From BusinessWeek:
The Next Home Buyers: Ozzie & Harriet
It’s an unsettling time to be shopping for a home. Home values have yet to stabilize in three-quarters of U.S. metropolitan areas. Alarm about so-called robo-signing of foreclosure paperwork has raised fundamental questions about who owns a property’s title. And, while unlikely, two bipartisan commissions have suggested capping or killing the previously sacrosanct tax deductibility of mortgage interest.
As a result, home shoppers are being forced to accept a more traditional view of a real estate purchase: seeing their new home more as a savings account than as an investment. That represents a switch from how many owners thought during the go-go years of surging home prices and easy money, says Stan Humphries, chief economist of real estate information and listings website Zillow. “It’s essentially a forced savings plan, putting aside a percentage of your income into a savings account that is a non-depreciating asset in typical times,” he says.
Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2 percent to 4 percent a year, on average, just beating the rate of inflation. The challenge is that Humphries also thinks home values won’t bottom nationally until June 2011 at the earliest. Even when home values bottom out, Humphries expects an L-shaped bottom. His grim outlook is based on the fact that 23.2 percent of single-family homes across the U.S. had negative equity in the third quarter—which means high foreclosure rates will likely persist, while underlying demand for housing remains weaker due to high unemployment. The Obama Administration doesn’t expect unemployment to return to a normal range, below 6 percent, until 2015, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s mid-session review released in July.
…
Prospective home buyers are happy now if their purchase simply holds its value, says Patrick “Bud” O’Hagan, a broker at Terry O’Connor Realtors in Allendale, N.J. Buyers “want to make sure that a year or two from now the house is still worth more than what their mortgage is,” says O’Hagan. “They’re looking at what happened to houses bought two years ago that are under water.”
…
Charles Moore, owner of McGuire Real Estate in San Francisco and a third-generation broker, sees the psychological reset among prospective home buyers as a return to attitudes that prevailed before the 1970s, when inflation drove up home prices in California and other hot markets. He doesn’t fault people for hesitating to jump in now; he sees them as simply exercising all the diligence that home buyers largely abandoned earlier in the decade.“Not only am I not overly alarmed by it, but in a way I’d say this was necessary for the market to adjust from this bubble effect to [more realistic] value,” Moore says. “‘Ozzie and Harriet’ buyers didn’t expect any return on investment.”
Good Morning New Jersey
So we get oblivion served to us with jingle bells and some treacly, sweet HFCS dessert concoction for a few weeks.
Meh. In the end, it’s still oblivion.
Pull up a chair and warm yourself by the trash barrel fire.
Mark those calendars for Dec. 7. It’ll be interesting to see if a consumer bank run can really happen in Europe.
When the walking wounded gathered for the Condé Nast year-end party last Monday, it was a far cry from its glitzy, glamorous parties at the Four Seasons of yesteryear. This year, as they did a year ago, chief editors, publishers and executives gathered in a windowless back room of Aureole for cocktails at 4 p.m.
Gone for good, apparently, is the luncheon and its secretive seating charts, which were once scrutinized to see who was seated at the right hand of billionaire Chairman S.I. Newhouse, Jr. and who was sitting in Siberia.
The last time that sensational gathering took place was in 2007. After being dropped for three consecutive years, it now seems to be permanently relegated to an earlier, pre-McKinsey golden era at what was once the most glamorous of publishing empires.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/little_cheer_at_conde_fete_gWz4nbYEwk4Bpuh9rOCvdM#ixzz16fgbzZOV
What recession??
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220702015044&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
“The increasingly fragile American Empire has been built on a foundation of lies. Lies we tell ourselves and Big lies spread by our government. The shit is so deep you can stir it with a stick. As we enter another holiday season the mainstream corporate mass media will relegate you to the status of consumer. This is a disgusting term that dehumanizes all Americans. You are nothing but a blot to corporations and advertisers selling you electronic doohickeys that they convince you that you must have. Propaganda about consumer spending being essential to an economic recovery is spewed from 52 inch HDTVs across the land, 24 hours per day, by CNBC, Fox, CBS and the other corporate owned media that generate billions in profits from selling advertising to corporations shilling material goods to thoughtless American consumers.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-lies-across-america
A 22 year old nurse can afford to spend $5,000 on handbags and shoes this season. What recession?
From Bloomberg:
Thanksgiving Weekend Sales Rise 6.4% as Shoppers Splurge
Barb Capa was at Saks Inc.’s flagship store in New York feeling flush and ready to buy.
“I just feel like spending more because of an increase in my salary,” the 22-year-old nurse from New York said yesterday. In 2009 Capa spent $1,000 during the holiday season. This year she is ready to “splurge” and drop five times as much on designer bags, clothes and shoes.
She’s not the only one. The average shopper spent 6.4 percent more than last year over the holiday weekend, the National Retail Federation said yesterday. Customers bought more non-essentials like jewelry and toys, signaling that the U.S. economy, propelled by consumer spending, is regaining strength.
“Consumers are more comfortable spending again, and that trend has held up,” Maggie Taylor, a vice president at Moody’s Investors Service in New York, said yesterday. “I don’t think people are as worried about losing their jobs anymore.”
#5
“I don’t think people are as worried about losing their jobs anymore.” right, because 20% have already lost them. Like a corpse worrying about dying.
4.Lamar Asperger says:
November 29, 2010 at 6:52 am
“The increasingly fragile American Empire has been built on a foundation of lies. Lies we tell ourselves and Big lies spread by our government. The shit is so deep you can stir it with a stick. As we enter another holiday season the mainstream corporate mass media will relegate you to the status of consumer. This is a disgusting term that dehumanizes all Americans. You are nothing but a blot to corporations and advertisers selling you electronic doohickeys that they convince you that you must have. Propaganda about consumer spending being essential to an economic recovery is spewed from 52 inch HDTVs across the land, 24 hours per day, by CNBC, Fox, CBS and the other corporate owned media that generate billions in profits from selling advertising to corporations shilling material goods to thoughtless American consumers.”
Amen. The real start of this was when Corporations changed the name of the Personnel Department to “Human Resources”! People didn’t realize they were no longer people.
Tis no season to be jolly fa la la la la la la la
Prospective home buyers are happy now if their purchase simply holds its value, says Patrick “Bud” O’Hagan, a broker at Terry O’Connor Realtors in Allendale, N.J. Buyers “want to make sure that a year or two from now the house is still worth more than what their mortgage is,” says O’Hagan. “They’re looking at what happened to houses bought two years ago that are under water.”
Oh really? Ya don’t say! Is this different than the mantra that states “prices here never go down?”
22yo nurse lives with parents,with the fiancee in the room.Free board and lodging. Drives a $50K Beemer too.Parents saving for the 100 guest wedding.What recession?
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, home values appreciated 2% to 4%
I went everyone to write this 100 times. I’ll say it again: if you buy now, you are underwater the moment you leave the closing.
Safe
if you read up on great depression history, you find that those who manages to stay employed weren’t so bad off and the common modern quip “what recession” isn’t so very different from some of the comments made in rye 30s
Any breadwinner that lost his job and can’t find a replacement is always a economic depression to the individual family at any stages of the economy.
My mom always says getting used to the Depression wasn’t so bad. The world war that followed was a real bitch, though.
Perhaps we can instigate another world war and get everyone at the beginning to agree to only use infantry and other 20th century methods (no nukes).
That way, everybody gets the benefit of population thinning with all the good things that flow from mutually assured destruction should one side want to go for the deus ex machina.
Robert Samuelson Wants Ordinary People to Pay for the Mess-ups of the Bankers
Monday, 29 November 2010 05:47
This is the general policy being pushed by the Washington Post, various Peter Peterson funded deficit commissions, and of course Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission. What is great about Robert Samuelson is that he is comes right and tells readers that he wants ordinary people to suffer for the greed and incompetence of the bankers and the people who design economic policy.
Samuelson says that bailouts in Ireland, Greece, Spain and elsewhere are about:
“persuading ordinary citizens to tolerate austerity (higher unemployment, lower social benefits, heavier taxes) without resorting to paralyzing street protests or ineffectual parliamentary coalitions.”
Of course there is no economic reason whatsoever that ordinary people should be accepting lower pay, higher taxes, and reduced Social Security and pensions. The economies of Europe and the United States are no less productive than they were before the collapse of the housing bubble that the economic policymakers (almost none of whom have been fired) failed to see. In fact, in the United States productivity has risen substantially in the last 3 years.
The reduced output and unemployment stems from lack of demand. This in turn stems from the failure of the same group of economic policymakers to find ways to increase demand sufficiently to make up for the demand lost by the collapse of the bubble. Rather than trying to generate demand, policymakers are doing exactly what Mr. Samuelson said they are doing. They are trying to force ordinary people to endure high unemployment and accept cuts in pay, benefits, and public welfare programs.
And, as Mr. Samuelson says, he hopes that austerity can be accomplished “without [the public] resorting to paralyzing street protests or ineffectual parliamentary coalitions.”
Dean Baker
Oh…may I also suggest that we fill the ranks of our infantry with nothing but Boomers?
The world will be a better place if we can lop off 15mm or so of this degenerate crew.
Thomas Friedman, the High Priest of Austerity
Sunday, 28 November 2010 22:25
Normal 0
Thomas Friedman told Congress to just shut up and reduce the living standards of the vast majority of the population. In his column today Friedman said that Congress should quickly embrace the cuts in Social Security and Medicare proposed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission, and get on with the rest of Friedman’s agenda. Friedman has apparently decided there is no other way to move forward than to force moderate-income retirees to take big cuts in their living standards.
Of course others might point out that there are enormous potential savings to Medicare and Medicaid from allowing beneficiaries access to the more efficient health care systems in other countries. The government and private sector could also saving hundreds of billions of dollars a year from replacing the system of patent support for drug research with more efficient mechanisms.
In addition, the government could easily raise more than $100 billion a year from taxing the excesses in the financial sector, a route even advocated by the International Monetary Fund. This would require the sector most responsible for the economic wreckage the country is now experiencing to pay for the damage.
And, those who know basic economics (forget Friedman here) know that the current deficits pose no burden whatsoever. Deficits run in times of high unemployment do not displace private sector production; they simply utilize resources that would otherwise be idle.
And, there need be no future tax burden associated with the interest on this debt. There is no reason that the Fed can’t simply buy and hold the bonds issued to finance the deficit. This would mean that the interest paid on the bonds would go to the Fed, which would in turn refund it to the Treasury. This means that the interest imposes no net cost to taxpayers.
But Friedman doesn’t have time for thinking about these alternatives to cutting Social Security and Medicare. After all, each of these would involve confronting wealthy and powerful interest groups, Thomas Friedman doesn’t get paid to cause these people trouble.
Friedman’s line is to tell Congress to shut up and go after those high-living former schoolteachers and factory workers. After all, what business do these people have enjoying a decent standard of living when Thomas Friedman has an agenda to pursue?
Dean Baker
yo (18)-
Is this what is meant by the term, “runaway feedback loop”?
Just asking.
“”And, there need be no future tax burden associated with the interest on this debt. There is no reason that the Fed can’t simply buy and hold the bonds issued to finance the deficit. This would mean that the interest paid on the bonds would go to the Fed, which would in turn refund it to the Treasury. This means that the interest imposes no net cost to taxpayers.”
Everyone here ready to have their 401k’s and IRAs seized?
Just checking.
Clot (20):
I read that on Zero Hedge last night regardign Ireland. Scary stuff. To think that France may do the same thing to save their own rear ends is really amazing. All this to save a bunch of bankers from taking a loss on their bonds. We are heading towads the brick wall at 200 mph. It will be interesting how they now deal with Spain. Lets see what happens to the Euro when they gotta borrow and print 500 billion to get Spain stabilized.
There is some useful information on this web site. Feel free to check out my site here Get Cheap Canon S95 Powershot
Anyone on this site know what the initiation is to join the Knights Of Columbus? This seems to be a well kept secret among the members and it kind of makes me wonder, even formers members won’t devulge this secret. Since it’s a Catholic organization I don’t think it can be anything……. Maybe the priest paddles your butt? Open to suggestions.
knights of columbus is easy to join, just as long as you go to church enough where Priest knows your face> they always do a christmas thing so just volunteer to help out and meet the guys and you are in.
Now the Masons is very hard to join, and very secretive. Only BSDs, need apply.
JJ
Now the Masons is very hard to join, and very secretive. Only BSDs, need apply.
What???? They run radio commercials advertising for members in the Boston area! That isn’t exactly selective! I know a few guys up there who joined because they heard the radio commercial and were bored. Nice guys but not exactly cream of the crop. Regardless of what the Masons might have once been, the organization isn’t what it used to be.
Attentention Bond Fund holders, this is where the real fun will be in pain in 2011. In 2009 we saw massive capital gains in bond funds, in 2010 we saw great coupon clipping opportunities as higher coupon bonds issued between 2000 and 2008 that were callable companies were not yet in a position to call yet. Now in the last few weeks companies balance sheets are strong enough and they recently have issued long term debt at record low rates they are calling as many higher coupon bonds as possible. In December 2010 I have already received notice of full calls on these three bonds. Only two ways to make big bucks in corporate bonds, capital appreciation (2009) and coupon clipping (2010). For 2011 we have bonds that are fully valued and high coupon bonds called and replaced with lower coupon bonds with longer maturities that expose you to duration and interest rate risk.
The three bonds below with full calls coming up had ZERO duration and interest rate risk. All short term with high coupons. They did have default risk. The bonds funds who own these bonds are now forced to replace them. You can’t even get 10% coupon on B rated 40 year bonds let alone a three year bond. The bond funds will continue to buy and when they are loaded up on 20 year 5% coupon bonds and inflation kicks in towards end of 2011 look out below. It won’t be a bond market crash, but it will be a bond fund crash.
AFFINION GROUP INC SR NT 10.12500% 10/15/2013
CUSIP 00828DAC5
MERCER INTL INC SR NT 9.25000% 02/15/2013
CUSIP 588056AH4
FORD MTR CR CO CONT OFFER BD 6.85000% 06/20/2014CALL
CUSIP 34539CSU7
Anglo Irish Bank were on a panel at the distressed real estate summit in NYC a month or so ago explaining how “extend and pretend” worked for them and how the market was improving….ridiculous
From the Wall St. Journal
Anglo Irish Bank Corp., the troubled bank at the heart of Ireland’s controversial bailout, is raising cash by dumping New York real estate assets. Its latest move: putting up for sale a $147 million construction loan that financed the Setai Wall Street condominium and spa in the financial district.
The 34-story former office building, developed by Zamir Equities, was one of the most ambitious efforts by New York developers to transform the sleepy financial district into a thriving residential area. Units have sold for as much as $7.8 million, a record amount in the area, the developers say.
View Full Image
Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal
The Setai Wall Street towers over 40 Broad St. in downtown.
But the Setai Wall Street has run into problems. It got off to a fast start with about three-quarters of 162 units in contract, brokers say. But many buyers got out of their contracts last year after the project ran aground with construction delays and cost overruns.
Construction was completed earlier this year, and the developers kept marketing the project. Asher Zamir, a principal at Zamir Equities, says that buyers have closed on nearly 40% of the condos and another 10% are in contract.
The New York attorney general has halted any additional closings until the lending group, led by Anglo Irish, provides more information about the project’s financing, according to Mr. Zamir. The Anglo Irish loan is in default, according to court papers.
Debt on troubled projects throughout the city has attracted investor interest since the downturn because it typically is sold for significantly less than the face amount of the loan. Brokers say there are a number of firms expected to make offers on the Setai Wall Street debt by Tuesday, the bidding deadline. The sale is being run by Holliday Fenoglio Fowler.
The sale comes as Anglo Irish has been trying to raise money by exiting some of its New York projects. The bank was nationalized last year after suffering huge losses from commercial property loans abroad that soured when global markets collapsed.
The bank already is trying to figure out a strategy for the $270 million in debt it holds on the Mark, a hotel and co-op conversion project on the Upper East Side. The developer of that project, Alexico Group, has spiffed up the hotel with a full renovation, including a new marble lobby and a trendy Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant. It’s also been struggling to convert some of the hotel’s 160 units into luxury co-ops. Alexico is in discussions with Anglo Irish about buying back its own debt from the bank, according to people familiar with the matter.
Also, earlier this year, Anglo Irish sold loans on two other Alexico New York hotels, the Alex Hotel and Flatotel.
Ireland on Sunday reached an agreement with European governments and the International Monetary Fund for an €85 billion ($113 billion) bailout. The funds will help recapitalize Irish banks that have been hit by bad loans. Anglo Irish and other large Irish banks have been under pressure to purge their portfolios of risky loans.
The Setai Wall Street, situated at 40 Broad St., is a converted office building that includes a private club, spa, fitness center, library, lounge, wine cellar and private screening room. It’s also home to SHO Shaun Hergatt, an opulent Asian fusion restaurant. Like many other new developments, the project has struggled to find new buyers in the post-boom period.
The development also has run into problems with the Setai Group, a hotel and development company that is providing branding and design for the project. Setai filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in September alleging that some of the building’s features are below Setai standards. The suit, seeking unspecified damages, alleges breach of contract for the developers not using “the highest quality equipment, fixtures, furnishings, finishings and supplies,” among other things.
Mr. Zamir declined to comment specifically on the suit. But he said the property was a “five-star project.”
According to the complaint, the developers initially asked between $815,000 and $7.9 million for condos.
In September 2008, the developers announced they had achieved a record price for a single-unit sale in the financial district with a penthouse apartment going for $7.82 million.
Closings were originally supposed to start in 2007. But the condo conversion suffered construction delays that postponed the initial closings. After several condo purchasers sued to get out of their contracts, the developers in the summer of 2009 offered buyers the right to rescind their contracts and get their deposits back. Most buyers took them up on the offer, brokers say.
The developers defaulted on the Anglo Irish debt in 2009, according to the Setai complaint. That loan was restructured but now that loan, too, is in default, the complaint states. Mr. Zamir declined to comment on the project’s financing.
The Setai’s lawsuit against the Setai Wall Street’s developers is unrelated to a separate breach-of-contract lawsuit that the Setai Group recently brought against the Setai Fifth Avenue, a condo and hotel project near the Empire State Building, and a different developer.
Write to Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com
lamar
may I also suggest that we fill the ranks of our infantry with nothing but Boomers?
I have to disagree with you on that point. If you want a golden age after the global conflict subsides then you must have the youth sacrifice as well. if there is no memory of the sacrifice and the horror of large scale war then the population will simply dive right back into what got them there in the first place. The generational memory of the event is critical.
The Boomers certainly carry their share of the guilt, but the current 20 – 30 yr old crowd are true believers in vapid consumerism in a way that can only be achieved by those raised in the religion of consumption. Do you know how many times i have heard this age group ask how one can be happy if they aren’t spending money and buying stuff/partying?
The Setai Wall Street, situated at 40 Broad is a ghost town. The back entrance and front entrance are both on blocked off street to car traffic so very hard to get a cab or delivery, two empty store fronts in front, and old HR bock and a studio, back entrance has constrution and an out of business bar and KFC. Terrible location, building is very empty, who would want to live there for several million.
JJ Number 24 Yes I know it’s not difficult to join if you have somebody sponsoring you, but it seems the initiation is very mysterious and secretive. Try asking a member what the initiation is and I guarantee they will change the subject on you.
I rather join KFC than KOC. Just a bunch of old guys hanging around a club drinking PBRs and bowling.
KOC, Elks, VFW all the same to me.
Actually, KOC is catholic, VFW for military, MASONs are wasps, what the heck is the criteria for Elks?
Mike says:
November 29, 2010 at 10:05 am
JJ Number 24 Yes I know it’s not difficult to join if you have somebody sponsoring you, but it seems the initiation is very mysterious and secretive. Try asking a member what the initiation is and I guarantee they will change the subject on you.
“the initiation is very mysterious and secretive.”
Elephant March?
re: #18 – neocon
Has Ireland scheduled rioting and revolution yet? If not, perhaps they should.
“Abysmal Deal Ransoms Us And Disgraces Europe”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1129/1224284370155.html
re: #31 — JJ – KOC, ELKs? Cumon now no region of this country has more country clubs and golf, yachting, and sportsmen’s clubs than Long Island. Go out and join a country club already, and don’t give me any crap you don’t play golf, you can go hit tennis balls with the ladies. There are a few out on Long Island that have lost more than 1/2 their membership and have filed for bankruptcy. You can probably get in on it for 30 cents on the dollar.
re: #34 – The Irish National Pensions Reserve Fund was set up in 2001 to try and meet some of the future extra costs of Ireland’s social welfare and public service pensions after 2025. Money was not supposed to be touched. It’s is the Irish version of the US Social Security Trust Fund which as we all know is a locked two drawer file cabinet stuffed with special IOUs.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/pics/20050405-1_w9w7072jpg-316v.jpg
Make no mistake here in the USA we export debt and unique solutions like the locked File Cabinet to that debt. No worries once they unveil their file cabinet all will be well.
Obama to Freeze Pay for Most Federal Workers for 2 Years
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers later Monday morning, according to an administration official, the latest White House move intended to demonstrate concern over sky-high deficit spending.
The president’s proposal will effectively wipe out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise for 2.1 million civilian federal government employees in 2011 and 2012. The military would not be affected. The president has frozen the salaries of his own top White House staff members since taking office 22 months ago.
While a pay freeze will make only a small dent in the federal deficit, it represents a symbolic gesture toward public anger over unemployment, the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt. By announcing it on Monday, the president effectively will preempt Republicans who have been talking about making such a move once they take over the House and assume more seats in the Senate in January.
The number of federal workers making more than $150,000 a year has grown ten-fold in the past five years and doubled since Mr. Obama took office, USA Today reported earlier this month. Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3 percent annually above inflation, compared with 0.8 percent for private sector workers, according to data cited by the newspaper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/politics/30freeze.html?hp
There’s too much doom and gloom around here. Some of you guys need to take a damn break and catch up on the latest with Kim Kardashian. I always try to keep up with who that hottie is dating and besides, that’s more fun than hearing about the damn Irish bitching and moaning about the damn bailout and the fact that their damn pension money is gone. Hell, if you ask me, they should be blaming the stinking real estate terrorists rather than the banks. The poor banks were doing what they could to put people in homes, but the damn terrorists undermined this market and it’s them who should pay, not the poor banks.
Now, you guys can sit here hoarding your “shiny” all the hell you want to. I’m going to go Christmas shopping and get a few baubles for the wife so she can do what you’re supposed to do with the damn shiny–wear it.
Reinvest- Gosh just wanted to know what the initiation was for the Knights. My Christmas shopping is done by the way, bought giftcards on Craigslist for 50 cents on the dollar from a poor soul who’s going to make me smell like a rose on Christmas.
Wow, when I was working the day after Thanksgiving I was a little more opinionated than normal, I will re-post for those that missed this.
JJ says:
November 26, 2010 at 1:33 pm
As sad as it sounds, most Men in their 20′s and 30′s are not “real men” in the eyes of the older generation.
Married 35 year old men who can’t support their wife and have to pimp her out at some crap job while their snotty germ filled little 1-3 year old rots in day care or is watch by an illegal nanny or worse by grandparents called back into childcare duty for free since their lazy x-box playing nose picking no good son or son-in-law can’t support a wife or kids.
Plus 20/30 something men are dumb and lazy a powerful combination. They may own a house, but have lawnservice, don’t know how to fix a car, don’t know how to do even basic home repairs, heck they even lease cars. Too confusing to own a car for their little minds. They can’t fix it and don’t know how to sell a car.
Their wives since they work, don’t cook, don’t clean and have maids. Wives are resentful they have to work and refuse to take over Christmas, Thanksgiving etc so there old parents are still hosting holiday while their free loading 35 year old married kids with children sit on the couch. Some of them are too lazy to send out holiday cards without Mom harrasing them or even into remembering to do Christmas shopping.
Yet these same people will march into my office and tell me how great they are. A man or a women who supports his or her family, makes a holiday, keeps a clean house, knows how to do home repairs and fix a car, helps his parents out, AND does a good job at work in his 20′s or 30′s gets respect. The rest are just jugglers doing everything half ass
>>My Christmas shopping is done by the way, bought giftcards on Craigslist for 50 cents on the dollar from a poor soul who’s going to make me smell like a rose on Christmas.<<
Damn cheapskate. You've done absolutely nothing for the stinking economy other than rip someone off.
Vulture.
re #41 – This year we are giving gifts to the children only. The adults will just have to go out and buy their own ugly sweaters.
JJ [40];
The grandparents that think that do so from the comfort of their beachside Boca condo, paid for with the proceeds a house they sold to someone esles’ kids, whose wife has to work to cover the mortgage and taxes, not to mention the SS taxes taken out and funneled directly to Grandma’s indian bingo habit. Little girl and her hubby faced the same Hobson’s choice when they wanted to buy their crapped out used POS cape. So in the end, who’s really pimping their little princess?
Motto of the Baby Boom retirement: You screw my kids, I’ll screw your kids and we’ll all retire in Boca together.
Con’t [43];
And another thing:
A man or a women who supports his or her family, makes a holiday, keeps a clean house, knows how to do home repairs and fix a car, helps his parents out, AND does a good job at work in his 20′s or 30′s gets respect.
Respect == cash. Show [him] the money. I’m continually amazed at the people in business who are willing to do anything to get good help except pay for it.
>>This year we are giving gifts to the children only. The adults will just have to go out and buy their own ugly sweaters.<<
And I bet you'll "be like Mike" and get them second hand off of damn craigslist.
I'm going all out this Christmas having been inspired by that young nurse who's going to spend $ 5000 on gifts. I plan on tripling that. Hell, I just got some damn blank checks from Capital One that will give me 0% for a year.
I'm going to do my part or die trying. What you don't understand is that folks like me are going to get bailed the hell out anyway, so why bother to save when all you'll be is a damn target for someone to take your damn stuff at some point. Yep, the ticket is spend, spend spend. You need to get with the program and stop being a damn cheapskate.
The reason I am grouchy is my in-laws and aunt finally reached age and health where they can’t do holidays. My sister-in-law did thanksgiving and now I am being stuck with Christmas even though I have a bunch of little kids. Why Because a brother-in law born in 1974 and my aunts kids born in 1975 and 1978 refuse to be part of the taken turns process. Therefore My wife and her sister are stuck rotating it between their two houses while the three other 30 something crowd won’t chip in.
Finally, someone mentioned I was anti-education for women as I was talking about stay-at-home wives. I am pro-women education. Let me take you back in time to my big four days. Only 10% of women make Partner if they stick with it the whole 15 years it takes out of school. The other 90% have to have a plan B. Plan B involved utilizing their good looks, degree, CPA and work experience to make then an attractive candidate to the Senior Managers about to make Partner, or a trader on a trading desk. They usually cashed out by 29 years of age with a ring, and when they had their first kids around 32 came back and resigned. These are the Bergan County, North Shore LI BMW driving country club ladies with two perfect kids and a summer home in the Hamptons. Nearly every female Partner I know over 40 claim they made the wrong choice, they should have cashed out. I would argue if a man had two daughters both had 3.5 GPAs from school and both make VP at JP Morgan by 30 but one quit at 32 to marry the EVP making 1.5 million a year and had two kids and was a stay at home wife while daughter two stayed at work and is a SVP making 500K a year with two kids in day care with a resentful husband making 200K a year who is the greater success story?
I pay my staff very well. My point a person who is supporting a family by himself, is 100% devoted to work as he does not have to run home and juggle day care, take sick days for kids, take off for school projects, can’t work OT on short notice, and at work is thinking about kids schedules etc is not someone I want to be in a Foxhole with.
In addition, doing all of the above, helping out your parents and in-laws, doing home repairs, hosting Thanksgiving or Christmas shows me you are a sold person who does the right thing and is not afraid to take responsiblity.
For example my brother in laws none of them have big jobs or advanced degrees. It is easy for them to use their wive’s as a crutch. Time to man up or women up. I now plenty of two income career couples, doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc. But I am talking when a spouse has a job she hates, does not pay that well and does not want to work but works cause her husband is too lazy to have a real job. Which is the case with 90% of the men. Remember, only 10% of people move high enough up the ladder to reach the dream job, that is certainly not the case with the majority of working couples, they all can’t have the 10% jobs.
Anon E. Moose says:
November 29, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Con’t [43];
And another thing:
A man or a women who supports his or her family, makes a holiday, keeps a clean house, knows how to do home repairs and fix a car, helps his parents out, AND does a good job at work in his 20′s or 30′s gets respect.
Respect == cash. Show [him] the money. I’m continually amazed at the people in business who are willing to do anything to get good help except pay for it.
Re: [46, ¶1];
I can completely dig that. I took the Easter holiday for between 10-14 people every year since the first year I was living on my own. Apparently, as I can attest, owning an overpriced crap shack is NOT a prerequisite to having guests, or participating in social family traditions.
OTOH, my brother adopted Christmas as his holiday when he moved out of state because it was too difficult to travel with kids on Christmas. If you wanted to do Christmas with the whole family, you had to come to him. Well now that all the younger siblings and cousins have kids of their own, we’ve leared– yeah, it is a PITA to travel with kids on Christmas. So why is it that we’re still doing it and he never had to?
Ghost estates in Ireland
Lamar,
You will enjoy this!!!
Lamar,
You will enjoy this!!!
Simon Black Advocates Leaving America As The “Most Effective” Way To Fight The Battle With “The Mob-Installed Government Beast”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/simon-black-advocates-leaving-america-most-effective-way-fight-battle-mob-installed-governme
“Friedman said that Congress should quickly embrace the cuts in Social Security and Medicare proposed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission, and get on with the rest of Friedman’s agenda.”
Why should this joker care about anyone else, Thomas Friedman already has an 11,000 square foot mansion sitting on 7+ acres.
http://www.sustainlane.com/reviews/what-is-thomas-friedmans-ecological-footprint/R1RJXD7QHRISP8R1CBYUC8HOISP8
Let them eat cake!
“bought giftcards on Craigslist for 50 cents on the dollar”
Hopefully they actually work, and were not already used by a store employee.
The big difference between renting and owning if you do it right is that you are paying yourself and when you do decide to sell, unless of course you try to move while you are still under water on the house, you will walk away with some cash. Do it wrong and you will write the check. Renting is just renting. Been there. Done that.
Essex, did you get your Giffen yet?
No it is on lay-a-way and I got distracted and kept the strat and am bringing it up to vintage spec. I found a complete loaded pickguard from the seventies (black on black) which is amazing and I bought it. Price was ‘reasonable-ish’…The Giffin will hopefully be mine mid-january.
My guitar buying days are behind me. I’m OK with my G&L and 2 acoustics.
Which is worse finding out your home purchase has mold or meth?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/couple.buys.meth.house/index.html?hpt=C2
Oh Boo Freaking Hooooo……
Grateful to have found work in this tough economy, Nick Martin teaches grape growing and winemaking each Saturday to a class of seven students in a simple metal building here at a satellite campus of Highland Community College.
Then he drives 14 miles in an 11-year-old Ford Explorer to a sparsely furnished tract house that he rents for $900 a month on a dead-end street in McFarland, a smaller town. Just across the backyard is a shed that a neighbor uses to make cartridges for shooting the prairie dogs that infest the adjacent fields.
It is a far cry from the life that Mr. Martin and his family enjoyed until recently at their Adirondacks waterfront camp at Tupper Lake, N.Y. Their garage held three stylish cars, including a yellow Aston Martin; they owned three horses, one that cost $173,000; and Mr. Martin treated his wife, Kate, to a birthday weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria, with dinner at the “21” Club and a $7,000 mink coat.
That luxurious world was fueled by a check Mr. Martin received in 1998 for $14 million, his share of the $600 million sale of Martin Media, an outdoor advertising business begun by his father in California in the 1950s. After taxes, he kept about $10 million.
But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches, the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.
They faced temptations to indulge, with the complexities and pressures of new wealth. And a pounding recession pummeled the value of their real estate and new financial investments, rendering their properties unaffordable.
The fortune evaporated in little more than a decade.
While many millions of Americans have suffered through this recession with only unemployment benefits to sustain them, Mr. Martin has reason to give thanks — he has landed a job at 59, however far away. He also had assets to sell to help tide his family over.
Still, Mr. Martin, a strapping man with a disarming bluntness, seemed dazed by it all. “We are basically broke,” he said.
Though he faulted the conventional wisdom of investing in stocks and real estate for some of his woes, along with poor financial advice, he accepted much of the blame himself.
“We spent too much,” he conceded. “I have a fourth grader, an eighth grader and a girl who just finished high school. I should have kept working and put the money in bonds.”
Mrs. Martin recalled the summer night in 1998 when the family was having a spaghetti dinner at home in Paso Robles, in central California, and a bank representative called to ask where to wire the money. “It seemed like an unbelievable amount,” she said regretfully.
Soon after the money arrived, the family decided to leave Paso Robles, amid some lingering tensions that Mr. Martin felt with his brother and brother-in law, who had run the business. Mr. Martin had never been in management at the billboard company, though he had been on the board and worked at Martin Brothers Winery, another family business.
First, the Martins bought a house in Somerset, England, near the home of Mrs. Martin’s parents, and he decided to write a novel. At about the same time, they spent $250,000 on the 3.5-acre camp with four structures on Tupper Lake, deep in the Adirondacks, as a summer home. They began extensive renovations at the lake, adding a stunning three-story boathouse and two other buildings.
Clouds gathered quickly. Life in England turned sour when Mr. Martin’s novel, “Anthony: Conniver’s Lament,” did not sell, and the family’s living costs — school fees, taxes and even advice for filing tax returns — swelled. In 2002, fed up with England, the Martins chose a new base, Vermont, and plunked down about $650,000 for a home there, as renovations continued on the Tupper Lake property.
By March 2007, the Martins were determined to move to the lake full time.
They managed their expenses for a while, but the costs mounted and mounted some more as they worked at refurbishing the Adirondack property — eventually totaling a staggering $5.3 million, Mr. Martin said. He poured another $600,000 into the Vermont property, he said.
He vacillates between blaming the builders and blaming himself for letting costs get out of hand. “We should have built something quite modest,” he conceded.
[See 10 Things Your Contractor Won’t Tell You]
Tensions rose in 2007 as summer came without any offers for the Vermont home.
“I thought that housing was going into a tailspin,” he said. “I had the feeling that something bad was happening.”
So “we started selling cars, shotguns, antique furniture, whatever,” Mr. Martin said. The Aston Martin fetched $395,000. With a big gap in his employment history, he found a job teaching English at Paul Smith’s College near his home in Tupper Lake for $14,000 a year. For an additional $7,000, he coached the school’s cross-country runners.
Then came the financial crisis. The markets plunged, as did the value of the Martins’ trust. By fall 2008, with much of the family’s net worth tied up in housing, Mr. Martin faced a series of margin calls. He needed more cash in his brokerage accounts because he had been tapping into a credit line with his investments as collateral. In January 2009, he cashed in a retirement account worth roughly $91,000.
The houses could not be sold quickly. Though if they had been, some of the pressure would have lifted. “To maintain those things, you have to have a pretty good cash flow,” Mr. Martin said.
The family ultimately put the Adirondacks property on the market for $4.9 million, then quickly slashed the price by half. Last month, the Martins got an offer for just half of the latest $2.5 million asking price.
They have stopped making payments on their $1.1 million mortgage and their $53,000 in annual property taxes in the Adirondacks as well as the mortgage and taxes on their Vermont home. They cannot afford those obligations on Mr. Martin’s current salary of $51,000. Their household income is down from $250,000 four years ago.
At the moment, they are working with a loan modification unit at their bank. The lender proposed a new payment of $3,550 a month, reduced from $7,400. Given his current status, Mr. Martin argued, that it does not make much sense. He predicts that the house will ultimately be sold or taken over by the bank. Meanwhile, for the Christmas holidays and some of next summer, the family has found renters for the main house to help cover some of the costs.
Over lunch recently at Barleycorn’s Downtown Bar and Deli in Wamego, Mr. Martin said he believed “the worst is behind us.”
Perhaps. But a forced restructuring can be difficult for children and spouses even in longstanding marriages.
Sometimes he and his wife took it out on each other, he said. “She bought a bunch of horses. I blamed her for the horses. I bought cars. She blamed me for the cars — and the house being too big. We had a rough time,” he acknowledged. “But I think we have gotten over that.”
Until Christmas, when she plans to join him, Mrs. Martin continues to work as a substitute teacher with autistic children at an Adirondacks elementary school: a $12,000-a-year job she loves in a place she says she is hesitant to leave. With their younger daughter, she has moved into a smaller building on their big property.
A lively woman who loves bike riding and horses, she has built a close network of friends. “What is the place in Kansas like?” she asked a reporter with some trepidation before her first visit at Thanksgiving.
Mr. Martin, who moved to Kansas last April, brought the couple’s 13-year-old son, Edward, to join him in the fall. He has been counting the days until his wife and Sophia, 9, come permanently. The older daughter, Mrs. Martin’s from a previous marriage, has found work in Florida after finishing high school.
In the meantime, Mr. Martin is also overseeing a one-acre vineyard beside the Oregon Trail Road, drawing on his knowledge of the wine industry from his California days.
He does what he can to lessen the family strains.
“I have a temper. I have to control my temper,” he said. “I could drink like a fish, but if you have problems in your life, drinking does not help.”
And he recites a quotation he holds dear : “The measure of a man is not whether he falls down, but whether he gets up again.” Still, Mr. Martin is prone to ruminate over the loss of so much money. He is furious at the banks and the bankers, who he thinks gave him bad advice, and he still sounds angry at his brother and others who decided to sell the company and who he says gave him little voice. Some of them got more than $100 million each, he said, while he got $14 million, as did his father and his sister Ann, because they were all minority shareholders.
His brother-in-law David Weyrich said that if Mr. Martin had objections to the sale, he did not voice them.
Mrs. Martin says she believes the move from California was motivated in part because he resented his brother and brother-in-law’s bigger role in the community.
She also speculates that the Adirondacks estate was alluring partly as a way of keeping up. “I think he wanted to show his brother and brother-in-law that he had a big home, too,” she said over dinner recently in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Mr. Martin disagreed. “We are Irish Catholics, and we thought it would be a compound for our family over generations,” he said. After the cramped rooms at their house in England, he liked the big rooms, he said. “Sometimes, things don’t work out.”
Essex,
I posted that a couple of days ago. It is hard to feel badly for someone who wastes a $10mm after-tax nest egg. Most folks here would have found a way to make 20% of that make the rest of their lives easier. Fools and their money….
Barcelona embarrassed Real Madrid 5-0
59/60: Hope you didn’t use up all your tissues on Mr. Martin. Mr. Weyrich, pronounced used-to be-waaaay-rich, might need a few.
http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/how-to-go-broke-in-style/
There is an expression “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”. These guys expidited the process. Hope the old man wasn’t around to see it. “Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple” also comes to mind.
Expedited. Can usually spell. Typing is a difficulty.
Randolph and Mortimer
Did you see this drop? It is the worst fcuking thing I’ve seen ever……cut him now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGJWBWcFD_4&feature=player_embedded
mo money mo problems…
Look at the replay at 0:21 sec….
Well this could be fun!!!!
Exclusive: WikiLeaks Will Unveil Major Bank Scandal
Nov. 29 2010 – 5:01 pm | 5,704 views | 1 recommendation | 1 comment
By ANDY GREENBERG
First WikiLeaks spilled the guts of government. Next up: The private sector, starting with one major American bank.
In an exclusive interview earlier this month, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Forbes that his whistleblower site will release tens of thousands of documents from a major U.S. financial firm in early 2011. Assange wouldn’t say exactly what date, what bank, or what documents, but he compared the coming release to the emails that emerged in the Enron trial, a comprehensive look at a corporation’s bad behavior.
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/exclusive-wikileaks-will-unveil-major-bank-scandal/
yo (61)-
Men vs. boys. Nice fight at the end. Will make the April game that much more fun.
#2 Clot
” some treacly, sweet HFCS dessert concoction ”
Topped with this.
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/11/29/2010-11-29_alcoholinfused_whipped_cream_catches_regulators_eye_in_mass_as_its_popularity_co.html
Congrats on the Barcodes at the weekend!
#66 Chi
That was eclipsed by that Boise St kicker that droped himself 5 rounds in the draft if he ever makes it.
gluteus (71)-
Magpies in Europe next year. Book it!
Messi today was in hyperdrive. More Maradona than Maradona ever was.
Reinvestor Number 41 I preferred to be called frugal Besides gift cards are just like cash
Double Down Number 53 The person who I purchased these from agreed to meet at the store where they were verified by customer service and of course I turned them in for some nice holiday cards
Good night New Jersey and have a pleasant tommorow
Of course, the biggest news in soccer is still Eric Cantona’s Dec. 7 bank run.
“If ever there were a sign of the times, one can clearly see the desperation of the establishment upon reading Andrew Clark’s “Eric Cantona’s bank protest isn’t very wise”. After reading the article and comments it becomes painfully clear that most people, the author included have no idea how the monetary system works.
How does Mr. Clark propose with that “There’s nothing evil about the concept of banks – they exist to look after our savings and to provide investment for businesses”, given that banks create money out of thin air based on deposits as a multiplier. One cannot say (with a straight face) they are looking after our savings as the very purchasing value of those savings is being diluted through legalized counterfeiting known as leverage and or the money multiplier. I do not think Mr. Cantona is arguing against the concept of banking, but rather organizing the end of the current predatory casino model paraded around as capitalism. Calling this model capitalism is an insult to capital, as it is after all savings. True capitalism cannot exist in a system where money is based on debt, not value; a printing press and not from savings. On the point that the concept of banking is not evil, one concedes that an idea cannot posses any characteristics of a living entity as it is an idea. That said debt based monetary systems utilizing a fiat currency, are historically used by oppressive régimes as the system itself is a giant wealth transfer and consolidation mechanism.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-musing-bank-run
If I were a wedding planner, I’d advise the bride to register at Cabela’s.
We’re close to the times in which .223 will be both fungible and practical.
#77
Clot,
In one of the great ironies of life, Mrs Fabius has just signed us up for two weeks in a villa with friends in the Algarve next August. I’m paying GBP for part of it so I have no idea were I’ll be on the FX.
For Cantona there is no better description than “The Sh1t hit the fan” for what he is fighting for there is a story behind that needs explored. If the retail side of banking goes, all he11 breaks lose.
In realilty, countries like Ireland are hurting as it is the retail side of the business they are trying to protect. If the banks go under the little people lose unless the gvmt steps in as lender of last resort. At this point they need the investment side to make the retail side whole.
It’s Bizarre!
Clot (77),
There’s a huge flaw in the article and I thought you’d see it. After all the other shennanigans over the last couple of years, does it even matter if the bank has our assets or not? These zombie banks are making up the rules as they go along. What the heck do they actually need deposits for when everything else is phony? They’ll pay out cash and drop in IOUs like in the scene from Dumb and Dumber.
gluteus (79)-
You give the Irish way too much credit. They are willing to turn their population into paupers for life to protect their own TBTF banks and their worthless, Ponzied sovereign debt.
Haircuts will be minimal and mostly symbolic. Meanwhile, the rest of that God-forsaken place will revisit the Potato Famine of 1846.
dan (80)-
That is a flaw in the article. However, a massive bank run signifies that the jig is up. The political consequences will both trump, and drive, the events that follow.
It’s not far from an all-out bank run to an overthrow of a current government in favor of a new slate of candidates who promise a sovereign default. When the default occurs, the new regime will be hailed as heroes, and the house of cards in every subsequent nation collapses.
In the words of ZH: please God, Ireland, default!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GSXbgfKFWg&feature=related
easy to find…
“Exclusive: WikiLeaks Will Unveil Major Bank Scandal”
The only bank that matters is GS. If it is not Goldman, it doesn’t matter much.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Comex May Have A Problem
“I have to allow for the typical accounting revisions that the Comex sometimes makes a day later. BUT, right now based on the o/i for gold and silver, the Comex is potentially insolvent.
Friday being the day before first notice, anyone with an account not funded to take delivery of a long position has to either sell or be liquidated by the end of last Friday’s access session. I know this because I had a silver position liquidated a few years ago when I forgot what day it was lol. Any open long positions as of this morning are capable of taking delivery of gold and silver.
With that said, the open gold o/i as of this morning is 59,412 contracts. This translates into 5.9 million ounces. The Comex gold inventory shows only 2.6 million ounces of gold registered and approved for delivery. There is a total of 11.4mm ounces.
In silver, there are 17,208 open contracts. This translates into 86 million ounces. The Comex reports 48.5 million ounces available and approved for delivery, 107.2 million total ounces.
What does this mean, in the context of the cartel being unable to force liqidate a majority of the open gold/silver positions? Everyone reading this can use their imagination and I’m not willing to predict how this will unfold, but right now the Comex has a problem. ”
http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2010/11/comex-may-have-problem.html
Re: Boomers and deadbeats on the holidays. Its all BS anyway. Greedy boomers will be dead in a ditch once Obamacare goes into effect. Tell Grandma to keep some cash on hand. Actually make that bullion or land. They rand the ship onto rocks and tossed the 14 trillion baton to their children so they could trot around in FL with their t_t sucking lives. Grandma and Grandpa will be none to happy when their shifty IRA’s are confiscated in excange for a g_v annuity.
#83 Amen, brother.
This really is a wonderful site. Feel free to check out my site : Canon S95 Powershot Compare Prices