From the Asbury Park Press:
The Shore’s economy is expected to slump in 2009
The Shore’s economy is expected to tumble again in 2009 as consumers, worried about falling home prices, reeling from investment losses and bracing for possible layoffs, rein in their spending.
It’s the consequence of the asset bubble created earlier this decade by consumers who, with easy access to credit, lived beyond their means. Now the bill is due. Consumers need to scale back, and the economy is suffering.
“The paradox facing the country is, how can a country that got itself into deep peril by borrowing and spending without limits now borrow and spend its way back to prosperity?” said James W. Hughes, a Rutgers University economist.
New Jersey’s economy, virtually stagnant earlier in the decade, was pulled under water by the national economy, a victim of the housing market whose mortgages were pooled together into securities and sold to investors.
Homeowners’ incomes didn’t keep pace with their home payments, and they began to default. Investment banks faced bankruptcy just two years after recording record profits. Stock market indexes lost upwards of 40 percent. Banks turned cautious, reducing lending and bringing economic activity to a near halt.
The result so far: New Jersey lost 34,400 jobs during the first 11 months of 2008 and the state’s private sector was on course to end the decade without any net growth, Hughes said.
…
The forecast for 2009 is for more trouble ahead. Why?— The housing sector has yet to stabilize. Home prices statewide on average have fallen about 20 percent from their peak in 2005, and they are expected to fall another 8 percentage points to bring them in line with workers’ incomes, said Jeffrey G. Otteau, president of the Otteau Valuation Group, an East Brunswick real-estate consulting firm.
The industry is expected to see another wave of homeowners whose mortgage rates spike, thus pushing their payments beyond what they can afford. Additionally, there is the problem of people who would like to buy a home, but put such dreams on hold because they worry they will be laid off.
…
— Consumer spending has deteriorated. Shoppers in Eatontown said they were taking steps on their own to live more frugally. But many of them couldn’t spend with abandon, even if they wanted.The reason: Homeowners earlier in the decade used the ever-rising values of their homes to go on a spending binge. They could refinance and take cash. They could get a home-equity loan to renovate their home, pay for college or even pay off their credit cards.
With home values on the decline, they can’t borrow as much, if at all. Home buyers, for example, who put 20 percent down to buy a home in 2005, would have little equity since home values have declined just as much.
The ripple effect is widespread. Consumers spend less. Corporate revenue declines. Companies lay off workers to remain profitable.
“An economy that’s 70 percent dependent on household consumption would like to see people spending more, but given the lack of savings, it’s a good thing that people are starting to save,” said Patrick J. O’Keefe, a director at J.H. Cohn, a
Roseland-based accounting firm.
…
— Stores are closing and vacancies rising. The impact can already be seen in towns such as Red Bank, where some store owners have written farewell messages on their windows.
The End of the Financial World as We Know It
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?pagewanted=1
Global Corporate Profits to Drop in ’09; More Bankruptcies Loom
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoQVPQW1bTnY&refer=home
“The paradox facing the country is, how can a country that got itself into deep peril by borrowing and spending without limits now borrow and spend its way back to prosperity?” said James W. Hughes, a Rutgers University economist.
Our gov’t is commiting economic suicide on a global scale. At some point, the same drama being played out in millions of households across the country will take place in Washington. The entire gov’t strategy is based on the hope that if the it can stall long enough, things will get better on their own.
“Home prices statewide on average have fallen about 20 percent from their peak in 2005, and they are expected to fall another 8 percentage points to bring them in line with workers’ incomes,said Jeffrey G. Otteau”
Another 8%? How about, on average, 1% a month for 2009 and 2010. Total decline, peak/trough, 40-50% nominal. This baby is just starting to accelerate, we’re only in the top of the 5th. There will be 4-5 more pitching changes before this one is over.
#3 DL it reminds me of a parent in denial who enables their child and says “What else can I do, I love him”
No link;
Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates.
– Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.
– Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates.
– These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.
– Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime.
– Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.
– Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal.
– Mama always said: “Sniff the chocolates first Forrest”.
again Mr. Otteau engages in doublespeak:
“The housing sector has yet to stabilize. Home prices statewide on average have fallen about 20 percent from their peak in 2005, and they are expected to fall another 8 percentage points to bring them in line with workers’ incomes, said Jeffrey G. Otteau”
and the next sentence:
“The wild card is, when will the job losses end?” he said.
reminds me when I goto starbucks and order the “tall” coffee and they give me the smallest cup out of the sack.
SAS
speaking of job loss when does the Dec. #’s come out?
http://www.deadmalls.com/
Just for you, Clot..
“Welcome to Retail History”
Dead Malls. com…
Happy New Year All…
“speaking of job loss when does the Dec. #’s come out?”
cooper [9],
Was scheduled for last Friday. It was cancelled, ??, and moved to this Friday. I guess they didn’t want to spoil The New Year euphoria.
“The city of Newark, NJ, is enforcing a 1960s law that bans the use of barbed wire and razor wire by the common people. The result: even more property crime in a city plagued by crime. Didn’t “we” all enter submit to government to protect our property (“we” did nothing of the sort, but it is the justification that statists frequently use)? Now, not only do they not protect property, they won’t even allow the common people to do so.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/024718.html
11 BC
exactly wait for weak 1 of the new year
Cindy (10)-
Har!
That site went straight to the “Favorites”. Thanks.
http://www.housingwire.com/
Here’s another – Did you know about this one?
“Prez-Elect Makes New Pitch, Promises on Job Creation — Including 600,000 New Government Employees.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/prez-elect-make.html
Why didn’t Corzine think of that?
Cindy (15)-
Yep. Thanks.
From the APP:
Toms River properties lose $1B in value
The newly completed revaluation shows the total value of property in the township is about $1 billion less than last year, reflecting the decline in the housing market.
Township Tax Assessor Glenn Seelhorst said the revaluation was completed last week, and Certified Valuations, the company that conducted the revaluation, has begun sending letters to the approximately 42,000 Toms River property owners.
The revaluation, the first in 14 years, had been scheduled to be completed last year, but the mayor and Township Council requested a one-year postponement to factor in current property values.
“We used the most recent (house) sales, and we are substantially less than we were in the 2008 calendar year,” Seelhorst said, explaining how the total value of property in the township in 2007 for the 2008 tax-year study was roughly $18.8 billion. After considering the 2008 sales for 2009, the number is about a billion dollars less at approximately $17.8 billion for the 2009 tax year.
DL (16)-
All hail the secretariat.
N.J. Deficit Revised Upwards to $2.1B
By Michelle Kaske
| Jan 5
Gov. Jon Corzine last week announced that New Jersey’s current deficit increased to $2.1 billion, up from earlier shortfall projections of $1.2 billion due to underperforming revenues, and called for $800 million of mid-year spending cuts to help balance the $32 billion fiscal 2009 budget.
http://www.bondbuyer.com/article.html?id=200901021JZ24KON
Well I am back! Quick look at the posts show you Toyota Republicans and Lexus Liberals are still all doom and gloom over housing and still mad at the US Govt bailouts. I see that yields are collasping and the bond market is coming back to life!! Equities and Real Estate will recover later. Look buddies, cash is king and there is a lot of cash out there.
Properties have not fallen at all in value just price. My house still shelters my family, provides me access to great schools and saves me from paying rent. It still has the same value as it did four years ago. A house is not an ATM machine or even an investment.
Another thing of interest happened overt he weekend. Out in Nassau County the Assessors office by law is required to access home to their actual value every December 31st. This is a court overseen process that is indepently audit that is performed with assistance from a third party firm. What is shocking is home much home values have fallen. My house fell 150K in price in 12 months on the site. Pretty cool. There is an amazing disconnect between MLSLI listed prices and actual value. If you know anyone in nassau county long island punch in their address and see the carnage. Pretty cool.
http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/mynassauproperty/main.jsp
ING CD Rates ARE SCARY! Five year CDs under 3% is going to shake some cash loose.
6 Month 2.00% 12/30/2008
9 Month 2.25% 12/30/2008
12 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
18 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
24 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
30 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
36 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
48 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
60 Month 2.75% 12/30/2008
Another 8% and all will be well Mr. Otteau?
Well they have started to fall in my blue ribbon Bergen train town, but they have not fallen 20% from peak yet,and they have got more than 8% more to fall before they are done.
Only 85 short days left until the recession is over. As per bi.
Home prices statewide on average have fallen about 20 percent from their peak in 2005.
Bullsh*t! This is a bunch of bullsh*t. Nothing could be further from the truth. I continue to be correct; prices have stayed flat to down slightly from the peak just as I predicted two years ago. Maybe an argument can be made if you live in Burlington County but certainly not in West Essex or Northern Bergen.
If the town is desirable or sought after, houses are still selling for near peak. Don’t tell me Spring of 2009 is going to be a bloodbath because most of you have been wrong in 2007 and 2008 and I’ve been correct. Case closed.
I sense a return to insane volatility. Everybody’s back to their battle stations, and things still don’t look too good.
Yes John,
cash is king!
http://tinyurl.com/cashisking
Clot, I hope you are right.
Gary,
Good to see that you’re back!
“My house still shelters my family, provides me access to great schools and saves me from paying rent.”
J,
My rental has a roof and heat, it shelters me. It also provides access to great schools. In addition to this, I have saved over $1,000 per month, for the last 3 years, [carrying costs] and my former house pricipal has appreciated many times over. Oh, by the way, the house that I sold is now down 20%, from my sale date.
Ahhhhhhhhh, it’s nice to take a long internet hiatus.
Merry and Happy to ALL!
Uncle Jay Explains: Year-end!
Stu (28)-
I’m confident. Very confident.
This may not necessarily be a good thing.
#27 gary: Spring 09 is going to be a bloodbath IMO. Comapring 2007, and the begining of 2008 to now is no comparison after all that has happened.
I expect to buy in 2009, but if not I don’t care. I am actually reaching the point where I am not sure if I care to buy at all.
Best of luck to you in 2009. Hope everything works out.
328 clot:and things still don’t look too good.
And I would argue in many respects they look worse.
Stu,
I never left, I just didn’t snort a line of xan@x this morning, yet. :)
3b,
Do I hear Spring of 2010? Ok, I’m just busting you! :) I don’t know what else to say, I suppose if it doesn’t finally happen this spring, it really isn’t going to happen.
John:
How many more days until the end of the recession?
BC Bob, whoopdeedoo, home equity should be chump change in a big playas like you portfolio. Aren’t you rolling in 20K a day cap gains?
It ended in November for the bond market, soon for the stock market, mid summer for the real economy and spring 2010 for housing.
All Hype says:
January 5, 2009 at 9:06 am
John:
How many more days until the end of the recession?
NYT:
As Vacant Office Space Grows, So Does Lenders’ Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/business/05real.html
“Stock analysts say commercial real estate is the next ticking time bomb for banks, which have already received hundreds of billions of dollars in capital and other assistance from the federal government. Big banks — like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — each hold tens of billions of dollars in commercial real estate securities. The banks also invested directly in properties.
Regional banks may be an even bigger concern. In the last decade, they barreled their way into commercial real estate lending after being elbowed out of the credit card and consumer mortgage business by national players. The proportion of their lending that is in commercial real estate has nearly doubled in the last six years, according to government data.”
Hey John,
“It ended in November for the bond market, soon for the stock market, mid summer for the real economy and spring 2010 for housing.”
http://tinyurl.com/johnsrecovery
Agree that not all housing markets will fall in lock step. Some will trail others. Agree there is cash out there too. But having already been burned in the housing market once, only a fool would invest for appreciation. The only buyers will be those who don’t need to and the only sellers will be those forced to. If you can afford to stay in your house and pretend its worth some fantasy number you’ll probably continue to do so unless a job change, job loss, family tragedy, etc forces you to deal with buyers who are dictating the market. And the majority of people willing to buy will be those who get sweetheart deals. If you have significant equity in your house and want to leave the Garden State for Florida, you might be willing to sell as long as you never believed the bubble numbers in the first place. BTW, I recently looked at some listings in Burlington County. One property in the historic district that sold for $190K in 2003 is listed at $395k. Now there’s a believer.
John (38)-
John is morphing into bi. Predictions based upon nothing whatsoever…
#43 DL:One property in the historic district that sold for $190K in 2003 is listed at $395k. Now there’s a believer.
And if they do not lower the price it will still be on the market this time next year,and the year after.
BTW, the Burlington County property is in the historic district of Mount Holly. There’s another that sold for $160k in 98 listed for $275. Relatively speaking, a real bargin.
Clot (42):
“Predictions based upon nothing whatsoever…”
This is not entirely true. He posts a lot of anecdotal data which lends me to believe that he is morphing into Frank, not Bi.
Stu (45)-
I actually believe John’s anecdotes, though.
Frank, OTOH, is a lying sack of shit.
#40 John:It ended in November for the bond market, soon for the stock market, mid summer for the real economy and spring 2010 for housing.
Based on what John? How did it end? Why did it end? What is on the horizon that will turn the real economy around by mid-summer? is it the increase in unemployment?
What is on the horizon that will lead to a rebound and I assume you mean rise in house prices in little more than a year? What John? Why John? How John?
You are like the CNBC crowd, the same crowd who insisted there were no problems in the first place, now screaming that the bottom is in and recovery is around the corner.
CNBC is for entertainment purposes only John, you should try watching Bloomberg, for a reality check.
I want John to explain how housing will recover by Spring 2010, just as the real unemployment rate probably hits 17-18% (if not more).
That will be a neat trick.
#37 gary: Understand. If it does nto happen, than it will be the only recession, and a really ugly recession at that where house prices in this area did not fall, for some unfathomable reason.
escrow waived at closing …
anyone have a clue what the fee might be?
(not sure if this flies in NJ .. im in PA)
#50 clot: must be that new math.
Here you go, a POS bilevel for $700,000…
http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?sby=1&pg=4&srcnt=52&sid=27d6749dcdb84dfd9ce1a2b82629d8aa&fhcnt=4&loc=glen+rock%2c+nj&usrloc=glen+rock%2c+nj&mnp=500000&fhpg=1&lid=1104322356&lsn=34
3b (47)-
If this is the common attitude on Wall St, we may be even more fcuked than I originally thought.
Of course, it could also be indicative of a financial sector that’s so panicked, all they can think to do is try to cheerlead the reinflation of an exploded, irreparable bubble.
The solution of fixing burst bubbles by the promotion of new bubbles just won’t work anymore. This sucker must be burned down to the ground and built anew. You can already see the bubble-du-jour, Treasuries, starting to lose steam. I’m sure its eventual collapse will lop off many more unwitting stooges around the world.
How about a 3BD split for $800,000! I want to meet the f*cking idi*t who bites on this one:
http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?sby=1&pg=5&srcnt=52&sid=27d6749dcdb84dfd9ce1a2b82629d8aa&fhcnt=4&loc=glen+rock%2c+nj&usrloc=glen+rock%2c+nj&mnp=500000&fhpg=1&lid=1104091585&lsn=43
Damn, FXP looks juicy at $30.
May not be able to resist.
Clot:
I noticed FXP when it broke 30 as well. I have a very small position that I am down 40% on and have been dying to buy more, but I’m gonna wait a while longer.
Cindy, Grim,
We have discussed long term home ownership rates before. I came across some long term data on the US census website over the holiday. here it is.
http://maldream.blogspot.com/2009/01/home-ownership-rates.html
“Kudlow & Dennis Kneale are permabulls. They were both very bullish 12 months ago, and they are both STILL very bullish. And they will always be very bullish because media needs that role to portray to us people. Listen to them on down days, and you’ll see what I mean. When the Dow was at 14,000, 13,000, 12,000, 11,000, 10,000, 9,000, 8,000, and 7,680 it was all the same story. Now that the Goldilocks moniker was alive, then sick, then alive again, then on life support and now dead, its all about the mustard seeds of growth!”
http://www.urbandigs.com/
Just my opinion but we are way better off then most other states compared to home values which is why we are slowly getting there as compared to other locations in the country. I think of it as a slow moving ship, spring 09 will not be good, spring 10 will possibly be just as bad. but if you take all those bad years and add them up you will see your 25% drop. Just like Grim mentioned yesterday, there are maybe 1 out of 50 houses out there where a deal can be worked out on but in many cases you will not find one, it will take time. I completely lost interest in buying a home and I will not bother till 2011. It’s hard to time the market but at least I know that while renting I can save up thousands more to use that as negotiating power if needed.
I have been saying for a while now history sometimes Rhymes and that we are still do for signifigant asset price deflation and unemployment, so far since the onset of the current crisis which began it’s first leg down in 2007 asset prices have tumbled in the United States and elsewhere simiar to previous historical bubbles.
Here is a recent Harvard paper on previous boom and bust cycle, the historical boom bust recovery averages out to 6 years!
http://ws1.ad.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/rogoff/files/Aftermath.pdf
Anybody who is thinking about buying a house now because they think they may “miss the bottom” if they don’t act ASAP should have a good look at charts beginning on page #5.
Precedent folks, history rhymes and the last year of shooting from the hip willy nilly bailout monetary policy
will only worsen the recovery period.
Clot,
Strategists See 17% S&P 500 Rise After Saying ‘Buy’ (Update2)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6psLJRctme0&refer=us
These are the same strategists that said the economy would recover in the second half of 2008. Now it’s the second half od 2009. Which will be followed with predictions at the end of 2009 for a recovery in the second half of 2010.
Yay!! Gary is back!! [at last, I won’t be the only potty mouth here!!!]
…snorting Xanax????
Oy.
Reminds me of a story…..
sl
From Ritholtz:
The WSJ on the current recession, on track to be one of the longest ever”
“The current U.S. recession, with no end in sight, threatens to be the longest since 1933, and that helps explain why investors are having so much trouble gauging the stock market.
Models developed in the more normal times of the past few decades, based on things like corporate-profit forecasts, the interest-rate environment or the length of the average recession, have failed in the current, exceptional economy. Many have signaled that stocks were cheap and it was time to buy, but stocks kept falling and got cheaper.
Since the Great Depression, only two recessions have run longer than this one, the first ending in 1975 and the other in 1982. Each lasted 16 months, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the government-designated recession tracker.”
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/01/l-o-n-g-recession/
…ugh mod’d.
Here we go again:
Yay!! Gary is back!! [at last, I won’t be the only potty mouth here!!!]
…snorting X@n@x????
Oy.
Reminds me of a story…..
sl
Looks like all that “discretionary spending” by the wealthy (and Smith College) is finally drying up.
LONDON, England (CNN) — Fine china and glasswork maker Waterford Wedgwood PLC has called in a receiver – the British equivalent of bankruptcy.
The company said its receiver will be the international accounting firm Deloitte, and added it will announce later Monday which of its Irish and U.K. subsidiaries will be put into administration.
The announcement was made in a statement Monday morning to the London Stock Exchange.
Receivership and administration are forms of bankruptcy protection. The administrator can choose to try and keep parts of the company operating or sell off the brands, shutting down the company. The aim is to find the most profitable way to pay creditors.
Waterford Wedgwood can trace its roots back to the 18th century, when glass blown in the Irish port of Waterford became a popular export and Josiah Wedgwood began to make affordable fine china in the British midlands.
The two well-known brands merged in 1986, but had suffered losses in each of the past three years. Waterford has been laying off employees in southeast Ireland since 2007, having moved much of its production to Slovenia. The company also has a ceramics plant in Jakarta, Indonesia. The group also includes the brands’ Royal Doulton and Rosenthal porcelain.
**********
Back in the 80’s, Smith dining halls served dinner on Royal Doulton china; the pattern was commissioned specifically for Smith. Always struck me as a poor use of Mummy and Daddy’s trust fund money.
Cross-valley rival Mount Holyoke College used pedestrian corian.
And, no, I am not going to answer the question of why I took so many meals at both colleges. Use your imagination.
[63] still,
same here. Reminds me of my frat brothers breaking open “speed” (usually diet pills) and snorting them.
I wasn’t a pharmacology major, but I knew that didn’t accomplish squat. But they were such meatheads, I didn’t feel like risking the argument to inform them otherwise.
John,
People aren’t buying lottery tickets. Why would they buy stocks?
“But, in this recession, and to the surprise of many, revenues for state lotteries are falling. This turns the age-old wisdom that gambling is recession-proof on its head — in the Great Depression, for example, gambling boomed — and that in desperate times, people will look to a roll of the dice for a chance at riches.”
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/WYNN-LVS-gambling-mgm-vegas-Las/index/a/20508
still_looking,
Is a 100mg of “X” to start the day a little too much in your opinion? ;)
Yesterday… at MIL’s annual family reunion…
I was talking to one of our cousins, an a partner at an accounting firm, who was crying to us about how she had wanted to go to cash and was talked out of it.
Now she’s lamenting how their portfolio is “wiped out” and how “we lost everything.” I tried to gently remind her that it’ll improve in the (very) long run but she is really really pessimistic about it.
Hubby further tells her we’ve been doing well by shorting the shit out of financials and real estate and she just deflated completely.
I felt bad for her.
OTOH, we also entertained 30 or so people who really dug the Coastline Cab/Sauv.
And I scored a great recipe for gougeres (baked cheese puffs.) Mmmmm
sl
I wouldn’t employ those “strategists” to run a lemonade stand.
What are the combined write-downs to date of those firms?
From Bloomberg:
New York Fed Begins Purchases of Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie MBS
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York began buying mortgage-backed securities today as part of a $500 billion program to support the U.S. housing market.
The New York Fed “began purchasing fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae,” the Fed bank said in a statement released by e- mail. “Selected private investment managers are acting as agents of the New York Fed in these purchases.”
The central bank didn’t disclose the amount of the purchases, saying such details will be available on the New York Fed’s website beginning Thursday, Jan. 8, and will be updated each Thursday.
From MarketWatch:
U.S. construction spending down 0.6% in November
utlays for construction projects in the United States fell by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.6% in November after an upwardly revised drop of 0.4% in October, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Spending on residential projects fell 4.1%, while spending on private-sector nonresidential construction rose 0.7%. Total outlays are down 3.3% in the past year. Private residential construction, which fell 4.2%, reached the lowest level since August 1999.
End results of the housing bubble bursting, assuming that we return to historical trends of home ownership:
Per 2006 census data (Source) there are 77,402,000 households in the US. The median US home ownership rate is 64.7% and the current rate is ( 1Q08) is 67.8%. A reversion to historic home ownership rates would require that 1.1 million to 3.7 million homeowners become renters, with the long term median requiring about 2.4 million homeowners to revert to renting. This is based on home owner ship staying +/- 1 standard deviation from the median for the last 30 years, until around 1998, when it surpassed 1 standard deviation.
see charts linked at 57
com, 66
You should have seen the former pharmacists-now-medical students at my school…. talk about scary. Still wonder if any of them did stints in the reformed physician programs…. egads.
Went to just one party of theirs and politely declined from then on.
sl
#54 But it looks like it has a Jenn-Air frige! Definitely worth it. Besides it would cost at least $300k to build and who wants the hassle?
2009:
“The scenario that will play out is:
Obama’s proposed $775 billion plan will grow to at least $1 trillion.
Congress will approve the second $350 billion tranche of TARP funds. Billions will be given to homeowners who should be foreclosed out of their homes; billions more will be given to the automakers. GMAC will get more funds from the taxpayer at 8% interest – so they can then loan it to subprime borrowers at 0%. This doesn’t sound profitable, but they’ll make it up on volume.
TARP funds will be given to commercial developers who foolishly overleveraged, overbuilt, and overpaid for properties. Credit-card companies will see their write-offs triple to over 10% by 2010. The government will give more of your tax dollars to these incompetent bankers – so they can send out another 5 million credit-card offers.
The Federal Reserve will buy mortgage debt and long-term Treasuries to artificially reduce market interest rates. With money market funds paying 0.25%, senior-citizen savers will be forced to take on risk to get a return on their money. Penalizing savers to resuscitate reckless gamblers is the path that Ben Bernanke has chosen. When the markets decline another 20% in 2009, more senior citizens will see their retirements destroyed.
Consensus among the CNBC talking heads is that markets will go up in 2009 – because they went down so much in 2008. The people they interview have a vested financial interest in the market going up. So despite the fact that earnings will collapse in 2009, these pundits are sure the markets will rise. I’d bet against the consensus.
Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM) will require additional enormous injections of taxpayer capital due to their looming credit-card and commercial-loan losses. The top 10 biggest banks are insolvent. They’re being kept alive by the Federal Reserve and Treasury. All the bankers who didn’t bankrupt their banks should be outraged at this misappropriation of taxpayer capital.
Home prices will drop another 15% in 2009 and will remain depressed until 2015. The market will adjust to its natural levels despite all government efforts to keep prices artificially elevated. When you can buy a house and rent it out and generate a positive cash flow, houses will be reasonably priced.
Despite the immense spending, zero interest rates, and propping up of bankrupt financial institutions, consumers still won’t spend.”
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/C-citigroup-jpm-RATE-oil-recession/index/a/20504/p/2
Have to defend my Bronx boy John again. John has stated he isn’t moving anytime soon, and has admitted that his house value is down 150k, that sounds allot like the stage of uneasy acceptance. John has actually skipped from denial straight to acceptance, right past anger and shot right over depression. There is no reason for John to be angry by the way he is a buy and hold kind of guy and is not planning on moving until retirement, sure he covets his neighbors one acre spreads but he is not willing to pony up to that lifestyle since the accountant deep down inside of John can do the math knows that those people overpaid.
John is correct by the way, housing will recover, he is just off on the amount of time it will take and how much more pain we have to endure.
John just like a pro on CNBC shut these folks up already, tell them that we are going to have a V shaped recover just like Spain in the late 70s, more mustard seeds is all we need.
2009:
“The scenario that will play out is:
Ojama’s proposed $775 billion plan will grow to at least $1 trillion.
Congress will approve the second $350 billion tranche of TARP funds. Billions will be given to homeowners who should be foreclosed out of their homes; billions more will be given to the automakers. GMAC will get more funds from the taxpayer at 8% interest – so they can then loan it to subprime borrowers at 0%. This doesn’t sound profitable, but they’ll make it up on volume.
TARP funds will be given to commercial developers who foolishly overleveraged, overbuilt, and overpaid for properties. Credit-card companies will see their write-offs triple to over 10% by 2010. The government will give more of your tax dollars to these incompetent bankers – so they can send out another 5 million credit-card offers.
The Federal Reserve will buy mortgage debt and long-term Treasuries to artificially reduce market interest rates. With money market funds paying 0.25%, senior-citizen savers will be forced to take on risk to get a return on their money. Penalizing savers to resuscitate reckless gamblers is the path that Ben Bernanke has chosen. When the markets decline another 20% in 2009, more senior citizens will see their retirements destroyed.
Consensus among the CNBC talking heads is that markets will go up in 2009 – because they went down so much in 2008. The people they interview have a vested financial interest in the market going up. So despite the fact that earnings will collapse in 2009, these pundits are sure the markets will rise. I’d bet against the consensus.
Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM) will require additional enormous injections of taxpayer capital due to their looming credit-card and commercial-loan losses. The top 10 biggest banks are insolvent. They’re being kept alive by the Federal Reserve and Treasury. All the bankers who didn’t bankrupt their banks should be outraged at this misappropriation of taxpayer capital.
Home prices will drop another 15% in 2009 and will remain depressed until 2015. The market will adjust to its natural levels despite all government efforts to keep prices artificially elevated. When you can buy a house and rent it out and generate a positive cash flow, houses will be reasonably priced.
Despite the immense spending, zero interest rates, and propping up of bankrupt financial institutions, consumers still won’t spend.”
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/C-citigroup-jpm-RATE-oil-recession/index/a/20504/p/2
Everybody knows you only snort oxys.
You know how I know, I know. Back in October you could smell the fear in the air on wall street, damm it, just on line for a cup of joe at wall and william felt like being in the hot zone in Iraq, now the fear in gone. No more Sunday night firedrills, back to chatting and gossip on squak box. Remember, the order of events, first we need credit markets to recover, then stocks. I really right now could care less about housing or jobs. If the credit market unfreezes business can get loans to expand and consumers can borrow to make purchases, that in turn will trickle down to stocks which will slowly rise, after a few quarters of profits firms will slowly hire and once jobs become stable and people no longer get sticker shock opening bank and 401K statements housing will slowly recover. The idiots who bent over and asked for a Toll Brothers nothing down double donger with no lube back in 2004-2007 and put themselves into hock up to their eyeballs won’t be able to enjoy the recovering stock and bond markets so those people won’t get their “lube” till late 2010.
A question about home ownership rates:
How do second/vacation homes play into the census data? I took a quick look at the methodology but didnt see any comments on that point.
Another interesting observation, is that the home ownership rates did not spike during the late 80’s early 90’s housing bubble. I would guess that without a credit bubble, an artificial home owner rate increase could not be generated. How far will this correction undershot is the question. Given the extensive amount of home equity that was drawn out by owners, it could be substantial. If that is the case we could see a downward spike of 4+ million people reverting to renting.
Sean thanks for the props!! I am in the camp a few people are in lately. Which is who cares about stocks for now. The US Govt has proven you can keep a company in business if you want but you can’t make the stock of that company go up. Well, if munis are given away 6% tax free and short term “proped up” corporates are given away 10% taxable why don’t I just sit on that side of the table and wait for people to join me and drive down yields and then jump to stock. The problems in real estate is people thought it always went up and were willing to put up with negative cash flow on a property. Well you need a very good paying job to subsidize that and we are in the unwinding process.
Rationally, one should care less about housing prices going down if they don’t own more than one home and are being taken out of the one they own in a pine box. But people are irrational.
gary 68
…sigh.. when’s the intervention scheduled?
so. This dumb f?ck tried to off herself with a pile of x@n@x and alcohol.
Winds up in front of me in a stupor. I intubate her with no additional meds and start activated charcoal.
She’s just toast. Not responding to anything – not nailbed pressure, not sternal rub, not n1pple twist. Nothing.
Me and the internist and the neurologist all agree she’s probably cooked her brainstem and she’s toast.
Well, I guess the activated charcoal starts kicking in and the alcohol wears off some.
She scares the living shit out of a housekeeper who was in the room emptying the garbage.
She sits BOLT UPRIGHT, flails her arms around a bit and then flops back on the stretcher.
I call the internist and tell him, she might live after all…
Go figure… Just another dumb f?cking idiot who can’t figure out how to do it the right way…
sl
[68] still
Boy, that Coastline was a really decent find. If John gives it his blessing, then we’ll know we struck the mother lode.
On a related note, I inspected my 10th anniversary bottle, now less than 10 months from opening, and became a bit concerned. It’s a 1997 Yarra Valley cab, and I was told to cellar it (in 1999) for 10 years, but I have never cellared a wine close to that long and I am afraid of finding vinegar. That would suck. Anyone have any experience in decent (not grand cru) cabs surviving for 12 years in the bottle?
HE (76)-
Sounds about right to me. The two keystones of my own economic analysis remain unchanged going into 2009. Whenever assessing a situation, I will ask myself two questions:
1. What is the worst possible outcome?
2. What decisions/actions would an idiot take?
O isn’t even sworn in yet, and I’m already tired of him. He’s surrounded himself with a bunch of Slick Willie’s retreads, one of whom can’t even hang on until the inauguration before having to resign.
Yep, here’s some “change we can believe in”. Hell, this thing will be just like Grapes of Wrath…with WiFi available in the squatter camps.
#80 John: back to chatting and gossip on squak box.
Well that says it all John. Back to chatting and gossip on squak box, means all is well.
Sure John, sure, just get credit flowing again,and all will be well. Who needs jobs, and paying off debt,and savings?
You are delusional.
still (81)-
If you want to do it right, eat a bullet.
[81] still
Reminds me of a quote by either PJ O’Rourke or Hunter Thompson (can’t remember which), who advised agains trying to kill yourself by overdosing: “You might miscalculate the dosage and just have a really good time.”
3b (84)-
Obviously, you didn’t get the memo.
Debt = wealth.
#25: Agreed. Prices are still flat over the last year in my neck of the woods (for what it is worth). Cheers.
[83] clot
Not a bad analysis, but the real decision tree will end with the proverbial “Path of Least Resistance.”
Whatever course of action will kick the can down the road with the least amount of effort is the course the administration will take.
#78 hehe:consumers still won’t spend.”
that is becasue many of them cannot. A
After paying normal living expenses, plus servicing already accumulated debt, they simply have nothing left.
John, CNBC,and the many in the government simply cannot seem or refuse to acknowledge that.
Instead of TARPing all the banks, they should just pay off everybody’s credit cards and HELOC’s and have them start over again.
Guiness ad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/08/advertising?gusrc=rss&feed=media
Yikes-
Escrow- That was from my post a few days ago. I can’t even begin to tell you. At the time we were going from 6.5%, 30 year to a 5.125%, 15 year with no points, no title ins and a lender-paid re-assessment. The fee was no problem because six years ago it was a very good deal.
Sorry.
#77 sean:John is correct by the way, housing will recover, he is just off on the amount of time it will take and how much more pain we have to endure.
And as another Bronx boy, I say you should call BS when you see/hear it.
Nobody said housing would not recover, we questioend John’s delusional statment that it would recover by 2010.
#61 will spring 09 will not be good?
Why? And at this point it is way too eraly to even say, if by not good you mean prices will not fall more dramatically.
Gary #54-
If you pull the trigger on that house, can I have the lamp over the table?
#91 ChiFi
I might have to fly home to try the new 250th Anniversary brew they are about to launch.
d2b – Just talked to wells – they said the fee is $875 to defer the escrow. i think that’s a bit high, but we’ll still look into it.
ultimately, this means that we’ll only pay 1800 a month and then have a tax bill of 7k at year’s end … or we’ll just have a 2400 mortgage payment.
of course, if the tax bill soars, our bills will go up. but a monthly nut of 1800 is just $100 more than we’re paying per month now, which i love.
do we have the discipline to put aside 7k each year? you bet.
Nom 82 – My parents “cellared” an inexpensive Bordeaux for almost 20 years standing upright in their living room breakfront. I am sure your anniversary bottle will be fine. 1997 was a great year too.
In other Coastline news, we brought a bottle to Stu’s sister over the weekend for our last family holiday gathering. Her authenic French in-laws gave their hearty approval.
Yikes,
We voluntarily did the escrow thing and it makes life a lot easier. Even with our tax fight rebates and adjustments on our homeowners insurance, I have called the mortgage company once in 4 years.
Gator,
97 was a fantastic year for California. I have no clue if the climate worked well for Australia.
And all this is a surprise to anybody?
Happy NY all. 31,145 should just about mark the nadir of the inventory for 2009 in the GSMLS. Any guesses for peak this year? I’m thinking we should be hitting new peaks in inventory giving the dearth in sales, increasing foreclosures and increased unemployment. I’m guessing we get close to 40k, but not over. Probably a touch over 39k.
Grim 18 – did you read some of the quotes in that article? People still don’t understand that revaluations are revenue neutral, and that some people have been paying less than their fair share, hence others more and isn’t that most unfair in times of economic hardship?
Daniel Polifroni, a resident in the Ortley Beach section of Toms River, also said it’s a bad time to conduct a revaluation.
“People are losing their homes and out of work, and then you raise taxes?” said Polifroni, 88, a longtime member of the Ortley Beach Property Owners Association. “If you want to reassess (the homes) to knock (the value) down, go ahead. But to reassess it for any other purpose is ridiculous right now.”
Polifroni said the idea of reassessing homes in this economic climate is bad governing.
“They should discontinue it for better times,” he said. “If times are good, you expect to pay your fair share. But times are bad, people can barely pay their taxes now.”
“expected to fall another 8 percentage points to bring them in line with workers incomes”
Of course, this assumes that incomes will stay steady, which is not likely in a recession. As incomes drop, due to wages or investments declining, even under the best assumptions made in this article, prices will decline more than another 8%.
All this talk about wine. A couple years ago, someone gave us a ’97 bottle of Phelps after their recent trip to Calif. It’s a bit of a crime, but we have it in our fridge. I initially kept it in a drawer in the bedroom closet. We have no where to store it in our apt because no room for a wine fridge. Hoping our bottles of 2005 from a trip to Calif 3 yrs ago doesn’t go bad as well.
This is really starting to sound like an incestuous Shakespearean play.
0bama’s Perilous Compromise with Looters
Looters have taken over America’s Treasury. The executives who successfully ransacked their own banks, investment funds and insurance companies have set their eyes on 0bama’s stimulus. Tragically, the architects of the current economic fiasco have been placed in charge of America’s recovery. President 0bama has made an enormous mistake. Instead of cracking down on serial looters and complicit regulators, he wants to guarantee the financial sector’s obligations, which are several times larger than America’s economy. This is a Ponzi scheme far beyond Bernie Madoff’s imagination. Simply put: The government is breaking the rules of capitalism to reward the most reckless capitalists. Such is not the “creative destruction” Schumpeter hailed.
http://tinyurl.com/8jj7ut
Hard Place:
Keeping wine in a refrigerator usually won’t kill it, but it will most likely not age at all. The colder the temperature, the less of a chemical reaction. Of course, when you approach freezing, then the wine will be damaged. Also, frequently changing temperatures are not good for wine. Stable is the best. I keep mine at 56.
To the original poster of this question and also Stu:
I messed up this leveraged-ETF question. I think the explanation that you guys posted was the issue that dominates. I apologize for confusing the matter with my opinion. I do not think I was entirely wrong, but in its ultimate intent, my opinion created misinformation.
WSJ
JANUARY 4, 2009, 9:28 P.M. ET Fund Fiend
ETF Math Lesson: Leverage Can Produce Unexpected Returns Article
By TOM LAURICELLA
Exchange-traded funds that use leverage are proof positive why investors need to read the fine print.
Many of these funds promise to deliver twice the return of an underlying stock or bond index — or move twice as much in the opposite direction. So with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down 38.5% in 2008, a double-leveraged fund designed to profit when the S&P 500 falls would be up 77%, right?
Wrong.
The UltraShort S&P500 ProShares rose 61%. Even more confusing, the ProShares fund designed to return twice the opposite of the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index was down 50% for 2008, while the index was also down, by 43%.
The issue is that these funds are designed to double the index’s return — or double the inverse of that return — on a daily basis. The compounding of those daily moves can result in longer-term returns that have a very different relationship to the longer-term returns of the underlying index.
For example, take a double-leveraged fund with a net asset value of $100. It tracks an index that starts at 100 and that goes up 5% one day and then falls 10% the next day. Over that two-day period, the index falls 5.5% (climbing to 105, and then falling to 94.5).
While an investor might expect the fund to fall by twice as much, or 11%, over that two-day period, it actually falls further — 12%.
Here’s why: On the first day, doubling the index’s 5% gain pushes the fund’s NAV to $110. Then, the next day, when the index falls 10%, the fund NAV drops 20%, to $88.
The effect of compounding results in greater distortions when there are big up and down swings in the market.
That’s the reason the real-estate index and its double-inverse ETF were both down over the course of last year.
For the most part, these funds are used by short-term traders. But they’re gaining traction among individual investors who use them as a hedge in a portfolio. That’s where these distortions cause real trouble.
Take an investor who on Oct. 10 wanted to offset a $100,000 investment in an S&P 500 index fund by putting $50,000 in the UltraShort S&P500 ProShares. Two months later, despite big back and forth swings, the S&P 500 was pretty much unchanged. But that ETF was actually down 24% in that time frame, leaving the investor with a $12,000 loss.
To ProShares’ credit, warnings about the disparity between daily and long-term returns are spelled out in the materials for the funds and on the firm’s Web site.
“We try to get the concept out to people,” says Michael Sapir, chief executive of ProShares. “It’s just a feature of this kind of investing.”
comrade nom deplume says:
January 5, 2009 at 10:21 am
[68] still
Boy, that Coastline was a really decent find. If John gives it his blessing, then we’ll know we struck the mother lode.
On a related note, I inspected my 10th anniversary bottle, now less than 10 months from opening, and became a bit concerned. It’s a 1997 Yarra Valley cab, and I was told to cellar it (in 1999) for 10 years, but I have never cellared a wine close to that long and I am afraid of finding vinegar. That would suck. Anyone have any experience in decent (not grand cru) cabs surviving for 12 years in the bottle?
Don’t worry about turining your wine into vinegar… Not in 10-15 years… As long as your cork is on tight. And if it is not, than you wine would dry in 10 years anyways…
You worry about finding vinegar in 100+ years wine, not 10 year olf wine…
I’m back from a vacation in OBX with a few real world ancedotes in case reality hasn’t sunk in yet.
I rented a 3 million dollar home for 1 week on Salt House Rd. There were 27 homes on the street and 5 were for sale, one was still damaged from a hurricane way earlier in the year. Essentially 1/3 of the homes in OBX were for sale, and likely the ones that did not have a “for sale” sign were for sale. During the week of new year, of the homes that were rentable on Salt House Rd. only 4 had renters.
We passed thousands of “for sale” signs. Shops that were normally open during the slow season were closed. On the beach you could look in both directions and only see people at the edge of your vision.
In the rental office there was a couple that was crying. Let me rephrase. In the rental office there was a couple who were openly weeping, begging the agents, “please, we need a renter, we haven’t had a renter in six months”. The RE agent just calmly replied, “we can possibly have someone in by April”.
It appears that second homes have gone out of fashion. Take a moment and let this sink in. Many people who were renting these properties can no longer support/rent them and the houses are acting like a large anchor on their finances. They are likely selling other assets to continue to make mortgage payments on these second homes.
More pain to ensue.
someone brought a bottle of this: Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau yesterday.
It was god-awful. Not sure if it wasn’t stored correctly or what.
MIL tried it, said it was “vinegary”
ick
sl
clotpol, back in 1992 we had a jobless recovery. My favorite quote of all time was back in 2004 when I was at an internal town hall meeting at Chase when Jaimie Dimon, (who was not CEO yet), was asked a question regarding if he would keep the tuition reimbursement program. His reply was “you people every day that you show up to work are stealing from the company by collecting a check and now you want to know about tuition reimbursement?” Yes, when firms trim deadwood, cut pensions, cancel 401K matches etc. we can start a recovery with no jobs. Companies have to get back in black before they can rehire, painful house cleaning needs to take place before a real recovery can happen.
ChiFi:
Thanks.
“The effect of compounding results in greater distortions when there are big up and down swings in the market.”
If you recall, I referred to the VIX as the driver of return. If there is anything I have noticed as a long term holder of an ultra-short, it is that volatility juices the return at a greater rate than the underlying index. Conversely, a low VIX, like we are experiencing right now, juices the return in the opposite direction. Me not worried at all. I expect the upcoming dismal unemployment reports, combined with the realization that O is not the messiah, option arms resets plus oil returning to $80 to provide plenty of volatility in the future. If REITs drop further simultaneously, I’m a happy boy. Throw in unrest in China and I’ll buy everyone here a bottle of Coastline cab.
111 still – was it the current year? beajolais nouveau is definitely not something you can age! My MIL saved a bottle of it once and then proudly tried to serve it to the future french in laws when she first met them. They were all giggly and horrfied!
Was under the impression that Beau needed to be consumed almost immediately. But who knows, I’m not a wine guy.
SL,
“Beaujolais Nouveau” is overly marketed and often inferior wine. It is meant to be consumed during Christmas holidays and usually won’t age well. Someone probably left it in the car.
Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!
Stu,
I think “realization that O is not the messiah” is when the fat returns begin.
Clot,
Is there any chance real estate brokers such as Remax, etc., will add a section on a listing for comments by potential buyers. (Those who visited the open house-only) This would allow a potential seller to see what the general public has to say about their listing price. Obvioulsy with some rules in place…such as only the seller of the home could see those comments. I think it might make a broker’s job a bit easier. It is just a thought.
Beaujolais nouveau
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Beaujolais Nouveau
Region Burgundy
Appellation Beaujolais
Grape varieties Gamay
This box: view • talk • edit
Beaujolais nouveau is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks then officially released for sale on the third Thursday of November. This “Beaujolais Day”, or “Beaujolais Nouveau Day” sees heavy marketing from the producers, with races to get the first bottles of the vintage to different markets.
Contents [hide]
1 Style
2 Production
3 History
4 Similar wines
5 See also
6 External links
7 References
[edit] Style
Beaujolais Nouveau is a purple-pink wine that is particularly lightweight, even by the standards of Beaujolais. The method of production means that there is very little tannin, and the wine can be dominated by fruity, ester flavours of bananas and pear drops. These are enhanced by the frequent recommendation to serve the wine lightly chilled, at approximately 13°C (55°F).
Many wine critics criticize the wines marketed as Beaujolais Nouveau as simple or immature. Wine critic Karen MacNeil has compared drinking Beaujolais Nouveau to eating cookie dough.[1]
Beaujolais Nouveau is intended for immediate drinking, and in general should not be kept for more than a year. On the other hand, it usually benefits from being left a few weeks to recover from the effects of bottle-shock – and in the Northern Hemisphere the weather is more suited to Beaujolais drinking in Spring than in the chill of November. However, this rather misses the point of Beaujolais Nouveau’s “immediacy”, and patient drinkers can buy standard Beaujolais AOC wines released the following year at lower prices without the Nouveau hype. The wines show definite variation between vintages, at worst the wines start to decline after Christmas, wines from a very good year might still be drinking well 12 months later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaujolais_Nouveau
That stuff is garbage, once when returning from Tokyo it was the day of the year that this years Beaujolais Nouveau was first offered for sale. It goes on sale in Tokyo first in the world. The liquir store in the Toyko airport popped the cork and we did a little tasting to toast we were the first people in the world to have a sip. I quickly grabbed a bottle just made my flight flew to NY just in time for my kids party and poured it out to my guests and announced we were the first people in the USA to drink this years vintage!!! After a few minutes when the moment wore off I realized it tasted like any old $7 dollar bottle of wine. Oh well.
Keeping wine in a refrigerator usually won’t kill it, but it will most likely not age at all. The colder the temperature, the less of a chemical reaction
That was my rationale for moving the wine in the first place. Kept it out in room temp abt 70 degrees for about a year in a closet. Than figured better keep it chilled in the vegetable drawer in the fridge where I can at least make it somewhat humid. Been there for the last two years. Will open all the wine for my first house warming party! ;) Thinking that will be another two years from now.
Nicholas –
Vacation homes – first in the housing market to bite the dust. Vacations are discretionary spending. Usually the canary in the coal mine. So you’re seeing the canary choking.
i’m slow this morning – are you saying you deferred the taxes at closing and had to pay one lump sum each year, or you had the taxes rolled into your mortgage each month?
stu (110)-
The vibration from the fridge most likely killed that wine long ago.
Hard Place says:
January 5, 2009 at 11:52 am
Nicholas –
Vacation homes – first in the housing market to bite the dust. Vacations are discretionary spending. Usually the canary in the coal mine. So you’re seeing the canary choking.
its pie-in-the-sky stuff, but we’re saving already (with two other couples) to target a vacation house in 2011. we think that by then, there should be a ton of places on the market, maybe at good prices.
still not sure where we’re targeting since all 3 couples are in different areas. but yes, we’ve already discussed it – under no circumstances would any of us pull out equity in the place. anyone have any experiences on buying a vacation home with someone else?
#121 Strawman
Ummm No.
The first bottles leave the vinyards at midnight and will be in London an hour later. You would be the first to taste the stuff coming off the first Paris flight arrival. The first US bottles would have gone the other way round the world on the first FedEx flight out of Orly.
anyone have any experiences on buying a vacation home with someone else?
Yes. Don’t do it.
If your partner suffers financially in the future you will suffer and your relationship will be destroyed.
I made a mistake on going half on a boat and ending up buying my childhood friend out and he still does not talk to me.
Time zones, the date it can be released is first in Tokyo, London is much later.
PGC says:
January 5, 2009 at 11:58 am
#121 Strawman
Ummm No.
The first bottles leave the vinyards at midnight and will be in London an hour later. You would be the first to taste the stuff coming off the first Paris flight arrival. The first US bottles would have gone the other way round the world on the first FedEx flight out of Orly.
More wine Josephus.
Storing Wine on your Kitchen Counter
About once a week, someone writes me to ask the same question. Does leaving a wine out at room temperature, or storing it at room temperature, damage the wine? How about keeping wine in the fridge for months?
First, we’re not talking about keeping a wine after it has been opened. If you want advice on that, be sure to read my Storing Wine After It’s Opened Experiment which tried a variety of ways to store the rest of a partially-consumed bottle of wine.
We’re talking about a sealed bottle, that you want to drink at some point. The cork is still intact, so no air gets in to it, which is the main destroyer of wine.
However, heat is the second major destroyer of wine. If you put a bottle of wine above the stove to store it for example, it can be toast in a few days. People do that all the time. The proper storage temperature for wine is 55F. So the question is really asking, what happens when a wine isn’t at its proper storage tempreature.
Fridges are down at 35F, so way too cold. This can harm a wine a bit, although cold temperatures for a short period of time can of ‘stop’ a wine from changing. Which is why you put an opened bottle into the fridge, because you don’t want it to worsen any more. Still, prolonged cold temperatures (say a week or more) start to damage the wine, sort of like how ice crystals form on ice cream if you let it sit in the freezer for too long.
But compared to hot, cold is pretty mild. Hot temperatures REALLY do nasty things to wine. So if you have it at 75F, when it really should be at 55F, it is baking the wine. Think of it as leaving milk out. Sure it might look milk-like if you leave it out all day and put it back into the fridge the next day, but some really nasty things have happened to it internally. Wine can turn to vinegar in a relatively short period of time if you let it bake like that.
So in addition to starting at a bad temperature (too cold), going to a bad temperature (too hot) and then returning to a bad temperature (too cold), you have another problem, which even minor fluctuations in a wine cellar can create. That is, the wine is a liquid. Like most liquids, it expands and contracts when it heats and cools. It’s in a sealed container, so as it gets “bigger and smaller”, it pushes the cork out and pulls it in. Wines have been known to pop the corks out completely if they get too hot. But even if they don’t, that cork is getting pushed out and pulled in as the temperature changes. The sliding causes the seal to be less tight, letting in air. So now we’re back to the primary destructor of wine.
So yes, what is going on there is very bad for wine, but not necessarily because the wine is changing temperatures. It’s all the other things involved in the scenario which are far worse for the wine. If you just stick the wine in a cool closet, and leave it there until you drink it, it’ll taste far better. If you’re going to spend money on wine – even an inexpensive one – you want it to taste good, and not like could-be-salad-dressing …
John (115)-
70% of the US economy was consumer spending.
Unemployment is growing.
The manufacturing base of the US has degenerated even lower than the point at which it was at during the last recession.
The US is now a net negative saver. Not so during last recession.
The JPMs of the world cannot repair and retool. They are insolvent, bankrupt, kaput. The gubmint is just propping them up, like Bernie (see: “Weekend At”).
And you think we will recover, based on the ability of everybody in the US to sell each other RE, hamburgers and financial products (more like time bombs)?
Yikes, I have the taxes rolled into my mortgage each month? It may cost me a few pennies in interest, but the local penalties for paying late are insane (i’ve been told).
commercial (123)-
Most good agents reach out for specific comment from people and agents who actually visit their listings. A forum for general public comment on listings (like Zillow used to do) seems more likely to attract puffery and horse-trading than serious comment.
People on the listing side puff endlessly in their public outreach. Why would one expect potential buyers to behave any differently? In the end, all the players in the game just talk their own book.
In the end, the only feedback I care about comes in contract form.
Beaujolais Nouveau: carbonic swill.
The wine world’s answer to Ipecac.
yikes (130)-
“anyone have any experiences on buying a vacation home with someone else?”
I’d only do it if the deed had a clause that prescribed all disputes among owners be resolved by a duel with pistols.
John (115)-
I’d also watch quoting Jamie Dimon.
He’s next at the guillotine. Won’t see June.
I don’t get the save a bottle for 10 years hoping it won’t taste like crap thing. Spend the deuce for that special occasion and take the guess work out of it. Unless you want to bore people with stories about your trip to Napa 10 years ago…
Maybe Jimmy Cayne can turn Dimon on to some good wiki and teach him how to play bridge.
Depending on how you count, the US tax payer is on the line for 8.5 trillion, or 13.7 trillion so far. 8.5 if you dont count Fannie/freddie liabilities and 13.7 if you do
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pcD2FY_0vnXSSYp9zIjRBKg
2009 should be a wild ride
vodka (143)-
Chump change. John says as soon as JPM gets up to speed again, things will turn around lickety-split.
Even though we’ll all be trying to pick up a WiFi signal in our squatter camps…
clot 139,
plan on following in Andrew Jackson’s foot steps, in his duel with dickenson?
JPM is a great buy. Pre meltdown it was trading in the mid $40’s a share, now it is around $30 a share. But along the way they got Bear and Wamu for free basically. So if you like buying Chase as a stand alone at $45 a share you would love it at $30 a share when you also get Bear and Wamu for free. Jaimie is the biggest housing bear of them all and is positioning himeself as if houses will fall another $20%. Long term I do believe what Jaimie said at that one town hall I was at where he said his long term goal was to get Chase to $100 a share before he leaves however short term he does not care about where the stock is. He has no problem with a decade of just getting by in regards to stock price. It is all long term. That said buy some chase stock for your newborns college fund!
My escrow decision was aided by three facts. In in PA and my taxes are less than 4k. I get a discount if I pay early. My escrow included homeowners insurance and that was more money than my existing coverage.
I think that regular sheeple are probably better with an escrow. I think it’s a toss up for savers.
Waterford went bankrupt? Mount Holyoke uses Corian??? The end of the world as we know it. Useless info: relative was at the U of Michigan during the thirties. His fraternity house employed servers who poured water into their goblets from sterling silver water pitchers. I am not kidding. Talk about out of touch…
Who cares? Most likely saved the average joe 50K in losses by propping up their investements, six of one 1/2 dozen of another.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pcD2FY_0vnXSSYp9zIjRBKg
Clot,
Do you think that the following chart show any significant trends?
http://tinyurl.com/86gqvp
I guess I can no longer drink Zima from waterford glasses. That should have been a bailout.
hey all,
i had a nice 2 week vaca away from the computer and work so it’s nice to be reading again. sadly, i jones for the site when i miss a day or two.
anyway, a couple of observations. i was down in ft. laud, boca and miami over break and noticed the overwhelming substitute for retail shopping….dining out. despite sales galore the stores were empty but the restaurants were packed. there was a heavy euro population and the over 50 boca babe, face lift crowd talked about hubbies negative positions in the market.
2bed 2bath condo’s can easily be found under the 150k mark in boca but false wealth with the younger crowd was quite pervasive. i witnessed many waitresses leaving their shift with a louis vuitton bag and hopping into an E class.
John,
You are so full of bs. A few months ago you were all over this board going on and on about JPM being toast due to their derivative exposure.
John 149,
Who cares? We all will when the rates on bonds start to shoot up to to our credit risk to foreign investors.
But wait, thats not a problem, the fed can just buy all of the treasuries right?
————————————–
Pres O’s bailout is going to need to be at least 2 trillion. he wants 850 billion for his current plans, and the states are demanding 1 trillion to meet short falls that continue to be revised upwards. Any takers on a 3 trillion deal, probably broken up into 2 or 3 bills by spring?
Recently I noticed something else too that may have some significance.
I went out to a T.G.I.Fridays at the request of the person who watched our dogs while we were on vacation (we were treating her to dinner for her service). When I opened the menu I was surprised that all prices had been cut by about 1/3rd. I was able to get away from the place for about 55$ with dinner for three, one beer, two desserts.
I was not noticing increased dining out yet though. There is always increased patronage during New Year’s celebrations so those are not good days to do customer averaging. In fact, there looked to be decreased patronage at the TGIF when I went yesterday. There were many open booths and seats during dinner service.
I posted this on another site and will repost it here because I’m noticing some “Obama will save us” mantras being floated around.
“Obama isn’t going to be the savior of the US economy. If I had 10 hands I still wouldn’t be able to count on my fingers the number of times that I have heard about him comming in and saving certain pieces of the US economy.
I think that there will be another month or so where people still say “Obama will save us”. In reality he can do nothing more but inspire. Any spending he promotes comes directly out of your pockets, or your children’s pockets. Shortly after his inauguration we will enter a period of disillusionment and the recession will return to being a recession.
You are the savior of the US economy. Don’t get me wrong, I voted for him. Become more productive, strive for excellence, redouble your efforts through education, work longer hours, and save.”
#146 john:Jaimie is the biggest housing bear of them all and is positioning himeself as if houses will fall another $20%.
You should too.
When will the “O” filter be lifted? I got moderated on his name.
Following up on the Microsoft lay-offs that were being discussed last week.
The rumors have now started to hit CNET who is reporting the numbers at 17% worldwide.
That is very surprising if true. I can’t remember ever seeing MSFT lay-off in such big numbers. The company usually tries to keep people on if they can. The know programming talent is hard to find.
#133 Strawman
You are right. I stand corrected.
Waterford/Wedgewood was always a mistake. And when Waterford started outsourcing to Solvenia and Poland, it cheapened the brand.
That said, Waterford still has the brand recognition and Lismore will be a staple of wedding registries for many years to come. They need to split the company and allow Waterford to focus on Glassware and lighting in Ireland and let Wedgewood to go cheap and commercial with the rest of it.
Stu (134) –
Just keeping my fingers crossed. I think a typical fridge is about 40 degrees, so it should not be too bad for the wine. I just hope the cork doesn’t smell like the back of my fridge after opening the wine. That would be a downer.
Tosh,
I have a brother that works for MSFT. He seemed pretty interested in the rumors that MSFT was doing mass layoffs. He wasn’t able to lend any first hand evidence to the rumors though.
I could elaborate more…but I wont.
Reuters:
Economists see jobless surge, deeper housing hole
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economists-see-jobless-surge-rb-13965530.html
“Carmen Reinhart, from the University of Maryland, and Kenneth Rogoff, of Harvard, suggested housing might not bottom until 2010, which bodes poorly for struggling banks that still hold trillions in mortgages.”
“Ford says it sold 138,458 light vehicles last month, down from 204,787 vehicles in December 2007.”
Seems to me that they ought to cut some heads? Nah, the government (you) will pay for them.
“Volvo Dec U.S. vehicle sales off 47.0 pct”
No recession here.
#161 – I’m not too sure what to make of them myself. It would be the first time MSFT laid off in such large number if true. Not a good sign considering their largely locked in customer base.
I suppose we’ll know more by the end of the month.
“It would be the first time MSFT laid off in such large number if true.”
Gives new meaning to the ‘Mr. Softee’ moniker!
Tosh,
There are buisness units in MSFT that are by design, not made to make money. They are made to consume market share. Case in point is MSN which provides dial up service. It doesn’t do anything but lose money but at the same time it kept AOL from monopolizing the dial-up market. Now that AOL has zero power in the forward broadband market, is there really a need to keep a buisness unit that loses money on life support?
If anything I would consider layoffs at MSFT a good thing and cause a bounce in their stock. That is my take on the issue.
“The Fed is setting up the ultimate bull trap – a trap that, when sprung, will leave only sellers standing. And we could see that happen by the end of the first quarter, or the beginning of the second.”
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/dow-fre-fnm-MBI-mortgage-abk/index/a/20513
“Volvo Dec U.S. vehicle sales off 47.0 pct”
We bought an XC 70 last spring and they were practically giving them away. I can only imagine how bad it has become (or how bad it will get).
#167 – nicholas – The MSN dial up biz finally giving up the ghost would not be surprising. MSN does do more than that, but that division in particular should be axed.
The numbers being rumored (operative word, I know) would indicate much more than just MSN however. That’s what really got my attention.
[114] sl
“Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau”
When it comes to icky, that’s all I needed to hear.
[116] stu,
unrest in China and i think we can both afford better than Coastline. Though not sure I would want to.
Decided the new wine storage will be under the cellar stairs. Bought a table saw and just need to find a good design for shelves that I can zing together. Those boxes with the crossbraces would work well, but I am not sure I can build those.
[169] JBJB,
Now that you have driven it awhile, what’s the verdict on the XC70?
John (146)-
What the hell. My kid’s gonna be paying for this insolvent piece of crap until he’s 77, anyway:
“That said buy some chase stock for your newborns college fund!”
[141] TB,
The sommelier recommended 10 years in the cellar. Hence my decision to buy it and hold it for drinking on a particlar day in October, 2009.
BTW, I bought it on my honeymoon. Call me foolishly sentimental if you like. I’ve been called worse.
US banks drawn into Bernard Madoff scandal amid fear of more victims
The role of America’s federally regulated banks in the $50 billion Bernard Madoff investment scandal has come into question after it emerged that a number of victims of his alleged Ponzi scheme thought they had invested their money with an ordinary bank. Two law firms in Florida, which are gathering claims from Madoff victims, are both representing a couple who say that they believed that they had invested about $1 million (£688,000) with the Westport National Bank, a regulated savings bank in Connecticut, rather than with Mr Madoff.
The Florida case raises concern that a new wave of unwitting victims may emerge from Mr Madoff’s investment scheme. The FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are already investigating the role of certain hedge funds that provided Mr Madoff with new clients. The biggest of these is Fairfield Greenwich, a Connecticut hedge fund believed to have lost about half its assets, totalling $7.3 billion, to Mr Madoff’s scheme. The Florida couple, whom lawyers declined to name, received a letter from the bank dated December 12, the day that Mr Madoff was charged with fraud, explaining: “You currently have a custodian agreement with Westport National Bank […] you gave full discretionary authority to Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities.”
According to Craig Stein, an attorney with Stein & Pinsky in Boca Raton, Florida, the couple had no inkling of their exposure to Mr Madoff and received annual statements from the bank that showed deductions for custodial and record-keeping fees that added up to 4 per cent a year, or $40,000 at the peak of their investment. Mr Stein said that his clients had been introduced, with other investors in Westport, by a “promoter”. Westport National Bank insists that “the bank has not invested any of its own funds or the funds of its depositors with Madoff, and the bank has not advised any customer of anybody else to invest with Madoff”. The implication is that the investment must have gone via another route, therefore.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, America’s banking regulator, refused to comment on whether it was questioning Westport or investigating whether US banks played a role in helping Mr Madoff to create what is described as the world’s biggest fraud……
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5447271.ece
Proof of recession.
Ford gained market share on Toyota.
The New York Fed “began purchasing fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae,” the Fed bank said in a statement released by e- mail. “Selected private investment managers are acting as agents of the New York Fed in these purchases.”
Here comes my 4.75%. Thank you Mr. Paulson.
[173] Comrade
Well, if I actually got to drive it I would let you know… it has become the mommy car.
Really, we love it. It’s a real smooth ride, feels safe (it supposedly is), gets decent mileage and has adequate power. Drove it up to Boston for Xmas and it really handled the snow/ice well. Easily seats the three of us and our 115 lb dog. We definitely gave up some cubic footage moving from an SUV but it’s manageable. The interior layout is very nice and comfortable. The blind spot sensing system works really well and is a great saftey feature. I’d say you can get 70-80% of the features and a similar ride from the Suburu Outback for a bit less, but the XC 70 feels a little more robust and the interior is much more comfortable IMHO.
Meg whitman of ebay to run for gov. of CA. perhaps we could have the Boss or
Bon Jovi run here in NJ.
we could turn it into a hip hop state.
Just like that, SUV and truck sales surge:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_suvsales_1230dec30,0,3236578.story
Maybe the recession will really be much shorter than expected. The collective memory of the US citizenry does appear to be quite short.
JBJB
The collective memory may be short, but the collective wallet has grown thin and threadbare. Each new 0% finance ploy or bailout only delays the inevitable and increases the end cost.
Kettle
agreed. but The One is planning to write the biggest welfare check in US history.
lol @ Meg Whitman. She scared away the Ebay sellers by nickle and diming them to death to increase profits. I *wonder* how that style will translate in a gubmint position? Two guesses.
Seriously, most overrated CEO in the history of American Business.
any experiences with Progressive auto insurance? I got a free 6 month quote that slayed my current but is this just a teaser rate?
Financial, “Perception is Reality”, appears to have finally hit the “Brick Wall” of “Reality is Reality”.
“The One is planning to write the biggest welfare check in US history.”
Nice for it to go to those not responsible for the debacle for a change eh JBJB?
Here comes the axe.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/njpolitics/Corzine_orders_800M_in_budget_cuts.html
The bright spot at the moment may be that most other nations may be hurting more then the US. I have seen figures that suggest that for every 1 job lost in the US, 10 jobs are lost in the international market.
I dont know how accurate that is but if it is then that is some twisted leverage for nations that depend on consumer spending or ancillary services to try and float the US.
—————————-
Stu,
Is that giant check really going to go to help individuals? maybe 2-3%? Real help would be funding soup kitchens and home heating assistance, etc. While the economy corrects.
Bailing out automakers who require a minimum market of 12+ million auto sales/yr when we can expect only 8-9 million in sales for the next 1-2 years is a waste.
Speaking from the vantage point of someone who has swilled couious amounts of everything from Mad Dog 20/20 to the other end of the spectrum, there are two traits that make a wine great; complexity and balance. Most wines are meant to be consummed shortly after purchase. It takes a complex wine to age well, which most wines are not, and the proper facilities to store it, which most people do not have. A Premier Grand Cru will almost always be exceptional immediately after bottling. The only reason to age it a decade or more is to allow the balance to change as the chemicals interact over time, and then compare it with a recent vintage from the same producer to see whether aging has in fact improved it. My guess is if you wait, you’ll be disappointed.
Many vinters in Germany have switched to plastic instead of cork. The poor quality of the cork was ruining too many bottles of wine.
http://www.contraryinvestor.com/mo.htm
Corzine is cutting 800 million to close a 2.1 billion $ shortfall? will be interesting to see where the rest comes from.
dont worry about the 23+ billion in pensions loses either.
come on now jon is a wall street guy,, knows the numbers cold. always works for the taxpayers best interests.
[179] JB
Thanks for the info. I have an Audi A6 Avant now, so I prefer the wagon for kinder and such, and knowing it can handle the snow and ice of Boston is important (since that’s where I am from, and still have family there) but that isn’t much of a surprise (in my birthtown of Cambridge, every other car is a volvo I think).
My problem with the Audi is that it is constantly in the shop. Everything on that car breaks, and when it does, it costs about $1000 a pop. This is something I truly want to avoid. Wife wanted to look at the Forester, and I like them well enough, but I also want that premier ride with tight suspension and power, and Subes just don’t have the nads.
Nope, I was saying JPM has a large amount of GM Bonds off balance sheet that are hedged by CDS with Citidel and if GM went bankrupt Citidel could not pay out on the CDS and JPM would have to bring the now worthless bonds on balance sheet. That said, I believe in free markets capitalism but since it is our manifest destiny to be number one there was no way uncle sam would let the members of the axis of evil Germany and Japan control our automotive future. Hence in spite of that I bought GMAC and JPM bonds and laughed while others feared. God Bless the UAW and Free Market Capitalism. I also own a few thousand shares of chase on the side. Go Big or Go Home, remember you get what you give. The toyota republicans and lexus liberals and mitsubishi bozos would like nothing better than for this to be their Pearl Harbor do over, but like his Dad Mr. Bush stepped up to the plate and saved us. Just like those Mitsubishi Zero Bombers in WWII, they may have won the first few battles but GM is far from dead.
HEHEHE says:
January 5, 2009 at 12:46 pm
John,
You are so full of bs. A few months ago you were all over this board going on and on about JPM being toast due to their derivative exposure.
“Everything on that car breaks, and when it does, it costs about $1000 a pop.”
I feel yoor pain, I am a recovering Audi owner. This is the case for most of the European cars. I would never again own one outside the warranty period.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The U.S. government may take common equity stakes in banks in another effort to boost lending and revive the economy, UBS analysts said Monday.
The government has invested more than $100 billion in banks by buying preferred shares and warrants. However, credit remains tight, so taking common equity stakes may now be a better option, Matthew O’Connor and his colleagues at UBS, wrote in a note.
“Injecting common equity at a low price (or taking too much equity as part of a loss-sharing arrangement) would essentially nationalize banks — which we believe the government does not want to do,” they said.
“A better solution, in our view, may be to recap banks with common equity at a price that does not significantly dilute current shareholders,” the analysts wrote to clients. “This may also encourage additional private capital and eventually ease lending standards.”
Investors, rating agencies and banks are concerned about the level of common equity in the industry, which is low and heading lower, according to the UBS analysts.
Falling common equity and low loan-loss reserves may have encouraged banks to be slow in recognizing credit losses. More than half of the bank chief executives polled by UBS recently said that loss recognition has been slow, the firm noted.
“While there are many reasons credit remains tight (and most bank CEOs expect further tightening), slow recognition of credit losses and thin common-equity levels are likely two key drivers,” the analysts said.
nom,
An Avant with nads? That would be the RS4, no?
[190] DL
Appreciate the insight. Since I am 9.3 years in, I figure I will let it ride.
FWIW, I was advised that this vintage had “just won two gold medals in international competitions.” This wasn’t my motivation since there are probably all kinds of schlock competitions, and they could have won “Best Tasting as Judged by Streetpeople in Perth” for all I knew. But I tasted this drop and concluded (IMVHO) that it was going to be great but it was still too young. That was when I asked the sommelier (really, the chick conducting the tasting) how long to cellar and she told me (in that cute aussie accent) “we recommend you cellar it 10 years.” My response was “Great, wrap it up. I know exactly what day I am drinking it.”
Whereupon my new bride said “when?” After a moment, she got it.
+++++++
I like the new synthetic corks better than screwtops. For whatever reason, even some decent wines recommended to me (and some I bought regularly) were just not good if they came from screwtops. I have gone back to avoiding them. But the syncorks seem to do a good job, and the vinters have gotten past the early problem of having them so hard that you couldn’t get them out of the bottle.
An Avant with nads? That would be the RS4, no?
Is the RS6 Avant available in the states?
[198] grim
No, and compared to other Audis I drove, it has all the pickup of a bus. Had a loaner one day and that damn thing flew. Was disappointed to give it back.
Still, compared to other cars I owned or are considering, the avant does get up and haul, even if it can’t blow its siblings off the line. It is showing its age, however, as it doesn’t have the pickup it used to. I am informed that this is natural.
Nom,
A fellow Audi sufferer :(
My fuel pump died while driving on 80 over the weekend. Had to get a tow. just another in a long line of expensive failures.
WIll not drive another audi!
Com 194
If you are looking for great value the why not a USED 2008 E-350 4Matic 11 month lease all bells and whistles for only $487 per month.
Dealer cost, DP and taxes already paid by a poor unfortunate soul.
link for above
http://www.leasetrader.com/2008_Mercedes_E350_4Matic_Sedan__142946.xhtml
Older German cars are no good for the MTV generation who never took auto shop. I would have sold my 1975 Benz years ago if it were not for cheap parts on the internet. My brother has a 2002 BMW and even at that age you need to be a little handy, he put in a new power window motor just last week. The internet is a wonderful thing, on a BMW an oil change is $100 bucks but you can buy a whole case of aftermarket BMW filters online for next to nothing and just hand it to the guy at jiffy lube. Funny thing I noticed whenever I get a new car no one under 40 even looks at the engine. Even funnier is when I sold a used car and the Mom bought her 20 year old son and I opened the hood, the idiot was looking in there with this dumb look on his face and then his big question was does it come with a warranty?
JBJB says:
January 5, 2009 at 3:34 pm
“Everything on that car breaks, and when it does, it costs about $1000 a pop.”
I feel yoor pain, I am a recovering Audi owner. This is the case for most of the European cars. I would never again own one outside the warranty period.
[196] JB
so true. A service manager at Paul Miller Audi told me the same thing; that any german car will basically require constant maintenance.
Used to be Volvos were long lasting, though I have heard a lot of crit over the last few years. If that is true, it’s back to Japan for me.
HEHEHE says:
January 5, 2009 at 7:44 am
“The city of Newark, NJ, is enforcing a 1960s law that bans the use of barbed wire and razor wire by the common people. The result: even more property crime in a city plagued by crime. Didn’t “we” all enter submit to government to protect our property (”we” did nothing of the sort, but it is the justification that statists frequently use)? Now, not only do they not protect property, they won’t even allow the common people to do so.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/024718.html
***********************
Heh…Lew Rockwell… nice!
Anyway, on the SURFACE, I’d say that I agree with Lew… a business owner should be able to protect his assets, no?
BUT WAIT! :)
In my town, you need a PERMIT to hang up barbed/razor wire and it has to be done “to code”…you can’t just fling it all over the place… because….yeah…balls of razor wire at your front door is kinda hazardous…
A permit is no big deal, but I WONDER if this small business owner in Newark (there’s all of 1 of them, according to the story…) was being asked to remove the wire due to his not getting a permit initially and now the town is relying on the ordinance to make him take it down.
It SOUNDS like (yes, I’m assuming here) some bldg owners never got a permit and the town was sleepy-eyed about the issue until “something” happened…
I always wonder what’s REALLY going on…
If you don’t add dry gas and leave your tank more than half empty or never change your fuel filter the fuel pump goes. Fuel pumps are cheap, like at most $200, if it is an external pump it is easy to pop in unless you are a nancy boy.
kettle1 says:
January 5, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Nom,
A fellow Audi sufferer :(
My fuel pump died while driving on 80 over the weekend. Had to get a tow. just another in a long line of expensive failures.
WIll not drive another audi!
[205] John,
Taking auto shop wouldn’t help. Today, you need more tools and diagnostics than ever, and the engine compartment on the A6 is so tight, cats don’t sneak in there to get warm. As it is, I can do some work—I am replacing the lift rods on the back gate (about as hard as changing a light bulb) and I will replace the PCV line, which is literally disintegrating. O/F changes are easy and I have the equipment for that. But when you need to replace the water pump, you need the tools and space. And when your ABS controller goes, well, I didn’t learn about those in auto shop.
Leon Pannetta to head CIA. Why doesn’t Ojama just name Bill Clinton as president and take a four year vacation.
I can do lots of auto maintenance, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to replace the rear wiper blade on our Xterra. When I get my oil changed for $8 at the local Firestone (Entertainment Coupon), they do it for me at no charge. Of course, I really ought to just ask them the secret.
When in doubt, tear it out!!!!!! my old benz when I dropped a new engine in I tossed the cat convert, smog pump and air conditioner compressor. Thing looked like a rear engine car with all the leftovers in trunk.
“A service manager at Paul Miller Audi told me the same thing; that any german car will basically require constant maintenance.”
Gee, a SERVICE MANAGER advises that a certain car, which his shop works on of course, requires constant maintenance… color me shocked.
I drive a ’99 528 BMW I bought for $14k in 2005 (new price $50,000). Yeah it’s required a few pricy parts (ABS controller $800, aircon hose $400), but do the brakes and oil changes yourself and it’s no more trouble over the 50k miles I’ve driven it than any other car.
Mind, this is a car that’s more complicated and tightly packaged than early space vehicles so it’s naturally it could have issues than wouldn’t come into play with a stripped out Sable.
Spring project – replace VANOS seals. $700 job at the Stealer (they will only replace the whole unit) or replace the seals for $60 and an afternoon of wrenching. BFD.
http://www.beisansystems.com/
It feels good to get the ol hands dirty once in a while. Beats sitting behind a computer/phone all day.
Comrade: And when your ABS controller goes, well, I didn’t learn about those in auto shop.
After (of course) I spent $800 on a new ABS controller for my BMW I learned of this place that rebuilds them for ~$200:
http://www.modulemaster.com/en/abs/order_domestic.php
Easy swap, 5 year warranty and great feedback from the BMW/Audi boards.
sorrythis was the link I mean to include:
http://www.modulemaster.com/en/Audi/A6_info.php
213…Amen…a little common sense there! I still like a warranty with a German car….in fact I drove mine off the lot this spring…and hot rodded it around town…blew a valve…and the dealership replaced the entire head….it was a $7k repair. No warranty and I would have been screwed….but they did a great job and she runs like a scalded dog….love it. Nothing like that straight six opened up….made me forget all about motorcycles.
maybe corzine could allow the Boss to run Trenton ,, what’s the diff.
change is on the way.,,, stay tuned.
man, this medved guy is a real moron.
has no idea of the real world.
SAS
These days I don’t want to do anything to a car except put gas in it.
I used to love working on cars, but that joy faded as I got older. Now I’m 42 years old and I have much better ways to spend my time than wrestling with a stubborn oil filter.
Now I buy new, I buy Japanese and I give it to someone else when I have a problem, which is rare. When I bought my last car, I didn’t even bother peeking under hood. Why bother? I’m not going to be spending any time there.
So here’s a question about low balling. The missus and I saw a house this Sunday that we really like. The owner wants $549,000. I’d like to offer $400,000. House has been on the market about three months.
How would you approach this?
Pelosi looking rather M!LFy today.
She’s had a lot of work done. Pretty high quality, too.
Al Franken is also now a US Senator. We have entered the end of days.
Mitch McConnell now stroking the O-man on Bloomberg.
Just tack a tax cut onto anything to co-opt the Republidorks.
God, these people suck. We deserve whatever befalls us now.
McConnell “thinks that states that get federal loans will be careful how they spend the money”.
Hey, Mitch, come visit our little secretariat and Commissar Jon. Any money that comes here is gone forever.
Boehner regulates his tan very well.
Not too red, not too washed out.
Nicely done.
Coleman to contest Minnesota result.
220…Well, I would guess that 3 months is not that long in this market…and ‘spring’ will be here soon. I would wait for an offer like that until 6 months. Just me though.
221…Clot….*yech* that is all I have to say….what a boner killer.
Chuchundra says:
January 5, 2009 at 4:34 pm
So here’s a question about low balling. The missus and I saw a house this Sunday that we really like. The owner wants $549,000. I’d like to offer $400,000. House has been on the market about three months.
How would you approach this?
I would make the offer, expect to be rejected, and don’t counter unless they come back with a number that is closer to yours than theirs. Then walk away, look at another house, there are lots to go around.
Yes Clot. In the end it’s all about preserving the two party system and the establishment in this country. All new ideas are laughed at; it’s all about keeping the lowest common denominators under mind control
“McConnell “thinks that states that get federal loans will be careful how they spend the money”.”
Seriously Clot it’s going to be $1T thrown down the rathole that is state and local government all ending up inselect compaign contributors wallets and benefitting our elected officials with all sorts of kickbacks. You can’t even invest money on the basis of this thing. The elected clowns already know who they are swinging these deals too. I seriously doubt little or any of it comes up for publi bid.
Yes I have a bad feeling that we are completely hosed in terms of the gubmint….Pelosi and her crew are completely ineffectual…Ob*ma has about 3 months of honeymooning to do something other than simply write checks….it is going to be one crazy summer….just sit back and watch it all burn.
228…In terms of the lowball…if I ‘were’ the seller and someone offered me $150k below…I would reject the offer and essentially bar the person from making any additional offers just because he/she was wasting my time. Seriously.
GE’s finance arm launches $10 billion FDIC-backed debt
REUTERS — 10 MINUTES AGO
By Dena Aubin
The General Electric Capital Corp sale will push total issuance under the government program to over $115 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data. Before GE Capital’s deal, the largest sale under the program was $9 billion on December 1 from Bank of America
http://www.redfin.com/home
just to get the realtors mad
228… About the lowball
Personally, I like your idea of going in really low. You can adjust it upwards if you change your mind but if the house is only worth $400, then make the offer. It will help to have your friend call to offer 330 verbally a week later, seller will think they are in twilight zone.
US govt to NY judge: Jail Madoff without bail
US prosecutor to NY judge: Revoke bail, jail disgraced financier Bernard Madoff
LARRY NEUMEISTER
AP News
Jan 05, 2009 16:05 EST
Prosecutors on Monday said disgraced financier Bernard Madoff violated bail conditions by mailing about $1 million worth of jewelry and other assets to relatives and should be jailed without bail.
“The defendant’s recent actions amount to obstruction of justice,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt told a judge at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan.
U.S. District Magistrate Ronald Ellis asked the lawyers to submit written arguments and said he would rule later.
Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin, described the items as heirlooms that included cufflinks and antique watches. He said they were not significant assets. The items were sent to Madoff’s children and to unidentified friends vacationing in Florida.
“We maintain it happened innocently,” Sorkin said. “He’s not a threat to the community and there’s no danger he’s going to flee.”
The 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman was arrested Dec. 11 on securities fraud charges alleging he duped investors out of as much as $50 billion in a giant Ponzi scheme.
The prosecutor told the judge the case against Madoff “is strong and getting stronger.”
Madoff, who owns yachts and mansions in New York’s Hamptons and Palm Beach, Fla., has been confined to his Manhattan apartment under house arrest.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/01/us_govt_to_ny_judge_jail_madoff_without_bail.php
BO,, now the stimulus number is around 1.3 trillion,, now howes that for a number.
wonder how much we get here in NJ, the Garden state.
That Madoff is protected on high by somebody. How else do you rip off all those charities and still not be in the can?
met with the realtors today. both sides. getting to know them a bit now (both women) and just ask them whatever i want.
asked about whether or not, when the ‘rate decrease’ happened, they were flooded with inquiries. both said one.
they dont know if the people are qualified, but they called them “fence sitters,” so maybe they are John’s coveted “cash crew.”
the movie 300 is bad-ass. that is all.
John (234)-
Is the “experienced agent” pictured a man or a woman (or some sort of post-op “shim”)?
I generally like to transact business with people whose gender I can readily identify.
Just me.
“HEHEHE says:
January 5, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Leon Pannetta to head CIA. Why doesnt Ojama just name Bill Clinton as president and take a four year vacation”
Panetta is a smart guy and a class act. As a nation we are lucky he has agreed to take the position. He will never say what he thinks O wants to hear if the truth is contrary to it. It is a nice change from the type of people bush surrounded himself with.
From which democratic administration is O supposed to find people with government experience? The last one before Clinton left 28 years ago. Most anyone who served Carter is getting up in years and the Dems who are young enough to be willing to serve and who have executive-branch experience will have come from the Clinton Administration. So, expect more Clintonistas.
240….face it clot, you will do bidness with anyone who cuddles with you afterwards.
Can’t somebody please just put a cap in Madoff’s bean and get it over with?
sx (242)-
Who needs cuddling afterwards?
Just cut to the fcuking chase.
244….hehehehe…..agreed. In bidness as well.
anybody think bernie is getting special treatment? wink, wink,,
“Decided the new wine storage will be under the cellar stairs. Bought a table saw and just need to find a good design for shelves that I can zing together. ”
I had an opportunity to see a wine cellar of a billionaire and he used terra cotta tubes mortered to the basement floor and wall. It naturally keeps the wine below 60 degrees.
notes from the field… made a very solid offer on a place a couple of days before New Year. Place had been on market since end of summer, was vacant, totally paid off. Owner had cut from high 600s down to mid 500s.
We went back and forth and untimately got within 15k of each other before both of us refused to budge. Then they made noise about contacting people who had previously bid on the place a couple of months back. We said good luck and withdrew our bid.
My opinion is that sellers still do not get it.
246…one thing the internet has done is blow back the covers on society…and I think it might lead to some really interesting events.
[247] shore
Wow, I forgot about that. I saw the same thing in a restaurant years ago in a region famous for being warm and having no a/c. Now to price terra cotta pipe.
Chi (94) – Brilliant!
Microsoft has so much bloat it is not funny. They need to shack the company up. My best friend from college works for Microsoft and he is living in LaLa land like most of the employees there. Microsoft was the new IBM of the 1970s and 1960s and they are now the the IBM 1980s.
John (115) – In the first few days of Dimon’s reign, rumor has it that he obeserved a line of ‘black cars’ out in front of 270 Park. He got into each one and asked who they were picking up. Upon finding out, made calls to each telling them their ride home was gone and released every one of the cars.
on the lowball bid strategy… I say throw the real lowball out there. just know that you are going to get rejected. but if they are way overpriced (which most are) they are not going to sell any time soon and it will make them think when it is the only bid the get over the next month or two. then when they finally make a price cut, you can come back with a slightly closer bid and it will look better to them.
That’s my thinking, skep
Make the lowball and let it work on their minds for a few months while I look at other houses. If it’s the only offer they get, they could come back to me when they get desperate.
#233 essex:just because he/she was wasting my time. Seriously.
Serioulsy essex, I could as the buyer say the exact same thing (wasting my time with fantasty asking prices.
In this environment if one truly wants to sell, than one would be a moron to bar somebody form making any more offers. The age of arrognace for sellers is over. Seriously.
“Wow, I forgot about that. I saw the same thing in a restaurant years ago in a region famous for being warm and having no a/c. Now to price terra cotta pipe.”
I understand that there is a grade of terra cotta that is resistant to mold. For wine, I would think that would be worth looking into.
#249 skeptic: The denial is scary.
3b 257-
It depends on how bad you want to sell. I would never bar anyone from making another, but I would reject the offer and not even counter.
yeah 3b I hear ya…enjoyed your posts BTW…I guess as a seller i would be better served to stay away from the process…too personal.
skep-tic says:
January 5, 2009 at 6:00 pm
notes from the field… made a very solid offer on a place a couple of days before New Year. Place had been on market since end of summer, was vacant, totally paid off. Owner had cut from high 600s down to mid 500s.
We went back and forth and untimately got within 15k of each other before both of us refused to budge. Then they made noise about contacting people who had previously bid on the place a couple of months back. We said good luck and withdrew our bid.
love it. good work, skep. we got lucky in that the owners had found a short sale that had drawn lots of interest, and they NEEDED to pounce on the short sale, or risk losing it (big family of 7, and the short sale was bigger than their current 3000 sq foot, unfinished basement place).
we came in 75k under asking, and they sort of bristled at our offer, thinking others would come. we put our cards on the table – we’re qualified, ready to go. came up 10k, and then held firm despite three attempts on their end to get us to budge and they played the “other seller” crap.
2 reasons we didnt bail – 1) our lease ends in 3 months, so we would have had to renew; 2) we hadn’t found a house in our 6 month search that combined an interior that didn’t need any work and a nice sized yard (nearly an acre).
less than 3 weeks to closing … we’ll see what happens.
My new mantra
Happiness is a full freezer and a full tank of gas
Blame Television for the Bubble
The real housing villain is on cable.
By JIM SOLLISCH
So now we know what happens when too many people who have too few assets buy too much house with the help of too many risky mortgage products and too little oversight. And while there’s plenty of blame to go around — unethical mortgage brokers, greedy bankers and irresponsible homeowners — one culprit continues to get off scot-free: HGTV.
That’s right. The cable network HGTV is the real villain of the economic meltdown. As the viewership reached a critical mass over the past decade — HGTV is now broadcast into 91 million homes — homeowners began experiencing deep angst. Suddenly no one but the most slovenly and unambitious were satisfied with their houses. It didn’t matter if you lived in an apartment or a gated community, one episode of “House Hunters” or “What’s My House Worth?” and you were convinced you needed more. More square feet. More granite. More stainless steel appliances. More landscaping. More media rooms. More style. You deserved it.
If you had any doubts about your ability to afford such luxuries, all you had to do was look at the 20-something couple in the latest episode choosing between three houses. Should they go for the fixer-upper, priced at $425,000? Or the one with the pool for $550,000? What about the one with room to grow for $675,000?
“How much money can these people possibly make?” I shout at my wife before wrestling the remote from her house-hungry little hand and switching it to the nearest sports program. “The guy can barely string together two sentences!”
And yet on episode after episode for this entire irrational decade, HGTV pumped up the housing bubble by parading the most mediocre, unworthy-looking homeowners into our living rooms to watch while they put their tacky, run-of-the-mill tract homes on the market for twice what they paid and then went out and bought houses with price tags too obscene to repeat. You couldn’t watch these shows without concluding that you must be an idiot and a loser if you lived in a house you could actually afford.
HGTV is an evil empire that never rests. You can loathe your current domicile 24/7 with programs such as “Stagers” (move a few things around and double the value of your home); “Designed to Sell” (you can sell your house, even if the house next to yours is in foreclosure); “Design on a Dime” (see, it’s cheap); and “Property Virgins” (losing your virginity was fun, wasn’t it?) Every show features highly attractive hosts who show you how to “unlock the hidden potential” in your home, how to turn a $10 thrift-store table into a “wow” media center, and how to make everything “pop.” Pop is the word of choice on HGTV.
Ironic, isn’t it, given the fact that pop is the sound we keep hearing from the McMansion-sized housing bubble HGTV created.
on, to the lowball attempt – i agree with essex in that 195k off is a hardcore lowball that could have the dealers not want to work with you at all.
and if these people paid the house off, they probably have enough money not to care about your offer. this would only suck if you REALLY like the house.
better move might be to talk with their realtor (with your realtor there, too) and let them know that you’re savvy (mentioning comps), qualified (20%, fico, etc), and you are interested in the place, but not nearly at that price.
just one guy’s opinion.
Re: the lowball. I would make the lowball. The only thing you have to lose is pissing off the seller. I think the high end of a fair bid is 15% off the 2006 high. 20% off that 2006 high is still a fair bid. More than 20% off the 2006 high is some form of lowball at this point. Just some rough guidelines from a guy that moved up the ladder over the past 6 months.
#263 My new mantra: Frugal is the new rich.
HGTV still refuses to acknowledge that a housing bubble existed. They are telling people who bought at the peak in the Bay Area that their house doubled in value since then.
Re: lowball….
Your first task is to hire me.
I’ll come in $20K LESS than what you’ll offer. I’ll make it all schitty looking…I’ll be missing a loan commitment, I’ll have to sell a house, etc.
Then wait 2 weeks and drop your bomb which will now be smelling unlike the turd it would be if it stands alone.
My fee is cheap and only get paid if you buy :)
“Panetta is a smart guy and a class act. As a nation we are lucky he has agreed to take the position. He will never say what he thinks O wants to hear if the truth is contrary to it. It is a nice change from the type of people bush surrounded himself with.”
You remind me of many of my friends and their knee-jerk Democrat defensive reactions to any criticism of Obama. Quite funny you bring up the political hacks Bush surrounded himself with when his director of the CIA was George Tenet who was a holdover from Clinton’s administration.
I’m an independent. I voted for change. All I see so far is a third Clinton term. I think it’s safe to say that if America wanted a third Clinton term they’d have voted for Hilary.
HEHEHE says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 5, 2009 at 8:56 pm
“Panetta is a smart guy and a class act. As a nation we are lucky he has agreed to take the position. He will never say what he thinks O wants to hear if the truth is contrary to it. It is a nice change from the type of people bush surrounded himself with.”
You remind me of many of my friends and their knee-jerk Democrat defensive reactions to any criticism of Ojama. Quite funny you bring up the political hacks Bush surrounded himself with when his director of the CIA was George Tenet who was a holdover from Clinton’s administration.
I’m an independent. I voted for change. All I see so far is a third Clinton term. I think it’s safe to say that if America wanted a third Clinton term they’d have voted for Hilary.
OT: I have horrible gas tonight…I am actually offending myself. But damn it is fun.
“OT: I have horrible gas tonight…I am actually offending myself. But damn it is fun”
and i thought i was off the cuff…
:)
SAS
don’t light a match bloke!
ha ha
SAS
273….I used to do that in my ‘fraternity boy’ days….and could send a flame about two feet. Careful though…you could actually explode. I think.
with all this low ball talk i gotta ask, does anyone think 500k offer on this house rude!
ihttp://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2854157&id=999999s
My wife and I had dinner at Tapas de Espana in North Bergen Saturday night and I sat across from Sen. Menendez..
He and I both ordered the skirt steak, actually two skirt steaks… Either he can really eat or he’s very wasteful, cause I didn’t see a doggie bag…
270 HEHEHE – Shore = “knee-jerk Democrat” = Funny :)
I voted for change too, and may yet be sorely disappointed. But there is nothing wrong with bringing in a few experienced grownups to help run the place. Better that then a bunch of green cronies who will screw up and embarrass you because they don’t know how to get things done.
Theo (276)-
Why didn’t you sink your steak knife into his back and become an instant hero?
Tonight’s GG a classic. Emmy written all over it.
I remember the days when GG was Gilmore Girls
#275 Drew
Start at 485K or around 25% off list. Get below 500 so that if you come up, you can stay in the low 5’s
Theo (280)-
Gilmore Girls? Those tired old dykes?
Gossip Girls are hot. Probably also jailbait.
This country needs a few more Jack Rubys.
270 HEHEHE – you do realize that Shore is a Republican who voted for McCain don’t you? Seriously.
270 HEHEHE – you do realize that Shore is a Republican who voted for McC don’t you? Seriously.
Any year I get my Christmas tree down on “Twelfth Night”, I declare a success.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/twelfth.htm
Happy holidays to all, and I will now hand Christmas over to all my Russian friends for Wednesday.
#284 Lisoosh
You have to give SG some credit. He couldn’t pull the trigger on a double down McC/P campaign donation. He cut his losses.
comrade nom deplume says:
January 5, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[179] JB
My problem with the Audi is that it is constantly in the shop. Everything on that car breaks, and when it does, it costs about $1000 a pop. This is something I truly want to avoid.
Nom: the gods of the universe are a mere one mile west of the square in Morristown…..go forth and find a million excuses to try and run the bill to $500 – you will fail. Differential? sorry $250….tire rods? sorry $200….timing belt? sorry $350…..exhaust system? sorry, they generally only replace what is needed (which is probably a clamp) can’t get it higher than $250…..
lost: check this….works well with some scotch…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QcyPeq8Stw&feature=related
Lisoosh….is that the sound you pantie make when they are removed….?
Panetta will be a failure as head of the CIA. The two party system leaves much to be desired and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between the parties.
Regarding the lowball offer- It opens the door to discussing a price. If the seller needs/wants to sell they will come back with a counter offer. When buying our place our agent suggested a very lowball offer and the seller came back with a counter offer. This went back and forth a couple of times and later the seller refused to come down further. We waited and a couple of months later after no other offers the seller accepted our final offer saying her accountant advised her to go ahead and sell.
As Frazer Smith used to say….”I believe in the two party system…ya’ party all day and ya’ party all night.”
jb, as this blog has been a bit overrun by wine and bonds lately, a bit of ugly-dog is in order.
This is one I’m thinking about, but he’s not ugly enough, maybe. Plus, he sounds too smart for us, and there isn’t enough drool hanging down. My daughter has her heart set on drool hanging down. Haven’t decided.
http://westmd.craigslist.org/pet/977623328.html
Automakers are looking great, should have very strong housing sales for Spring 2009:
Audi -9.0%
BMW -36.0%
Chrysler -53.1%
Ford -32.3%
General Motors -31.2%
Honda -34.7%
Hyundai -48.3%
Mercedes -32.0%
Nissan -30.7%
Saab -57.0%
Toyota -36.7%
Volkswagon -13.5%
Volvo -47.1%
“I voted for change” — LOL welcome to reality.
Joe Biden and Leon Panetta are your “change.”
More “change” to come…
Chifi 287,
Europcar was a fantastic suggestion. they have been a great find!