Well, the lessons are being learned by the people, but they don't seem
to be learned to the banks.
One of the things I have to explain that there is not "they' out there to deal
with, just an amorphous clouds; in the case of sliced and diced mtg securities
they is even less of a "they".
Nope, actually what they ought to do is the trustee introduces the pages
of the trust relevant to foreclosing, and the argument is made. I've asked
for that in the past and never got anything. Judges don't take this demand
too seriously.
I've heard a judge in Broward County grant a motion based on standing
which is more or less the same thing.
Having basically spent a lifetime looking at plots of numerical data, I'd hazard a guess that there's essentially no correlation between the red and green data series (i.e. unemployment and purchase index). CR can look at this in EXCEL with the CORREL function; note that there's going to be a margin of error of about 0.1.
Well, locally the gread 20s housing bubble is sort of a parallel for Miami, except
that it certainly wasn't everywhere.
I basically agree with you Luci, tho.
Florida was still mopping up after that for a good 20 or 25 years. Still selling tax
deeded properties that nobody wanted til ummm, late forties, 50s?
Plats were reverted to acreage. Sometimes they were replatted and a couple
of people had kept paying their taxes all those years and you'd find a hole in
the doughnut effect.
If the banks are paying out record bonuses, it stands to reason they will be reporting record profits. I assume that this is possible because market-to-market rules have been relaxed by FASB.
Next quarter, the PPIP will ensure that the toxic assets have been moved off the banks' books, allowing them to continue reporting healthy income.
Geithner is already talking about doing what it takes to restart the securitization markets (with some new protections, of course, he says).
Why does anyone think shorting the financial sector is a good plan at this point?
"Net migration is a factor. The migration into Phx Metro has been Ca people moving in for a cheaper life, lower taxes and availbility of jobs."
Josap: In the mid '70s, Phoenix had a regional RE bubble. Many of those involved were Calif. RE & mortgage brokers who made a killing in the CA market & moved to Phoenix to increase their profits. Houses were relatively cheap at that time.
You could watch the evolution of ever higher prices within a neighborhood -- in some cases houses doubling & tripling in price over a 6 mon-1 yr. period as the investors sold to one another.
In those days of plain vanilla mortgages, the owner/investor carried the paper with wraps (around FHA/VA) and 2nds (on conventional) with 2-5 years balloons. Interest rates were very high then, so if you offered the new buyer anything under 15-16%, they thought that was a good deal. We thought we'd never see mortgage interest rates below 9% again. We also thought house prices was always go up. But hey, we were in our mid-20s then.
We also bought homes in new subdivisions that doubled in price before they were built.
People made a lot of money, but the homes were spiraling up for ordinary folks.
The bubble popped and the new owners began to default, unable to come up with a refinance or pay off the 2nd. The homes came back to the original investor. In some cases, investors (most of whom were mortgage bankers, RE agents, etc.) ended up with 10-20 houses they had sold earlier. All went bankrupt and never recovered.
So, I've seen all this before...this time it was the bankers who got in over their heads. And the Californians went not only to Phoenix, but to Oregon, Washington, Las Vegas, Montana, Idaho, etc. etc.
NY City metro is really one big employment market that is starting to seriously decline.
But it is three different housing markets. You have 1) Manhattan; 2) other boroughs and near-in burbs; 3) exurbs, which I'd say starts around 25 miles out.
In housing, the exurbs fell first, then other boroughs/near-in burbs, and now Manhattan. They will probably all go the same place at the bottom, but they will bottom at different times. I'd say the best near-in burbs could start to recover in a year or two, because they offer a better quality of life than NYC at about 15-20% lower cost-of-living. This is before whatever new taxes are about to hit NYC residents.
Strangely, there still seems to be a lot of money being spent here and many people still living in the same high styles. But growing numbers of empty stores along the strips, and huge inventories of very slow-moving homes for sale. I'd say it will take at least five years to work off all the excess housing inventory in the whole metro market. At least.
Hannah faced the wrath of disappointed buyers when he listed a former $2 million model home in MiraBay, a Key West-style saltwater community in Apollo Beach. Hannah chopped the price to $1.2 million, but the house hunter offered $700,000. That didn’t even cover Hannah’s land and construction costs.”
“‘I can appreciate them being savvy buyers, but at some point reasonable is reasonable,’ the builder said.
One thing that always seem tough for builders to grasp is that their land and construction costs have very little to do with the market value of their product.
This time around, by way of contrasted with previous busts, I'd say the land and construction costs have absolutely nothing to do with the market value of their product.
They didn't mind making an 'extra' couple hundred grand per house while the bubble was inflating.
I'm in this camp and imagine many more are. It's a classic dance/trance original.
Messing around with mixing again since it seems the club scene in town is still fueled by low-wage, low-goaled junkies who spend all their available cash on such things.
Here's a chart showing the history of house prices in Phoenix going back to the '70s. I thought the wave I lived through was huge at the time, but the naughty-oughttie spike dwarfed it big-time.
... the house hunter offered $700,000. That didn’t even cover Hannah’s land and construction costs.”
How many times in the bubble did we hear the seller say the exact same thing; "the last price doesn't matter."
This time the power of information is going to transform negotiations. Everyone is going to know both sides of the table and their resources and liabilities. I see no reason to take the feelings of the seller into account unless it provides a transactional advantage. Real assets have no memory. Part of the reason this mess isn't clearing itself up is precisely because some people have been attempting to tether present valuations to past assumptions.
When elected government officials secretly collude with bankers to create a non-governmental
Federal Reserve Bank that controls the currency of the country and systematically generates
inflation to allow government to spend at an ever increasing rate.
Taxing citizens to create bureaucratic government agencies and programs that fail to
accomplish their mission while continuing to grow in size as politicians use them to reward
the contributors to their re-election campaigns.
Obammi is an empty suit, that's for sure. He will be out in 2012. Hillary & McCain were
right regarding his lack of experience and appeal to working, hard working white people.
Rents are usually not negotiated down until leases are up, so they lag deflation in assets. Not that I would have the slightest problem with a tenant using whatever legal leverage he has to renegotiate during the term. "Regulatory arbitrage", as AIG boasted. X+ months to evict, when the system is backed up, and then just declare bk.
The climate models (snark on/ if ya believe in models & I know you guys do /snark off) are showing a 7-11 degree rise in temps. If true in geological terms that's huge.
So far, the models have been wrong, showing a hike of only a few degrees (I think 3-4). I'm thinking the weather here in flyover land will be more like South Carolina. We have had a strange spring, early summer here. Lots & lots of rain, cool temps at night, humidity in the day. Feels like Houston, smells like Houston.
Swaraj Baggonkar & Rohin Nagrani / Mumbai June 21, 2009, 0:30 IST
Mahindra & Mahindra’s ambition of driving into the fiercely competitive market of the United States may get a fillip as some erstwhile dealers of Chrysler have agreed to sell its vehicles in response to feelers sent by M&M’s designated distributor.
This will help M&M secure a stable line of dealerships fairly quickly, which otherwise is time-consuming and painstaking. Chrysler LLC last month decided to terminate business with 789 dealers — nearly 25 per cent of its total dealership — as part of its restructuring process. Mahindra is moving into the US at a time when recession has forced companies to slash jobs, pushing auto sales to the lowest in three decades. The drop has been so substantial that China has now overtaken the US as the world’s largest automotive market.
Did we not learn enough from financial models? It is amazing that though we cannot model a system of human beings, "scientists" pretend to be able to model the earth and everything on it's surface (including human beings).
The Dallas graph is interesting. Although the two indexes aren't interchangeable, prices will probably retrace back to the late 1970s, i..e the inflationary blowoff period. I think the Dallas graph is probably what most CA cities will look like for the next two decades.
some people have been attempting to tether present valuations to past assumptions.
That's the nature of people, which is why the free market thing fails so badly when it fails.
It assumes things about people which aren't true.
I doubt if information will change it much.
Yes, because humans require oversight. Without oversight, humans will scam, cheat and loot. Whether it is run by the government or businessmen, any organisation that lacks oversight will become corrupt.
//did you notice that all the things that you cited that government did reasonably well were all very locally oriented?//
German, Scandinavian, Italian, Spanish doctors make less than a third of what US doctors make. Strangely, they have no doctor shortages, poor outcomes or medical bankruptcies. And they live 2-3 years longer than us..
Luci: I agree. Any climatologist will tell you they still don't understand how our climate works.
TJ: I don't know about where you live, but our local government is just as corrupt with sweetheart deals, etc. as D.C. It's a myth that local governments handle their money better than the Feds. BTW, I live in a state that boasts of its honesty and of being down-to-earth.
Yep, what they tell you at a cocktail party and what they say to the grant-givers are two different things. Paleo-climatologists will tell you that they are just beginning to understand the processes. They didn't even believe in plate tectonics until the early '70s.
I'm not arguing that local government is saintly by any stretch. Among other things, LA just found out it's spending 1.5M annually on 8000 phone lines it doesn't use. I was just pointing out how Lucifer was using examples of local government competence when we were discussing national level incompetence.
German, Scandinavian, Italian, Spanish doctors make less than a third of what US doctors make. Strangely, they have no doctor shortages, poor outcomes or medical bankruptcies. And they live 2-3 years longer than us..
And as I (and Broward) pointed out last night, there's a lot more different about America than just the healthcare systems.
For example, I could point out that under Hussein there was always 100% voter participation in Iraqi elections.
TJ: I can't say anything about communities I've never lived in...but in the ones I have, corruption is pretty common. I think it'll get worse now without newspapers as a last resort.
Re: Healthcare. I've lived in Europe and other countries with universal healthcare. I got really good care, especially in Germany & Switzerland. All the Canadians I know would never, ever exchange their system for ours, despite the propaganda you hear.
I can't believe that these countries can devise good programs of care for their citizens and the U.S. can't. It just doesn't make sense to me because Americans always had that "can do" attitude with great innovation. Not anymore, I guess.
Well, later y'all. Homemade Stroganoff, tiny green beans, greens fresh from the garden await.
If everyone 50yrs old + could sign up for Medicare and pay a resonable preimium we could get them off the insurance roles of companies. That would save firms money, lower costs for a large segment of people and put more money into the Medicare coffers.
That would be a start.
If we could stop the fraud from Drs in the Medicare system that would save a ton of money. There is fraud and the elderly are to afraid to report it, thinking they will be the ones in trouble. Or that the Dr can stop them from getting the care they need. I have seen this happen to several ederly women I have known.
"So far, the models have been wrong, showing a hike of only a few degrees (I think 3-4)"
Which would be significant. That's average temp, not just a high for an August afternoon.
But probably a more significant indicator is ppm of atmospheric CO2. Last I heard the number was pushing 400. Much higher and we're looking at a different planet.
After the 1930s, technology has made it possible to provide the nessecities of life to everyone on earth. However we still act as if the basics are luxuries.
Government is only as good as the people in it.
Private enterprise is only as good as the people in it.
Private entities should be allowed to keep secrets from the public.
Government entities should not.
Which is why systemically important large financial firms with government guarantees should be more controlled by government with transparency the rule, not the exception.
AIG’s death spiral was triggered not so much by its bets going sour, but by companies like Goldman that demanded that AIG put up cash to show its ability to pay. These collateral calls were what killed AIG last September, and Goldman was one of those creditors pulling the trigger: what makes this fact even more obnoxious is that ex-Goldmanite Henry Paulson then stepped in and green-lighted an $80 billion taxpayer bailout. Ultimately another ex-Goldmanite named Ed Liddy was put in charge of AIG, and Goldman ended up getting paid 100 cents on the dollar for its AIG deb
texas is also interesting in terms of the way in which high property taxes kept a lid on the bubble... a subject perhaps also worth a gander
Don't think that's the case. Texas had a real estate boom and crash in recent memory (the 1980s). Fear from the last "bubble" probably helped keep things from getting out of hand. Plus toward the end there place like Austin did finally start getting bubbly.
Also because there's alot of empty land out there and not that much crowding (it seems like people would rather live in newly built suburbs than downtown Houston or Dallas) homebuilders can react qucikly to rising demand and crank out houses left and right. It's harder to get a supply crunch that really drives up prices.
Michael Pettis posted a piece yesterday comparing China today vs Japan in the late 80's..."After the 1987 Crash in the US, many expected the Japanese markets also to crash. But they didn’t. After faltering briefly, the Ministry of Finance ordered the Big Four brokerages to support the market, and support it they did. Within a few months the Nikkei was testing new highs, leading a Ministry of Finance official to boast that manipulating the stock market was easier than controlling foreign exchange. Check Edward Chancellor’s Devil Take the Hindmost for an illuminating take on the Japanese bubble economy of the 1980s."
Things seem to be not that different today re equity markets in the US...
Oh, glod in Midtown Manhattan and a few other places there must be 20 half-finished towers with cranes waiting to fall on the sheeple. Almost every single block has a large "space available" sign.
There are whole blocks of lower Park Avenue where every storefront is a bank branch. This is not an exaggeration. The beautiful old banks of pre-1929 are restaurants or clothing stores. I use a branch about once every 3 months, for 5 minutes.
When the big money is selling we get the large upswings... strangely. Lots of retail buying over the last couple of weeks. Retail investors are usually wrong.
what I'd love to see is net immigration and net outmigration layered over hours worked, median price, and price per sqft for CA MSAs. I think that would fall under my definition of chart p0rn!
Miami housing prices (except for outer fringes) are still over 100% higher over 2001. That is about 10% increase per year. if that is called trouble, I think rest world will love to have that kind of trouble. Enough cheerleading already!
If you check the county database - using word "Bank" or "loan". or "finance" etc - you will find over 1000 properties owned by the banks (REO). However only about hundred or so are for sale at this time, most of which are fraud cases where last sold price was $2 million and now no takers for $400K.
Banks are hoping for inflation to pick up so they will not have to take losses. Democrats are happy because their CORE supporters are living in their homes for over two years without having to pay mortgage. Some are making money by renting out the property and not paying mortgage or taxes. it is income in addition to unemployment.
So some may call it POISON others call it FOOD.
These voters in Miami are going to help the democrats to win 2010 elections and throw in free health care, childcare, drugs and food for them.
Give me free food, free housing, free healthcare, free drugs, free car, free booze, throw in the free mate to go along .......... I will produce many new FREE AMERICANS!
Do you think the Chinese are willing to work to pay for this?
texas is also interesting in terms of the way in which high property taxes kept a lid on the bubble... a subject perhaps also worth a gander
Could you do Bellingham, WA?
Net migration is a factor. The migration into Phx Metro has been Ca people moving in for a cheaper life, lower taxes and availbility of jobs.
Migration out of Phx Metro has been due to job loss. Mainly in construction. Most of the people who leave move to Tx.
This has been true of the last 2 bubbles and busts.
Thanks CR.
I think. So, the unemployement rate is higher than it's ever been.
I don't see any green shoots there!
The great bubble of 25-26 was not over the whole country, only here.
Posted earlier retail sails up, etc. Gas prices up anyone?
Oh, and the 125% WILL NOT Help any of my foreclosure clients,
unless the principal is crammed down a bunch at the same
time.
Painful lessons are being learned.
And I've observed that behavior in small buz types who failed, long, long before the
current bubble.
ahhh! the work you do, I will nominate you for a pulitzer!
re: bellingham--listed recently as one of the top ten cities for over priced houses
Well, the lessons are being learned by the people, but they don't seem
to be learned to the banks.
One of the things I have to explain that there is not "they' out there to deal
with, just an amorphous clouds; in the case of sliced and diced mtg securities
they is even less of a "they".
Oh, how you will be stucco
Hmmmmmm??? Luci?
lawyerliz writes: "...in the case of sliced and diced mtg securities
they is even less of a "they"."
Correct, in fact there is nothing provable in court.
Nope, actually what they ought to do is the trustee introduces the pages
of the trust relevant to foreclosing, and the argument is made. I've asked
for that in the past and never got anything. Judges don't take this demand
too seriously.
I've heard a judge in Broward County grant a motion based on standing
which is more or less the same thing.
So when are people going to accept that our current problems in housing and employment do not have any historic parallel?
Time to Put the Fun in 'FUNemployment!’ - CNBC
The above has to be one of the strangest articals about being unemployed I have ever read.
Having basically spent a lifetime looking at plots of numerical data, I'd hazard a guess that there's essentially no correlation between the red and green data series (i.e. unemployment and purchase index). CR can look at this in EXCEL with the CORREL function; note that there's going to be a margin of error of about 0.1.
Can we go back to building and selling houses to each other? Where is the employment going to come from?
Well, locally the gread 20s housing bubble is sort of a parallel for Miami, except
that it certainly wasn't everywhere.
I basically agree with you Luci, tho.
Florida was still mopping up after that for a good 20 or 25 years. Still selling tax
deeded properties that nobody wanted til ummm, late forties, 50s?
Plats were reverted to acreage. Sometimes they were replatted and a couple
of people had kept paying their taxes all those years and you'd find a hole in
the doughnut effect.
lawyerliz,
did you vote on butterfly ballots in 2000?
josap--thread music
YouTube - Put On A Happy Face
sm_landlord:
"There is an absolutely hilarious collection of news stories about FLA RE over at the HBB today."
HBB?
You mean the great chad problem???
Yep.
And I know somebody with a high IQ who told me after the fact
that she thought some of her chads were hanging
HBB = Housing Bubble Blog
I found CR through HBB in 2006, though I lurked around for a long time.
Hey Terry, I'm not apt to read your email til Thursday, as I am flying up to
balto for my mom's closing.
Hanging Chad = Reading Entrails
HBB = Housing Bubble Blog
Just remember to add the "the" that I forgot to add a couple days ago.
The Housing Bubble Blog
"not apt to read your email til Thursday"
It won't get stale, Liz. It's Wachovia's take on the economic/RE outlook for Florida.
Tnx, sportsfan!
OT: Goldman etc. bonuses
If the banks are paying out record bonuses, it stands to reason they will be reporting record profits. I assume that this is possible because market-to-market rules have been relaxed by FASB.
Next quarter, the PPIP will ensure that the toxic assets have been moved off the banks' books, allowing them to continue reporting healthy income.
Geithner is already talking about doing what it takes to restart the securitization markets (with some new protections, of course, he says).
Why does anyone think shorting the financial sector is a good plan at this point?
Thanks VV.
I can't imagine so much play time with no income. Unless you mega saved for your rainy day. Or are wiping out your 401k with total abandon.
Wonder what the current stats are for 401k matching and or employee contrabutions, as well as withdrawals by un-under employed.
Maybe people are maxing out the credit card before draining the 401k?
josap,
Strange days indeed. This sounds like winning advice:
"Give the resume machine a rest and flop in the park with a good book.
Yeah, that’s it, you’re getting the hang of it now!"
Wachovia.. Are they still alive? I get it.. they are undead, not dead.
Who can keep it straight, who's alive and who is a zombie?
That HBB thing is depressing tho it is nothing new to me.
All big bank holding corps are zombies?
Zombies: hanging on to the life you used to have.
walking around pretending to be alive.
thinking you will really be fully alive someday.
That discribes allot of firms and individuals now.
"Net migration is a factor. The migration into Phx Metro has been Ca people moving in for a cheaper life, lower taxes and availbility of jobs."
Josap: In the mid '70s, Phoenix had a regional RE bubble. Many of those involved were Calif. RE & mortgage brokers who made a killing in the CA market & moved to Phoenix to increase their profits. Houses were relatively cheap at that time.
You could watch the evolution of ever higher prices within a neighborhood -- in some cases houses doubling & tripling in price over a 6 mon-1 yr. period as the investors sold to one another.
In those days of plain vanilla mortgages, the owner/investor carried the paper with wraps (around FHA/VA) and 2nds (on conventional) with 2-5 years balloons. Interest rates were very high then, so if you offered the new buyer anything under 15-16%, they thought that was a good deal. We thought we'd never see mortgage interest rates below 9% again. We also thought house prices was always go up. But hey, we were in our mid-20s then.
We also bought homes in new subdivisions that doubled in price before they were built.
People made a lot of money, but the homes were spiraling up for ordinary folks.
The bubble popped and the new owners began to default, unable to come up with a refinance or pay off the 2nd. The homes came back to the original investor. In some cases, investors (most of whom were mortgage bankers, RE agents, etc.) ended up with 10-20 houses they had sold earlier. All went bankrupt and never recovered.
So, I've seen all this before...this time it was the bankers who got in over their heads. And the Californians went not only to Phoenix, but to Oregon, Washington, Las Vegas, Montana, Idaho, etc. etc.
NY City metro is really one big employment market that is starting to seriously decline.
But it is three different housing markets. You have 1) Manhattan; 2) other boroughs and near-in burbs; 3) exurbs, which I'd say starts around 25 miles out.
In housing, the exurbs fell first, then other boroughs/near-in burbs, and now Manhattan. They will probably all go the same place at the bottom, but they will bottom at different times. I'd say the best near-in burbs could start to recover in a year or two, because they offer a better quality of life than NYC at about 15-20% lower cost-of-living. This is before whatever new taxes are about to hit NYC residents.
Strangely, there still seems to be a lot of money being spent here and many people still living in the same high styles. But growing numbers of empty stores along the strips, and huge inventories of very slow-moving homes for sale. I'd say it will take at least five years to work off all the excess housing inventory in the whole metro market. At least.
One of the Florida vignettes from HBB:
Hannah faced the wrath of disappointed buyers when he listed a former $2 million model home in MiraBay, a Key West-style saltwater community in Apollo Beach. Hannah chopped the price to $1.2 million, but the house hunter offered $700,000. That didn’t even cover Hannah’s land and construction costs.”
“‘I can appreciate them being savvy buyers, but at some point reasonable is reasonable,’ the builder said.
One thing that always seem tough for builders to grasp is that their land and construction costs have very little to do with the market value of their product.
This time around, by way of contrasted with previous busts, I'd say the land and construction costs have absolutely nothing to do with the market value of their product.
They didn't mind making an 'extra' couple hundred grand per house while the bubble was inflating.
YouTube -
I'm in this camp and imagine many more are. It's a classic dance/trance original.
Messing around with mixing again since it seems the club scene in town is still fueled by low-wage, low-goaled junkies who spend all their available cash on such things.
Here's a chart showing the history of house prices in Phoenix going back to the '70s. I thought the wave I lived through was huge at the time, but the naughty-oughttie spike dwarfed it big-time.
http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/arizona-home-appreciation-historical-chart/463
CR,
I'm sure someone's probably asked this, but when do we get LA numbers???
Oh, and are you going to do San Diego (as a nod to Jim's territory)?
You know, I liked the Keys so much, I started looking around at properties. Still lots of $500, 600K 2BR condos.
... the house hunter offered $700,000. That didn’t even cover Hannah’s land and construction costs.”
How many times in the bubble did we hear the seller say the exact same thing; "the last price doesn't matter."
This time the power of information is going to transform negotiations. Everyone is going to know both sides of the table and their resources and liabilities. I see no reason to take the feelings of the seller into account unless it provides a transactional advantage. Real assets have no memory. Part of the reason this mess isn't clearing itself up is precisely because some people have been attempting to tether present valuations to past assumptions.
Zack: I take it you haven't seen the new global warming study.
Weather/Climate gurus saying the Keys & southern FLA up to Canaveral to sink under the waves.
@ Lucifer:
"Oh, how you will be stucco"
LOL, nice Groucho ref...
Can I get the house in henna color?
When elected government officials secretly collude with bankers to create a non-governmental
Federal Reserve Bank that controls the currency of the country and systematically generates
inflation to allow government to spend at an ever increasing rate.
Taxing citizens to create bureaucratic government agencies and programs that fail to
accomplish their mission while continuing to grow in size as politicians use them to reward
the contributors to their re-election campaigns.
good website: Econ & Finance Articles Updated Daily
Obammi is an empty suit, that's for sure. He will be out in 2012. Hillary & McCain were
right regarding his lack of experience and appeal to working, hard working white people.
Rents are usually not negotiated down until leases are up, so they lag deflation in assets. Not that I would have the slightest problem with a tenant using whatever legal leverage he has to renegotiate during the term. "Regulatory arbitrage", as AIG boasted. X+ months to evict, when the system is backed up, and then just declare bk.
Well.. That particular film was about the 1920s florida bubble.
Having said that, some of latin women in Miami are hot... The one reason to visit that place.
//LOL, nice Groucho ref...//
The climate models (snark on/ if ya believe in models & I know you guys do /snark off) are showing a 7-11 degree rise in temps. If true in geological terms that's huge.
So far, the models have been wrong, showing a hike of only a few degrees (I think 3-4). I'm thinking the weather here in flyover land will be more like South Carolina. We have had a strange spring, early summer here. Lots & lots of rain, cool temps at night, humidity in the day. Feels like Houston, smells like Houston.
New Report Predicts Effects of Warming in Different U.S. Regions - washingtonpost.com
On the subject of Chrysler and it's ex-dealers
M&M to ride on ex-Chrysler dealers
M&M to ride on ex-Chrysler dealers
Swaraj Baggonkar & Rohin Nagrani / Mumbai June 21, 2009, 0:30 IST
Mahindra & Mahindra’s ambition of driving into the fiercely competitive market of the United States may get a fillip as some erstwhile dealers of Chrysler have agreed to sell its vehicles in response to feelers sent by M&M’s designated distributor.
This will help M&M secure a stable line of dealerships fairly quickly, which otherwise is time-consuming and painstaking. Chrysler LLC last month decided to terminate business with 789 dealers — nearly 25 per cent of its total dealership — as part of its restructuring process. Mahindra is moving into the US at a time when recession has forced companies to slash jobs, pushing auto sales to the lowest in three decades. The drop has been so substantial that China has now overtaken the US as the world’s largest automotive market.
Paradigm Lost,
Did we not learn enough from financial models? It is amazing that though we cannot model a system of human beings, "scientists" pretend to be able to model the earth and everything on it's surface (including human beings).
The Dallas graph is interesting. Although the two indexes aren't interchangeable, prices will probably retrace back to the late 1970s, i..e the inflationary blowoff period. I think the Dallas graph is probably what most CA cities will look like for the next two decades.
some people have been attempting to tether present valuations to past assumptions.
That's the nature of people, which is why the free market thing fails so badly when it fails.
It assumes things about people which aren't true.
I doubt if information will change it much.
Lucifer,
OT, but in last nights convo, did you notice that all the things that you cited that government did reasonably well were all very locally oriented?
Yes, because humans require oversight. Without oversight, humans will scam, cheat and loot. Whether it is run by the government or businessmen, any organisation that lacks oversight will become corrupt.
//did you notice that all the things that you cited that government did reasonably well were all very locally oriented?//
Agreed. Just wanted to point that out because the UHC plans are decidedly NOT local.
If they can run the system as well as the US armed forces, it would still be much better than what most people have today.
//Just wanted to point that out because the UHC plans are decidedly NOT local.//
TJ and The Bear,
German, Scandinavian, Italian, Spanish doctors make less than a third of what US doctors make. Strangely, they have no doctor shortages, poor outcomes or medical bankruptcies. And they live 2-3 years longer than us..
Luci: I agree. Any climatologist will tell you they still don't understand how our climate works.
TJ: I don't know about where you live, but our local government is just as corrupt with sweetheart deals, etc. as D.C. It's a myth that local governments handle their money better than the Feds. BTW, I live in a state that boasts of its honesty and of being down-to-earth.
But the ones who want grants (most of them) suggest that they can predict the future.
//Any climatologist will tell you they still don't understand how our climate works.//
Yep, what they tell you at a cocktail party and what they say to the grant-givers are two different things. Paleo-climatologists will tell you that they are just beginning to understand the processes. They didn't even believe in plate tectonics until the early '70s.
Paradigm Lost,
I'm not arguing that local government is saintly by any stretch. Among other things, LA just found out it's spending 1.5M annually on 8000 phone lines it doesn't use. I was just pointing out how Lucifer was using examples of local government competence when we were discussing national level incompetence.
That is not so bad.. believing in ideas without evidence is religion (not science).
//They didn't even believe in plate tectonics until the early '70s.//
German, Scandinavian, Italian, Spanish doctors make less than a third of what US doctors make. Strangely, they have no doctor shortages, poor outcomes or medical bankruptcies. And they live 2-3 years longer than us..
And as I (and Broward) pointed out last night, there's a lot more different about America than just the healthcare systems.
For example, I could point out that under Hussein there was always 100% voter participation in Iraqi elections.
TJ: I can't say anything about communities I've never lived in...but in the ones I have, corruption is pretty common. I think it'll get worse now without newspapers as a last resort.
Re: Healthcare. I've lived in Europe and other countries with universal healthcare. I got really good care, especially in Germany & Switzerland. All the Canadians I know would never, ever exchange their system for ours, despite the propaganda you hear.
I can't believe that these countries can devise good programs of care for their citizens and the U.S. can't. It just doesn't make sense to me because Americans always had that "can do" attitude with great innovation. Not anymore, I guess.
Well, later y'all. Homemade Stroganoff, tiny green beans, greens fresh from the garden await.
One of Mr. Chapman's better articles....Good read.
Spending, Debt and Collapse Predicts Hyperinflation - The International Forecaster
8,000 unused phone lines. Guess in the good times waste doesn't matter. I wonder if they can cancel them or if there is a termination fee involved.
Is the success of a health care system not based on it's outcomes?
By that measure, the US system sucks.
Enjoy John Bogle, very wise man. Video
FORA.tv - The Culture that Spawned the Crisis: A Closer Look
If everyone 50yrs old + could sign up for Medicare and pay a resonable preimium we could get them off the insurance roles of companies. That would save firms money, lower costs for a large segment of people and put more money into the Medicare coffers.
That would be a start.
If we could stop the fraud from Drs in the Medicare system that would save a ton of money. There is fraud and the elderly are to afraid to report it, thinking they will be the ones in trouble. Or that the Dr can stop them from getting the care they need. I have seen this happen to several ederly women I have known.
Healthcare has to be seen as a utility, not a business.
"So far, the models have been wrong, showing a hike of only a few degrees (I think 3-4)"
Which would be significant. That's average temp, not just a high for an August afternoon.
But probably a more significant indicator is ppm of atmospheric CO2. Last I heard the number was pushing 400. Much higher and we're looking at a different planet.
Lucifer
So should food. But plenty of people in this country don't get enough to eat each day. And many more get food, but not nutritional food.
So should housing, but there are many homelss. And more to come in this economy. And when you have no home you have no utilities.
josap,
yes, but people still live in the 18th century ( in their minds).
Lucifer
I don't understand "living in the 18th cent" comment.
Could you expand please.
josap,
After the 1930s, technology has made it possible to provide the nessecities of life to everyone on earth. However we still act as if the basics are luxuries.
Government is only as good as the people in it.
Private enterprise is only as good as the people in it.
Private entities should be allowed to keep secrets from the public.
Government entities should not.
Which is why systemically important large financial firms with government guarantees should be more controlled by government with transparency the rule, not the exception.
The dead are being qualified for home loans. It is different this time.
We do Lucifer. But then control of nessesities is power. And power never goes out of style.
Goldman Slacks - The Greatest Non-Apology of All Time
The Greatest Non-Apology of All Time - Matt Taibbi - Taibblog - True/Slant
AIG’s death spiral was triggered not so much by its bets going sour, but by companies like Goldman that demanded that AIG put up cash to show its ability to pay. These collateral calls were what killed AIG last September, and Goldman was one of those creditors pulling the trigger: what makes this fact even more obnoxious is that ex-Goldmanite Henry Paulson then stepped in and green-lighted an $80 billion taxpayer bailout. Ultimately another ex-Goldmanite named Ed Liddy was put in charge of AIG, and Goldman ended up getting paid 100 cents on the dollar for its AIG deb
texas is also interesting in terms of the way in which high property taxes kept a lid on the bubble... a subject perhaps also worth a gander
Don't think that's the case. Texas had a real estate boom and crash in recent memory (the 1980s). Fear from the last "bubble" probably helped keep things from getting out of hand. Plus toward the end there place like Austin did finally start getting bubbly.
Also because there's alot of empty land out there and not that much crowding (it seems like people would rather live in newly built suburbs than downtown Houston or Dallas) homebuilders can react qucikly to rising demand and crank out houses left and right. It's harder to get a supply crunch that really drives up prices.
Goldman Slacks - The Greatest Non-Apology of All Time
You mean Great Satan Inc. right?
Because in BK, they get lumped in with the great unwashed creditors.
Ac +1 on Texas housing. Memories of the 80's That is also why Germany and Japan did not have housing bubbles in the 00's
Michael Pettis posted a piece yesterday comparing China today vs Japan in the late 80's..."After the 1987 Crash in the US, many expected the Japanese markets also to crash. But they didn’t. After faltering briefly, the Ministry of Finance ordered the Big Four brokerages to support the market, and support it they did. Within a few months the Nikkei was testing new highs, leading a Ministry of Finance official to boast that manipulating the stock market was easier than controlling foreign exchange. Check Edward Chancellor’s Devil Take the Hindmost for an illuminating take on the Japanese bubble economy of the 1980s."
Things seem to be not that different today re equity markets in the US...
Oh, glod in Midtown Manhattan and a few other places there must be 20 half-finished towers with cranes waiting to fall on the sheeple. Almost every single block has a large "space available" sign.
There are whole blocks of lower Park Avenue where every storefront is a bank branch. This is not an exaggeration. The beautiful old banks of pre-1929 are restaurants or clothing stores. I use a branch about once every 3 months, for 5 minutes.
Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years (Update3) - Bloomberg.com
Headline about insiders selling but no story yet.
Could be interesting, could just be they see the writing on the wall.
Josap
When the big money is selling we get the large upswings... strangely. Lots of retail buying over the last couple of weeks. Retail investors are usually wrong.
"Calpers's Dear Confident Stock Returns Will Rebound"
Uh-oh
Projected US deficit
http://bp1.blogger.com/_odwu_bJENb8/SH3bElBQQYI/AAAAAAAABD8/gzWvBmFDjQg/s1600-h/challenges24-640.png
josap,
The real problem is that the majority are OK with this system. They never realise that they could be next.. until now
back from wine shoping... nom nom nom >; )
what I'd love to see is net immigration and net outmigration layered over hours worked, median price, and price per sqft for CA MSAs. I think that would fall under my definition of chart p0rn!
Don't ask for much do you?
Hey, what ever happened to those shovel-ready green jobs, anyway?
homebuilders can react qucikly to rising demand and crank out houses left and right. It's harder to get a supply crunch that really drives up prices.
I'm not buying this.
The same is true for two of the biggest bubble cities, Phoenix and Vegas.
Headline about insiders selling but no story yet.
Could be interesting, could just be they see the writing on the wall.
Insider selling has been going on for weeks now. This is a pretty good piece with Charles Biderman about it.
Technology stock picks & industry news: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance
Lots of retail buying over the last couple of weeks. Retail investors are usually wrong.
That's a myth. Retail investors don't have money to put into the market.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/266193/Individual-Investors-Not-Fueling-Recent-Rally-Expert-Says?tickers=XLY,XLF,XLV,XLI,XLU,XLE,^IXIC
Retail investors don't have money to put into the market
Because.... they're usually wrong.
rb, thanks.
that was interesting.
Wonder if Bloomburg is slow or if their story is something new?
Miami housing prices (except for outer fringes) are still over 100% higher over 2001. That is about 10% increase per year. if that is called trouble, I think rest world will love to have that kind of trouble. Enough cheerleading already!
If you check the county database - using word "Bank" or "loan". or "finance" etc - you will find over 1000 properties owned by the banks (REO). However only about hundred or so are for sale at this time, most of which are fraud cases where last sold price was $2 million and now no takers for $400K.
Banks are hoping for inflation to pick up so they will not have to take losses. Democrats are happy because their CORE supporters are living in their homes for over two years without having to pay mortgage. Some are making money by renting out the property and not paying mortgage or taxes. it is income in addition to unemployment.
So some may call it POISON others call it FOOD.
These voters in Miami are going to help the democrats to win 2010 elections and throw in free health care, childcare, drugs and food for them.
Give me free food, free housing, free healthcare, free drugs, free car, free booze, throw in the free mate to go along .......... I will produce many new FREE AMERICANS!
Do you think the Chinese are willing to work to pay for this?