From the WSJ:
U.S. Regained Top Spot for Real Estate Investment in 2014
We’re number one – again!
For the first time since 2009, the U.S. was the top destination for capital going into real estate markets, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s annual report, leapfrogging over China. But it came as the global market actually got smaller, not bigger.
The market-share gains in the U.S. came more because of a drop in investment in land in China, the firm said, which led to a 6.4% drop in global real-estate investments to $1.21 trillion. “This decline in activity can be solely attributed to a drop in Chinese land purchasing,” the firm wrote. The report was released at the annual real-estate conference sponsored by MIPIM.
…
New York City was the top destination, followed by L.A., San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston. Globally, New York was still number one, followed by London, Tokyo, L.A., and San Francisco. In a nod to the youngsters, the survey found that the top markets offering “the right live/work/play environment” for millennials were Nashville, Brooklyn, Portland, and Memphis.For 2015, the firm projects the global real-estate market will rise 11%, to $1.34 trillion, with the largest gains coming in central and eastern Europe (30%), followed by western Europe (19%), and North America (15%). But the report was cautious about the current year. “While growth may be better, it will be volatile and divergent market by market.”
C’mon – pulling our leg? From Marketwatch:
Millennials accounted for largest share of home purchases last year
The albatross of student debt, underemployment and weak wage growth didn’t prevent millennials from accounting for the largest share of home purchases, according to data released Wednesday.
The National Association of Realtors said millennials, or those between 18 and 34 years old, accounted for the largest share of home buyers last year at 32%, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. Millennials make up 23% of the U.S. population, according to separate data from the Census Bureau.
This is the third year of the survey, and the second year millennials had the top spot.
The median age of millennial homebuyers was 29, their median income was $76,900 and they typically bought a 1,720-square foot home costing $189,900.
Generation X, or those between 35 and 49, was closely behind with a 27% share. The median buyer in that group was 41 years old, had a median income of $104,600 and purchased a 1,890-square-foot home costing $250,000.
The median home purchase for all buyers was 1,870 square feet and cost $216,000.
According to the survey, 13% of all home purchases were by a multi-generational household, consisting of adult siblings, adult children, parents and/or grandparents.
More bizarre news, from CNBC:
Call the cops! This house is for sale…huh?
The competition in today’s housing market is suddenly fierce, so fierce that some are calling the cops.
“We got shut down!!” laughed Catherine Luther, an agent with Channing Real Estate in the Boston area. “I’ve been in this business for 30 years, and it’s never happened before.”
At a Saturday open house at her listing in suburban Belmont, she had over 100 people in 45 minutes, which blocked the street. Neighbors called police, who shut down the open house. Then Luther smartly hired an off-duty officer to direct traffic the next day for the Sunday open house. The officer counted more than 150 cars. The three-bedroom colonial house went under contract three days later with more than a dozen bids.
“It’s just that we’re lacking inventory. We really need more inventory. Prices are going up, and we just don’t have enough property to sell,” said Luther.
At a recent open house in Seattle, the story was nearly the same. The agent logged more than 100 potential buyers.
From the above, for Gary:
In January, Ramez Farag and Kim Mardenly sold their house in New Milford, New Jersey, in just four days. They have been trying to find a bigger home nearby to buy ever since then.
“The surprising part to me is how little the inventory there is. There’s just not that much up here,” said Farag. “A lot of houses you almost exclude because you kind of feel people are putting houses out at ridiculous numbers—you have to eliminate that. They are just throwing it out there, but for realistic houses, realistic numbers, there’s just not that much at all.”
From above, for Gary:
In January, Ramez Farag and Kim Mardenly sold their house in New M}lford, New Jersey, in just four days. They have been trying to find a bigger home nearby to buy ever since then.
“The surprising part to me is how little the inventory there is. There’s just not that much up here,” said Farag. “A lot of houses you almost exclude because you kind of feel people are putting houses out at ridiculous numbers—you have to eliminate that. They are just throwing it out there, but for realistic houses, realistic numbers, there’s just not that much at all.”
Porn for fast eddie. Music to his ears.
grim says:
March 16, 2015 at 7:26 am
From above, for Gary:
In January, Ramez Farag and Kim Mardenly sold their house in New M}lford, New Jersey, in just four days. They have been trying to find a bigger home nearby to buy ever since then.
“The surprising part to me is how little the inventory there is. There’s just not that much up here,” said Farag. “A lot of houses you almost exclude because you kind of feel people are putting houses out at ridiculous numbers—you have to eliminate that. They are just throwing it out there, but for realistic houses, realistic numbers, there’s just not that much at all.”
Shovel ready. And a good activity for a GTG if anon is coming.
http://www.odometer.com/lifestyle/9137/23-road-construction-fails-completely-lacking-common-sense#slide/20
The End Is Nigh (clot Haute Cuisine Edition):
http://pagesix.com/2015/03/16/drunk-executive-barfs-at-bergdorfs/?_ga=1.196430316.1364055461.1410925202
Grim, they are counting by volume rather than by value. That median home would be a sad little place in NJ. Especially the millennial median.
In contrast, the median Gen X household living in Florida earning over $100k/yr, and buying a $250k house would be doing pretty well. Within Florida that would be well above median.
37 contracts at $4M and above signed in second week of March
Last week saw 37 contracts signed at $4 million and above, for a total of 69 in March so far, a 44 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the latest Olshan Realty luxury report.
February set a record for most contracts at $4M and above signed, with 116 during the month.
This month, the priciest deal was PHSouth at 155 West 11th Street, a building in Rudin Management’s Greenwich Lane complex. With an asking price of $45 million, this is the most expensive apartment ever sold in the five-building, five-townhouse development on the former St. Vincent’s hospital site, working out to $8,054 per foot. The report also claims this is the priciest sale ever in Greenwich Village. The 16th and 17th floor unit has four bedrooms and spans 5,587 square feet.
The second priciest contract was for an Upper East Side brownstone at 26 East 80th Street, which sold within a month of being listed at $21 million. The five-story, 23-foot-wide property features six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and seven wood-burning fireplaces. — Tess Hofmann
grim [3],
I sure as he11 hope the sellers had a contingency in their contract or else they’ll be living in a hotel room for a loooong time. They’ll enter the acceptance stage soon enough.
(2) When I was in Boston suburbs 2 weeks for son and DIL looking at houses, we did stop by 1 open house, on a Saturday. This was a starter colonial $620k. People were parking around the block, no room to park near house. So many people in and out that it looked like an evening party.
2 weeks = 2 weeks ago
Great story. Joyce will love this one. This was the pool I was talking about. Here it is.
“They were everywhere, 11 cops in full body armor, tearing apart his modest three-bedroom condo. And all John Bovery could do was watch.
They knocked down a closet shelf. They ripped down a wall inside the laundry room. They even used a box cutter to shred a bedroom pillow. Finally, when the search didn’t produce the evidence they expected, one of them demanded answers.
“Where is the cash?” he asked Bovery, who said he was handcuffed and seated in a recliner in his living room. “Where are the betting slips?”
Bovery tried, once again, to explain. He was not a bookmaker. He was not hiding anything. He was a football pool operator who was so open about his business, and so convinced he was doing it legally, that he listed his home address in Parlin on the pool’s website.”
http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/03/the_800000_office_pool_how_a_teacher_got_busted_an.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured
@PaulaSlier_RT: Former PM Ehud Barack endorses Labor leader Isaac Herzog.
Don’t deposit any cash into your bank accounts….. My mortgage company made me write a letter explaining what it was for, what was the source, biggest pain in the neck.
———-
Tips from the 25 Most Influential Real Estate and Mortgage Pros on Google+
Tip #5: Do’s and Don’ts for a Slam Dunk Mortgage Approval
Terry S. Smith, Real Estate Agent at Rain Dance Realty in Phoenix, Arizona. Bragging rights: 30,000 views on Youtube.
4 Keys to getting a home loan, or refinancing your existing home:
1. Keep making rent, or mortgage payment on time.
2. Keep working at your current job.
3. Stay current on all existing credit accounts.
4. Keep saving money for closing costs, down payment.
14 things NOT to do when getting a home loan:
1. Don’t deposit any cash into your bank accounts.
2. Don’t buy any furniture or appliances.
3. Don’t apply for any new credit cards.
4. Don’t close any credit cards, or lines of credit.
5. Don’t consolidate debt onto one credit card.
6. Don’t max out, or go over your credit card limit.
7. Don’t pay off any loans, unless required by lender.
8. Don’t open new bank accounts, or change existing.
9. Don’t make a major purchase; car, boat, pool, jewelry.
10. Don’t transfer any balances into different accounts.
11. Don’t finance any elective medical procedures.
12. Don’t open a new cell phone account.
13. Don’t dispute any credit issues, if an account shows disputed on your credit report, it must be paid off.
Tip #25: Watch out for Car Loans, Student Loans as a 20- and 30-Something Homebuyer
Tim Lucas, Mortgage Expert at MyMortgageInsider.com and author of ebook The Complete Home Buying Guide for Gen X and Millennials. Bragging rights: I have the honor of featuring the 25 most influential Google+ real estate and mortgage professionals.
Having worked with many young people trying to break into homeownership, I know one of your major struggles is overcoming debt payments you’ve already incurred before you go to buy a home. Lenders have to factor in all monthly payments and make sure you’re able to repay the mortgage while handling all other debt.
Car payments can be a killer when you apply for a home loan. Did you know that a $400 car payment reduces buying power by $100,000? So a young home buyer incurring a fairly normal auto loan may have to buy a fixer-upper instead of the home they really want, or a condo instead of a single family home – all because of that new car.
But maybe it’s not that impulse purchase that keeps you from buying a home. Maybe it’s student loan debt. This type of debt is a reality and in some cases a necessity. We’re seeing delinquency rates on student loans skyrocket. Just a few late payments on student loans could keep you from buying a home. Find a way to make all your student loan payments (and all other payments) faithfully, even if it means delaying your home buying aspirations.
http://mymortgageinsider.com/tips-from-top-25-real-estate-and-mortgage-pros-on-google/
[11] Pumpkin
That’s chump change. Warren Buffet’s pool is $1B.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/news/buffett-ncaa-bracket-bet/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ny-jets-cant-quit-darrelle-revis-2015-03-16?link=MW_home_latest_news
#3,
For once, the real story comes out in the paper. Price, not inventory, is major problem. You price at 2003-2004 levels and you will sell. Ask above 2005 and you are waiting for sucker. Unfortunately there are enough out there from my recent experience. I just paid 13% below the 2005 bubbly price. House would have had multiple offers if I had waited three more days. People were showing up in middle of my inspection. Luckily I was under contract two days earlier.
“Opponents of trade promotion authority said such agreements have made it easier for manufacturing jobs to flee New Jersey for foreign countries that pay much lower salaries, helping to boost corporate profits at the expense of American workers. They argue that the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico championed by another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, proves their point.
“I feel I’m reliving a bad dream,” said the president of the N.J. State AFL-CIO, Charlie Wowkanech, who recently accompanied 50 of the state’s union members to Washington to lobby against free-trade authority.
Unions spent more than $15 million to re-elect Obama in 2012, and Wowkanech said it was “very disconcerting” to see the president champion free trade.”
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/rep_norcross_sides_with_unions_against_president_o.html#incart_river
Since we are joking about the latest NAR propaganda as in the Millennials driving up home purchases, might as well toss some stats out there too.
Sell? Sell to Whom?
“Opinion: America is full of slackers and deadbeats who won’t work”
“The unemployment rate isn’t 5.5%, as the government claims. The real unemployment rate is over 35%, they say, because about 102 million people aren’t working, including about 9 million who are officially counted as unemployed and the 93 million who’ve given up.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/america-is-full-of-slackers-and-deadbeats-who-wont-work-2015-03-13
Please don’t feed Gary.
Pumpkin, they buried the lede, and you missed it. They busted him on day 1 of the season, so they could grab some $850k in cash. Including his savings… one might come to think they wanted to make sure he couldn’t pay for a lawyer or something… {/eye roll}
Kind of like how the southern cops looking to stop Mexican drug runners do 98% of their policing on the southbound side… they want to seize cash, not pot and powder.
[17] punkin,
“Wowkanech said it was “very disconcerting” to see the president champion free trade.”
I told guys just like him back in 2008, just wait, you’ll be under the bus. They said I was delusional.
[1] $189,900/$76,900 = 2.469, pretty close to 2.5x income. Obviously these median sales aren’t occurring in blue states, but like it or not that is how the numbers should work out for “almost OK” places to live.
The median age of millennial homebuyers was 29, their median income was $76,900 and they typically bought a 1,720-square foot home costing $189,900.
[22] ^^^^ The problem starts for you guys when Northern NJ drops below “OK” . I guess you can look far West (to Stroudsburg) and Far South to Brick, click your heels three times and say, “That can’t happen here, that can’t happen here, that can’t happen here.”
2.4 x income. I know, I know, grim will say there is no such thing as a median house or a median income or property taxes.
Generation X, or those between 35 and 49, was closely behind with a 27% share. The median buyer in that group was 41 years old, had a median income of $104,600 and purchased a 1,890-square-foot home costing $250,000.
Lowest price to income ratios in NJ are in the top tier towns. It’s the low tier towns that are a horror show.
Short Hills price to income: 4.4x
Paterson price to income: 9.3x
Upper Montclair in at 4.1x, I’m sure that’ll cause an uproar.
That’s why I said that Joyce will love this one. Totally corrupt move to take the money. The economy crashed in 08 and Christie and his boys were looking for any money they could find. Well they found this guy’s operation and took it all and some. It’s funny, they didn’t arrest him when they found out about the operation (obviously he would not have collected money in the offseason), but waited until week 1 of the season. Crooks!!! Ruined this guys life for no reason whatsoever. He had to do jail time for what? Our legal system is a joke. Other guys (white collar crimes) steal millions and get no jail time at all. Best part, they only get a fine that totals 5% of the money they stole. Of course you will steal if the fine is only a small percentage of the pot you stole.
Anon E. Moose says:
March 16, 2015 at 11:49 am
Pumpkin, they buried the lede, and you missed it. They busted him on day 1 of the season, so they could grab some $850k in cash. Including his savings… one might come to think they wanted to make sure he couldn’t pay for a lawyer or something… {/eye roll}
Kind of like how the southern cops looking to stop Mexican drug runners do 98% of their policing on the southbound side… they want to seize cash, not pot and powder.
Nothing to see here….
Chris Christie Officials Sent Pension Money To Subsidiary of Donor’s Foreign Firm
Two years ago, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pursued re-election, his administration found itself mulling investment options for the state’s $80 billion pension fund. In one deal in May 2013, officials settled on a subsidiary of U.K.-based foreign financial conglomerate Prudential plc. With little fanfare, state pension overseers quickly endorsed the deal.
Weeks later, a Hong Kong-based executive director and board member of Prudential plc delivered a maximum $3,800 contribution to Christie’s gubernatorial campaign, followed by a maximum $32,400 donation to the Republican National Committee, which was about to launch a get-out-the-vote effort for Christie. Two months after that, New Jersey began moving public employees’ retirement savings into two funds managed by the Prudential subsidiary as part of the state’s new $300 million investment commitment to the company.
http://www.ibtimes.com/chris-christie-officials-sent-pension-money-subsidiary-donors-foreign-firm-1847744
Prudential? As in headquartered in NJ Prudential? They are almost a household name in NJ.
re: # 29 – “Nothing to see here….”
Wheeling of money has become a fine art in New Jersey. The solution is we should eliminate all limits on contributions but require that they be made anonymously. How can there be payback if you don’t know who to pay?
#30…”The British insurer and financial services company (which is not related to Newark’s Prudential Financial) joins an extensive list of companies that received New Jersey pension money around the time firm executives made donations to Christie’s political apparatus and other Republican groups”
I’d much rather see Christie invest the money in Prudential rather than what Corzine did, which was to invest a decent chunk into Lehman Brothers days before it went belly up. Baa.
29- Once again, this highlights how the gov worker is getting robbed from every angle. People rag on workers for their glorious pension and I have to wonder why. Are you really jealous of someone being forced to contribute to a fund that they will never see? Better yet, forced to pay into a fund that gets charged outrageous fees to produce crappy results. Those money managers made off more on the pension system than any low level govt worker ever did. So wrong, but hey, hasn’t history always portrayed a story of a few robbing the majority. Happened in every single society, since the beginning of time. Diff system and players, but same result; a few killing it as the expense of the majority.
Bystander [16],
This is why I cut the cord. I told all resources that I appreciate the time and effort but I am done. I’ll die in the house I’m in and will count my blessings. After many years of contemplating a move, having my house sold only to retract, I am done. If the bottom falls out and interest rates rise considerably and everything does a 180, I may take a whiff. Otherwise, I thanked all resources and told them I… am… out.
Grim [26];
Patterson price/income: you know better than to divide by zero.
Gary….sound move.
Gman,
You are doing right thing. Stay put. I had to buy but feel fortunate to find quality in my price range without having a bid war f* it up.
Here is the house that made me rush to find something. I saw it in Nov. and pictures are so misleading. Street is long and feels like you are entering white trash fishbowl. Properties jammed in all around and most were run down splits and tiny capes. Really weird feel to area. House itself had terrible layout. They opened up kitchen and lost living room space. Notice love seat is the couch. The chair and ottoman almost block half entry into kitchen. Kitchen looks updated but worn bc cheap stuff. Downstairs had strange step up to one of baths and walls were disgusting. Backyard was tiny and no privacy. They listed at 500k last year after paying 415k in early 2005. I said to myself no way anyone would pay more than 390k for that place. They dropped to 490k a month later and went under contract late Dec Sold for $480k in early Feb. I was beyond shocked. 15% gain for absolute dump. Lit my fire to get moving bc morons seemed back and inflated appraisals must be vogue again.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/351-Hunyadi-Ave-Fairfield-CT-06824/57294098_zpid/
This must have hurt…talk about getting fleeced.
http://nypost.com/2015/03/13/hedgie-steve-cohen-an-unwitting-player-in-art-sale-controversy/
Fast Eddie, what do you think of this house? Still complaining about the prices in our area? This is my wife’s friends home that they just bought. Over a million dollars for a little over 1,000 sq ft on a 5000 sq ft lot. These are millennials by the way. They are 33 and turning 34 this year.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3522-Casanova-Dr-San-Mateo-CA-94403/15539055_zpid/
Whoever moves strictly on the basis of taxes is most likely making a terrible mistake.
“High-Income Earners
Best states. If you earn a lot of money, especially if you work remotely and that income isn’t tied to being in a particular location, you’ll have the lowest income-tax burden if you live in one of the states that doesn’t tax income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Washington or Wyoming.
Still very good. Eight other states have relatively low income-tax burdens for singles: North Dakota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island. Here’s what they charge:”
“Worst states. High-income earners might want to think carefully about the cost of working in California, Oregon, Maine, Iowa, Hawaii, Idaho, Arkansas, South Carolina, Minnesota and North Carolina. These states tax married couples earning the median income at a rate of 5.8% or more.”
“The Bottom Line
Despite the significant impact they can have on your finances, tax rates are often a minor factor in deciding which state to live in. Most people care more about living near family, living in a pleasant climate, living where they have the best job opportunities and other factors that aren’t always financial. But when more than one state offers you a compelling reason to live there, its tax burden might be the deciding factor.”
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/110414/states-biggest-and-smallest-tax-burden.asp
here’s to the new boss, same as the old boss . . .
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/16/white-house-foia-regulations-deleted/24844253/
How’s that hope and change thing working out for ya?
We are all doomed…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlcm1el1D0
Proof that dems and republicans play for the same team. Good cop/bad cop strategy. They never follow through on what they say, so what difference does it make for who you vote for. How is Obama any different than Bush. Please explain.
Comrade Nom Deplume, the anon-tidote says:
March 16, 2015 at 10:50 pm
here’s to the new boss, same as the old boss . . .
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/16/white-house-foia-regulations-deleted/24844253/
How’s that hope and change thing working out for ya?
“Senator O’Toole sounds a lot like Senator Baroni when he testified and said that the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge was a traffic study,” Lesniak said, referring to Bill Baroni, a former state senator. Baroni was deputy executive of the Port Authority when access lanes were closed to the bridge in an apparent act of political retribution against the town’s mayor.
The Senate chamber erupted in cries of outrage and scattered laughter. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) had to step in.
“Senator, we cannot allow that. … Please,” he told Lesniak.
“Quite frankly I was offended. I was offended by the diversionary tactics,” Lesniak responded.
That’s when O’Toole stood back up, visibly angry.
“I thought I was respectful in my comments. To have Sen. Lesniak attack me? I’m equal as everybody else,” he said. “For him to point me out is a disgrace. He should be reprimanded.”
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/lesniak_and_otoole_get_into_it_on_nj_senate_floor.html#incart_river
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/lesniak_and_otoole_get_into_it_on_nj_senate_floor.html#incart_river
Why are republicans blocking this? Dumb move.
“PORT AUTHORITY VETO OVERRIDE FAILS
An attempted override of Christie’s veto of a Port Authority reform bill fell short Monday in the state Senate.
State Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), long an ally of Christie’s, criticized the governor.
And see the Republican lawmakers who changed their votes.”
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/nj_politics_roundup_christie_pension_appeal_port_authority_veto_override.html#incart_story_package
Fantastic article. I’m sure a lot of you will enjoy this. I’m going to post the article in two posts so that it is not too big.
“Those like Professor Paul Krugman, who argue that the situation of the US economy is analogous to 1995, overlook the fact that the current benchmark interest rate is near zero, not around 5%. (An increase from zero to one or two percent can only be considered a drastic shock by those who have relied too long on free money.)
The reality is that despite the progressively accommodative policy stance of the Fed over 35 years, the rates of return on assets and on invested capital of US firms have continued to decline.
It is true that labor market conditions have appeared to improve in recent years, with a lower official unemployment rate, but hey folks, let’s not kid ourselves: we all know that the real unemployment rate is well over 10%. It only appears to be around 5% because many people have dropped out of the job market altogether.
That in turn is due to the fact that the aggregate growth in jobs at the high end of the market has been negligible. Almost all of the job growth in the US in recent years has been at the low end.
One reason is that established firms have consistently been net job destroyers over the last 25 years. Thus the cheap money that the Fed passed on to big corporations had no positive effect on employment, as we had hoped.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/03/16/should-the-fed-tell-the-truth/
“So where did all the cheap money that the Fed has been providing actually go, if it wasn’t used to create jobs? Good question! We are glad that you asked. The answers are now clear.
Let’s begin by noting that the funds have not been going into capital investment, which has also been in steady decline over the last 35 years. It seems possible steadily declining interest rates have undermined the incentive for companies to go into high risk/high return investments and has contributed to a weakening of the entrepreneurial spirit in the corporate world.
This is corroborated by the fact that a significant part of the easy money has gone increasingly into share buybacks– often bought at the top of the market—from practically zero in 1980 to some $6.9 trillion from 2004 to 2013.
The nature and macro-economic scale of these share buybacks lead us to agree with the Harvard Business Review which has called the practice “in effect, stock price manipulation” and with The Economist which has labeled it “corporate cocaine.”
The practice of massive share buybacks in turn appears to be related to stock-based executive compensation which has soared, in an inverse relationship to real corporate performance.
All of this leads us to conclude that our accommodative monetary policy stance has done little to stimulate the real economy or create full employment. It has instead benefited traders and speculators, as well as senior executives who have tended the health of their bonuses rather than the long-term financial health of the organizations for which they are responsible.
We have come to agree with those who, like former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, suggest that, despite the booming stock market, our policies have created rents for incumbents rather than real economic growth with real products and services for real people. It is sad but necessary for us to recognize that our policies have encouraged zero-sum games that benefit hedge funds and short-term investors. These practices are unhealthy both for the real American economy and for the long-term prosperity of the American people. They also undermine the twin goals of the Fed: financial stability and full employment.
In this regard, the behavior of the nation’s biggest banks has been particularly egregious. Pervasive shortcomings in the values of large financial firms have undermined their safety and soundness. Although the American people expect banks to follow the law and act ethically, all too often in recent years, bankers at large institutions have not done so, sometimes brazenly.
It is true, as some have suggested, that the Fed’s intensified supervision of the big banks has effectively nationalized our banking system. This is correct, but necessary when the big banks engage in massive money laundering, tax evasion, selling securities designed to fail, price fixing of LIBOR, foreclosure abuses, reckless trading in derivatives, among other serious problems. After all, someone has to be the adult in the room.
Since the Fed’s accommodative policies have had the opposite effect of what we intended, we should not continue them. We must recognize, like Pogo, that “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
So we have decided to come clean and admit that we have made a bit of a mess of things. The good news is that we avoided another Great Depression, but in the process, we helped create the appearance of prosperity rather than the reality. We have now painted ourselves into a corner from which there is no easy way out.
It would be nice if we could find a moment when there were clear blue skies and we could raise rates without risk to the fragile economic recovery. But we have come to see that those clear blue skies will never come. The surge in the dollar and the collapse in oil prices, alongside disappointing economic data and worrying economic news from other countries, are just the beginning of an extended period of disturbing economic news. As a result, there will never be a right time to raise rates. Hence we have decided to start raising them as of today.
This may come as a shock to those who were expecting increases in the interest rate to come much later. We believe that an increase from zero to one or two percent cannot objectively be considered as a major shock. Nevertheless, even if there is a sharp recession, we will not be deterred from raising interest rates, which we believe to be a necessary step if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crash if we continue the current accommodative monetary policy.
In future, we will be examining the bond, stock and asset bubbles for which our policies have been partly responsible. We recognize that our actions in raising interest rates may even cause a panic in institutions with computerized trading programs based on the assumption that easy money would continue indefinitely. This may lead to many hedge funds having yet another bad year. Welcome to capitalism! Let’s be clear: the Fed will no longer be providing free money to gamble with.
The point is that raising rates must happen sooner or later, and when it does, it will expose the structural weakness of an economy built on free government money and zero-sum games benefiting speculators and the wealthy. So why not now?
Our hope that the economy would spontaneously heal itself of its own accord has not materialized. We have decided to face this reality and get the country on a path of real growth and recovery, sooner rather than later. We realize that some may consider this harsh economic medicine but that is what our economy needs if it is to become whole again.
We will be urging the captains of industry to set aside their short-term focus on maximizing shareholder value as reflected in the current stock price. We agree with GE’s former CEO Jack Welch that this is possibly “the dumbest idea in the world.” We will be suggesting that they spend less time on financial engineering and more time on generating the real long-term value of their organizations for shareholders, by innovating and generating real value for customers. We will be suggesting that they share the gain from productivity improvements with their workers, rather than retaining all of it for themselves.
We will be recommending that boards of directors review compensation policies and ensure that they are consistent with the policy goals of real economic growth.
We will be advising our colleagues in the SEC to reverse the 1982 regulation (Rule 10b-18 of the SEC Act) that has facilitated large-scale stock price manipulation through share buybacks.
We will be urging our colleagues in the legislative branch of government to redress its shocking failure to invest in and repair the nation’s infrastructure at a time of low interest rates.
To our European colleagues, who, even as we speak, are following our example and heading down the primrose path of easy-money dalliance, we will be suggesting that they give more attention to fiscal stimuli to rectify the recession that misguided austerity policies have generated. We will be suggesting that they also give greater attention to stricter banking supervision, as some of their banks continue to fail the stress tests that we have been applying in this country.
In saying these things, we recognize that the Fed itself has not been blameless. We are sorry to have been slow in recognizing that our accommodative monetary policy has mainly been a boon for the .1%, and has directly led to a dramatic rise in economic inequality, as well as having had a crushing effect of their interest rate policies on people living on fixed incomes or people just trying to save their money.
We recognize that in important respects we have failed. But the first step towards redressing failure is to admit it and confess that we haven’t been telling you the truth for some years.
We have decided to make a bold new start and level with you about what is really going on. We believe that as a result we will be a stronger and more prosperous nation.
Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action: unanimous.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/03/16/should-the-fed-tell-the-truth/
This really makes me sick. To sum up the article; so the low cost of capital has not been passed on to workers as higher wages nor into corporate investment in production or innovation but simply used to buy back stocks
Love this quote, “corporate cocaine”. Yes, indeed.
“The nature and macro-economic scale of these share buybacks lead us to agree with the Harvard Business Review which has called the practice “in effect, stock price manipulation” and with The Economist which has labeled it “corporate cocaine.””
From our friends over at FauxBusiness News. Happy St Paddy’s Day, started out with soda bread and going to have a taste of Red Breasted at lunch, hopefully stop at 2 of them.
———
Spring 2015 Home-Buying Guide: 5 Insider Tips From Real Estate Pros Across the Country
#1: Close That Laptop—and Canvass Old-Fashioned Open Houses
#2: Educate Yourself on Market Values and Trends
#3: Nab Low Mortgage Rates—Now
#4: Build Your Home-Buying Dream Team Before You Bid
#5: Keep Sweeten-the-Deal Moves in Mind
So you’ve finally found that dream Tudor on a half-acre—but you’re stuck in a bidding war with another equally prepared buyer. How do you win by a nose?
For one, include an escalation clause, along with your offer, suggests Seaton. This is an amount that you’d automatically be willing to pay above a competing bid.
For example, let’s say you add an escalation clause of $3,000 to your bid of $200,000. If a second offer comes in at $205,000, your bid would get bumped to $208,000. If you’re in a hot market, a significant escalation factor could really pique seller interest, Seaton adds.
Yocum also suggests seeing if there are contingency clauses you’re willing to forego in your real estate contract. Contingencies are terms of a contract that must be met or the buyer or seller can walk away from the deal; home inspection, appraisal and financing contingencies are among the most common.
To be sure, “all of these have various levels of risk that not all buyers are willing to accept, and you should consult with your team before [removing] any of them,” he cautions. After all, you want to protect your earnest money if you suddenly realize your dream home has termites, or an appraiser discovers you’re paying far more than market value.
That said, doing due diligence prep work can help you feel better about removing contingencies.
For instance, getting fully approved for a mortgage can help you remove the financing contingency, says Seaton. “And absolutely conduct a pre-inspection prior to making an offer, so that you do not need a home inspection contingency in the offer,” he adds.
There are also smaller carrots you can offer, such as finding out when the seller prefers to close and using that closing date in your contract, says Yocum. Or close as quickly as possible and offer to accept rent payments from the sellers, adds Clark.
All these perks can add up to much more than you think. Seaton, for instance, represented a seller earlier this year who ultimately went with a lower bid because the offer had no contingencies. “We see this very often,” he says. “Many sellers prefer no risk to a few more dollars.”
Ultimately, what all the advice boils down to is making sure you don’t get caught unprepared when that perfect property is finally up for grabs.
“The name of the game,” Seaton says, “is very much figure out what you want; get your financing straightened; and when the right property comes along, be ready to pounce—and quickly.”
Amen!!! Esp, this quote; “We will be suggesting that they share the gain from productivity improvements with their workers, rather than retaining all of it for themselves”.
“Our hope that the economy would spontaneously heal itself of its own accord has not materialized. We have decided to face this reality and get the country on a path of real growth and recovery, sooner rather than later. We realize that some may consider this harsh economic medicine but that is what our economy needs if it is to become whole again.
We will be urging the captains of industry to set aside their short-term focus on maximizing shareholder value as reflected in the current stock price. We agree with GE’s former CEO Jack Welch that this is possibly “the dumbest idea in the world.” We will be suggesting that they spend less time on financial engineering and more time on generating the real long-term value of their organizations for shareholders, by innovating and generating real value for customers. We will be suggesting that they share the gain from productivity improvements with their workers, rather than retaining all of it for themselves.
We will be recommending that boards of directors review compensation policies and ensure that they are consistent with the policy goals of real economic growth.
We will be advising our colleagues in the SEC to reverse the 1982 regulation (Rule 10b-18 of the SEC Act) that has facilitated large-scale stock price manipulation through share buybacks.
We will be urging our colleagues in the legislative branch of government to redress its shocking failure to invest in and repair the nation’s infrastructure at a time of low interest rates.”
Considering Workers retirements and college savings plans are now based on how well stocks perform what’s the difference?
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:22 am
This really makes me sick. To sum up the article; so the low cost of capital has not been passed on to workers as higher wages nor into corporate investment in production or innovation but simply used to buy back stocks
Is your degree worth it?
It depends what you study, not where
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21646220-it-depends-what-you-study-not-where
Not true. The economy needs that money put in the workers hands NOW. We need got damn demand. All the free money going to the top is not doing anything for the economy except make the people at the top richer, hence increasing income inequality. All this mess can be solved if industry started paying their workers instead of selling them out by shipping their jobs in the name of more profit. We are already seeing the impact of this. It will log jam the economy into barely any growth or deflation. If the customers are on a tighter budget every year, how in the hell are you going to get growth? From the 1% investing in nothing? There is nothing to invest in if you do not have some form of growth. The only way to create growth is from demand. This is not rocket science here. This has nothing to do with jealousy of the 1%’s wealth and everything to do with fixing the overall economy. Why can’t people get this? Why is it so freaking hard to understand?
JJ says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:35 am
Considering Workers retirements and college savings plans are now based on how well stocks perform what’s the difference?
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:22 am
This really makes me sick. To sum up the article; so the low cost of capital has not been passed on to workers as higher wages nor into corporate investment in production or innovation but simply used to buy back stocks
[54] Libturd
For the life of me, I don’t understand how parents let their children go to an Ivy for a Liberal Arts degree (art, English,, history) and take out student loans in order to attend. They will graduate with a degree that will barely service their $80k+ student loan debt. You are setting your kids up.
Because people without jobs don’t buy stocks. Because people with crappy jobs don’t buy stocks. Because those people can’t save for much let alone college for their kids. That’s the difference.
Oh wait, I forgot the US ends after Long Island and Manhattan… and I live in a different country/world than you.
JJ says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:35 am
Considering Workers retirements and college savings plans are now based on how well stocks perform what’s the difference?
Agree to an extent. Yes, math and science are the way to go, but there is a def difference in going to MIT or some no name school tech school in Indiana.
Libturd in Union says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:35 am
Is your degree worth it?
It depends what you study, not where
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21646220-it-depends-what-you-study-not-where
It seems you Garden Staters are a pretty well behaved bunch today.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102493363
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. Slainte!
You can’t even understand it. So there’s that…
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:46 am
Why can’t people get this? Why is it so freaking hard to understand?
[50] punkin,
There are a great many reasons for stock buybacks. I won’t profess that I know or understand them all. But here is a tax related issue to consider: corporations are penalized quite heavily for hoarding cash. There is an additional, punitive, tax on excess cash over a certain percentage. Consequently, corporations must do something with that cash lest they pay this punitive tax.
Is that a factor in stock buybacks? I can’t see how it wouldn’t be. Is it the only factor? I doubt it, but it is worthy of consideration.
Pumpkin Seed,
Condolences to your friends out there in San Mateo. A million plus for a bungalow is not my cup of tea.
[61] Comrade
Or you could simply hold your cash offshore.
————–
Apple and Microsoft among US tech giants reaping interest payments on offshore cash
The US government makes vast interest payments to technology giants including Apple and Microsoft on the billions of dollars they shelter from tax offshore.
A trawl of Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosures shows that Apple, Microsoft, Google and Cisco Systems hold $163 billion in US government debt, earning these companies substantial sums in interest.
This means American taxpayers in effect pay interest to tech giants on their offshore cash which is held there for tax reduction purposes.
There is no suggestion that any of the companies’ activities are in any way unlawful.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/03/12/apple-and-microsoft-among-us-tech-giants-reaping-interest-payments-on-offshore-cash/
—-
Fun Number; Apple Has Twice As Much Cash As The US Government
And, for good measure, Microsoft has more cash at hand that Uncle Sam does. That’s the finding from US Trust at least, that the two companies, along with several others, have more real moolah available to them than the government itself does. It’s a very fun number, to be sure, but it’s not quite right for a number of economic reasons. It’s true that when you look at the balance sheets then Apple, say, has $160 billion in cash available, that Microsoft MSFT -0.41% has a little under $85 billion and the Treasury only has $49 billion to hand to keep the government working.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/04/13/fun-number-apple-has-twice-as-much-cash-as-the-us-government/
Xolepa’s kid is right wing but attends an ultra liberal college cause of the brand name of the school
Libturd in Union says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:35 am
Is your degree worth it?
It depends what you study, not where
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21646220-it-depends-what-you-study-not-where
Slick! Nice move. Always enjoy your wittiness.
Sorry though, I have beat the drum endlessly on those issues listed in that article for the past 2 years on this blog. Haven’t done it lately, but I used to bring up these issues on the regular and was laughed at on a regular basis. Still stand by wage inflation for the simple fact that the economy can not improve or grow without it. This article shows that this thought process is going main stream.
joyce says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:57 am
You can’t even understand it. So there’s that…
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 9:46 am
Why can’t people get this? Why is it so freaking hard to understand?
Rising real wages are a good thing when they are the consequence of rising productivity and supply and demand for labor.
Rising real wages can be a real problem when they are simply the result of government mandates and regulation. See the data in Brazil, where the leftist parties have been forcing up labor costs beyond the breaking point, hiking minimum wages, employment taxes, mandatory benefits, etc. The data suggests it’s pumpkinhead’s utopia, with real labor costs rising at least twice as fast as real GDP for at least the past 5 years if not longer.
The actual result is a big mess. Slowing GDP growth, rising inflation, companies whose profits are so weak that survival is more the question than expansion. A stock market in the tank. A currency that’s fallen in half. People protesting in the streets, some against the heavy hand of government, even more people protesting because they’re looking for even bigger government handouts/mandates, after the government has already squeezed a lot of the profits out of the private and semi-private sector.
“Considering Workers retirements and college savings plans are now based on how well stocks perform what’s the difference?”.
My pension is going to be rental property positive cash flow and neither of my children are going to attend college (trade and military routes).
OK, all pile on JJ! ;). Hey, it’s St. Paddy’s day!
We know it’s not your cup of tea, but the point is that the market doesn’t care what you think, it only cares about the bids and the ask.
Fast Eddie says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:01 am
Pumpkin Seed,
Condolences to your friends out there in San Mateo. A million plus for a bungalow is not my cup of tea.
70- Also, don’t feel bad for them. They will prob make more money on the appreciation of their land than most places in the world.
Rags, all their problems are a result of a strong dollar that was borrowed when the dollar was weak. Nothing to do with labor costs, sorry.
“The actual result is a big mess. Slowing GDP growth, rising inflation, companies whose profits are so weak that survival is more the question than expansion. A stock market in the tank. A currency that’s fallen in half. People protesting in the streets, some against the heavy hand of government, even more people protesting because they’re looking for even bigger government handouts/mandates, after the government has already squeezed a lot of the profits out of the private and semi-private sector.”
58, you are dead wrong. Yes there is some cache to the better schools, yes it leads to better initial jobs but in reality, mid career the difference is small for the most part the MIT grad has only a slightly better career path. I went to a top school and the truth is while I make a little bit more money than my peers, most of them went to plain state schools. In the sciences and engineering the state schools do a pretty good job and the demand is there, after your first few jobs your education is largely irrelevant. I know plenty of people who went to top Schools(CMU for CSE) who are paid less than people who went to fairly mediocre schools(Stony Brook). It is all about the value the employee provides.
Rags, you can thank the fed for why they are rioting in Brazil.
[67] McNJT
The ROTC program/scholarships are a good route. Being an officer is much better than regular military IMHO.
It’s all about trying to get your foot in the door of a good company right out of college. If you are google, who will you hire first, the MIT graduate or the stoney brook graduate? Getting a leg up in experience at an early age is all the difference. Later on in life after you have been in the field for 10 years, your experience and skills are all that matter. Getting your foot in the door is the tough part. MIT increases your odds dramatically.
jcer says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:33 am
58, you are dead wrong. Yes there is some cache to the better schools, yes it leads to better initial jobs but in reality, mid career the difference is small for the most part the MIT grad has only a slightly better career path. I went to a top school and the truth is while I make a little bit more money than my peers, most of them went to plain state schools. In the sciences and engineering the state schools do a pretty good job and the demand is there, after your first few jobs your education is largely irrelevant. I know plenty of people who went to top Schools(CMU for CSE) who are paid less than people who went to fairly mediocre schools(Stony Brook). It is all about the value the employee provides.
…it only cares about the bids and the ask.
And doesn’t the real estate syndicate know that all too well! What do we have to do to get you in this house today.
Here’s the Economist article below which makes Brazil look like NJ.
Yet the writer makes significant mistakes, unable to think outside of the “demand side” box that makes most modern economists so destructive and confused.
Thus he doesn’t grasp why the chart of public sector real wages rising 50% over the past 10 years while real GDP rose about 13% is economy-destructive, since in pinhead-world, this is supposed to “stimulate demand” and automatically be good for the economy.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21645248-brazils-fiscal-and-monetary-levers-are-jammed-result-it-risks-getting-stuck
Haha, the great omniscient Pumpkin trying to educate me about Brazil. You’ve also been professionally investing in and analyzing Brazil for more than 20 years?
I’m looking forward to seeing the audited results of your upcoming hedge fund benefiting from your amazing predictive powers.
Oh come on. Plug is only down 10% today.
When I was in business school, we were taught stock buybacks by a Company were a good thing…why?
Because a company is saying hey, we are not going to go the “conglomerate” route and try to take over the world by expanding into sectors outside of our “core competency” (i.e., we don’t have any better ideas for expansion/growth and aren’t going to simply buy up other companies or start new business lines that we don’t think provide the appropriate ROI just because we are sitting on a pile of cash).
The buyback increases the value of the stock (great for the shareholder), creates more liquidity and effectively lets shareholders decide what to do with that excess cash (e.g., sell your stock and do what you want with it) as opposed to forcing the company to put it to work when they don’t think they have an appropriate risk-adjusted idea for how to spend it.
35,
Good move Gary. 4 walls and a roof is all you really need. In a few years you will be sitting with your feet up sipping cold drinks while the sad face muppets are working to pay property taxes.
AG,
It’s funny, I was thinking last night that the sad state of the market which deterred me from buying actually saved me from creating a huge financial blunder. How ironic. I’m out. I retired from this bullsh1t.
I still get one feed and saw yet another horrendous Tandy and Allen disaster listed at 65oK. I just really had to laugh. The market here is such a f.ucking mess and I thank G0d I came to my senses.
Hoboken Condos On Fire
I spent another weekend showing lovely condo properties to Hoboken buyers. Once again, every place we visited had or was about to have multiple offers by the end of the weekend (or so said the listing agent, but that’s another story). This scenario has become par for the course in the Hoboken condo market. The usual way this plays out is that the seller instructs the listing agent to hold “final and best” by a certain time – say, 5pm on Tuesday. This lets all the interested parties go home, write up an offer and submit their best bid by the deadline. It’s most commonly a blind bidding process so one buyer doesn’t know what any of the other buyers are submitting. The seller reviews all the bids with the listing agent after the deadline and selects the one with the combination of best price and most attractive terms. Often times, today, a high cash component will trump a slightly higher sales price as it avoids issues down the line when the property doesn’t appraise for the agreed upon sales price. The seller knows the buyer has the additional cash to complete the sale.
http://hobokenrealestatenews.com/2015/03/16/ready-set-bid-the-race-for-hoboken-condos/
I work in Hoboken. When the weather is good I’ll stroll around and every real estate office (there are hundreds) are littered with fliers in the windows of condos and apartments for sale. That’s an advertisment, not an article.
You can thank for the Federal Reserve System for the income inequality pre- and post 07/08 financial crisis. They didn’t save the economy, they saved the 1% … and you want more of it.
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:34 am
Rags, you can thank the fed for why they are rioting in Brazil.
Does business school teach companies to borrow to buy back cash? It’s not like every company is flush with cash from operations.
ccb223 says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:54 am
When I was in business school, we were taught stock buybacks by a Company were a good thing…why?
Because a company is saying hey, we are not going to go the “conglomerate” route and try to take over the world by expanding into sectors outside of our “core competency” (i.e., we don’t have any better ideas for expansion/growth and aren’t going to simply buy up other companies or start new business lines that we don’t think provide the appropriate ROI just because we are sitting on a pile of cash).
The buyback increases the value of the stock (great for the shareholder), creates more liquidity and effectively lets shareholders decide what to do with that excess cash (e.g., sell your stock and do what you want with it) as opposed to forcing the company to put it to work when they don’t think they have an appropriate risk-adjusted idea for how to spend it.
FKA [83];
Hoboken Condos On Fire
You just gave me a flashback to Booyah Bob and RE101. “EN FUEGO!!!” And I’ve never even taken psychotropic meds.
excuse me, should have written “borrow to buy back stocks”
Can someone comment on this house? I’ve been reading this blog for a number of years. One of the themes seems to be high taxes. This one clocks in around 8k which seems reasonable.
Apparently there is a bidding war on it now.
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1507690&dayssince=&countysearch=false
My BIL is dead set on Fair Lawn, NJ. He put an offer in.(did not say how much)
I’ve been in Brooklyn all my life. I’ve been to exactly 3 open houses in NJ in the past year. I really don’t know much about this area.
Blumpkin:
You could do what I did. I cut my teeth at $18K per year for four years at a low budget small business out of college and learned everything one could ever need to know about the field. Then draw a line in the sand at ones minimum value (salary) and prove it in interviews. It was a heck of a lot cheaper going this route, than spending 25K per year instead of the 10K per I spent at my undergrad.
There was this one potential position I applied for and was up front about the minimum salary I would accept, where they flew me in first class twice to the Midwest (once to perform one of those annoying psychiatric reviews), once to Cali and did two fancy dinner interviews in Morristown as well. This courting ritual took over six months, which was not a big deal as I was still employed at the time. Well when they made me the offer, it was 5K under my previously stated minimum. So I turned it down. They could not believe it. I told them what I was worth and I said that I would prove it. They made good and I still work for this company today. I am going on 16 years now with them. I will say that the prestige at your alma mater certainly might make it easier to get in the door, but your skills are what will allow you to stay and get promoted. If you’ve got the chutzpah and the skills to back it up, then it really doesn’t matter where you go.
Cabby [89];
Doesn’t seem to have much curb appeal. Yellow card for flagrant abuse of the fish-eye lens. I can only tell enough to say that if all you’ve seen of that house is the listing, you haven’t seen that house.
Not my cup of tea, but lid for every pot, as they say, and the right price fixes anything. $8k in taxes is damn reasonable.
Plug power, the company that has lost 99.8% of its peak value over the past 15 years? And has never in its history earned a profit, despite all sorts of government subsidies?
Figures that pumpkinpinhead would invest in a proven economic value destroyer in the hopes that some new government dictate or new technological unicorn-sighting will somehow make his lottery ticket stock worth something.
Cabby,
A little off topic, but I really like it when houses are listed with picture of the floor plan (or interactive version). To me, it’s a tremendous help. I got the impression that I wouldn’t like the layout from all those pictures … and if I had the floor plan initially, I might be able to save a trip.
Nothing to see here. This is how you write up a proper police incident. Now when you do some research, you see that the cops feared for their lives.
—–
Last week, we found out that someone at New York Police Department headquarters was manipulating Wikipedia articles on police violence to make themselves look better. The NYPD has identified two officers behind the police-friendly entries—and is doing shit-all about these on-the-clock edits.
● “Garner raised both his arms in the air” was changed to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.”
● “[P]ush Garner’s face into the sidewalk” was changed to “push Garner’s head down into the sidewalk.”
● “Use of the chokehold has been prohibited” was changed to “Use of the chokehold is legal, but has been prohibited.”
● The sentence, “Garner, who was considerably larger than any of the officers, continued to struggle with them,” was added to the description of the incident.
● Instances of the word “chokehold” were replaced twice, once to “chokehold or headlock,” and once to “respiratory distress.”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/03/8563947/edits-wikipedia-pages-bell-garner-diallo-traced-1-police-plaza
Two officers, who have been identified, were using department equipment to access Wikipedia and make entries,” Commissioner Bill Bratton said at an unrelated press conference on Monday afternoon. “I don’t anticipate any punishment, quite frankly,” he added.
Now, there were no laws broken here. And even though Wikipedia advises against conflict-of-interest entries, the crowdsourced information service allows people to edit entries with whatever crazy bullshit propaganda they want, with the assumption that the crowd will correct falsehoods. So it’s not like the officers were going to get a fine, or even kicked off Wikipedia.
Wow, I played that stock for a 15% gain in a week. I didn’t hold long term.
Btw, you do realize that if the govt doesn’t invest in new technology, there will be none. The private sector doesn’t have the balls these days to risk money on creating a new technology. They are all about short term profit.
That’s right rags, you are able to participate on this blog thanks to uncle sam creating the internet. Private sector would have never come up with the internet.
Ragnar says:
March 17, 2015 at 11:57 am
Plug power, the company that has lost 99.8% of its peak value over the past 15 years? And has never in its history earned a profit, despite all sorts of government subsidies?
Figures that pumpkinpinhead would invest in a proven economic value destroyer in the hopes that some new government dictate or new technological unicorn-sighting will somehow make his lottery ticket stock worth something.
If anyone thinks this is a legitimate poster and not a parody (or attempt), I have house to sell you.
Lib, I’m being serious, you have lived an admirable life based on what you have posted here. I have nothing but respect for your type. You are the type of person that makes this country a better place.
I understand what you are saying, but take a look at it like this. If you want to get into a a great position in a great company, like apple or google, right out of school, you need to go to a top school. It increases your odds substantially of landing that dream job. Why go this route? The minute you graduate from school, you are making good money. If you are really good at your job, you will be set climbing the ladder in a company like google or apple. The amount of money you will make going this route really makes it worth it to go to MIT over these no name schools.
Nothing wrong with the no name schools. An education is an education. But if you want to make it into the top tech schools or the tech arm of the U.S. military, much better to go to a top tech school.
Libturd in Union says:
March 17, 2015 at 11:53 am
Blumpkin:
You could do what I did. I cut my teeth at $18K per year for four years at a low budget small business out of college and learned everything one could ever need to know about the field. Then draw a line in the sand at ones minimum value (salary) and prove it in interviews. It was a heck of a lot cheaper going this route, than spending 25K per year instead of the 10K per I spent at my undergrad.
There was this one potential position I applied for and was up front about the minimum salary I would accept, where they flew me in first class twice to the Midwest (once to perform one of those annoying psychiatric reviews), once to Cali and did two fancy dinner interviews in Morristown as well. This courting ritual took over six months, which was not a big deal as I was still employed at the time. Well when they made me the offer, it was 5K under my previously stated minimum. So I turned it down. They could not believe it. I told them what I was worth and I said that I would prove it. They made good and I still work for this company today. I am going on 16 years now with them. I will say that the prestige at your alma mater certainly might make it easier to get in the door, but your skills are what will allow you to stay and get promoted. If you’ve got the chutzpah and the skills to back it up, then it really doesn’t matter where you go.
* make it into the top tech companies or the tech arm of the U.S. military
Some 5.4 million homes, or 10.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were still in a negative equity position, or “underwater,” in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to CoreLogic, as their owners owe more on the mortgage than the home is currently worth.
https://homes.yahoo.com/news/millions-underwater-homeowners-trapped-160300424.html
So you think Brazil is in this mess because they payed their workers?
Greenspan studied this economy for years and still f’ed it up. What’s your point? Professional investors didn’t take our economy down in 2008? If the fed didn’t step in, the current 1% occupiers would find themselves at the bottom of the economy having to work their way back up. Instead, they had all their mistakes erased at my expense.
Ragnar says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:48 am
Haha, the great omniscient Pumpkin trying to educate me about Brazil. You’ve also been professionally investing in and analyzing Brazil for more than 20 years?
I’m looking forward to seeing the audited results of your upcoming hedge fund benefiting from your amazing predictive powers.
@ 67 NJT
I’m also a IT guy that’s followed your postings regarding post-retirement landlording. I wonder if you’d mind revealing a few details about your properties, particularly what region they are in… thanks.
re # 100 – 2008 was so yesterday. Wait till the next bang up.
Here’s where you go when you skate on NJ. These are my former neighbors from across the road in Pennsy. They are originally from Morristown.
http://kennettchocolate.org/wine-chocolate-evening/?utm_source=Wine+%26+Chocolate+Evening&utm_campaign=Wine+%26+Chocolate+Evening&utm_medium=email
The guy is planting a vineyard in the front yard. And as impressive as it is, it is by no means the most impressive in the area. The place I rented across the street was a shack by comparison and it was for sale at $1.2mm.
Stony Brook is now a hard school to get into and pretty expensive. Not like when I went there when you just needed a bong, rolling paper and 900 bucks for tuition to get in.
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 17, 2015 at 10:37 am
It’s all about trying to get your foot in the door of a good company right out of college. If you are google, who will you hire first, the MIT graduate or the stoney brook graduate? Getting a leg up in experience at an early age is all the difference. Later on in life after you have been in the field for 10 years, your experience and skills are all that matter. Getting your foot in the door is the tough part. MIT increases your odds dramatically.
[103] errata
Whoops. Got a closer look and checked my old address book. This is the guy who lived behind me, not the one across the street. The guy with the really nice house from Morristown did have a vineyard in the front yard. This guy doesn’t. He has some livestock but that’s it.
Funny thing is going to be seeing all the attendees parking their range rovers and Lexi on a single lane dirt/gravel road and hoofing through the mud in their Cole Haans and Manolo Blahniks. I’d consider going but I’m in Baltimore that day and besides, there were some neighbors on that street I can’t stand and they would certainly be there. Nothing like staring across the room at someone you threatened to sue.
American Dream Home: What’s the Middle Class Without a House?
MILWAUKEE, Wisc.—There was a feeling Tonya Adair had when she would return to her house after a day teaching math in a Milwaukee middle school. Her three kids would be upstairs, and she’d take a moment to herself. “I guess it was just a sense of being at ease with nobody watching, no landlord.” Adair, 47, says now. “It’s important to have something that’s your own.”
The way Adair talks about her house is a lot like the way her father, Pastor Bill Caldwell, 73, describes the first home he owned, the one where Adair, her three brothers and her sister grew up in Ruston, Louisiana.
“I built it from the ground up. I figured if other men could, so could I,” said Caldwell, of the three-bedroom he constructed in 1965. It was on a piece of land he bought for $300 on credit while working as a custodian at a department store. “It meant something for a family to have something to call their own.”
The attachment to home ownership that Caldwell, now a pastor in Monroe, Louisiana, instilled in five children, is deeply ingrained in the American psyche. But ownership has been through a bruising confrontation in recent years with an economic crisis that ran roughshod over American homeowners. Last year, Adair found herself behind on her mortgage, and was pressed to sell her Milwaukee house in a short sale. She now rents a Milwaukee condo. Then in Louisiana, Pastor Caldwell watched two of his sons, Adair’s brothers, lose their homes to foreclosure.
“It was a lot for one family to lose,” Pastor Caldwell says, “all three of them.”
More than seven million home foreclosures and short sales have swept the country in the last eight years, according to RealtyTrac, the real-estate information website. The home losses struck a blow to the American middle class, whose wealth — assets and savings minus debt — has been built in significant part on a foundation of owning a home. According to recent research by a group of economists, the financial and housing crisis of the late 2000’s accelerated the decline in economic stability among the bottom 90 percent of families, who by 2012 had an average of about $80,000 in wealth—the same as in 1986. Many of families were left with no reserves at all.
It’s a crisis that’s pressed Americans to grapple with whether owning a home fits anymore in the collective national story of the middle class. On a practical level, Americans have developed a suspicion of the value of owning a home. A 2014 MacArthur Foundation survey conducted by Hart Research Associates found that over half of respondents believe that purchasing a new home has become less appealing. Forty-three percent said owning a home is no longer a sound long-term investment.
But even as Americans reckon with the financial impracticality of buying rather than renting, and with empirical evidence in recent years that there is no straight line between ownership and stability, the overwhelming majority of people say they want to own their own home.
Home ownership remains an aspiration, “the most tangible cornerstone that lies at the heart of the American Dream, at the heart of middle-class life,” as President Barack Obama has described it in a 2013 speech in Phoenix.
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/american-dream-home-whats-middle-class-without-house-n296346
Nobody who owns a home can be foreclosed on from a bank.
Pumpkin again, you are wrong…..Stu is right. I know more than a few people at google….most have premium education but not all….they are not significantly better off than people at other tech firms where you see less MIT and more Rutgers. Google really is an exception that they are still looking at that pedigree years into a persons career but they are wrong. I have worked with developers who have zero higher education but were making significantly more money than the google employees with masters from MIT because they are good at what they do and they are working in finance. It is all value proposition but you seem to be blind to it. I’d love to fall back on my fancy education and just coast but I have to prove my worth every day. That is what capitalism is about and what you are sorely missing in most of your posts.
Actually, some amount of debt is good for a company, instills discipline in management as they know they have to pay the loan back…and thus prevents shopping sprees and conglomerate delusions of grandeur. So in certain circumstances it may sense to borrow to buy back shares or do a dividend recap.
I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. I’m saying that if you want to get a head start and make GOOD MONEY in your 20’s right out of school, the premium education is the door to getting into google or any high tech firm in your 20’s (Rutgers is not a no name school, it’s the top state school in nj). Why in the world would people go to MIT if it didn’t give you a leg up somehow?
For example, Lincoln College of technology located in Indiana will not give a 20 something year old any chance of getting into Google or any other big tech firm. They will have to find a company to take a risk on them and work their way up. If you don’t think this is the case, you need to take a closer look. I’m not talking about big state schools. I’m talking about colleges like the Lincoln College of Technology. If you don’t think there is a difference between this school and MIT, I can’t help you.
jcer says:
March 17, 2015 at 1:45 pm
Pumpkin again, you are wrong…..Stu is right. I know more than a few people at google….most have premium education but not all….they are not significantly better off than people at other tech firms where you see less MIT and more Rutgers. Google really is an exception that they are still looking at that pedigree years into a persons career but they are wrong. I have worked with developers who have zero higher education but were making significantly more money than the google employees with masters from MIT because they are good at what they do and they are working in finance. It is all value proposition but you seem to be blind to it. I’d love to fall back on my fancy education and just coast but I have to prove my worth every day. That is what capitalism is about and what you are sorely missing in most of your posts.
Vinology (clot Edition):
YOUNTVILLE, Calif. — Two men are dead after an apparent murder-suicide in a Napa County vineyard following a bitter business dispute.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports Tuesday that Napa County sheriff’s deputies are still investigating Monday’s shooting in the famed wine region of Northern California.
The newspaper reports vintner Robert Dahl allegedly shot his former business investor, Emad Tawfilis, in a vineyard overlooking Highway 29, the main route through the region.
Dahl then fled into the wooded hills between Napa and Sonoma valleys and shot himself.
Kousha Berokim, a Los Angeles attorney who represented Dahl, says her client and Tawfilis had met Monday morning at Dahl’s winery to discuss a loan dispute.
He says Tawfilis was suing his Dahl, claiming Dahl defrauded him out of more than $1 million.
Listen the these hens whine and whine instead of listening to the rich guy.
“Real estate is toxic waste”: O’Leary
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary discusses why real estate is the worst investment idea. “This is the time to be a seller” says O’Leary. CNBC’s Diana Olick, weighs in.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000361662
I have met with execs over last 15 years in sales, always look folks up prior and virtually never see Ivy league or fancy school names for VPs and C-suite. Usually unknown school or state school, etc. I “assume” all the Ivy leaguers become professors or are in hedge funds/banking…
Gary they’ve been reading your posts
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-underwater-homeowners-trapped-160310034.html
89 Cabby,
Listing says house has an association fee, as it is in Radburn, but does not say what that fee is. Add that to the taxes.
Also, apropos of nothing, the listing agent is smokin’ hot.
Wrong again, Ernie.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/07/27/americas-dumbest-banks-bank-repos-wrong-house-destroys-contents-then-refuses-to-pay-owners-losses/2/
JJ says:
March 17, 2015 at 1:26 pm
Nobody who owns a home can be foreclosed on from a bank.
Honestly fancy degrees and good GPAs became to be important starting around 1993 with the bombing of WTC and then followed up by the internet and 9/11.
By 2003 all corporate offices were under lock and key and HR was impossible to reach. The internet meant you applied on line for a job. Companies posted on Hot Jobs or Monsters and got thousands and thousands of applications. To get them down to a manageable size they data mined certain schools, key words and GPAs and only brought in those candidates.
By comparison I recall pre 9/11 I walked into Merril’s HR office unannounced in a suit and asked for an application. Of course the HR Girl saw me and took my application and resume and goes who perfect do you want to go on an interview now. I met with some guy who interviewed me to be a VP, we hit it off. I had a follow up interview but he did not get funding for job and then a few weeks later 9/11 happened and Merril closed up for good walk in people.
I did the same Morgan Stanley, Goldman etc back in the day. If I came to city when I was 22 for an interview, I would bring 7-10 extra resumes, I would use the NY Job Hunters book to pull address of HR depts and would visit them.
Think about it, stacks and stacks of Cover letter with attached paper resumes you must read and go through and no linked in or nothing to kinda see what person looks like.
In walks a tall, good looking guy, fresh out of school in a nice suit and a resume you pounce. Same worked for girls, actually even better for girls. Certain front office jobs require a certain look.
My friend at Morgan Stanley told me of HR walk ins told me she has two seconds to decide, are you going to make the money, count the money or mail out the money.
Trader/Banker, Finance/Accounting/Audit or Mailroom/Clerk. There is three broad career paths. At my Morgan interview I had a good suit, over six feet tall, Irish with a fresh MBA and a firm handshake you know I was making money. Sadly market fizzled before my start date and offers were rescinded. I even met head trader and he showed me my desk. So sad. But in reality I already had a job and I would have made more for like a few weeks and got canned as it was right before the start of Wall Streets once in ten year crashes.
Please don’t provoke Eddie. He’s wasted the past three years of his life driving around every weekend looking at mildew infested crapshacks. The anger that has been bred is evident.
He seems to be going to a better place now so by all means let him.
Mike [114],
I posted the article earlier today. Let it all burn, I’m out. I pulled the plug after years of trying. I’ll write a check pay off the balance and call it a day.
So what are you saying, that it is better to get an education at anything but ivy? I’m sorry, you guys are seriously lost on this issue. No one in their right mind would sign up and go through all the trouble to get into an ivy if they were better off going to some unknown school. Do you know how hard it is to get into an Ivy League school? Put it this way, I guarantee that Libturd would have made more money since he graduated, had he graduated from Harvard or a tech school like MIT. Guarantee it. With his work ethic and smarts to go with that education. It would be over and out.
1987 Condo says:
March 17, 2015 at 2:27 pm
I have met with execs over last 15 years in sales, always look folks up prior and virtually never see Ivy league or fancy school names for VPs and C-suite. Usually unknown school or state school, etc. I “assume” all the Ivy leaguers become professors or are in hedge funds/banking…
Also, sales is not where I would expect graduates from MIT or Harvard to end up. Salesman doesn’t need an education to sell, he just has to know how to get people to do what he wants.
Pumpkin I find the most successful and highest paid both can deliver and usually are very good at negotiating/managing their careers. I know some real egg heads, bright people, went to the finest schools, they aren’t making that much money. Why because they don’t have the chutzpah or swagger to really demand the pay and promotions from their management, they are driving their careers, they are being driven.
This guy serious? First, if renting was better than owning, who the hell would own a house(I’m focusing on a property you live in, not an income property which is always an investment)? Second, a home serves two purposes; a place to live and a place to store equity. The second purpose can turn into an investment based on the timing of your purchase. Third, did he avg the difference between renting and owning into his equation?? Absolutely not. If renting costs 10% more than owning, owning than becomes an investment to save on the extra costs that come with renting to live. That’s a 10% investment to bring down your cost of living.
I’m sorry, there are only a few years in the past 30 years where it made more sense to rent. If you bought real estate at the right time, owning was always a way better option. Go ask those people who bought in 1995 and sold in 2005 if they wish they rented. It’s all about timing to get the most out of real estate. Right now is a good time to buy, just have to work extremely hard to find a house. Even bystander and his endless complaining has bought a house at price he feels comfortable with. The writing is on the wall.
The Original NJ ExPat says:
March 17, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Listen the these hens whine and whine instead of listening to the rich guy.
“Real estate is toxic waste”: O’Leary
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary discusses why real estate is the worst investment idea. “This is the time to be a seller” says O’Leary. CNBC’s Diana Olick, weighs in.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000361662
Agreed. A school can only take you so far, you also have to certain skills or attributes to take you to that top level. Most people in leadership positions are really good at selling themselves.
jcer says:
March 17, 2015 at 5:20 pm
Pumpkin I find the most successful and highest paid both can deliver and usually are very good at negotiating/managing their careers. I know some real egg heads, bright people, went to the finest schools, they aren’t making that much money. Why because they don’t have the chutzpah or swagger to really demand the pay and promotions from their management, they are driving their careers, they are being driven.
It’s called EQ. And it’s very important.
Once you get to a certain level, where everybody is smart and has the pedigree, your EQ (personality, social awareness, self awareness, being able to read a room, etc.) becomes much more important. Some people get it, most don’t even know what they are lacking.
#120…NO! Not saying that.
#121…I am in sales, I am selling to VP’s, CIO’s and CFO’s..they are not in Sales. Those are the folks I am referring to….that is what drives the economy, people buying things from people.
The point is many folks who go to regular schools can succeed and reach executive levels.
the key word in your post is “sales”……..that one word explains everything else…….
1987 Condo says:
March 17, 2015 at 2:27 pm
I have met with execs over last 15 years in sales, always look folks up prior and virtually never see Ivy league or fancy school names for VPs and C-suite. Usually unknown school or state school, etc. I “assume” all the Ivy leaguers become professors or are in hedge funds/banking…
#121…pretty uninformed and condescending attitude there. IBM sells, Oracle sells, Google sells, Apple sells…ugh…and as far as Ivy’s go…very small percentage of folks can consider that a viable option….the rest of us peons need to make due with what is left
128. In MANY tech companies software sales people are paid and treated better than the developers. Oracle in particular is far better to it’s sales people than it’s techies.
#127..so let me clarify…not talking about the sales people…talking about the buyers…
#129….As I tell my kids, client facing positions not only are last to be outsourced, but because so few can effectively communicate, they are often paid the best. The more complex the sale, Technology, etc..the better the pay.
Saw this too late……I disagree to some extent….you need specify which companies…..the S&P 100 is loaded with Ivy grads….mid and small caps are the safety school all-stars…..
1987 Condo says:
March 17, 2015 at 5:47 pm
#120…NO! Not saying that.
#121…I am in sales, I am selling to VP’s, CIO’s and CFO’s..they are not in Sales. Those are the folks I am referring to….that is what drives the economy, people buying things from people.
The point is many folks who go to regular schools can succeed and reach executive levels.
Maybe you are all right.
Fresh out of school, going to an Ivy will get you first in line to get an interview and a good. Yet the Rutgers student can still get a job too, maybe not as prestigous a job but a job nevertheless.
Fast forward 10+ years and you are looking at young executives, at that point it doesn’t matter where you went to college, its what you bring to the table that matters…and a lot of those people making the decisions, didn’t go to an Ivy.
Right, F1000, so broader base
No offense to salespeople, but there are people too smart for sales…..the most effective salesperson is one who can focus on a small domain of facts that supports their pitch…..everything else outside of this sphere doesn’t exist…..it allows a salesperson to be very convincing…..smart people know too much for their own good….it makes them appear less confident, when in reality they are much more wise and well considered….but that attitude will get you fired…..
#135…very correct. Seems society/business rewards “gut feel” or “decisiveness”. Those that take some time to understand all aspects, and in return probably make better decisions, are derided as indecisive.
[63] fka
That’s for cash that makes it offshore. not every corporation has foreign earnings or foreign subsidiaries.
I’m def not trying to be condescending. Sorry, if it comes off that way. I’m just saying, someone who graduates from MIT doesn’t really fit the sales profile. It’s like going to a business school to be an engineer.
1987 Condo says:
March 17, 2015 at 5:54 pm
#121…pretty uninformed and condescending attitude there. IBM sells, Oracle sells, Google sells, Apple sells…ugh…and as far as Ivy’s go…very small percentage of folks can consider that a viable option….the rest of us peons need to make due with what is left
#120- I know you are not saying that. I was just trying to make a point.
1987 Condo says:
March 17, 2015 at 5:47 pm
#120…NO! Not saying that.
#121…I am in sales, I am selling to VP’s, CIO’s and CFO’s..they are not in Sales. Those are the folks I am referring to….that is what drives the economy, people buying things from people.
The point is many folks who go to regular schools can succeed and reach executive levels.
Jesus Christ I would be lying if I said the Pumpkin doesn’t amuse me with Pumpkin-headedness. His favorite color must be orange.