Continuing conversation from last thread about the impact of the Dow on the mindfield of the hoi ploy...
I think they view it in the same way one would follow a professional sporting team, with a similar melancholy that comes with watching a substantial lengthy losing streak, knowing that your team is 37 games out with 36 to play.
How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income.
"mandatory meditation"
I guess we now have navel contemplation as an official answer to the housing crisis. Probably a step up from the previous system of mandatory mendication.
There's one thing I don't see discussed regarding the Fed's strategy to prop up housing. They are improving the affordability metric by holding rates down, allowing FHA with 3% down with a jumbo cap of $713k (or thereabouts?). But eventually rates will be much higher. Those who bought now, if they need to sell into a high-rate environment later, will likely find the buyers will be offering less since they will be putting more of their monthly finance payments towards interest.
The old maxim was always 'buy when rates are high, and then refi when rates drop.'
Eventual inflation will be seen in prices of some goods first, before it comes through to incomes. Global labor arbitrage will continue until or unless the dollar gets dropped significantly against other currencies.
The market seems to be more cognizant of long-term inflation issues, though I suspect that is for the 'trade of the day' and it will be reversed and/or forgotten once the current positions are sold.
Can't elaborate much as it is just starting on June 1, I believe. I have filed motions for mediation in the
cases I have filed quite a while ago. In Dade, the lenders are having to pay the cost of mediation with
filing fees up to over 1K per case. If the people have vanished, I believe they get 350 back. My impression is
they have rushed to file to get under the deadline.
Liz, from last thread. The 30 yr is up only slightly today (4.40 now). But it keeps moving north. And now the 10 yr is also up a tad.
I read the article someone posted last night with an interview with Dallas Fed President Fisher. He spent a lot of time on his recent trip to Asia. The only thing the Chinese and Japanese kept asking him was if the US was going to monetize our profligate spending. Ben is playing a very dangerous game right now and the guys who have been financing our economy are paying keen attention.
Lowest Libor Hides ‘Exceptionally Wide’ Bank Spreads
"The drop in the London interbank offered rate, the benchmark for $360 trillion of financial products, to a record low masks a growing gap between the rates that the biggest banks charge each other for credit."
In the near term the deflation beast has been let loose, but the obvious longer term consequence is not if they monetize the debt but when, and when is unlikely to be at a time and place of our choosing.
Chainsaw (profile) wrote on Tue, 5/26/2009 - 8:33 am
Dawg, reference for income gains?
Just math. 3.5 million who were earning the median going to 20% of the median (unemployment). In order for the universe of all housholds to hold a steady median is if the rest see significant gains.
Dawg-"How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income."
Or that unemployment benefits pay the recipients as much as their jobs once did....
Benjamins Bernanke is doing just what his Weimar Hyperinflation counterpart Dr. Rudolf Havenstein was doing, the difference being that Rudy had no alternative other than to print ever larger amounts of paper money, whereas Benjamins can hide it all digitally, and only members of the mouse clicque benefit from his hunks of Gouda.
From the Price to rent ratio it is clear that rent has to come down more.
I have a friend renting in Palo Alto at nearly $5K per month. His lease is due and he will ask for 25% reduction or move elsewhere since there are similar homes he can rent at $3800
Consumer confidence soars... Or so that is the headline on yahoo! The market soars, too. I don't guess we're going to see a pullback from current levels. PE at 100+ makes sense to me.
"In the near term the deflation beast has been let loose, but the obvious longer term consequence is not if they monetize the debt but when, and when is unlikely to be at a time and place of our choosing."
I wrote this earlier: The Fed has already (more or less) promised to defend 4.5% yields on the 5 year by monetizing. So, theoretically, a big player could squeeze the fed by shorting treasuries and buying commodities. Fortunately for Ben, China and Japan's central bankers are currently trying to weaken their own currencies.
I think eventually, this is a self correcting problem. CA is the test case for the new austerity. Personally, I think the fed will step in at the 11th hour and bail out the state (either directly or through loan guaranties). It will be interesting to see how the populace reacts if the cuts do go through.
The continuing inventory overhang - especially considering the likely 'shadow' inventory - probably guarantees that the chart lines will overshoot.
Some areas of the country have seen increased sales as people buy the bargains. If price drops stop on a dime and reverse, those people will have some nice bargains or some opportunistic gambling wins; if the price drops overshoot, those buyers will be just another crop of sheep getting sheared. There is a lot of similarity at the moment between the housing market and stock market - they are both cutting into the casino market.
I love being a renter again.........I pay $1200/mo for a sweet place on the river, my landlords mortgage payment is $1700 ( the documents came to the house and ooops, I opened them, he had to refi and take some out for the x-wifey divorce settlement). If something goes wrong, I call and leave message, get a repairman out, pay him and attach the bill to my rent check minus the amount in rent, he loves it because I take care of his place and I love it too....a win/win!
The Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about the economy, rose to 28.9 from 25.5 last month. But the Expectations Index, which measures shoppers' outlook over the next six months, climbed to 72.3 from 51.0 in April.
The financial innovators on Wall St. are preparing a new form of indentured servitude of individuals to solve the debt trap, bankruptcy, social safety net and the minimum wage law at one stroke. Employees will become Employment Backed Collateralized Debt Obligations that will trade freely on the market. Instead of wages and social security, the EBCDO will receive lifetime tenure, housing somewhat better than a doghouse and adequate calories to prevent starvation. The EBCDO will no longer be able to vote, but the holder of the EBCDO will be able to caste a vote for 3/5th of a person. Requiring 60% of the population to wear chains while doing work will prevent revolution.
"What if they gave an inflation and nobody bought anything, 'cause their wages didn't go up."
By definition, the wages have to go up. If not, it is price increases, not true inflation. I think a lot of people who are now betting on inflation are really betting that commodities shortages will make price increases possible. Looking at it from the other direction (wages), I don't see much pricing power for employees anywhere, anytime.
This market is absolutely insane right now. Operating entirely on psychology, detached from valuation, selectively interpreting data, and awash in liquidity. How long can this go on? The outcome is certain, timing is going to be tough to predict. Has today's treasury auction already happened?
What is the "un-normalized" normal ratio for house prices to income? Ie. instead of setting 1987 = 1.0 as a base, what was the actual ratio in 1987 - 3:1 or thereabouts? Thank you.
I was in one of our National Parks over the weekend, and a lizard looked at me menacingly, and if only i'd had a 6 shooter, I would have felt much safer in the wilderness.
The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. The market wants to go up. You can taste it. Talk to any average investor and you can feel his burning desire for a rally. It is like lust. Bad news will be ignored and good news (such as it is) accentuated. It will take a dramatic trigger to bring the market back to earth.
The lizard in question had the look of a Firestone 500 tire, and was 8 inches of sheer terror, as it dropped down on a rock and gave me an exhibition of it's strength, doing 10 pushups in front of my very eyes...
I had not had to collect unemployment in years. Life had been good to me in the past few years, even when it seemed like everyone I knew had been let go. When the President ordered a mandatory 20% cut of all Federal employees I never imagined I would be one of them. It hurt worse than my divorce in 2010 after she ran off with a kid 20 years younger who was building in a bunker in Eastern Pennsylvania. Thank God we did not have any kids. It was a friendly divorce, and we split everything 50-50 with the exception of the house which she just gave to me. No big favor there. I ended up losing it a year later anyways.
Becoming homeless was beginning to look like a real possibility and it scared the crap out of me. I was not a young man. I was used to my creature comforts. The problem was I had next to nothing in savings and I was not old enough to access my retirement account. As usual my timing sucked. All retirement accounts had been frozen – meaning no withdrawals were allowed until you turned 65. The country needed the money more than I did.
I thought you could sign up for unemployment online but you could only do the pre-collection submission online. If that was approved you had to show up in person for urinalysis testing an orientation. “Dirty pee means you go hungry!” was one of the many new slogans. Much to my surprise nicotine in the sample would also disqualify you. No wonder the few people I knew after the divorce had disappeared after being laid off. I mean some of them called, but I figured they just wanted money and I never called back.
My orientation went rather smoothly I thought. Just when I thought it was over, I, and about 12 other people were told to report to Room 12a for an additional briefing. Here a perky white women in her 60’s with a nametag that had “Tiffany” written in big block letters told us all to sit down. She let us know that the state had identified us as “At Risk Seniors for Homelessness” and as such we qualified for priority tent placement. She made it seem like we were very special people because as she told us “With a tent nowadays – it is all Location! Location! Location! “ She must have liked saying that because she must have said it four times before we were cut loose.
It was really a sales pitch. We would get priority placement in a tent village with some amenities like Dons Johns and a community water outlet if we agreed to accept less money in our monthly stipend. Also, if we agreed before leaving, the corporate sponsor of the program would give us a meal book, normally worth $30.00 for $10.00 if we signed up for their special “McMeal Program.” All of this would be automatically subtracted from our stipend each month. Everyone of us signed up for it. I could not afford a single tent, instead I went with the 4 people model. I was excited – maybe I would make new friends.
It just seems obvious to me that we're close to some events that can't be ignored. Impending GM bankruptcy, California fiscal crisis, impending troubles in the muni funding arena, CRE, continued home price declines, default rates skying, bond market dislocation....
Eventually one of these things is going to cause some serious pain. But what do I know?
Neither am I. I just wish this rally was based on more than wishful thinking and government intervention that will probably be unwound incompetently and at the most inopportune time.
I looked down in abject horror-just 5 feet and 11 inches below me, as a miniature dinosaur had designs on me- but thank goodness the NRA won the fight, and I was packing an AR15, and was able to to sweep it off the rock with just gentle muzzle pressure...
I don't think this gets a single-variable trigger, but it all sort of hits at the same time. Munis, bonds, unemployment, price declines, treasuries get blown up.
Dawg says: How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income.
This makes me scratch my head too. Is the census excluding the unemployed from the survey?
My peers (perky young professional types) ask me why I am so pessimistic. Here's why. 8 years of military service (enlisted and officer) breeds a hard, flinty cynicism, especially towards government. I have ordered far too many $7 dollar washers to believe that government is either efficient or smart. Sure, if you throw enough money at the problem, government can accomplish some tasks well. Unfortunately, most of those tasks involve killing or maiming people. As for the other stuff, not so much.
When I see the government take major ownership stakes in industry leading corporations (AIG, GM, Fannie Mae, etc) and start to micromanage HUGE sectors of the economy, I get very queasy. I don't trust bankers. but I trust bureaucrats even less. Especially the higher ups who, like many flag officers, are just politicians without the accountability of periodic elections. Unless the fundamental structure of government has changed in the past few months (and it hasn't), I think this crap will fail spectacularly in the long term. But then again, I have been wrong before.
Neither am I. I just wish this rally was based on more than wishful thinking and government intervention that will probably be unwound incompetently and at the most inopportune time."
I hear you.
I'm probably a lot older than most of the people here, and probably have different goals.
It bore much resemblance to a T Rex, and I knew it was a cold-blooded killer of insects, and was I really so far up the food chain, I kept asking myself?
"It just seems obvious to me that we're close to some events that can't be ignored. Impending GM bankruptcy, California fiscal crisis, impending troubles in the muni funding arena, CRE, continued home price declines, default rates skying, bond market dislocation....
Eventually one of these things is going to cause some serious pain. But what do I know?"
They may. But an economy this size has tremendous resilience by virtue of mass and inertia. Meanwhile, it's possible to minimize risk.
interesting possisble future. I wonder about all of the athletics and organized sports events culturally prevalent around us. Just replace the term "team" with "militia" and you pretty much get an alternative scenario--perhaps one where we wish for resettlement in the midst of waring enclaved burbs.
So, we WOULD be near bottom except for the huge oversupply of housing that got added to the mix during the bubble years. Sounds about right. ISTR that's what we were syaing here YEARS ago. Prices would lower to reasonable Price/Ratios, but that rents would be falling too... But because people's leases are up annualy, and they don't have to pay a realtor to move, the rental market adjusts more quickly to supply/demand than the purchase market.
Jeez Dawg, JP etc, it is just that they are only planning for poor people to lose their jobs.
Review of "median" - it is the middle value. Suppose the median is $30000. If the bottom 49% of people (all earning less than $30000) all lose their incomes completely and the top 51% don't change, the median is still $30000. Half of people earn less than $30000 and half earn more. What would change is the mean.
So it is just that the good folks at ____ (insert here) think that only people in the bottom 50% of the income distribution will be laid off.
! Hah.
Does anyone know if the Case Shiller rollercoaster been updated. It had just started to go down in the version I have.
?
this is just the beginning of inflating our way out of the debt trap, right?
All makes sense to me...
Did you look at the charts upside down Elmer?
Comrade Elmer, that seems to be the only way possible to stave off collapse, but I just don't see how wages rise correspondingly. Hence, stagflation.
A look at the Federal Balance sheet
Zero Hedge: A Look At The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet
WARNING! read first then eat.
Continuing conversation from last thread about the impact of the Dow on the mindfield of the hoi ploy...
I think they view it in the same way one would follow a professional sporting team, with a similar melancholy that comes with watching a substantial lengthy losing streak, knowing that your team is 37 games out with 36 to play.
The local fishwrap had an article about the mandatory mediation required by Brevard county now.
2 fully settled, 3 no go, 38 postponed, 5 the lender or borrower didn't show up. Judges find lenders
hard to get hold of too.
Started a couple of months ago.
Miami-Dade starting mandatory mediation also.
How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income.
If only the 4th Estate had been more forthright when writing, perhaps they wouldn't be @ debt's door?
Miami-Dade starting mandatory mediation also.
Can you elaborate? On foreclosures? Wow...I can only imagine the mosquito messes now...
shill,
Just as a reminder, the total foreign central bank holdings of Treasuries and Agencies of $2.7 trillion.
Very soon America's largest creditor will be... America.
Too funny and too scary at the same time!
"mandatory meditation"
I guess we now have navel contemplation as an official answer to the housing crisis. Probably a step up from the previous system of mandatory mendication.
Look at the market go! We want a rally SOOOOOOO bad.
Ignoring the first chart, because OER is a garbage stat, the second chart does not look to be showing a bottoming process.
Despite what economists are saying, we may "overshoot" rather than "goldilocks" the trend.
There's one thing I don't see discussed regarding the Fed's strategy to prop up housing. They are improving the affordability metric by holding rates down, allowing FHA with 3% down with a jumbo cap of $713k (or thereabouts?). But eventually rates will be much higher. Those who bought now, if they need to sell into a high-rate environment later, will likely find the buyers will be offering less since they will be putting more of their monthly finance payments towards interest.
The old maxim was always 'buy when rates are high, and then refi when rates drop.'
Eventual inflation will be seen in prices of some goods first, before it comes through to incomes. Global labor arbitrage will continue until or unless the dollar gets dropped significantly against other currencies.
The market seems to be more cognizant of long-term inflation issues, though I suspect that is for the 'trade of the day' and it will be reversed and/or forgotten once the current positions are sold.
Liz - NM, I should have read more carefully
$4 an hour de facto minimum wage is what is coming next. ..
Simple supply vs. demand rules apply.
You want to ease the hoi ploy into the 2nd world, and you can get there from here.
Can't elaborate much as it is just starting on June 1, I believe. I have filed motions for mediation in the
cases I have filed quite a while ago. In Dade, the lenders are having to pay the cost of mediation with
filing fees up to over 1K per case. If the people have vanished, I believe they get 350 back. My impression is
they have rushed to file to get under the deadline.
Oops, mediation!!!
Some mandatory meditation would be good too.
Dawg, reference for income gains?
Liz, from last thread. The 30 yr is up only slightly today (4.40 now). But it keeps moving north. And now the 10 yr is also up a tad.
I read the article someone posted last night with an interview with Dallas Fed President Fisher. He spent a lot of time on his recent trip to Asia. The only thing the Chinese and Japanese kept asking him was if the US was going to monetize our profligate spending. Ben is playing a very dangerous game right now and the guys who have been financing our economy are paying keen attention.
As well as mandatory medication.
Lawerliz:
Is this just another way to stall foreclosures in FL? What if the borrower just walks away?
CR
Lowest Libor Hides ‘Exceptionally Wide’ Bank Spreads
"The drop in the London interbank offered rate, the benchmark for $360 trillion of financial products, to a record low masks a growing gap between the rates that the biggest banks charge each other for credit."
Lowest Libor Hides ‘Exceptionally Wide’ Bank Spreads (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
It needs to be a whole lot higher, to encourage savers.
chainsaw,
In the near term the deflation beast has been let loose, but the obvious longer term consequence is not if they monetize the debt but when, and when is unlikely to be at a time and place of our choosing.
--bh
just snarking a bit
"As well as mandatory medication."
Mendacation is optional, but already common practice, I'm sure.
From the ZH link above on the Fed Balance sheet...
Very soon America's largest creditor will be... America.
And that's a problem, right??
Nothing. Bank gets 350 back from filing fee. Rest of the foreclosure is the same. No obligation on
borrowers to mediate, only lenders.
Bank has to try to find defendants anyway. For adequate service of process.
OT- I think Cobra Driver may appreciate this one.
Someone in O'brien Florida selling land in trade for silver bullion on Craigslist
craigslist | Page Not Found
I doubt they will lower minimum wage. The Black Market labor pool will grow first.
What if they gave an inflation and nobody bought anything, 'cause their wages didn't go up.
Chainsaw (profile) wrote on Tue, 5/26/2009 - 8:33 am
Dawg, reference for income gains?
Just math. 3.5 million who were earning the median going to 20% of the median (unemployment). In order for the universe of all housholds to hold a steady median is if the rest see significant gains.
Dawg-"How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income."
Or that unemployment benefits pay the recipients as much as their jobs once did....
KRUGMAN! ATTENTION!
Back away from all of that hotel food.
Conjure says, "It's for your own good."
Benjamins Bernanke is doing just what his Weimar Hyperinflation counterpart Dr. Rudolf Havenstein was doing, the difference being that Rudy had no alternative other than to print ever larger amounts of paper money, whereas Benjamins can hide it all digitally, and only members of the mouse clicque benefit from his hunks of Gouda.
From the Price to rent ratio it is clear that rent has to come down more.
I have a friend renting in Palo Alto at nearly $5K per month. His lease is due and he will ask for 25% reduction or move elsewhere since there are similar homes he can rent at $3800
Consumer confidence soars... Or so that is the headline on yahoo! The market soars, too. I don't guess we're going to see a pullback from current levels. PE at 100+ makes sense to me.
mp? Confused.
"In the near term the deflation beast has been let loose, but the obvious longer term consequence is not if they monetize the debt but when, and when is unlikely to be at a time and place of our choosing."
I wrote this earlier: The Fed has already (more or less) promised to defend 4.5% yields on the 5 year by monetizing. So, theoretically, a big player could squeeze the fed by shorting treasuries and buying commodities. Fortunately for Ben, China and Japan's central bankers are currently trying to weaken their own currencies.
Interesting article from Naked Capitalism:
Are the US and UK Too Spoiled to Accept Austerity? « naked capitalism
I think eventually, this is a self correcting problem. CA is the test case for the new austerity. Personally, I think the fed will step in at the 11th hour and bail out the state (either directly or through loan guaranties). It will be interesting to see how the populace reacts if the cuts do go through.
The continuing inventory overhang - especially considering the likely 'shadow' inventory - probably guarantees that the chart lines will overshoot.
Some areas of the country have seen increased sales as people buy the bargains. If price drops stop on a dime and reverse, those people will have some nice bargains or some opportunistic gambling wins; if the price drops overshoot, those buyers will be just another crop of sheep getting sheared. There is a lot of similarity at the moment between the housing market and stock market - they are both cutting into the casino market.
We're here, we're austere, get used to it!
I love being a renter again.........I pay $1200/mo for a sweet place on the river, my landlords mortgage payment is $1700 ( the documents came to the house and ooops, I opened them, he had to refi and take some out for the x-wifey divorce settlement). If something goes wrong, I call and leave message, get a repairman out, pay him and attach the bill to my rent check minus the amount in rent, he loves it because I take care of his place and I love it too....a win/win!
[and/or rising nominal incomes]
Incomes have been, are and will contiue to decline. The benefit of global wage arbitrage and grease for the race to the bottom...
The Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about the economy, rose to 28.9 from 25.5 last month. But the Expectations Index, which measures shoppers' outlook over the next six months, climbed to 72.3 from 51.0 in April.
Amazing.
The financial innovators on Wall St. are preparing a new form of indentured servitude of individuals to solve the debt trap, bankruptcy, social safety net and the minimum wage law at one stroke. Employees will become Employment Backed Collateralized Debt Obligations that will trade freely on the market. Instead of wages and social security, the EBCDO will receive lifetime tenure, housing somewhat better than a doghouse and adequate calories to prevent starvation. The EBCDO will no longer be able to vote, but the holder of the EBCDO will be able to caste a vote for 3/5th of a person. Requiring 60% of the population to wear chains while doing work will prevent revolution.
These are the same idiots who bought overpriced houses.
they didn't ask me. . . Or thee.
"What if they gave an inflation and nobody bought anything, 'cause their wages didn't go up."
By definition, the wages have to go up. If not, it is price increases, not true inflation. I think a lot of people who are now betting on inflation are really betting that commodities shortages will make price increases possible. Looking at it from the other direction (wages), I don't see much pricing power for employees anywhere, anytime.
This market is absolutely insane right now. Operating entirely on psychology, detached from valuation, selectively interpreting data, and awash in liquidity. How long can this go on? The outcome is certain, timing is going to be tough to predict. Has today's treasury auction already happened?
Read on!
What is the "un-normalized" normal ratio for house prices to income? Ie. instead of setting 1987 = 1.0 as a base, what was the actual ratio in 1987 - 3:1 or thereabouts? Thank you.
I was in one of our National Parks over the weekend, and a lizard looked at me menacingly, and if only i'd had a 6 shooter, I would have felt much safer in the wilderness.
Gavshire Hathaway:
The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. The market wants to go up. You can taste it. Talk to any average investor and you can feel his burning desire for a rally. It is like lust. Bad news will be ignored and good news (such as it is) accentuated. It will take a dramatic trigger to bring the market back to earth.
Is that really your best sales pitch Elle?
I mean come on, sell me.
Elles--waterfront in Miami/Miami Beach has dropped like a bomb due to total complete overbuilding
of condo towers.
Juvenal--just how big was that lizard?
Easy, Rob. Once they're out on the street they're no longer a household!
Just ask yourself.... WWDLD?
there's gonna be a lot more waterfront property as the ice melts
CR,
Once again, nice work and thanks for the links.
Poor Elles, she just stepped into a meat grinder.
Uh, actually that will be LESS waterfront property Elmer.
The lizard in question had the look of a Firestone 500 tire, and was 8 inches of sheer terror, as it dropped down on a rock and gave me an exhibition of it's strength, doing 10 pushups in front of my very eyes...
"Talk to any average investor and you can feel his burning desire for a rally."
Personally, I'm not at all displeased. But then, I'm an investor, not a gambling man.
Nope, depends on the shape of the land where the water intrudes. Is it straighter or wigglier?
And when those expectations are not met...hoocoodanode?
I think the guy who posted the head-climbing ocelot has you very beat.
Sometime in the future – maybe.
I had not had to collect unemployment in years. Life had been good to me in the past few years, even when it seemed like everyone I knew had been let go. When the President ordered a mandatory 20% cut of all Federal employees I never imagined I would be one of them. It hurt worse than my divorce in 2010 after she ran off with a kid 20 years younger who was building in a bunker in Eastern Pennsylvania. Thank God we did not have any kids. It was a friendly divorce, and we split everything 50-50 with the exception of the house which she just gave to me. No big favor there. I ended up losing it a year later anyways.
Becoming homeless was beginning to look like a real possibility and it scared the crap out of me. I was not a young man. I was used to my creature comforts. The problem was I had next to nothing in savings and I was not old enough to access my retirement account. As usual my timing sucked. All retirement accounts had been frozen – meaning no withdrawals were allowed until you turned 65. The country needed the money more than I did.
I thought you could sign up for unemployment online but you could only do the pre-collection submission online. If that was approved you had to show up in person for urinalysis testing an orientation. “Dirty pee means you go hungry!” was one of the many new slogans. Much to my surprise nicotine in the sample would also disqualify you. No wonder the few people I knew after the divorce had disappeared after being laid off. I mean some of them called, but I figured they just wanted money and I never called back.
My orientation went rather smoothly I thought. Just when I thought it was over, I, and about 12 other people were told to report to Room 12a for an additional briefing. Here a perky white women in her 60’s with a nametag that had “Tiffany” written in big block letters told us all to sit down. She let us know that the state had identified us as “At Risk Seniors for Homelessness” and as such we qualified for priority tent placement. She made it seem like we were very special people because as she told us “With a tent nowadays – it is all Location! Location! Location! “ She must have liked saying that because she must have said it four times before we were cut loose.
It was really a sales pitch. We would get priority placement in a tent village with some amenities like Dons Johns and a community water outlet if we agreed to accept less money in our monthly stipend. Also, if we agreed before leaving, the corporate sponsor of the program would give us a meal book, normally worth $30.00 for $10.00 if we signed up for their special “McMeal Program.” All of this would be automatically subtracted from our stipend each month. Everyone of us signed up for it. I could not afford a single tent, instead I went with the 4 people model. I was excited – maybe I would make new friends.
It just seems obvious to me that we're close to some events that can't be ignored. Impending GM bankruptcy, California fiscal crisis, impending troubles in the muni funding arena, CRE, continued home price declines, default rates skying, bond market dislocation....
Eventually one of these things is going to cause some serious pain. But what do I know?
Pavel:
Neither am I. I just wish this rally was based on more than wishful thinking and government intervention that will probably be unwound incompetently and at the most inopportune time.
As usual, you are correct lawyerliz. And now off to work . . . .
I looked down in abject horror-just 5 feet and 11 inches below me, as a miniature dinosaur had designs on me- but thank goodness the NRA won the fight, and I was packing an AR15, and was able to to sweep it off the rock with just gentle muzzle pressure...
Juvenal,
Sounds like Jim Morrison on a binge night.....
GH,
When it rains anvils, it pours anvils.
I don't think this gets a single-variable trigger, but it all sort of hits at the same time. Munis, bonds, unemployment, price declines, treasuries get blown up.
real horror-show.
--bh
GH: get out there and pick up those nickles that are in front of the steamroller!
Well, Chrysler bankruptcy was supposed to be "the end of the world", and it wasn't
I was in a 'srhoom with a view, as the lizard king made his presence known.
"there's gonna be a lot more waterfront property as the ice melts "
"Underwater" takes on a whole new meaning
Dawg says: How in the world can the median household income go up 2% in 2008 and remain flat in 2009 when there will be 3.5 million more unemployed over that same period. The implication is that those remaining employed are seeing double digit increases in income.
This makes me scratch my head too. Is the census excluding the unemployed from the survey?
My peers (perky young professional types) ask me why I am so pessimistic. Here's why. 8 years of military service (enlisted and officer) breeds a hard, flinty cynicism, especially towards government. I have ordered far too many $7 dollar washers to believe that government is either efficient or smart. Sure, if you throw enough money at the problem, government can accomplish some tasks well. Unfortunately, most of those tasks involve killing or maiming people. As for the other stuff, not so much.
When I see the government take major ownership stakes in industry leading corporations (AIG, GM, Fannie Mae, etc) and start to micromanage HUGE sectors of the economy, I get very queasy. I don't trust bankers. but I trust bureaucrats even less. Especially the higher ups who, like many flag officers, are just politicians without the accountability of periodic elections. Unless the fundamental structure of government has changed in the past few months (and it hasn't), I think this crap will fail spectacularly in the long term. But then again, I have been wrong before.
Is the census excluding the unemployed from the survey?
Census is using GAAP: lie.
JP,
They could just be lying.
Nothing like keepin' up with the Dow Joneses
"Pavel:
Neither am I. I just wish this rally was based on more than wishful thinking and government intervention that will probably be unwound incompetently and at the most inopportune time."
I hear you.
I'm probably a lot older than most of the people here, and probably have different goals.
To be picky, lizards are not miniature dinosaurs, nor descendents of same.
Birds prolly are.
The USA is fast becoming what the Rock band The Who predicted many many moons ago...a Teenage Wasteland.
We are all a Rock 'n' Roll band now?
They could just be lying.
I don't like simple explanations. Convoluted conspiracies work much better for me.
(Besides, nobody in the gov't is that tight lipped.)
It bore much resemblance to a T Rex, and I knew it was a cold-blooded killer of insects, and was I really so far up the food chain, I kept asking myself?
[Nope, depends on the shape of the land where the water intrudes. Is it straighter or wigglier?]
Not if you look at the limits. If an unlimited amount of ice melted there would be no shoreline, atlantis.
"It just seems obvious to me that we're close to some events that can't be ignored. Impending GM bankruptcy, California fiscal crisis, impending troubles in the muni funding arena, CRE, continued home price declines, default rates skying, bond market dislocation....
Eventually one of these things is going to cause some serious pain. But what do I know?"
They may. But an economy this size has tremendous resilience by virtue of mass and inertia. Meanwhile, it's possible to minimize risk.
nova,
interesting possisble future. I wonder about all of the athletics and organized sports events culturally prevalent around us. Just replace the term "team" with "militia" and you pretty much get an alternative scenario--perhaps one where we wish for resettlement in the midst of waring enclaved burbs.
--bh
I've said it a thousand times but I'll say it again!
Inflation is not going to "solve" the housing decline. We're going to have stagflation, with high unemployment depressing home values.
So, we WOULD be near bottom except for the huge oversupply of housing that got added to the mix during the bubble years. Sounds about right. ISTR that's what we were syaing here YEARS ago. Prices would lower to reasonable Price/Ratios, but that rents would be falling too... But because people's leases are up annualy, and they don't have to pay a realtor to move, the rental market adjusts more quickly to supply/demand than the purchase market.
Jeez Dawg, JP etc, it is just that they are only planning for poor people to lose their jobs.
Review of "median" - it is the middle value. Suppose the median is $30000. If the bottom 49% of people (all earning less than $30000) all lose their incomes completely and the top 51% don't change, the median is still $30000. Half of people earn less than $30000 and half earn more. What would change is the mean.
So it is just that the good folks at ____ (insert here) think that only people in the bottom 50% of the income distribution will be laid off.
it say 96 comments. I wonder howm many of those are tears?