Housing Starts decline in February
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Tue, 03/16/2010 - 4:40am (201 comments)
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housing starts decline because of snow?
hoo
cooda
node?
It's all because of that damn winter snow!
Good Morning
Can't they get their confidence levels better than 10%?
Need. More. Samples.
Go out and try and find homes built during the Great Depression era, there aren't many.
...the same thing will happen this time around
So....we have a 8k tax credit, interest rates at or below 5%, housing prices lower in most areas, the fed pumping hundreds of billions into the system, and various other supports and this is what we get!! A scintilla of a percent increase (0.2%) over last February when we were free falling into the abyss! WOW!
It seems king of risky to buy a house right now given economic uncertainty. Until the UE picture clears up, I'd be hesitant to pick up such a large asset of such magnitude and questionable valuation, with the potential threats of interest rates or wage deflation.
This chart sure seems to be a ringing endorsement of the L shaped recovery.
Amazing how the weather prevented builders from pulling permits but not starting construction.
Waking up to a 4.4 in Pico Rivera. Minor damage.
This is very bad news my fellow doominati.
We just put a for sale by owner sign on our old house. My parents decided to move out of the blue a couple months ago. I came home and they told me, oh hey, by the way we bought another house. I just hope we can sell it. The house they bought is the same size on 12 acres for 120 thousand, and we are trying to sell this one for 180 k on a 1 acre lot.....they don't seem to be worried, but I sense a disturbance in the housing market force.
Hopefully the media will keep doin it's thing and we can get this thing sold. Good luck to all.
A question for those of you contemplating buying a home now, why?
Blackhalo wrote:
Mistype of the morning.
Those are pretty wide confidence intervals. That leads me to believe some other method of measuring homes/construction would be better.
my experience... ppl under 40 i know... mostly college educated, if they don't have a mortgage, they are NOT buying. sluggish indeed!
Rob Dawg wrote:
I was awake when it hit. Barely shook my house in the southern Curtain. Looks like some freeway damage on the 5.
Oh, and the housing start chart is pure
. There is no way to spin it.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
I've been asking this same question for years now, and the answer is always the same. Because the markets down now, right? It's a good time to buy.
Cash will be King and the buying lamp is not lit yet here. We are now just starting to feel the UE hit in the rental business. Ugly.
We look to be on the precipice of another big down move in matters of a real estate nature, urgency is your friend quite often in a bull market, but what's the rush now?
I just saw the headline in the NY Times: "U.S. Housing Starts Slowed by Blizzards."
Well, it is definitive. If the Times says it's the blizzards, then it's must be the blizzards. The Times knows all. (On a personal note, I feel sorry for those unfortunate blizzards that are blamed for so much these days.)
CR, looks like the early data this week has not gone as you expected when you posted Sunday...
"Since the NAHB index increased slightly in February (it is released a month ahead of starts), we might expect some increase in February single family housing starts."
Then yesterday we got the decrease in the NAHB index and today the decrease in starts. I'm beginning to wonder if the big selling season that many anticipated for March and April may not materialize. I realize that is mostly related to existing homes and not new homes that these reports reflect, but they do seem to move together.
Have these reports changed your forecast at all for home prices?
We were told we might not be able to continue renting this home past June 30th. So we've been looking around at the local market (Durham, NC). There are some good deals, but we seem to lag many of the hot markets by a good year or two and the prices have not come down much. I'm inclined to rent for another year and see what happens when(if) the MBS purchases and FTHB expire.
Of course my wife fell in love with a home, so now we'll have to work through that.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
The closest I can get to a credible answer is that financing will be significantly more expensive, or down payments will rise a lot.
Not so convincing: someone wanting to buy now because they are worried about losing their job and not qualifying later.
For Rob Dawg:
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: California House Speaker Gives Aide $65,000 Raise; Aide Now Makes $190,008
Nice pre-shock, when's the main event coming?
Mr Slippery wrote:
There's a way to think about the chart visually. Draw a line at 1 million and look at the area under the curve from 1996-2007. That is the oversupply. Now look at the area under the line 2007-2010. That's how much surplus has been burned off so far. Years is understatement.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Life continues. Purchasing a home is one of the largest financial decisions, but for primary residence I would say is not an investment decision per se due to transaction costs. Long winded way to get at there are significant non-monetary considerations in the decision.
Location. The Houston area (and Texas in general) caught the most limited fringes of the bubble pump in comparison to ground zero. Also, economy wise it has taken less of a beating overall which both lead to...
Price. Opportunity identification, evaluation and qualification resulted in making an offer on a house that is 2.8x income at about a 17% discount to the current tax roll valuation and a 23% dioscount to the most recent sale in the same subdivision (September, 2009 and the only one).
Employment. Working in a commodity based industry, with prices determined globally in dollars - what is the end game again - think of it as liquid 'barbarous'.
Opportunity cost. We were contemplating a home purchase in 2007 when I first stumbled upon CR and changed the story to my wife, deferring the purchase. Also, moved MIL in with us and moved close to Medical Center area for her bout with breast CA and the two year lease has run out. A divorce would be far more expensive than a potential loss on a house we intend to inhabit for 15+ years...
Cinco-X wrote:
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Misconceptions about Money and Velocity
Mish misses the boat on the necessity for the money supply to grow, but the rest is interesting...
some investor guy wrote:
Even that strains credibility. If financing gets significantly more expensive (in a market dominated by financing), what would happen to the price of the underlying asset?
I might argue there's a rule for such markets: Prices fluctuate to keep monthly payments a constant.
(In truth, that's just restating that price-to-median-income can't stray too far.)
So if you're going to file a start (or start a start) on Feb 15th, but it snows, aren't you just going to do it on Feb 22nd? Same goes for hiring/firing employees. Something in the middle of a month should have less effect than something at the end of a month, no?
energyecon wrote:
Amen!
Senator Kaufman Throws Down The Gauntlet - The Market Ticker
Is this just words? A glimmer of light flickers on in the dark halls of 535 fools....
Mr. President, last Thursday, the bankruptcy examiner for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. released a 2,200 page report about the demise of the firm and which included riveting detail on the firm’s accounting practices. <b>That report has put in sharp relief what many of us have expected all along: that fraud and potential criminal conduct were at the heart of the financial crisis.
THE RULE OF LAW AND WALL STREET
by U.S. Senator Ted Kaufman, March 15, 2010
(Warning: PeeDeeEff)
dr munch wrote:
No no no. You change your whole biz plan and decide (while shoveling the snow drifts) that the economic world has completely changed due to the presence of snow. You shelve the plans and pour a brandy to warm your feet.
John Cassidy is a good writer, but that infomercial article on Young Tim in the New Yorker was well below his best efforts...
energyecon wrote:
Only if you don't plan your divorce...
For some
go to hotpads.com, look at anywhere in southern CA, turn on the heat map for foreclosure rates.
It's time for hotpads to change their color coding. Almost everything is at the highest rate, over one foreclosure in progress per 150 households. Beverly Hills and Malibu, Pacoima and Inglewood.
Rob Dawg wrote:
That is a great way to look at it. Thanks. Just eyeballing it, I might draw the line at 1.2 million, but even then, it will take years.
energyecon wrote:
At least the divorce will be worth it.
JP wrote:
While I don't buy the blizzard excuse either, it's worth noting that sub-contractors expect one to plan in advance, and as such, simply pushing back a start doesn't result in you pushing back your start to a week; it requires you to go to the end of the line behind all of the sub-contractor's other work. That's assuming that you sub's have a backlog, and that you're unwilling to pay overtime to have folks come in on the weekends....
yagij wrote:
Some folks take marriage seriously and do not plan to fail. Often a bad move if you're bringing lots of assets into the marriage-
JP wrote:
Home prices do not correlate well with interest rates, at least not in the short term. I really should take the time to put together my own econometric model on this. The problem is regulatory interventions will really mess things up for near term predictions.
yagij wrote:
I know your background, yagij, but this is a once in a lifetime - and I am not going into it like the managment of an LBO (stripping the assets and leaving the burned out shell with the debts) - have you ever considered the selection bias that inevitably colors your views?
Old School Divorce: Battle over assets
New School Divorce: Battle over debts
some investor guy wrote:
Regulatory interventions really mess things up.
OT but ug99 made Wired magazine...there has been a real uptick in the MSM news coverage:
Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation | Magazine
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Did you hear about the guy who got screwed in the settlement? He kept the house.
And in Dawgifornia newz:
Pink slips issued to hundreds of teachers, administrators and other workers at South Bay schools - San Jose Mercury News
Good morning everyone. My wife and I were so tired last night, we ditched our attempts to go out for our anniversary and ordered pizza. Apparently Ron Paul supporters have infiltrated the ranks of pizza delivery drivers. The 40 something driver engaged me in a 5 minute diatribe on the evils of the Federal Reserve, the inevitable police state, and the overall general decrepitude we find ourselves in. He seemed surprised I was knowledgeable on several of his topics. Since my pizza was getting cold, I politely screamed, "Father the sleeper has awakened!" and shut the door in his stunned face. It was a long day.
energyecon wrote:
I certainly hope Al Qaeda doesn't decide it'd be a good idea to bring a few handfuls of this stuff to our breadbasket....
Chicago Suburb- District U-46 to lay off 1037 employees.
Daily Herald | District U-46 board approves layoffs for 1,037 employees
When pizza delivery guys know the score, that's frightening...
Vonbek777 wrote:
Perhaps he was a former investment banker?
Building material costs are going up rapidly. For example, Lumber was up 10% last monthand contnues to increase, and sheetrock is supposed to go up 20%. Hardwood flooring has gone up 5%in the past month, with certain sizes (5" red oak to name one) not being quoted until its shipped due to rapid price jumps.
The suppliers say its because they aren't selling enough materials, and have to cover fixed costs.
These material cost increases will cause even less new residential construction as the homebuilders get squeezed between falling sales prices and rising materials costs.
current headline: "Stocks are modestly higher before the Federal Reserve concludes a meeting where it is expected to keep a key interest rate at historic lows."
so, stocks are
" because no news is expected
meanwhile, drop in housing starts is ignored
2010-2011 will be the years of the public sector layoffs
energyecon wrote:
The purchase can be deferred, but not indefinitely, I'm learning. The spousal-satisfaction index is far more important than the Case-Shiller when it comes to the home-purchase decision.
modern equivalent of shoeshine boy?
The question isn't so much why would anyone BUY a house, as why would anyone BUILD a house? People move, stop moving, get married, etc. There's some real, constant supply of buyers. But there's a huge overhang of excess housing. Why would any sane person contemplate adding to it?
energyecon wrote:
Sometimes it just feels like the whole state is winding down. The United Express out of Oxnard is canceling all flights in June. Nummi closing next month. On and on.
Cinco-X wrote:
Some people don't plan to get in a car wreck. Some people don't plan to need hospital care. Some people don't plan to need disability insurance. Some people don't plan to need savings. Statistically, you will be proven wrong eventually.
.
energyecon wrote:
Do I consider selection bias? Every day of my life. I don't see the happy couples (or the couples that make it work), but I know of "functional" couples that operate well outside of the socially acceptable norm. Everyone tries to navigate the rocks to the best of their ability, but just like not everyone can be above-average, not everyone can use good judgment in regards to picking a partner and making it 'til Death.
.
Marriage was originally about estate planning and pooling resources to care for children. Originally, divorce was only for the wealthy and well-to-do, and it will probably end up there again as times get tougher and society bifurcates again into a noble class and us plebes.
In the new reality, the pizza guy could be a displaced executive.
vtcodger wrote:
If you could build a modern prefab (for instance) for 250k, why would you instead buy:
Bolton, MA, 01740 - MLS #70827190 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com® ?
I took more detailed pictures (not shown; it's not my listing) and it's even worse than it looks.
Vonbek777 wrote:
Uh-oh. Sounds like the inverse Joe Kennedy story. Buy dollars.
vtcodger wrote:
I have three different relatives and friends who are currently building their own houses. This is the second time they've done it (for each of them), and they are at the point where their mortgage is down into 5 digits or very low 6 digits. Build it, live in it, sell it, build another one. Having 60% of the mortgage paid off by the time they're 30 is pretty good, I think.
But they are all able to build the house themselves. I have no idea why anyone would pay a contractor to build them a house right now.
yagij wrote:
If your marriage is a "roll of the dice" affair, the odds are definitely not in your favor.
Based on some of the stuff he said, I think he is on the Dave Ramsey 12 step plan. Probably a school teacher working a second job.
I have some various Bernie Sanders rants playing on my computer via Youtube! This guy cracks me up when he tears into Bernake, Bankers or Geitner
The palindrome of Bolton would be Notlob.
Perhaps the solution to the beleaguered real estate market is to emulate the pizza guy and offer 2 for 1 deals on homes?
JP wrote:
What story is that? The resident Canuck is unfamiliar with American aristocracy.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
We close in 30 minutes, or it's freee.
HCN community is slow this morning? Usually I can't keep up with the new posts. Today, I'm clicking "refresh"
Cinco-X wrote:
People change. Situations change. People are not rigid automatons.
happens.
.
Divorce could easily go away if we return to a more Catholic view of marriage, but then, adultery, financial mismanagement, and substance abuse should not cause people to want to leave the marriage. It is just that we have become so unreasonable about expectations and wants out of marriage in the US of A that divorce has become so prevalent.
off topic
Law.com - Racketeering, Unfair Business Practices Claims Added Against Toyota
some investor guy wrote:
I've mentioned this before..... this should have been my clue to problems down the road: in 2004/2005, my wife and I wanted to do some renovations on our house.... so I went in to Wachovia (where I did all my banking), to apply for a small HELOC (like $80,000 or so, still probably under 80% LTV after the cash out).
The guy told me I should run the line up to $250,000...... his (almost) exact quote: "It doesn't cost any more than the $80,000, and this way, you'll always have the line, in case something happens and you can't qualify later."
noob goldberg wrote:
The usual story is in teh wiki:
Kennedy later claimed he knew the rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a crash. It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy.[6]
Just don't forget the next line:
It has been noted that during the Depression Kennedy vastly increased his financial fortune by investing most of it in real estate.
We are all American aristocracy until we're not. America is great when we can all live in 600k homes one week and drive a pizza van the next if we are lucky and know someone on the inside.
Snow? what snow, I have enough water in my basement I could fuel Vegas for a month
These piss poor weather excuses though are certainly a new low for the powers that be.
I blame American Idol.
And look at the Barbarous go
Rob Dawg wrote:
I didn't know it was Kennedy who got the shoe-shine tip! Thanks!
Looks like everyone had a long day yesterday. Listening to the crickets.
Doomentariat, where are thou?
Try our new deep debt dish pizza, it's delish.
And look at the Barbarous go
yagij wrote:
Marriage is in many ways an antiquated institution, and the most unreasonable expectation people have is that it will be practical.
On a related note, a coworker of my girlfriend's just called off his engagement to his bridezilla-to-be. Based on how I heard it, we dodged a yuge, yuge bullet there.
bridezilla
Is that code for a fat chick?
Yup and the hoopla around the fed rate announcement. I also noticed the VIX had a slight bump this morning as well.
MaryAnn wrote:
Exploring status quo bias in the human brain
yagij wrote:
You nailed it-
Nuke wrote:
Nope. It's code for a bride whose wedding demands are excessive.
Bridezillas - WEtv.com
Whitney says we aren't done yet and the model is broken.
"The housing market surely will double dip," Whitney told "Worldwide Exchange."
Meredith Whitney - Housing Market Sure to Double-Dip: Whitney - CNBC
Nuke wrote:
no-
Buying a home now... well, if you think the dollar is going to collapse, you have only a limited number of options for trying to preserve wealth. Land would be one of those, and whereas gold coins just sit in a drawer and look pretty you can actually use land to feed milk cows, raise chickens and so on.
Though in my case it would be more of a trade, since I currently have a home and would just be looking to move to another place with more land. The timing may be impossible, if bond yields go sky-high too soon then affordability issues will both tank the price of the current home and make payments on a new place too high. But we'll see.
whiskey:
Gotcha. I've noticed that the more expensive the wedding, the more likely an eventual divorce. No evidence, just what I've seen amongst my friends. Lucky for me, my wedding was a ceremony on a beach in Guam. Total cost: 115 .
josap wrote:
That is a given. I am surprised the LPS data was so widely ignored yesterday. 7.5M non-current mortgages. No wonder no new homes are being built.
MUST
WAIT
BEFORE
SHORTING
MARKET
ONLY
2
MORE
WEEKS
josap wrote:
josap wrote:
"The banks aren't issuing anything (in terms of mortgages) to hold, they're issuing everything to dump on" Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, Whitney added.
Where's GFI? He's been saying this for some time.
Yup and the hoopla around the fed rate announcement. I also noticed the VIX had a slight bump this morning as well.
If there's hyperinflation, homes aren't going to go up initially if at all.
99% of the hoi ploy is holding dollars in some variant, and it's not like you can ship homes overseas to score on the currency arbitrage...
Nuke,
I agree on the wedding cost to length of marriage. Married in exchange for installing a motor in a coworkers car. Thirty nine years later still going!
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Some might go up in smoke....
Cinco-X wrote:
One of the fallacies of one partner paying off the mortgage is that they will lose 1/2 the amount they paid in a divorce because the residence is divided equally. In that case it is better to divide the mortgage rather than the principal.
My Way News - PROMISES, PROMISES: Is gov't more open with Obama?
We all know the Fed willl keep the rate at pretty much 0.
I don't get the whole "Waiting for the Fed" stories in MSM.
People just can not be that stupid, to wait for what they already know to be told to them again.
Cinco-X wrote:
Yeah, that about sums it up. In most countries lending mortgage money is one of a banks largest lines of business (and those loans are usually funded by covered bonds).
In America, most of that lending is done by the government, and our banks are nothing but brokerages.
I always found it funny we thump our chests about what "free markets" we have. not in housing, we are much, much less free than most former Soviet-block countries.
This isn't about smarts anymore...this is about social conditioning.
ghostfaceinvestah wrote:
and casinos.
Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:
The motor?
Vonbek777 wrote:
In what way?
Do you suppose when a Unabanker plays craps, they win no matter what gets rolled?
ghostfaceinvestah wrote:
While I agree with your sentiments about government interference in presumably free markets, I'd also note that private property was essentially banned in the old USSR. We're note quite there yet-
Cinco-X wrote:
It's what I do.
Oh, I agree. For those who have enough cash, it would likely make sense to wait. But for someone who has some cash but also expects to have to get a mortgage, mortgage rate issues and the tie to bond rates make the calculations more difficult.
Anyway when we look at the path by which new money has been entering the system (to this point), namely, via the buying up of near-valueless MBS, I don't think it's possible to rule out the idea that housing prices will be propped up long enough for inflation to overtake them. There should be a flood of cheap housing on the market as a result of foreclosure, but since the Fed is holding a trillion in MBS, it owns a whole lot of mortgages that it has neither incentive nor really means to try recovery on. Hence, that housing stock won't hit the market. We aren't guaranteed an exact replay of the Depression.
My Way News - ACORN branches rename, rebrand after video scandal
yagij wrote:
oh yes josap people are that stupid. id rather be ignorant any day then flat-a$$ed stupid.more i think about rackereeing the more i think we should just apply it across the economic board,banks,fed,congress, talk about unfair business practices. they dood it.im long on ignorant and real short on stupid.
Nuke wrote:
Gotcha. I've noticed that the more expensive the wedding, the more likely an eventual divorce. No evidence, just what I've seen amongst my friends. Lucky for me, my wedding was a ceremony on a beach in Guam. Total cost: 115
Mine was about $800. Wife made here own dress, flowers, cooking and so done by friends.
How to justify a $20,000 + bash celebrating what could be a 1 in 2 failure most likely caused by lack of funds is beyond me.
After the nazis and the soviets had left Czechoslovakia, the real estate that my grandfather 'owned' was our family's again, but the only problem was our relatives thought $5k was all the money in the world for a home, so they sold stuff for bupkis.
Man, was my dad pissed off that they gave everything away...
Cinco-X wrote:
........during the past year, I've played this game - guess the previous occupation of the current 7-11 worker, fast food joint worker, waiter/waitress, HD guy. They're easy to spot - they can count change, carry a conversation, and write at the same time. Now I just ask, "What did you do before you worked here?"
kinda more of the same, almost on topic: There is a growing gap between those Californians falling behind on their house payments and those actually losing their homes, according to the report by ForeclosureRadar.com.
California foreclosure starts rise nearly 20% in February | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times
Cinco-X wrote:
Only when I stray outside my realm of professional experience
JP wrote:
the 21st century will be one long exercise in giving up things.
Vader wrote:
Definition of (Male) Insanity: Busting the bank for your daughter's marriage then later on busting the bank on your daughter's divorce.
The Best and Worst 401(k) Plans by Industry: Worst Plan: Retailers: Sporting Goods, Music, Books, General Merchandise - BusinessWeek
bbartlog wrote:
They can't hold it long enough.
Are they just goin gto let people live there for free for years and years?
Are they going to leave them vacant and open to getting trashed?
Are they going to pay the HOA fees, taxes and keep the lawn up?
I don't think so.
My view... intelligence gives you more models to work with, more ways to internalize and figure things out. Reality is fine while the models work. When a problem becomes too big, and the models don't work, and the best solution is to not solve the problem...intelligence fails. Herd behavior takes completely over, cognitive dissonance, and we alternatively wait in crisis mode/march like lemmings to the edge of the cliff. The social conditioning is provided by our government to reinforce the crisis mentality. Everything is going to be okay/be afraid of everything. You can't have a recovery when the doctor is busy creating complexes in the patient.
yagij wrote:
You're a professional spouse!?
Looks like this Friday could be Puerto Rico day.
yagij,
Your expertise really only comes in handy when there's assets to divy up, otherwise people would just get a simple divorce, no?
Vader wrote:
The "Honeymoon Isle" for the Japanese.
My gig for a while was dolphin watching and diving charters on Guam.
ille_vir wrote:
I refuse to get my hopes up once again. Melville was writing about Westernbank, as far as I'm concerned.
BSR,
That's a good one, but in the Central Valley, the guy that works at a 7-11 has been there for 14 years, going nowhere fast.
Vonbek777 wrote:
Yeah. When reason fails, and intelligence and training hit the wall, we regress to pre-rational "solutions" that worked in the past.
When a problem becomes too big, and the models don't work, and the best solution is to not solve the problem...intelligence fails. Herd behavior takes completely over, cognitive dissonance, and we alternatively wait in crisis mode/march like lemmings to the edge of the cliff.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
That's the "Redneck Divorce" model. Blow all your doe and and max out your CC's on ATVs, bass boats, etc., declare BK, get a divorce, and offer her a choice of the ATV or the bass boat in the settlement.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Divy up:
* Assets
* Debts <--- The New Normal
* Children and Their Time
Poll: Democrats Losing Support of Blue-Collar Voters - US News and World Report
Well, I would say we wait for 'authority' to tell us which way to jump...and we jump the most for 'father figures'.
Vonbek777 wrote:
Very true. Fear is a very good control for most people. And once you make them afraid you can then tell them you are the only one who can protect them. Bingo, they will do whatever you tell them to do.
I see many people who are afraid of something out of their control. Instead of figuring out how to manage in the enviroment, they stay in the fear zone.
A question for those of you contemplating buying a home now, why?
Because I enjoy toying with RE agents and it is a good way to get a first hand look at the market.
I'm having an email exchange with a realtor on the obx of NC on a couple of rental beach houses - one a foreclosure and the other a short sale.
My brother and I first started looking down there in 2006. After crunching the numbers I told the agent at the time that the prices were ridiculous and needed a 50% haircut. She laughed and assured me that after 20 years of working the market that prices wouldn't go down and besides it was different here. Me - 'we'll see'.
Back to the present. The houses that we are interested in were in the ~$750K range in 2006. The two we are poking with a stick are listed at $450K. She just emailed and said the lender holding the foreclosure would 'strongly' consider a cash offer of $400K - $420K. Haven't responded yet but I think we'll end up giving a $360K take it or leave it while really just wanting to wait till the end of this year/next year.
Should have yelled 'Coins!' before you shut the door.
noob goldberg wrote:
Melville? A snippet about FDIC and Puerto Rico was in the newswire. I'll post an article if I can find one to link to.
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
Jevons' Paradox and the Perils of Efficient Energy Use | Aerotropolis | Fast Company
black dog wrote:
It's funny, but I got this response:
from a Realtor yesterday on a house we looked at on Friday. It seems they know that the market is over priced. This one was a young woman who was starting out working for her father, and I guess she hasn't learned to lie well...yet-
Oh Josap you would be amazed how stupid people really are, I know I deal with them daily.
Cinco-X wrote:
Oh noes! Repubocrat-dominated government for 2011 and 2012!
Vader wrote:
Mine was $10K, but that's inflation for ya. And it was paid in cash up front
Cinco-X wrote:
Poll: Democrats Losing Support of Blue-Collar Voters - US News and World Report
Sounds like we're going to end up with a pretty fundamentalist group of radical republicans... conservative, of limited means and education, and militaristic/xenophobic in outlook... With little incentive to preserve the status quo and little wealth to "trickle down", they'll have little in common with the modern blueblood supply-side republicans, which could get interesting.
ille_vir wrote:
Oh excellent, thanks. I was referring to Moby Dick, but I now realize that people can't actually read my mind, no matter how much it seems they are on this forum
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
My grandfather owned some land and some vineyards. It was never returned to my knowledge.
Strange things happen when money loses meaning.
Nothing like poking the hive and making the bees mad, and then trying to control the swarm.
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
Not really. The Blue Bloods will be fine. I can't imagine our Band of Tea Partiers will be able to formulate a plan to mirror the French Revolution.
Housing construction drops 5.9 pct in February - Yahoo! Finance
shill wrote:
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
Well, that's a cheery thought for a Tuesday morning.
shill wrote:
The equities market has determined that losses are not being realized on housing, and therefore does not care about underlying fundamentals any longer.
Europeans have had much experience in the past century watching money lose it's meaning, but Americans are babes in the woods...
We'll learn~
josap wrote:
Why not? You're right that a bank or an investor, who needs a loan to perform (yield returns), would have to do something when the debtor stops making payments. The Fed, however, is not operating under these banal constraints.
Of course their holdings are still only a fraction of the pie, so by itself this doesn't keep prices up. But so long as there is a decent possibility of another round of MBS purchases, the banks don't have such a great incentive to realize the losses on the bad loans they still hold; better to wait until Uncle Fed comes around again...
That's easy: yes, and no, respectively.
sportsfan wrote:
I've had a headache/nausea since I woke up this morning, and this isn't helping
You out drinking last night Noob?
Weaponry comparison
French Revolution: Scythes, Pikes, Pitchforks
'Mericun Revolution: Glocks, AR-15's, Shotguns
....underestimating the strength of ones combatants never turns out well. (See Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq I, II, & III, Afghanistan, etc.)
good link cinco-x of course after i finished that slideshow i went to another one,i love slide shows.thank you
I missed the 3rd Iraq war, when did that happen?
noob goldberg, sorry to hear that.
This forum may not be the best location to cure that.
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
Now I want a doomstead.
Guess I should never think it can't get worse.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
We'll learn~
Yes, if by "learn" you mean suffer.
PATHEI MATHOS
true as it ever was...
Black Star Ranch wrote:
Revolutions work when they have the means and resources.
.
Angry, undereducated folks get put down if History has anything to say about it.
black dog wrote:
Make it contingent upon your ability to get insurance.
cinco-x that is a hard choice for her to have to make, cruel and unusual? yep it is.
Here we go.
FDIC seeks buyers for three Puerto Rican banks
Black Star Ranch wrote:
But the Koreans, Vietnamese, etc were of average weight and in relative good physical shape.
Take away the 4x4 and the Big Mac's, and these Land Whales would be helpless.
ille_vir wrote:
Tropical Storm Sheila slated to make landfall.
isn't today the day greece is supposed to be going tango uniform? or was the boy crying wolf again?
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
.....give it time, JD.....the IEDs are just now being gathered. Just another healthy product compliments of HFCS. :grin:
Beware the Ides of Mark to Model...
Re: number of candidates this year:
--LV Sun
ille_vir is this what you re looking for
FDIC Seeks Buyers For Three Puerto Rican Banks: Sources - www.capital.gr
yeah it is its got your hattip
Vonbek777 wrote:
Nah, two sick kids and I'm probably getting whatever they had. They've been miserable for a week, so I guess it's my turn.
Large chunks of easily-detected metal that engulf the user in a cloud of nitrate residue, while making a large report to alert anyone nearby to their presence! Yes, tell us more about these super-weapons of the revolution! Sometimes I think that the government encourages gun-nuttery just because firearms aren't much of a threat to the power structure, however effective they might be at causing damage on a small scale.
Uncle Ar wrote:
EU finance ministers on Tuesday discussed standby plans drawn up by countries using the euro to provide Greece with financial help if it becomes the first state in 11 years of monetary union to seek such aid.
Meredith Whitney - Housing Market Sure to Double-Dip: Whitney - CNBC this link isn't right. but I copied and pasted.
Vonbek777 wrote:
time to start a disenfranchise
We have allergies going full bloom here. Wife and kids are miserable and my ears are itching non-stop. Damn cedar.
Maybe we are using the Philippines as our model for Iraq?
It was our quagmire a century ago, and after a quick victory against the Spanish, everything went wrong for about a decade...
bbartlog wrote:
Well, not when the power structure has all the biggest ones.
ille_vir wrote:
I see my little Canadian bank that could is looking to pick through the carcasses.
smoke smoke vonbec777 and i wish them luck. but it all part of the
keep em to busy to really think about whats going on. 
Torture didn't go over well with the locals there either if I recall. Always thought it was interesting that Japanese water torture was invented by Americans in the Philippines and observed by the Japanese who took it home and perfected it.
bbartlog wrote:
the illusion of control is necessary for the unevolved male psyche
Uncle Ar wrote:
The French people very much went mad in the midst of their revolution (imagine people drinking the blood of somebody newly guillotined?) and I expect much the same here...
Cinco-X wrote:
Can you elaborate on the need?
bbartlog and then they going to wait til things get cleared up and things are booming again then pounce on them with lots lots of judgements
Rassmussen doesn't have a poll on this?
Comrade Janošik wrote:
vs. absolute power for the evolved male psyche? Monkey see, monkey do.
Just kidding.
noob goldberg wrote:
Didn't the Slumster warn us about this?
Eric wrote:
I've been shorting my wifes patience for days now.
I heard a news headline yesterday on the radio about Charles J. Antonucci trying to defraud the TARP program out of 11 million dollars. Small peanuts really but my thoughts went to many different places about this and it made me kind of mad!
My first thought was that they should line this guy up against a wall and shoot him! An example needs to be made out of someone and this fraud must stop!!
P.S. - I don't really want anyone lined up and shot by an angry mob or whoever....
tncubsfan wrote:
But it wouldn't really break my heart if he, say, sat on a sharpened stick. Repeatedly.
Comrade Janošik wrote:
Well, if the metrosexual male and the aggressive, openly promiscuous, money and status-obsessed she-demon are the 'evolved' variety of the psychological products of our modern society, I think we may have been better off staying ignorant and unevolved.
the illusion of control is necessary for the unevolved male psyche
since it's the end of the thread and all...
"Take away the 4x4 and the Big Mac's, and these Land Whales would be helpless. "
You guys should watch recently released movie called Crazies, remake of 1973 version. Actually quite black comedy kind of film, 28 days later style. I'd bet the revolution would work exactly the same way as in that movie when they try to "contain" a small country town.
Government troopers coming in with fancy gear and helicopters. Then more than a few country pumpkins not kinda "obeying", start shooting back each others and the troopers (from 4x4s of course!) and the "containment" just keeps on spreading
noob goldberg wrote:
Call me Ishmael...
Nope - unless each buyer buys at least 3 houses...