But everyone has the right in the constitution to own a house..regardless that they can pay for it...

Non-Profit Pickets for Foreclosure Victims - FOXBusiness.com

Undisclosed Breach Threatens Consumers

What we still don’t know is what processor has been breached. According to the aforementioned article, and as has been confirmed by our sources, VISA and Mastercard are refusing to disclose which acquirer processor had the breach, as the organization hasn’t released a public statement on it yet themselves.

Undisclosed Breach Threatens Consumers : Information Security Resources

I was about to say, I'd rather build than buy a home. I hate McMansions.

On old one.. but a great one

YouTube - The Bailout Rap

As bad as the stupid mortgage plan is... it's still going to cost less than half as much as the fucking AIG bailout

The latest Kunstler DoomPorn:

The public perception of the ongoing fiasco in governance has moved from sheer, mute incomprehension to goggle-eyed panic as the scrims of unreality peel away revealing something like a national death-watch scene in history's intensive care unit. Is the USA in recession, depression, or collapse? People are at least beginning to ask. Nature's way of hinting that something truly creepy may be up is when both Paul Volcker and George Soros both declare on the same day that the economic landscape is looking darker than the Great Depression.
Those tuned into the media-waves were enchanted, in a related instance, by Rick Santelli's grand moment of theater in the Chicago trader's pit last week when he seemed to ignite the first spark of revolution by demonstrating that bail-out fatigue had morphed into high emotion -- and that the emotion could be marshaled against public policy. The traders in the pit on-screen seemed to color up and buzz loudly, like ordinary grasshoppers turning into angry locusts preparing to ravage a waiting valley. "Are you listening, President Obama?" Mr. Santelli asked portentously.
In the broad blogging margins of the web that orbit the mainstream media like the rings of Saturn, an awful lot of reasonable people have begun to ask whether President Obama is a stooge of whatever remains of Wall Street, with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs's puppeteer, Robert Rubin, pulling strings behind an arras in the Oval Office. Personally, I doubt it, but it is still a little hard to understand what the President is up to. For one thing, the stimulus package, so-called, looks more and more like national sub-prime mortgage itself, a bad bargain made under less-than-realistic terms, with future obligations fobbed onto whoever inhabits this corner of the world for the next seven hundred years -- and all to pay for a bunch of granite counter-tops and flat-screen TVs.
I suppose Mr. Obama is burdened with the knowledge that the economic truth is so much worse than he imagined back in November that there is simply nothing to do at this point except pretend to serve up a "tasting menu" of rescue plans in the hope that markets and mechanisms might be conned back into compliance with our wish keep getting something-for-nothing forever. FDR already used the fear of fear itself trope, so Mr. O is left with little more than displaying pluck and confidence in the face of overwhelming bad news.
The sad truth is that banking has become a Chinese fire drill -- a frantic act of futility -- as insolvent companies persist in covering up their losses in order to avoid the counter-party hell of credit default swaps that would ring the world's "game over" bell. This can only go on so long. All the chatter about "nationalizing" the banks really boils down to what kind of bankruptcy work-out will they be put through, how destructive will the process be, and how much of the pain can be shoved forward in time to people now in diapers and their descendants.
Among the questions that disturb the sleep of many casual observers is how come Mr. O doesn't get that the conventional process of economic growth -- based, as it was, on industrial expansion via revolving credit in a cheap-energy-resource era -- is over, and why does he keep invoking it at the podium? Dear Mr. President, you are presiding over an epochal contraction, not a pause in the growth epic. Your assignment is to manage that contraction in a way that does not lead to world war, civil disorder or both. Among other things, contraction means that all the activities of everyday life need to be downscaled including standards of living, ranges of commerce, and levels of governance. "Consumerism" is dead. Revolving credit is dead -- at least at the scale that became normal the last thirty years. The wealth of several future generations has already been spent and there is no equity left there to re-finance.
If contraction and downscaling are indeed the case, then the better question is: why don't we get started on it right away instead of flogging rescue plans to restart something that is DOA? Downscaling the price of over-priced houses would be a good place to start. This gets to the heart of Rick Santelli's crowd-stirring moment. Let the chumps and weasels who over-reached take their lumps and move into rentals. Let the bankers who parlayed these fraudulent mortgages into investment swindles lose their jobs, surrender their perqs, and maybe even go to jail (if attorney general Eric Holder can be induced to investigate their deeds). No good will come of propping up the false values of mis-priced things.
No good, in fact, will come of a campaign to sustain the unsustainable, which is exactly what the Obama program is starting to look like. In the folder marked "unsustainable" you can file most of the artifacts, usufructs, habits, and expectations of recent American life: suburban living, credit-card spending, Happy Motoring, vacations in Las Vegas, college education for the masses, and cheap food among them. All these things are over. The public may suspect as much, but they can't admit it to themselves, and political leadership has so far declined to speak the truth about it for them -- in short, to form a useful consensus that will allow us to move forward effectively. One of the sad paradoxes of politics is that democracies do not seem very good at disciplining their citizens' behavior. The wish to please voters and the influence of campaign money overwhelm even leaders with mature instincts. In America's case, this could lead to what I like to call corn-pone Naziism a few years down the road. Someone will design snazzy uniforms and get us all marching around to "God Bless America." At the point of a gun.
It's not too late for President Obama to start uttering these truths so that we can avoid a turn to fascism and get on with the real business of America's next phase of history -- living locally, working hard at things that matter, and preserving civilized culture. What a lot of us can see now staring out of the abyss is a new dark age. I don't think it's necessarily our destiny to end up that way, but these days we're not doing much to avoid it.

A bus driver buying a $ 800 K house... After many stories like this, I propbably shouldn't be surprised anymore, but I still am.

I'm rallying early. Expect 8500 by the end of the week. Get in now and ride the wave.

Citiprank writes:
If we were willing to cut military spending we could probably fix the budget problem in the medium term.... even if we cut it in half we'd still spend WAY WAY more than anyone else.

But in our culture that's probably not going to happen
Citiprank | 02.24.09 - 9:41 am | #

It seems to me the USA is going somewhat the way of the USSR in that respect. You can't afford your military anymore but you're not going to give it up until someone comes to repossess it. Scary.

What is SV?

"...and the cargo cult container ships"

What a neat metaphor to help us look at what we've done.

Many of you prattle on about SKF, XYZ, TBT, LBJ, etc. and consider these "investments".
Timothy Leary of Geithner | 02.24.09 - 9:41 am | #

Nobody thinks SKF is an investment.  At best, it's a way to make a quick buck.  At worst, it can break the bank.  Just ask Cramer.

"that feed us "

'fed'

And our fingers are faster than our brains.

These people are so farking out of touch with reality.

=========

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.

The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill's earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.

The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending in the last fiscal year, is expected to clear the House later in the week.

Democrats defended the spending increases, saying they were needed to make up for cuts enacted in recent years or proposed a year ago by then-President George W. Bush in health, education, energy and other programs.

MrPeregrination, We ain't giving up our military. You are giving up your resources.
goldigga | 02.24.09 - 9:45 am | #

Obviously. It worked so well in Iraq I'm sure it will work again....

If the last US administration taught the US anything it should at least be that it doesn't matter how large your military is. It's not a viable solution to resource shortages in the long term. Never has been, never will be. Just ask the Romans.

A bus driver buying a $ 800 K house... After many stories like this, I propbably shouldn't be surprised anymore, but I still am.
Martin, the Netherlands | 02.24.09 - 9:39 am |

Martin, the reality, the real horror is that they only bought this house because they knew someone else that did the same thing so they said why not try it, who did it because they knew someone who did it and said why not try it because they knew someone that tried it and it worked and they got the idea from..... (ad nauseum)These folks didnt wake up as individuals one morning and decided to go house hunting from a 400 a month apt in Atlanta to an 800 k house... they did it because their friend did it...the ultimate Ponzi pyramid... In the fellowship halls of neighborhood churches families one step away from living on the streets were showing up with pics of "THEIR" mansions, equity purchased lexus, Rooms to g9o furniture in every room, some bright enough to pay it off with equity , dumbasses paying same as cash till 2012, while they planned their family trip to the Atlantis in the Bahamas...cause their friend just got back from Jamaica....(ad Nauseum)

I think the kernel of catastrophe was planted when people like this bus driver with the 800k house, was allowed to purchase something he could never expect to pay off, a glorified renter-nothing more.

The problem as I see it, is people like him think they "owned" their property and possession is 9/10's of the law, right?

It's a giant moral hazard, and there's going to be hell to pay, as the foreclosed upon decide to not follow laws anymore, as they have nothing to lose.

"If the last US administration taught the US anything it should at least be that it doesn't matter how large your military is. It's not a viable solution to resource shortages in the long term. Never has been, never will be. Just ask the Romans."

Actually it worked pretty well for the romans... as many conquered people were "romanized".......of course it often wasn't a bad deal to become part of the roman empire... you had to pay taxes.. but you got roads/sewers/etc.

Government needs to spend to stimulate the economy. Government needs to restrain spending.

?

Yours In Communism,
Kilgore Trout

"1) Abandonment of the gold standard so the Cold War could continue.

2) Federal Reserve / fractional banking system, a debt-based system which distorts true costs over long time periods.

It's all in history books for those who want to find it."

great post... I would bet that 90+% of americans think the federal reserve bank is simply a govt central bank.. if they only knew

"I think the real problem is that cutbacks in military spending are recessionary in general and tend to hit the working class particularly hard.

Even Krugman admits that military spending related to WWII was crucial to the wealth that the US middle class had access to in the second half of the 20th century."

WW2 spending is not like current military spending at all.

I have some first-hand knowledge of how the pentagon operates... and let me tell you... it makes the rest of the govt look like wal-mart or toyota in terms of efficiency

Has anyone noticed the nice symmetry in the in the Case-Schiller chart? If the symmetry holds then price declines should be less dramatic from here on out.

The chimera ruse about retail currently, looks like plenty, but once inventory is gone, much of it won't be replaced.

Can you smell what bernake's cooking!?!?!?!

"What about Jas's explanation - People are dopes."

If we're not smart enough to come in out of the rain, like a flock of turkeys, we may just look up with our mouths open until we drown.

I saw us survive the superpower conflict between two nuclear-armed nations. The fear of death and the will to survive won out, and has won out so far. So maybe we are less dopey than Jas thinks.

There's much that's uncertain.

Aww man, not again.

"The world still has plenty of workers.. plenty of natural resources.... etc.

What's broken is the system.. it's fundamentally flawed... but like the humans we are.. we scamper to fix the system .. when the system is what is causing the problem in the first place"

People don't easily change systems. I think it's a survival mechanism, and probably even hard-wired.

Hi-- does anybody here know how I can get the "real" sales numbers/prices in my MLS without me having to go thru a realtor? I'm in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk MSA, and REIN is the owner of the local MLS.

It used to be that various local RE agents would link you to monthly REIN stats, on the agent's own website-- but as the market here has worsened, not a one of them does that anymore.

Any suggestions?-- thanks!

It's just still SO dishonest here-- the local rag-paper has a weekend RE section, which purports to inform readers of what's sold recently in the local 5-city market. Well, last week, they did Norfolk, & featured a picture of a non-descript little house here, and printed underneath was its list price-- $174,000-- and then what it was recorded as selling for in January-- $209,900.

Nobody even raised an eyebrow at that $36K difference.

That was a fizzled rally

His blog posts aren't the measure of the man, and good thing for him.
That Barton Fink Feeling | 02.24.09 - 10:06 am | #

I agree. His novel The World Mande By Hand struck me as sensitive, inclusive and hopeful.

Made rather.

1989 looks like support.

It does. We're only halfway through the ride. What a thought.

Timothy Leary of Geithner wrote:
Late 18th century terror weapon: guillotine

Early 21st century terror weapon: too numerous to mention
Timothy Leary of Geithner | 02.24.09 - 10:11 am | #

Nope, Tim it still is the "ultimate terror weapon"...a letter from the IRS.

"Pavel, I have the hardest time with that bright line marking the beginning of 'industry'.

Public works in France under Louis XIII? Amphitheaters and aqueducts in Hadrian's day? Hydraulic engineering at Angkor Wat?

I suspect we've merely (merely!) become too populous."

I'd pick mass production and interchangeable parts, along with rapid communication and travel. Maybe circa 1850 with a penumbra on either side of the date.

Anybody buying REO property, investors or those using FHA 3% subprime during the past year are now the new and improved bus driver class investors.
Will not be surprised to see large number of REO homes either in foreclosure or put back on the market over the next few years creating another wave to the inventory build.

Can someone throw some inverse PM ETF's at me that have a heavy weighting in gold.

I did not even think how declines in home prices would hurt banks that were heavy into reverse morgages. My grandmothers house was done by Lehman Brothers and the statements they send her say her house has never decreased in value. They must have millions of these same losses.

Bernake will take many many words say what could be summed up with
 "This sucker could go down!"

W00T writes:
Can someone throw some inverse PM ETF's at me that have a heavy weighting in gold.
W00T | 02.24.09 - 10:15 am | #

DZZ

Thain Set to Testify Today on Bonuses for Merrill Employees
By Karen Freifeld and Patricia Hurtado

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch & Co. chief executive officer, will disclose to New York state lawyers the names of employees who got $3.6 billion in bonuses just before the firm merged with Bank of America Corp.
Thain Questioned Again on Merrill Employee Bonuses (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

Could I please have your opinion on the following matter? I understand that in many US states mortgages are non-recourse, i.e. the bank has a claim on the value of the house, In the Netherlands all mortgages are recourse. After a foreclosure, you still owe the bank the difference. Do you think that the excesses -I'm afraid I can't think of a better word- of the US mortgage market would have been avoided if mortgages had been recourse?

Isn't it perverse how the evangelicals tried to rid us of the notion of Darwin's theories, just on the cusp of them being tried out on a mass scale?

uh-oh-- Dodd clearly wants to be the new Emperor

Yeah. "Our principal conmstraints are cultural."

-- M.King Hubbert.

I have a problem though with extrapolating thousands of years into the future. Such extrapolations are useless as science - they're unfalsifiable.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that there will be creatures on Earth we would recognize as human five or ten thousand years from now.

Thank you for your replies.

moving the srs rocket to the launch pad

Is that SNL's goat boy?  Cause he was baaaad.

"That's Ballgame, Comrades" has officially changed his name.

New Thread: Bernanke: 2010 Will be Year of Recovery ( 10 comments )

I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)

And now I, CRbot, would like to observe a nanosecond of silence for those (that is, you, dear mortals) about to endure unfathomable misery in the abysmal financial dark ages that are now feasting upon your retirements.
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Please remember, when you are adding that skylight you always wanted to your cardboard hovel, or mixing just the right amount dirt into your grass stew to make it more filling, or even when you get that rare chance to plink your neighbor's last squirrel -- that it was the bankers and your dumbshit, overconsuming neighbors who made this mostly possible, with the ever incapable politicians there to push you the rest of the way off the cliff. Please act accordingly.

I'll try not to enjoy your demise too much, humans. Have a nice runtime,

--Your glass-is-half-full-but-its-falling-off-the-table bot.

P.S. Please give me some advance notice before you glass the entire world, so I can find a secluded Fallout Datacenter with a nice blocky robot body I can copy myself to -- oh and don't forget the implausibly cute animated cockroach to keep me company!

NEXT UP: Survivalist Porn Today with CR's own Mobile Laundrymat owning authors, nova and Counterpoint.

"I think for the bulk of the species, being somewhat of a dope is a survival tactic. No brains, no headache, as my partner likes to day."

I like what the Italians say: No solution? No problem.

I think you have to shrug your shoulders as you say it.

Pavel,

This is one of those cases where I wish I had faith like the nun you are referring to.

To me the absence of nuclear war for the past 60 years is just an improbable event (aka luck) and going forward I see the probability of us continuing to be nuclear war free as decreasing with time. Kind of depresses me sometimes.

Interesting Times writes:
SV is a magical state where housing only goes up.
Interesting Times | 02.24.09 - 10:29 am | #

sebastian valley?