Time for more light blue ink for those graphs.

shhhhhhhhhhhh spike

Just say know to graphic violence.

gabyjan and mock, left you replies in the thread

That gurgling sound is someone with a lodging investment lodged in their throat.

An electric blanket simply doesn't have the human touch that comes with bellybutton lint residue on your bedspread.

Interesting day, everything is strong like bull.

Giant invading Southern California. An omen?

Orange County fishermen angle for unusual catch: Giant squid | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

From personal observation, too many motels/lodges were built in freeway-adjacent business districts. There was excess capacity even before the economy turned down; it's safe to say some of those motels will never be needed.

We've facetiously discussed in the past how these motels could be reused, but I'm now thinking dozers are the best solution.

thank you nanoo

Bob Dobbs wrote:

We've facetiously discussed in the past how these motels could be reused, but I'm now thinking dozers are the best solution.

In most places, there is too much of every kind of structure. That limits the alternative uses which might actually be better than taking the buildings down.

However, there are a few places where office buildings, hotels, and other structures are well suited to starting a whole new university campus.

noob goldberg wrote:

I wonder if it'll break through today and really skyrocket?

Lowest NYSE volume since January 14. Funny how those always seem to go together.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

I feel that this rally is almost as real as the zebras on Avenida Revolución, in Tijuana.

You're right, it still feels tepid. I'm almost certainly wrong, but I still think that a weak close, even an appearance, might still be in store today.

some investor guy wrote:

However, there are a few places where office buildings, hotels, and other structures are well suited to starting a whole new university campus.

In some cases; the uni I work for leases an ex-Holiday Inn nine months of the year for student housing. But it's very well situated, has a big professional kitchen for student food service, conference hall, etc.

Another tentacle-city just sprang up...

The rally is as real as claims on debt being traded for claims on assets .

Hyperinflation from monetization looks like a stock market rally - at first.

MS wrote:

No bets but I don't think we're going to see a sell-off today.....think about what is towards the end of the week.

Jobless claims, you mean? I have no idea what is in store for that release. It might make for an interesting day either way.

some investor guy wrote:

While I agree with the spirit of this, some places in the US have expanding populations, and might actually run low on certain types of space in 5 years.

Show me a place with an expanding population just about anywhere in this country, and I'll show you a place with a huge amount of new CRE opened during the past 5 years based on population estimates that had been extrapolated out at least 10-15 years. Those types of areas are my best case scenarios - as they might fill all their shiny new buildings at market rates within five years.

The population of the township where I've worked for the past 7 years has roughly tripled in that span. The square footage of CRE in same has at least quintupled (and that's a very conservative guess) - with hundreds of thousands of square feet more in various stages of completion still in the pipeline.

They might have fewer white elephants in five years' time than the typical American suburb but, believe me, they won't be clamoring to fast-track a bunch of new shops and hotels any time soon.

Half an hour in and no one has mentionend "SRS" yet?

[Down 3%]

Az has lost population as well. For the first time ever.

No one has said anything about being up $20.00 either.

Oxtail wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carne_Asada_Fries.jpg 

I really miss the carne asada fries. Nothing gives flavour like congealed fat five ways.

Office investment is usually the most overbuilt in a boom...

There is clearly a structural/information gap that repeatedly leads to office (and CRE generally) to get overbuilt and then plunge. My guess is that architecture contracts, loan applications, building permit applications aren't being paid attention to by the sponsor investors, or this info isn't complete enough to signal that supply is going to overrun demand (even if the boom persists).

The market doesn't always work, and this is a prime example of the grief that ensues by assuming markets work and finding that they don't. Recall the adage that insanity is doing over again what is known to not work.

Maybe a central exchange of info by market is required to provide better signals, or bankers must tighten up on loans when they are asked to underwrite insanity.

Mook wrote:

There shouldn't be a single new building constructed, nor another square foot added

Sorry, it's a free market and thousands of "investors" may continue funding new construction to their hearts content.

JimPortlandOR wrote:

or bankers must tighten up on loans when they are asked to underwrite insanity.

These days, that seems to be asking too much of the bankers.

Broward-
+1

broward wrote:

You can patch this and amend that but it won't change the fundamental problem of income maldistribution.
Rich people own too much stuff. Period.

I sure do agree with this. The banksters and eCONomists keep talking about the excess cash flowing from one hopeless sector to another in search of abnormal returns. This money completely distorts markets and overcomes rational thinking.

some investor guy wrote:

I've noticed that it's now easier to find hotels that take pets without an extra charge.

'bout damn time.

JimPortlandOR wrote:

This money completely distorts markets and overcomes rational thinking.

Yes. The most difficult task I've had in my current occupation was trying to explain the 'food crisis', when it was really just caused by liquidity sloshing around. This monetary tanker needs some baffles when driving down this mountain road.

broward wrote:

Sorry, it's a free market and thousands of "investors" may continue funding new construction to their hearts content.

I'm using the word "shouldn't" in an editorial sense, not a prescriptive one. If folks want to throw their good money after bad, that's their prerogative. But to label it all "investment" is disingenuous at best.

For the banks who continue to fund same, on the other hand, I'm perfectly willing to start being prescriptive.

broward wrote:

Rich people own too much stuff. Period.

Another way of saying it is that our society can't afford to support that many rich people. They have to be fewer, or less rich, or more willing to put their wealth to work in productive ways.

There was a positive purpose for the wealthy once in the economy -- and can still be -- but they've become too many, too huge, and the hugest are basically working toward becoming a self-perpetuating aristocracy based on nothing more but the position in society they already hold. Certainly not achievement.

Bob Dobbs wrote:

broward wrote:
Rich people own too much stuff. Period.
Another way of saying it is that our society can't afford to support that many rich people.

IMO it is more a case that we cannot support this many rich people AND a middle class. Pick one. So far the choice has been made for us. TALF, et al.

Its even worse than Broward says

Rich people can't own as much as their accounts say. The PV at the current rates of interest does not compute, and there is no more income stream.

Hence the presses roll, and the prayers for inflation.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

How long before we knock a few of our own teeth out to keep from being mistaken for rich people?

Do you even know how much money professional hockey players make?

Hayduke wrote:

cities need to fire everyone and then privatize the services.

Mish's ideas will worsen the situation.

He thinks he can force people to "work harder and produce more" but that's not the real problem. You can see the inherent contradiction in his thinking in many areas. Cutting wages for business owners is bad, cutting wages for workers is good. What is the difference there? It's a knee-jerk bias.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

How long before we knock a few of our own teeth out to keep from being mistaken for Sick rich people?

If it goes that far, the battered Levis/blue workshirt combo will come back as a fashion statement; or camouflage.

What's at stake in this credit/debt meltdown is not just TBTF 'systemic risk' or contagion but possibly the loss national sovereignity for some failed national economies...the time is right for the globalists and related big investors to promote 'global governance' and an international monetary governance structure...aka international cooperation...

Sure, you'll see the Unabankers wearing cheap plastic watches, trying to tone it down, but you ever see any of em' driving a car with 163,000 miles on the odometer?

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Even if they exchange seats from a Gulfstream V to a Greyhound, the Unabankers will stick out like a sore thumb.

How do you tell? Do they all have Klingon foreheads like Timmay?

Comrade Kristina wrote:

Amen broward. I know plenty of these types and they will rail on all day about "lazy employees". At some point this Society is going to have to try and recognize the worth of labor as a contributor to the bottom line. People who do an honest days work are no longer valued in this Country. We worship the quick buck specialists.

There's a letter from George Washington in which he rails on about how long it took one of his slaves to sand (coat with a layer of sand) a cellar floor, three or four days. "Why, any tradesman could do it in a day!" George muttered. Yeah, because the tradesman got paid by the job, and all the slave got for working fast was... more work.

They've been clueless in this country a long, long time.

broward wrote:

Mish's ideas will worsen the situation.

Let's see, what would massive wage deflation do for end demand...? The disproportionate allocation of the gains of productivity going to capital has resulted in the stagnant real wage CK mentioned above, with rising real costs for the hallmarks of providing a better life for your children (medical care and a university education) with the gap being papered over with debt until the debt service collided with the growing real costs...while the public union issues may be acute in some areas, they are not the structural issue that is playing out now.

The real clueless are the working debt slaves.

sm_landlord wrote:

How do you tell? Do they all have Klingon foreheads like Timmay?

Can't we make them wear armbands with a green $ sign?