Shiller hints at lower home prices

From the Record:

Home prices may drop another 25%, Shiller predicts

Home prices may drop as much as 25 percent, after inflation, over the next five years, economist Robert Shiller, co-founder of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, said Thursday.

“A 10 to 25 percent further decline in real home prices over the next five years would not surprise me at all,” Shiller said at a Standard & Poor’s housing summit in New York.

Shiller, a Yale professor, said it’s possible that the market will follow the grim path seen in Japan after a 1980s housing bubble. Property values there declined every year for about 15 years, dropping by two-thirds overall, he said.

But he cautioned that he was not making a forecast, saying that since the recent housing boom-and-bust cycle was the biggest in U.S. history, he can’t use previous housing patterns to figure out where this market is headed.

“It’s impossible for statisticians to forecast,” he said. “I honestly don’t know.”

Other housing analysts have recently predicted that prices will continue to drift lower this year and “bounce along the bottom” for a while, but the loss mentioned by Shiller is larger than most experts have forecast.

Shiller was joined Thursday by a number of housing experts, most of them also pessimistic about the housing market’s short-term prospects.

Keith Fox, president of McGraw-Hill Construction, which tracks the building industry, predicted that about 640,000 single- and multi-family units will be built in the U.S. this year. While that’s an improvement over the past few years, it’s well below the 2.2 million units produced in 2005.

“You can clearly see how depressed this market remains,” Fox said. And when residential construction dries up, other types of construction – including retail, schools, offices, and even roads – also slow down, because there are fewer new homeowners to use them, he said.

Fox said, however, that residential construction should post healthier gains in 2012 and 2013.

Other analysts said the high rate of homes in the foreclosure process will continue to weigh on the market. Diane Westerback, a managing director at Standard & Poor’s, said clearing the market of foreclosure properties will take longer in states such as New Jersey, where lenders must go through the courts to repossess homes. Foreclosure activity has slowed to a crawl in the state as lenders try to prove that they are following the correct legal procedures, after questions were raised last fall.

Christopher Mayer, a professor at Columbia University, said that homes on the market, plus those that will be dumped on the market because their owners can’t pay their mortgages, add up to about 1 1/2 years’ worth of housing inventory. Given those numbers, he said, “house prices are going to continue to fall.”

Thomas Gleason, a housing finance executive from Massachusetts, brought up the old adage, “May you live in interesting times.”

“As my kids would say, ‘Been there, done that,'” he said. “I’d like to live in a time where there’s a fully functioning housing market. That would be really interesting.”

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217 Responses to Shiller hints at lower home prices

  1. grim says:

    From CNBC:

    Americans’ equity in their homes near a record low

    Falling real estate prices are eating away at home equity. The percentage of their homes that Americans own is near its lowest point since World War II, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The average homeowner now has 38 percent equity, down from 61 percent a decade ago.

    The latest bleak snapshot of the housing market came as mortgage rates hit a new a low for the year, falling below 4.5 percent for a 30-year fixed loan. But even alluring rates have failed to deliver any lift to the depressed housing industry.

    The Fed report is based on data from the first quarter of this year. Another report last week found that home prices in big cities have fallen to 2002 levels.

    Normally, home equity rises as you pay off the mortgage. But home values have fallen dramatically since the bubble in prices burst in 2006. So many homeowners are losing equity even though the outstanding balance on the loan is getting smaller.

  2. Mike says:

    Good Morning New Jersey

  3. 30 Year Realtor says:

    The prevailing sentiment about the real estate market in my office is, no negotiation is complete until closing! A price agreed by buyer and seller, reduced to writing in an NJ Realtor contract is only an advisory opinion. Attorney review and home inspection contingencies should now be referred to as “renegotiation clauses”. Today there are no repair issues small enough to overlook.

  4. grim says:

    From the NYT:

    More Luxury-Home Owners Opt for Short Sales

    TWO copper beeches tower over Rudy and Ann Mittasch’s shingled colonial on a pristine half acre in the gated Legend Yacht and Beach Club enclave of 46 homes here. Set on rolling terrain with 26 acres of communal space, their home has distant views across the Long Island Sound from the city to Connecticut.

    Amenities in the private community include a clubhouse decorated à la Ralph Lauren, a dock with boat slips, an outdoor pool, an indoor tennis court and a lake with two fountains.

    But the grand setting of this cluster of luxurious homes built a decade ago on the site of the former estate of Marcus Loew, a founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, belies another reality.

    The Mittasches’ four-bedroom four-and-a-half-bath home, with 3,600 square feet of space, has been on the market since June 2008, according to Zillow.com. With a two-story foyer; a 20-foot living-room ceiling; granite counters, two dishwashers and two cooktops in the kitchen; and a plush master suite, it was first listed for $2.125 million.

    Recently, it was reduced to $1.085 million and listed as a short sale.

    Saddled with a $1.3 million mortgage, along with more than $28,000 in annual property taxes, and $1,450 in monthly common charges, the Mittasches, both retired and in their 80s, had hoped to sell the house and move to a rental apartment with “no more obligations.” But last fall, with prices still tumbling, they “went underwater” and “sank to the bottom,” owing their lender more than the value of the home.

    That was when the couple listed the house as a short sale, hoping to work out a deal in which their lender would accept less money than the outstanding mortgage balance. Short sales in expensive areas may seem a dissonant idea, but they are increasingly common. In Nassau, 22 houses exceeding $1 million are listed as short sales; in Suffolk the tally is 12.

    Over all, short-sale inventory hit a record high in April, said Richard Halloran, the managing broker of Coldwell Banker’s Babylon office, who cited 2,430 homes in Suffolk listed as short sales and 1,042 in Nassau. In December 2008, the short-sale inventory in Suffolk was 1,541 homes; in Nassau, 633.

    With the courts at a standstill and banks not foreclosing on properties, Mr. Halloran said, “the banks are getting better at doing short sales, so more people are doing them.”

  5. xroads says:

    I looked at a house in Sparta last night and the realtor told us there are “bidding wars” in Morristown and that maybe it would work its way up here.

  6. Sparta will be the first town in NJ covered in Fukushima fallout.

    Ladies and gentlemen, the worst possible outcome at Fukushima is now apparently a reality:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8565020/Nuclear-fuel-has-melted-through-base-of-Fukushima-plant.html

  7. Mikeinwaiting says:

    xroads 5 “the realtor told us” you are kidding right?

  8. gary says:

    “A 10 to 25 percent further decline in real home prices over the next five years would not surprise me at all,” Shiller said at a Standard & Poor’s housing summit in New York.

    Any questions?

  9. Once again, it’s bankruptcy season in world soccer.

    Pretty soon, it will be Man U, Barca and Real Madrid.

    ZARAGOZA, Spain (ESPN) — First division Spanish soccer club Zaragoza is filing for protection from creditors under Spanish bankruptcy law.

    The team said Wednesday that it was in danger of a “cash flow” problem due to a debt of $146.57 million.

    The club said that its financial difficulties stemmed from its “relegation three seasons ago, and the economic effort made to return to the first division just one season later.”

    The club said it had “been able to stabilize its debt by the end of the 2009-10 season, but it had been impossible to reduce it.”

    Last season, Zaragoza barely escaped the drop again in the final round.

  10. gary says:

    xroads [5],

    Ask that realtor if it’s still contained to subprime. Also ask that realtor if the bidding wars in Morristown are because people are bleeding wealth there. And finally, tell that realtor that you’re thinking about taking equity out of your current house to use as a down payment on another house so that you can then sell the first house. Ask them if that’s a good idea.

  11. freedy says:

    Gary,I guess that leaves River Edge as the safest bet

  12. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Hobo the President of Tepco resigned, in the old days he would have committed sepaku.

  13. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Gary 10 well it might ,take money from first buy cheaper home before walking away from 1st .
    Go with cash out refi so no one can come after you, No seconds or HELOCs.

  14. mike (13)-

    I have done three short sales in the past four years where people did exactly what you describe.

  15. gary says:

    freedy,

    River Edge is exclusive because people like to pay very high property taxes there to prove they belong.

  16. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Here is something that will F up Europe some more:
    “In what’s being described as a disaster, Banco Santander (STD) fails to move €1B in covered bonds, leaving the banks that underwrote the deal stuck with about 1/2 of it. The paper was backed by loans to Spanish local governments whose finances are especially suspect of late”

  17. Mikeinwaiting says:

    If they can not sell their worthless bonds the game is up.

  18. Neanderthal Economist says:

    “A 10 to 25 percent further decline in real home prices over the next five years.”
    Although i give shiller a lot of credit and understand what he is trying to convey, this is disapointing for him to make an inflation adjusted forecast without also clarifying what he thinks will happen to inflation. Theoretically his prediction could mean that nominal prices will increase 10% per year going forward.

  19. gary says:

    Diane Westerback, a managing director at Standard & Poor’s, said clearing the market of foreclosure properties will take longer in states such as New Jersey, where lenders must go through the courts to repossess homes. Foreclosure activity has slowed to a crawl in the state as lenders try to prove that they are following the correct legal procedures, after questions were raised last fall.

    Dismal job growth, 16% unemployment, $16,400,000,000,000 of net worth vanished in the last 4 years. Is there any reason not to laugh at a seller’s asking price and not lowball the f*cking p1ss out of them? If a wounded animal was laying in front of you and you have eaten in three weeks, is there any reason not to plunge a double-edged blade into the mid-section?

  20. Neanderthal Economist says:

    Who knew that the disaster she was predicting was going to be her own rep…
    Whitney doubles down on wrong
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-gasparino/post_2100_b_873415.html

  21. Neanderthal Economist says:

    JJ calls another one…

  22. Kettle1^2 says:

    Doom

    the article seems to be saying that the fuel is sitting in the concrete catchment basin beneath the reactor. It that is what they ate saying then we were aware of this weeks ago if not months.
    The next escalation in disaster is if the fuel manages to burn through the concrete basin and hit ground water. If it does that you could easily see a substantial steam explosion, but that could also happen with little outward indication depending on the condition of the fuel andvthe geometry involved.
    Either way that 5okm ring is uninhabitable for several generations now, and 20km and closer is probably permanantly uninhabitable.
    You CANNOT clean up this scale of radiological contamination, you can only try to mitigate it while you wait for the halflfe of the products to decay them to harmless/ less harmful substances. Anything close to the reactor is easily looking at 100+ years and the aquifer in that area is probably permanently unusable.

  23. I’ll take Meredith Whitney over Charlie Gasparino any day of the week.

  24. NWNJHighlander says:

    xroads (#5)
    Sparta…

    Make sure you get really good info on the REOs in Sparta.
    There are homes throughout the area selling for less than 60% of the 2006 peak.
    Cost to commute out there ruined many a household budget for the ninja loan crowd.

    I do not see any appreciation in any YoY in Sparta RRE for at least a decade, or a substantial drop in the cost of gasoline, or a major factory opens up in the area employing thousands of locals.

  25. Kettle1^2 says:

    Doom

    don’t forget about reactor 4. The building is still in danger of collaping and has about 3 or 4 cores worth of fuel suspended in it’s SFP. Arnie gunderson has said he would suggest people leave Tokyo and japan immediatly if the building collapses. Such an event has never been considered but the outcomes most likely ranges from very bad to catastrophic.

    The Japanese are probably omcapabke of an adequate response atbthis point. Only a megascale international effort could clean this up effectivly at this point and would face engineering challenges never dealt with before.

  26. Juice Box says:

    Re: 23 – wait a minute I thought it was like subprime you know
    contained.

  27. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    Hey Ket but our Fukushima plant is back on line producing medical goods for the public. All our expats there either quit or relocated back their place of origin. One stated it is so bad I’m fully expecting to have cancer in 5 years. they wore their rad badges from the sterilization rooms outdoors most were black in a few days.

  28. 3b says:

    #5 Check the inventory, if there is a lot of inventory, than there are no bidding wars. If inventory is limited, and the houses are priced right for today (and only today), than perhaps there may be bidding wars on select properties.

  29. 3b says:

    #11 There is a place……..

  30. Dissident HEHEHE says:

    Gasparino is a knuckle draggin’ moron. He’s been out to get Whitney ever since the Citigroup call. He’s one of those “reporters” who thinks he’s bigger than the stories he covers – nothing happens on the street without Gasparino knowing- give me a break.

  31. 3b says:

    #11 freddy: Gary could not handle the moms there; he would stroke out.

  32. Kettle1^2 says:

    Pain

    tepco execs and the heads of government in japan should be put on trial for crimes against the people of the nation and then promptly publically executed by being marched into the basement of one of the reactors. They have damned multiple generations of Japanese citizens to cancer and birth defects for the sake of saving face and protecting the politically connected.
    Nit that our government would have behaved significantly different.

  33. 3b says:

    #19 There will be no wage inflation, so does not matter. If people don’t have jobs or jobs that pay enough, than prices will go down, while property taxes go up. The lower taxes towns (all things bing equal) will out perform the higher taxed towns going forward.

    River Edge used to fit that bill. Good schools, with one of the lowest property taxes in Bergen Co; now we have one of the highest.

  34. Dissident HEHEHE says:

    Hmmm, home equity at all time low plus this:

    30% Of People With A 401(k) Have Taken Out A Loan Against It: New All Time Record

    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/record-number-people-have-taken-out-loan-out-against-their-401k

    Looks like there’s not much blood left in the stone on the consumer front.

    The upside is a 2% reduction in payroll tax should solve all our problems.

  35. 3b says:

    #24 Agreed . Hands down.

  36. Kettle1^2 says:

    Pain

    the Japanese seem to be playing the game of measuring the air for radioactivity when the soil/ ground in many places activly reads 100’s of % higher radioaction levels. Hope the wind doesn’t pick up any dust….. It’s not like children ate orders of magnitude more sensitive to ionizing radiation the adults.

    And for anyone curious, the amount of fallout from this event makes the fallout from Hiroshima or Nagasaki look like a ant compared to an elephant. The 2 cannot be compared with a straight face.

  37. JJ says:

    She is a blonde bimbo married to a wrestler. Her definition of a default is crazy.

    First she says most muni bondholders are users of the service so therefore they have an obligation to provide the services stated at price stated and pay back bond holders a dual mandate.

    Then she claims if the terms of original bond deal is altered, lets say it requires Letter of Credit, bond insurance or has a sinking fund it is also a default.

    Then she says if bond is downgraded it is a default.

    My definition of default is one thing. I don’t get paid back my principal 100% and all interest due, case closed.

    For example I own MTA bonds and Port Authority Bonds. The LIRR raised ticket prices and cut some trains and the Port Authority is raising tolls. According to Whitney since I am a bond holder who rides trains and uses bridges since prices unexpectedly went up it is a default. She also claims they have an obligation to employees, so if the Gov of NY is successful in cutting pensions for all the NYS workers and raising the retirement age guess what NYS defaulted.

    I my mind GMAC, Citi, AIG, Ford, Genworth, Bank of America bonds never defaulted. I got paid. In whitney’s mind I guess they all defaulted.

    In her mind a rating downgrade, dropping bond insurance, not calling bond early as in sinking fund, cutting services drastically to pay of bond holder are all defaults. Maybe if I was a muni fund who was required to only hold bonds with insurance or A rated or above it can cause a loss as I need to sell at a bad time. But 80 year old granny sitting on a bond without on-line access to prices as long as interest check comes every six months it aint a default.

    Neanderthal Economist says:
    June 10, 2011 at 7:48 am

    Who knew that the disaster she was predicting was going to be her own rep…
    Whitney doubles down on wrong
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-gasparino/post_2100_b_873415.html

  38. escapee says:

    kiss of death?

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/09/national/main20070303.shtml
    “An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government’s Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history”

  39. 3b says:

    #38 Agreed She does not know the market well, or understand it, and in fact most people do not, including the clueless local officials who borrow all the time. As well as many investors, especially the mom and pop types.

    However, that being said I will take her over that wind bag Charlie G anytime, just on principal.

  40. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    Ket that entire portion of the island is going to be uninhabitable for the reamaining duration of human history. The japanese population is probably going to have to be relocated elsewhere if they do not find a solution, which looks like they are well past that point. Offer sanctuary for forgiveness of Debt?

  41. The Original NJ Expat says:

    “A 10 to 25 percent further decline in real home prices over the next five years would not surprise me at all,”

    Duh. Winning.

  42. chicagofinance says:

    jj…give me something…anything…

    chicagofinance says:
    June 9, 2011 at 5:18 pm
    I saw this video on You Tube discussing Japanese baseball. Anyway, they have a picture of a player sitting in the dugout fanning himself with a hand fan. It looked really effeminite…then he turned and his uniform said (Yakult) Swallows……I immediately thought of some comment jj might make….

  43. 3b says:

    Martin Armstrong is moving to the little town that could. He sees the value in this property, so while he may still be living in a krap box, at least he will be living in a town that justifies him having an opnion.

    http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1119367&dayssince=&countysearch=false

  44. JJ says:

    Japs are all pretty gay to me.

  45. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    Bloomberg reports riot police and 150 Tokyo cops ringfenced Tepco meeting.

  46. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    Too cute OT alert:

    My 2yo was looking in wifes bag, pointed to a camera and said “that’s the smile thing”

  47. Al Mossberg says:

    New Jersey Town To Cite Backyard Organic Farmer For Growing Vegetables

    “Hostility towards individuals who grow food in their suburban or semi-rural backyards appears to be on the rise, this time in the New Jersey township of Chatham. Officials there have twice cited Mike Bucuk, a 24-year-old organic farmer, for the crime of growing vegetables in his backyard and giving the surplus away to his neighbors for free. The town has even ordered Mike to stop attending to his three-acre plot of crops, thanks to a concerted legal effort spawned by a disgruntled neighbor.

    It all apparently started when the Bucuk’s neighbor Richard Erich Hamlin lodged a complaint with the town, alleging that Mike was operating a commercial farm in his backyard in violation of local zoning ordinances. Even though Mike’s “commercial farm” is really nothing more than a backyard organic garden with a small, moveable greenhouse, the town ultimately ordered that Mike stop cultivating his crops until the issue is resolved one way or the other.

    “We’re not building a farm so large it needs a crop duster,” joked Tom Bucuk, Mike’s father, to the Daily Record concerning the ordeal. After all, Mike’s goal has always been to simply use his land to grow fresh, organic produce that he would then sell at the local Chatham Farmers Market. And as a sign of good intent, the Bucuk family has even opened up their garden to neighbors, allowing them to pick fresh produce for free.”

    http://rickmick.com/

  48. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    WEll obviously he is a traitor to consumerism and must be shot

    Seriously the well to do busy bodies need to get a life. Heard something similar here with one of my admins daughters softball team selling cupcakes as a fundraiser. Shows who really owns your property and it isn’t you

  49. Anon E. Moose says:

    Re: [48];

    I suppose “neighbor Richard Erich Hamlin” would rather have a section 8 and cars up on cinder blocks next door than a tended vegetable garden? How does someone as dumb as “neighbor Richard Erich Hamlin” come into enough money to own a place in Chatham anyway?

  50. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    (48) al

    In the event that TSHTF, I can think of one guy who can’t count on a handout from the neighboring farm.

  51. The Original NJ Expat says:

    #48 A 24 year old with 3 acres in Chatham who spends his time farming out back? Sounds like sour grapes from an under water neighbor because the kid was given the property free and clear by his dad (maybe he even has a trust fund to pay the property tax).

  52. The Original NJ Expat says:

    #48 After reading the full article it seems like Farmer Mike is living in his parent’s basement. I was thrown by the sentence Mike’s goal has always been to simply use *his* land to grow fresh, organic produce

  53. grim says:

    The problem is his jib is clearly not cut for the Chathams. No one should be forced to have to associate with these shit shovelers. What is next? It’s only a matter of time before Mike turns his garage into a barracks for the migrant illegal produce pickers. Imagine what that might do to property values.

  54. Sarah R. says:

    re: #4 This couple is in their 80’s and retired? I guess they went a tad above their means…..or they planned to walk away all along (which doesn’t seem likely). I have a hard time shedding a tear for them and their supremely poor planning.

  55. hughesrep says:

    Mike growing any herbs out back? Maybe he can cut a deal with someone in Montclair.

  56. Shore Guy says:

    This guy sounds like more of a farmer than the folks like a certain singer who lives along the river in Middletown who claim most of his land as a farm.

  57. grim says:

    Eh, local municipality made my father get rid of his bee hive. Had it for like 5 years, no problems. They cited keeping farm animals as being restricted within city limits.

  58. JJ says:

    chifi, too busy buying trups this morning, some bargains to be had with weakness in bank stocks last four weeks. What are you buying today?

  59. Shore Guy says:

    Ket/Clot,

    The Japanese better start burrowing onder ground to create a huge concrete barrier between the current liquid plume and where it is heading, and then build a Superdome-tupe of supercontainment structure around the plants.

    Clearly, the scale has to, in the best traditions of Spinal Tap, go to 8. “Well we”re one worse. Chernobyl went to 7. We go to 8”

  60. Shore Guy says:

    “keeping farm animals”

    Would a vet come out to look at a sick bee? If not, it is hard to call having a single hive having farm animals.

  61. gary says:

    Approximately 48 percent of Americans say they think that a Great Depression is either very or somewhat likely to occur within the year, according to a CNN Opinion Research Poll.

    It’s gotta be Haliburton’s fault. There’s no other explanation.

  62. gary says:

    You can’t grow a garden in River Edge, the Unicorns eat everything so quickly.

  63. sas3 says:

    Gary, I’ll take the bait.

    So you don’t think the wars had any effect on the economy? Don’t worry, the powers that be will side with rich Chinese investors, Indian off shoring companies, and Arab sheiks in their battle against regular Joes. I presume you think they will see your loyalty to the corporate cause and make an exception for you, and not screw with your career prospects…

  64. Shore Guy says:

    Clot,

    I know what you say your real name is and what your real job is but, are you sure you are not James Carville?

    http://nation.foxnews.com/economy/2011/06/06/carville-civil-unrest-imminently-possible

    Political strategist James Carville was on Fox Business’ “Imus” Monday morning and made a dire prediction:

    “Even if the economy comes back the prospects of a lot of people finding a job is not good…this is a humanitarian…you’re smart enough to see this…if it continues you’re going to see some sort of civil unrest in this country…I hate to say that but I think it’s imminently possible.”

  65. Shore Guy says:

    “Unicorns eat everything so quickly”

    Gary,

    There is a solution to that: fairy dust.

  66. Shore Guy says:

    Residents can get bags of it for free at the town hall.

  67. Shore Guy says:

    Jeeze,

    Imus looks like a corpse.

  68. gary says:

    sas3,

    As long as the dividend checks keep coming in, they can make a deal with the f*cking dev1l for all I care. Now, get back to work, I gotta cash another discretionary unemployment check.

  69. gary says:

    Shore [66],

    Does the property tax in River Edge cover fairy dust? We need to form a government agency to look into it.

  70. Shore Guy says:

    About 7 minutes in gets to the civil unrest portion of the discussion

  71. Shore Guy says:

    Gary,

    There is a fundemental divide between folks like Sastry and folks like me.

    My ilk believe that government should do what governments alone can do and, in my opinion, Sastry (and I mean no personal offense here) and folks like him, and this is just my opinion, believe that governments should do what they are capable of doing.

    I see things that governemts do that bring certain positive benefits to people, but which are not essential functions, and I see government budget deficits and piles of debt and I say, cut, cut, cut, even good decent programs, because we cannot afford them. The other side says, “Oh my gosh. We have this great program, we must raise revenue so we can continue to provide the program.”

    I think that dinners out, vacations, and new cars are nice things for families to have, when they have the cash to pay for them. Others believe that if we are short on cash, we can just put it on credit because, after all, these things benefit the family.

  72. Shore Guy says:

    When one lives in a town with Unicorns, fairy dust distribution is an essential government function.

  73. Shore Guy says:

    A classic, starting at 3:00:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAOVRkSCWmg

  74. 3b says:

    #63 The unicorns frolic on the banks of the majestic Hackensack, and gently nibble on the leaves of the ancient noble trees that line those storied banks.

  75. 3b says:

    #63 The way taxes are going there, not only will residents have to grow their own vegetables to save money, but horrors of horrors, they will have to go back to clothes lines for laundry drying to save on the gas and electric bills.

  76. JJ says:

    “The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity” — Abraham Lincoln

  77. JJ says:

    How about all married working men or women with a working spouse with children under the age of ten be given the option of getting a 25K a one time check from Uncle Same for one of them to leave the workforce for five years. If spouse divorce them or they are widowed ok I will let them back in if they pay back on a prorated basis.

    Unemployment problem solved. Or just give every household who makes over 250K a year (5% of population) and unemployed person as a servant. That will bring unemplyment down to the 4% range.

  78. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    (77) jj

    Good one.

    (78) jj

    That has been discussed in tax policy circles. Lot of problems with that though.

  79. Xroads says:

    25 highlander

    I agree that the cost of commuting is hurting a lot of people I also think commuting time was underestimated by most it takes me an hour to get to rockaway from Sparta. The other factor is property taxes our local pols want to keep raising full throttle I think the average has gone up close to $1,500 the past two years a factory job won’t keep up with that

  80. grim says:

    You can’t grow a garden in River Edge, the Unicorns eat everything so quickly.

    I just pissed myself

  81. sas3 says:

    Shore,

    “I know what you say your real name is…”

    You are watching too much Fox News: “I take Grim’s word when he says his name is James” — or “Some people may have questions about Grim’s name…”

  82. Xroads says:

    Miw, Gary and clot

    The raptor seemed sensible for a second when she sai listing agent thinks a builder will buy the property to flip ( vacant fixer upper) her reply was builders are broke! And followed up with maybe an investor will buy it! Cue eye roll from me.

  83. 3b says:

    #82 grim: Betcha don’t have Unicorns in your town?

  84. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    X-roads ever heard of berkshire valley road? get off of route 15

  85. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    3b they do have mermaids in the lower valley where it floods

  86. 3b says:

    #87 Yes and Mermen too, and Hobbits, and Leprechauns. I have also heard rumors that the Tooth Fairy and Mother Goose will be moving there as well.

  87. gary says:

    Where I grew up, we had drive-by unicorns. :o

  88. A.West says:

    JJ, you wrote: “Or just give every household who makes over 250K a year (5% of population) and unemployed person as a servant. That will bring unemplyment down to the 4% range.”

    Instead, the government is doing the opposite – turning the 250k households into the servants of anyone who makes less than about 25k.

  89. Xroads says:

    Pain
    Yes even jumping off 15 sidestepping 80 via richard mine rd ( I’m going to green pond) it still shakes out close to an hour except Fridays which traffic tends to be lighter. I’m not complaining just underestimated the volume. People who go to the city though… Ouch!

  90. Shore Guy says:

    Sastry,

    That was tongue-in-cheek and directed to Clot, not Grim. You have seen Clot’s references to riots in the streets, no?

  91. Shore Guy says:

    Heck, an hour is a trame commute in the Garden State.

  92. JJ says:

    Great Opportunity To Downsize Or Upgrade. Home For All Seasons.

    Great blurb from a new real estate ad I just saw!!

  93. Kettle1^2 says:

    Shore,

    The russian made the prevention of contamination of the water table a top priority because they new that it cannot be undone. Hell, if the russians, the same nation that ran Mayak were that adamant about protecting the water table it should tell you something.
    The cat is out of the bag. The foundations of those 4 reactors are crack and the local water table is probably irreversibly contaminated.

    trying to build a concrete sarcophagus under those structures is a feat never before attempted and would require materials to be used in environemnts that there is no real performance data for. On top of that you would have to build it to resist the ravages of the ocean and salt water. It would take an interbational effort and probably hundreds of billions of dollars to even attempt it.

    it might be easier to build/modify fully automated equipment with primary hydraulic control systems ( hydraulics are more resistant to high radioactivity environments then electronics.). Literally remove the entire site from the buildings to the basements to a stable location where the rubble can be contained. Use thermal lances to cut the debris into workable sizes. You could even entomb each load of debris in a concrete block with steel cladding on site before transporting to the inland permanent sarcophagus site. Such a plan has fewer unknowns and avoids the long term risks to onsite entombment such as future tsunamis or quakes which are guaranteed to strike the site again before it would be safe.

  94. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    Xroads that sucks I just applied for a job in Rockaway and figure cutting through Dover will cost me the same time wise as going to Bergen County. Something about any section of Route 15 just sucks. I am guessing here but you have probably tried going through Lake Telemark also?

  95. Shore Guy says:

    Tame, too

  96. Shore Guy says:

    Ket,

    I wonder how many minutes into the Fuk-U-Shima event it was before TEPCo lost every dollar it ever earned from those plants?

  97. Kettle1^2 says:

    Shore

    if it is accurate that cooling pools and the primary foundation cracked in the initial quake then their financial loss was essentially instantaneous. Otherwise probably less then 60 mins since it has been reported that the cores were in the process of melting within 60 mins of losing cooling and there weren’t appropriatly designed safety systems to halt the event.

  98. Shore Guy says:

    Put down the doughnut and step away from the park bench:

    http://gothamist.com/2011/06/06/ticketed_for_eating_a_doughnut_in_a.php

    snip

    I got really angry and asked the officer if he honestly believed he was helping this community by giving us these summonses. His response only made me more angry. “I don’t believe in anything,” he said. “You don’t believe in anything? In helping people? Then you probably shouldn’t be a cop,” I said. This did not make him happy and he asked me, “Well, do you think you are being a model citizen right now?” I knew that I had to stop talking, that I was taking this too much to heart, that my poor visitor was getting more and more anxious, but I could not believe what was happening. “Do you think that being a model citizen means saying nothing when you see something you disagree with being done with your tax dollars? Because that is a model citizen in a totalitarian country.” He just shook his head at me. And at that point I did stop talking.

    His partner returned. He had written two of the summons. We had been there for over twenty minutes now. He handed over our IDs to the cop that had been guarding us. Of course, they each had their own numbers to maintain so they were splitting the violations.

    This cop attempted to be sympathetic. He proceeded to tell us that he was trying to be a gentleman by just giving us summonses instead of taking us in for questioning, because that was what “they” wanted him to do. If he just gave us warnings and told us to leave, he would get in trouble for “doing nothing all day.” He went on to say that all he did when he was growing up was “do Tae Kwon Do and go to school.” “Are you trying to say that we are bad people for sitting on a bench in a park and eating doughnuts?” I asked him, just trying to figure out where he was going with this. “No, no, I’m just saying that I never got in trouble. Sometimes I play basketball,” he said, pointing at the courts behind him. Not in that park, he doesn’t. Not unless he has a kid strapped to his back at the time.

    Finally, we were given our summonses and were free to go. Because we hadn’t been drinking alcohol or urinating in public, we do not have the option of pleading guilty by mail. Not that I am planning on pleading guilty. But either way, we have to show up in court or a warrant will be issued for our arrest. My friend does not live in New York and I am out of the country all summer, so this is going to be an ordeal in itself, given that the summons has no information on how to contact the court. Nor do we know how much we owe. Because the cops had no idea about that, either. They were just “doing their jobs,” in the most mindless sense of that phrase.

    snip

  99. Shore Guy says:

    The other question is how long will/did it take to wipe out all prior profit for the entier company?

  100. Shore Guy says:

    entire, too

  101. Kettle1^2 says:

    Pain 96

    I may be able to help u with that if you get the job.

  102. Xroads says:

    Pain
    Problem with alternate routes is there are other people doing the same plus school buses… I don’t know what your start time will be but it matters, my coworker starts at 7 and averages 35-45 minutes I start at 8 I leave at 6:50 and arrive at 7:45 ish I work occasional Saturday and it’s 35 min

  103. Shore Guy says:

    Whatever happpened to the Texas Blondes, anyway? John? If anyone knows, I suspect it would be you.

  104. Kettle1^2 says:

    Shore

    did u the story I linked yseterday about swat executing a no-knock warrant for a woman who defaulted on a student loan!?

    The tepco question is a trick one. They already lost it all given the scope of the event but the Japanese government will be glad to pass those costs onto the people.

    It is unlikely that any real risk analysis would allow you to leave 4 melted reactors with acetal hundred tons of fuel sitting on a beach. That is not realistcally containable or capable of being disaster proofed in a highly active seismic region. Site removal is the only “logical” option. Unfortunatly logic does not apply to fukushima

  105. JJ says:

    I turned them upside down and found out they were just brunettes with bad breath.

    Shore Guy says:
    June 10, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    Whatever happpened to the Texas Blondes, anyway? John? If anyone knows, I suspect it would be you.

  106. Shore Guy says:

    “swat executing a no-knock warrant for a woman who defaulted on a student loan!?”

    I missed that one.

  107. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    More Kensian Moronics being demanded by the deluded friends of Obama

    Christina Romer, who stepped down last year as President Obama’s top economics adviser, told The Lookout earlier this week that “the U.S. economy needs help,” and called for more stimulus spending and business tax cuts to encourage hiring.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110610/ts_yblog_thelookout/with-obama-doing-little-on-jobs-allies-grow-frustrated

    Ket I’ll let you know how it works out

  108. jamil says:

    “One German organic farm has killed twice as many people as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Gulf Oil spill combined.”

    Now what to do?
    Of course, ban nuclear energy, oil drilling and gas pipelines from Canada.
    Those unicorns sure come handy now!

  109. Shore Guy says:

    Chifi:

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5joxJfzP5g8rkhRafAgissftFsKRg?docId=b3bd3469d9f340d18eed882b2e986751

    Cornell holds first-ever 80th class reunion
    By JOHN KEKIS, Associated Press – 1 day ago

    ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — Rosemary Hunt Todd sang the alma mater and the school fight song and was greeted by a standing ovation from four returning reunion classes at Cornell University.

    Soon to be 102, Todd represented the Class of 1931 at Cornell’s first 80th class reunion on Thursday evening.

    Even as people are living longer, this class boggles the mind — 30 members are still alive. No coincidence they were dubbed “The Thirty-Wonders” decades ago.

    snip

  110. Shore Guy says:

    “Those unicorns sure come handy now!”

    Add some white wine, cream, some tarragon, a little butter, ground pepper, and a pinch of salt and Unicorn is fantastic.

  111. Juice Box says:

    re # 109 – Without even mentioning results another Stimulus would cost a Trillion. Where are going to borrow that from the Leprechauns?

  112. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    Juice those shiftless Unicorns hide cash reserves in their horns

  113. sas3 says:

    A. West, #90…

    Your hyperbole hurts the point you are making. Your taxes may be indirectly supporting someone that is on federal assistance, but surely you aren’t becoming their servant.

    Things like New Deal was basically hiring a large number of “servants” to build highways that multiple generations have used. You already have “servants” fighting and dying in Iraq because your candidate had to prove a personal point. If by servants, you want someone to come and clean your house and bring you freedom fries…

  114. 3b says:

    #13 Juice: Well they do have gold!! Oh maybe if the Unicorns cannot help we can ask the green alligators or the long necked geese. The humpty back camels are busy.

  115. Juice Box says:

    re: 3116 3b – you are forgetting the magical Hackensack river dolphins.

    http://www.northjersey.com/news/021710_Dolphins_seen_in_Hackensack_River.html

  116. Kettle1^2 says:

    Jamil

    “One German organic farm has killed twice as many people as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Gulf Oil spill combined.”

    That’s laughable. nuclear disasters are insidious in that only the worst exposures result in immediate death. Most of the casualties will be long term. A little weaponized E. Coli isnt a fart in the wind compared to fukushima.

  117. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [115] sas3

    Hyperbole aside, does A. West (assuming he is a donor and not a donee taxpayer, a reasonable assumption) have the right to refuse to support the not-so-well-off?

  118. 3b says:

    #17 They traveled a long distance becauase they heard that there is a place………

  119. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    Nom I would gladly forgo SS contibutions for no future claims, unfortunately if everyone in my generation did that the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. all Ponzi schemes need new money after all. something SAS has a hard time grasping. Teach a man to fish or feed the man. The new deal chose to feed the man and the less fortunate then became dependent on the rest of us. Problem is they keep growing, while we keep shrinking

  120. Kettle1^2 says:

    Meet The Squatters: Here Are The Millions Of Americans Who Live Mortgage-Free For Up To 5 Years And Counting

    The topic of Americans living mortgage-free in foreclosed homes on which banks do not have proper titles is nothing new – in fact we are surprised that there isn’t a robosignature app for that…yet. Neither is the fact that this ongoing reverse capital transfer provides as much as $50 billion in “rental” income for those same squatters. And while the ethical arguments for strategically defaulting on one’s mortgage can get very heated on both sides, one thing is certain: the ongoing foreclosure crisis is creating a new subclass of “entitled” people, who certainly enjoy living on the back of the banks, while not paying one cent, and not vacating the premises. According to a new article by CNNMoney, some of the excesses observed within this latest demonstration of unearned entitlement are truly staggering. To wit: “Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years — but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home….Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Fla., has been living without paying for three years….In Thousand Oaks, Calif., an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home….” In other words, what were once isolated incidents are becoming an epidemic, and like it or not, are creating a massive capital shortfall in bank balance sheets (after all “assets” are supposed to generate cash in most cases), which will likely involve yet another broad taxpayer bailout of these same banks that now have no recourse to do much if anything to evict these same squatters who instead of paying their mortgage (or rent), prefer to purchase trinkets and gizmos. “Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.”

    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/meet-squatters-here-are-millions-americans-who-live-mortgage-free-5-years-and-counting

  121. Kettle1^2 says:

    Pain,

    I suspect a large % of our generation would happily sign on to that agreement.

  122. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    Sounds a lot like Clot:

    “Thus it is in limited monarchies. Now how does the matter stand with respect to a republic or democracy? Precisely the same. The people flatter themselves that they have the sovereign power. These are, in fact, words without meaning. It is true they elect their governors ; but how are these elections brought about? In every instance of election by the mass of a people—through the influence of those governors themselves, and by means the most opposite to a free and disinterested choice, by the basest corruption and bribery. But these governors once elected, where is the boasted freedom of the people? They must submit to their rule and control, with the same abandonment of their natural liberty, the freedom of their will, and the command of their actions, as if they were under the rule of a monarch. But these governors, it is said, are, in a republic, chosen from the people itself, and therefore will respect its interests; they are not one but many, and the will of each will have a control from that of his fellows. That they are chosen from the people affords no pledge that they will either be wiser men, or less influenced by selfish ambition, or the passion of tyrannizing ; all experience goes to prove the contrary . . .

    For where, it may be asked, was that democracy ever found on earth, where, in the words of this description, men loved equality; were satisfied with the degree of consideration they could procure by their abilities fairly measured with those of an opponent, (a circumstance in itself utterly destructive of equality,) labored for the public without hope of profit, and rejected every attempt to create a personal dependence? Did such a government ever exist, or, while society consists of human beings, is it possible that such ever should exist? While man is a being instigated by the love of power—a passion visible in an infant, and common to us even with the inferior animals—he will seek personal superiority in preference to every matter of a general concern; or at best, he will employ himself in advancing the public good, as the means of individual distinction and elevation: he will promote the interest of the state from the selfish but most useful passion of making himself considerable in that establishment which he labors to aggrandize.”

    Lord Woolhouselee (a.k.a. the Hon. Robert Fraser Tytler), published 1850

  123. JJ says:

    A wise man named Peter Turner the founder of Catholic Charities would disagree with you.

    Painhrtz – Salmon of Doubt says:
    June 10, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    Nom I would gladly forgo SS contibutions for no future claims, unfortunately if everyone in my generation did that the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. all Ponzi schemes need new money after all. something SAS has a hard time grasping. Teach a man to fish or feed the man. The new deal chose to feed the man and the less fortunate then became dependent on the rest of us. Problem is they keep growing, while we keep shrinking

  124. Al Mossberg says:

    Are there really Unicorns in Montclair?

    What do they taste like?

    Im warning you. Stay out of my vegetable garden. Time to invest in some concertina wire.

  125. Al Mossberg says:

    121.

    Count me in. Let me ask you something. What kind of man accepts food stamps? They should ban men from receiving food stamps. What a disgrace. Absolutely pathetic.

  126. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    Kettle,

    The capitulation will be complete when Section 108(a)(1)(E) of the Internal Revenue Code is amended to remove the words “which is discharged before January 1, 2013.”

    Then the impermanence of democracy, embodied in the famous quotation attributed to Tytler will have come to pass.

  127. Kettle1^2 says:

    Nom,

    And i thought i was prudent for not picking up a mortgage during the bubble run up. Jokes on me!

  128. Kettle1^2 says:

    Oh well, i guess that means i need to buy more .308

  129. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [121] pain

    you still can, at least for payroll taxes. Join the Old Order Amish. Or become a state employee.

  130. JJ says:

    warren buffet has admitted he collects his SS check. Why not. Bet he has food stamps too.

  131. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [129] Kettle

    We make much of the fact that most americans want “the rich” to pay more, but overlook the fact that the system is being propped up by “the prudent” to their detriment, and to the benefit of “the profligate.”

    This is because, like a VAT, we don’t see the hidden tax imposed on us by the profligate, and also because if we cannot aspire to become rich, we aspire to become profligate.

    I have said for decades, if you cannot be rich, appear to be poor. There are services that will help you do exactly that.

  132. 3b says:

    #26 Unicorns are in RE. Martians are in Montclair; they are learning Mandarin.

  133. Painhrtz - Salmon of Doubt says:

    nom almost better to be poor in the country than rich in the city. While poor in the city may be the worst condition of all

  134. jamil says:

    kettle 118 “That’s laughable. nuclear disasters are insidious in that only the worst exposures result in immediate death. Most of the casualties will be long term. ”

    My comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but actually, how many people died from Chernobyl? Despite all the dire prediction, cancer rates at least in neighboring countries did not change at all. Organic farming kills alone more people every year than nuclear energy has killed in the last 25 years. Coal plants kill thousands too.

    “According to a June 6, 2000 report, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) found that, ‘Apart from the increase in thyroid cancer after childhood exposure, no increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality have been observed that could be attributed to ionizing radiation.”

    Their supporting statements lead one to believe that the area evacuations ordered by the Soviet government were actually harmful to human health and that the fertile land surrounding the accident site is still fit for human habitation. Those conclusions will not be too surprising to the workers that continued to operate other reactors on the Chernobyl site up until late last year.

    The UNSCEAR members sifted through enormous volumes of medical data accumulated in detailed studies over a 14-year period to come to their extraordinary conclusions. Unfortunately, the bottom line of the study is buried deep inside a 1,220 page document whose summary includes more than 19 pages of densely worded jargon. Though outwardly dedicated to the goal of increasing the world’s knowledge of radiation health effects, the scientists who wrote the report are not particularly skilled in the art of communicating with mere mortals like the rest of us.”

  135. Kettle1^2 says:

    3b

    and the children love the little piles of succulent sweet skittles that the unicorns deposit on your lawn after nibbling your ambrosia like river edge vegetable garden.

  136. Anon E. Moose says:

    Nom [128];

    So you’re saying the if I was to declare BK to skip out on my house payment, Dec 31, 2012 is a good day to file?

  137. Kettle1^2 says:

    Nom

    so basically your telling the smart play here is to immediatly purchase a new 65″ plasma, Audi A7, and a 3 week trip to st barts ASAP.
    Got any references for hot European nannies that look great in a bikini and could help out with the kids in st barts?

  138. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [138] moose

    Nope. You’re a lawyer, read Section 108.

  139. 3b says:

    #37and the children love the little piles of succulent sweet skittles that the unicorns deposit on your lawn after nibbling your ambrosia like river edge vegetable garden.

    Yes they are a delicacy.

  140. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [139] kettle

    No to the toys.

    Will have to check on the Eurohotties. I think I can come up with the names of some cute Germans in the 22-26 age range.

  141. Lone Ranger says:

    Al [127],

    Why blame John Q? Let’s call it a start when the scoundrel cb’s and architects of this fiasco are hanging upside down. Next act, round 2, solvency issues of tbtf. Everything that dies someday comes back.

  142. Kettle1^2 says:

    Ranger,

    Reincarnation! karma is a b1tch.

  143. Kettle1^2 says:

    Nom,

    Check this out. I believe a large % of the MBS were run thought NY state trusts. it seems that that could a little problem. if this ruling isnt overruled then it would seem that the majority of trusts are legal fictions. of course i cant comment intelligently on the legal beagle stuff.

    Defendants’ failure to strictly comply with the terms of the PSA means that the loan at issue was never properly transferred to the trust. Any transfer of mortgage loans, such as Plaintiffs, was mandated to comply with New York Trust law and the terms and conditions of the PSA governing conveyance of mortgage loans into the Trust. PSA pp 155 and 36. This the Defendants did not do.

    The Court finds that the “Assignment”, recorded on December 30, 2009 in the Washtenaw County Register of Deeds, serves to transfer nothing. The alleged conveyance failed to comply with the terms and conditions of the PSA and New York Trust law which governs the PSA. The alleged conveyance stated that MERS assigned the Mortgage and Promissory Note to USB, however, there has been no evidence presented to support the chain of the required assignments and endorsements of the mortgage and note as required by the terms and conditions of the PSA.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/57463545

  144. Al Mossberg says:

    Nom,

    “I have said for decades, if you cannot be rich, appear to be poor”

    Wise words. Why make yourself a target anyway?

  145. Al Mossberg says:

    143.

    Lone,

    I dont blame John Q I just hold John Q to a higher standard. Yes, rope and a tall lamp post for the scum bags.

  146. Kettle1^2 says:

    If that NY case stands it could put quite a chink in the ability of banks to foreclose. The banks claim to be servicing for a trust. but the trust may well be empty having never legally received the note. Can the original holder of the note that sold it to the trust foreclose since they would have already been paid for the loan? All legal questions way out of my league. it would also seem that the banks now owe the IRS a substantial amount of money if the trusts are empty and never properly acquired their tax free status.

  147. JJ says:

    If you are looking for hotties to watch kids go to care.com

    It is where all the college and grad school girls post for babysitting jobs. OMG, a few have outfits in their pictures that make daddy happy.

    http://www.care.com/visitor/captureSitterSearch.do;jsessionid=A380F29C9AA48922D95F3E2E3C915B70.app2?care=child-care-babysitter-nanny

  148. JJ says:

    thifnay and laura in southampton are hot. I keep picking different towns on my baby sitter search. I still dont get it.

  149. Mikeinwaiting says:

    JJ go with the one from Southampton on the second page, smoke’n.

  150. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Go Thifnay JJ!

  151. Mikeinwaiting says:

    I can not wait for the blow by blow, literally & figuratively.

  152. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Juice, I’ll take the job.

  153. Kettle1^2 says:

    JJ
    some of the girls are listing rates of $40/hr. They better be taking care of daddy too and running after the kids in stilettos and a skirt for that rate.

  154. Lone Ranger says:

    Juice [153],

    She has a better chance of winning a go ugly early fest.

  155. A.West says:

    I don’t think JJ can afford the entry fee.

  156. Juice Box says:

    Hamptons Comp Killer

    Previous news reports suggested eccentric billionaire Jeff Greene paid $41 million for Tyndal Point, that 55-acre parcel on North Haven that features 3,000 feet of sandy beaches, three homes, two carriage houses, and two docks (plus plenty of room for more of everything). But public records now show that he got an even better bargain than previously thought: The final sale price was just $36 million.

    When it first hit the market in 2007, the sellers of Tyndal Point wanted $80 million. The price subsequently slipped to $75 million and then eventually to $44.99 million. But even at the discounted $36 million closing price, this sale is still one of the highest prices ever paid for a Hamptons property north of the highway.

    http://hamptons.curbed.com/

  157. JJ says:

    I entered 10004 on my nanny search, wall street, omg the first one is a hottie. I wonder if I can pay her to come by and watch me.

  158. cobbler says:

    Comrade Nom Deplume says:
    June 10, 2011 at 2:47 pm
    [115] sas3

    Hyperbole aside, does A. West (assuming he is a donor and not a donee taxpayer, a reasonable assumption) have the right to refuse to support the not-so-well-off?

    The choice is between supporting the not-so-well-off and protecting oneself against the not-so-well-off – two extreme cases are Holland and say Columbia (Brazil has boosted social benefits recently, actually). For me, I’d rather live in Amsterdam than in Medellin.

  159. Mikeinwaiting says:

    BC 157 that is why they invented booze. At least you would be drinking the best while screwing the beast.

  160. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Shore I guess they haven’t figured out what “can” is yet.

  161. jamil says:

    jj “It is where all the college and grad school girls post for babysitting jobs. OMG, a few have outfits in their pictures that make daddy happy. ”

    Just make sure you won’t tweet this to the attention of Honorary Rep. Wiener. Looks like he had at least one 17-year hot chick subject to his private “communication”.

  162. sas3 says:

    Nom,

    Hyperbole aside, does A. West (assuming he is a donor and not a donee taxpayer, a reasonable assumption) have the right to refuse to support the not-so-well-off?

    As of now, no rights to anyone to refuse to support someone. Just like people didn’t have a right to refuse to support religious institutions, wars, subsidies, etc. I’m tempted to repeat the regular war cry of “America, love it or leave it” against people that questioned the Iraq war.

    Anyway there is not much to debate. Your side has won (if one call the “cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes” a “side”). Stupidity is when someone repeats the same thing and expects different results (W cutting taxes). Mad genius is when one repeatedly and correctly points out the flaw in what a stupid fellow does, and when the time comes to do something different, does exactly as the stupid fellow did. I guess it really takes smart people to do really stupid stuff. It’s going to end badly for many.

  163. I will not be happy until the gubmint does not exist and my taxes are 0.

    Gubmint cannot do anything, other than destroy and corrupt. In the beginning, the only purpose of the US gubmint was to provide for a common defense. Now, we have an out of control military industrial complex and gubmint wants to be my father, mother, doctor and priest.

    Burn the whole mf’er down. Anarchy!!!!

  164. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    [161] cobbler,

    Actually, that is both simplistic and wrong. I can go on at length as to why, but suffice it to say that it confirms my thesis that, at its irreducible core, we provide government assistance not out of altruism but to prevent the proletariat from rioting.

    That may have worked in old Europe, but it doesn’t work here for many reasons:

    First, the poor need not take at gunpoint what they can obtain through the ballot box (and if this suggests that government spending is, in part, simply a polite form of theft, well, you brought it up). And as I have pointed out before, having one’s pocket picked is voluntary when you are among the uber-rich.

    Second, gunpoint would not work: This isn’t the bolshevik revolution where they run off the bourgeousie and take their factories and farms. That wealth would have been offshore long before the Red Guard shows up. And if you are talking about taking over the farms and making them collectives, the boyz from da hood better make sure they are better armed than the Knob Creek crowd. Otherwise, I think that the poor will develop a fatal case of lead poisoning. Also, consider that the Bolshevik revolution resulted in Russia being ostracized and impoverished because they abrogated the czarist debt (I have some old imperial russian bonds–if the Czar comes back, I’m rich).

    Third, when the poor riot, they don’t riot in Greenwich. They riot in Harlem and Compton. Nuff said.

  165. Just got home from my daughter’s HS graduation. After listening to the inane speeches of the principal, skool board prez and district superintendent, I am more convinced than ever that we are under the control of autistic monkeys. My wife is now scouring Google, because she’s convinced the skool board prez’ speech was plagiarized.

    The class president’s welcome speech was both of a higher tone, in a more mature voice, better constructed and better delivered than those of two PhDs and a holder of two masters’ degrees. Just pathetic.

    It’s the ignorant teaching the ignorant now, folks. The wheels have come completely off.

  166. Jesus fcuk. Our district superintendent’s salary this year is $199,869.

    He is a functional retard.

  167. Fabius Maximus says:

    #171 Clot

    How could he be. He is smart enough to work himself into that gig.

  168. Fabius Maximus says:

    #72 Shore

    The fundemental difference comes down to Reganomics.The view from this side is that supply side economics was (and is) a failure.
    If you take a look at your quote from a few days ago. ” I would have preferred to continue the path from Clinton and pay down the debt.” If the 12 years of suppy side before Clinton had worked it wouldn’t have taken until 1998 to turn the corner and hit a surplus.

    The core issue is not spendng. It is more that supply side has given us a situation where corportate tax is just 15% of revenue. If you can’t afford the basics, get a second job to increase the revenue base.

  169. Fabius Maximus says:

    RT 15 is a mess. Its actually quicker to head down through Mount Arlington to Jt30 of Rt 80. At least one day a week some muppet will crash at Jt 28 coming off 206 and will hold up the traffic coming in from PA.

  170. Fabius Maximus says:

    #72 Shore (redux)

    “My ilk believe that government should do what governments alone can do ”
    and that is one of the best justifications of the need for a large government, because when it comes down to it, people and corporations could be relied upon to self manage, follw the rules and clean up after themselves, we wouldnt need the likes of the Superfund and the EPA to keep the enviroment and the groundwater clean.

  171. Shore Guy says:

    What is that saying about a politician and with whom who he can’t be found?

    http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-weiner-teen-20110610,0,4985369.story?track=rss

  172. Shore Guy says:

    Fm,

    I am all for the clean air act, clean water act, OSHA, etc. They level the playing field and disincentivize behavior that hurts everyone and majes it possible for companies that do the right thing not to be disadvantaged in the marketplace.

  173. cobbler says:

    I am all for the clean air act, clean water act, OSHA, etc. They level the playing field and disincentivize behavior that hurts everyone and majes it possible for companies that do the right thing not to be disadvantaged in the marketplace.
    While the ideas of these laws are noble, the actual rules are too liable to pressure from the special interests. We certainly need clean air and safe workplace, but maybe the clear evidence of harm if any, and legal process are the better tools. On the other hand, our medical delivery system that gobbles up a ridiculous share of GDP and is one of the root causes of our lack of competitiveness, simply begs for a single payer with the clear rules what will and will not be paid for. If one is so inclined, I am sure that private insurance for any extras will be always available.

  174. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Some food for thought on your rent/own calculations. Has been for sale 32 days dropped about 6% on the hot sheet today.They will be chasing the market down forever unless they cut big time.

    Prestine Colonial in Glenwood section of Vernon. Generous sized rooms! Clean & neat as a pin! NEWER ITEMS include: deck(09), furnace(06), roof(98), siding(03), windows(01), central air(08).
    ADD REM: Well pump (10), Newer kitchen appliances & countertops(02)! BR /basement carpets (09), Owned water softener(05) Solid PIne Doors! Immaculate landscaping PLUS new paver walkway & porch(08)! Be in for Summer and enjoy the new deck and IG pool overlooking the quiet backyard. Meticulously maintained home & proprerty! MOVE IN CONDITION! Can accomidate a quick closing if needed….WON”T LAST!!! ….Seller would consider a RENT w/OPTION.

    Built in 78, now about that 33 year old septic, assume the position & hold on tight. There is another 15k in the hole. Also oil tank under ground, go ahead try to get a mortgage I dare you. State program to take out free exhausted. Eight k if all goes well, if it leaked even just a little you are “F”ed big time.

  175. Mikeinwaiting says:
  176. House Whine says:

    170 -Not surprising. As I recall, the valedictorian @ my child’s high school graduation gave a more mature and interesting speech than any of the highly paid school admin folks.
    Same thing happened @ the college grad ceremony. The Ph.D. (newly minted) students and the admin types speeches were all about them and their egos. The excited undergrads spoke from the heart, and used coherent, well thought-out sentences.

  177. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Sign of the times, this is a 7th& 8th grade middle school out in the sticks. I know it well this is just over the top.

    “On Friday, June 10, 2011, at 8:20 a.m., Glen Meadow was locked down for 35 minutes. This lockdown was planned by the school administration in conjunction with the Sussex County Prosecutor�s Office and the Vernon Township Police Department. The purpose of the lock down was to allow the police to conduct a building wide drug search using drug-detecting dogs. At no time were students, faculty or staff in any danger, nor did they come in direct contact with the dogs.

    As a follow up to the search, a formal assembly was conducted with each grade level. Mr. Barta, District Coordinator of Safety and Random Drug Testing, Officer Haw, School Resource Officer, Mr. Burns, Assistant Principal, and I spoke with all students, faculty, and staff regarding the search and the legal aspects and dangers of drug use.

    The Vernon Township School District remains committed to keeping drugs out of our schools. This search is another tool along with Random Drug Testing and staff referrals to help keep our schools drug free.”

  178. implosion08 says:

    JJ-149

    Enjoy browsing that site, just don’t use it. I speak from awful personal experience, this scratches the surface.

    http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2009/03/career_swindler_caught_by_poli.html

  179. Libtard says:

    My junior high school in East Brunswick (if I recall correctly), was the first in the state to get the drug sniffing dog treatment. This was back in 1983. There was a huge case over whether or not a stuedent’s locker was considered private. Of course, the locker was found to have belonged to the school so it was open to search without cause. Fortunately, they didn’t find any drugs, but they did find a gun in one of my friend’s lockers. He was permanently expelled and ended up at the ‘slo-tech.’ Today he is a successful mechanic, probably pulling in more cash than I do (cause so much of what he does is off the books).

    In other news, check out my nephew’s lacrosse goal. Of all the libtards in the family, he has the most promise to obtain a sports scholarship. The kid absolutely breathes sports.

    http://youtu.be/nQlCPHxA5ac

    His older brother appears to making a career out of shooting and producing these videos.

    SL…are we still on for today?

  180. still-looking says:

    hey grim – where are you?

    sl

  181. still-looking says:

    lib, 184

    of course! :)

    sl

  182. Shore Guy says:

    Nom,

    A little something from the Essex county bar:

    http://nymag.com/news/features/paul-bergrin-2011-6/

  183. 250k says:

    Jayzuz… if the homeowners of Westfield, ever spent a Sunday going to Open Houses just to compare what their property taxes are compared to the property taxes of their neighbors, there would be an instant riot.

    I have walked through dozens of 3/4BR homes with 1.5-2.5 bathrooms on smallish lots that are paying $16-$20k a year in property taxes. At the same time, I have walked through a few dozen 5/6 BR homes with 3.5+ bathrooms on large lots that are paying $10-12k a year in taxes. And the 5-6BR homes are frequently renovated and updated as well so its not a new construction/old construction issue.

    Very hard to buy a home you like when its taxes are 18k knowing the guy a few doors down has a nicer house, more space and is paying 7-8k LESS per year. Unreal.

  184. Mikeinwaiting says:

    250 k if your only problem is that they are paying less for more space but you could afford it, consider yourself lucky.

  185. Firestormik says:

    “My comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but actually, how many people died from Chernobyl? Despite all the dire prediction, cancer rates at least in neighboring countries did not change at all. Organic farming kills alone more people every year than nuclear energy has killed in the last 25 years. Coal plants kill thousands too.”
    ———————————————————————————————–
    I used to live 90km from Chernobyl and I can show you a fresh grave yard started in earlier 90s. Roughty half of people buried there died from some form of cancer. When I registered my father’s death in 2001 there was a huge bookshelf in the office with year and month of death written on books. After year of 88 there were double quantity of those books. If you want real numbers – thyroid cancer cases went up 36 times among children and ~7 times among adults.
    E-coli is nothing comparing to that

  186. GREAT REVIEW! I totally agree with all your thoughts you said in your article, especially at the beggining of your article. Thank you, this info is very valuable as always. Keep up the good work! You’ve got +1 more reader of your great blog:) Isabella S.

  187. Shore Guy says:

    Unbefreakingleavable:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/chicago-district-attorney-recording-bad-cops_n_872921.html

    Chicago State’s Attorney Lets Bad Cops Slide, Prosecutes Citizens Who Record Them

    When Chicago police answered a domestic disturbance call at the home of Tiawanda Moore and her boyfriend in July 2010, the officers separated the couple to question them individually. Moore was interviewed privately in her bedroom. According to Moore, the officer who questioned her then came on to her, groped her breast and slipped her his home phone number.

    Robert Johnson, Moore’s attorney, says that when Moore and her boyfriend attempted to report the incident to internal affairs officials at the Chicago Police Department, the couple wasn’t greeted warmly. “They discouraged her from filing a report,” Johnson says. “They gave her the runaround, scared her, and tried to intimidate her from reporting this officer — from making sure he couldn’t go on to do this to other women.”

    Ten months later, Chicago PD is still investigating the incident. Moore, on the other hand, was arrested the very same afternoon.

    Her crime? At some point in her conversations with internal affairs investigators, Moore grew frustrated with their attempts to intimidate her. So she began to surreptitiously record the interactions on her Blackberry. In Illinois, it is illegal to record people without their consent, even (and as it turns out, especially) on-duty police officers.

    “This is someone who is already scared from being harassed by an officer in uniform,” said Johnson. “If the police won’t even take her complaint, how else is a victim of police abuse supposed to protect herself?”

    snip

    ILLINOIS’ PROBLEM WITH PRIVACY

    Last summer the U.S. media took note of several stories about citizens arrested for photographing or recording on-duty police officers. National coverage of these incidents has since died down, but the arrests haven’t stopped.

    Some of these arrests have come under decades-old wiretapping laws that never anticipated the use of cellphones equipped with cameras and audio recording applications. Others have come under vaguer catch-all charges like refusing to obey a lawful order, disorderly conduct, or interfering with a police officer. In both cases, the charges rarely stick, and in most cases, it’s the cops themselves who are violating the law.

    The media have largely done a poor job reporting on what the law actually is in these states. Technically, so long as a person isn’t physically interfering with an on-duty police officer, it’s legal to record the officer in every state but Massachusetts and Illinois. Arrests still happen in other states, but there’s little legal justification for them, and the charges are usually dropped, or never filed at all.

    But Illinois is the one state where the law clearly forbids citizens from recording of on-duty cops. And so it seems likely that if the Supreme Court or a federal appeals court does eventually decide if pointing a camera at a cop is protected by the First Amendment (so far, they haven’t), the case will come from Illinois. (Courts in Massachusetts have generally held that secretly recording police is illegal, but recording them openly isn’t.)

    snip

    So far, every court in the country to have considered the issue has found that on-duty cops have no such expectation of privacy. This makes sense. Police not only work for the public, they’re also entrusted with enormous power: They can arrest citizens and detain them or kill them.

    In 1986, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the eavesdropping conviction of a man who had recorded two police officers from the back of a patrol car for just that reason. The court ruled that the officers had no expectation of privacy.

    So in 1994 the Illinois state legislature removed the wiretap law’s privacy provision. It was an explicit effort to override the decision eight years earlier. Technically the amended law covers everyone — anyone whose voice is recorded without their permission, for any reason, could file a complaint and ask to press charges — but it’s used almost exclusively to protect police.

    snip

    It’s difficult to think of another big city in America where citizens would be more justified in wanting an objective account of an interaction with a police officer. At about the time Moore’s story hit the pages of The New York Times earlier this year, for example, former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for lying under oath about his role in the routine torture of hundreds of suspects in police interrogation rooms for more than a decade. Nearly everyone else involved in the tortures, including the police commanders and prosecutors who helped cover them up, couldn’t be prosecuted due to statutes of limitations.

    Over the last few years, surveillance video has also exposed a number of police abuses in Chicago, including one episode in which an off-duty cop savagely beat a female bartender who had refused to continue serving him. He was sentenced to probation.

    In 2008, the city made national headlines with another major scandal in which officers in the department’s Special Operations Unit — alleged to be made up of the most elite and trusted cops in Chicago — were convicted of a variety of crimes, including physical abuse and intimidation, home robberies, theft and planning a murder.

    In a study published the same year, University of Chicago Law Professor Craig B. Futterman found 10,000 complaints filed against Chicago police officers between 2002 and 2004, more than any city in the country. When adjusted for population, that’s still about 40 percent above the national average. Even more troubling, of those 10,000 complaints, just 19 resulted in any significant disciplinary action. In 85 percent of complaints, the police department cleared the accused officer without even bothering to interview him.

    Yet Alvarez feels it necessary to devote time and resources to prosecuting Chicagoans who, given the figures and anecdotes above, feel compelled to hit the record button when confronted by a city cop.

    snip

    This Robinson, Ill., man is facing four counts of violating the eavesdropping law for the recordings he made of police officers and a judge. Allison was suing the city to challenge a local zoning ordinance that prevented him from enjoying his hobby fixing up old cars: The municipal government was seizing his cars from his property and forcing him to pay to have them returned. Allison believed the local police were harassing him in retaliation for his lawsuit, so he began to record his conversations with them.

    When Allison was eventually charged with violating the zoning ordinance, he asked for a court reporter to ensure there would be a record of his trial. He was told that misdemeanor charges didn’t entitle him to a court reporter. So Allison told court officials he’d be recording his trial with a digital recorder.

    When Allison walked into the courtroom the day of his trial, the judge had him arrested for allegedly violating her right to privacy. Police then confiscated Allison’s digital recorder, where they also found the recordings he’d made of his conversations with cops.

    Allison has no prior criminal record. If convicted, he faces up to 75 years in prison.

    snip

  188. Neanderthal Economist says:

    This is my newest analysis showing how the housing bubble was fueled by the availability of easy credit and compares other factors as well…

    http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/57609255?access_key=key-u30qb1d1nb0gdbh0t3g

  189. Mike says:

    I like alcohol

  190. mike (182)-

    Sounds like a Waffen SS operation to me.

  191. lib (184)-

    If he’s in Moorestown and playing lax, he could go a long way.

    Moorestown girls dropped a 1-goal killer to Ridgewood in the state final today.

  192. NJGator says:

    My kind of woman…

    IN a devastating act of ultimate revenge, a dying Elizabeth Ed wards recorded a bombshell secret videotape for prosecutors – nailing her cheating husband John as he will stand trial on charges that could land him behind bars for 30 years.

    That’s the stunning secret behind the federal indictment brought against the disgraced former presidential candi date on June 3 -– following a two-year grand jury investigation into whether he illegally used campaign funds to cover up his affair with his then-pregnant mistress Rielle Hunter.

    “Elizabeth wanted to exact revenge against John for destroy ing their 33-year marriage and family by cheating with Rielle,” source close to the scandal told ENQUIRER.

    “It was Elizabeth’s idea to secret ly record a video and tell what knew of the affair and John’s horrific betrayal.”

    It’s good to know that death has no purchase on the righteous rage of a wronged woman.

    http://gawker.com/5810717/elizabeth-edwards-haunts-her-cheating-husband-from-the-grave

  193. Comrade Nom Deplume says:

    (188) shore guy

    Do you know Jacobson, the guy who wrote the article? There was something in it that hit real close to home, and I may be able to give him some background WRT an experience I had a few years back with someone prominently mentioned in the article.

  194. Mikeinwaiting says:

    Gator that guy was/ is a piece of sh*t, what ever he gets he deserves.

  195. Shore Guy says:

    Nom,

    I do not know him.

  196. Shore Guy says:

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43368809/ns/us_news-christian_science_monitor

    snip

    EMPIRE, Nev. — This mining town of 300 people clings like a burr to the back of the Black Rock Desert. For years, it was marked on state Highway 447 by a two-story sign reading, “Welcome to Nowhere.”

    On June 20, that tongue-in-cheek greeting will become a fact. Empire, Nev., will transform into a ghost town. An eight-foot chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire will seal off the 136-acre plot. Even the local ZIP Code, 89405, will be discontinued.

    Many towns have been scarred by the recession, but Empire will be the first to completely disappear. For only a few days more it will remain the last intact example of an American icon: the company town.

    snip

  197. Shore Guy says:

    Works for me.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43369742/ns/technology_and_science-the_new_york_times/?gt1=43001

    The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

    The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

    Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.

  198. Shore Guy says:

    Tick, tick, tick. The countdown has begun to the resignation of Weiner and his appearance in Play-girl (does it still exist?):

    http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/12/constituents-planning-rally-in-front-of-weiners-office-to-demand-his-resignation/

  199. Kettle1^2 says:

    Who was it here that was telling me Argentina wasn’t such a bad result since they toured buenos aries and it was a nice trip???

    (gogle search shows it was Jersey Girl)
    Jersey Girl says, May 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm
    I go to Buenos Aires every year. It’s a beautiful city in a vibrant country. What about Argentina are you referring to? It’s economy has bounced back exponentially since it’s attempt at pegging their currency to the dollar resulting in the 2001 collapse. Since then, they defaulted on their loans from the IMF, dumped that money into their economy and are emerging stronger.

    Here is a view from a local for you:

    http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/argentina-case-study-how-economy-collapses/59179#comment-112587

  200. cobbler says:

    shore [204]
    Weiner clearly needs treatment. The whole thinking that the photos of a moderately trim middle-aged person could be in any way arousing for a young woman is delusional to an extreme; I see this behavior as a case for a psychiatrist rather than the congressional ethics committee.

  201. Juice Box says:

    Cobbler – 46 year old men that love their junk enough to give it spa treatments don’t Need taxpayer paid for therapy. How about a few months on the front lines instead?

  202. Shore Guy says:

    Grim,

    Topic for tomorrow?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/business/13mortgage.html

    Two States Ask if Paperwork in Mortgage Bundling Was Complete

    By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

    Opening a new line of inquiry into the problems that have beset the mortgage loan process, two state attorneys general are investigating Wall Street’s bundling of these loans into securities to determine whether they were properly documented and valid.

    The investigation is being led by Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, who has teamed with Joseph R. Biden III, his counterpart from Delaware. Their effort centers on the back end of the mortgage assembly lines — where big banks serve as trustees overseeing the securities for investors — according to two people briefed on the inquiry but who were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

    The attorneys general have requested information from Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank, the two largest firms acting as trustees. Trustee banks have not been a focus of other investigations because they are administrators of the securities and did not originate the loans or service them. But as administrators they were required to ensure that the documentation was proper and complete.

    snip

  203. Shore Guy says:

    NJC,

    That is sad news. Depending on the severity, it can be a life-altering ailment. May God bless the Big Man.

  204. Shore Guy says:

    No Joyful Noyze in that news.

  205. Shore Guy says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtF4ATNH1Qw

    An awsomer concert and a fantastic moment about 3 minutes in with Bruce and Clarence re-enacting the BTR cover.

  206. vb says:

    JB/Others,
    I’m looking to buy a short-sale so that i can rent it out. Since this will be my first attempt, how do i go about finding the right attorney, accountant?

    Thanks

  207. I really hope this fight with Mayweather ends up happening. It NEEDS to happen! I’ll be routing? for Manny, as usual. Better boxer, better sportsman, better champ? and better person overall..

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