From the Record:
Who is buying?
Forty-four percent were first-time buyers in New Jersey compared to the national figure of 33 percent. Age of the first-time buyer is 33 and the typical repeat buyer is 48. Sixty-four percent of buyers were married couples.
What did they buy?
The typical home in New Jersey was built in 1974 and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Seventy-three percent of homebuyers purchased a single-family home. Forty-five percent of buyers over 50 years old bought in an adult community.
…
How did they pay for it?Eighty-five percent of buyers in New Jersey financed an average of 82 percent of their purchase price. Ninety-six percent of first-time buyers financed their home and only 76 percent of repeat buyers used financing.
Who sold their home?
The typical seller lived in their home for 10 years and sold for 97 percent of their listing price. Fifty-one percent of sellers reduced their asking price at least once. Fourteen percent of sellers had to delay or stall the selling process as the value of their home was less than their mortgage.
From the Press of Atlantic City:
Atlantic County still No. 1 in nation in foreclosure activity
Atlantic County continues to lead the nation’s metropolitan areas in foreclosure activity, according to data from across the nation.
One in 230 housing units in the county had some type of foreclosure filing in May, RealtyTrac’s May 2015 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report states.
The report shows foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were reported on 553 properties in the county last month. That’s an increase of about 30 percent from April, and a 116 percent jump from a year ago.
…
The total number of properties in some stage of foreclosure in Atlantic County was 4,640, although activity was limited to 553 properties. There were 4,702 homes for sale, according to RealtyTrac.
…
“May foreclosure numbers are a classic good news-bad news scenario, with the number of homeowners starting the foreclosure process stabilizing at pre-housing crisis levels but the number of homeowners actually losing their homes to foreclosure still well above pre-crisis levels and on the rise,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
But that doesn’t hold true for New Jersey or the region.
Lis pendens, the notice sent by mortgage holders to property owners that they are starting a legal foreclosure process, climbed 62 percent in Atlantic County, from 152 in May 2014 to 246 this May. In New Jersey, they went up 73 percent, from 2,382 in May 2014 to 4,125 this May.
Bank repossessions also were up significantly. In Atlantic County they jumped 297 percent, from 38 last May to 151 this May. New Jersey’s repossessions were up 197 percent, the highest percentage state increase in the country, from 477 to 1,418.
From the Real Deal:
Qatari buyer eyes record-smashing $250M spread at 220 CPS: sources
A Qatari buyer is looking to combine multiple apartments at the ultra-luxe 220 Central Park South into a single, $250 million penthouse in the sky, sources told The Real Deal. If a deal is finalized, the mystery buyer would own the priciest residence in New York City by far, and one of the world’s most expensive homes.
…
The price would easily shatter the New York record set by a penthouse at Extell Development’s One57, which sold for $100.5 million in January. The city’s priciest apartment entering the market is the penthouse at the Chetrit Group’s Sony Building conversion at 550 Madison Avenue, which will ask $150 million, according to a condo offering plan first reported by TRD. The priciest current listings in the U.S. are the Ziff estate in Manalapan, Florida, and the Palazzo di Amore mansion in Beverly Hills, tied at $195 million. The price could even break the record 140 million pounds ($237 million at the time, $220 million in today’s exchange rate) an unnamed buyer paid for a penthouse in the London luxury apartment building One Hyde Park in early 2014.
Qatari buyer should buy all the foreclosures in Atlantic County instead, way better deal if you ask me. Why settle for 1 house when you can get 4000?
“99 percent of buyers viewed real estate agents as a very useful source” & “92 percent of buyers used the Internet in their home search process” STUPID ARTICLE”
From the Record:
Former EnCap site in Meadowlands is sold to Bergen developers for $42.5M
Setting up the redevelopment of the failed EnCap site, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority on Thursday accepted a bid for the Kingsland tract, a 718-acre parcel of remediated landfills in the Meadowlands, to a pair of Bergen County developers for $42.5 million.
Officials from Russo and Forsgate declined to disclose the details of their proposal, saying only it is a mixed-use commercial project that complies with the Kingsland redevelopment plan.
The former landfills that make up the Kingsland site were part of the failed $1 billion development undertaken by EnCap Golf Holdings of Florida. The project, which was to include luxury housing, golf courses and hotels, died when the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008 after spending more than $50 million of a promised $100 million in public financing.
“This has been a long process – as everyone knows, the history of this project has been a black eye,” said Michael Ferguson, the sports authority’s chairman. “This is a big win for the communities involved, for the county, for the taxpayers. This is an exciting, major step in a continuing process, bringing some sunshine to what has been a very difficult situation.”
Signal screaming that the real estate market and economy is improving.
grim says:
June 19, 2015 at 6:55 am
From the Record:
Former EnCap site in Meadowlands is sold to Bergen developers for $42.5M
Setting up the redevelopment of the failed EnCap site, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority on Thursday accepted a bid for the Kingsland tract, a 718-acre parcel of remediated landfills in the Meadowlands, to a pair of Bergen County developers for $42.5 million.
Officials from Russo and Forsgate declined to disclose the details of their proposal, saying only it is a mixed-use commercial project that complies with the Kingsland redevelopment plan.
The former landfills that make up the Kingsland site were part of the failed $1 billion development undertaken by EnCap Golf Holdings of Florida. The project, which was to include luxury housing, golf courses and hotels, died when the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008 after spending more than $50 million of a promised $100 million in public financing.
“This has been a long process – as everyone knows, the history of this project has been a black eye,” said Michael Ferguson, the sports authority’s chairman. “This is a big win for the communities involved, for the county, for the taxpayers. This is an exciting, major step in a continuing process, bringing some sunshine to what has been a very difficult situation.”
6- Yup, the boom is just beginning. By 2025, it should be totally out of control.
“I have made millions in real estate in the U.S. and England. I have taught real estate investment and management at 5 colleges. My course Landlording is trade mark registered in the state of Illinois. In my last job I served as Assistant Coordinator for New Housing Development for Chicago Housing Authority. I continue to mentor young investors and make them rich. In my observation, real estate prices are always “normal”, it is everything else that goes out of kilter. Houses don’t buy themselves. People make a market “hot” or otherwise. But most of all, the banks do. We are entering a boom period now, and will continue to do so until interest rates hit 8%. Keep your parachutes handy, and buckled to your ejection seat.”
Probably the best real estate deals in America right now. With that many foreclosures in the same location, why would it not be? With the housing market starting to pick up steam and heading into the upward part of the cycle, there is money to be made in this location if you buy now. Def sell in 7-10 years for a nice profit.
grim says:
June 19, 2015 at 6:49 am
Qatari buyer should buy all the foreclosures in Atlantic County instead, way better deal if you ask me. Why settle for 1 house when you can get 4000?
banks know my taxes will bail them out
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 19, 2015 at 7:35 am
People make a market “hot” or otherwise. But most of all, the banks do.
DETROIT – “We’ve been waiting for this for 40 years,” a beaming Gary Brown, co-chair of the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), an entity organized under the Detroit bankruptcy plan, boasted June 12.
Brown is also COO of the City of Detroit under “Mayor” Mike Duggan. During its meeting that day, the six-member GLWA board voted 5-1 to approve a contract with the City of Detroit that is an irrevocable sale, not a lease, of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD).
The GLWA will pay only a total of $1.4 billion for the $6 billion system. It is expected to approve skyrocketing rate increases, and will continue water shut-offs and the attachment of unpaid water bills to property taxes for Detroiters.
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/06/16/authority-approves-bankruptcy-theft-of-detroits-water-system-retirees-begin-referendum-campaign/
It’s really a 40 year lease, but here’s something interesting:
Q: What is the advantage to the GLWA over the DWSD?
A: By separating from the cash-strapped city, the new authority expects to earn a better bond rating, which translates into lower borrowing costs. The regional approach could reduce disputes over rates.
Q: What happens to Highland Park’s $25-million debt to the DWSD?
A: As of right now, the debt will likely be spread out over all suburban communities. The system is suing to collect. That case is pending.
Q: How does this affect Detroit’s water shutoffs?
A: Probably not much. The city will continue to be responsible for any unpaid bills within the city limits and will likely use shutoffs as a way to force payment. The creation of the regional water assistance fund, however, should help some avoid shutoffs.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/06/12/regional-water-vote/71088638/
How Detroit’s water
talksdeal could wipe another Michigan city off the mapHIGHLAND PARK, MI — Detroit went through bankruptcy. Flint saw six emergency managers. Pontiac lost its police department.
But Highland Park may cease to exist.
“They say it was a rumor. But we’re not treating it as one,” said Marian Kramer, an angry Highland Park resident who’s lived in the city since the 1970s and is cheering on efforts to keep its borders in tact.
It’s a community that fought off annexation attempts from Detroit before, more than 100 years ago, before it became home to Ford’s first moving assembly line.
Highland Park became incorporated as a village in 1889 and as a city in 1917, with help from Henry Ford and other businessmen who didn’t want to pay Detroit taxes.
It churned out Model Ts and attracted laborers from around the world, even becoming home to the first U.S. mosque ever built in 1921.
As Detroit spread north, surrounding it on all sides, Highland Park kept its borders.
But eventually, factories closed. Residents left. Even the old Sanders candy factory burned in 2012.
The state last year — for the second time — determined Highland Park to be in financial emergency.
The city, like so many others, was overburdened by pension obligations. But a mediator managed to negotiate a $4.5 million settlement on an $18 million debt.
The debt that remains is about water, and it’s an obligation that could finally wash Highland Park’s borders from the map.
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/06/how_detroits_water_talks_could.html
The 1800’s was a horror show of boom and busts. The industrial revolution (technology) was driving the standard of living and wealth of the nation during this century too. What’s your point about Keynesianism being bailed out by technology? Last time I checked, Keynesian policies helped bail out the economy after it was driven into the ground 1929 and 2008. If the govt didn’t step in both situations, would there be an economy to speak of. Remember, when crashes are big enough, they cause people to act irrational. When people become irrational, your odds of that society becoming extinct are increased dramatically. What I’m saying is that if you let a crash go too far, you might not come back. I much rather take my chances trying to help the situation out instead of doing nothing and hoping it self corrects.
Ben says:
June 17, 2015 at 10:36 pm
Look how long it took society to return from the roman economic crash
How did society fare after every crash in the 1800s? Every single recession self corrected for a 100 year period and the standard of living and wealth of the nation was consistently raised. Keynesianism has been bailed out consistently through major technological advances throughout the past 100 years.
#7,
BS! The government makes the real estate market hot through policy. The banks just gorge on the volume then wait for a bailout. People are just pawns in the process. If barrier to entry should be high bc not everyone should own then point me to one policy where govt. has created those barriers. It has been cheap money and baloney programs to crank volume. We have nothing else to sell in this economy except overbloated homes.
12 – Interesting coincidence with the Pope’s encyclical on Climate Change and the assertion that access to water is a basic human right. However, it makes no comment on the price of it.
Yup.
“chrismosca Atlanta, GA 1 day ago
Real estate prices are rising again because it home ownership is (once again) being used as means of earning a living. Those who can are purchasing homes in marginal or up-and-coming neighborhoods, then renting them out in the I-don’t-want-to-OWN-anything culture the media is pushing. Once the neighborhood becomes “established” (gentrified), they do a marginal fix up and sell for quadruple what they paid. It’s all speculation again. Drive through most neighborhoods these days. The “For Rent” signs outnumber the “For Sale” signs more than two to one. It’s all investors and investor groups. The average person’s salary hasn’t caught up with the costs of home purchases in decades.
And this is hell for those of us who scrape and buy a home and try to fix it up ourselves. First we put up with renter-neighbors who don’t care about upkeep or making the neighborhood a better place since they’ll be moving on. This forces some older homeowners to give up and sell out at low prices to those investors block-busting all around us. Then, once they get all the homes for the prices they want, they jack up our property taxes.
If this is the new “normal,” it on;y benefits the small proportion of the population who can afford to invest. As usual.”
The Pope is so Powerful Jewish Billy Joel moved his concert dates to accommodate him.
I give Billy Joel he hedged his bets big time. He doubled his odds of getting into heaven.
And good news your driving record does not count
Speaking of modern Keynesianism and the politically-connected bankers who love it:
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/why-ronald-reagan-is-rolling-in-his-grave-the-keynesian-putsch-at-the-fed/
This is the way it has always been. There are winners and losers in a capitalist economy. Unfortunately, to create super winners (whales), you must have a lot of losers. Business is a game of war under a capitalist system. So why do you not expect this type of behavior under a capitalist system? You think everyone is going to be a winner under this type of system? It’s made for people to win and for others to lose.
Right now, if you can get a loan to buy real estate, you are a winner. So you better take advantage of your situation. Buy it and rent it out. When everyone is able to get a loan again, run for the hills, those are the losers buying. That’s when you sell.
Bystander says:
June 19, 2015 at 8:56 am #7,
BS! The government makes the real estate market hot through policy. The banks just gorge on the volume then wait for a bailout. People are just pawns in the process. If barrier to entry should be high bc not everyone should own then point me to one policy where govt. has created those barriers. It has been cheap money and baloney programs to crank volume. We have nothing else to sell in this economy except overbloated homes.
19, the whole thing stinks, the real estate market isn’t passing the smell test in a lot of places. I acknowledge that this area is, was and will continue to be expensive but something about this market seems off. It appears in many places it was easier to buy in 2006, rates were higher but prices have come right back up and bidding wars are becoming common. The economy isn’t that good barring a few select industries(govt, finance, technology) things are as unstable as they have ever been and the good paying jobs are not as plentiful.
As a follow-up to a previous conversation about how technology is changing industries and learning to code.
Why This Real Estate App Is Making New York Brokers Nervous
Talk about disruptive. Since launching 18 months ago, Compass—a real estate listing app for iOS and Android formerly known as Urban Compass—has generated quite a bit of discomfort among its legacy competitors, some of which have filed lawsuits. And it’s no wonder Compass has shaken things up: As anyone who’s ever tried to rent or buy property in New York knows, the experience is loaded with pain points—exactly the type of stuff that turns mere ideas into thriving startups.
Real estate brokerages aren’t the only ones who have noticed the quick rise of Compass. This week, the company is being named the Mid-Sized Business of the Year by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. In previous years, this title has been awarded to the likes of SoulCycle and Warby Parker.
“Right now, when you want to buy a place, it’s very hard to really understand the value,” says Ori Allon, Compass’s cofounder and executive chairman. Allon brings some serious tech industry cred to the real estate listings space: He sold his first company, a search startup named Orion, to Google, which won a bidding war with Yahoo and Microsoft over Allon’s creation. Orion’s code is now part of Google’s core search algorithm. His second company—a real-time search product called Julpan—got snatched up by Twitter in 2011.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3047603/why-this-real-estate-app-is-making-new-york-brokers-nervous
Grim 3 – Purchase all 4,000 Atlantic City foreclosures and still have about $100mm left over.
One of those Billy Joel dates was for my wife and myself. That’s OK, better day – Saturday.
On June 1, MetLife Inc. issued $1.5 billion of bonds with the sole purpose of funding repurchases of the company’s preferred stock, the biggest bonds-for-buyback program this year. Apple Inc. listed share repurchases or dividends among the uses for funds in about $16.5 billion of bond sales this year.
CHIFI there goes some income from you!! BOOYAAA
Trump Jr was on the radio this AM. His own company is pulling back from NYC they have no projects in development for NYC apparently, even when apartments are selling for 5,000 a sq ft.
Sorry if that isn’t writing on the wall, Trump is not levering up to capitaize on 5,000 a sq ft? I read it as they don’t believe any project now will be finished intime to capitaize on the massive NYC bubble.
Don’t get into a pi*ssi*ng contest Plumpkin you cannot afford NYC either.
Bystander [14],
That sums it up perfectly.
It’s so true.
I predict that in less than 5 years, it’s going to come out that Jared Kushner has been a serial killer for some time now.
Raised lettering, ‘Pale Nimbus’. White.
No Blump, not true. 3% down, Hamp, Hump, Chump etc. are more recent developments. Home gambling was taken to another level then beyond. No turning back but this is not capitalism,
I think it’s more likely that Kushner buyers Atlantic County than Sheik Yerbouti.
re# 27 – Well he is a Democrat.
re # 2 – re: Qatari “rumor”
Since Summer is almost here.
Clipped from a Curbed Poster.
“While most of you have probably heard, there are rumors that are substantiated by a few blogs, that my Sag Harbor home is being considered for purchase by Oprah and Gayle for $500M. They *finally* decided they needed a quiet home to spend their golden years together.
When the deal goes through, it’ll be the highest amount paid for any property in the Hamptons history. While I hate to leave my home so soon after moving in, I’m also so excited and want you all to know, I’ll be purchasing several apartments in all of the new super-talls. Then in 2018, when most are complete, I’ll pick my favorite, and give away the rest to my best friends here on Curbed. Start lining up boys, Mama has got an itch.”
NAR: Buy now or forever be priced out the market. Sorry got it mixed up, NRA: Buy now or the govt will take your weapons. Not sure why Colt didn’t benefit during this same time period.
Smith & Wesson nails what Obama did for gun sales in one sentence
“[W]e experienced strong consumer demand for our firearm products following a new administration taking office in Washington, D.C. in 2009,” said the management of gunmaker Smith & Wesson.
Sadly, the biggest pushes for more gun control come after high-profile shootings, like the 2012 killing of 20 children at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. And it’s following those incidents that gunmakers report strong sales.
To be clear, gunmakers don’t benefit from tighter gun control. They benefit when there are talks of tighter gun control but those talks go nowhere.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/smith-and-wesson-obama-was-good-for-gun-sales-2015-6#ixzz3dW7QXjUb
It def reeks of corruption and rigging the game. I def agree with that. Thing is, I accept that the economy is rigged. I just try to make sure I’m on the winning side. Right now, the winners have bought in the past 5 years and have been killing it on rental returns. They basically took free money to make money. Catch, you have to qualify for the free money. If you qualify for free money and haven’t purchased, you def shot yourself in the leg. I feel bad for the people that have had no chance to be on the winning side, but it is what it is. No one is going to feel bad for me if I happen to join the losing side. So I’m going to do whatever I can to remain on the winning side of things. The past 5 years, the winners have all been investing in real estate and stocks, and that’s exactly what I have done.
jcer says:
June 19, 2015 at 9:23 am
19, the whole thing stinks, the real estate market isn’t passing the smell test in a lot of places. I acknowledge that this area is, was and will continue to be expensive but something about this market seems off. It appears in many places it was easier to buy in 2006, rates were higher but prices have come right back up and bidding wars are becoming common. The economy isn’t that good barring a few select industries(govt, finance, technology) things are as unstable as they have ever been and the good paying jobs are not as plentiful.
Move along, nothing to see here, this is a legal loophole. Care to guess on the NRA’s stance on closing this loophole?
The legal loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to get a gun
South Carolina is one of 40 states that do not require background checks for private gun transactions, like the one that allegedly took place between Roof and his father. Gun control activists call this the “private sale” loophole.
It’s illegal to give guns to felons or people with felony indictments — but that’s only if you know about their criminal records. In South Carolina, you don’t have to ask, so private citizens can more or less freely exchange guns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/06/18/the-legal-loophole-that-allowed-dylann-roof-to-get-a-gun/?postshare=3851434674638953
It is capitalism. It’s a dog eat dog world. The winners have been making the rules. This is what happens under capitalism. As the system matures, people put themselves in positions to take advantage of the rest. This is exactly what is happening now.
We are nowhere near the loose lending standards of the housing bubble. When we get to that point, that’s when you sell your excess inventory.
Bystander says:
June 19, 2015 at 9:55 am
No Blump, not true. 3% down, Hamp, Hump, Chump etc. are more recent developments. Home gambling was taken to another level then beyond. No turning back but this is not capitalism,
Welcome to the party economist, so early 2000 was when it all began.
After Doubts, Economists Find China Kills U.S. Factory Jobs
A generation of economists trained to believe that trade had little to do with the long decline in high-paying U.S. factory jobs is changing its mind.
But studies examining the impact of China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in late 2001 have made the case that between 1 million and more than 2 million of the 5 million American factory jobs lost since 2000 are traceable to low-cost imports.
“The ‘aha’ moment,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor, “was when we traced through the industries in which China had surging exports to the local addresses of their U.S. competitors and saw the powerful correspondence between where China had surged and where U.S. manufacturing employment had collapsed.”
In an April paper, economists Justin Pierce of the Federal Reserve and Peter Schott of Yale University found that the biggest U.S. manufacturing employment declines and largest surges in imports were in products for which China permanently locked in the greatest reductions in tariffs as part of its entry to the WTO. Industries such as apparel, leather goods, plastic plumbing fixtures and surgical and medical equipment sustained substantial hits, they concluded.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-18/after-doubting-economists-find-china-killing-u-s-factory-jobs
Back to making the donuts…
Grim – Not Kushner. Maybe Joe Sitt, he has experience dumping $ into failing shore communites.
34 – FKA
The claim was apparently taken out of context and the media ran with it:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting-suspect/
His grandfather says Roof was given “birthday money” and that the family didn’t know what he did with it
Dumbass pope still hasn’t figured out that God hates poor people.
God is now also sponsored by Veolia Environmental (VE).
I think God just signed a Premier League shirt deal for next year.
The shooter was a homicidal racist. Are background checks supposed to look into people’s souls?
FKA 2010 Buyer says:
June 19, 2015 at 10:18 am
Move along, nothing to see here, this is a legal loophole. Care to guess on the NRA’s stance on closing this loophole?
The legal loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to get a gun
South Carolina is one of 40 states that do not require background checks for private gun transactions, like the one that allegedly took place between Roof and his father. Gun control activists call this the “private sale” loophole.
It’s illegal to give guns to felons or people with felony indictments — but that’s only if you know about their criminal records. In South Carolina, you don’t have to ask, so private citizens can more or less freely exchange guns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/06/18/the-legal-loophole-that-allowed-dylann-roof-to-get-a-gun/?postshare=3851434674638953
God passed on an Olympiakos shirt deal when they offered payment in September. In drachma.
Whoops moderated for cursing.
Grim, please unmod my gratuitous and inflammatory post.
34 – FKA
And lets be honest, my understanding of that provision is that’s its not there to be nefarious.
Its to allow a father to take his son or daughter to a range or hunting trip and not require him to be breathing over their neck, holding the rifle, and pulling the trigger for them. Generally Federal law requires a person be 18 to buy from a dealer, so anyone younger would not be able to get or use a firearm otherwise if it could not be transferred in family.
And furthermore, lets assume the father did buy the firearm because his son would not have legally be allowed to do so because of his trial status and drug use. The father just committed a federal crime, a straw purchase, and is punishable by something like 10 years in prison.
Nothing that was done here is legal. Why are we going to make more laws making it more illegal?
I totally agree with her. Why do you think so many economists choose new Keynesian approach when it comes to economics?
It’s a fantasy to think the economy can function without guidance. I can’t repeat this enough, that type of system leads to enormous busts. You want to put all that time it took to create your wealth and put it on the line? With the type of system you are advocating for, your wealth will be destroyed in the bust. Is that what you want? You want it all to burn down and then rebuild it again? Go ahead, get on the gold standard, and then let the economy function with no interference. Get rid of the fed, and you will have your dream come true. Just don’t cry when it crashes and your wealth is gone in a blink of an eye. The fed protects the rich, you should be on their side. They are def on your side if you are in the 1% like you say you are.
““Obviously we have to look at the pace of job creation, we have to look at what’s happening to labor force participation, to part time employment for economic reasons, to job openings, to the pace of quits, to wage inflation and other indicators of the state of the labor market. I did say when we agreed that labor markets slack has diminished to some extent, in the inter-meeting period and clearly over a longer span of time over the last several years, obviously we have made considerable progress in moving towards our goal of maximum employment. So in spite of the fact that there is some progress on that front the committee wants to see some further progress before feeling that it will be appropriate to raise rates.””
Ragnar says:
June 19, 2015 at 9:15 am
Speaking of modern Keynesianism and the politically-connected bankers who love it:
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/why-ronald-reagan-is-rolling-in-his-grave-the-keynesian-putsch-at-the-fed/
But poor people sure love God.
36- You really can’t make this stuff up. They needed studies to prove this?
“A generation of economists trained to believe that trade had little to do with the long decline in high-paying U.S. factory jobs is changing its mind.
But studies examining the impact of China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in late 2001 have made the case that between 1 million and more than 2 million of the 5 million American factory jobs lost since 2000 are traceable to low-cost imports.
“The ‘aha’ moment,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor, “was when we traced through the industries in which China had surging exports to the local addresses of their U.S. competitors and saw the powerful correspondence between where China had surged and where U.S. manufacturing employment had collapsed.”
In an April paper, economists Justin Pierce of the Federal Reserve and Peter Schott of Yale University found that the biggest U.S. manufacturing employment declines and largest surges in imports were in products for which China permanently locked in the greatest reductions in tariffs as part of its entry to the WTO. Industries such as apparel, leather goods, plastic plumbing fixtures and surgical and medical equipment sustained substantial hits, they concluded.”
@blackrepublican: Any government effort to “control” constitutionally protected rights should, at a minimum, be cause for alarm – not applause. #guncontrol
50- It looks like some people were off with blaming automation for the job losses. Seems like our corporations were doing what we really thought they were doing; selling out our own people in the name of using slave labor to profit.
How can you expect our workers to compete with workers with a way lower standard of living? Then you question why the standard of living is dropping in America? Set up some policies that protect our workers and put them on a little more competitive playing field.
“A generation of economists trained to believe that trade had little to do with the long decline in high-paying U.S. factory jobs is changing its mind.
Their findings are likely to fuel the opposition within President Barack Obama’s own Democratic Party to his proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and similar pacts lowering barriers to international commerce.
Because manufacturing employment as a share of the workforce has been dropping for more than 40 years and the same trend has affected other developed nations, including Japan, with far less liberal trade policies than the U.S., many economists had concluded that automation was the primary culprit.
But studies examining the impact of China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in late 2001 have made the case that between 1 million and more than 2 million of the 5 million American factory jobs lost since 2000 are traceable to low-cost imports.”
Pumpkin,
How can you claim that your economic ideas are perfect?
I can see why my cowkers kid wan’t to quit the beltway bubble.
Dilapidated Garage with 68,000 tax bill listed for $900k.
“So you missed your chance at snagging this Dupont garage when it hit the market for $900,000 in late April? No worries: The place just dropped its price. By $1,000. That’s .1 percent!
To recap, this 1,008-square-foot brick garage, built in 1921 and located in an alley behind the O Street Mansion, is completely unfinished and has “no real street address,” according to the listing. But you can bring an architect to “see the potential!” and turn it into a “project of your own!” The listing also now helpfully includes a rendering of what it could look like reimagined as a home. Pay no mind to the 2014 tax assessment of $68,780.”
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/openhouse/the-real-estate-market/900000-dupont-garage-drops-in-price-now-899000.php
Perfect? That’s the whole idea behind the new Keynesian economic school of thought, that the economy is not perfect and based on irrational behavior. The whole idea is to try and adjust policies to the current economic problems you are faced with. Nothing is permanent and most policies are temporary.
The other schools of thought are based on the idea that there are perfect economic models out there. Ideas that the economic system, if left alone, will self correct and work perfectly. Sure, and I have beautiful bridge to nowhere to sell to you.
joyce says:
June 19, 2015 at 11:47 am
Pumpkin,
How can you claim that your economic ideas are perfect?
#54..are they saying it is a $68,000 tax bill or that it is just assessed at $68,000 and it is claiming market value at $900,000..I can not see an actual tax bill of $68k..
52, this is why economists must be smoking crack. The offshoring trend has never been about efficiency, if automation were really the cause you’d see much more in the way of goods produced here because automation takes human labor largely out of the equation and in terms of delivery of goods just in time and supply chain management, it is far easier to have the production close to the consumer and oh yeah energy is very cheap in the US. Anyone with half a brain knows that the best jobs are shipped overseas. Anything from making widgets, to administering networks, to writing code…..that is what is decimating the middle class. You want to reign it in, simple the government needs to chase after the companies playing visa games, as they largely need to bring people here for training and lets just face it to ship the work back. The government needs to go after the imported goods for violating safety standards, I think our govt could harm the Chinese manufacturing business just by going after the importers and making it harder to bring the junk in without resorting to tariffs. If dear leader was really a populist he’d be trying to realistically protect the middle class worker by targeting the imports that are costing jobs and harming people but alas he’s a 1% corporatist stooge like everyone else and it amazes me that more people don’t see it.
55
It’s shameful you claim to have the perfect model.
New tenants for the upstairs apartment in the two story duplex and, just what I was wishing for!
Young couple(20s), husband works in construction. PERFECT! I’m willing to trade his work (chimney and second story balcony need major repairs) for temporary rent reduction and he’s OK with that – for FAR cheaper than hiring a contractor (some things I still can’t or won’t do myself).
Glad I waited and was selective about what kind of tenants to take. My wife was panicking about the margin (empty for almost a month). Patience and selectivity paid off.
Even with one tenant the place would more than pay for itself but…
*The number of single men looking for apartments far from the city (that work there)
was surprising. I would have never considered commuting from Warren county to
Manhattan or JC.
Great write-up. I really enjoy reading your posts. Your point about automation seems dead on. As much as the right doesn’t want to hear it, the sanders and warren’s of the world understand that govt must be used to protect what’s left of our middle class. Middle class is the lifeblood of any successful economy/society.
jcer says:
June 19, 2015 at 12:11 pm
52, this is why economists must be smoking crack. The offshoring trend has never been about efficiency, if automation were really the cause you’d see much more in the way of goods produced here because automation takes human labor largely out of the equation and in terms of delivery of goods just in time and supply chain management, it is far easier to have the production close to the consumer and oh yeah energy is very cheap in the US. Anyone with half a brain knows that the best jobs are shipped overseas. Anything from making widgets, to administering networks, to writing code…..that is what is decimating the middle class. You want to reign it in, simple the government needs to chase after the companies playing visa games, as they largely need to bring people here for training and lets just face it to ship the work back. The government needs to go after the imported goods for violating safety standards, I think our govt could harm the Chinese manufacturing business just by going after the importers and making it harder to bring the junk in without resorting to tariffs. If dear leader was really a populist he’d be trying to realistically protect the middle class worker by targeting the imports that are costing jobs and harming people but alas he’s a 1% corporatist stooge like everyone else and it amazes me that more people don’t see it.
When you discuss automation, you need to realize that it’s much broader than a robot in a factory welding a car body. Everyone tries to pigeonhole it as that kind of work.
Realistically, if you expand the definition to include broader technology, you see the impact of automation on jobs everywhere.
Email for example, as a kind of “automation”. I used to know a guy who ran the mail room for a big pharma company, he had dozens of workers managing inbound and outbound physical mail. I doubt they’ve got 2 guys now, where they probably had 20 a few years ago.
Likewise, accounting, I remember we used to have an army of accounting staff to track paper invoices, purchase orders, bills of lading, etc etc. They are all gone, we run everything through the financial system now, there is no paper, there is no document that needs to get shuffled around for approvals. It’s all gone.
Hell, we used to have a guy that did nothing but deliver shuttle tapes to the offsite storage every day, or drop checks off at the Fed, that’s all gone.
Hell, we used to have 100 people doing nothing but processing check payments. I think we have 7 people today doing the same work.
Internet, people used to want to receive physical papers on their doorstep.
How many people get the paper these days? Or read a physical magazine. They go online. That’s automation of the delivery of information. Just as many people, if not more, are consuming their product, the product is still valid.
#61
I miss the summer interns/filing girls….damn computers.
To quote John Fogerty “Like flowers on the sand…”.
Who is claiming to have the perfect model? I’ll go with the model that doesn’t deal with absolutes and adjusts to economic conditions. I’ll go with the school that doesn’t claim economics is perfect and adjusts it’s models based on the idea that economics is not perfect.
joyce says:
June 19, 2015 at 12:13 pm
55
It’s shameful you claim to have the perfect model.
Truly embarrassing that you think your model will always have all the right answers. Nothing is perfect, just shameful.
Last night, a would-be robber got more than he bargained for when a game of “you call that a knife?” became real at Capital Beer, 2661 E. Cumberland St.
http://spiritnews.org/articles/robber-pulls-knife-sushi-makerbeer-salesman-pulls-bigger-knife-robber-runs/
Stu (49)-
Co-dependent behavior.
“But poor people sure love God.”
Joyce, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we found out Punkin was either Bergabe or Geethner. Keynesian fools are a dime a dozen.
And our goddam colleges are cranking out thousands of new ones every year. Just met a Haverford grad last night who’s been brainwashed into the coven. I wanted to knock his teeth out.
So it’s not embarrassing sticking to a single economic model, which calls for tax cuts as an answer to every economic problem?
joyce says:
June 19, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Truly embarrassing that you think your model will always have all the right answers. Nothing is perfect, just shameful.
You know, if you just lower taxes and have a govt that only exists for protection, everything will be alright. I really wish it was this easy.
I was going to ask you how does it feel when people put words in your mouth (but look at you, doing it much better than I ever could).
Pumpkin is such a Class A moron that he didn’t realize I was trolling him. I guess I’m not very good at it. Can’t troll a troll, I suppose.
I’m a deep thinker. That’s my gift in life. I’m not a quick thinker. So if you think I’m capable of reading into whether or not you are trolling me, you are barking up the wrong tree.
joyce says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:34 pm
I was going to ask you how does it feel when people put words in your mouth (but look at you, doing it much better than I ever could).
Pumpkin is such a Class A moron that he didn’t realize I was trolling him. I guess I’m not very good at it. Can’t troll a troll, I suppose.
And on that note… have a great weekend everybody… I’m all laughed out
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I’m a deep thinker. That’s my gift in life.
You are really smart, but I lose respect for people like you. Obnoxious, talk down to people, and think you know it all. Have a nice weekend.
joyce says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:40 pm
And on that note… have a great weekend everybody… I’m all laughed out
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I’m a deep thinker. That’s my gift in life.
@washingtonpost: Shooters of color are called ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs.’ Why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’?
“But listen to major media outlets and you won’t hear the word “terrorism” used in coverage of Tuesday’s shooting. You won’t hear the white male shooter, identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, described as “a possible terrorist.” And if coverage of recent shootings by white suspects is any indication, he never will be. Instead, the go-to explanation for his actions will be mental illness. He will be humanized and called sick, a victim of mistreatment or inadequate mental health resources. Activist Deray McKesson noted this morning that, while discussing Roof’s motivations, an MSNBC anchor said “we don’t know his mental condition.” That is the power of whiteness in America”
I’m neither a deep nor, apparently, quick thinker, but a lot of folks think I am pretty funny! You know,, in a dry, sarcastic way!
Automation definitely has had an effect, what I’m getting at is it isn’t the cause of the problem as such. If we look at what automation has reduced stateside vs. what has been off-shored and then also look what has been developed in that time period. It is my belief that the creation of new products, technology, and rising standard of living has largely negated the loss of those jobs to automation. Just the investments to do the automation created a large amount of economic activity and good jobs. What the government needs to do is maintain fairness in the market place. Unfortunately cheap Chinese goods that are probably toxic are dumped on the US at extremely low prices and they have the implicit support of a rigged currency to ensure that the prices are extremely low. Now stop and consider this my issue is not that I lose my job to the Germans, English, French, or Italians because I know their standard of living is high and know that I can compete with them. It is the Indians and the Chinese who live a much less luxurious lifestyle buoyed by their low currency that I cannot possibly compete with. The worst thing about this is we often are not the beneficiaries of the low cost Chinese as a middle man usually takes a hefty profit.
My take, the media created this mess. They bring racism to light. They make it upfront and personal to sell a story while our society suffers from it. If you keep focusing on racism in your story lines, guess what will happen? This story is proof.
anon (the good one) says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:51 pm
@washingtonpost: Shooters of color are called ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs.’ Why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’?
“But listen to major media outlets and you won’t hear the word “terrorism” used in coverage of Tuesday’s shooting. You won’t hear the white male shooter, identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, described as “a possible terrorist.” And if coverage of recent shootings by white suspects is any indication, he never will be. Instead, the go-to explanation for his actions will be mental illness. He will be humanized and called sick, a victim of mistreatment or inadequate mental health resources. Activist Deray McKesson noted this morning that, while discussing Roof’s motivations, an MSNBC anchor said “we don’t know his mental condition.” That is the power of whiteness in America”
Awesome post.
The article stated that, yes, automation caused some jobs to disappear, but after looking at the data, the majority of lost jobs was due to china. I can accept losing jobs to automation(or to workers with a comparative cost of living), but I do not accept losing jobs to unfair competition. It’s wrong in every way. How can you compete with people willing to work for a dollar an hour? Even if you wanted to compete, it’s mathematically impossible based on our cost of living.
jcer says:
June 19, 2015 at 2:04 pm
Automation definitely has had an effect, what I’m getting at is it isn’t the cause of the problem as such. If we look at what automation has reduced stateside vs. what has been off-shored and then also look what has been developed in that time period. It is my belief that the creation of new products, technology, and rising standard of living has largely negated the loss of those jobs to automation. Just the investments to do the automation created a large amount of economic activity and good jobs. What the government needs to do is maintain fairness in the market place. Unfortunately cheap Chinese goods that are probably toxic are dumped on the US at extremely low prices and they have the implicit support of a rigged currency to ensure that the prices are extremely low. Now stop and consider this my issue is not that I lose my job to the Germans, English, French, or Italians because I know their standard of living is high and know that I can compete with them. It is the Indians and the Chinese who live a much less luxurious lifestyle buoyed by their low currency that I cannot possibly compete with. The worst thing about this is we often are not the beneficiaries of the low cost Chinese as a middle man usually takes a hefty profit.
Marketwatch
by Jeff Reeves
About two years ago, I declared that the U.S. housing market had “officially” recovered.
And now, with some indicators showing that real estate is the healthiest it’s been in a decade, I hope I can now officially declare my previous declaration as spot-on.
I know, I know … all of you who recently bought a home are asking me to find the nearest wooden object and knock vigorously on it. But current and prospective homeowners shouldn’t let the epic pain of the previous housing crisis color their expectations forever. With each passing month, the recovery in housing looks to be not only sustainable, but even gathering steam.
For the record, I do not view any of these encouraging metrics as grounds for irresponsible speculation or reason to attend a house-flipping seminar at the airport Marriott. I also do not think houses should ever be viewed as investments in the traditional sense — and not just for cold logic, such as the fact that real estate is illiquid, but also because of philosophical reasons such as the concept of a home being valued at more than simply what’s on your property assessment.
But all that said, there are good reasons to expect home values to keep rising.
Here’s why:
Prices
Yes, the pace of increases in home prices has cooled, but given past experiences with an overheated housing market, that’s not a bad thing. According to the latest Case-Shiller data from the end of May, home values rose 5% from a year earlier in the 20-city index. Separately, real estate data firm FNC tallied a 5.3% increase in its larger 100-city price survey. So prices still are rising, albeit at a more moderate pace.
Equity
Digging deeper into prices and home values, CoreLogic just released a report that revealed another quarter of a million U.S. homes had equity that topped mortgage debt in the first quarter. The slow but steady trend of homeowners moving back into the black has quietly become an impressive story, with 44.9 million homes now reporting equity, or 90% of all mortgaged properties, according to CoreLogic data. Not only does this kind of environment breed confidence, it also creates stability as homeowners are not struggling to make payments on an underwater home or biting off more than they can chew.
Loans
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported in its latest weekly survey that applications from prospective borrowers were up 8.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis. The American Bankers Association said in its recently released annual survey that loans to first-time homebuyers have ticked up to 14%, the highest level in the history of the 22-year-old survey. More applications and loans are great, but it’s also crucial to note that the quality of those loans is strong, too. Consider the number of loans in foreclosure are at the lowest level since November 2007, with just 1.4% of mortgages in distress.
Construction
While housing starts pulled back a bit in May, it’s important to remember that came after a red-hot April that shows big optimism on the part of homebuilders as they broke ground on new homes at an impressive clip. The latest numbers showed upward revisions to the past two months, too, after impressive numbers previously. Also, permits surged 12% to the highest level since summer 2007 to show strong momentum that should carry this trend of robust construction through the coming months.
Confidence
The National Association of Home Builders reported that builder confidence was rebounding after a slow start to the year, and up to a nine-month high. Not only did this top expectations, but it put the NAHB survey firmly in expansion mode, with a reading of 59; anything above 50 signals a favorable view. Furthermore, expectations of sales now and in the future “are at their highest levels since the last quarter of 2005, indicating a growing optimism among builders that housing will continue to strengthen in the months ahead,” according to the NAHB.
Supply
There is plenty of room for new supply, too, considering that Federal Reserve data show the current inventory of existing homes is only 4.8 months, down sharply from a one-year supply at the peak of the housing crisis and back in line with 2005 levels. The National Association of Realtors reports that total listings are down 15.7% year-over-year.
Consumer finances
It’s reductive but fairly true: The health of the housing market is a reflection of the health of American family budgets, with the two waxing and waning together. And as I noted recently in my bullish assessment of the U.S. economy and stock market, consumers are doing very well, thanks to a better job market, and upward movement on wages, as indicated in the May unemployment report. Retail sales have reflected this strength, too, with better numbers lately. And according to the Federal Reserve, American families’ net worth has surged to a new record, owing to a rebound in the economy, stock market and home values. That all adds up to a bright outlook for consumer confidence, and for the housing market as a result
#72 oh sweet Jesus!!
80- Look at posts 6 and 7, but I’m the idiot.
Also, this recovery proves that Keynesian policies saved the economy. This should have been an epic crash, but the Keynesian policies saved the day. Could have been a much faster recovery had they stimulated the economy even more, but damn gold freaks had to start jumping in and demanding govt spending cuts. Those are the true idiots.
Any wealthy individual attacking keynesian policies in favor of the austrian school should be shot. Keynesian policies saved their wealth. Without these policies, the economy would have had to start over again, which is good for nobody.
Damn. Laughed so hard coffee went through my nose…
Burnt myself…
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I’m a deep thinker. That’s my gift in life.
At least I’m honest. I know how the joyce type are and it takes courage to write that. I’m the type of person that doesn’t get a joke right away. Wish I was quick on my feet, but I was given the ability to think deeply instead.
3b says:
June 19, 2015 at 2:27 pm
#72 oh sweet Jesus!!
re: “Wish I was quick on my feet”
Ridgewood Ball Boy that is handicapped?
[32] FKA
Not really news. Gun retailers love it when a president proposed gun control. I recall one retailer responding to the Clinton assault rifle ban, saying “I wish they did this all the time.”
[34] FKA
Basically a correct post except that I have seen conflicting reports on how Roof got a gun. One story is the uncle reporting but it isn’t clear if this is hearsay or he witnessed it. Another version was that some LE sources stated he purchased the gun. Finally, this was the first I heard about pending charges; earlier reports said only that he was charged with misdemeanor trespass.
I’ll let the dust settle before I rule on what the facts are.
Now everyone is piling on Pumpkin for saying he is a deep thinker. I think that’s a bit unfair.
First, he is entitled to describe himself as such. After all Rachel Dolezal can call herself black.
Second, this may well be deep thinking. For him at least.
Third, just because it is deep, doesn’t make it correct. I can drill a very deep hole but that doesn’t mean I am assured of hitting oil.
[75] anon
“@washingtonpost: Shooters of color are called ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs.’ Why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’?”
If someone caps you, rest assured that I will neither refer to them as a thug or mentally ill. I may call them a few other things, but nasty, racist names won’t be in the mix.
I’m a 79 year old Pakistani woman.
you are not a right wing fundamentalist – and that in itself is a gift
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I’m a deep thinker. That’s my gift in life.
I came onto this blog back in 2013. Back then I called for wage inflation around 2017/2018 and full blown up market in real estate by 2020 that would crash later in the decade. I was laughed at. I was called an idiot. I was told by people like Joyce that we haven’t had wage inflation in 30 years, so why now. I was told that real estate is dead.
I can’t wait till 2017/2018, because I’m going to be laughing my ass off.
Comrade Nom Deplume, the anon-tidote says:
June 19, 2015 at 3:01 pm
Now everyone is piling on Pumpkin for saying he is a deep thinker. I think that’s a bit unfair.
First, he is entitled to describe himself as such. After all Rachel Dolezal can call herself black.
Second, this may well be deep thinking. For him at least.
Third, just because it is deep, doesn’t make it correct. I can drill a very deep hole but that doesn’t mean I am assured of hitting oil.
I am a left wing fruticake and don’t you dare tell me anything different!
Here’s your chance for civic involvement: The face of the new $10 will be chosen by public input:
https://www.thenew10.treasury.gov/
I want everyone to nominate Rachel Dolezal
[91] pumpkin
You are at least capable of articulating your ideas and will entertain opposing viewpoints.
This distinguishes you from anon. That alone is a gift.
91- no one, not even the experts were calling that back in the beginning of 2013. No one. So don’t question my ability to think deeply about a subject matter. I came up with those predictions based on my own analysis. No one was calling for that, so it’s impossible for me to have read it somewhere and posted here. Remember how you guys busted my balls for those predictions saying that you won’t take it serious unless I cite a source. I’m almost 99% sure that my predictions are dead on. Can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say if I’m right. At least give me some respect for making those calls.
[91] pumpkin
Do not confuse verbosity or being right from time to time with erudition. And my issue with you isn’t your willingness to debate and to bring evidence and analysis to the fore, even if you misapply or misinterpret it.
My issue with you is that you misinterpret counterarguments. I haven’t figured out if it is because you are doing it deliberately or if you aren’t as deep as you think you are. Personally, I don’t care.
FWIW, if I were given a chance to ban two people from this board, you would not be on that list. But don’t let it go to your head. I’ve been wrong before.
[96] redux
leftwing,
I ran interference for you. but I have to go. You are on your own. Send out for some pumpkin-flavored methadone if needed.
The front page article is a dead-on assessment of our little slice of suburban heaven.
Thanks for being respectful. You always did give me the benefit of the doubt(most of the time).
The reason I misinterpret counter arguments is due to trying to read and respond quickly, while at the same time getting my work done. Since I’m not a quick thinker, I read something and totally misinterpret what the individual was saying. Not on purpose, but because I only read it over quickly once in the spirit of providing a quick response while working at the same time. When it comes to reading, I’m the type that has to read something over to fully comprehend it. I don’t pick up things quickly on the first read. So I have to read it over a couple times to fully grasp it. Wish it wasn’t this way, but this is what God gave me.
I’m definitely an intellectual and that’s why I come to this board. It’s filled with intellectuals that I think are very similar to me. You think I could have these debated with the avg citizen? They won’t know what I’m talking about and only agree so that they don’t look like they don’t know what they are talking about. I’m looking for debates where we go back and forth. That’s the only way you are going to get smarter and more experienced on these subject matters. I’m open minded, I flip sides on issues when the other side presents a better argument.
Bottom line, if we weren’t intellectuals, we would never waste our time posting on some blog. Intellectuals love this type of environment. It feeds the brain. Just by reading(not participating) this blog, you can increase your iq by a couple points.
Thank you for pushing me on a regular basis. Hope I can do the same for you.
Comrade Nom Deplume, the anon-tidote says:
June 19, 2015 at 4:07 pm
[91] pumpkin
Do not confuse verbosity or being right from time to time with erudition. And my issue with you isn’t your willingness to debate and to bring evidence and analysis to the fore, even if you misapply or misinterpret it.
My issue with you is that you misinterpret counterarguments. I haven’t figured out if it is because you are doing it deliberately or if you aren’t as deep as you think you are. Personally, I don’t care.
FWIW, if I were given a chance to ban two people from this board, you would not be on that list. But don’t let it go to your head. I’ve been wrong before.
Wow, this article is dead on.
“The percentage of Americans who agree with the scientific consensus — that global warming is occurring and caused by human activity — has also bounced back in the last few years. Sixty-eight percent of Americans also say there is “solid evidence of warming,” up from 57 percent in 2009.
Skepticism about climate change remains high among nearly any demographic group that leans Republican, including men, whites, evangelicals and people over age 50, according to the Pew data. The main reason is that so many Republicans themselves are skeptical that the planet has become hotter and are opposed to new climate policies. But even Democratic men are slightly less interested in combating climate change than Democratic women.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/upshot/americans-are-again-getting-more-worried-about-the-climate.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-4&action=click&contentCollection=The%20Upshot®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&configSection=article&isLoggedIn=false&pgtype=article&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0
“I give Billy Joel he hedged his bets big time. He doubled his odds of getting into heaven.”
Nice three legged trade.
Judaism doesn’t have He11, at least not as commonly understood.
“Unfortunately, to create super winners (whales), you must have a lot of losers. ”
Where do you get this? It is flat out untrue and not supported by fact.
102- so everyone can be a billionaire? How is someone accruing that much wealth not affecting everyone else in that economic system? There can only be one ceo.
This guy says exactly what I say. Powerful article.
“You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.”
http://topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra-rich-mans-letter-to-my-fellow-filthy-rich-americans-the-pitchforks-are-coming
Why is this so difficult to understand?
“Which is why the fundamental law of capitalism must be: If workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers, not rich businesspeople like us, the true job creators. Which means a thriving middle class is the source of American prosperity, not a consequence of it. The middle class creates us rich people, not the other way around.
On June 19, 2013, Bloomberg published an article I wrote called “The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage.” Forbes labeled it “Nick Hanauer’s near insane” proposal. And yet, just weeks after it was published, my friend David Rolf, a Service Employees International Union organizer, roused fast-food workers to go on strike around the country for a $15 living wage. Nearly a year later, the city of Seattle passed a $15 minimum wage. And just 350 days after my article was published, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed that ordinance into law. How could this happen, you ask?
It happened because we reminded the masses that they are the source of growth and prosperity, not us rich guys. We reminded them that when workers have more money, businesses have more customers—and need more employees. We reminded them that if businesses paid workers a living wage rather than poverty wages, taxpayers wouldn’t have to make up the difference. And when we got done, 74 percent of likely Seattle voters in a recent poll agreed that a $15 minimum wage was a swell idea.
The standard response in the minimum-wage debate, made by Republicans and their business backers and plenty of Democrats as well, is that raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Businesses will have to lay off workers. This argument reflects the orthodox economics that most people had in college. If you took Econ 101, then you literally were taught that if wages go up, employment must go down. The law of supply and demand and all that. That’s why you’ve got John Boehner and other Republicans in Congress insisting that if you price employment higher, you get less of it. Really?”
“Because here’s an odd thing. During the past three decades, compensation for CEOs grew 127 times faster than it did for workers. Since 1950, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has increased 1,000 percent, and that is not a typo. CEOs used to earn 30 times the median wage; now they rake in 500 times. Yet no company I know of has eliminated its senior managers, or outsourced them to China or automated their jobs. Instead, we now have more CEOs and senior executives than ever before. So, too, for financial services workers and technology workers. These folks earn multiples of the median wage, yet we somehow have more and more of them.
The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor. So for as long as there has been capitalism, capitalists have said the same thing about any effort to raise wages. We’ve had 75 years of complaints from big business—when the minimum wage was instituted, when women had to be paid equitable amounts, when child labor laws were created. Every time the capitalists said exactly the same thing in the same way: We’re all going to go bankrupt. I’ll have to close. I’ll have to lay everyone off. It hasn’t happened. In fact, the data show that when workers are better treated, business gets better. The naysayers are just wrong.
Most of you probably think that the $15 minimum wage in Seattle is an insane departure from rational policy that puts our economy at great risk. But in Seattle, our current minimum wage of $9.32 is already nearly 30 percent higher than the federal minimum wage. And has it ruined our economy yet? Well, trickle-downers, look at the data here: The two cities in the nation with the highest rate of job growth by small businesses are San Francisco and Seattle. Guess which cities have the highest minimum wage? San Francisco and Seattle. The fastest-growing big city in America? Seattle. Fifteen dollars isn’t a risky untried policy for us. It’s doubling down on the strategy that’s already allowing our city to kick your city’s ass.”
“It makes perfect sense if you think about it: If a worker earns $7.25 an hour, which is now the national minimum wage, what proportion of that person’s income do you think ends up in the cash registers of local small businesses? Hardly any. That person is paying rent, ideally going out to get subsistence groceries at Safeway, and, if really lucky, has a bus pass. But she’s not going out to eat at restaurants. Not browsing for new clothes. Not buying flowers on Mother’s Day.
Is this issue more complicated than I’m making out? Of course. Are there many factors at play determining the dynamics of employment? Yup. But please, please stop insisting that if we pay low-wage workers more, unemployment will skyrocket and it will destroy the economy. It’s utter nonsense. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn’t believing that if the rich get richer, it’s good for the economy. It’s believing that if the poor get richer, it’s bad for the economy.”
“I know that virtually all of you feel that compelling our businesses to pay workers more is somehow unfair, or is too much government interference. Most of you think that we should just let good examples like Costco or Gap lead the way. Or let the market set the price. But here’s the thing. When those who set bad examples, like the owners of Wal-Mart or McDonald’s, pay their workers close to the minimum wage, what they’re really saying is that they’d pay even less if it weren’t illegal. (Thankfully both companies have recently said they would not oppose a hike in the minimum wage.) In any large group, some people absolutely will not do the right thing. That’s why our economy can only be safe and effective if it is governed by the same kinds of rules as, say, the transportation system, with its speed limits and stop signs.
Wal-Mart is our nation’s largest employer with some 1.4 million employees in the United States and more than $25 billion in pre-tax profit. So why are Wal-Mart employees the largest group of Medicaid recipients in many states? Wal-Mart could, say, pay each of its 1 million lowest-paid workers an extra $10,000 per year, raise them all out of poverty and enable them to, of all things, afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Not only would this also save us all the expense of the food stamps, Medicaid and rent assistance that they currently require, but Wal-Mart would still earn more than $15 billion pre-tax per year. Wal-Mart won’t (and shouldn’t) volunteer to pay its workers more than their competitors. In order for us to have an economy that works for everyone, we should compel all retailers to pay living wages—not just ask politely.
We rich people have been falsely persuaded by our schooling and the affirmation of society, and have convinced ourselves, that we are the main job creators. It’s simply not true. There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. I earn about 1,000 times the median American annually, but I don’t buy thousands of times more stuff. My family purchased three cars over the past few years, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. I bought two pairs of the fancy wool pants I am wearing as I write, what my partner Mike calls my “manager pants.” I guess I could have bought 1,000 pairs. But why would I? Instead, I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good.
So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you won’t admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all we’d be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. It’s not that Somalia and Congo don’t have good entrepreneurs. It’s just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because that’s all their customers can afford.”
“So why not talk about a different kind of New Deal for the American people, one that could appeal to the right as well as left—to libertarians as well as liberals? First, I’d ask my Republican friends to get real about reducing the size of government. Yes, yes and yes, you guys are all correct: The federal government is too big in some ways. But no way can you cut government substantially, not the way things are now. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush each had eight years to do it, and they failed miserably.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress can’t shrink government with wishful thinking. The only way to slash government for real is to go back to basic economic principles: You have to reduce the demand for government. If people are getting $15 an hour or more, they don’t need food stamps. They don’t need rent assistance. They don’t need you and me to pay for their medical care. If the consumer middle class is back, buying and shopping, then it stands to reason you won’t need as large a welfare state. And at the same time, revenues from payroll and sales taxes would rise, reducing the deficit.
This is, in other words, an economic approach that can unite left and right. Perhaps that’s one reason the right is beginning, inexorably, to wake up to this reality as well. Even Republicans as diverse as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum recently came out in favor of raising the minimum wage, in defiance of the Republicans in Congress.”
This might be my favorite line from the article.
“The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn’t believing that if the rich get richer, it’s good for the economy. It’s believing that if the poor get richer, it’s bad for the economy.”
“Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.”
Oh god, nine punkin posts in a row…..
New bottle of Titos, deep breathe…
“102- so everyone can be a billionaire? How is someone accruing that much wealth not affecting everyone else in that economic system? There can only be one ceo.”
Punkin.
How does one person’s success make another a loser? I do not understand the measure of winners and losers on a relative scale, rather than a longitudinal scale.
Pick nearly any data point anywhere in history. Any century. Any political system. Any geography. Tell me that a populace under an alternative system is better off than the same populace under a capitalist system.
Capitalism has provided more riches to *everyone* under it than any other competing system.
The fact that the distance between high and low may be greater is irrelevant, provided that the ‘low’ under capitalism beats the low anywhere else.
Said simply, as before, I highly doubt that our poor would exchange places with the poor of Nairobi to get a smaller ‘income gap’.
Longitudinal difference. Not relative.
You are correct. there can be only one CEO. There can also only be one ‘richest man in America’. Does that make the other 321 million of us losers? Disadvantaged? Victims of the capitalist system?
C’mon. For god’s sake if you proclaim yourself a thinker, think.
112- Maybe I should have changed my wording. I didn’t mean losers in the context that they suck at life. I meant that they were the losers in the game of capitalism. Everyone can’t win at capitalism, it’s the fundamental law of the system. So more billionaires is good for the system? It’s a warning sign that the wealth is becoming too concentrated. Why is it so difficult to understand that the extreme concentration of wealth hurts a capitalistic system? Just read this passage from a 1%. You probably didn’t read the article in the 9 posts above.
“Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.”
Lefty, my fav line from that article. Just sit there and think about this. Imagine an economy with an enormous middle class. It would be such a good society. People will value education and hard work. Family becomes the focus. Economy does well with a strong middle class. Violence goes down. Taxes go down across the board with a strong middle class not taking from the govt, so govt becomes smaller.
“The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn’t believing that if the rich get richer, it’s good for the economy. It’s believing that if the poor get richer, it’s bad for the economy.”
You want to make govt smaller, then take away people’s need to be supported by govt. There is no way our largest employer (Walmart) should be subsidizing workers survival with govt handouts. Reduce the demand of govt, plain and simple.
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress can’t shrink government with wishful thinking. The only way to slash government for real is to go back to basic economic principles: You have to reduce the demand for government. If people are getting $15 an hour or more, they don’t need food stamps. They don’t need rent assistance. They don’t need you and me to pay for their medical care. If the consumer middle class is back, buying and shopping, then it stands to reason you won’t need as large a welfare state. And at the same time, revenues from payroll and sales taxes would rise, reducing the deficit.”
The 1800′s was a horror show of boom and busts. The industrial revolution (technology) was driving the standard of living and wealth of the nation during this century too. What’s your point about Keynesianism being bailed out by technology? Last time I checked, Keynesian policies helped bail out the economy after it was driven into the ground 1929 and 2008. If the govt didn’t step in both situations, would there be an economy to speak of. Remember, when crashes are big enough, they cause people to act irrational. When people become irrational, your odds of that society becoming extinct are increased dramatically. What I’m saying is that if you let a crash go too far, you might not come back. I much rather take my chances trying to help the situation out instead of doing nothing and hoping it self corrects.
A horror show? Hardly. We went from nation of infancy to industrial power house. And no, it wasn’t the industrial revolution that bailed anything out. There’s a whole 50 years worth of history prior to that within that century. Riddle me this….how does a powered by horse and carriage survive a gigantic amount of bank failures with no fdic insurance? How does the south survive a currency collapse during the civil war? How do two loser nations bombed into oblivion during WW2 build their economy faster than all the other winners of WW2?
Every recession self corrects if you let it. Your statement about the collapse of the Roman Empire is fear mongering at best. You can let all the banks fail and the currency collapse. Capitalism prevails whenever its allowed to.
You find me one example of capitalism completely failing when truly being allowed to function.
116- Anytime you collapse a currency, you allow for irrational behavior and revolutionary behavior to take place. Who wants to go through that hell? That’s the whole point, to avoid the pain of major busts.
Just think of the 1800’s and chaos comes to mind. You think a civil war is a sign of good times? That war was fought over economic systems. I want to avoid situations like that at all cost. The 1800’s ended with the gilded age. The name says it all. That was a living hell for a lot of people. It got so bad that progressive movement came about from that economic disaster. If it didn’t get so bad, you wouldn’t have progressives. They wouldn’t exist. They exist out of a need.
Now, Germany and Japan were new countries under new economic systems. You should not compare the wwII Germany and Japan with the post war Germany and Japan. Totally different. So can’t even use that as an example.
As for history, every empire that has fallen is an example of an economic collapse. Since most of these empires were based on capitalistic fundamentals, there are your examples.
Under what economic school of thought did the U.S. become a super power under? Oh that’s right, the Keynesian school. Thank you Keynes for your insight.
What’s the bounty on pumpkins head worth?