From the NY Times:
Broader Measure of Unemployment Stands at 17.5%
For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.
With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1percent, in December 1982.
This includes the officially unemployed, who have looked for work in the last four weeks. It also includes discouraged workers, who have looked in the past year, as well as millions of part-time workers who want to be working full time.
The official jobless rate — 10.2 percent in October, up from 9.8 percent in September — remains lower than the early 1980s peak of 10.8 percent.
The rate is highest today, sometimes 20 percent, in states that had big housing bubbles, like California and Arizona, or that have large manufacturing sectors, like Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
From BNET:
Pfizer Aiming for 30,900 Layoffs Through 2012
Pfizer (PFE) has laid off 26,300 employees since 2005, and hopes eventually to lay off a total of 30,900 through 2012, according to its 10-Q filing with the SEC.
The company had several rounds of layoffs before its acquisition of Wyeth in an attempt to get $6 billion in annual savings out of its business model. The company has said it wants to ax about 19,500 jobs to make the Wyeth merger work. The new company will have about 130,000 workers. The layoffs are ongoing, Pfizer said.
From Bloomberg:
Soaring U.S. Unemployment Threatens Path to Economic Recovery
The unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since 1983, threatening the emerging economic recovery and giving President Barack Obama and Democrats a bigger hurdle to overcome before next year’s Congressional elections.
Payrolls fell by 190,000 last month, more than forecast by economists, a Labor Department report showed yesterday in Washington. The jobless rate rose from 9.8 percent in September. Factory payrolls dropped by the most in four months, and the average workweek held at a record low.
…
“This will have a chilling effect on consumer confidence and business confidence,” said Joseph Brusuelas, a director at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “It does look like unemployment will creep much higher.”
Progress!
From the Daily Record:
Two boards become one
The move to reduce the size of government is a slow process. But small steps are important.
Two such steps were taken this week when voters in Mount Olive and Jefferson backed measures to combine the planning board and the board of adjustment. The details were different in each town. In Jefferson, the boards will be merged into a single land-use board. In Mount Olive, the board of adjustment will be eliminated and its duties transferred to the planning board.
…
Members of both boards are volunteers. But merging the two boards into one saves money because it eliminates one set of professionals. Under a merged set-up, there will be one attorney, one engineer and one secretary. Two boards have two sets of professionals. Other towns in Morris County that have combined land-use boards — East Hanover and Mount Arlington come to mind — don’t seem to have any problems with it.
…
In both Mount Olive and Jefferson, the proposals to merge boards were approved by more than 2-1 margins. Clearly, the voters understand the need for less government. Other towns should consider emulating Mount Olive and Jefferson.
Is 17.5 legal, illegal, or barely legal?
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/11/06/a-global-problem-with-no-solution/
Good Morning Grim and Safe – No, I don’t sleep much.
Felix Salmon @ Reuters posted this yesterday and this caught my attention –
Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of Pimco, sent me a note this morning which sums up the dire straits of the economy, as revealed in today’s employment, in one sentence:
“The problem is that very few people in DC are thinking of this as a structural challenge. Until they do, there is little basis for the sketch of a potential solution.”
A few other snips….
“When you’re unemployed, you don’t spend. So long as unemployment remains high, consumer demand will be depressed.”
“So far I’ve heard nothing out of Washington which says to me that the White House has a plan for addressing long-term structural problems in terms of unemployment, capital flows, and interest rates.”
It reminded me of California. We have a structural deficit and no one addresses it.
Unemployment is now a structural problem. We have lost, for good, industries that thrived only a few years ago. I posted an op-ed piece last night that pointed out the need for new businesses. Where is the demand – what is needed. The White House should be focused on this but instead they are expanding public jobs.
The only task force or working group I want to see out of DC is one focused on private-sector job creation. Where is the demand? what can they do to help entrepreneurs? Otherwise, get out of the way.
OS ANGELES — In recent years, millions of Americans looked at their houses and saw big, fat piggy banks. And it occurred to them to take out big, fat new mortgages.
Few did it on the scale of Ronald Burkle.
Mr. Burkle, the grocery-store billionaire, has $56 million in loans against two houses, including $9 million added last year. One is his iconic Beverly Hills mansion, “Green Acres,” a 44-room Italian Renaissance palazzo built in the 1920s by silent-film star Harold Lloyd that more recently was a favorite overnight rest stop for Mr. Burkle’s buddy, Bill Clinton.
Mr. Burkle declined to say how he is using the money. There is no indication he needs it to pay the water bill.
Traditionally, the super-rich didn’t really bother with mortgages. Home loans were for people who carry lunch buckets, not captains of industry.
That changed in the boom years — and it is still going on. Recent big-time home borrowers include fashion entrepreneurs, hedge-fund titans and baseball-team magnates.
Home loans “are a really good source of cheap capital,” says Robert Maguire, a real-estate tycoon who built some of the tallest officer towers in L.A. He has borrowed some $50 million against several properties, including his beach house, which features huge picture windows framing the Pacific near Santa Barbara, Calif.
He has been raising money with an eye toward regaining control of his property firm, Maguire Properties Inc., which he lost during the real-estate bust. Even as he borrows against his beach retreat, Mr. Maguire is trying to sell it for $29 million.
By hocking the house, so to speak, he and others say they are simply borrowing low in hopes of investing in something they believe will yield a high return.
View Full Image
‘Green Acres’
Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives
‘Green Acres’
‘Green Acres’
View Full Image
‘Green Acres,’ top, was built by silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd, shown below left in a scene from the film ‘Safety Last.’ Now the house belongs to billionaire Ron Burkle, above, who has used it to raise cash.
Getty Images
‘Green Acres,’ above, was built by silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd, shown in a scene from the film ‘Safety Last.’ Now the house belongs to billionaire Ron Burkle who has used it to raise cash.
‘Green Acres,’ top, was built by silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd, shown below left in a scene from the film ‘Safety Last.’ Now the house belongs to billionaire Ron Burkle, above, who has used it to raise cash.
‘Green Acres,’ top, was built by silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd, shown below left in a scene from the film ‘Safety Last.’ Now the house belongs to billionaire Ron Burkle, above, who has used it to raise cash.
And mortgage rates are near historic lows. In April, Mr. Burkle renegotiated his $56 million in adjustable-rate mortgages down to 3.25%, which was in line with adjustable home loans of a more mortal size. Recently, his rate adjusted down to about 2.25%, based on publicly available documents.
It puts Mr. Burkle’s mortgage interest charge at $105,000 a month, give or take.
Like ordinary home loans, megamortgages flourished during the boom earlier in the decade. The number of home mortgages in the $3 million-and-up category soared to about 3,000 in 2007, from only 1,100 or so in 2004, according to LPS Applied Analytics, a unit of Lender Processing Services Inc.
Not surprisingly, mammoth home loans got scarce during last year’s near-unraveling of the world economy. But now they are showing signs of coming back.
U.S. Trust, which is the private wealth-management arm of Bank of America Corp., has seen a 33% rise this year in home loans, compared to last year, with the average size over $3 million. Jan Reuter of U.S. Trust says clients are using the cash to buy stocks and other assets. Other major lenders tell a similar story.
The federal tax code doesn’t smile upon giant mortgages. It allows mortgage interest to be deducted only on home borrowings of about $1 million or less.
But there are ways around that, says David Adamo of Luxury Mortgage Corp., a mortgage-banking firm in Stamford, Conn. If the cash is used for investment purposes, the loan interest could be used to reduce taxes on income from the investments, he says.
Of course, plenty of rich people still avoid home loans. Partly, it is an image thing. Maria Elena Lagomasino of GenSpring Family Offices LLC, a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. wealth-management firm, says a mammoth mortgage implies to her that someone is “borrowing because they have to.”
One rub for zillionaires who value their privacy: Mortgages are a matter of public record.
One of New York City’s classiest new addresses is 15 Central Park West — which along with the requisite pool, health club and movie-screening lounge, offers “30 climate-controlled wine rooms” with “solid oak cabinetry.” Since the start of last year, five buyers there have taken out mortgages ranging from $10 million and $35 million, according to public information collected by First American Corps.’ RealQuest data service.
Not all megamortgages have happy endings. Since mid-May, about a dozen home loans of $3 million to $9 million have been involved in default or foreclosure actions in Malibu, Beverly Hills and other fancy areas around Los Angeles, according to public data gathered by First American. None of the giant mortgages over $10 million examined in detail are in default.
Max Azria, chief executive of privately held BCBG Max Azria Group Inc. clothing company, took out a $25 million mortgage in April 2008 on a 12-bedroom, 13-bath West Los Angeles mansion, once home to the late TV producer and novelist Sidney Sheldon, according to public records. He bought the house in 2005 for about $16 million.
Last year, Moody’s Investors Service, the credit-rating company, said BCBG could face a cash crunch without financial help from Mr. Azria. A BCBG spokesman said Mr. Azria used the mortgage money for renovations and “additional personal liquidity,” and that the company restructured and improved its finances this year without funds from him.
Israel Englander, who runs the Millennium Management LLC hedge-fund operation in New York, last year pledged a home in a wooded, estate-filled section of Greenwich, Conn., as part of the collateral for a revolving credit line of up to $100 million.
Mr. Englander declined to comment. There is no indication he needed the money for anything other than investment purposes.
Besides signing multimillion-dollar baseball players, Frank and Jamie McCourt have accumulated homes with multimillion — dollar mortgages since moving to Los Angeles in 2004 to run the Los Angeles Dodgers. They bought homes and adjacent properties in both West Los Angeles and Malibu.
Their 15,000-square-foot, 10-bath L.A. manse, located in the prestigious Holmby Hills neighborhood across the street from the Playboy Mansion, was purchased in 2004 for about $20 million. For good measure, the McCourts spent $14 million to upgrade the place, including tearing out the tennis courts to install an indoor, Olympic-size swimming pool.
All told, the homes carry some $28 million in mortgages. The houses, which are in Mrs. McCourt’s name, are now part of a nasty divorce battle between the couple, who are fighting for control of the Dodgers.
The McCourts declined to comment.
Amid the acrimony, the estranged couple did agree on one housekeeping matter at a court hearing Thursday: Mrs. McCourt could have exclusive access to the indoor Olympic pool. Swim hours for her are between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m.
—Jonathan Karp contributed to this article.
Write to John R. Emshwiller at john.emshwiller@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574517303668357682.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
I know this is a bit controversial because they call for foreigners to be allowed in who have start-up capital. Many come to go to school and stay to create new businesses. Their point is that new companies do the hiring. That it is the age of the company that matters, not the size.
“Entrepreneurs have a proven track record of job creation, especially in the early years of the firms.”
Since the old structure has basically fallen apart, built on unsustainable industries spurred by the housing boom, where do we go from here? Folks need jobs. Doing what? Who starts the businesses? I say look in every nook and cranny and entertain any feasible option at this point.
Cloward and Piven strategy.
3 – Mt. Olive has a planning board?
http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-to-15-google-interview-questions-that-will-make-you-feel-stupid-2009-11
Google is hiring…
“15 interview questions that will make you feel stupid”
In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1percent, in December 1982.
Thank goodness the Oblama administration saved or created 650,000 jobs. :o
re:5—isn’t the administration taking steps to help enable the creation of new industries involving green technologies?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125754828200334693.html
Treasury Blocks the Sale of Tax Credits by Fannie
So NOW we find out who the “unnamed buyers” were:
“The U.S. Treasury blocked Fannie Mae’s proposed sale of nearly $3 billion in low_income housing tax credits to Goldman Sachs Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Friday after concluding that the deal was too costly for taxpayers.”
“
Cindy [5],
Can anyone even deny it? Why is it so hard to understand that government does not create jobs? But don’t worry, we have hope and change, right?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/energy-and-environment
Good Morning, Gary…Hope and change…
I visited the Energy and Environment site (checking up on Trenton @ 12) but it sounds like more government to me.
The plan:
“Invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy.”
That makes it sound like they need to hire more government employees…
I really know nothing about that. Only that I’m tired of the government having their hands on every little thing. If they aren’t helping to private-sector jobs, I wish they would get out of the way…
Obama made health care his number one domestic priority but he should have been focusing on jobs! He let it get away from him and now in D.C. they are worried about the ever rising unemployment rate? I feel from day one that he just didn’t get how dire the job situation really was, maybe because if you are not out there in the trenches it is hard to grasp. My friends and family with secure, steady jobs are not really feeling much pain. At least, not yet. Health care should have been put on the back burner, or at the very least, one step behind solving the unemployment crisis.
#13 cindy
Too costly for tax payers? We’re probably going to get stuck with 200 billion plus in losses from Fannie alone and they thought this deal was too costly? OMG. Were we paying those firms to take the tax credits?
16 – House – I am with you 100%. He had an agenda – da*n it – and that was that.
17 – Safe – Yes – we lose with them getting the tax credits – At least, that is how I understand the problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125754828200334693.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_business
Safe – “It would have resulted in a loss of tax revenues greater than the savings to the federal government had it allowed the sale.”
At least someone paid attention – I feel they are a little less “captured” today…
#16,
Look at the bigger picture. Health care reform IS related to jobs. Lower the cost for businesses to pay for health care, then maybe businesses will be able to hire more employees.
#20 cindy
I’m pleasantly surprised they stopped it.
#15,
Yes, you know nothing about it. So don’t post about things you know nothing about. Of course that $150B will be directed towards the private sector.
The NYT talking bogus headline BLS, I mean BS #’s? What’s this world coming to? Discouraged/part time workers finally addressed? Has this writer been reading this blog?
Cindy [5],
We have been discussing this forever. The idiots think they can kick the can until the economy recovers. There was never a real economy, we are not turning back.
There has to be a total implosion followed by real structural changes. That’s why this is not daddy’s recession, reather grandpappy’s depression. Unfortunately, only the banksters realize this and they have their lap dogs eating out of their hands. They are doing their best to empty the vaults before all that’s left is ashes.
Only in NY.
Yesterday, at the parade, when Gov Paterson rode by, some guy next to my wife; “Who does he think he’s waving to”
Cindy #15 –
Change you can Hope for.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704795604574519602476681352.html
Opinion – WSJ
Washington and the Jobs Market
@24 PA “Yes, you know nothing about it.”
I do know the confusion and implied extra costs to businesses via cap and trade and insurance mandates have business friends of mine worried. Also, I worry about extra administration costs for new programs – more government jobs.
I am more aligned with the sentiment of this opinion piece –
“The sooner the Democrats stop what they’re doing, the faster the private job market will recover on its own.”
Good Morning BC – Yes, we have discussed this forever: Jobs, jobs, jobs.
22- Nice for you to say. Are you currently employed? Well, I am not. So, I don’t really have the luxury of looking at the big picture. I want a job.
House Whine :16
You nailed my sentiments exactly, couldn’t have said it better myself. Jobs should have been priority #1 for the Dimmycrats.
I believe it will be the downfall of O’bama in 2012….if only the Repubs can find somebody to run for Prez.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/elizabeth-lambert-new-mex_n_349234.html
Clot – A bit of girl’s soccer for you.
re:#23 – BC Bob – re: “Has this writer been reading this blog?”
CNBC has just started talking about how to plant trip wires and how to fricassee fido, gonna be a looong walk home.
WTF is going on in the healthscare House debate this morning!! Live coverage on C-Span. What a debacle! Representatives are not being allowed to speak!
re# 14 – Gary re:: gov’t creating jobs.
Nice Job the did in Detroit eh? How many jobs were created there since the auto companies were taken over?
FYI, The House of Reps is in overdrive this weekend they are going to vote today or tonight to overhaul’s one-sixth of the nation’s economy.
Fun Times, I may join clot in Argentina, cheap wine, great beef, decent climate, I am fluent in Spanish
what’s not to like?
There will be war in the United States if the healthcare bill passes. Count on it.
Veto – (if you are around).
Digging around Trulia today. Noticed that South Brunswick prices are crashing quickly. There is a 30% difference between median asking and sales and sales prices dropped around 20% quarter over quarter.
Maybe it is incomplete, maybe some big sales weren’t recorded, I don’t know. It is a town very popular with Indians though and I know that was a concern of yours in the Mercer area.
I’m actually working right now; will be logged on until 7:00 PM. You all are gonna entertain me as I toggle back and forth, right? :) BTW, am I considered one of those under-employed people since I work on a contractual basis with zero benefits?
Gary – what’s the story with your job? Will the contract renew? Do you want it to? Are you keeping your eyes open?
Weekend reading; healthscare bill; ganja necessary.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3962/text
#39 gary
Yes. But fortunately by working you can help support me in my unemployment.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if WH utilized all of it’s power into job creation as they’re putting into H.R.3962?
lisoosh,
The contract will probably renew but I really do not like this current position. I’m in the process of revamping my resume to illustrate a broader technology/engineering background in order to target emerging industries (green tech?) and to give myself more options.
safe,
I should’ve stayed unemployed, we could’ve collected for the next two years and partied on the taxpayers dime. Viva Oblama! :)
#45 gary
Check out the watch I got with my latest unemployment check.
http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/china-arm-watch-cash-computer-internet-joke-04.jpg
safe,
LOL! You’re living too large, you better slow down!
#47 gary
And that watch is right twice a day!! More accurate than an economist or weatherman. LOL.
BTW, Democrats and Pelosi celebrating a pending healthcare bill passage in the House. I have two doctors in the family with private practices and they both said they will have to let staff go if healthcare goes from private to public control. I’m also curious to know if dying children will be addressed first when standing in the line at a government well-being facility.
Bairen,
Set it to 5:00 PM, it’s always happy hour.
Gary [49],
Lobbyists, bankers first. The rest; fcuk you.
http://cop.senate.gov/reports/library/report-110609-cop.cfm
Elizabeth’s COP November report
The Annointed One on TV again… lips moving but saying nothing, again… reciting hign level talking points, again… intent on killing small business expansion, again.
Cindy,
Just viewed quickly, off the The Boss at MSG. One item of note; “it distorts the marketplace.” It certainly does, only for a period of time. Eventually the markets will retrace the entire delusion that preceded it. Markets have worked in this manner for thousands of years. They can/will not alter this cycle. Too bad they will pis trillions away, in an effort to revive the buried.
to The Boss.
“Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, said the nation’s housing market is now on ‘government life support,’ so it’s important that the credit program was extended until next spring. But he said that, sooner or later, the housing market has to stand on its own two feet.”
“‘Tax credits borrow demand from the future,’ he said. ‘At some point, the government has to exit the subsidies business.’”
tick… tick… tick… tick…
54 – BC – I thought the $4.3T in guarantees was a stunning figure.
Have fun….Enjoy
“A large part of the current economic downturn is due to the fact that the Congress required financial institutions to lend money to people who had neither the means nor the intention to repay it. Congressional Democrats engaged in years of hand wringing that the nation’s poor were being left behind in the surge of home ownership – the American dream. (It is the moral equivalent about worrying about the fact that fish cannot play the piano – they have no hands and the poor have no money. Sewing gloves on the fish will not work any better than giving loans to those who cannot repay them.)”
“But the Democrats never learn from a ‘failed solution.’ In the name of ‘economic recovery’ the Democrat Congress is right back with the same solution. This time it is the Federal Housing Administration. Committee Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts insists that these mortgages are needed to ‘keep prices from falling too fast.’”
“Just as a reminder that is the same Rep. Barney Frank who, along with the Sen. Chris Dodd, buried an investigation into identical lending practices at FannieMae and FreddieMac, declaring them to be sound institutions.”
“Real estate investor Barry Sternlicht is betting the Greenwich housing market is making a comeback. Sternlicht raised the asking price of his 5.8-acre estate on Round Hill Road to $5.95 million, although the town is headed for its worst year for property sales in more than three decades.”
“‘We increased it because we felt like we were giving it away,’ and there was interest in the property, Sternlicht’s broker, Jean Ruggiero, said in an interview. ‘Just because people are lowering their price doesn’t mean it’s right, because he’s not a desperate seller.’”
LMAO!
BC Bob,
Eventually the markets will retrace the entire delusion that preceded it. Markets have worked in this manner for thousands of years. They can/will not alter this cycle. Too bad they will pis trillions away, in an effort to revive the buried.
It’s such a simple, yet beautiful concept. All we could do is sit back, laugh at the pretenders and enjoy the show.
Gary
So good to see you in your usual good mood.
lostinny,
Thank you! I don’t think the Klonopin kicked in yet! ;)
62 Gary
No one likes a braggart.
Oh wait, today is Saturday, it was diazepam.
58 – Gary – “Congressional Democrats engaged in years of hand wringing that the nation’s poor were being left behind in the surge of home ownership – the American dream.”
“We can put light where there’s darkness, and hope where there’s despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home.”
– President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002
ruggles,
6 in one, half dozen in the other. You think I’m a fan of Bush? The Republicans p1ss me off but the Dems are just down right hilarious!
Lost, how’s the ankle? I’m posting from a BB so it takes f*cking forever to write….:(
sl
Lost, how’s the ankle? I’m posting from a BB so it takes f*cking forever to write….:(
sl
SL
Finally found a doctor with a clue. Ankle still hurts but at least my doctor cares. He actually called me this morning to talk about physical therapy. Thanks for checking up on me. :)
“There will be war in the United States if the healthcare bill passes. Count on it”
no, as long as prozac, sale at Maceys, & football is still around, its business as normal.
I gotta fill up my tank with gasoline, thank-goodness we are slaughtering people in Nigeria, otherwise, I couldn’t drive to ShopRite and fill my basket with carcinogenic shit from the factory farms.
SAS
Klonopin, diazepam and prozac. Who needs that when this year’s Mad Elf Ale has finally been released? :)
Of course, my prescription plan does not cover holiday ales. Darn it!
37:
Ok, when liberals disagreed with bush and moaned about moving to Canada, yada yada, they were labeled as “unamerican” or that they supported osama.
So, does that mean that conservatives who express your views are “treasonous”?
BTW: how stupid are you to express such views on a blog? I guess DHS now has a file on you. Sweet Jesus! You know everything you post on the internet is gathered by the government. Why draw attention to yourself.
This view is different than the view common on this blog when the “SHTF”, which appears to be the result of failed policies and their logical aftermath.
Just remember, whether I disagree with you or not, we are all americans. We are all in this together. Except the bankers, who will in all probability be the first up against the wall when your “war” comes.
Say, here is a question for the board: which group of people will be the first up against the wall when the “war” james speaks of comes? Please place odds on each group. Might as well have fun until the black helicopters come to swoop us off to Gitmo.
“which group of people will be the first up against the wall when the “war” james speaks of comes?”
will be no war or uprising, you’ll all be too poor.
SAS
Bush & Bloomberg may have run on Republican tickets but they were not Republicans, ideology wise. They are however both Capitalistic Globalists. Unfortunately, that Party doesn’t exist, so they must hide in the other two.
Ok, here goes. The New Jersey housing crash we predicted hasn’t happened, at least not at the scale we expected.
Now what? I’m thinking maybe this winter is the best buying opportunity we’re going to get.
chifi
i just don’t see how people at the median family income level can make it. just to even save %20 is a hardship itself.
CHART OF THE DAY: The US Housing Bust Looks Like Japan’s
Robert Shiller recently warned homeowners that it could be a long time before the housing market turned up again, noting that Japan’s housing bust took place over 15 years. That seems hard to fathom here, especially considering everything the government’s doing to re-inflate the market. But there are certainly similarities. This chart, via the Pragmatic Capitalist, overlays the 10 city Case-Shiller index with Japanese condo prices, when they had their boom. As you can see, the cycle has an eerily familiar look and feel.
#70 sas
Don’t forget to pick up some microwave popcorn. :)
Chifi-
I won’t disagree, mainly because I did not realize the degree to which the govt would go. However, what happens when rates rise. Will they stay low forever?
chi, #75
I’ve noticed something in looking throuth the MLS here and there …and my brother’s noticed the same thing in real life, just by driving around … that a lot of houses are just sitting there now.
My aunt’s house has been in the MLS since late spring. It was perhaps a mistake for her to move to the facility for assisted living first, before selling it. Emptied out, people probably think it’s an estate sale. The price is reasonable, but she says the only offers have been way too low. I don’t know what she means by that dollar-wise. She has one of the best agents in town – aggressive go-getter.
There are a number of comparable houses in the immediate area that aren’t moving, either. A good area for easy walking distance to Little India.
Hard to describe but something feels different.
That area around Iselin/Colonia/Metuchen seems to have held up fairly well until relatively recently.
Maybe the quiet portends another leg down. Or maybe the market is just exhausted, in terms of new buyers.
My theory is that so long as they keep saying they’re going to keep rates low for as long as they eye can see, there’s no feeling of having to run out and buy.
Probably, if they wanted to clear out inventory and get the housing market moving again, they’d raise rates, at least a little.
Rates rising might also bring prices down that last leg.
“what happens when rates rise. Will they stay low forever?”
i suspect they will stay low. Berneke is taking a page out of the Japan playbook.
SAS
Sas- that’s my fear.
cindy (33)-
Thanks. I saw that during the course of the day today, in the middle of a soccer field. That’s some messed up shit.
gary (56)-
Harvard’s Ganja Joint Center for Housing Studies also said- at the top of the market- that there was no bubble and plenty of room for further price expansion.
I’m proud of myself, as I feel like I was only half-a-dope at the time. I believed there was no bubble, but I did think we were due for a flattening in prices.
Looks like the only thing flattened is our whole country and economy.
gary (64)-
The diazepam won’t kick in until you drink a glass of whiskey.
Didn’t your doctor tell you that?
stan (79)-
Ain’t about rates. They can take ’em negative if they want.
The infection is loose…and spreading. The balance sheet of the planet will now have to be wrung dry.
No one will be spared. No one.
scribe (80)-
We’ve talked about this. Your aunt needs to bite the bullet…or let her house take her under.
That area is dead and rotting. It won’t be back anytime soon, either.
The only real “go-getter” agents are working the trade at the courthouse steps.
Everybody else is selling sunshine.
Well, selling sunshine AND editing data…as always. It’s comforting. The local gals are really good at leaving out sales when they mail out flyers with the “Recent Sales” listed.
O.K., already. I know it’s important to clean my gutters. Our landlord sends Jose over on a regular basis while we ignore the gutters.
Keep your flyer and save some trees.
Thank God we have a Website here that lists all sales. [Thanks, Xunderwear]
I’ve actually emailed the RE agents here with a scanned and “edited” copy of their lists…I’ve corrected, in red, their DOM and List, and added other sales that don’t portray the market the way they did.
It’s a liberating and powerful feeling to cross out 30 and type over it “245.”
Kind of like the way I want to tell CF to start building model airplanes and find a nice field somewhere to take Hunter.
Clot,
Being handled by my distant cousin – aunt’s son – and we don’t speak all that often.
My uncle’s house sold very quickly, but it was exceptional for its land and landscaping, and priced very aggressively for its area, too.
But I think the pricing on my aunt’s house is fair.
They always expected that if you ask for X as the listing price, you can expect people to go lower to Y.
Other than that, I don’t know how many people have inquired about it, what they were offering, etc.
This is my aunt who’s 97 1/2 and has no mortgage and no worries about carrying the house until it’s sold. Her neighbors will look after it – check up on the furnace, etc. But they want to get it done.
I don’t talk to the son very often so I don’t know what the feedback is from the agent.
I can just see that the houses around there aren’t moving the way they were.
72.
Morph, you are a sheep. The Constitution is going to be defended count on it. Is this politically more correct?
I’ve been seeing for quite a long time now that the most overpriced houses in our area were purchased by people during the bubble and they’re trying to get back what they paid. Today I asked my husband, and I’m asking you all, is there some way to figure out a mathematical formula to determine when most of the houses on the market will be from pre-bubble days and therefore more reasonable prices? How the F long will it take to clear out these crazy bubble people?!
#80,
Your theory could be sound. My husband also came up with a theory last night when I was complaining about the 8K tax credit. He felt that if it were still only for first timers that it wouldn’t have much of an impact here on in since the lemmings already went out and bought.
Now that they extended it to pretty much everyone, he’s wondering if a lot more people will put their houses on the market thinking they’ll sell and “take advantage” of the 8K to buy another house. If this is the case, if people are in fact that stupid, we’ll probably see prices fall because their will be so many more houses on the market. What do you think? Does that sound possible?
PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail
JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail
Friday, November 06, 2009
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”
Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:
“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]
– – – – – – – – – –
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]
– – – – – – – – – –
“Criminal penalties
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.
Health Care Bill Passes!
94. Welcome to Tyranny. House voting on bill now you can watch live on C-span.
I predict that the GOP will be organizing protests with the main slogan “Take the government off my public health plan” in about 30 years.
S
97.
You are a fool. I will laugh at you when the surgeon opens your belly slaps the sh#t together and closes with the cheap sh#t. I can also promise you that will happen. Theres always a work around.
James #98. My point exactly, just like how “Medicare will bring communism” –> “Take the government hands off my medicare”.
A major point of discussion: “Should the senate look for a straight up or down vote, or is filibustering the right thing”?
I am tempted to say, “America, love it or leave it.”
S
99.
Doctors will have the last laugh.
Great. I look forward to being shoved out of my health plan and waiting in some clinic in East Orange to see some government paid doctor who won’t give a hoot about my problems because the gov won’t pay for whatever it is even with the extra taxes I apy.
real chifi….I didn’t post this item…
75.chicagofinance says:
November 7, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Ok, here goes. The New Jersey housing crash we predicted hasn’t happened, at least not at the scale we expected.
Now what? I’m thinking maybe this winter is the best buying opportunity we’re going to get.
to be clear…totally foolish thing to even suggest….
#101 danzud, c’mon… you don’t believe what you posted, right?
Stimulus II will be used to boost construction expenditures for new Debtors Prisons, to house Criminals who fail to pay for Pelosi Health-care. Criminals failing to pay for Pelosi Health-care, will be charged with Bias Crimes, and most heinous offenders executed. The estimated $1T+ for Pelosi Health-care does not include capital expenditures for Debtors Prisons or Cost of Incarceration.
For a few days, this site will be njrereport.foxnews.com!
S
Sastry,
You really dont understand my hatred for people like you do you?
James,
You don’t understand that your hatred consumes you, do you? You need help.
Hi Lost,
Sorry for the double post… Home now…(at last…) can’t type for crap on that thing
sl
This is just my sort of my music, thank you! I’ll be back!
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