as citrus greening, has already killed tens of thousands of acres of orange groves in Florida and has the potential to ruin much of California's $1.2-billion citrus growing business, industry officials

Paul Krugman is one of the very few economists (or columnists) who has been talking about the housing bubble for years. Also I've seen him give credit to blogs.

I think that's probably because he's more of a political figure than a Wall Street economist and doesn't have a vested interest in covering up the truth.

That's the problem with this situation -- any economist should be able to see that you can't build a healthy market by making loans that are almost certain to go bad for larger and larger amounts. Especially with major real estate problems in recent memory (Japan, CA, oil patch, S&L).

And the truth is most of them probably had the sense to see what was going on.

It was just far more profitable not to say anything about it.

whatever. where i want to buy, no one is selling at 2004 price.

three threads down a poster , Ella

provided a link to an FT article

IT IS AMAZING

read it and see if my "take" is right or wrong...but if

bottom line

THE SEC APPEARS TO BE READY TO EXEMPT PRIMARY BROKER DEALERS... YEAH THATS MOST OF THE LIST OF 19 FIRMS PROTECTED FROM NAKED SHORT SALES... FROM THE SHO REGULATION!!!!!!!!!

thats right the companies who's stock you can not naked short...will be allowed to naked short all other companies stock

FT.com / Markets - SEC to grant some leniency on short sales 

BOSTON/WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) - US regulators said they would grant some leniency to certain market makers who sell stocks short, responding to pressure from fund managers and brokerages to clarify how new restrictions on the practice would work.

The guidance came from the Securities and Exchange Commission late on Thursday after it stunned financial markets by announcing unprecedented restrictions on short-selling two days before.

The rule, which takes effect on Monday and is expected to last at least 30 days, is designed to restrict improper short selling of shares in 19 financial firms, including recently battered Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers.

”The staff is recommending exceptions to the short sale order for market makers of the 19 stocks and their derivatives from arranging to borrow in advance for short sales in their market making and related hedging activities, to avoid constraining the market makers’ provision of liquidity,” SEC spokesman John Nester said by e-mail.

snip

Yellow dragon disease,

Must have come over in a shipping container.

Cheers,

”The staff is recommending exceptions to the short sale order for market makers of the 19 stocks and their derivatives from arranging to borrow in advance for short sales in their market making and related hedging activities"

see above

just criminal

mock turtle,

Well that's crony capitalism at its best. Yep, I'm not angry about this. Nope not me.

Excuse me for a moment, I need to go punch something.

Cheers,

responding to pressure from SIFMA

Misean

i'm with you

when i read this i thought hey i must be getting this wrong

then i read it and read it and read it again.

please somebody tell me my interpretation of this exception to reg SHO is wrong

the depth of criminality and cronyism is breath taking.

w, neither did 300 million people...i wonder why?

Lets think a little deeper on the notion that the US has the right to tax money earned and kept off-shore (which is different then sending US earned assets off shore)
It is not as if I used any labor, material or infrastructure of the US. Just my mind and body. Does my mind and body belong to the US no matter where I reside? Where else in our Society does this theory exist? Sure during a draft my body did belong to the State to use as it pleased. Draft is long gone. Women as fighting for abortion rights, the right to own their body.
Assuming that I make money in finance it is done only with my mind. Where else (except in Gitmo) does the US claim to own someone's mind??
Global tax is the most 1984 part of our legal structure.

Looks like the financials rally has lost steam and traders are taking the 30% over the past couple of days off the table, possibly before the weekend. May be a good time to nibble SKF. I did.

Yellow dragon disease,

I believe an American researcher was doing some cooperative work in Mexico when he was startled to see this insect traipsing around. When he asked his Mexican counterparts about it they slipped and told him it was absolutely blowing up in some states there.

For perspective, every year potato psyllid blows up in the wind from Central Mexico into nebraska and then West to California. Usually it does not overwinter but individual populations are starting to overwinter in Coastal California. Insects move a long way very quickly.

jack writes:
whatever. where i want to buy, no one is selling at 2004 price

That was true here where I live too until just two or three months ago.

Now, finally, the foreclosures are hitting the market and all those homeowner holdouts are moot. They will "hold out" for their price until inflation or the market rebound hits, if they can. All others will go to foreclosure and allow clearing of the markets. Meanwhile, the banks sell their REOs for whatever they can get.

Quite beautiful, really, to a hard-core (hopefully soon-to-be-former) renter like me.

Buyer/seller strikes are always temporary, it seems.

foolonthehill:

The problem really manifests itself w/ IP. If you have developers working on the same project in 10 different countries, who should get the royalties from licensing? You possibly can't pay taxes in all 10 countries. Right now, Ireland is the de facto IP tax haven, because of its 10% corporate tax rate, with 0% on patent royalties.

twisted, ???

You can't mean that bees made it possible for 300 million people to live in the USA. Since corn, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, rice, wheat and beans do not require bees I doubt bees are the reason.

Fossil fuel is why we have 300 million people in the US.

w,

Bees are not to be taken lightly...

Lets think a little deeper on the notion that the US has the right to tax money earned and kept off-shore

as a Georgist I agree whole-heartedly. We should tax land values (and natural resources extracted from the land) first and foremost to cover society-wide costs like defense and the social safety net.

Taxing labor and capital returns to the extent we do is silly given the immense tax base Land provides.

'course the land owners have been running this country for 400 years so there you are.

Re: .. exceptions to the short sale order for market makers of the 19 stocks and their derivatives..

Remember this: Executive Pay: The 9/11 Factor
Executive Pay: The 9/11 Factor - WSJ.com

Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," urged the financial community not to be disrupted. Companies lined up to invest cash in their own shares, often trumpeting their decisions in patriotic tones.

Minutes after the bell rang Sept. 17 at the New York Stock Exchange, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who'd attended the solemn reopening ceremony, told CNBC, "Everybody should step up to the plate right now and show the strength of the American economy." He added: "We depend on this. A lot of jobs and the future of America and the world rests on what happens here."

A Wall Street Journal analysis shows how some companies rushed, amid the post-9/11 stock-market decline, to give executives especially valuable options. A review of Standard & Poor's ExecuComp data for 1,800 leading companies indicates that from Sept. 17, 2001, through the end of the month, 511 top executives at 186 of these companies got stock-option grants. The number who received grants was 2.6 times as many as in the same stretch of September in 2000, and more than twice as many as in the like period in any other year between 1999 and 2003.

Anonymouse writes:
PK steals so much from CR and DB it's disgusting. NYT and snoozepapers going the way of Disco.

Whats DB, is there another great blog I dont know about?

TIA ! ! !

..............

CR or dryfly, Rob Dawg, Lawyerliz, FFDIC, Rich and

any of the rest who like the names above hold what i view as senior seats on this board (apologies to the many others not named)

could sombody please read this short article

FT.com / Markets - SEC to grant some leniency on short sales

and correct me

yesterday i compared the list of primary broker dealers (fed list) to the 17 firms protected by the new reg sho rule (re naked shorts) (not counting F and F)

it appeared to me that with 4 exceptions the fed was protecting P. broker dealers with the new rule.

now this FT article seems to say those very protected firms (AND THEIR HEDGE FUNDS!!!!) will be allowed to go out and naked short all the others

please tell me i'm wrong.

May be a good time to nibble SKF.

Me too, though worried about the next oil dump/financials pump.

barely,

I don't know about skf until after monday boa release..its movement is like a bee without a hive...erratic..

California oranges suck.

California oranges suck.
the_economist

Why don't you leaves those oranges alone. What did they ever do to you?

cost of insurance against default on debt for a basket of 15 financial institutions. That index closed Thursday with an implied cost of $165,200 to insure $10 million in bonds against default for five years, down from $173,800 Tuesday, but still higher than $108,300 a month ago. Tuesday marked the highest level for the index since just after the Bear Stearns debacle.

Meanwhile, the Markit CDX investment-grade index, which also measures the cost of insurance against default for a broader basket of investment-grade bonds, was at $141,000 as of Thursday evening, compared with $117,000 a month ago.

Hey, if bees sting you they die soon after. They have more honor than any Wall Street crook.

Wall Street bees sting you then claim it was some short seller who stuck a needle in your arm when you weren't looking.

ac - are you saying that yellowjackets are without honor?

As MS just pointed out in the prev. thread, BAC release is during market hours.
Things that make you go hmmm.

"Maybe they should plant corn instead."

I am the great Cornholio.

American Banker
FDIC Defends Handling of IndyMac Run
Agency pins blame on 'inflammatory' media coverage
FDIC Defends Handling of IndyMac Run - American Banker Article

w writes:
ac - are you saying that yellowjackets are without honor?

isnt that wasps? Smile

........

please tell me i'm wrong.
mock turtle

Its called democracy if you sit at the table - if not work, pay taxes, and meant to shut the f* up!

Honestly, I'm sick over the "friends in high places" bull. The bailout bull. And well, lots more.

Bastard developers bought my local strawberry field to build ticky tacky boxes. They never even broke ground and now I can't walk to the berry stand anymore. Just a field of weeds.

So we got neither. Sad

steal this, punk,

I lost all respect for The Steve Miller Band when they sang Abra Cadabra. And when I found out he really wasn't a "grinner."

So we got neither. Sad
Currently Smoking Cannabis

Plant your own in the weeds. Solves the problem and gives you something to do.

The rule, which takes effect on Monday and is expected to last at least 30 days

market makersÂ’ provision of liquidity???

From Monday, regulators will be cracking down on so-called naked short selling where investors do not actually have the shares before selling them. Now people will have to make arrangements to have the shares in hand before selling them.

Short Cox
NakedShorts: Short Cox

Under Reg SHO, the short-selling regime introduced on Jan. 3 2005, broker-dealers were required only “to have reasonable grounds to believe” that a security could be borrowed and “delivered on the date delivery is due” before effecting a short sale order. “This ‘locate’ must be made and documented prior to effecting the short sale,” according to the SEC, although an exception is available for “market makers engaged in bona fide market making.”

As of 12:01 am EDT Monday, Jul. 21, stock in the affected securities must not only be ‘located’ but ‘pre-borrowed’ for a specific short sale. The order terminates on Tuesday, Jul. 29, at 11:59 pm although it can be extended by up to 30 days from Jul. 21.

"Maybe they should plant Cannabis instead."

I can't believe that Bob Toll!

Pontius Kona

I might think that there are a number of State AGs that might take aim as this might be an unfair business practice

On the other hand, perhaps one can explain why high end houses, celebrity digs, are still being flipped for large profits. See celebrity blogs I will post next (have to look them up).

Ok, I'm with Bob on that, i.e, maybe they should tear down those developments, then plant pot, then re-introduce hybrid bees, and that would save the orange crop and the economy would then have growth from fresh tasty oranges and everyone could benefit from this healthy way of life.

if you planted orange trees, wouldn't they each have their own basement?

w writes: but the hype over honey bees is a little silly since they never existed in the Americas before.

So what do you grow? I believe you have an orchard? I can understand the hype: it's mysterious and has the potential to cause some growers a lot of money, since the native stuff probably won't do the job for the growers.

The Real Estalker

See July 17 entry re Kelsey Grammar.

do you need bees to pollinate Cannibis?

We planted about 25 fruit trees here, and grow tons of berries and veggies. But that was THE berry stand. Growing cannabis uses too much electricity. Just a couple of 1000W High Pressure Sodium bulbs would trip some kind of red flag Im sure.

It's easier to find top quality pot than it is to find great organic fruits and veggies. At least in SoCal it is.

Once again, FTC sits on its ass watching every department in washington usurp power, i.e, FDIC wants to get in the mortgage business and become a part of un-fair antitrust competitive stuff, SEC wants to step in and play antitrust games, The Fed/Treasury bail out banks and play antitrust collusion/corruption games..

WTF is FTC???? Do you kiddies realize the power that they are intended to have??? I think they must be tied up in a basement with lots of yellow Bush tape....cause they aint doing a thing to help with commerce and free trade!

Ever consider late night neighborhood garden raids for strawberries? Sounds illegal, though.

You dont pollinate cannabis. If the males pollinate the females, the plant produces seeds. So you kill the males and let the fems put their energy into sticky bud. Thats when you get sensimilla...or seedless.

Without bees, cannabis is the crop of the future.

Fed seems to like MBS more on Tuesdays..Why? To punish us retail investors the rest of the week?

Temporary Open Market Operations - Federal Reserve Bank of New York 

fool,

As you know, pollination is all about S E X !

Sex with bees is something I have not studied, but I'm suddenly curious

Without bees, cannabis is the crop of the future.

I plan to fuel my next car with this stuff and take lots of vacations!

Pollution would smell awesome if we all did this.
Suiciding in a closed garage would just make you hungry then.
Win/Win!

mock turtle writes:
CR or dryfly, Rob Dawg, Lawyerliz, FFDIC, Rich and any of the rest who like the names above hold what i view as senior seats on this board

[Blushes] Sorry, I'm here as the skeptic technologist/mathematician. Legal legerdemain can't be explained by those skills as my futures losses will so attest.

Rest; Ventura County just captured 68,000 plants from the Los Padres National Forest. The burning will be at the Camarillo airport at an undisclosed time. Even just modest taxes on the crop would have been enough to balance our budget.

Re: Without bees, cannabis is the crop of the future.

I imagine in 5 years we will all be pissed that we can't short cannabis futures and those damn pot growers will be lobbying thos nasty SEC people and using SIFMA to change rules on us common folks that just want our land back, so that we can grow oranges and not drink that nasty yet popular green shit that everyone uses instead of coffee...

speaking of cannabis, Hemp graded out highest in regards to producing ethanol. Less water intensive, grows anywhere and produces more ethanol on less yield..

Bob Dobbs,

I suspect that your berg is worse off than it was before the madness started. It had a lot more industry then. Remember when they made stuff on the Westside? Oh, well I guess you don't really NEED a middle class.

68,000 plants

Can you imagine all the bees that could have been put to work making seeds for the future? God, what's next?

ow this FT article seems to say those very protected firms (AND THEIR HEDGE FUNDS!!!!) will be allowed to go out and naked short all the others

please tell me i'm wrong.

mock turtle | 07.18.08 - 1:09 pm | #

mock-if a market maker can't short, there will be no shorting of a stock, naked or not. Not letting them short puts you in a catch 22.

A good friend put himself through college growing cannabis among the irrigated cal trans freeway landscaping. The governator should stop landscaping with useless ice plant and start to make some money off that wasted space

imagine in 5 years we will all be pissed that we can't short cannabis futures and those damn pot growers will be lobbying thos nasty SEC people and using SIFMA to change rules on us common folks that just want our land back, so that we can grow oranges and not drink that nasty yet popular green shit that everyone uses instead of coffee...

YouTube - Joe Cocker - With a little help from my friends 

Rest; Ventura County just captured 68,000 plants from the Los Padres National Forest. The burning will be at the Camarillo airport at an undisclosed time. Even just modest taxes on the crop would have been enough to balance our budget.

Hope no one was expecting a Christmas present for me.... There goes rent too!

......

Pontius Kona - The SEC could have just passed a new reg that said unless you are a market maker you cant trade brokerage, bank, GSE stocks for more or less that 1% of its 129 day moving average price.

Opps, I have just handed them a new tool..

68,000 plants is impressive... But check this:
OnMarijuana.com

(My old blog.)

OK...Back on topic!

Currently Smoking Cannabis,

The real problem with the 1kw grow lights is that they often kick your electricity consumption to tier 4. $0.32/kwh arrgh!

No, I don't know this from grow lights, but I have other ways of occasionally using lots of electricity.

"do you need bees to pollinate Cannibis?"

Yes, but only if you want seeds, which you don't. Sin semillas (without seeds). Keep the bees away!

The game can only go on in the casino until the players are either broke or have figured out the game is rigged.

Anonymous:

The game is rigged, but you can't win if you don't play.

cannabis, how did they find that tunnel..Not very obvious, the energy got them again. You would think that a smart grower would use a solar energy setup...

Electrical company employees stumbled onto an illegal tapping on the power. They followed it to the house.

This is how many growers get caught. (And why I dont grow.)

mock-if a market maker can't short, there will be no shorting of a stock, naked or not. Not letting them short puts you in a catch 22.
Uncle Ar | 07.18.08 - 1:43 pm | #


but not just short...but naked short.

the protected can naked short all others, but the stock of the "protected" can not be shorted, naked by any!!!

what is that

FT.com / Markets - SEC to grant some leniency on short sales

What is amazing is that we have a system in place to bail out crooks on wall street and rewrd them with unlimited funds, and then offer them more access to more corruption, yet you bring up the notion of pot, and a lot of people freak out and think oh my God, law breakers, evil people, etc...

I mean really, if a person wants to grow pot, how much damage to society will be incurred when contrasted to the subprime collusion and corruption of The Bush era, where thousands of lives have been destroyed and trillions wasted -- yet, our government focuses in on the pot grower enemy on one hand, while ignoring white collar accounting fraud which is beyond the chaos stages and resulting in a systemic failure of this country. Our priorities are distorted and instead of working on fuel cells and ideas for the future, we have a bunch of zealot brats destroying the world and chasing after the hippies they have hated since high school!!

Read the horror of the mellow previously mentioned:
68,000 pot plants found in Los Padres forest » Ventura County Star

Luv it the spokesperson is Ms. Good.

mock-the most troubling thing to me is that,as usual, you have to go to a foreign source to get information like this. and on a side note, why are the brits always the first source- do the CNBC folks (and the rest) not have good sources?

if a person wants to grow pot, how much damage to society will be incurred

there were some potheads who last Friday night at 1:00AM hopped the fence and started partying in our complex's pool. If they had been quiet I'd have ignored them but with all the laughing and jumping into the pool I had to call the security company . . . who called the police, who gave them a warning about the pot & to not come back here.

Fire in the hold!

By REUTERS
Published: July 18, 2008
Filed at 1:32 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Friday approved Freddie Mac's application to register its stock with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, clearing the way for the troubled mortgage finance company to raise fresh capital.

In an unusual move, the SEC issued a statement that declared Freddie's registration effective. Freddie has promised to raise $5.5 billion but only after registering with the SEC.

Market makers get a blanket exemption from the new SEC rule, i.e., the exemption doesn't just cover the "listed."
Correct?

LOVE the cartoon additions! I hope your new guy will consider a 'mortgage pic' strip...

I mean really, if a person wants to grow pot, how much damage to society will be incurred when contrasted to

Situational ethics.

Pot is illegal. End of story.

  1. Fire in the hold! Use Preperation H
  2. Troy, just get naked and go party
  3. ou cant trade brokerage, bank, GSE stocks for more or less that 1% of its 129 day moving average price.

    Yes there is a correlation there that will be exploited and whenever these morons change rules and distort free mkts, they wind up looking stupid!

"Pot is illegal. End of story."

Just like alcohol was illegal, end of story? Slavery is legal, end of story?

I love this:

"Based in South Bend, Ind., Providence bills itself as a faith-based lender"

-- they're all faith based lenders now.

Damn, lots o' traffic again today. Someone up there metioned making ethanol out of cannabis. Booze made from pot? Damn that stuff is versatile. I'd try some pot-booze.

Cheers,

Pot is illegal. End of story

So is accounting fraud and being a corporation that provides false and misleading information, but our law enforcers, our deciders have taken a stance that illegal activity is not an issue on wall street, but oh my god, pot is bad!

"cratchy writes:
"Pot is illegal. End of story."

Just like alcohol was illegal, end of story? Slavery is legal, end of story?
Scratchy | 07.18.08 - 2:03 pm | # "

He likes it simple.

"Legal" and "illegal," coming from our current crop of legislators, seems largely a creature of sufficient or insufficient campaign contributions.

I would like it to be known by any regulators monitoring this board that I do NOT grow cannabis. Thank you for updating your records.

mock turtle,

I read it the way you see it. FWIW.

Cheers,

It is alleged that Ms McCain has been preserved in oil, in addition to the suspicion that she is a vampire. Has anyone else heard that?

All right, mock turtle, you are wrong.

The snippet you posted says only the market-makers in those 19 stocks are exempt from the new regulation SHO banning naked short-selling of those stocks, not anyone else who wants to naked-short-sell those 19 issues.

Also, anyone can still naked-short-sell any other stock not on the list of 19, anyway.

That is funny, rich. You used "regulators" in the old fashioned sense. On this board no less.

good stuff.

mock-here is some commentary from the following link:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/07/selective-enforcement-of-regulation-sho.html

Naked short selling is not necessarily a violation of the federal securities laws or the Commission's rules. Indeed, in certain circumstances, naked short selling contributes to market liquidity. For example, broker-dealers that make a market in a security4 generally stand ready to buy and sell the security on a regular and continuous basis at a publicly quoted price, even when there are no other buyers or sellers. Thus, market makers must sell a security to a buyer even when there are temporary shortages of that security available in the market. This may occur, for example, if there is a sudden surge in buying interest in that security, or if few investors are selling the security at that time. Because it may take a market maker considerable time to purchase or arrange to borrow the security, a market maker engaged in bona fide market making, particularly in a fast-moving market, may need to sell the security short without having arranged to borrow shares.

Re: Thank you for updating your records.

CR, can we delete this thread now?

HTF did pot hijack this thread?

Focus people!

HTF did pot hijack this thread?

Focus people!

There's a certain irony here...

The cartoon focuses on growing cash crops where SFRs were supposed to be used for housing. There is no thread drift nevermind hijacking.

The DEA has all our names by now, too late to close the thread.

My beef with the original post is that CR is not commenting on the radical difference "this time." No long tail, not even symmetrical reversion instead we are seeing what might be an acceleration to the downside. This makes all past comparisons inoperative.

but El Cliffo

the exception applies to the market makers and they ARE the primary broker dealers...

it appears to me that 14 of the 19 firms that are protected from snaked short sales, are IBs that own the primary dealers!!!!

its a regulatory circle jerk

v=d/(r-g): are you a business broker?

Mock turtle-

I am not yet 100% positive, but it appears that a market-maker can naked-short only his own stock ... in other workds, you can naked-short yourself, if need be, but not someone else on the list.
As Uncle Ar quotes above, the market-maker may need to sell stock before he acquires it, which is technically both shorting and making a market.
Thus the new rule threatened to choke the market-makers on the floor, a classic unintended consequence.

However, the new rule and the myriad soon to be enacted exceptions are products of the government, so I reserve the right to flip-flop on this opinion if I turn out to be wrong, or if the things are poorly written or enforced, or if it is politically advantageous!

mock turtle, the designated "primary dealers" (in Treasury securities) are different from the "broker-dealer" firms (market-makers in stocks) on the floor of the NYSE.

"HTF did pot hijack this thread?
Focus people!"

Dude.... wait, what?

Re: v=d/(r-g): are you a business broker?

Not really, just sensitive to it...

Developer loses on Lake Las Vegas gamble
Developer loses on Lake Las Vegas gamble (Dealscape - Bankruptcy)

The debtor is Lake at Las Vegas Joint Venture LLC, a 3,592-acre resort community where houses are selling for upwards of $10 million apiece. Who can afford this? After all, there are just so many wealthy people in the world. And now there's a lot less of them than a year ago. So if you want to gamble, Las Vegas is still the place to go. These developers certainly did. But right now, they're losing big.

"I suspect that your berg is worse off than it was before the madness started. It had a lot more industry then. Remember when they made stuff on the Westside?

I do remember, and it is worse off. I work on the West Side (Santa Cruz), and I just stood up in my cube to look at the old Lipton plant. The old TI chip fab down the street is empty except for the office block (occupied by UC admin offices, and the old Wrigley factory is mostly vacant except for storage, a server farm, and random offices.

"Oh, well I guess you don't really NEED a middle class.""

Not when you've got a pliable underclass, you don't.

prices were still being proped up in LA during the last bottom (95-97) as there were still neg-am & interst only loan products. I had one! a Neg-Am with a minimal credit history but ok credit score and low paying job (was still finishing up college) this time around seems like those loans are gone for good.

Oranges don't grow in Southern California anymore due to the smog. I know, my great-grandfather grew oranges there before his kids sold out to developers because the replacement crop, lemons aren't as lucrative as oranges.

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