Somebody has to start a web site reporting hotel closed floors and stuff. Bankruptcies won't materially affect the number of rooms available but it will surely crush the struggling hoteliers with new lower price points. IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
i'm one of those who thought that house prices would continue to rise, in nominal terms, at least in my lifetime. my rational was that the coming crisis in social security and medicare would leave the government no choice but to turn to the printing presses in a big way. i also believed the "helicopter" could drop more than the market could take away. obviously i was wrong in the immediate term. i'm still not certain that i'll be wrong in the long term.
It seems to me that higher education, then, is also becoming too complex , if teachers have to work that many hours - pouring ALL their energy into a workweek? How do you recharge? How does that affect quality of so-called education?.
HIGHER education? In California, any elementary school teacher worth his/her salt puts in 50 hours a week between prep, grading, and "volunteer" gigs running this or that program or special event that the school no longer has the aides to run.
As for the "three months off" (2.5 in California), most of those who don't have a high-paid mate or their own money (or didn't buy a house 20 years ago) work summer school to get pay, take additional-pay gigs with after-school programs (another 10 hours a week on top of everything else), and so on.
Why is it this way? As resources decrease, more and more societal duties are dumped on the schools at all levels. Sorting out family problems, making sure the kiddies have been fed, addressing medical problems that the parents neglect, etc., etc., etc.
At even the public university level, universities are having to put on special remedial classes for the kids who somehow got through school, got decent scores on their SATs, were accepted -- and can't write on the college level, or, in the sciences or engineering, perform the math they were supposedly ready to perform. And then there are the kids with behavioral or mental problems -- AT the college level.
I'm of the opinion that whenever society has duties it doesn't know how to handle, it throws them at the schools. Back in WWII, Congress decided that schools and schoolteachers would run and administer the ration stamp program -- at no pay. Just -- do it. That spirit lives on.
@Angry Saver: The book "Sell Now" by Talbott had to have a second updated issue because the bubble went on so long. Shiller's "Irrational Exuberance" had a second issue on housing too. The fed (Bernanke included) saw what was happening but decided to use Greenspans idiotic policy of letting bubble run their course. That policy is a blank check for wall street - not a coincidence.
Those books I doubt were best-sellers. My belief is that the ideas of guys like Shiller & Talbott were not widespread. If they were, the large banks would not be in this mess, nor would we all. Don't underestimate simple stupidity and delusion coupled with political expediency. Those are powerful forces. I just don't think fraud was the only main ingredient.
The banks took an awful risk that a populist president or congress would not be in place when the dam broke. If it's calculated fraud, that's quite a gamble they were taking. I prefer sheer stupidity & greed. It's more simple.
Mock, the "bad teachers" so many complain about are often the ones that put in their 40 and nothing more. That only do what they're paid to, and no more. That stick to the crappy state curriculum strictly, that never spend a dime of their own money for the supplies that the district no longer pays for, that are always gone a half-hour after school lets out.
Last summer about this time, I packed up the family in our 2001 Subaru Outback for a cross-country vacation. Along the way from SC to NYC to PA to LA to TX to NM to AZ and many, many, many points in-between, we were in amazement as to the lack of traffic and lack of full hotels. We consistently paid >$4.25 per gallon for ~6 weeks, even close to $5 in a few spots, hence fewer summer travelers like us. Saw many Europeans traveling with the weak dollar and strong Pound/Euro.
Never had any issues getting a hotel room "last-minute" except in Big Spring, Texas.....where two thousand construction workers were repairing a refinery that had exploded. Even stayed at the Grand Canyon last-minute. The fact that hotels are having a worse summer this year is amazing.
"the top 2%,
the 'owners" of our country,
the 2% that own nearly half of all the RE, stocks, bonds etc ...are not satisfied
there is still wealth to be milked out of this dying hulk
and the fed and treasury are helping the vampires suck the last drops of blood
till they flee across tarriff free boarders, porous to capital flight
unencumbered by taxation
free from loyalty to, or responsibility for
the country that fostered the opportunities that facilitated their greatness
am i pessimistic about how this all ends...just guess "
It ends how you want it to end.
What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?
IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
If true, this is dangerous - because when it's all said and done, there will be chains out there whose cumulative CRE value is negative.
To cite just one anecdotal example, there's a high-rise hotel a few miles from where I grew up that was showing its age even when I lived there, 25 years ago. Probably 400 rooms in the place.
It's got so-called "prime real estate" just off a limited-access highway - but it's on the wrong side of the exit ramps, with poor signage, so anyone thinking about staying there has to travel about 2 miles out of their way to get there. During which time they'll pass a half-dozen other hotels, many of which were put up in the last 5 years and whose amenities have forced the hotel to splurge on "me-too" stuff like a new indoor pool, a conference center, etc.
That sucker must have changed hands ten times since my youth. No one is ever going to make the numbers work. And every year that building gets another year older.
Eventually it's headed for a meeting with the wrong end of a wrecking ball just so someone can do something useful with that prime real estate.
I bet there's a couple thousand hotels in America in the same situation.
JD,
Actually I was solicited for an RE investment seminar put on by trusted friend who has bought in detroit and claims 15-18% cap rates on homes there...
I stated how could that be, every investor in the US would be flocking there. She really ripped me with an email on my lack of understanding on that market....
She is from the sf valley..her partner is flying out from Detroit. They rehab, rent and manage the properties....25K for house, rents $800...I just dont see it...
"With joblessness rising, President Barack Obama said Thursday he was "deeply concerned" about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about "whether they will be next" to suffer economically."
For many on wall street and main street it was stupidity. But that is a big part of our system - dopes selling to dopes. That said, people with the power to stop the foolishness new what was occuring and yet did nothing. That's the fraud I'm referring too.
You want simple? Consider this. Our debt money system MUST expand at an exponential rate to function. New credit is used to pay the interest on previous credit. We are at the limits of the system as no economy can grow exponentially, especially without occasionally taking a few steps back before taking more steps forward. The fed uses wall street to force the exponential debt growth. Wall street games the need for exponential growth to their own selfish ends.
A poorly CONstructed money system is the root of the frauds. Our system is based on theft via inflation.
ghostfaceinvestah (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 12:45 pm
What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?
I don't know, what did they do? I've only been white for like, 30 years now. My ancestors came here 125 years after the founding of the Republic and were systematically exploited as cheap labor by capitalists. I only stopped being a bestial slav when there weren't enough WASPs to staff the country club and whiteness had to be reinvented.
It seems to me that your ancestors shot some indians and moved down the road into the land of opportunity no longer encumbered by troublesome autocthones. That doesn't seem to offer much potential at this time.
"You want simple? Consider this. Our debt money system MUST expand at an exponential rate to function. New credit is used to pay the interest on previous credit."
This is only true if the creditor retains the interest. If the creditor spends the interest instead, then lending with interest can take place in a system with fixed amounts of money.
"What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation? "
My father's people? Left Dust Bowl, Oklahoma during the Depression and came to California. Before that, they'd left Texas for Oklahoma, and before that, South Carolina for Texas. Always moving on in hope of greener pastures.
Mom's people made a straight shot here from Madeira Island in the Atlantic, where a few owned nearly everything and everyone else scrabbled for a living. So did a lot of other Madeiras -- they made it to the Northeast, Hawaii, South Africa, all over.
So the answer is, they left.
But where you go when there's nowhere to go, or not easily?
This is only true if the creditor retains the interest. If the creditor spends the interest instead, then lending with interest can take place in a system with fixed amounts of money.
I don't see it that way. Fixed systems tend towards falling prices and periodic busts (debt purges) regardless of velocity. This fact has been known for thousands of years. Debt jubilees have been used. And the Israelites did not allow permanent land ownership as land was the basis for most credit. Land was leased for 50 year periods. Our experiment with permanent inflation to avoid busts is ~ 38 years old. If we had better distribution and slower inflation, things would have worked out better.
What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?
Crime
urban decay
massive fraud and incompetence in local government
poor services
corrupt police
polluted rivers and lakes
no jobs
no hope of jobs
closing schools
poor school performance
high taxes (1.5% city income tax)
bad roads
6 months of shitty weather a year
seasonal affective disorder
GM bankrupt
Chrysler bankrupt
edit: abandonment by all non-blacks (could not think of a PC way to put this)
Do you want more?
On education, so OT but pigged from the last thread. That was Mal replying to me. It is gratifying to hear so much support for teachers and appreciation of the efforts that dedicated ones make in spite of all the impediments (Bob Dobbs and Mock Turtle) . I replied to Mal that there are intangible rewards, such as, student and parent satisfaction, seeing progress and their goals met, friendships created. Th corporate model of education over the past 40 years has done a great deal to turn education and learning into the delivery of modules that teach to an "objective" test of the student or a quantitative assessment of the teacher at the end of each semester.
her partner is flying out from Detroit. They rehab, rent and manage the properties....25K for house, rents $800...I just dont see it...
It's that old risk/reward thing. Plus someone has to live in Detroit to look after business. If I lived there, I'd be trying to buy up property, too. But I like to see where my money is.
BTW- was she also a big believer in the GO Zone?
.....Cheer up....I'd almost forgot that today's BFF on a Thursday. I would imagine that if the FDIC had a BIG "problem child" awaiting in the wings, a long weekend might be advantageous in case of any unanticipated "challenges". I'm certain there are a few out there in the "Almost TBTF" line, and many hundreds lined up in the first-come-first-served "Local Nobody Bank" line.
"Still, the economists forecast the economy will grow in the second half of this year after contracting in the previous six months." (Bloomingburg Article)
What's different about detroit..the Cap rates I guess.. here is the email a longtime friend who bought a couple invest. prop. there last year sent yesterday..
She is not a scammer..but I rebutted with some facts and she was pissed to say the least....
Why should you attend?
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Meet $$$$ $$$$$$ a friend and business associate of mine, CEO of $$####### Consulting - flying in from Detroit, Michigan for this evening only - who will showcase WHOLESALE PROPERTY deals FOR SALE and much more.
Doors open at 4:30pm: Please come early so you have time to network with fellow Investors. Refreshments will be served.
We will cover money-making topics such as:
Showcasing TURN-KEY RENTED residential properties starting as low as $25,000 USD and generating income of approximately $700-800/month (CAP Rate of approx 15% PLUS)
Other Income generating properties with a solid ROI & CAP Rate of 15% OR MORE per property, i.e.: Multi-Units, Commercial & Industrial.
Financing terms, including:
Cash
Conventional
Hard money
Seller financing
Information for first time qualified homebuyers.
PLUS MUCH MORE
####### is a trusted metro Detroit partner for all your investment property solutions. Headed by ##### ########, a licensed attorney and investor, he will provide practical solutions in complex situations.
Offering services for investors, tenants, and homeowners alike:
Business incorporation. Protect your name, credit, and minimize your liability
Business plan drafting and overview. Maximizing your money and investments.
Seasoned negotiator. Offering negotiation of asset disposition, acquisition, and joint venture projects.
Topnotch marketer. Market your property direct to my developed property list of investors or sell to our sister company for an all cash offer.
Property placement. Offering quality property for tenants and quality tenants to investors. We secure all required documentation, filings, and initial leasing issues.
Access to our trusted list of home improvement specialists. Cultivated relationship give us access to some of the brightest home improvement specialist, completing your project right the first time and on budget.
Wholesale property offering unsurpassed quality, construction, and return. Real cash flow with real exit strategies.
No middle man - you are working directing with the source. Real cash flow investment with real exit strategies - guaranteed.
I am looking at mortgage delinquency data through May 31st. We had a relative lull in DQs from Jan through and including Mar, a decline in the second derivative if you will.
Apr and especially May are looking much worse, the second derivative seems to have turned again.
Much of this is seasonal - the beginning of the year usually sees an improvement (this year it was an improvement in the second derivative) as people get tax refunds (i.e. they get paid back the interest free loan they gave to the govt).
Plus we had the moratoria this year.
For housing data, March might have been the middle of the "W".
creditcriminalslovetarp;
"I stated how could that be, every investor in the US would be flocking there. She really ripped me with an email on my lack of understanding on that market...."
There's not much you need to know about that market. If you are not planning to live there or create a good-sized management company with lots of local expertise, there is no way you want to invest in SFHs in a dying city. Think about it:
Who would your tenants be?
What would the tenants be doing to produce income to pay the rent?
Are these people that you would want to deal with?
How are you planning to collect when rents are late?
How are you planning to perform necessary repairs?
Would your money be spread across multiple properties, or concentrated in one or a few?
IMHO the only way to approach something like this would be in a trust structure, partnership, or something with sufficient scale to employ local managers and influence local politics. And you would need some way to make sure that the general partners or whatever management was in place was acting on behalf of investors and not just themselves. I would not touch something like this otherwise - too easy to get wiped out.
You may infer that I have made a mistake like this in the past...
There is a golden opportunity to revitalize the rust belt, and Californians don't know it yet, but they are the catalyst...
Fleeing from economic peril and lack of water, (the 4th year of a nasty drought looms large) places like the rust belt will be a natural for the later-day Tom Joads driving out east, to settle down.
We need to stop the corruption by Goldman, bank of Amerika, and Jp Morgan. Stop the Geithner and bernanke. .
Obama's policies may not be working as well as many had hoped: 1st 100 days - There are 2.9 million more people unemployed in May than there were unemployed in January. The unemployment rate went from 7.6% to 9.4%. Since May 2008, we have lost 5.5 million jobs. The biggest losers
were:
Manufacturing 1.5 million lost
Finance & Prof Serv 1.5 million lost
Construction 1.1 million lost
Retail & Leisure 1.3 million lost
"There is a golden opportunity to revitalize the rust belt, and Californians don't know it yet, but they are the catalyst..."
I know what you mean... in the Bay Area, our own personal hunk of the Rust Belt was the East Bay, Richmond down through Oakland and beyond. Went to hell in the '70s and '80s, and some of it never came back though downtown Oakland and Emeryville had some gentrification action going. But during that bad time, there were empty factories and buildings available cheap for live/work, and a lot of people took advantage.
But these days, with eBay and such, you don't even have to head for a metro area. Score yourself an abandoned elementary school out in Kansas or Missouri somewhere with a good roof for $60-80K, somewhere near good transport, and operate your non-geography based business out of there, with a willing and low-cost workforce. People are doing it.
So I know what you mean, but there's no guarantee migrants would head for metro areas, not with better prices for abandoned public/industrial buildings in rural areas acorss the nation.
And it's a nice picture overall, but relatively few people are up for re-pioneering the plains. Not unless everything goes to merry hell out here in California. And though it pleases many to indulge in such fantasies, I'm not convinced.
Of course, some cities like Buffalo ARE bulldozing some of their neighborhoods and letting the green grass grow. Take a look at Google Street View in Detroit sometime, it is eerie seeing these green expanses that used to be neighborhoods.
After the upcoming half a generation of displacement from McMansion America, I suspect that these people will "discover" some of the sturdier 1950s and '60s era housing stock of Rust Belt suburbia and make a go of it. It's going to take a while for the sense of square footage entitlement to fade. They'll forget that it's "impossible" to raise 2.5 kids in a 1300 sq ft house.
We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
So what you're saying is that the inhabitants of Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo should roll up their sleeves (like, say, these women) and fix up their cities. I don't think that will happen. These cities still have more housing stock than people, unlike Germany post WWII, which had housing stock reduced by bombs.
Anyway I don't know what you mean by 'we'. I haven't given up on Cleveland, but that's because it wasn't my responsibility to start with.
I have to take issue with "Down goes Frazier" I think I used it first to refer to GS having a bad day. I didn't think it ever referred to the market as a whole... All Wells
IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
Won't that get skewed by the hotel-condo schemes of the last few years? If the hotel doesn't really own the room, but merely has a deal in place to book it (on whatever occasion I don't know) does it affect their CRE all that much? Once these hotel-condo things started happening, I no longer understood the business model.
"They'll forget that it's "impossible" to raise 2.5 kids in a 1300 sq ft house. "
1300 sq ft used to be "big." The first post WWII housing in my area was 800 sq. ft., 2 br, 1 bath, and one gas floor heater. We were posh, we had 1100 square feet and three bedrooms. I think mine was 8x8.
The "extra room" was the after-school programs and recreational programs the school and city made available for kids after school and in summer. The bands, the sports teams, the choirs, the clubs -- all the things that cost extra or don't exist anymore out here on the coast.
Parents actually went out in the evening, too, for civic things, bowling leagues, etc. Easier to get the energy for that when you've got a five-mile commute and a full-time job that's really only 40 hours.
The people minding the water in California fudged the numbers not nearly as bad as their financial counterparts on Wall*Street, but they definitely have been applying a chimera rouge colored lipstick to the pig, of which the majority of Californians can't see, because they live hundreds of miles away from their water source and have no idea...
Well, the "extra room" was also outdoors, where kids were allowed to roam without being constantly supervised by adults. (Is there any evidence that the rate of child snatching has gone up since then? Or down?)
Of course we've been pouring trillions for decades into the OPACs for generations so to say we've abandoned them is not true. They failed. Let's move on.
Our culture is no longer organized to do something like that. Better to just raze and be done with it.
Stupid and wasteful, designed to exploit naive "greenies" and the short-sighted. They will make urban prairie, then, golly, they will admit they can't service their debts, and sell the land at a cut-throat discount to politically connected developers in a bid to increase tax revenue streams. The useful idiots will crow first at the demolition of extant properties, then at the exploitation of the state apparatus to enrich developers through subsidized construction to create 'green shoots' and 'lead re-development'.
Our culture is no longer organized to do something like that
Oh, I don't know about that. But it's a long way, culturally, from ND to Detroit, and it's a mistake to talk about 'our culture' as if we had just one within these borders.
"Parents actually went out in the evening, too, for civic things, bowling leagues, etc. Easier to get the energy for that when you've got a five-mile commute and a full-time job that's really only 40 hours."
.......and when Mom was at home, had dinner ready for Pop, fed him, and pushed him out the door afterward.
//.......and when Mom was at home, had dinner ready for Pop, fed him, and pushed him out the door afterward. //
this is so so true. hey, i'm socially liberal but something critically important to the smooth functioning of society was lost when moms began entering the workforce in large numbers.
But where you go when there's nowhere to go, or not easily?
I think that that question is a big part of the issue. American tradition has been to escape the heavy-handedness of (Country X) and move to somewhere where there was the possibility of less heavy-handedness.
If the general society doesn't like your religious views as a Puritan/Mormon/etc., you moved somewhere where you can be the law and the authority and allow your views to be more open. If Native Americans, foreign traders, or other folks got in your way, you worked with them, killed them, or sadly back to the people out east to send troops to do the killing/"settling" for you. I'm not sure what ghostinvestah meant with his question, but it comes across way too simplistic and way too blase.
As for my ancestors, one line were Germanic immigrants who fought in the Revolutionary War. Another line was Scottish immigrants who fought in the Revolutionary War. The other two lines seem to be strictly Anglo-Saxon, and they probably fought in the Revolutionary War too.
If I am to follow ghostinvestah's advice about ancestry, I need to find unsettled land. Fight for it against the country to "owns" it. Be given land when the new country opens up "new" territory. Finally, I become a farmer, laborer, or general store owner to earn money and raise a family (per U.S. Census reports from 1880-1930)
Nanny-State supervisor BHO is attending to imaginary hangnails while the patient lies on the ground hemhorraging from every artery. We need carbon taxes & administative overhead right now like we need the plague.
Mr.Sparkle (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 12:36 pm
The banks took an awful risk that a populist president or congress would not be in place when the dam broke. If it's calculated fraud, that's quite a gamble they were taking. I prefer sheer stupidity & greed. It's more simple.
I think you give them far more credit for intelligence than they deserve. They were making money hand over fist and given the structure of compensation there was no reason to stop until it blew up. Lets face it the people at banks (with a few exceptions) who got us into this mess are not the ones who are hurting- the pain is being borne by the tax payers and a lot of shareholders.
At some level the shareholders deserve what they are getting. When you set up a compensation system that encourages people to gamble with your money they will do well sometimes but in the long run you are going to get screwed. Simple reason - if the probabilities are 1/10 that you are going to blow up if the first four times you didn't blow up people think you are a genius and give you a larger amount to speculate with. So that when you blow up as you will the loss will be much larger than all the gains.
The exponential math problem vs. public health capacity is the certain big downside risk with H1N1...
Britain revamps swine flu strategy to handle surge
By MARIA CHENG – 3 hours ago
LONDON (AP) — Britain faces a projected 100,000 new swine flu cases a day by August and must revamp its flu strategy, the nation's health minister said Thursday.
Britain has officially reported 7,747 swine flu cases and three deaths, but officials acknowledge the real number of cases is far higher, since many with the virus have not been tested.
Britain is the hardest-hit nation in Europe amid the global swine flu epidemic. Many flu experts believe numbers could jump exponentially now that the virus is entrenched. Because swine flu, or H1N1, is a new virus, few people have any natural immunity, allowing the virus to spread rapidly.
"Cases are doubling every week and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August," Health Minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons on Thursday. The article requested is no longer available.
Swine flu hitting Argentina hard
July 3, 2009
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina has reported 17 more swine flu deaths, bringing the total to at least 43 in the country hardest hit by the virus in the southern hemisphere.
The Health Minister, Juan Manzur, who was sworn in on Wednesday, said 43 or 44 deaths linked to the virus had been confirmed, a significant jump from the 26 reported by the ministry on Friday.
He said that provincial governments had been urged to suspend school classes to contain the outbreak. "The situation in the country is serious and difficult," he said.
Argentina has replaced Canada as the country with the third-highest swine flu death toll. In the United States 127 deaths have been reported, and in Mexico, where the epidemic was first discovered, 116 have died.
"We are contending with a trend that is still on the rise," Mr Manzur said.
The World Health Organisation declared a global swine flu pandemic last month. On Wednesday it said 332 people have died from it and 77,201 people worldwide have caught the virus.
Health experts are following the situation closely in the southern hemisphere, where events could be a harbinger of what is to come when winter hits North America, Europe and most of Asia at the end of the year.
The epidemic in Argentina has a higher mortality rate than in other countries stricken with the virus. With 1587 confirmed cases and 43 deaths, one in every 37 confirmed swine flu cases - 2.71 per cent - in Argentina has been fatal. In Mexico the rate is 1.35 per cent and in Chile 0.19 per cent. Swine flu hitting Argentina hard
@crazyv - I think you misunderstand me, I'm not giving them much of any credit in terms of intelligence. I give them credit for the following:
- Piling into the crowded trade
- Not thinking
- Doing what 95% of their colleagues were doing.
Basically, I think they got lucky that there wasn't an administration in place that decided they weren't going to play ball. Instead, we got the cabinets and appointees full of people willing to do whatever it took to keep the large banks going. My take was that if the bankers actually knew it could all end badly, they took a terrible risk believing that they would get bailed out in the end. We could have instead elected an Andrew Jackson - unlikely, sure but anything's possible.
I have little quarrel with the other things you wrote. Shareholders should be absolutely reamed. Instead, they bought shares when secondary offerings were done - go figure.
" A 33-year-old woman with pre-existing medical conditions is Marin County's first confirmed H1N1 flu death, Marin County Deputy Public Health Officer Dr. Anju Goel said Wednesday afternoon.
There have been 49 cases of the H1N1 swine flu in Marin County, 24 of them probable and 25 confirmed, Goel said. Like other areas of the state, Marin County public health officials have seen an increase in the number of H1N1 cases in the past two weeks.
There have been at least 18 deaths in California and 127 in the United States from the H1N1 flu this year. "
"Nanny-State supervisor BHO is attending to imaginary hangnails while the patient lies on the ground hemhorraging from every artery. We need carbon taxes & administative overhead right now like we need the plague."
"We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
I liked the idea of bulldozing it all."
Naw,I'd rather sell Texas and it's people to the Mexican drug lords...let them formalize their ties.
Just went on priceline and punched in a $50 rate for a four star hotel and it was accepted. All I was looking for was a place to crash, but I'll gladly take the luxury.
Why is this a problem? If you don't like that category, the Census provides an option.."Other". Use that instead.
A bit sensitive about having the malleable nature of "whiteness" underlined, are we? Am I insufficiently full of White Pride at having been let into the exclusive club when your numbers ran short? Pardon me if I don't scrape enough at my promotion from "dumb hunky that doesn't feel pain or privation like other humans," my half-animal brain is still caching up with the brilliant Episcopalian intellects of my newfound brothers in the White Tribe.
I'm just endlessly amused by folks who want to talk about "Those People" when THEY were "Those People" for half their lives or more. Wagging your finger at me about what check-box to fill out on the census form won't change the fact that when people rhetorically retreat into calls to "our ancestors" -- they are presumably talking about themselves and the mouse in their pocket.
Me, I don't care what you cal yourself...I don't know you, never met you, never will. But you waste bandwidth by belaboring your personal issues...have you considered professional help?
i saw first hand teachers paying for classroom supplies out of their own pockets,
grading student papers at home each night and putting in hours of volunteer time
and staying late after hours to meet with students that needed help, one on one...
because they cared about their students and the school system would have declined without the teachers largesse
they are worth every penny their unions can get for them, and more.
Some mom-and-pop operations are counting income $50 at a time.
I love the smell of Green Shoots in the morning
"Some mom-and-pop operations are counting income $50 at a time."
We'll all be there soon enough.
So during this recovery people will not be working, traveling, or spending. I think that's closer to convalescing.
Somebody has to start a web site reporting hotel closed floors and stuff. Bankruptcies won't materially affect the number of rooms available but it will surely crush the struggling hoteliers with new lower price points. IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
continuing a thought from the last thread...
i'm one of those who thought that house prices would continue to rise, in nominal terms, at least in my lifetime. my rational was that the coming crisis in social security and medicare would leave the government no choice but to turn to the printing presses in a big way. i also believed the "helicopter" could drop more than the market could take away. obviously i was wrong in the immediate term. i'm still not certain that i'll be wrong in the long term.
Think of the pillow-mint industry.
CR, where is the pillow-mint graph?
not one cent-lol
From last thread:
It seems to me that higher education, then, is also becoming too complex , if teachers have to work that many hours - pouring ALL their energy into a workweek? How do you recharge? How does that affect quality of so-called education?.
HIGHER education? In California, any elementary school teacher worth his/her salt puts in 50 hours a week between prep, grading, and "volunteer" gigs running this or that program or special event that the school no longer has the aides to run.
As for the "three months off" (2.5 in California), most of those who don't have a high-paid mate or their own money (or didn't buy a house 20 years ago) work summer school to get pay, take additional-pay gigs with after-school programs (another 10 hours a week on top of everything else), and so on.
Why is it this way? As resources decrease, more and more societal duties are dumped on the schools at all levels. Sorting out family problems, making sure the kiddies have been fed, addressing medical problems that the parents neglect, etc., etc., etc.
At even the public university level, universities are having to put on special remedial classes for the kids who somehow got through school, got decent scores on their SATs, were accepted -- and can't write on the college level, or, in the sciences or engineering, perform the math they were supposedly ready to perform. And then there are the kids with behavioral or mental problems -- AT the college level.
I'm of the opinion that whenever society has duties it doesn't know how to handle, it throws them at the schools. Back in WWII, Congress decided that schools and schoolteachers would run and administer the ration stamp program -- at no pay. Just -- do it. That spirit lives on.
--deleted - dupe.
OT: BTW, notice the renewed volatility in the equity indices. It looks like VIX could be lying to us.
Bob Dobbs
you are right
i saw first hand teachers paying for classroom supplies out of their own pockets,
grading student papers at home each night and putting in hours of volunteer time
and staying late after hours to meet with students that needed help, one on one...
because they cared about their students and the school system would have declined without the teachers largesse
@Angry Saver: The book "Sell Now" by Talbott had to have a second updated issue because the bubble went on so long. Shiller's "Irrational Exuberance" had a second issue on housing too. The fed (Bernanke included) saw what was happening but decided to use Greenspans idiotic policy of letting bubble run their course. That policy is a blank check for wall street - not a coincidence.
Those books I doubt were best-sellers. My belief is that the ideas of guys like Shiller & Talbott were not widespread. If they were, the large banks would not be in this mess, nor would we all. Don't underestimate simple stupidity and delusion coupled with political expediency. Those are powerful forces. I just don't think fraud was the only main ingredient.
The banks took an awful risk that a populist president or congress would not be in place when the dam broke. If it's calculated fraud, that's quite a gamble they were taking. I prefer sheer stupidity & greed. It's more simple.
OT:
Motto of the day, just spotted on an HVAC worker's t-shirt: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Oh CR you worry too much. Everyone knows things always slow down in the summer and pick up in Sept-Nov.
Also with all the Foreclosures and evictions people will get rooms every so often so they can sleep under a roof and take a shower.
i got pigged, so this is ot
but at the end of reading the last thread couldnt help but feel that
the top 2%,
the 'owners" of our country,
the 2% that own nearly half of all the RE, stocks, bonds etc ...are not satisfied
there is still wealth to be milked out of this dying hulk
and the fed and treasury are helping the vampires suck the last drops of blood
till they flee across tarriff free boarders, porous to capital flight
unencumbered by taxation
free from loyalty to, or responsibility for
the country that fostered the opportunities that facilitated their greatness
am i pessimistic about how this all ends...just guess
Mock, the "bad teachers" so many complain about are often the ones that put in their 40 and nothing more. That only do what they're paid to, and no more. That stick to the crappy state curriculum strictly, that never spend a dime of their own money for the supplies that the district no longer pays for, that are always gone a half-hour after school lets out.
I remember my first trip to the rust belt in 2004, I couldn't get over what $10k would buy in terms of housing.
If only there was some way to transport a 5 room 1915 house from the motor city to Pasadena, it'd be worth a Million easy...
What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?
Was it $990k worth of difference?
Meanwhile, Obama ordered thousands of Americans to live in huts on the other side of the planet in Afghanistan.
Mock
"Keep contributing to your 401k, Stocks always go higher, US always pulls out of a recession stronger than before, Stars never die..."
Last summer about this time, I packed up the family in our 2001 Subaru Outback for a cross-country vacation. Along the way from SC to NYC to PA to LA to TX to NM to AZ and many, many, many points in-between, we were in amazement as to the lack of traffic and lack of full hotels. We consistently paid >$4.25 per gallon for ~6 weeks, even close to $5 in a few spots, hence fewer summer travelers like us. Saw many Europeans traveling with the weak dollar and strong Pound/Euro.
Never had any issues getting a hotel room "last-minute" except in Big Spring, Texas.....where two thousand construction workers were repairing a refinery that had exploded. Even stayed at the Grand Canyon last-minute. The fact that hotels are having a worse summer this year is amazing.
"What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?"
lets see....crime, run-down neighborhoods, crime, snow, crime, cold, sleet, & rain, crime, terrible public schools, crime,........yep....that totals at least a mil...
Bob D
yep there are bad teachers out there
as a school board director, i worked to fire 4 of them in our district (and one addministrator) over an 11 year tenure
(btw sometimes firing was "they decided to leave" BUT... i didnt ever agree to give good performance evaluations (lie) in exchange for their departure
mock turtle!
Long time no see! Missed you!
"the top 2%,
the 'owners" of our country,
the 2% that own nearly half of all the RE, stocks, bonds etc ...are not satisfied
there is still wealth to be milked out of this dying hulk
and the fed and treasury are helping the vampires suck the last drops of blood
till they flee across tarriff free boarders, porous to capital flight
unencumbered by taxation
free from loyalty to, or responsibility for
the country that fostered the opportunities that facilitated their greatness
am i pessimistic about how this all ends...just guess "
It ends how you want it to end.
What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?
IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
If true, this is dangerous - because when it's all said and done, there will be chains out there whose cumulative CRE value is negative.
To cite just one anecdotal example, there's a high-rise hotel a few miles from where I grew up that was showing its age even when I lived there, 25 years ago. Probably 400 rooms in the place.
It's got so-called "prime real estate" just off a limited-access highway - but it's on the wrong side of the exit ramps, with poor signage, so anyone thinking about staying there has to travel about 2 miles out of their way to get there. During which time they'll pass a half-dozen other hotels, many of which were put up in the last 5 years and whose amenities have forced the hotel to splurge on "me-too" stuff like a new indoor pool, a conference center, etc.
That sucker must have changed hands ten times since my youth. No one is ever going to make the numbers work. And every year that building gets another year older.
Eventually it's headed for a meeting with the wrong end of a wrecking ball just so someone can do something useful with that prime real estate.
I bet there's a couple thousand hotels in America in the same situation.
JD,
Actually I was solicited for an RE investment seminar put on by trusted friend who has bought in detroit and claims 15-18% cap rates on homes there...
I stated how could that be, every investor in the US would be flocking there. She really ripped me with an email on my lack of understanding on that market....
She is from the sf valley..her partner is flying out from Detroit. They rehab, rent and manage the properties....25K for house, rents $800...I just dont see it...
Run-down never lived in neighborhoods will give Detroit's run-down lived in neighborhoods, a run for the money.
"What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?"
.........I don't know about YOURS, but mine moved HERE in the early 1600s.
Tim w f 2012
my 401k is the nearly 1 acre of land under cultivation (back yard mini farm)
i like certs of deposit and tangible investments like gold and lead
Quote from Yahoo on Obama
"With joblessness rising, President Barack Obama said Thursday he was "deeply concerned" about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about "whether they will be next" to suffer economically."
Its a Presidential Hoocoodanoode
Mr. Sparkle,
For many on wall street and main street it was stupidity. But that is a big part of our system - dopes selling to dopes. That said, people with the power to stop the foolishness new what was occuring and yet did nothing. That's the fraud I'm referring too.
You want simple? Consider this. Our debt money system MUST expand at an exponential rate to function. New credit is used to pay the interest on previous credit. We are at the limits of the system as no economy can grow exponentially, especially without occasionally taking a few steps back before taking more steps forward. The fed uses wall street to force the exponential debt growth. Wall street games the need for exponential growth to their own selfish ends.
A poorly CONstructed money system is the root of the frauds. Our system is based on theft via inflation.
OT-
You know it's getting bad when you can't even have sex without getting beat up....
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
"my 401k is the nearly 1 acre of land under cultivation (back yard mini farm)"
Good thinking, mock.
ghostfaceinvestah (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 12:45 pm
What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?
I don't know, what did they do? I've only been white for like, 30 years now. My ancestors came here 125 years after the founding of the Republic and were systematically exploited as cheap labor by capitalists. I only stopped being a bestial slav when there weren't enough WASPs to staff the country club and whiteness had to be reinvented.
It seems to me that your ancestors shot some indians and moved down the road into the land of opportunity no longer encumbered by troublesome autocthones. That doesn't seem to offer much potential at this time.
When I was conceived of back in the New Frontier days, home prices weren't as varied across the country as they are now.
My parents sold their home in Denver for the same price as they paid for a similar home in LA...
Try that today?
"You want simple? Consider this. Our debt money system MUST expand at an exponential rate to function. New credit is used to pay the interest on previous credit."
This is only true if the creditor retains the interest. If the creditor spends the interest instead, then lending with interest can take place in a system with fixed amounts of money.
ghostfaceinvestah
"What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation?"
my fathers father came here from sicily to escape the mafia who had beaten his father to death for testifying against those murderous thugs
my mothers father came here from the pyranee mountains to escape the violence of revolution
im not going to run away...i intend to run for political office in the fall
The rule of RRE - If you can't expect to pay off your home in your lifetime you shouldn't be living in it.
ot-early fireworks
North Korea test-fires 4 short-range missiles
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Hey, I did my share. Went to Vegas last weekend.
The place was pretty busy from what I could tell.
Got good hotel rates at least. Put too much gas in the car. Had fun.
"What did our ancestors do when faced with exactly the same situation? "
My father's people? Left Dust Bowl, Oklahoma during the Depression and came to California. Before that, they'd left Texas for Oklahoma, and before that, South Carolina for Texas. Always moving on in hope of greener pastures.
Mom's people made a straight shot here from Madeira Island in the Atlantic, where a few owned nearly everything and everyone else scrabbled for a living. So did a lot of other Madeiras -- they made it to the Northeast, Hawaii, South Africa, all over.
So the answer is, they left.
But where you go when there's nowhere to go, or not easily?
The rule of RRE - If you can't expect to pay off your home in your lifetime you shouldn't be living in it.
Minimum Down payment. Sporadic monthly then walkaway if things get tough. Working for thousands
Juvenal Delinquent (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 9:40 am
What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?
A moat, barbed wire and guard towers if we were smart.
We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?
This is only true if the creditor retains the interest. If the creditor spends the interest instead, then lending with interest can take place in a system with fixed amounts of money.
I don't see it that way. Fixed systems tend towards falling prices and periodic busts (debt purges) regardless of velocity. This fact has been known for thousands of years. Debt jubilees have been used. And the Israelites did not allow permanent land ownership as land was the basis for most credit. Land was leased for 50 year periods. Our experiment with permanent inflation to avoid busts is ~ 38 years old. If we had better distribution and slower inflation, things would have worked out better.
What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?
Crime
urban decay
massive fraud and incompetence in local government
poor services
corrupt police
polluted rivers and lakes
no jobs
no hope of jobs
closing schools
poor school performance
high taxes (1.5% city income tax)
bad roads
6 months of shitty weather a year
seasonal affective disorder
GM bankrupt
Chrysler bankrupt
edit: abandonment by all non-blacks (could not think of a PC way to put this)
Do you want more?
On education, so OT but pigged from the last thread. That was Mal replying to me. It is gratifying to hear so much support for teachers and appreciation of the efforts that dedicated ones make in spite of all the impediments (Bob Dobbs and Mock Turtle) . I replied to Mal that there are intangible rewards, such as, student and parent satisfaction, seeing progress and their goals met, friendships created. Th corporate model of education over the past 40 years has done a great deal to turn education and learning into the delivery of modules that teach to an "objective" test of the student or a quantitative assessment of the teacher at the end of each semester.
her partner is flying out from Detroit. They rehab, rent and manage the properties....25K for house, rents $800...I just dont see it...
It's that old risk/reward thing. Plus someone has to live in Detroit to look after business. If I lived there, I'd be trying to buy up property, too. But I like to see where my money is.
BTW- was she also a big believer in the GO Zone?
.....Cheer up....I'd almost forgot that today's BFF on a Thursday. I would imagine that if the FDIC had a BIG "problem child" awaiting in the wings, a long weekend might be advantageous in case of any unanticipated "challenges". I'm certain there are a few out there in the "Almost TBTF" line, and many hundreds lined up in the first-come-first-served "Local Nobody Bank" line.
"Still, the economists forecast the economy will grow in the second half of this year after contracting in the previous six months." (Bloomingburg Article)
What's different about detroit..the Cap rates I guess.. here is the email a longtime friend who bought a couple invest. prop. there last year sent yesterday..
She is not a scammer..but I rebutted with some facts and she was pissed to say the least....
Why should you attend?
If you're interested in BUYING TURN-KEY REHABBED, RENTED PROPERTIES at WHOLESALE prices. This is specifically for people who are interested in buying real estate now. If you're not, then no worries!
Meet $$$$ $$$$$$ a friend and business associate of mine, CEO of $$####### Consulting - flying in from Detroit, Michigan for this evening only - who will showcase WHOLESALE PROPERTY deals FOR SALE and much more.
Doors open at 4:30pm: Please come early so you have time to network with fellow Investors. Refreshments will be served.
We will cover money-making topics such as:
####### is a trusted metro Detroit partner for all your investment property solutions. Headed by ##### ########, a licensed attorney and investor, he will provide practical solutions in complex situations.
Offering services for investors, tenants, and homeowners alike:
No middle man - you are working directing with the source. Real cash flow investment with real exit strategies - guaranteed.
I am looking at mortgage delinquency data through May 31st. We had a relative lull in DQs from Jan through and including Mar, a decline in the second derivative if you will.
Apr and especially May are looking much worse, the second derivative seems to have turned again.
Much of this is seasonal - the beginning of the year usually sees an improvement (this year it was an improvement in the second derivative) as people get tax refunds (i.e. they get paid back the interest free loan they gave to the govt).
Plus we had the moratoria this year.
For housing data, March might have been the middle of the "W".
creditcriminalslovetarp;
"I stated how could that be, every investor in the US would be flocking there. She really ripped me with an email on my lack of understanding on that market...."
There's not much you need to know about that market. If you are not planning to live there or create a good-sized management company with lots of local expertise, there is no way you want to invest in SFHs in a dying city. Think about it:
IMHO the only way to approach something like this would be in a trust structure, partnership, or something with sufficient scale to employ local managers and influence local politics. And you would need some way to make sure that the general partners or whatever management was in place was acting on behalf of investors and not just themselves. I would not touch something like this otherwise - too easy to get wiped out.
You may infer that I have made a mistake like this in the past...
There is a golden opportunity to revitalize the rust belt, and Californians don't know it yet, but they are the catalyst...
Fleeing from economic peril and lack of water, (the 4th year of a nasty drought looms large) places like the rust belt will be a natural for the later-day Tom Joads driving out east, to settle down.
"But where you go when there's nowhere to go, or not easily?"
why, you go to war of course.
We need to stop the corruption by Goldman, bank of Amerika, and Jp Morgan. Stop the Geithner and bernanke. .
Obama's policies may not be working as well as many had hoped: 1st 100 days - There are 2.9 million more people unemployed in May than there were unemployed in January. The unemployment rate went from 7.6% to 9.4%. Since May 2008, we have lost 5.5 million jobs. The biggest losers
were:
Manufacturing 1.5 million lost
Finance & Prof Serv 1.5 million lost
Construction 1.1 million lost
Retail & Leisure 1.3 million lost
hat tip to Interesting Finance & Economic articles
for the good articles
"Wells Fargo will accept California state IOUs" ......... well that's a relief.
We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
I liked the idea of bulldozing it all.
HEY who wrote the "glossary"
Click on CA its hilarious and sadly true
"There is a golden opportunity to revitalize the rust belt, and Californians don't know it yet, but they are the catalyst..."
I know what you mean... in the Bay Area, our own personal hunk of the Rust Belt was the East Bay, Richmond down through Oakland and beyond. Went to hell in the '70s and '80s, and some of it never came back though downtown Oakland and Emeryville had some gentrification action going. But during that bad time, there were empty factories and buildings available cheap for live/work, and a lot of people took advantage.
But these days, with eBay and such, you don't even have to head for a metro area. Score yourself an abandoned elementary school out in Kansas or Missouri somewhere with a good roof for $60-80K, somewhere near good transport, and operate your non-geography based business out of there, with a willing and low-cost workforce. People are doing it.
So I know what you mean, but there's no guarantee migrants would head for metro areas, not with better prices for abandoned public/industrial buildings in rural areas acorss the nation.
And it's a nice picture overall, but relatively few people are up for re-pioneering the plains. Not unless everything goes to merry hell out here in California. And though it pleases many to indulge in such fantasies, I'm not convinced.
We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
I liked the idea of bulldozing it all
Henry Morganthau wanted to do just that, and make it pastoral.
Tim,
Different people made entries. I wrote one definition.
Thanks SM Landlord....you bullet points are what led me to write back in disagreement...enuf said....
Here's hoping everyone and their families have a great 4th...Marin county fair look out...
lama thanks I didn't notice it before.
Of course, some cities like Buffalo ARE bulldozing some of their neighborhoods and letting the green grass grow. Take a look at Google Street View in Detroit sometime, it is eerie seeing these green expanses that used to be neighborhoods.
After the upcoming half a generation of displacement from McMansion America, I suspect that these people will "discover" some of the sturdier 1950s and '60s era housing stock of Rust Belt suburbia and make a go of it. It's going to take a while for the sense of square footage entitlement to fade. They'll forget that it's "impossible" to raise 2.5 kids in a 1300 sq ft house.
zzz....autochthones...white only recently .....zzzz....zzz....
Wake up! Byz is back!
We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
So what you're saying is that the inhabitants of Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo should roll up their sleeves (like, say, these women) and fix up their cities. I don't think that will happen. These cities still have more housing stock than people, unlike Germany post WWII, which had housing stock reduced by bombs.
Anyway I don't know what you mean by 'we'. I haven't given up on Cleveland, but that's because it wasn't my responsibility to start with.
Looking at the Glossary
I have to take issue with "Down goes Frazier" I think I used it first to refer to GS having a bad day. I didn't think it ever referred to the market as a whole... All Wells
IMO the CRE value of the entire industry is worth no more than that of the worst operator.
Won't that get skewed by the hotel-condo schemes of the last few years? If the hotel doesn't really own the room, but merely has a deal in place to book it (on whatever occasion I don't know) does it affect their CRE all that much? Once these hotel-condo things started happening, I no longer understood the business model.
"They'll forget that it's "impossible" to raise 2.5 kids in a 1300 sq ft house. "
1300 sq ft used to be "big." The first post WWII housing in my area was 800 sq. ft., 2 br, 1 bath, and one gas floor heater. We were posh, we had 1100 square feet and three bedrooms. I think mine was 8x8.
The "extra room" was the after-school programs and recreational programs the school and city made available for kids after school and in summer. The bands, the sports teams, the choirs, the clubs -- all the things that cost extra or don't exist anymore out here on the coast.
Parents actually went out in the evening, too, for civic things, bowling leagues, etc. Easier to get the energy for that when you've got a five-mile commute and a full-time job that's really only 40 hours.
The people minding the water in California fudged the numbers not nearly as bad as their financial counterparts on Wall*Street, but they definitely have been applying a chimera rouge colored lipstick to the pig, of which the majority of Californians can't see, because they live hundreds of miles away from their water source and have no idea...
http://aquafornia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mwd-gauge-jul-1.jpg
"So what you're saying is that the inhabitants of Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo should roll up their sleeves"
Our culture is no longer organized to do something like that. Better to just raze and be done with it.
down goes frazier has the correct defn.
ah, the good old days, seems like yesterday
Well, the "extra room" was also outdoors, where kids were allowed to roam without being constantly supervised by adults. (Is there any evidence that the rate of child snatching has gone up since then? Or down?)
Of course we've been pouring trillions for decades into the OPACs for generations so to say we've abandoned them is not true. They failed. Let's move on.
What is OPAC?
RockyR (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 1:31 pm
Our culture is no longer organized to do something like that. Better to just raze and be done with it.
Stupid and wasteful, designed to exploit naive "greenies" and the short-sighted. They will make urban prairie, then, golly, they will admit they can't service their debts, and sell the land at a cut-throat discount to politically connected developers in a bid to increase tax revenue streams. The useful idiots will crow first at the demolition of extant properties, then at the exploitation of the state apparatus to enrich developers through subsidized construction to create 'green shoots' and 'lead re-development'.
Our culture is no longer organized to do something like that
Oh, I don't know about that. But it's a long way, culturally, from ND to Detroit, and it's a mistake to talk about 'our culture' as if we had just one within these borders.
I'm really loving the glossary. Its like a more accurate and useful version of Wikipedia.
What's the difference between a bombed out city like Hamburg and Hamtramck, Michigan?
One was the result of war and the other was caused by economic war.
What's the difference between a citizen of a city like Hamburg and Hamtramck, Michigan?
One lost a large part of their family to war?
The other lost a large part of their family to beer?
"Parents actually went out in the evening, too, for civic things, bowling leagues, etc. Easier to get the energy for that when you've got a five-mile commute and a full-time job that's really only 40 hours."
.......and when Mom was at home, had dinner ready for Pop, fed him, and pushed him out the door afterward.
Oh, sorry. OPAC is Obsolete Pre-Automotive City. I
3rd UPDATE:ECB: Central Banks To Buy Bonds Rated AA Or Higher
"The European Central Bank said Thursday it will start to acquire covered bonds worth up EUR60 billion next week with ratings of AA or higher."
//.......and when Mom was at home, had dinner ready for Pop, fed him, and pushed him out the door afterward. //
this is so so true. hey, i'm socially liberal but something critically important to the smooth functioning of society was lost when moms began entering the workforce in large numbers.
Now that we've empowered women into multi-tasking-money-earner-mommy-career jugglers, how does one go back to the future?
"Now that we've empowered women into multi-tasking-money-earner-mommy-career jugglers, how does one go back to the future?"
Learn, as a society, that there is more to value than quantity.
But where you go when there's nowhere to go, or not easily?
I think that that question is a big part of the issue. American tradition has been to escape the heavy-handedness of (Country X) and move to somewhere where there was the possibility of less heavy-handedness.
If the general society doesn't like your religious views as a Puritan/Mormon/etc., you moved somewhere where you can be the law and the authority and allow your views to be more open. If Native Americans, foreign traders, or other folks got in your way, you worked with them, killed them, or sadly back to the people out east to send troops to do the killing/"settling" for you. I'm not sure what ghostinvestah meant with his question, but it comes across way too simplistic and way too blase.
As for my ancestors, one line were Germanic immigrants who fought in the Revolutionary War. Another line was Scottish immigrants who fought in the Revolutionary War. The other two lines seem to be strictly Anglo-Saxon, and they probably fought in the Revolutionary War too.
If I am to follow ghostinvestah's advice about ancestry, I need to find unsettled land. Fight for it against the country to "owns" it. Be given land when the new country opens up "new" territory. Finally, I become a farmer, laborer, or general store owner to earn money and raise a family (per U.S. Census reports from 1880-1930)
Nanny-State supervisor BHO is attending to imaginary hangnails while the patient lies on the ground hemhorraging from every artery. We need carbon taxes & administative overhead right now like we need the plague.
Black Star Ranch (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 9:45 am
"What really separates Detroit from the rest of the country, honestly?"
lets see....crime, run-down neighborhoods, crime, snow, crime, cold, sleet, & rain, crime, terrible public schools, crime,........yep....that totals at least a mil...
Let's see.
Remove snow and sleet and add drought instead of rain and you'd have most of CA. Snow isn't that bad
Bearly
Exactly.
Mr.Sparkle (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 12:36 pm
The banks took an awful risk that a populist president or congress would not be in place when the dam broke. If it's calculated fraud, that's quite a gamble they were taking. I prefer sheer stupidity & greed. It's more simple.
I think you give them far more credit for intelligence than they deserve. They were making money hand over fist and given the structure of compensation there was no reason to stop until it blew up. Lets face it the people at banks (with a few exceptions) who got us into this mess are not the ones who are hurting- the pain is being borne by the tax payers and a lot of shareholders.
At some level the shareholders deserve what they are getting. When you set up a compensation system that encourages people to gamble with your money they will do well sometimes but in the long run you are going to get screwed. Simple reason - if the probabilities are 1/10 that you are going to blow up if the first four times you didn't blow up people think you are a genius and give you a larger amount to speculate with. So that when you blow up as you will the loss will be much larger than all the gains.
The exponential math problem vs. public health capacity is the certain big downside risk with H1N1...
Britain revamps swine flu strategy to handle surge
By MARIA CHENG – 3 hours ago
LONDON (AP) — Britain faces a projected 100,000 new swine flu cases a day by August and must revamp its flu strategy, the nation's health minister said Thursday.
Britain has officially reported 7,747 swine flu cases and three deaths, but officials acknowledge the real number of cases is far higher, since many with the virus have not been tested.
Britain is the hardest-hit nation in Europe amid the global swine flu epidemic. Many flu experts believe numbers could jump exponentially now that the virus is entrenched. Because swine flu, or H1N1, is a new virus, few people have any natural immunity, allowing the virus to spread rapidly.
"Cases are doubling every week and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August," Health Minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons on Thursday.
The article requested is no longer available.
For housing data, March might have been the middle of the "W".
I actually think it's the second top point of the "M".
Green Schützenfest = Mark-to-model target shooting
Last OT flu factoid for a bit:
Swine flu hitting Argentina hard
July 3, 2009
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina has reported 17 more swine flu deaths, bringing the total to at least 43 in the country hardest hit by the virus in the southern hemisphere.
The Health Minister, Juan Manzur, who was sworn in on Wednesday, said 43 or 44 deaths linked to the virus had been confirmed, a significant jump from the 26 reported by the ministry on Friday.
He said that provincial governments had been urged to suspend school classes to contain the outbreak. "The situation in the country is serious and difficult," he said.
Argentina has replaced Canada as the country with the third-highest swine flu death toll. In the United States 127 deaths have been reported, and in Mexico, where the epidemic was first discovered, 116 have died.
"We are contending with a trend that is still on the rise," Mr Manzur said.
The World Health Organisation declared a global swine flu pandemic last month. On Wednesday it said 332 people have died from it and 77,201 people worldwide have caught the virus.
Health experts are following the situation closely in the southern hemisphere, where events could be a harbinger of what is to come when winter hits North America, Europe and most of Asia at the end of the year.
The epidemic in Argentina has a higher mortality rate than in other countries stricken with the virus. With 1587 confirmed cases and 43 deaths, one in every 37 confirmed swine flu cases - 2.71 per cent - in Argentina has been fatal. In Mexico the rate is 1.35 per cent and in Chile 0.19 per cent.
Swine flu hitting Argentina hard
@crazyv - I think you misunderstand me, I'm not giving them much of any credit in terms of intelligence. I give them credit for the following:
- Piling into the crowded trade
- Not thinking
- Doing what 95% of their colleagues were doing.
Basically, I think they got lucky that there wasn't an administration in place that decided they weren't going to play ball. Instead, we got the cabinets and appointees full of people willing to do whatever it took to keep the large banks going. My take was that if the bankers actually knew it could all end badly, they took a terrible risk believing that they would get bailed out in the end. We could have instead elected an Andrew Jackson - unlikely, sure but anything's possible.
I have little quarrel with the other things you wrote. Shareholders should be absolutely reamed. Instead, they bought shares when secondary offerings were done - go figure.
" I've only been white for like, 30 years now. "
Why is this a problem? If you don't like that category, the Census provides an option.."Other". Use that instead.
" A 33-year-old woman with pre-existing medical conditions is Marin County's first confirmed H1N1 flu death, Marin County Deputy Public Health Officer Dr. Anju Goel said Wednesday afternoon.
There have been 49 cases of the H1N1 swine flu in Marin County, 24 of them probable and 25 confirmed, Goel said. Like other areas of the state, Marin County public health officials have seen an increase in the number of H1N1 cases in the past two weeks.
There have been at least 18 deaths in California and 127 in the United States from the H1N1 flu this year. "
"Nanny-State supervisor BHO is attending to imaginary hangnails while the patient lies on the ground hemhorraging from every artery. We need carbon taxes & administative overhead right now like we need the plague."
Looks like we will get the plaque too.
thanks for updating Energy...H1N1 floats in the background but seems to be moving closer to occupying the whole screen....
"We essentially gave up on Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and the like..
Imagine if Germany had just let everything lay as it fell, post-world war 2?"
I liked the idea of bulldozing it all."
Naw,I'd rather sell Texas and it's people to the Mexican drug lords...let them formalize their ties.
"Naw,I'd rather sell Texas and it's people to the Mexican drug lords...let them formalize their ties."
Tell me where to sign. We can rid ourselves of the Mexican drug lords once we are free from the federal statutes in place that keep us from doing so.
Just went on priceline and punched in a $50 rate for a four star hotel and it was accepted. All I was looking for was a place to crash, but I'll gladly take the luxury.
fried (profile) wrote on Thu, 7/2/2009 - 2:09 pm
Why is this a problem? If you don't like that category, the Census provides an option.."Other". Use that instead.
A bit sensitive about having the malleable nature of "whiteness" underlined, are we? Am I insufficiently full of White Pride at having been let into the exclusive club when your numbers ran short? Pardon me if I don't scrape enough at my promotion from "dumb hunky that doesn't feel pain or privation like other humans," my half-animal brain is still caching up with the brilliant Episcopalian intellects of my newfound brothers in the White Tribe.
I'm just endlessly amused by folks who want to talk about "Those People" when THEY were "Those People" for half their lives or more. Wagging your finger at me about what check-box to fill out on the census form won't change the fact that when people rhetorically retreat into calls to "our ancestors" -- they are presumably talking about themselves and the mouse in their pocket.
Me, I don't care what you cal yourself...I don't know you, never met you, never will. But you waste bandwidth by belaboring your personal issues...have you considered professional help?
i saw first hand teachers paying for classroom supplies out of their own pockets,
grading student papers at home each night and putting in hours of volunteer time
and staying late after hours to meet with students that needed help, one on one...
because they cared about their students and the school system would have declined without the teachers largesse
wrt Detroit and all the negative issues, dirty rivers isn't one of them. The Detroit River for some inexplicable reason is incredibly clean.