From CNN:
Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare?
While the foreclosure epidemic has left communities across the United States overrun with unoccupied houses and overgrown grass, underneath the chaos another trend is quietly emerging that, over the next several decades, could change the face of suburban American life as we know it.
This trend, according to Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, stems not only from changing demographics but also from a major shift in the way an increasing number of Americans — especially younger generations — want to live and work.
“The American dream is absolutely changing,” he told CNN.
This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, said Leinberger, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.
Instead, they are looking for what Leinberger calls “walkable urbanism” — both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything — from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters.
The so-called New Urbanism movement emerged in the mid-90s and has been steadily gaining momentum, especially with rising energy costs, environmental concerns and health problems associated with what Leinberger calls “drivable suburbanism” — a low-density built environment plan that emerged around the end of the World War II and has been the dominant design in the U.S. ever since.
Thirty-five percent of the nation’s wealth, according to Leinberger, has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.
But now, Leinberger told CNN, it appears the pendulum is beginning to swing back in favor of the type of walkable community that existed long before the advent of the once fashionable suburbs in the 1940s. He says it is being driven by generations molded by television shows like “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” where city life is shown as being cool again — a thing to flock to, rather than flee.
“The image of the city was once something to be left behind,” said Leinberger.
…
And aging baby boomers are looking for a more urban lifestyle as they downsize from large homes in the suburbs to more compact town houses in more densely built locations.Recent market research indicates that up to 40 percent of households surveyed in selected metropolitan areas want to live in walkable urban areas, said Leinberger. The desire is also substantiated by real estate prices for urban residential space, which are 40 to 200 percent higher than in traditional suburban neighborhoods — this price variation can be found both in cities and small communities equipped with walkable infrastructure, he said.
The result is an oversupply of depreciating suburban housing and a pent-up demand for walkable urban space, which is unlikely to be met for a number of years. That’s mainly, according to Leinberger, because the built environment changes very slowly; and also because governmental policies and zoning laws are largely prohibitive to the construction of complicated high-density developments.
…
Yet Nelson also estimates that in 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes that will not be left vacant in a suburban wasteland but instead occupied by lower classes who have been driven out of their once affordable inner-city apartments and houses.The so-called McMansion, he said, will become the new multi-family home for the poor.
“What is going to happen is lower and lower-middle income families squeezed out of downtown and glamorous suburban locations are going to be pushed economically into these McMansions at the suburban fringe,” said Nelson. “There will probably be 10 people living in one house.”
…
In Shaun Yandell’s neighborhood, this has already started to happen. Houses once filled with single families are now rented out by low-income tenants. Yandell speculates that they’re coming from nearby Sacramento, where the downtown is undergoing substantial gentrification, or perhaps from some other area where prices have gotten too high. He isn’t really sure.But one thing Yandell is sure about is that he isn’t going to leave his sunny suburban neighborhood unless he has to, and if that happens, he says he would only want to move to another one just like it.
“It’s the American dream, you know,” he said. “The American dream.”
Thank god, a new model and a new black box, the world is right again.
From the WSJ:
U.S. Pushes a European Method To Help Banks Make Home Loans
‘Covered Bonds’ May Lure Investors Wary of Defaults
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
June 17, 2008; Page A3
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, seeking to jump-start the struggling mortgage market, is pushing a method of financing popular in Europe that could make it easier for home buyers to obtain loans.
The Treasury Department is hosting a meeting Tuesday between regulators, bankers and other financial players. On the agenda: encouraging lenders to issue a type of debt known as a “covered bond” to raise money for mortgage lending, according to people familiar with the matter.
Washington’s interest stems from the success of the $2.75 trillion covered-bond market in Europe. Such bonds are the primary source of mortgage-loan funding for European banks. Some analysts have predicted that a covered-bond market in the U.S. could grow to $1 trillion over the next few years. Currently, the market is minuscule compared with the $11 trillion in home mortgages outstanding in the U.S.
Covered bonds are a type of mortgage-backed security, but they are quite different from the products that fueled the housing boom and landed many Wall Street banks in trouble. The problematic types were held off financial institutions’ balance sheets and were sometimes backed by shaky, subprime mortgages. Investors received not only the rights to the mortgage payments but also the risk of any defaults, which turned out to be plentiful.
Covered bonds are considered safer investments because they stay on a bank’s balance sheet and the buyer of the bonds gets double protection. The bonds are backed first by a “cover pool” of high-quality mortgages that must meet certain criteria, such as being in good standing. If the mortgages go bad, the bank must step in to ensure bond holders get their interest.
Banks like the concept because it could provide a stable source of funding for making mortgages. The quality of the underlying loans translates into high credit ratings, which can result in lower interest payments to investors. The loan quality also attracts a different group of investors than a bank’s unsecured debt, which helps diversify the bank’s funding sources.
Banks seeking funds to make home loans also have the traditional method — garnering deposits from consumers. That is still important, but deposits can be expensive to attract and less stable than bonds sold to big institutional investors.
From the Record:
“Regional” housing contributions by rich towns to end
Rich towns no longer could pay poor cities to build their share of affordable housing, under a bill that passed the Assembly today.
The legislation to end so-called “regional contribution agreements” would mark New Jersey’s first such reform in 20 years. It was designed to increase housing options for people who can’t afford municipalities with quality schools, shopping, safety, transportation and access to jobs.
The state’s affordable-housing laws were shaped by the Mount Laurel court decisions, which found that municipalities could not zone exclusively for one sort of housing. That practice had ensured that only high-value homes were built — a form of discrimination, the courts found.
The Mount Laurel laws led to housing quotas for each municipality. To get around those numbers, one municipality could pay another to assume its quota — a practice decried by housing advocates, who argued that low-income families once again were relegated to less-than-desirable areas.
The New Jersey Housing and Development Network praised the Assembly’s support to end the contribution agreements.
“The Fair Housing Act of over 20 years ago intended to give people the opportunity of finding housing in areas of economic growth,” said Arnold Cohen, policy coordinator for the housing group. “The bill today will, at long last, give people the chance to live where the jobs are.”
Civic, labor and church groups also supported the Assembly bill.
The Senate is to vote on identical legislation in that house Thursday.
Didn’t this same thing happen decades ago in NY where lofts emerged in rezoned buildings in undesirable locations. They then became “hip” and years later became multimillion dollar lofts that the people that started the trend could not afford to live in?
And it looks Congress may investigate what happened in the lending world. Rep. Kaptur called the subprime lending model a “Ponzi-like scheme.”
From the WSJ:
Suburbs a Mile Too Far for Some
Demographic Changes, High Gasoline Prices
May Hasten Demand for Urban Living
By JONATHAN KARP
June 17, 2008
In recent years, a generation of young people, called the millennials, born between the late 1970s and mid-1990s, has combined with baby boomers to rekindle demand for urban living. Today, the subprime-mortgage crisis and $4-a-gallon gasoline are delivering further gut punches by blighting remote subdivisions nationwide and rendering long commutes untenable for middle-class Americans.
Just as low interest rates and aggressive mortgage financing accelerated expansion of the suburban fringe to the point of oversupply, “the spike in gasoline prices, layered with demographic changes, may accelerate the trend toward closer-in living,” said Arthur C. Nelson, director of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute in Alexandria, Va. “All these things are piling up, and there are fundamental changes occurring in demand for housing in most parts of the country.”
Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a developer of walkable areas that combine housing and commercial space, describes the structural shift as the “beginning of the end of sprawl.”
…
Todd Zimmerman, a housing consultant and an early advocate of pedestrian-friendly community planning known as New Urbanism, said demographic and cultural factors explain a big part of the trend. Baby boomers and millennials are the country’s two biggest generations, with some 82 million and 78 million people born during their respective eras. Both flocks are leaving their nests and finding that higher-density urban housing fits their lifestyles.
“Millennials and baby boomers are in perfect sync. They are at a stage where they both want the same thing,” said Mr. Zimmerman, a co-managing director at Zimmerman/Volk Associates Inc. in Clinton, N.J. He said the populations of Americans in their 20s and in their 50s are rising and will add eight million potential housing consumers by the time their numbers peak in 2015. “You’ve got a recipe for reurbanization on a dramatic scale,” he said.
‘urbanization’ conspiracy theory that hit me while watching the happening this weekend:
* this is all some crafty ploy by ‘terrorists’ to get americans to major cities and to wipe them out with some grand scheme like sept 11.
“they” have been jacking up gas prices and “they” pushed the real estate market disguised as investors, and at some point in the next 10 years, many Americans will move closer to major cities, which makes another september 11 easier for these bastards.
just a thought.
Can’t wait for the exodus from the burbs to the city. Hope the rich folk are packing heat.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20080617_Police_seek_public_help_in_Beau_Zabel_s_death.html
From USA Today:
Real estate agents court Gen Y
Jacky Teplitzky used to turn to all the time-tested tools to drum up business for her New York-based real estate firm, Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Billboards. Mailings. Advertising.
Not anymore. The brutal real estate slump has made Teplitzky and other agents so hungry for business that many have decided to go after a group not known for its home-buying habits: Twentysomethings. And to try to connect with them, agents are unleashing a new breed of marketing tactics, from posting homes for sale on YouTube to building snazzy Facebook pages.
“This younger generation is so technology-savvy,” Teplitzky says, “and because of that, they are changing the way real estate is being marketed and how brokers must use technology to successfully get to this group. This demographic is so important.”
Real estate agents who’ve seen the number of potential buyers plunge as fast as housing values are hoping that this largely untapped demographic could form a new wave of buyers to help invigorate sales.
Some are hiring Gen Y-ers as agents to help reach younger buyers. They’re spending millions on creative advertising, from Facebook to YouTube. Some are writing blogs.
In some ways, the younger set represents an especially inviting target. As they don’t have houses they need to sell first, these first-time buyers can produce relatively fast and easy transactions for sellers, real estate agents and new-home builders.
From Bloomberg:
U.K. Inflation Reaches Decade-High, King Predicts Acceleration
U.K. inflation reached the highest since at least 1997 in May and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King predicted it will exceed 4 percent later this year, opening the possibility of an interest-rate increase.
The Monetary Policy Committee “is concerned about the present and prospective period of above-target inflation,” King wrote in a letter to the government, after the Office for National Statistics said consumer prices climbed 3.3 percent from a year earlier last month. “The path of bank rate that will be necessary to meet the 2 percent target is uncertain.”
Grim –
Just want to make sure you know about the AP lawsuits against bloggers?
They are threatening to sue bloggers quoting 5 words or more from their article. They want you to pay $12.50 for quoting 5 words and $100 for more than $251. Already have several lawsuits underway!
Alot of the bloggers are now boycotting the AP.
CNN articles are *always* so damn dumb, I can’t stand it! Love the last lines contradicting the entire premise. TV off. Blogs on. (Trying to mix the two is oil & water.)
I am a “gen Y” and love my single family house. But then again, I don’t walk around with iPod buds in my ears while I am zoned out texting my “bff”
lol
I just can’t agree with this article about the new “American Dream” Once the gen Yers have kids they will have a desire for a back yard and suburban settings. Afterall, isn’t the reason they live in urban areas is so they can be “independant” while they get their advanced degrees and then move up?
soosh (201, yesterday)-
Not a flip. Just five kids: four in college & the last about to go. Don’t need the house, the taxes or the headache. That is a really cool place…when you don’t have all five of them and their college pals packed into the basement.
Kelly,
One thing I noticed about a lot of blogs is that they pretty much copy full news stories in a blog entry, with little or no unique content, sometimes without even a link to the article.
It’s not about Fair Use, it’s about “stealing their thunder” on “hot news”, “Misappropriation”. I’m not sure if it’s a Federal Law but some states do have laws to protect news agencies. There was a Supreme Court ruling in the early part of this century that the AP won against another news wire service. Since the AP is on the east coast, this other service was taking advantage of the time zone difference to strip out the cites in the AP story and rewrite it. So it wasn’t a violation of copyright law.
Although this posting has a quote from an AP lawyer that mentions they do not consider the use of the content to be protected under the “Fair Use” exclusion, I don’t really think the lawyers believe that. I could be wrong, but I think they are claiming they don’t think it is fair use so they can use the DMCA takedown procedures. As far as I know misappropriation doesn’t apply to the DCMA.
Basically, the AP spends time and money creating “hot news” and doesn’t want sites to benefit from their hard work. News sites that run AP stories pay AP for the feeds. A couple that don’t have been sued. It’s one thing to use an article as a cite along with other commentary, it’s another to just copy and paste and leave it at that, maybe with one or two sentences of original content along the lines of “So what do you guys think?”
While today’s entry isn’t the best example, NJ Re Report seems to provide a lot of original content from what I’ve seen.
tbw,
How would the theory be applied in Northern NJ? Where do you draw the lines between urbia, newurbia, and suburbia?
I’d argue that towns like Ridgewood, Millburn, Westfield, Morristown and Montclair are perfect examples of this new trend driving desirability. Vibrant, active, walkable downtowns and a strong mass transit system. You don’t need to go down to Hoboken or JC to see the trend, it’s obvious even in what once would have been described as pure suburbia.
So where does the line get drawn? Sussex? Hunterdon? Is northeastern NJ nothing more than an extension of the NYC urban area (despite some postage-stamp sized lawns)?
Remember, these are professors who live in the burbs spinning theories. Some factors that speak against empty nesters and Gen Yers moving en mass to the city: crime, high prices, annonymity of city life, lack of space for stuff like cars, furniture, etc., loss of social networks; noise, loss of shopping options (anyone seen a best Buy in center city Phila lately?) and human inertia. And who is going to buy all the McMansions the empty nesters leave behind? I have yet to see pedestrian friendly commuter planning anywhere in the U.S. Garden State Race Track in Cherry Hill NJ was supposed to be the new town center with single family houses, rail links to Phila, shops within walking distance; a commuter/pedestrian paradise. It ended up being the typical big box commercial development with the maximum number of condos and townhouses squeezed into the smallest possible space. Except that the housing crash prevented the dwelling units from being built because there were no buyers.
grim, from what I gathered from the article, they were trying to say that the new generation prefers attached city living opposed to single family houses with backyards. I would never want to live in Hoboken or a city like New York. I like having a lawn and a pool and a driveway with a garage – in essence, privacy. I don’t have to deal with people if I don’t want to. When you live in attached communities, your neighbors can directly have an effect on your quality of life, more so than a single family house. It is true that you can have bad neighbors anywhere you live though.
From Bloomberg:
Housing Starts Probably Declined in May, Nearing 17-Year Low
Builders probably broke ground on fewer homes last month, signaling the decline in housing will keep hurting growth, economists said ahead of a government report today.
Housing starts fell to a 980,000 annual pace in May, from 1.032 million a month earlier, according to the median of 72 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Building permits, a sign of future construction, probably fell to 960,000 from 982,000.
Builders are cutting back as rising foreclosures, higher mortgage rates and declining property values threaten to depress home sales further. Other reports today are forecast to show wholesale prices jumped last month and industrial production barely advanced after slumping in April.
“There’s still a huge amount of supply that has to be absorbed and new-home construction is probably going to be slow for some time,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Holdings Inc. in New York.
#12
i grew up in the pinelands and once i went away to college i never returned to suburban living. to me, suburban sprawl seems synthetic and unnatural. granted, it is nice to leave the city for quiet time but the over all car culture for everyday living is bothersome. strip malls, mega movie complexes and drive through restaurants seemed to perpetuate the homogeneity of the ‘burbs. and now with gas prices on the rise, i’m especially content.
where does this leave garfield,lodi,wallington
lovely nj towns with an urban flair.
Mark, don’t forget Bergenfield
si, si
although i’ve never been to those towns, i sense the sarcasm. yes, urban living means rundown row homes with heavy immigrant population.
as in getto
Barf. Carly Fiorina has signed on to the McCain campaign.
His impulse to self-destruct is immense. Look at the fools that surround him.
there are other towns in NJ that make those towns look like Chatham.
mcclainer may as well hire a sub captain
Goldman is going to hit the numbers or better is what I am hearing this morning~
[186 from previous thread] Non Deplume said “A deposit is necessary to show that you are interested and will put down earnest money.
If you back out during A/R, you should get it back. I did.”
I’m surprised the seller would let you off that easy, were there not at least attorney’s fees to consider?
gs has done it again
Awe crap I posted a bad link in post #3. It should be. It’s actually posted to a password protected part of the site.
And it looks like Congress may investigate what happened in the lending world. Rep. Kaptur called the subprime lending model a “Ponzi-like scheme.”
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Wholesale prices rose 1.4% in May, after seasonable adjustments, with energy prices gaining 4.9% and food prices rising 0.8%, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected the PPI to rise 0.9%. In the past year, the PPI gained 7.2%, the government said. May’s core PPI — which excludes food and energy prices — rose 0.2%, matching analysts’ expectations. Core prices are up 3% in the past year.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Desperately trying to reduce supply, U.S. home builders started construction on 3.3% fewer homes in May, the Commerce Department estimated Tuesday. Housing starts fell 3.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 975,000 in May, the lowest level since March 1991. Starts of single-family homes fell 1% to an annual rate of 674,000, also the lowest in 17 years. Builders reduced the number of building permits they’ve filed for by 1.3% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 969,000. Building permits for single-family homes fell 4% to a 623,000 rate.
re: #1 Grim
Cover Bonds only two issuers to date in the USA, Bank of America and WAMU.
Seems like the lobbysists, regulators and legislators down in Washington are attempting to revive the asset bubble. A few trillion in covered bonds would do that.
One one problem with Covered Bonds, from what I have read they would not survive bankruptcy if for example WAMU were to go under. Changes would need to be made to the laws to protect the bond holders.
Tom,
Here is an article from the NY Times about the AP-blogger copyright issues –
The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs
From the article
“Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.
I’m surprised the seller would let you off that easy, were there not at least attorney’s fees to consider?
Cost of doing business, seller can choose to defer attorney review if they don’t want to spend the money.
But who compensates the buyer for the lost fees if it is the seller who backs out during AR? Or if the home inspection is a bust? Even worse, what happens when the deal falls apart because the property didn’t appraise?
Both sides incur costs throughout the process, the transaction costs associated with buying or selling a home are high.
In short, this article does more to conceal than reveal the developments that led to the current housing crash. There were no deep mysteries that had to be uncovered. House prices had gotten badly out of line with fundamentals by 2002. This was possible for any competent analyst to recognize just as it was possible to recognize the stock bubble by 1998. Unfortunately, the Post and the rest of the media relied almost exclusively on analysts who somehow failed to recognize the housing (and stock) bubbles or worse, had a direct interest in perpetuating these bubbles. Even after the fact, the Post is still choosing to rely almost exclusively on those who failed to see the bubble, rather than the experts who foresaw and warned of the problems ahead.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=06&year=2008&base_name=the_post_misses_the_housing_bu
From what I heard GS is accruing for their ye bonus on track with last year. No bonus cuts at GS, the big checks keep rolling along. I personally don’t want to work at GS so I don’t begrudge them but it must really tick off people who had a chance to work their in 2005-2007 fresh out of MBA school and went with Merrill, Bear or Lehman and are now sucking wind and can’t jump to GS as they have a hiring freeze.
Funny thing I find about this job market is the unemployed ain’t that desparate. Got an unemployed friend a job interview that paid 30K more than her last job. Guy was desperate to hire. But he needed a lunch box type get on their hands and knees and go through trade tickets to do a recon type person. The person I sent was rejected as she did not seem like a worker. Then again maybe that is why she got let go, but come on in an interview you can’t fake it for 60 minutes, how lazy is she.
grim, good morning……
can u provide a background and history for this property, mls #2808232. Its been sitting vacant on my parent’s block for over a year now. I want to see if this can be a potential comp killer.
thanks
Bonds Beat Brownstones as New York Real Estate Cools: Joe Mysak
Signs of Softness Appear In Manhattan Real Estate
if your any good gs will hire you.
freeze or no freeze
its sort of like a NJ state job.
only in nj you have to be lame and one step away from the welfare rolls
spy,
Purchased on 8/2/2005 for $682,000
Tear down remodel
MLS# 2719859
Listed: 5/16/2007
OLP: $1,588,000
Reduced: $1,549,888
DOM: 110
Expired
MLS# 2735648
Listed: 11/9/2007
OLP: $1,499,900
Reduced: $1,494,000
Increased: $1,495,000
Increased: $1,520,000
Reduced: $1,435,000
Withdrawn
DOM: 180
MLS# 2808232
Listed: 2/29/2008
OLP: $1,369,000
DOM: 110
Here is the mortgage history:
8/2/2005 – $570,000
9/14/2005 – $560,000
12/19/2006 – $300,000
5/2/2007 – $1,100,000
#9 kelly
I am in no way a law expert, but i do believe that fair use doctrine along with various other standards have give a reporter blogger or other author the ability to use far more then 5 words. The AP is trying to bully people because the bloggers of the world have become a more authoritative news source then the mainstream media. The AP’s action are essentially the same as the MPAA and recording industry trying to shut down online music/movie sharing. The age of centralized news content controlled by a large corporation is over and the large corporations will fight it tooth and nail just like the recording industry. And like the recording industry they will lose
(Does the 5 word limit include the title of the article when used as part of a URL?)
From the AP:
NJ lawmakers want $3.5B for school construction
The AP is reporting that NJ legislature is attempting to borrow $3.5 billion for school construction without voter approval.
grim, thank you very much…..looks like the builder is choking on it.
TBW
I disagree with your point. The mystical suburban home with a 1/2 acre lot is /was a dream constructed in the image of “land owners of yore”. i.e the suburb was originally envisioned as a way for the common man to play “wealthy land owner”. The truly wealthy land owners had large plots that were worked by hired hands and were surrounded by lawns , fields and forests. Well you, the middle class joe, can now live this dream on your little 1/2 acre plot when you get to mow the grass and plant a garden, all while still commuting to your productive office job.
The suburb was a way to display prosperity as the lower classes were stuck in the cities that were experiencing urban decay in the 50’s and 60’s.
The suburbs sprang up because the US had huge amounts of cheap oil and needed a way to display its new “Bling”. Now that energy is no longer cheap and is only going to get more expensive on a per unit basis you will see a continue re-urbanization, while the former suburbs and exurbs will return more to the rural villages that they once were
the boyz are at it again.. they can’t help themselves…. like crack freaks
Clot –
I agree – just want to make sure Grim knows. Last thing he needs is legal fees for some stupid lawsuit. He does not have ads so it would be up to us to donate to help his cause – if he even let us know that something like that happened.
The AP has already pulled back a bit but also but they want the fees to be paid – by words used.
The problem with this type of analysis ($4 gas will cause everyone to move) is that it assumes today will be forever. When hydrogen/electric cars arrive, will everyone move back to the burbs? I suspect technology will change before people are willing to walk away from sunk costs in infrastructure.
Actually if Grim sold ads and charged for the service he most likely would get little income but would become a for profit enterprise that would require tax returns and put him in the cross hairs of the AP looking for all the profit. Non-profits get away with a lot more.
I thought the drive (no pun intended) behind electric and hydrogen powered cars were that they were clean, not that they were cheap to operate.
I can’t imagine that it would be any cheaper, per mile, to operate a car powered by hydrogen or by batteries. The electricity will need to come from somewhere, and with the tremendous anti-nuclear sentiment in this country, it means that it’ll come from burning something.
http://perotcharts.com/challenges/
Just passing it along, not endorsing or criticizing the content.
Kelly,
A couple paragraphs up from what you posted they said.
Which is inline with what I assumed. Lets put this into real world terms. You have a group that gets together for coffee every morning. A really big group. You get together to discuss the local news, so you buy one copy of the paper, make 100 photocopies to distribute to your group. To make things simple, you cut the ads out of the articles you’re going to discuss. Even though you tell people where you got the articles from the chances of them actually buying the paper and seeing their ads are slim. Maybe you even put your own ads on the photocopies. Now multiply that a million times and that is what bother’s the AP.
It costs them money to do what they do in a timely manner and they need to make money to keep doing it.
Kettle, I’m not a lawyer either but I have created copyrighted works in different forms so I have looked into the issue. I have had my copyrights infringed and I have also released some of my copyrighted material under a free license.
What a lot of blogs are doing doesn’t constitute fair use. An example of fair use would be if you do a book review and you quote a few passages. Your review is your work and you can use quotes from the book because you are discussing it. There are some legal criteria for fair use, one of which I believe is that it cannot cause material harm (loss of revenue) to the copyright holder.
“The age of centralized news content controlled by a large corporation is over and the large corporations will fight it tooth and nail just like the recording industry.”
Most of your posts seemed to make sense before but I can’t agree with this. Most bloggers out there aren’t journalists. They don’t create news stories. They quote and comment on them. Many don’t even comment on them. If we didn’t have these large corporations giving us news, what bloggers do you think would head over to Iraq or some other warzone, risk their lives, and set up some way to continue to blog in that environment to be able to provide news at the pace that the news agencies do? Should we rely on the locals? Maybe add that task to the already difficult job the military has. That would sure get rid of the spin the military tends to put on things.
Bloggers help create accountability to the news agencies. A very small portion actually “create” news. If all the corporate news agencies disappeared, most bloggers wouldn’t know what to write about. They’re not going to go out, do interviews, find stories, find sources, etc.
re: the discussion from last night:
The gov’t didn’t force anyone to take out a mortgage. Similarly, the gov’t didn’t force any banks make loans, securitize mortgages, gov’t didn’t force pension funds to buy the securities, didn’t force hedge funds to trade derivatives related to these securities, etc, etc, etc. I am not saying there is no favoritism for certain parties built into the system, but it is extremely minimal compared to the freedom of choice that everyone in our economy has the ability to exercise. The gov’t role should be to impartially enforce contracts and let the chips fall where they may. They do not, in my view, hold any substantial responsibility for the housing bubble (or the tech bubble or the tulip bubble, etc), and pretending the opposite is just a means of making excuses for every individual and institution which made a series of bad decisions.
I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won’t do.
DL – MPG technology.
That is exactly right. Current overall mpg is somewhere around mid-20’s. With gas prices at more than triple from the lows, consumer behavior will change. Instead of $35k SUV’s that get 15mpg, people will dump them for compact cars that get 40mpg. Net-net difference is minimal. Now if they have an oversized McMansion that needs heat and cooling than they are screwed. So I recommend Long POS Cape, Short McMansion.
Anyone know how “affordability” would look if the consensus “10-15%” price declines by next summer come to fruition?
Living in the city is the better option — but only if you have no kids.
Once you have kids, their education and safety is paramount. In the city, a great eduction generally requires private school at very high cost. The public schools in the suburbs are generally far superior. And while walking the streets of Manhattan is fun for us, it’s not the place for a 4 year old. Newark has every form of mass transit — and I don’t know anyone who wants to live there.
Also, property tax rates are much, much higher in the more densely populated areas. Right or wrong, taxes are lowest in the wealthiest suburbs.
As energy prices skyrocket, getting closer to the city isn’t necessarily the solution. Where the jobs always were isn’t necessarily where the jobs will always be. Who is to say the jobs won’t move to where the workers are in the suburbs? Who is to say that white collar knowledge work won’t finally be done en mass from home over the Internet? Perhaps more important than mass transit or living within dense population is the quality of your connection to the Internet. As I look for my house, FiOS Internet is more important than Midtown Direct train service.
Gen Yers dont know what they want these days. The majority that I have ‘interacted’ with (family, friends, co-workers, etc) are so aloof to the real world that what they think they want today will most likely be wholly different from what they want when they are 40.
Their decision-making skills are subpar at best, and with their shortened attention spans it wouldnt be out of the question for them to make important decisions (like buying a home) on a simple whim like “My bff Jill lives in the same building! We can go get Starbucks every morning”
Then, realize that Jill is shtupping her boyfriend and be miserable.
They live in the moment, and not think of the long-term at all.
This post isnt to make me sound like an old-man (mid thirties). Using the word ‘shtup’ is just a coincidence :-) But with Gen-Yers, WYSIWtheworldwillprobablyG
Kelly, do you have a link to anywhere that says what the AP is looking to charge? I haven’t found anything searching yet.
We do have a number of individuals here who grew up in the “city” as kids.
They’ve certainly survived (although you could claim survivorship bias), and most seem not only well-educated, but successful as well.
I can think of a worse place to raise a kid.
Tom (56)-
“If all the corporate news agencies disappeared, most bloggers wouldn’t know what to write about. They’re not going to go out, do interviews, find stories, find sources, etc.”
Beg to disagree. Point in case: Grim’s challenge of NAR’s little 34% error on NJ sales. Most corporate news is cut-paste of various industries’ self-serving PR (read: lies). A man-on-the-ground, bird’s eye type of journalism is exactly what Grim has going on here, and he’s proved more than able to interview, source and generate his own content. I’d say the same for Mike Morgan, too.
The internet didn’t give rise to blogs. They exist and thrive because mainstream news consists of lies and emotional manipulation. If one doesn’t feel like buying into the lies and brainwash, places like this are all that’s left to us.
#64
Grim,
But where are those individuals here (who grew up in the city) raising their kids? The burbs I think? There are definitely worse places to raise kids than the city, but most seem to choose the burbs unless they have lot of scratch at their disposal.
My Mom grew up in the city (poor) and loved it, but when starting to raise a fam she made a run for NJ.
Just saying.
skep-tic, the gov’t didn’t force anyone to participate in all the stuff you listed, but they did encourage fannie mae and freddie mac to give loans to more people to encourage home ownership. They’re also supposed to watch over the industry because if things go bad it can really be bad for the economy.
While I don’t think the gov’t needs to oversee everything it should oversee companies that can really make or break our economy to make sure greedy people don’t run amuck, especially if in some cases it is required to bail out those institutions.
[29] sell hi,
I thought about that and was told, no. In retrospect, it makes sense: Technically, you don’t have an agreement yet, so you have no obligation to cover fees. Also, since I was able to point to an obvious, undisclosed hazard, I felt pretty safe.
The flip side is also true. Sellers can go into AR with you, and then bail if a better offer comes along. If a seller bailed on me, I would be PO’ed and want my fees covered, but I can’t see how I would have grounds except to argue that there was an implied duty to negotiate in good faith. But the lawyers have an established dance that they do in order to cover that. So I doubt I would get anywhere.
62….people who live in the moment are the happiest people that I know.
John (58)-
Are you with me, Dr Wu? Are you really just a shadow of the man I once knew? Are you crazy, are you high…or just an ordinary guy? Have you done all you can do? Are you with me, Doctor?
Nom (68)-
Attorneys cancel the contract when initiating attorney review. Until AR is ended and the contract is essentially reinstated and becomes binding, both principals fly without cover.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. Anyone seeking legal advice should consult a soothsayer.
Swamped by debt and rising medical bills, elderly Americans have been seeking bankruptcy-court protection at sharply faster rates than other adults, a study to be released Tuesday indicates.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2008-06-16-bankruptcy-seniors_N.htm
[61] MJ
There is a tradeoff btwn city and burbs for kids. Yes, there is no yard, but I raised the little Nom for 4 years in Phila. and the proximity to playgrounds, museums, arts, playdates and babysitters, as well as your own access to restaurants, arts, friends, cannot be underestimated. There really is an advantage, I feel, for small children in the city.
That said, once public school came near, it came time to sell and get out. Also, she wants a yard so much it hurts. So it is the burbs, but not the exburbs where you would have to drive her to a playdate down the street.
Fuel Cost hurting law enforcment
The cost of fuel has become so prohibitive that El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has asked his officers working the graveyard shift to stop routine patrols, shut their cars off and respond only to emergency calls.
“We have told them to cease all routine or random patrols — which means that residents won’t see marked units driving through their neighborhoods being proactive,” Maketa said. “We’ve essentially had to turn back to being reactive, primarily because the county doesn’t have the revenue to keep our fleet being fueled.”
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9606595
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there’s gas in the car.
I think the people down the hall know who you are.
[71] Clot,
Thanks for clarifying. It is not a practice seen in any jurisdiction I am admitted in so it was completely foreign to me. But the result is the same–you have no contractual obligation.
Tom,
I don’t understand all the different angles or legal arguments. If there is a link back to the source, credit given, a short snippet of the article is that not fair use. Bloggers are giving these articles a much wider readership. Since hits generate revenue for many blogs, they are in a sense contributing. When NY Times put up the “Select” wall their readership plummeted. They probably lost as much money on advertising as they made in subscriptions.
There is a lot of gray areas with blogging, especially within the comments section. What if someone post the articles in the comment section – is the blog responsible? Would Grim (and other bloggers) need to moderate all the comments? That would really hurt the community.
Also, read this morning that Daily Kos is threatening to countersue the AP regarding fair use. Again I do not know all the legalities just looking out for the site.
[75] clot,
That is more than 17 syllables.
Gasoline vs. Hydrogeen/vs. Electric.
Just one simple question:
Look up how we generate hydrogen/electircity..
Gasoline have by far lest amonut of energy LOSS and Carbon footprint. BUT no GO GREEN!!!
I’d say instead of driving – walk. Come on grocery store is only 4 miles from my house right now!!!
Southern California’s oldest bank acquired for 30.5 million cash!!!!!!!
When developer Empire Land sought protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside in April, its biggest debt by far — $5.1 million — was to PFF Bank & Trust.
Southern California’s oldest bank, PFF — formerly Pomona First Federal — had doubled its loan portfolio to $4 billion over the last decade, in large part by financing residential developers and builders of affordable housing in the Inland Empire.
California National Bank’s parent to buy operator of PFF Bank & Trust
But the bank’s losses on such lending has soared, sending the stock price of its parent company, PFF Bancorp, down 90% this year. Desperate for fresh capital, the company agreed Monday to be acquired for $30.5 million in cash.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-smallbanks17-2008jun17,0,4723238.story
There are definitely worse places to raise kids than the city, but most seem to choose the burbs unless they have lot of scratch at their disposal.
Doyle,
Is it really a choice if they don’t have the means to support the alternative?
The article clearly states that the lower incomes will leave the cities, and the upper incomes will move in. The example you provided seems to support the argument, not refute it.
We’re not talking about a family of 5 picking up and moving to Ironbound tomorrow, we’re talking about long-term structural changes in society and demographics.
Clotpoll, I didn’t say that bloggers never contribute news, I said the majority don’t. I even mentioned NJ RE Report in a previous post as one of the few sites that do contribute real news.
But even on this site, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking it, if you look at the font page, the majority of posts are just quotes from other stories. Granted grim needs to post at least something everyday so we can start with a fresh page :)
I’m with you on the poor quality of a lot of news sites and I think bloggers help shine the light on that. But there’s as much bias on any side of any issue on blogs as there is in the media.
There is a lot of gray areas with blogging, especially within the comments section. What if someone post the articles in the comment section – is the blog responsible? Would Grim (and other bloggers) need to moderate all the comments? That would really hurt the community.
I’ve got a folder of cease and desist letters in my filing cabinet telling me that I am.
I’ve never seen so many strollers on Washington Ave in Hoboken, and I was almost run down by a kid on a bicycle off of Park Ave.
Grim,
Do you really get cease and desist letters? How do you address them? Who are the majority of them from (Realtors, Corporations)?
Yes.
I’ve found that grovelling and compliance seem to work the best.
#84 grim
I hope they were all bugaboos and not those nasty Gracos from the projects.
Clot..John…
In the night you hide from the madman
You’re longing to be
But it all comes out on the inside
Eventually
Fun
Not only do they have expensive strollers, but they even hire people to push them.
From the NYT
In Surge in Manhattan Toddlers, Rich White Families Lead Way
By SAM ROBERTS
Published: March 23, 2007
Manhattan, which once epitomized the glamorous and largely childless locale for “Sex and the City,” has begun to look more like the set for a decidedly upscale and even more vanilla version of 1960s suburbia in “The Wonder Years.”
Since 2000, according to census figures released last year, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan mushroomed by more than 32 percent. And though their ranks have been growing for several years, a new analysis for The New York Times makes clear for the first time who has been driving that growth: wealthy white families.
At least half of the growth was generated by children who are white and non-Hispanic. Their ranks expanded by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2005. For the first time since at least the 1960s, white children now outnumber either black or Hispanic youngsters in that age group in Manhattan.
The analysis shows that Manhattan’s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 a year in 2005, which means they are growing up in wealthier households than similar youngsters in any other large county in the country.
#67
Tom– what do propose our gov’t should do? Review every single contract before signing and put a seal of approval only on those it deems “fair” to both parties?
Living in a free society is not without costs. One such costs is that your are responsible for your decisions. Yes, the gov’t builds in certain incentives for economic activities it favors, but at the end of the day when YOU sign a contract, YOU are affirming that you have read it, understood it, and agree to be bound by it. If you choose to sign without understanding, that is your fault– no one elses.
Also, I’m sure you know this, but companies such as Fannie and Freddie operate in a thicket of regulation already. I grant you that the oversight of these entities in particular leaves something to be desired. But it is not as though they are making egregious economic decisions with impunity. Lenders are losing tons of money right now– their profits from the past few years will probably be completely wiped out by the time this correction is over. This is as it should be, and this is why further gov’t intervention is usually unwarranted.
white non-Hispanic toddlers?
#81
Grim,
I confess I was a bit wishy washy in what I was saying, and wasn’t really addressing the article and long term structural changes in society. My point was that some posters here who grew up in the city still choose to raise their kids in the burbs, but probably could afford to do so in the city if they wanted to (speculating).
I don’t see that changing in the near future, but I am often wrong :)
I think that your money goes so much farther in the suburbs in say a 20 mile radius of NYC….$300k in nyc is peanuts.
#90
Okay, okay, lay off…
D,
Just trying to spur discussion is all.
I’m poor, I don’t think I could even afford a studio in Manhattan, let alone the damn stroller I’d need.
My friend is listed as a white hispanic on the census bureau, she may marry an Irish guy so will her children be white white hispanics or white, or still non-white hispanics. The whole thing is confusing. My favorite hispanic mix-up story was ALFA had a meeting once and asked our firm to send latin american or hispanics accountants. So HR ships off these two Brazilians and the damm conference was in spanish and they spoke porteguese and could not understand most of the conference.
“If there is a link back to the source, credit given, a short snippet of the article is that not fair use.”
No, it’s not. If you want to brush up on fair use check out the page on Wikipedia. Here’s a quote
The four factors considered that are part of the copyright act, as listed with wikipedia are:
In #1, notice there is no comma between non-profit and educational. Educational can’t just be you’re educating people on every word in the article. :) #3 back to the book review example. If you quote the entire book and then your review consists of one line that says “this book is great”, then you’d have a hard time claiming fair use. #4, if you’re giving away something for free that they are making money from, and they can prove that by you giving it away causes them financial harm, your fair use claim is diminished.
In your example, what is the other authors work? They just copied and pasted it.
Consider this. You come up with a popular design you print on t-shirts and everyone wants it. You decide to give away the tshirts with your design on the back, but you sell ad space on the front of the shirt. You’re giving the shirts with your design away but you’re selling the ad space.
Now someone comes along and says, well they’re free, let me just copy them and give them out too. Now they took your copyrighted design and they’re impacting your revenue. That’s not fair use. That’s not even fair :)
Bloggers may be giving the articles wider readership but if they’re not reading it from the sites that pay for AP’s feeds, they won’t be able to justify their charges. The AP doesn’t make money when people read their stories, they make money when people read their stories on sites that pay for it. Most people don’t even click on the links. Why should they if the entire article has been copied and pasted in a blog?
“There is a lot of gray areas with blogging, especially within the comments section. What if someone post the articles in the comment section – is the blog responsible?”
It’s not a grey area. The DMCA provides “safe harbor” protection to ISP’s and other services that have users that contribute content. To retain this safe harbor protection the site must comply with the DCMA regulations. If there is a DMCA takedown request sent to a site to remove content from a user that is in dispute, the site normally takes the content down, and informs the user. Then if the user wishes they can defend their use. By complying with the DMCA the site isn’t held responsible. That content could have been there for years, in violation of copyright.
Again, while I think they only claimed copyright infringement to be able to apply the DMCA, the AP did win a supreme court case a while back that protected their on the doctrine of “Misappropriation”. I dug up the link with info on that for you.
Did you find that link for what the AP will charge? I’m curious what they’re planning on doing.
re: burbs
If we get to the point beyond diminishing returns and lack of energy resources where people who live in the suburbs cannot afford the costs associated then somewhere in the future we may see a bunch of different scenarios unfold, some abandonment and squatting, agricultural redevelopment such as suburban micro-farms, architectural re-use where McMansions become rooming houses for field workers, deconstruction of tract homes, and things we may not want to imagine such as wars for resources and mass starvation.
I have a feeling we will go to war if we need more oil, after all isn’t that why we invaded Iraq? The US Army right now is sitting on reserves of up to 300 billion barrels of oil and there have been only about 2,000 wells drilled in Iraq, it is barely tapped. I also have a feeling the couch potato lifestyle of suburban excess is here to stay albeit in a different form, less SUVs and probably less trips to the mall to buy cheap junk nobody needs. Perhaps some of the fat asses I see lumbering around these days will go the way of the dinosaur.
No more fat asses in SUVs to ruin your day by cutting your off on the highway. Sounds like a nice dystopian future.
//Rant Off
John-type question of the day:
Kettle, why are the Indian dudes from upstairs cram-parking all of their cars into the only three tree-shaded parking spaces in my building’s parking lot?
Just go to Hoboken. Dogs and Bugaboo Strollers for all!!!
if everyone moves to the cities, we are in trouble. there simply isn’t enough space or infrastructure. you would end up having heavily guarded enclaves of wealthy surrounded by oceans of slums. seems to me there would be a massive increase in disease (cholera, dysintery) and violent crime
Pat Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:04 am
John-type question of the day:
Kettle, why are the Indian dudes from upstairs cram-parking all of their cars into the only three tree-shaded parking spaces in my building’s parking lot?
Pat: they think bird %hit is good for their car finishes….
skep-tic Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:07 am
if everyone moves to the cities, we are in trouble. there simply isn’t enough space or infrastructure. you would end up having heavily guarded enclaves of wealthy surrounded by oceans of slums. seems to me there would be a massive increase in disease (cholera, dysintery) and violent crime
? no way…plenty of space in the city if you are willing to pay for it….
violent crime doesn’t like witnesses….
“plenty of space in the city if you are willing to pay for it”
who has the money that isn’t already living there?
25 clot
said the same to Mrs. Patient this morning.
Having Hassett and Gramm on the team is even worse.
still looking
Really enjoyed the kid story yesterday.
Short posting on my end what with work
Bond of the day!
LEHMAN BROS HLDGS INC LEHMAN 5.50000% 01/27/2029 CALL
Price (Ask) 66.930
Yield to Worst (Ask) 9.045%
I did an extensive amateur cost-benefit analysis of city vs. suburbia. My commute from Hoboken or JC to central NJ would be a killer in terms of both time and money. I looked at places like Metuchen, Rahway, New Brunswick, and Highland Park: too expensive, overpriced and not the “next Hoboken” anytime soon, my aim is bad, and outrageous taxes even by NJ standards. I chose the Somerset County burbs because I will still be in reasonable commuting range of many jobs, I’m getting three or four times the space I would be able to afford in JC, I would still end up driving almost everywhere anyway, and key: I won’t have to move for ten years if I don’t want to. A walkable city and a train station would be nice, but I prefer having money in the bank over Starbucks and NYC access.
35 kelly
“On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.
The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet.”
Fight’s not over though.
Clot #13
Ah. That explains the basement.
41 SG
“Signs of cracks in Manhattan’s property market could mean the rest of the country is on the road to recovery”
The optimism is relentless!!!!
http://www.slideshare.net/debasish/indian-highways-road-signs
#96
I hear ya Grim. I work in NYC and there are a LOT of parents in all the offices I’ve worked in (5) who could live in NYC if they wanted, but the overwhelming majority choose to commute from LI, Westchester, CT and NJ everyday. All the singles tend to live in NYC or Hoboken. So I wasn’t really addressing long term trends and where were headed, just what I see on a daily basis. Not really what you guys were getting at I suppose.
Anyway, back to work before I get canned.
46 kettle
Your understanding of the AP fight is the correct one.
A friend of mine bought a rowhouse in Newark thinking it was the next “Hoboken”
So why do Indians park their car in your shade? Can you ask them?
My pet peeve is whenever I invite an indian to a meal or a conference etc. I have to go and arrange a vegitarian meal which is a pain but everytime they invite me they never arrange for me to get some meat, I am stuck eating nasty cury sauced veggie stuff. You would think they would hook me up with a nice steak or something since I always hook them up with their vegitarian meals even though it is a pain to do. Plus they never do childrens food, come on throw a chicken nugget my way for the kids, do you think those white non hispanic toddlers dig curry slop?
54 grim
“The electricity will need to come from somewhere, and with the tremendous anti-nuclear sentiment in this country, it means that it’ll come from burning something.”
Duh – it will come from the Flux Capacitor powered by garbage. Or the Beryllium Sphere. Or the Omega 13 Device.
Dude, Omega 13? It’s not even that complicated, everyone knows where electricity comes from. It comes out of the wall!
117 John
Why don’t you ask them in exactly those words. I’m sure you won’t have to worry about being invited over any more.
No, John, it’s at work. I don’t work in the city…South Brunswick.
I’m looking out my window every day, and last week, I start to see these 5 Toyotas all in one space. WTF?
103 chifi,
its called brazilification;you are wealthy and live in well maintained and desirable enclave or you are not and live in high crime areas with little or no services.
skeptic. The government is already involved. If you deposit your money in a bank that participated heavily in the subprime market and collapsed, the FDIC has to step in to protect the deposits they insured. To be able to guarantee this type of insurance, they have to make sure banks follow certain sound guidelines because the FDIC doesn’t have the reserves to bail out every dollar in every account.
These guidelines were not followed, and in some cases were allowed and even encouraged to be relaxed. The indication of this is that the the house price to income ratio, which was steady on a national level for at least 20 years, through huge interest rate fluctuations, rose by 50%. This should have been a red flag, but the government wanted more home ownership. They didn’t seem to care how it happened. They don’t have to check every contract but it should have been obvious there was something going on.
You may not have bought or sold a home in this period, but every taxpayer is going to pay for this in some way or another. The savings and loan crap in the 80’s resulted in about $160billion in costs. 80% of which was taxpayer money.
“Lenders are losing tons of money right now– their profits from the past few years will probably be completely wiped out by the time this correction is over. This is as it should be, and this is why further gov’t intervention is usually unwarranted.”
But the profits they made in previous years has already been spent. Lets say you have money tucked away in a few banks and a few investments through. You put the money in and you didn’t even know what subprime meant. The investments you made had nothing to do with subprime products but the institutions were so invested in them and already cashed out the profits through salaries and bonuses that they just collapsed. You lose all your money. Oh well buyer beware right?
And this happens to hundreds of thousand of people. Oh well. That’s not going to affect the economy? That’s not going to affect everyone’s life?
That’s like saying let’s not have an EPA. If you don’t do a thorough chemical analysis of every glass of what your drink, it’s your own fault. We need our companies to pollute our lives so we can compete with China’s low prices.
If it wasn’t for the protections offered by the government, america’s trust in banks may have never come back after the great depression, and then again after the savings and loan crisis. The reason we have faith in banks is because the government backs them. The government can safely back them because they help regulate them.
@109 jmacdaddio: You’re where my head is at. Plus, I work entirely on the Internet, from my home office, and have for a decade now. I have ZERO commute related energy cost, in the suburbs!
Also, anyone who thinks rich folks are gonna pour into Newark and Camden and push the poor folks there into their old McMansions is deluded beyond description.
Suburbia is in for harder times, for sure. But cities, most of which are already crime ridden jobless wastelands, are not about to benefit.
New urbanization:
Strikes me that it is really the idealized Disney version of urban living that people are aspiring to, not actual urban life. A “Friends” or “Sex in the City fantasy land. That kind of urbanization will make many places uninhabitable if you value your sanity.
John, we solved that problem. We taught our kid to eat spicy food.
Thank goodness. It must have been the benign and sheltering hand of Saraswati. ‘Cause we’re moving her to a school with 40% Asians.
That was for John 117.
NJ AG Anne Milgram planning to announce racketeering charges against a number of NJ individuals and companies. Related to some $5m in fraudulent mortgages.
So why do Indians park their car in your shade? Can you ask them?
—————————————–
funny.
John, if somone is Vegetarian, chances are they will not serve non-veggie food.
Inflation up? Ya’ think?
From Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a98NHvUcXIfI&refer=home
Strikes me that it is really the idealized Disney version of urban living that people are aspiring to, not actual urban life.
Have you walked through the “Livingston Town Center” project?
Are they still building the condos/townhouses in West Orange, vizeraca….something like that??
grim, what about that transit village they want to build on the old Curtiss Wright land? What is going on with that?
For the bears. If you need something to raise the blood pressure, or just wake you up, enjoy this screed from a REALTOR (TM):
“Yes, I agree with you all….this market stinks (believe me…we’re feel’en it) BUT…I think the big picture & possibly the bright side to all of this is…if you are in an apartment or home that is a house you don’t plan on staying in (want to buy for the 1st time or want to upgrade) there is no better time to buy than right now. If you are in an apartment, it’s a no brainer, house prices are low & interest rates are low….in what, 2 years maybe max…you will be sitting on tremendous investment!! It will have been one of the smartest things for you to have done. If you are in a starter home & you want to upgrade….do it NOW!! Yes, you maybe taking a hit on your current investment BUT…you might be able to make a huge lifestyle change to a far nicer home than you may possibly be able to afford otherwise. You too will be sitting on a tremendous investment in a shorter period of time than any stock investment you could make. The last time the market bottomed out in the 80’s there were low home prices but crazy high interest rates…the market we’re in now has never been seen…if you want to make that move to the house you want to spend 30 years in…I say do it now!! I’m trying to get my own home ready for sale so I can do just that myself!! “
re: India.
How soon before they riot?
In India, Mumbai’s BSE index has lost 27pc of its value as the exodus of foreign funds accelerates. The central bank has raised rates to 8pc to curb inflation and halt a run on the rupee
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/13/cnemerging113.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox
# grim Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am
“Have you walked through the “Livingston Town Center” project?”
No. Does Mickey come and sign autographs?
John Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
So why do Indians park their car in your shade? Can you ask them?
My pet peeve is whenever I invite an indian to a meal or a conference etc. I have to go and arrange a vegitarian meal which is a pain but everytime they invite me they never arrange for me to get some meat, I am stuck eating nasty cury sauced veggie stuff. You would think they would hook me up with a nice steak or something since I always hook them up with their vegitarian meals even though it is a pain to do. Plus they never do childrens food, come on throw a chicken nugget my way for the kids, do you think those white non hispanic toddlers dig curry slop?
Put a damn sock in it and get with the program. Indian food includes meat. I love Indian food. The more spicy it is, the better. Give the kids a damn vegetable somosa. That will keep the quiet.
#123
Tom– I think we just have a fundamental disagreement on the power and influence of gov’t in economic matters. All of the regs and policies you cited are important, but in my view pale in comparison to the importance of individual choice. There were bubbles and manias like the housing bubble long before the FDIC, SEC, etc.
Furthermore, mortgages are not like hidden nuclear waste. The terms are laid out in the agreement for everyone to see. I accept that few people understand these terms in full, but that is why lawyers exist. When you are signing a contract that puts you on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions), you can certainly spend $500 to have a professional read and explain to you what you are signing. If you fail to do this, it is not up to the gov’t or anyone else to clean up your mess and it is nonsense to suggest that it was primarily the gov’t’s fault that you made such a decision. Everyone involved in this mess had choices to make and some people made bad ones. It is really that simple.
The follow-up from the same Realtor after her views were challanged:
“I’m an opportunist! I come from a family of real estate investors as well as being a Realtor myself. In these downturned markets, if you are in a position to buy, it has always been good business to buy low & sell high is all. Why on earth would anyone wait to buy until interest rates are on the rise and homes prices are climbing? Why lose out?
In my experience & from speaking with all my cohorts the homes that are actually moving right now are in the category of “first time homes”. SOME people are using this ideology & once again IMHO are being very, very wise. Real Estate has ALWAYS been one of the strongest investments a person can make (of course any investment is risky) but just as an IRA or 401K investment is long term there is little that can go wrong with a real etsate investment in the long term UNLESS you are put in position like someone who bought just 2 years ago & now HAS to sell in this market. If you are in an industry that moves you around alot or you know you could be in a situation that might force you to move in the near future, this type of investment may not be for you.
This is how it has worked for me and a “for instance”…., I bought my 1st time home about 6 years ago. We knew we only wanted to get started here. About 2 years ago we re-fied & a bank appraisal told us we made 125K on our crappy little house in Northern NJ. That’s not too shabby!! We JUST had another one done a month or so ago (trying to prepare for a sale) found out that we’ve lost about 25K off our 1st appraisal!! We’ve still made over 100K on our home IN THIS MARKET, in a span of time, less than 6 years. I’m OK with that, I’ve made my money & want to make a jump to a MUCH nicer atmosphere for me & my family & think there is no better time to do then right now. I can get a fixed 30 year conv loan on a home we may NEVER be able to afford for a rate we may never see again.
This idea may not work for you…that’s fine but for me, my experience & my career…I’m seeing it work. I see investors running to the market trying to pick up deals now, renting these properties until the market picks upwith plans to sell then…history has always been a great predictor of the future & history has shown us that real estate always picks back up (eventually). Obviously don’t take my word for it, ask around to people you trust & who make alot of money…real estate is definietly a sound investment, whenever you can afford it. My husband works in the financially industry & agrees, we need to move ASAP.”
Don’t thank me, I’m a giver.
AP – http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080617/midwest_flooding_red_cross.html
American red cross – balance for domestic disaster relief is 0000.
64 grim
“We do have a number of individuals here who grew up in the “city” as kids.
They’ve certainly survived (although you could claim survivorship bias), and most seem not only well-educated, but successful as well.”
Aw shucks – you flatter me.
129 NNJ
I’m a vegetarian. I’m probably one of the few who will still serve chicken though. My husband is not a veggie so I will give him poultry. But I don’t do red meat. He can eat a steak when we go out to eat.
Steps on soapbox…..
Ok heres the deal, unless mana rains from the sky cheap energy is over! Oil was our ace in the hole that our society had to to develop itself. We have squandered the unparalleled resource that we had and while we have not and will not run out of oil, the amount or energy that it takes to et the oil relative to the amount of energy we get from the oil is rapidly dropping (i.e EROEI).
Modern sciety is entirely built on access to plentiful cheap energy. Without plentiful cheap energy out current social structure cannot exist in its current form. Heck, even modern economics assumes that resources are essentially infinite and that the great invisible hand of the market will adjust prices to account for any short falls. That sounds great, but what does that actually mean when there are 7 billion people and only 5 billion can afford food due to the invisible hand pushing prices up as energy ( and there for food) becomes more expensive.
As i have said before, human societies for the last 2000 years have almost exclusively exhibited exponential growth/ consumption. In exponential growth/consumption environments,the switch from a depleted resource to an alternative doe snot prevent collapse of the system, it only postpones it. the only way to avoid collapse is to stop exponential growth.
It doesnt matter if every car on the road is hydrogen and batteries by the end of next week. the modern global society based on exponential consumption is Guaranteed to collapse if we do not reach a steady state equilibrium (i.e no more growth, just maintenance of the current system).
t alas, do not worry to much. If we d as a society do not decide to sto pexponential growth, the combined forces of physics and biological ecosystems will act for us. If you want to know what to expect look at your avergae bacteria population on a petri dish. They will sow explosive exponential growth and once they have exhausted their resources show a rapid decline.
what can you do about this, most likely nothing, the change but be a society wide change and i am not aware of any human civilization that have avoided this fate in the last 1000 years or so outside of hunter gatherer tribes. So have a drink, buy a bunker and enjoy the show!
Steps off soap box…….
lis,
At night, I pray that we see SEC-like regulation regarding the advertising or discussion of real estate as an “investment”.
122 – kettle..
something like this..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/world/asia/09gated.html?scp=1&sq=gurgaon%20india&st=cse
– A tale of 2 Indias.
66 doyle
“But where are those individuals here (who grew up in the city) raising their kids? The burbs I think?”
But that may be because of the other parent who grew up in the burbs. Mrs. Patient hated it in the city, and when we made the move out here to the burbs, she said “You’re never home, why do you care where we live.”
Kinda hard to argue with that.
117- John..
While you are at it, why not some pork chops at a Jewish household?
# grim Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
lis,
“At night, I pray that we see SEC-like regulation regarding the advertising or discussion of real estate as an “investment”.”
Agreed. That moron seriously crossed the boundary between home sales and investment advice.
New Ritholtz Column, the man is fantastic!
http://seekingalpha.com/article/81675-where-did-wall-street-s-profits-go?source=headline1
#142, most Indians are vegetarian for religious rather than health reasons. So cooking, serving, having meat in the home is a big no-no.
In Hoboken news, there are apparently 10.5 months of supply of 2 BR condos, and over 1 years supply of 3+ BR’s. 1BR’s are apparently at 6.5 months supply.
I eat bacon………..ssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I blame the Soccer Moms..
Murder rate in Jersey City is up this year
150
I’m well aware. :)
Try dealing with militant vegans.
http://mangalorean.com/images/newstemp18/20080609farmers5.jpg
There are no riots (just burnt buses) and of course there is no shortage of fertilizers in India.
[119] Grim,
I tried getting electricity out of the wall.
Nothing worked and I have all these little holes now.
86 grim
“I’ve found that grovelling and compliance seem to work the best.”
You are not the only one. The “chilling effect” is real, and the DMCA in essence permits copyright holders the right to a pre-emptive injunction without review. Fair use is a powerful shield, but it requires substantial resources to wield it against the DMCA.
It was a different kettle of fish excerpting bits of a book or the NY Times back in 1992.
“1BR’s are apparently at 6.5 months supply.”
They are in demand because of the crazy @ss prices they are still asking for 2BD/2BA in Hoboken. It’s not 2005 morons, start listing your cookie cutter at 550-575K and it will sell the day instead of sitting there at $650K for a year.
We went to a veggie lover’s paradise. Indian buffet in NE Phila with a great reputation. My mouth was watering all the way over there.
Without thinking, we stopped at KFC, bought my daughter a chicken leg, and put the little bag in my purse.
As we walked in, the host walked up to us and immediately stopped…about 3 feet from me.
He furrowed his eyebrows, and pointed back to the door we had just come in. Very accented: “Out, out. Not in my restaurant, Out!”
#143
“As i have said before, human societies for the last 2000 years have almost exclusively exhibited exponential growth”
kettle– have to disagree with you here. I have read that global growth was basically flat from the time of Christ to the late 1700s/early 1800s (beginning of industrialization). Since then, it seems to me our ability to harness and use different kinds of energy has evolved very rapidly. I’m not saying we don’t have a lot of eggs in the oil basket, I’m just saying that our ability to innovate is pretty miraculous when you think about it.
159, hmmm an Indian Soup Nazi…
anyway, back to RE, anyone know the status of that big condo project in west orange?
123 Tom
Next thing you know you’ll be claiming that things got better after the passage of the ’33 Act and the ’34 Act.
Ridiculous!
154, personally know plenty of Jains.
137
OMG I agree with reinvestor101!
I can die happy.
30 Year Fixed 6.36%
Posting the Reuters version, instead of the AP:
Housing starts in May hit 1991 low
U.S. housing starts slid 3.3 percent in May to their lowest level in more than 17 years, while permits for future construction also fell, signaling more weakness ahead for the battered U.S. housing sector.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday said housing starts set an annual pace of 975,000 units in May, the lowest since March 1991. Economists polled before the report were expecting a 980,000 unit rate. The April starts figure was revised downward to 1.008 million from the 1.032 million originally reported.
138 skep
“All of the regs and policies you cited are important, but in my view pale in comparison to the importance of individual choice.”
You say that as if the two things are mutually exclusive. Much regulation is about disclosure, which enhances the ability to choose.
164- NJP
Post of the day!!
#145 Victorian
Nice link. I am saddened whenever I visit my home country. The rise in prosperity is in stark contrast to millions of urban and rural poor. Food is definitely major concern, but tale in housing is much more drastic than here. The prices in some part of my home town of Mumbai (Bombay) are higher than even Manhattan. The unwillingness of political class to decentralize power, corruption etc… will create lot of tension going forward.
139 soosh
The “ideology” of buying first homes. Love it.
#162
patient– you know I am in favor of securities regs, but you have to admit that there is a huge gulf between saying that these types of regs are productive overall and the lack of such regs is the primary cause of bubbles. we have had bubbles in the stock market since the 30s and even if we had diff’t regulation of RE transactions, I suspect we still would have had a housing bubble (indeed, it happened world wide under a host of diff’t regulatory regimes). again, not saying some new regs aren’t warrented (in fact, I have argued the opposite here), just saying that primary responsibility lies at the individual level (both human and institutional), and the consequence of pretending otherwise is to devalue the entire concept of contracts.
Willie got fired
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/06/17/bc.bbn.mets.randolphfir.ap/index.html
“They are in demand because of the crazy @ss prices they are still asking for 2BD/2BA in Hoboken. It’s not 2005 morons, start listing your cookie cutter at 550-575K and it will sell the day instead of sitting there at $650K for a year.”
And when they start dropping prices on the 2br’s, I think that will crush the prices of the 1br’s.
“So have a drink, buy a bunker and enjoy the show”
So, kettle – are you short McMansions and long bunkers with a view?
152 essex
I’m like Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (“yeah, but bacon tastes goooood, pork chops taste gooooooood…..”)
“Murder rate in Jersey City is up this year”
You know how Hoboken, Weehawken and parts of Jersey City are immune because they are close to Manhattan? Well, the murder rate is up in JC because it’s skyrocketed in the OTHER parts (you know, the parts of JC that are NOT near Manhattan).
skeptic,
the early portions of exponential curves are relativly flat…. look at a chart of human population over the last 2000 years and you see exponential growth.
At the same time small local environments do not always match the large scale trends. But this is less and less common as the world has become globalized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg
I’m a long-time cookietarian, but only because of religious reasons.
166 grim
“Posting the Reuters version, instead of the AP”
A large number of bloggers have started doing this – no quotes of or links to AP stories at all. Not much is exclusive anyway.
here is another 1
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/W/WorldBank.gif
from
(//users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html)
171 skeptic
“there is a huge gulf between saying that these types of regs are productive overall and the lack of such regs is the primary cause of bubbles”
True, and I would certainly not claim the latter. Better disclosure requirements on loans would be a good thing (as would better disclosure requirements on home sales data or on for sale info (such as days on market)), but not because they would prevent bubbles. They wouldn’t.
Bubbles occur because human beings are fantastically greedy beasts.
Hobokenite,
Agreed
Benjiman Franklin used to eat only animals that ate other animals as he felt that was the ultmate in vegitrarismn. By eating them you save tons of other animals lives. Now that is hard core old school.
“I’m a long-time cookietarian”
What denomination? I am a chippist.
175…I completely agree…
Disclosure: I am A Hebrew.
182, John, what did he eat?
#177
here is a chart on historical global GDP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_GDP_Capita_1-2003_A.D.png
looks very similar to population chart above, which makes sense. exponential, yes, but not entirely clear where the curve begins.
my point though, of course, is that there was explosive growth even before oil was discovered and used. it does not seem impossible (or even improbable) to me that we will continue to see similar growth going forward, only with yet another energy platform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands
I am not worried I am going to move to the smallest country in the world, Pitcairn Islands with a total population of 50
184
I am a Shabbos goy.
skep
“it does not seem impossible (or even improbable) to me that we will continue to see similar growth going forward, only with yet another energy platform”
This may well be true, but there’s going to be a nasty little blip in the chart prior to that, I believe.
skep-tic:
I think you misunderstood me or I misstated something. I don’t think it’s the government’s fault. But they did have the means to know something wasn’t right and the power to do something about it. Instead they seem to have been encouraging what was going on.
The bubbles and manias that were around before the FDIC and SEC are what led to their creation to prevent those things from happening again.
While I don’t hold the borrowers blameless, according to reports I’ve heard and things I’ve seen first hand, the lenders, re agents and lawyers contributed to the problem in cases where they were telling the borrowers things like don’t worry, with housing prices rising like they are, they can always sell for a profit in a couple of years if they can’t make the payments.
The lenders should have been more diligent. If a guy buys a house and then can’t afford to pay for it it’s not that big a deal. He lived in a house for what is essentially an expensive rent. Then almost a year rent free during the foreclosure process and has bad credit because of everything. Chances are if he had a subprime loan, his credit wasn’t that good to begin with.
The lender on the other hand, or the entity that purchased the loan, is out the money and can’t recoup it because the house can’t even be sold at a price that breaks even.
People have been trying to get loans they would have a hard time repaying for centuries. The difference is lenders started qualifying these people. They thought housing prices would continue to rise and worse comes to worse they could resell the home. When you’re selling 30 year loans, you can’t focus on just short term profits. That seems to be what happened.
If the government is going to have to bail out these lenders, that pocketed insane profits, then the gov’t should have kept them inline. I don’t want my tax money going to some company that shot themselves should have known better.
If they want to do what they want, fine. Just don’t come around with your hand out when things go bad. Same goes for borrowers. If you make 35k a year, you shouldn’t be living in a 500k house. Hell, if you make 100k you shouldn’t be living in a 500k house. I don’t think tax payers should subsidize bad purchases either.
This whole thing was one big mess that’s going to cost a lot of money to fix.
CNN headline: “Congress takes aim at oil speculators”
Funny. Marksmanship practice with a target that doesn’t exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29
In table form, past world gdp.
“CNN headline: “Congress takes aim at oil speculators”
They eliminating shorting? The damn shorts are causing this run up. They don’t have the b*lls/capital to hold a position.
By the way, last week, 210m barrels long, 190m barrels short.
this is a bit disturbing:
http://tinyurl.com/58mgqv
Pat or Secondary Mkt – any local color?
#190
Tom– I think we’re on the same page. I agree with everything you just said
In the push for urbanification there will be winners and losers. Post bubble, I think the big winners will still be Hoboken and JC thanks to their proximity to Midtown. If I survive Wall Street layoffs, and my budget is $400k, I’ll take the loft or condo on the Gold Coast and have a 30 minute commute vs. buying a slightly bigger place for slightly less money in Rahway, Metuchen, or New Brunswick and have a schlep of an hour and 15 mins on the NE Corridor and subways. Same logic applies to places like Montclair or Morristown. If I work in NJ and I want the hip downtown experience, the train towns are nice but they come at a dear price. Plus if I have to drive everywhere anyway, I might as well go all-in on a suburban place, get more house for my money, and be able to use the school system in a few years or sell it to someone who needs good schools.
I think the McMansion concept is dead. As far as downtowns rising up from the ashes, it’s still a 15-20 year process. In this market you need to buy for a 8-10 year time frame or you’re going to lose money, and you don’t want to be in a position of having to move out of the city if a family comes – Brooklyn is having an exodus of families once their children move beyond the stroller years because of the school situation.
In the coming years proximity to job centers will help determine which towns retain some value and which fall. I wouldn’t want to be paying the mortgage on a McMansion in Toms River.
#187 John,
Pitcairn is an awful place. You have to row a boat out to sea to pick up supplies. The harbor is to small for even small freighters to come in to. As a bonus there are so few women on the island the men go after 12 year old girls. something like half the adult males were on trial for child molestation back in 06.
Great place to live.
#197 is sarcastic.
bairen,
What’s your email address? If you don’t want to post, ask JB to forward to me.
skep-tic:
“Tom– I think we’re on the same page. I agree with everything you just said”
Good I have a more important question to ask. :) Does anyone know if in NJ you’re required to disclose to potential buyers if you’re house is haunted?
I don’t know why by a while back I got hooked and set the DVR for Discovery’s “A Haunting” and I saw that mentioned there.
Any body here every list a haunted house?
CNN headline: “Congress takes aim at oil speculators”
Want cheaper oil? take aim at the Fed reserve for debasing currency.
Speaking of McMansions in Tom’s River, I saw one that’s on the us treas dept website that’s going to go up for public auction due to unpaid taxes.
There might be a number of encumbrances that remain attached. If anyone can read Form 2434-B better and cares to explain it to the class, the listing is at http://www.ustreas.gov/auctions/irs/trnj_real_2919.htm
#199 BC Bob,
Sure.
Grim, Can you forward my email to BC Bob?
Thanks
@kettel1 143:
You’re right, nothing can stop the impending catastrophe as the exponentially reproducing human population encounters natural resource limits of the Earth. Drive a HUMMER or a Toyota Pious, same difference.
Human nature is in human DNA. It cannot and will not change in a few short generations, and thus there is no changing of society or civilzation that can be accomplished to avert this disaster.
Like Mr. T, my prediction is PAIN.
89:
Three separate Hoboken families I know are wealthy, have kids under age 3, hire someone “to push the stroller,” and are looking for the exit from Hoboken before their kids reach school age. (One just closed on a place in scenic Leonia, the Athens of NJ.)
The social and civic transformation you allude to will take generations, not just a few years — after all, it will take a long time to squeeze all those icky middle- and working-class people out of our soon-to-be-glittering cities.
@186 skep-tic
“it does not seem impossible (or even improbable) to me that we will continue to see similar growth going forward, only with yet another energy platform”
Your degree isn’t in physics or chemistry, is it?
There will be no replacement for oil. That was it. Sorry.
97, 117:
John, you almost had me believing you … up to the point when you said you had a Hispanic friend.
#206
what’s wrong with nuclear?
@174 njpatient:
McMansions are bunkers, really, the most bunker like of all housing options, especially if they have private well and septic. Add some solar panels and you’re off the grid.
Jamil
This is for you (from George Will):
“In a previous column, I stated that China, in partnership with Cuba, is drilling for oil 60 miles from the Florida coast. While Cuba has partnered with Chinese companies to drill in the Florida Straits, no Chinese company has been involved in Cuba’s oil exploration that close to the United States. “
rest of that George Will column is worth reading as well:
http://tinyurl.com/6jwj5r
200: Tom: You do not have to disclose if the house is “haunted” or if the previous owner died in the house.
When my wife and I were looking at houses in 2005 and 2006 we looked at many old houses, a few of which had a “heavy” feeling in them. Some were outright creepy – Didnt feel that we were alone, etc.
Unfortunately, our current house (built in 1925) is not haunted. :(
I think it would be exciting if it was though..
Re 207 I do, actually since I have so many kids in the public schools it is like the UN at my kids parties. I do however request my hispanics friends to leave the switchblades home when we have kids parties and they don’t seem to minds as long as I have mucho cervaza.
178:
Do you take communion with milk and a Chips Amen?
@208 skep-tic
“what’s wrong with nuclear”
Eternally deadly nuclear waste, for one. And then, beyond that, show me a car or even truck sized nuclear powered vehicle? Nuclear to electric is one thing, but how do you store that electric in a vehicle? Do you think there’s enough lithium and cadmium and nickel to replace all the gas/diesel vehicles with battery driven ones?!
Think about it for a moment. If nuclear was really an option, wouldn’t it already be used?
There will never, ever be a more energy dense, cheaper, and cleaner fuel than oil. There’s nothing to invent. There’s no conspiracy. That’s it. Just cold hard physical reality. Sorry.
John,
For you, a story about Pitcairn from Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/01/pitcairn200801
This just came across my inbox if anyone is interested…
To avoid moderation, I’m only posting the embedded link one here: http://www.votervoice.net/Core.aspx?AID=899&APP=GAC&IssueID=14746&SiteID=-1
Dear Friends,
Help CIANJ reduce your long-term tax burden by reforming pension plans for future government workers.
New Jersey’s taxpayers are committed to more than $25 billion in unfunded pension liabilities to public employees. Without reforming benefits, our taxes will continue to rise and we will not have enough resources to make key investments in our future. The current system is unsustainable because government continues to promise retirement packages long-ago abandoned by the private sector. join me in writing your legislator and encouraging them to pass a package of bills to help set our state on a path toward long-term fiscal stability.
The legislation will not affect current state employees – only future ones. Despite that, big labor has taken out a big media campaign to ensure change does not happen. The three most controversial bills would:
– Move future part-time workers into a 401(k) style system rather than keeping them in a defined benefits model
– “Limit” public employees with more than one job to one public pension
– Discourage pension “boosting” by basing retirement pay on a worker’s five highest years of paid service rather than three years.
CIANJ has already expressed support for this legislation, which cleared a Senate Committee despite enormous opposition built upon misinformation. We have been calling for these, and other, basic changes for years and are finally close to providing long-term reform for New Jersey’s taxpayers. A vote may happen this week!
Please join us by clicking here to visit our Legislative Action Center. There, in less than two minutes, you can e-mail your legislator and other Trenton leaders, urging them to pass these reforms.
Thank you for your continued support of the Commerce and Industry Association and for joining me in the constant effort to make New Jersey an even greater place to live, work and conduct business
213:
You send your kids to the same school as the folks who cut your grass?
How democratic!
210 MJ
I have to disagree on the mcmasion bunker idea. Most mcmansions are so poorly constructed that in 10 years they will be falling apart. Current mcmansions were built to go up fast and cheap. You run into the classic triangle issue.
Fast-Cheap-Quality. Pick 2.
Skeptic,
As i have said before, if we all want to live like Buddhist monks, then we do not have a problem. If all 6 billion of use wants to live like americans/europeans, then we are hosed. Look at the issues we have currently when we are at about 6.8 billion. Now consider that the human population is expected to plateau at 9 – 10 billion in the next 30 – 50 years. That’s a lot of hungry mouths who want electricity
“Think about it for a moment. If nuclear was really an option, wouldn’t it already be used?”
I’m not a nuclear guy, but this is not an argument I buy into. In 1960, a computer took up a large room at a university lab.
If we had started an energy Apollo Project a half decade ago and funded it with, say, $2B/wk, we probably would have made some hefty advances in energy tech by now.
@219 kettl1:
Agree about the quality issue, but by McMansion I’m referring to any house in the exurbs. You can build a quality house out in the exurbs and that is the best bunker. You can even build a moat…
MJ also hit on another interesting point….
Some people suggest that as MJ said, people will not change and we are destined to crash. And since we are destined to crash “smoke em while you got em”. i.e you are on the titanic and the ship is taking on water; might as well enjoy a few drinks at the ar for free while you can.
Not my opinion, but one that I am stating to hear more often
I live in Hoboken, am in my mid-thirties and have a child. I have a Bugaboo because I use a stroller more than I use my car – I bring my child to daycare, to the pediatrician, to the grocery store, dry cleaner, church, etc. in that stroller. (I had an umbrella stroller which I gave away because it just didn’t work for this lifestyle. On the other hand, I laugh when I see Bugaboos used by suburbanites who only use them for the mall – complete waste of money.)
We have 1 car and drive about once per week. My spouse and I both work in NYC.
We have no intention of moving out to the suburbs. And neither do many other Hoboken families – while Hoboken High School has a bad reputation, schools for younger grades are fine.
Hoboken isn’t cheap, but we save money by only driving one car, which is now 6 years old (purchased cash, only 35K miles on it), and we are in no hurry to upgrade it as we don’t drive enough to care. My commute per day takes 30 minutes, my spouse’s is 45 door-to-door but costs less than $100/month. Moving out to a neighborhood we could settle for would take away at least an hour of our lives each, and we’re not willing to take that time away from our child, as we already give away a good chunk of our lives to earn our paychecks.
We don’t have a backyard, but then again, we can spend time with our child at the park a block away, rather than cutting our lawn (or spending money to have someone else cut it).
Livingston Town Center? A couple of restaurants and shops is cute, but not nearly enough. And you still have to drive there from many points in Livingston.
I was raised in the suburbs, so I know what that’s like. Urban living works for us, and I’m so tired of reading the negative posts about it that I felt compelled to post.
Actually most of the landscapers kids go to Freeport HS which has had two riots in the last week. Those nuts even loaded up bricks in lacross sticks and flung them at the cops. Freeport HS is very very scary. But their lawn is nice.
#194
NJP,
I have not heard much on that but I do know the Marvin Harrison gun ownership, shooting case has not made a single step forward.
To each their own – some like communal living, some don’t.
@220 njpatient
“If we had started an energy Apollo Project a half decade ago and funded it with, say, $2B/wk, we probably would have made some hefty advances in energy tech by now.”
That’s the standard conspiracy theory of the uneducated.
Energy is not technology. Energy is fundamental physics, resources, and raw materials. You can’t invent yourself more Earth. You can’t invent a new oil out of nothing. You’ll have as much luck synthesizing gold.
Protect Yourself from Rising Gas Prices When Buying a Home
Where and how you live is one of the most important investment decisions you’ll make
What would you do with an extra $300-400 a month? Pay down your credit cards? Enjoy an evening out? Invest it? Finally build that college fund for your children? Investment advisors say that if you conservatively invest $3,600 per year, you could grow that amount to $117,000 over the course of 18 years.
After the mortgage, owning and driving vehicles is the second highest household expense, and people who live in a walkable neighborhood near shops and schools save thousands of dollars a year, a fact that makes the “drive ‘til you qualify” mindset as outdated as buying a gas-guzzling SUV.
“In home buying, the buzzwords are still “location, location, location,” but what people increasingly want to know is whether those locations are efficient, efficient, efficient,” says John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, who advises that before you shop for a house in a far-out subdivision, consider a house in a conveniently located walkable neighborhood. “If you live near the heart of things, you’re able to afford the American dream without going broke on transportation costs.”
Norquist said handy new tools now help house hunters get a handle on how much driving they’ll do in their new neighborhood – and the differences between neighborhoods can be eye-popping. Research from the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and the Brookings Urban Markets Initiative shows that the choice of a neighborhood can mean a difference of 11,000 miles per year or more per household. If your car averages 20 miles per gallon (and gas is $4), that’s a $2,200 annual savings off the bat. Factor in the need for fewer vehicles per household, the reduced wear-and-tear on cars, and the ability to substitute cheaper transit trips for car trips, and the savings grow from there.
Consider this comparison from Atlanta: In exurban Dacula with its fast-growing golf-course communities, the average household drives 22,993 miles. But with a home near the MARTA light-rail station in walkable inner-ring Decatur, a purchaser buys into a neighborhood where households average 12,250 miles according to the Housing and Transportation Index created by the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The variation in driving distances between Decatur and Dacula means a difference of more than $275 per month in transportation costs, according to CNT.
The HTA Index has neighborhood transportation and housing costs for 52 metropolitan areas across the country. In the Twin Cities, it shows the wisdom of shopping for home in the leafy urban neighborhood of East Isles next to Lake Calhoun where the average household drives 9,420 miles per year. That compares to 21,684 miles per year in exurban Rosemount. Transportation expenses run to $1,036 per month in Rosemount compared to $620 per month in East Isles – a savings of $415 month ($4,980 per year).
Traditionally, lenders have judged housing affordability as 30 percent or less of a household’s income. What has been left out is the transportation costs, which in some places are another 30 percent of a household’s income. The old “drive til you qualify” mentality that has led to longer and longer commutes for Americans costs money and reduces our quality of life, and contributes to the carbon emissions at the heart of global warming.
“People often get the advice that your home is your greatest investment,” said Norquist. “This market is showing that not every home is a great investment. The most valuable homes are walkable neighborhoods and downtowns with easy access to shops, schools and work.”
To see more comparisons and links to annual driving mile calculators, visit http://www.cnu.org/locationefficiency.
@222 kettle1
Sadly, after a thorough analysis, protecting you and yours while the ship sinks is the only rational approach.
Hoboken is urban living? Grow up. Beautiful waterfront views and parks. Go to the Bronx and get some realy urban living. That Bugaboo would get jacked day one.
John, for someone who is a big-shot, you attend very few meetings??? Or are you posting while running the meetings?
re: Oil Speculation and Congress
The sky is falling and Congress wants to hold the Arabs, the specualtors and others accountable for our primary problem the weak dollar.
Schumer was on TV over the weekend spewing some garbage about the Saudi’s having excess capacity of 2 million barrels a day, and then there is recent Senate legislation on suing OPEC for being an illegal cartel “OPEC Accountability Act” introduced this month by our very own Senator Lautenberg, and the other Senate Bill introduced to limit arms sales to Saudi Arbia introduced by Schumer himself unless oil prices drop by 25%. The Chuck Schumer Extortion Bill it should be called.
Wait until the middle east nations depeg from the dollar and move oil trading to the euro or a basket of currencies.
We are toast………….
Actually my staff attends and briefs me. I just put out fires and things have been running smooth. If you know what you are doing your feet should be on the desk. But I actually have a rare meeting at 2pm so I gotta go.
Patient,
Nuke could be an option but we are running into an energy cliff. As energy becomes more expensive R&D into new energy becomes more expensive (any activity that consumes energy becomes more expenses for that matter). Hence the longer we wait the more the R&D costs. Average transition from proven method in a lab setting to industrial scale application is 10 to 15 years and LOTS of money.
We do have some interesting and promising nuke tech, but even if we ignore the government red tape and the public opposition (another 10+ years right there) we need to consider that best case scenario suggests that we cannot have current lab scale nuke tech out in large scale for 10+ years. Each step of the development process becomes increasingly expensive and if any one step becomes to expensive then the tech is likely to be abandoned. This has been seen time and again with tech from energy production to microprocessor production etc.
The danger in the energy cliff is that we may have waited to long. In 5 or 10 years energy costs could be expensive enough that we would be forced to abandon projects midstream. While this sounds ridiculous it is very common,
@223 Hobocondo
Dense community living is nice IF your neighbors are wealthy. But the reason your high school has a bad reputation is that you only have a few wealthy neighbors and just a stones throw away are many that are much less wealthy.
Why do people automatically associate urban living with crime/gang/disease/slum/etc? From my own experience in Tokyo, Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, all of these cities contain some slums and some ritzy neighborhoods but it’s mostly high density middle income housing for average folks.
Of course urban living sucks if one defines it as slum living. But slum is only one aspect of a city (Granted, there are cities with a large swarth of slum surrounding a few island of luxury. But that kind of city seems to be an exception ratther than the rule).
John, “urban” means “city”, not crime. And for that I have to “grow up”?
Hoboken’s population density is more so that that of Newark.
MJ
dont forget that you actually can make gold out of lead……. its just not cost effective to do so as particle accelerators are a wee bit expensive
“And since we are destined to crash “smoke em while you got em”. i.e you are on the titanic and the ship is taking on water; might as well enjoy a few drinks at the ar for free while you can.”
I’m not a tin foil hat kinda guy, but every once in a while I think of all the things going on in this country; such as Enron, accounting scandals, the housing market, the stock market, the war. Are there people out there that know, or think they know the end is near and they’re just pillaging everything they can so that they can enjoy their last days before the world ends?
@228 “Pay down your credit cards? ”
OMG. Anyone with credit card debt, I hate you for ruining America. Likewise for anyone who bought a house they can’t afford.
* * *
“drive ‘til you qualify” — that wasn’t the mindset of the rich folks who bought in Far Hills and Tewksbury. The suburbs and exurbs are desirable in their own right, and don’t necessarily exist for the sake of cheaper housing.
* * *
Does no one understand that “the heart of things” or “where the jobs are” is not a set, fixed location?
MJ– you obviously know a lot more about this energy stuff than me, so I would be interested to hear you elaborate on why society can’t continue to function in a reasonable degree of comfort on an electric grid powered by nuclear. It seems to me that certain comforts we now take for granted would go out the window (like perhaps cars), but isn’t it possible we could adapt despite this?
Elmwood Park FUTURE Comp Killer!
2121845 Sold
SLD 109 BELLEVUE AVE $285,000 7/12/2002
2503218 Sold
SLD 109 BELLEVUE AVE $436,000 6/23/2005
2824563 Active (REO)
ACT 109 BELLEVUE AVE $334,900 6/17/2008
@238 kettle1
That’s actually my point. You can make another fuel, but you cannot make one cheaper, cleaner, more plentiful and energy efficient than oil. That’s why people fight wars for oil. Reproducing that is like reproducing gold. Simply not feasible.
“If you know what you are doing your feet should be on the desk.”
John,
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. That said, my feet are on the window sill as I watch the boats cruise by.
MJ……..I like the cut of your jib there sailor.
@241 skep-tic
“why society can’t continue to function in a reasonable degree of comfort on an electric grid powered by nuclear”
It could, you’ll have to just have to define “reasonable degree of comfort” as almost unimaginably less comfortable and more difficult than we have now with oil.
If those sacrifices were minimal, or even tolerable, we’d have that system now. Instead, we fight wars for oil, because that’s actually easier!
@241 skep-tic
Oh, not only could, probably will eventually. But with that same definition of reasonable.
“If those sacrifices were minimal, or even tolerable, we’d have that system now. Instead, we fight wars for oil, because that’s actually easier!”
I don’t disagree
…although I am not suggesting that war is easy
from WSJ Real Time Economics blog:
” total housing starts are now down 57% from their peak, nearly matching the 59% decline, on average, in every major housing downturn since 1964. If history is any guide, then that could be a sign a bottom is near.”
reasonable?
Think about it for a moment. If nuclear was really an option, wouldn’t it already be used?
It is being used.
However, cheap & abundant energy in the form of coal, gas & oil have pushed nuclear out of favor due to its somewhat higher cost and perceived risks. Other countries have been moving ahead with nuclear. There is a great deal of interest today in developing nuclear.
#200 Tom
Just like any pre existing condition. Some states have specific laws on the books (not sure about NJ specifically). If you can prove to a judge that they knew about the condition (like hired a company to remediate or something, ie ghostbusters) then I would say you have a strong case against them to force them to buy back the house. Without specific evidence though I would imagine you would be SOL.
@248 skep-tic
And I guess what I’m saying is, beyond the physical realities of energy, the realities of human behaviour means we’ll fight tooth and nail to the last drops of the easy energy, and only then when forced will humans adapt to the new reality of expensive, dangerous, and difficult energy.
We will have wars, fight over oil, many will die, many will starve, people will hurt. And then there will be nuclear infrastructure, and different ways of of life for the humans who live beyond that.
You and me, we’ll just see the wars and pain parts. :-P If we’re lucky and wealthy, we’ll see them from a safe distance.
213: thatBIGwindow
Thanks for the info. I decided to search after i made my post in case I found it this time. I came up with this blog from a NJ realtor about haunted houses.
Ridgewood Comp Killer!
2513339 Sold
SLD 246 CIRCLE AVE $881,000 9/8/2005
2746034 Sold
ACT 246 CIRCLE AVE $899,000 11/16/2007
PCH 246 CIRCLE AVE $889,000 2/5/2008
PCH 246 CIRCLE AVE $874,000 3/7/2008
ACT* 246 CIRCLE AVE $874,000 5/2/2008
U/C 246 CIRCLE AVE $874,000 5/7/2008
SLD 246 CIRCLE AVE $837,500 6/17/2008
@ RentinginNJ
Coal, gas and oil did not push out nuclear. Nuclear simply never pushed out coal, gas, and oil because nuclear is not as efficient (waste, danger, storage, desnsity, etc.)
“Other countries have been moving ahead with nuclear.” To what end? France is the big nuclear state since they had no better options no water power or coal or whatever. And guess what? They’re being crushed by high oil costs as much as anyone and worse than most.
Politics and society didn’t hold nuclear back. Economics and physic realities are just such that it doesn’t make sense until the oil’s nearly gone.
254 RiNNJ
That comp killer can’t be right because houses in blue ribbon school districts can’t go down.
Death is not the worst thing…it is the last thing.
skeptic [250],
My bells will go off once annualised starts come in at approx 600k.
Skeptic, MJ
If I may butt in for a moment;
The jist of the problem is that the infrastructure that our society is built on, everything from power distribution to transportation is geared to oil. A transition to a new primary power source that is anything besides a liquid based fuel will require a massive restructuring of our infrastructure. This is hugely expensive and takes time. Our current infrastructure has been built up over 50+ years. And as I said to NJ Patient above, we are headed for an energy cliff. An energy cliff is where the amount of energy available for productive activities rapidly drops as you must use an increasingly large % of your base energy capacity just for energy acquisition.
This means that just like example with nukes; the cost of rebuilding your infrastructure increases (potentially very quickly) over time as th available energy decreases. Consider that at the same time you are trying to rebuild your infrastructure that you are trying to build out a new primary energy source. The time to attempt this feat is when you have large quantities of cheap energy, such as sometime in the last 50 years. Exponential growth models generally predict that by the time you start to see resource constrictions it is too late to respond. It may take 200 years to use the first 505 of a resource, but it will only take 15 years to use the last 50%!!!!!!
more layoffs?
JPMorgan Chase’s top investment banking executives conceded yesterday that their acquisition of Bear Stearns was worth far more than the rock-bottom $10 a share price they paid, but that the market turmoil is still taking a toll on investment-banking profits and may result in further layoffs, CNBC has learned.
http://biz.yahoo.com/cnbc/080617/25211297.html
#175:
VINCENT: You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
JULES: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
VINCENT: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know what the f*&% a Quarter Pounder is.
JULES: What’d they call it?
VINCENT: Royale with Cheese.
JULES: Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac?
VINCENT: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
JULES: What do they call a Whopper?
VINCENT: I dunno, I didn’t go into a Burger King. But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
JULES: What?
VINCENT: Mayonnaise.
Ridgewood FUTURE Comp Killer!
2502779 Sold
SLD 560 LAUREL RD $745,000 4/21/2005
2821183 Active
ACT 560 LAUREL RD $719,000 5/23/2008
PCH 560 LAUREL RD $698,000 6/17/2008
Official list of every NJ Urban neighborhood
http://www.njra.us/njra/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=453505
Think about it for a moment. If nuclear was really an option, wouldn’t it already be used?
France uses nuclear power to produxe 85% of it’s electricity.
Besides the huge transition cost(which will pay through cleaner air and cheaper energy), why don’t we do the same?
I’ll tell you. We don’t know how. that’s why.
I dont see how that’s an 800k house. It looks like they expanded it with an addition on the back and I’m assuming remodeled the interior as well. To me it looks like maybe a 500-600k house. The houses on the other side of the block, to the west, I can see being more expensive.
I still think we have a ways to go.
Ridgewood FUTURE Comp Killer!
2610690 Sold
SLD 47 JOHN ST $795,000 6/30/2006
2819679 Active
ACT 47 JOHN ST $769,000 5/13/2008
PCH 47 JOHN ST $745,000 5/28/2008
PCH 47 JOHN ST $739,000 6/17/2008
Ridgewood
Closing in on the 2004 purchase price…
2427345
SLD 312 LINCOLN AVE $790,000 12/22/2004
2714646 Withdrawn
ACT 312 LINCOLN AVE $889,000 4/14/2007
W-U 312 LINCOLN AVE $889,000 6/13/2007
2724114 Expired
ACT 312 LINCOLN AVE $869,000 6/13/2007
ACT* 312 LINCOLN AVE $869,000 7/16/2007
ARR 312 LINCOLN AVE $869,000 7/24/2007
PCH 312 LINCOLN AVE $859,000 8/10/2007
ACT* 312 LINCOLN AVE $859,000 8/29/2007
ARR 312 LINCOLN AVE $859,000 9/4/2007
EXP 312 LINCOLN AVE $859,000 10/14/2007
2741713 Active
ACT 312 LINCOLN AVE $849,900 10/14/2007
PCH 312 LINCOLN AVE $839,000 3/25/2008
EXT 312 LINCOLN AVE $839,000 4/9/2008
PCH 312 LINCOLN AVE $825,000 4/23/2008
PCH 312 LINCOLN AVE $799,900 6/17/2008
Question for anyone that commutes from Dover – a very good friend of mine lives in Hoboken. He is about to get married and a kid is immediately in the picture I would imagine. He just said that instead of getting a place in Hoboken and a weekend house, he would like to spend his entire nut on a dream home on Lake Mohawk (Sussex). Anyone have any experience with this line or type of mega commute? I think it would easily be two hours when you consider the drive to the station and then train to NYC. I see what the guy is talking about when I see the homes available out there and what you get for the money but I also think he is a bit crazy for contemplating a 2+ hour commute each way. I hate to see him make a huge mistake given that he is a very good friend. Any nuggets of wisdom from the board?
“The jist of the problem is that the infrastructure that our society is built on, everything from power distribution to transportation is geared to oil.”
Isn’t the largest source of electricity in the us from coal? I thought the number was around 30% for coal. Then natural gas at close to 30%, then oil. Nuclear was around 10% and there were around 1/10th the number of nuclear power plans compared to other fuels for the same capacity.
When it comes to transportation though, oil is king. If an alternative to gas does come into play, that runs in existing engines and is liquid, not all the infrastructure needs to be thrown out.
268 Mike,
I commuted from the outer boroughs to Manhattan for high school 1:50 each way. Vowed never to have a commute longer than 30 minutes for rest of my life. Broke that vow to live in luxurious (and increasingly comp killing) part of Bergen Co. (hence the handle) with door to desk commute of 65 mins.
Did temporary commutes in past from Wilton CT and Montgomery NJ to Manhattan which were/are routinely 90-120 minutes each way.
The long commute blows if you do if every day. Two-three days a week with telecommuting might work, but five straight everysingle day is Hell.
My 3 cents (inflation, cost of copper, etc etc)
John,
Okay I have to ask. For a guy who lives in Long Island why are you on the NJRE Report?
When it comes to transportation though, oil is king. If an alternative to gas does come into play, that runs in existing engines and is liquid, not all the infrastructure needs to be thrown out.
Too bad kool-aid doesn’t work, seems to be alot of that around.
“Too bad kool-aid doesn’t work, seems to be alot of that around.”
The barbituates clog the injectors.
Mike
My BIL was commuting from mendham Nj to midtown for 2 years and recently quit is job there because the commute wasnt worth it to him. He would drive to either morristown, or convent station and take the train in to penn station. I believe that his door to door time was about 1:45 min on average. Of course there were plenty of days when there were train delays and it takes him 2.5 hours to get home. To commute into the city from sparta takes some serious commitment. the commute from sparta could take 2 hours each way. is he willing to spend 4 hours a day commuting? my BIL thought he was until he realized that the only time he would see his kids as on the weekend. he was gon e before they got up and home after they went to bed.
I am not suggesting your friend shouldnt so it, but its a sucky commute and definitely detracts from family time.
Re 271 – NJ and LI neighborhoods are in same boat. One can’t sink while the other one rises. I would move to NJ but only the bus towns and towns with long commutes are cheap and that would be of no help to me.
If someone’s willing to do such a long commute, they should see if you can do a 4 day work week. Though some places expect you to be there 10 hours/day anyway.
Coal, gas and oil did not push out nuclear. Nuclear simply never pushed out coal, gas, and oil because nuclear is not as efficient (waste, danger, storage, desnsity, etc.)
…
Politics and society didn’t hold nuclear back. Economics and physic realities are just such that it doesn’t make sense until the oil’s nearly gone
Don’t forget, the last big nuclear push happened in the 1970’s during the last big oil crisis. Then energy prices fell, TMI happened, the industry saw massive cost overruns and nuclear fell out of favor. Like I said, the economics of nuclear were such that coal, gas and oil became cheaper, so there was no reason to push for nuclear.
The problem with nuclear is the huge capital cost. Power prices haven’t justified a new build in years. Now that prices are going up, many companies are very seriously looking at nuclear capacity.
Spent fuel disposal is still a major issue, but if we dropped the man on recycling fuel, we could significantly reduce waste quantities.
For all of you conspiracy theorists out there (warning it is very long)…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147
Hobocondo,
I’m not against city living. I would prefer to live in a city. I am against overpaying to live in a walkable downtown though. City vs. suburbs is not a good vs. evil, black or white scenario. There are many shades of gray. If you and your spouse work in NYC, and you have the means to afford a space in Hoboken big enough for a family, more power to you. For the here and now though, if you can’t afford Hoboken or if you don’t have a good reason to live there (i.e. the Pretorius 200k NYC job), you might as well get a place in the ‘burbs. Presitigous train towns such as Montclair or Brigadoon still command high prices, and up and coming towns are still 10-15 years away from becoming anything close to a New Urbanist paradise. This also assumes that employers realign themselves en masse to locations served by transit, also a 15 year process.
By the way Esquire ran a good piece about Corey Booker. If anyone can save Newark, he can.
Anyone catch this game on the Soccer channel or was I the only geek appreciating this?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldFootballNews/idUKL1500000420080615
#268 Mike
I did it for a year from Mt Arlington. The east shore of Lake Mohawk is easier than the west shore as it puts you on rt 15 to Junction 34 of Rt 80. West shore puts you on 206 down to junction 28. Between 28-30 on Rt80 is were a lot of accidents happen so should be avoided if possible. You have to be on Rt80 by 6:30AM otherwise it gets ugly very fast. Slipping to 7AM will add a good 20mins to get to Rt 280. If it rains, you can’t get down Rt 7. Coming home on Fridays is ugly no matter what time it is.
The train is not much help. It makes local stops all the way so it is 90mins to Hoboken, but the car park is full by 6:30.
Was glad to see the back of it.
Tom,
we could replace gasoline easily enough, but the problem is scale. if we need to replace gas/oil for a society of 6 billion without significant disruption…. dont hold your breath. Replacing gas/oil for a society of 1 billion? we can do that. The world is over populated for the level of resources we consume. the ultimate solution is to either reduce the population or to reduce the average amount of resources used by each indiviual. You can also do a combinatio of both. But…… sustained growth w is societal suicide. Of course there is the caveat that if we expand into space ( i.e the moon and local asteroids) then the picture could change. but if we cant even handle our energy supply issues here on earth we probably cannot handle space colonization
MJ Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
@208 skep-tic
“There will never, ever be a more energy dense, cheaper, and cleaner fuel than oil. There’s nothing to invent. There’s no conspiracy. That’s it. Just cold hard physical reality. Sorry.”
?????
Unless you are a psychic, you have absolutely no idea what will be invented in the future. The people of 200 years ago couldn’t have imagined half of what exists today. Nothing to do with physics or the limitations of the Earth. We are surrounded by energy, the trick is to discover new, more efficient and cheaper ways to harness it.
“June 17 (Bloomberg) — The U.K. housing market may crash as faster inflation prevents the central bank from cutting interest rates to bolster the economy, and as swap rates surge, according to Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London.”
“Unless swap rates reverse, the housing slump in the U.K. could easily turn into a crash,” Reid wrote.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aX8rt9dzPtq4&refer=home
in case anyone wants to know how to recognize me at the next GTG
http://www.realtorahead.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/the-20end-20is-20near.jpg
Meanwhile the madness continues:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1213677343131090.xml&coll=1
The corn growers’ hope
An ethanol plant would save us, a Warren farmer says
RE Lithium batteries #215
Much better is the Zinc Air system proposed by Lawrence Livermore Labs, still, changing the source is going to require covering an area the equivalent of a quarter of North Dakota with solar collection facilities.
Kettle,
Whaddya think? Is MJ a candidate for NE Pa living?
[285] Kettle1
LMAO right now. The secretaries must think I finally lost it.
283….the future….is flatulence…..think about it…all of the overweight Americans with their bad colons and compacted intestines can run a car for weeks if not forever on simple fart gas.
Regarding #268 – I would suggest your friend do the commute to/from the house every day for a week. And then they can decide.
Had friends who bought a house way out. They did one practice run going from the house to work. Unfortunately, they did it on a Sunday morning! Rush hour travel added an extra 45 minutes each way.
BC Bob,
Where’s the 2 X 4? :) By the way, it was great meeting you and Mrs. BC Bob, also. You were just as I pictured. In fact, I wish we could’ve talked a little more. Maybe next meeting.
“we could replace gasoline easily enough, but the problem is scale. if we need to replace gas/oil for a society of 6 billion without significant disruption”
Your logic is flawed. We don’t need to replace gasoline for 6 billion people. We need to replace it for a population of around 300 million.
Being that the US is the largest consumer of oil, 3x more than the runner up China. If we start bringing alternative fuels online, especially ones that can directly be integrated into our infrastructure, the rest of the world can have access to the oil we’re no longer buying.
We can’t say it’s impossible, if we do we’ll never get anywhere. There are too many reasons to lessen our dependence on foreign oil that it is worth starting to implement alternatives.
Tom,
i am not saying it is impossible. It is unlikely that it will occur witout us feeling some real pain first, but the change will happen. personally ythink that going to large scale solar and tidal for base load generation wold make sense.
unfortnunatly it is a very complex issue. for example to build asolar installation in the sotuwest big enought o supply base load power 9 estimated to cost 300 billion) would require the majoority of the world supply of silicon for about 5 years. that is a huge hurdle to overomce. once again, not impossable, but also not likely without significant motivation. Any significant change has similar substantial hurdles to them. going to electric cars would require that a significant amount of the world supply of precious metals be diverted to battery manufacture for 5 – 10 years.
there are very big problems that we face and there are very ig hurdles infront of the majority of solutions.
what worries me most is that too many people drastically underestimate how hard such changes will be. we are talking about changes that take decades and lots of energy, which happens to be getting quit expensive.
jmac, you are right in your assessment of the urban vs. suburban argument. To live in a good urban area Hoboken, Downtown Jersey City, Manhattan, Brooklyn costs serious coin. Forget that 2 bedrooms is 600k, 3 is 900 and 4 is over a million. Then if you have children there is very high daycare costs, private schools etc.. Realistically you can do public school in Hoboken until 5th grade, Jersey City you can forget about. Crime is rampant in most urban areas outside of the really good areas and even in many nice up and coming areas. As for Corey Booker he is a waste of time, a political climber, although not corrupt he is not very good at getting the development done, which brings in money, jobs, and new people.
223:
But that’s a false choice: It’s not either Gold Coast or terra incognita; Hoboken, or being a virtual stranger to the fruits of one’s loins. I’m happy that you’re happy in Mile Square. But get this: I live as close to NYC as you do (in Leonia); I, too, commute by bike or bus (<$100/month), get by with one car, and walk to the basic necessities (hardware, post office, deli, drug store, coffee/ice cream/pizza/Chinese take-away, and the missus’ soon-to-open crafting co-op, CraftLounge [more on that to come]). I paid far less for my house than I would have a comparable one in, say, Hoboken. (But that’s a moot issue, as, IMO, Hoboken is all the hassles of urban living with few of the advantages — one still has to drive/bus/train to museums, etc. But it’s got a few very good restaurants. And I admit that things have changed in the decade or so since I lived there.)
Where you see weeds, I smell flowers: I like my small yard (which takes all of 30 min/week to mow) and enjoy tending our gardens and spontaneously inviting friends over to have a beer on our patio. If our kids want to join in a pickup game of baseball or soccer, they’re free to do it — gasp! — at the park play ground behind the library a block away (The cherished Hoboken tradition — now available IN SUBURBIA!) Also, they can walk to school — and our high school is actually pretty good.
Don’t mean to be so negative about the so-called urban living experiment that’s taken the Whole Foods set by storm, but I think people are kind of closed-minded about the alternatives, and, thus, are consigning viable communities to the dustbin because they’re too brown-shoe. There are a few towns in the NYC area that were developed before the rise of freeways, and therefore, quite well-suited to sustainable, energy efficient/family-friendly/non-soul-stealing living. To each his own, really.
#268
Mike, tell him not to do it. My old boss commutes from Mt. Olive area. He is up at 430a and takes the bus at I’m guessing 530-545a, into work by 7a to beat the traffic. He runs out the door every night at 5p to make the bus home and try to get home at a decent hour. Many nights dealing with bad snow and accidents he got home at 9p (4 Hrs!!!). If he had a work function at night he was stuck with car service and his driver falling asleep while he prayed for his life the whole way home.
There was never telling what type of mood you were going to have to deal with on a daily basis, I swear it was the commute.
No Thanks.
261:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAii_ayUbME
“McSchwaaaama.”
Thanks for all the advice on the super commute!
I am sure it has been said before but I will say it again, it is a freaking shame that Newark is such a piss hole. It has easy access to NYC/Boston/DC, a major airport literally feet away and access to nearly every major commuter line in the area. Yet all I see from the train is still crumbling infrastructure and billboards asking the citizens to stop shooting each other. Every time I pass through on my train ride to Hoboken each morning I think of the possibilities and get a bit depressed. My commute could be 20+ minutes shorter if a few financial service companies moved in. Hell, I might even live there with all the easy access to transportation if it was safe.
Was it just the ineffectual govt or were there bigger issues at play as to why Newark never got the engine started?
299:
’67 riots were to Newark what Katrina was to NOLA in ’05, or so I’m told by a relative who had the pleasure of living through both. I think that may be too pat an answer, but there is some merit to the argument: Both were places in serious decline before man-made and natural disasters laid bare the faults and social fault-lines.
Jamey, that is very true as arguably most inner ring NJ suburbs would be considered “Urban” by national standards. Most of these towns are <5 sq mi, have 2 if not 3 grocery stores, typically a retail main st., and usually commuter transportation sometimes trains other times bus service. It is simply a different lifestyle not better or worse but different, the suburbs going away concept is old and won’t happen here. Environmentally each living arrangement has it’s pluses and minuses.
I hope Newark gets out of the piss-hole it is in. I am tired of paying $20k per school kid in Newark that may or may not finish high-school.
The various distances from New York might as well be the rings of the INFERNO by Dante. With Newark being the ante room of Hell.
I don’t get the whole I got a long commute let me leave early and work four days a week thing? Who asked you to live in God’s country?
Also since when is Hoboken Mecca? I never understood the appeal of Hoboken. The path stinks, you need to pay two fares to go to most of NYC, do two tax returns if you work in NYC and most NYC residents look down upon you. Plsu what nightlife and activities are their, shopping is light rail to Pavonia and bars are 20 something broke frat boys who grew up in NJ. The place is a ghost town after six pm. Makes Brooklyn seem like Heaven.
Hoboken and JC residents do not pay the 4% city taxes NYC residents pay. If a couple makes $200K they save $8k in city taxes alone. It’s a no brainer.
what congress can do to high oil price is passing a bill blaming speculators and another bill to sue OPEC.
McCain wants to lift ban on offshore drilling. I think this is the only way to have oil price come down.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/17/mccain.energy/index.html
MJ Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
@208 skep-tic
“There will never, ever be a more energy dense, cheaper, and cleaner fuel than oil. There’s nothing to invent. There’s no conspiracy. That’s it. Just cold hard physical reality. Sorry
Uranium, Plutonium – fast neutron reactor produces orders of magnitude less raioactive waste than old school .
And about 1000 times mroe energy than in oil. Once we run out of oil and coal – we will turn nuclear.
BTW – good web site for nuclear:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/
#306 bi
How about using more fuel efficient vehicles and houses?
Finding a replacement for use in fetilizers, plastics, and other industrial uses?
Why only focus on increasing production of oil instead of conservation?
according to stu, whoever criticizes obamas are racist.
Rush Limbaugh:
“I did an interview with Bobby Jindal. He is the next Ronald Reagan, if he doesn’t change. Bobby Jindal, the new governor of Louisiana, is the next Ronald Reagan.”
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=vice_president_bobby_jindal
Have not been able to post much these last few days at meetings out of the office for the last few days.
Sorry I missed the gtg on Saturday, graduation party, logistics (weather) got in the way). Hopefully we can do one more in before the Summer is over.
Going quickly through the posts here, I see there is a lot of reference to Jersey City/Hoboken and how expensive it is.
Well I can tell you this there is a ton of inventory for sale/lease in Jersey City, and much more coming on line. I would think it is much the same in Hoboken.
If these are the areas you want, there will be lots of bargains to be had over the next 12 months.
As far as those who grew up in NYC and moved to the burbs, I am one of those. My thoughts on that. NYC was a much different place 20 years ago today than it is today.
Had I known how things turned out, I probably would not have left.
The schools in the burbs, IMO are way over rated, blue ribbon or not.
Book Reports, Summer reading, term papers, none of these tools are utilized today. Crtitical thinking reasoning for get it.
Shakespear and the other great classics gone. History/Geography non-existent.
How ironic that those of us who grew up in the urban areas,and went to over crowded Cathoilic Schools, in many cases IMO got a better education than the what the so called blue ribbon districts are offering.
John, you are on crack. Hoboken, has a very good retail strip, there is plenty of night life and daily conveniences are close by. The PATH is very good actually and is very fast to downtown Manhattan during peak times. Most people in Hoboken or Downtown Jersey City for that matter will not shop at Newport, but I have friends who would come from Brooklyn and Manhattan to shop there. Hoboken is also way cleaner.
I am going to say this now Brooklyn is THE MOST OVERRATED place in the NYC area, some parts are very nice but cannot justify the 1000 psf home prices. Where in Brooklyn can I get a $600 psf luxury condo within a 10 minute train ride of Manhattan and less than a 3 mile drive, oh yeah you can have a car and it won’t be destroyed?
3b, I concur, prices are falling especially in JC as there are large developments not selling well and tremendous inventory.
re: jcer 295 – Ah suburban snobbery at it’s best, how does your towns high school rate?
Jersey City has one of the best public schools in the nation Mc Nair Academic High School, but you kid will need to pass a test to get in or they end up going to the crappy schools.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/52060/page/2
A variety of factors has led to Newark’s decline: ’67 riots, flight of the middle/upper class ot the suburbs, government mismanagement, union stranglehold on labor, no incentives for development, poor development choices. This is definitely a good case study for decline of a city. There are some really nice houses in certain sections of the city, so more well off people have lived in Newark in the past. A symbol of the poor development is the Gateway complex. You can work in Newark and never have to leave your building. Drive to garage/take subway in, work, eat lunch in enclosed complex, work and get in your car and go home. City is trying to redevelop the area, but it is having only patchy success. The government has to get out of its own way and also break ties with unions to allow non-union labor into the city. Could right a book about this, but that is a very short synopsis.
@288 Nom Deplume
My wife, daughter, and I could actually live anywhere with a good Internet connection, low crime, and good schools available (public or private). My job is entirely conducted over the Internet.
But, we’re going to pay a premium to live in NJ because that’s where our relatives are located, and for the cosmopolitan demographics. My wife and I are from vastly different cultural backgrounds, and we would rather our daughter grow up in a melting pot like NJ. There are folks on this board who express a dislike of certain immigrant populations, but we’re all immigrants unless you’re a native american, and the variety is an important part of what makes NJ desirable.
As for PA, the very best PA public schools are only about as good as the 75th of the 316 public high schools in NJ.
I saw that report about McNair being a top rated HS. How difficult is it to get in? Anything like getting into a Stuyvesant/Bronx Science in NYC?
#318 MJ:As for PA, the very best PA public schools are only about as good as the 75th of the 316 public high schools in NJ.
Don’t be so sure about that. Wait until you catually use one, you might be very,very surprised.
@286 lisoosh
“Unless you are a psychic, you have absolutely no idea what will be invented in the future. ”
Exactly.
But oil was not invented.
So you’d need to be a psychic to expect some invention to replace oil.
The real NJ #1 is probably Ridge. McNair cannot be accurately assessed since the student population is hand selected — you have to “get into” McNair, you can’t just live in that school district.
My sources:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html
http://njmonthly.com/articles/towns_and_schools/highschoolrankings/top-high-schools-in-new-jersey.html
I am well aware of McNair it is an excellent school, but overall besides the charter schools the JC school system is mis run, mismanaged and corrupt.
John, it’s very clear that you haven’t been to Hoboken recently. Particularly North Hoboken.
At one point I lived on the UWS and it took me an hour to get to work – in Manhattan. By moving to Hoboken, my commute was cut in half.
@312 bi
“Bobby” Jindal is poison. He is entirely superficial, a sellout of the worst kind. Going by “Bobby” instead of his real name… He even sold out on his entire religion. Is he ashamed of his background?
So yes, perhaps the next Ronald Reagan, or worse!
At one point I lived on the UWS and it took me an hour to get to work – in Manhattan. By moving to Hoboken, my commute was cut in half.
Certain parts of Manhattan are not easy commutes. UES and UWS by the river are horrible, if you are not near an express stop. I lived on the UES on 77th St/York and it took me 30-35 mins to go to 24th/Park. That’s of course if you caught the very first train if it wasn’t overpacked with riders.
Hard Place, yes it is very competitive. There is a quota in place to ensure diversity only the highest performing children in JC go there. It is a very good thing to do because good kids can get lost in the hell that is the Jersey City schools. Look at the students at Ferris High or Dickenson, very scary indeed. Sean, I live in Jersey City, I speak from what I have seen
317: Phillip Roth, a proud native son of Newark, writes at length about the topic in several books, notably The Plot Against America and American Pastoral.
Sad, really. Sadder still is that two generations of hidebound developers have been following the Green Zone of Baghdad model for urban redevelopment that you described: Eat, work, shop all under one roof — and then get the hell out of Dodge before sundown.
“North Hoboken”? How long does it take to get to the PATH train? I lived on 11th and Wash, and it was a 20 min walk (unless I dug into my wallet for a cab). Today’s commute from The Athens of New Jersey**: 40 min, door-to-desk in the best imaginable bicycling weather. Forty-nine more days like this and I can purchase a smaller size of $300 jeans…
**Leonia’s official sobriquet. I use it only in the pejorative sense. Like “Brigadoon.”
Price: Free.
“what congress can do to high oil price is passing a bill blaming speculators and another bill to sue OPEC.”
Speculators can’t/won’t ever determine the trend. They are like a burst of wind in a hurricane. What about speculators that are short? Based on last weeks #’s, the crude market is fairly balanced. Also, speculators do not take delivery of the product. At rollover, they have two choices, either go flat or roll into the next active month. Either situation, they have to sell to somebody. Who’s buying upon contract expiration? Only those that are taking delivery. Well, if the physical market can not absorb the product at this price don’t you think the commercials would step back at contract expiration?
Sue OPEC? Will the world sue our farmers as a result of $8 corn.
re: 322 jcer – no offense but just about every single one of NJ’s school districts are mismanaged and perhaps corrupt some more so than others. NJ’s teaching cabal has the taxpayer lock stock and barrel. They also whine and moan way too much about all of the testing it takes for No Child left behind, and being held accountable for the results.
Imaging that penalties for failure…
324: Maybe America’s ready for a president who can perform an exorcism.
(And who wants to prosecute the plaintiffs when rape trials end in acquittal.)
Given the GOP’s current state, Jindal, sadly, is their future: “Hyphenate Americans: The OTHER White Meat.”
MJ –
“But oil was not invented.”
You are welcome to respond to my comment, but please respond to what I actually said and the logical deductions that can be drawn from it. Not some straw man please.
No, oil was not invented. The means to utilize the energy it contains was. Same with coal, same with wood. If fact the basic principal foundation – burn it, has been around for millenia. We are surrounded by energy, it is contained in every single item which surrounds us. We have even managed to move past the basic “burn it” mentality. The rest will follow with time.
Ket – saw an article the other day about the invention and development of “solar paint” which can be used to generate electricity. Based on Titanium dioxide rather than silicon and is much more efficient. Looked promising.
Hobocondo Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
John, it’s very clear that you haven’t been to Hoboken recently. Particularly North Hoboken.
At one point I lived on the UWS and it took me an hour to get to work – in Manhattan. By moving to Hoboken, my commute was cut in half.
Hobo: got to back you up there….I grew up riding the John Rocker 7-train / Orient Express, or whatever other idiotic moniker you wish to affix. The PATH trains, especially the HOB/33/WTC lines absolutely club the NYC subway in all respects like a baby seal. They are clean, uncrowded, and have many women in the summer who feel overly chilled by the air conditioning (as is clearly observable by any hetero guy).
My wife worked at the South Ferry/State Street and her commute was shuttle bus up to 10 minutes / ferry up to 10 minutes / up to ten minute walk.
Door to door was a relaxed 35 minutes. North Hoboken is vastly superior to many options because of its clear safety, convenience, access and views of the city. That said, it functions at a fraction of the efficiency that it should, and had lost a lot of its character.
People can convince themselves that the primary schools are acceptable, but in reality, they are compromising their children’s well being for their own convenience. Such a choice is fine, but you shouldn’t try to sugar coat it with platitudes and anecdotes.
re: 329 – BC Bob the Farm Bill which I believe is waiting for Bush’s signature closes the Enron Loophole and the unregulated trading of West Texas Futures on the ICE market out of London. The trading of West Texas was only allowed as of Jan in 2006 by the CFTC and the Bush Administration.
Not to go crazy over this but nearly 50% of the Oil Futures contracts were being traded in the Dark ICE market, and that volume has to make a dent in prices.
I for one belive the weak dollar has done the most damage, but speclation does factor in.
Hard place:
I’d like to hear more about your experience with Newark, and opportunities for redevelopment. I also, like many, feel that it has unique potential that has unfortunately fallen ever-short.
A friend of mine works for City Planning, and so I’d like to hear what you think would truly help.
more tax, more agencies and more spending. enjoy your life in nj……
A-500 PASSES ASSEMBLY; SENATE VOTE ON NEXT MONDAY
http://www.njslom.org/ml061708-A500.html
COAH rules put NJ jobs at risk
http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/06/09/the_princeton_packet/your_views/doc4846f320e00aa463698541.txt
re: earnest deposits
grim says:
“Both sides incur costs throughout the process, the transaction costs associated with buying or selling a home are high.”
Why can’t anyone answer this question?
Can a seller snag my earnest deposit money if I were to back out during attorney review?
(68) non deplume says: “But the lawyers have an established dance that they do in order to cover that.”
(71) clotpoll says: “Until AR is ended and the contract is essentially reinstated and becomes binding, both principals fly without cover.”
This process is FUBAR. No wonder we are in crisis.
kettle,
I agree that it’s going to be hard but I don’t think people are being unrealistic. I just think that if people aren’t more optimistic, things won’t happen.
Also, back to the AP, copyright thing. How would people here feel if someone came along and created a site that basically just copied all the posts and comments from here with links back. Then somehow they manage to get enough traffic that people actually start responding to that site instead of this one?
There are sites that do just that.
bairen (199)-
“Pitcairn is an awful place. You have to row a boat out to sea to pick up supplies. The harbor is to small for even small freighters to come in to. As a bonus there are so few women on the island the men go after 12 year old girls. something like half the adult males were on trial for child molestation back in 06.”
John should fit right in here…
make (283)-
This is why you just have to love Europe.
“Banks like the concept…”. That right there is a red flag. If the bank likes it, they are probably going to make tons of cash. Who pays? We do. Most people do not make that connection. The underlying incentive to make money is present in every single trasaction, whether it be macro or micro. It makes my blood boil when the President does it though, and tells us it’s going to “work”. I see right through that non-sense, because I’m edumukated.
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