From the Economist:
UST seven years after the biggest housing bubble in American history began to deflate, could another be inflating? Prices in a 20-city index compiled by CoreLogic Case-Shiller rose by 11% in the year to the end of March, and by more than 20% in Phoenix and Las Vegas, both cities at the centre of the housing collapse. Inventory is down: homes are selling in days, and often for more than the asking price. In Phoenix, bidding wars have broken out between would-be homeowners and investors paying cash. Americans once more see property as a winning asset.
But to qualify as a bubble, an asset must not simply appreciate; it must decouple from its intrinsic value. For houses, The Economist each quarter compares the ratio of prices to household income and rents against their long-run average in 20 countries. We have now done the same for the 20 metropolitan areas in the Case-Shiller index. The verdict: in most markets houses are at or near their long-run values, but none looks bubbly.
For America as a whole and in most cities, price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios are at or near their 25-year average. (To be sure, the bubble era dragged that average up; valuations are still higher than in the 1990s.) How they got there varies, however. Cities in Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida experienced the biggest bubbles, and in the subsequent bust values fell well below long-term averages. Price rises in Phoenix, Tampa and Miami have restored values only to their long-run averages.
In New York prices never gave up much of their bubble-era rise, and have since recovered more slowly than in the country as a whole. Relative to rents and incomes, valuations have been flat or down slightly. Homes around Washington, DC sell for roughly double their level of the late 1990s, but that seems justified by strong gains in rents and incomes. A brisk rental market also explains the strong run-up in prices in San Francisco.
…
In Denver house prices have regained their peaks, and valuations are above their long-run average. This is the only city that, by our methodology, counts as expensive. But by the standards of recent history the over-valuation is trivial. Many things could trip up the housing recovery, from stalling job growth to higher mortgage rates. But at the moment a bursting bubble is not one of them.
From HousingWire:
Shifting market turns investors shy on housing
As interest rates and home prices continue to take off, real estate investors are growing weary and beginning to back away from the housing market.
This, of course, is happening at a time when investors continue to get credit for stimulating a significant portion of today’s home sales.
In a new survey conducted by ORC International for MemphisInvest.com and Premier Property Management Group, 48% of investors said they intend to cut back on home purchases in the coming year, compared to 30% in the previous survey conducted in August, indicating a strong shift in investor purchasing intentions.
At the same time, only 20% of investors expect to increase their purchases compared to 39% last August.
“Higher prices are reducing returns on investment and investors are responding by cutting back on their purchasing plans until conditions sort out. Fewer foreclosures, rising property values and competition from hedge funds are making it tough to find good ideals on distress sales,” said Chris Clothier, partner in MemphisInvest.com and Premier Property Management Group.
As investors begin to realize the benefits of rising rents and low vacancy rates, the trend is pushing investors to hold the properties they own for at least five years or more. According to the survey, 33% of investors plan to keep their property for 10 years or more.
But surveyed investors may not be the only ones with this train of thought. Hedge fund manager Bruce Rose, chief executive officer of Carrington Holding Co., told Bloomberg last month that it no longer makes sense to be a buyer.
According to Rose, it’s getting increasingly difficult to buy properties cheaply.
Everrybody wants to be the one to call the next bubble
Way too early in the NY Metro to be calling bubble, we’re barely off the bottom, low single digits pricing, contracts and sales numbers are moving upwards at a good clip, but they are only starting approach “normal” levels of activity, far far away from anything we saw during the bubble (We are still roughly 50% lower than peak volumes).
Not saying there isn’t some craziness out there, there is, but it’s not widespread across all markets and property types. Some of it is probably sideline burnout, some of it is the NYC exodus, and some is investor activity.
A lot of the buying isn’t craziness, it’s your standard, run-of-the-mill, every day buying and selling, no drama, no stories of massive equity cash-out and burn-out, no dreams of quick money flips.
S&P Case Shiller Tiered Index for NY Metro (not adjusted for inflation)
Low Tier (Under $256247)
Jan 1, 2000 – 100
Peak – August 2006 – 259.47 (Up 159.5% from Jan 1, 2000)
Bottom – April 2012 – 161.43 (Down 37.8% from Peak)
Current – March 2013 – 169.15 (Up 4.8% from Bottom, Up ~4.1% per year from 2000)
Mid Tier ($256247 – $420580)
Jan 1, 2000 – 100
Peak – September 2006 – 224.17 (Up 124.2% from Jan 1, 2000)
Bottom – March 2012 – 159.45 (Down 28.9% from Peak)
Current – March 2013 – 164.55 (Up 3.2% from Bottom, Up ~3.9% per year from 2000)
High Tier (Over $420580)
Jan 1, 2000 – 100
Peak – June 2006 – 193.24 (Up 93.2% from Jan 1, 2000)
Bottom – March 2012 – 152.02 (Down 21.3% from Peak)
Current – March 2013 – 155.88 (Up 2.5% from Bottom, Up ~3.5% per year from 2000)
Hour and a half to go to payrolls…
Consensus estimates seem to be floating around 167-169k, with no change to UE remaining at 7.5%.
The fate of the sub-4% mortgage hangs in the balance, good numbers, bye bye 3 handle, bad numbers may open the window back up a little, but likely nowhere near the recent lows.
I slammed Warren yesterday, but mostly because I couldn’t believe she’d say what she did about arms-length.
But this? You’ve got to watch this, she straps on a 12″er and REAMS bank regulators for settling with big banks.
http://www.upworthy.com/elizabeth-warren-asks-the-most-obvious-question-ever-and-stumps-a-bunch-of-bank?g=2&c=la1
High Tier (Over $420580)
Seriously, so a 421K house is high end in NJ
[6] grim
Kabuki theater. Get back to me when she cosponsors a bill that (a) does anything substantive and (b) gets a cosponsor who isn’t Bernie Sanders.
7 – High tier not high end. Tiers are based on transaction volumes, 1/3rd of transactions fall into low tier, 1/3 into middle tier, and so on.
S&P CS NY Metro is funky, in that it really represents the “donut” outside of Manhattan. Case Shiller is based on single family homes, no condos, coops, apartments, multi-families. There are very few single families in NYC proper, thus the index is more heavily weighted with transactions outside of the area. I think this is why Case & Shiller named this one the “New York City Commuter” Index, a completely different naming convention from any other area.
That $421k high tier includes your digs too JJ, areas included are:
Fairfield CT, New Haven CT, Bergen NJ, Essex NJ, Hudson NJ, Hunterdon NJ, Mercer NJ, Middlesex NJ, Monmouth NJ, Morris NJ, Ocean NJ, Passaic NJ, Somerset NJ, Sussex NJ, Union NJ, Warren NJ, Bronx NY, Dutchess NY, Kings NY, Nassau NY, New York NY, Orange NY, Putnam NY, Queens NY, Richmond NY, Rockland NY, Suffolk NY, Westchester NY, Pike PA
Seems like the number of million dollar plus homes on the MLS in Bedminster has grown noticeably in the past few weeks. I wonder if the sale of 400 Claremont in Bernardsville for only 2 million below original asking got everyone excited. Also interesting that there appear to be a lot of low income condos in the Hills on the MLS in the past year. Used to be they were rarely listed and sold via ads in the paper or word of mouth.
really? will check it out. Maybe I should upgrade instead. My refi closes next week. Locked rate at the perfect time. It is 1/8 higher than the lowest ever.
Ottoman says:
June 7, 2013 at 8:04 am
Seems like the number of million dollar plus homes on the MLS in Bedminster has grown noticeably in the past few weeks. I wonder if the sale of 400 Claremont in Bernardsville for only 2 million below original asking got everyone excited.
First rule of the bubble is there is no bubble.
171,000
Pretty close!
175k
Otto [10];
Bought (2004) $1.75MM – OLP (2010) $7.25 MM – Close (2013) $4.5MM
Unless they dumped a ton of cash into it, I still think they made out OK considering they bought on the upslope of the bubble, thought no quite at the peak.
From Zillow:
Price History
Date Description Price Change $/sqft Source
04/15/2013 Sold $4,500,000 -9.1% — Public Record
04/10/2013 Listing removed $4,950,000 — — Turpin Realtors
10/08/2012 Price change $4,950,000 -12.4% — Turpin Realtors
04/06/2012 Price change $5,650,000 -5.0% — Turpin Realtors
10/08/2011 Price change $5,950,000 -11.9% — Turpin Realtors
05/09/2011 Price change $6,750,000 -6.9% — Turpin Realtors
09/17/2010 Listed for sale $7,250,000 — — Turpin Realtors
08/05/2010 Listing removed $7,250,000 — — Turpin Realtors
07/17/2010 Listed for sale $7,250,000 292% — Turpin Realtors
07/30/2004 Sold $1,850,000 166% — Public Record
Unless they dumped a ton of cash into it,
They did, the $1.85m was for the dirt.
I’ve seen it, it is spectacular.
So that house alone gave 20 mexicans a years work. What it that 12 pesos?
grim says:
June 7, 2013 at 8:45 am
Unless they dumped a ton of cash into it,
They did, the $1.85m was for the dirt.
I’ve seen it, it is spectacular.
20 Mexicans? Not even close.
2 other houses in NJ that I’ve been dying to get into:
410 Lake, Far Hills – Currently asking $12.5m
191 Miller Park, Milford/Holland Twp – Currently asking $10.3m
3 if you count the Frick Estate in Alpine (Still asking $56m?)
High End, I guess some chinks, drunk micks and greasy dagos were also on project.
grim says:
June 7, 2013 at 8:52 am
20 Mexicans? Not even close.
21 – You forgot the Polocks
I’m sure they took a bit of a bath on the sale. 1.8 million is a teardown price on the Bernardsville Mountain especially in 2004 and with 7 acres. They bought a lot and an old house and did this with it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576359880827434012.html
Though my point was that its a high price sale not that it was a success or failure.
Why do Polish submarines have screen windows?
grim says:
June 7, 2013 at 8:58 am
21 – You forgot the Polocks
What about the Albanians hired for security to scare everyone to keep them in line?
Looks like you need 20 mexicans just to maintain that place.
“191 Miller Park, Milford/Holland Twp – Currently asking $10.3m”
Yeah, I’d be curious to see how well they hid the tangle of high tension power lines coming off the power station in Holland township from view. Also if you can see all the way to the nuclear power plant looking hydro electric station in PA with its billowing steam. Or the mountainside dump off Route 78 in Easton.
Stu – Let me know if you find a FIT EV that’s actually available in NJ.
The word on the street – They are all gone or spoken for.
No self respecting citizen of NJ should be shopping for anything except a camaro or a mustang.
Lots of dealers taking $500-$1000 deposits to get on waiting lists, no guarantee that you’ll even get a car. Approximate waiting time – “Months, easily”
Spoke to someone at one of the HUGE Honda dealers that told me they only got allocated 1 unit, and they’ve got 7 people on the waiting list.
Grim – Warren’s first piece of legislation introduced last month is to make the student loan rate which is headed to 6.8% next month the same as Federal Reserve discount rate, currently at 0.75%. Basically cutting out the middle men, I have seen this madness before back in the 80’s with the Lyndon LaRouche crowd. They used to hang out at the DMV and give out pamphlets about the Fed Discount rate and lending directly to consumers etc cutting out the banks.
We can’t let that happen now can we? I predict she will be know as the white Maxine Waters if she keeps up the tirades. Dems have a majority in the Senate and two bills on Student loans were defeated yesterday. They can’t get it even halfway through Congress.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/06/student-loans-senate-defeated/2398059/
Lib – Care to share who your new insurance company is?
Libtard in the City says:
June 5, 2013 at 10:34 am
Speaking of mortgage rates, we close on our two loan refinances on Friday morning. Even though they’ve asked for everything besides my first born, I still swear by Mortgage Masters. This time, they even found me a new insurer for both of my properties, with better coverage, the 6-month rental loss coverage and it still works out to about $400 less than I am paying now.
Stu sorry was traveling, Why in God’s name would you want to get the EV when the regualr fit gets like 42 mpg and won’t have the associated maitenance costs? they are probably on par power wise as your old civic but much more refined.
Fit does not have the juice. I would stay away it is not CHAdeMO compatible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO
#33,
42 mpg? No way unless you keep foot off pedal and do 50 in slow lane. Mine is around 33.
Electric Cars
Nissan is supposed to have some good deals on the Leaf along with a cheap or free 220V home charging station inc installation.
FIT EV is cheaper by far, $259/mo nothing down, all maintenance included, free charger, unlimited miles, and the kicker is included collision insurance.
I figure I’ll save $60 a month on gas maybe, making it a whole $200. Stu is right, it’s a bargain. My cell phone bill is $200 a month…
But I now realize that the $259/mo number is largely a farce, as it’s impossible to actually get one.
I don’t know that I’d buy a Fit otherwise, and I’d certainly never lease a car (I’d just pay cash), but this is tempting just for the geek factor.
Fit EV is only available for a 36 month lease, no buy out at the end, and you can’t buy it outright at the front.
Grim, kind of like the butcher who charges 1/4 the price of fillet than his competitors. Only problem, you can only get that price when he is closed.
Big turnaround in the plans for the EV market. Last year, Nissan was thinking of killing their program. All of a sudden, big push from them and Honda.
Go to the Tesla website – the are rolling out a boatload of their new high performance charging stations throughout the country in the next 24 months. If Tesla can do it, and the new charging system works and does not kill the car’s battery prematurely, given that they bypass dealer networks (buy a Tesla at Paramus or Short Hills mall), this could completely change how auto manufactures distribute and service their product. Disruptive I guess.
Here is the link and for now, charging is free (of course the car is 70 grand).
http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger
Fit does not have the juice. I would stay away it is not CHAdeMO compatible.
I thought SAE J1772 was the standard.
Looks like it’s damn near impossible to install a CHAdeMO charger in your house anyway.
Grim [30];
Spoke to someone at one of the HUGE Honda dealers that told me they only got allocated 1 unit, and they’ve got 7 people on the waiting list.
I suspect the level of ‘shortage’ is exaggerated to the dealer’s benefit. The NE and CA dealers can easily cut a deal with the Oklahoma City and Minneapolis dealerships who don’t need or want the baby pink elephant on their floor.
The charger hardware (and even instal) may be free, what about the power draw?
Regardless, I hear there are lost of trendy hipster places installing charging stations with free power (for now). Go ask all those c. 2000 internet start-ups how well it works out when you give the product away to build a customer base then try to start charging for it.
Honestly, does MPG even matter anymore. Kids are not buying cars, folks are taking more mass transportation and folks are driving less.
Whether your car gets 20 or 30 miles per gallon when you drive 3k miles a year whats the difference. It is more cost of car, depreciation and cost of insurance that impacts folks. Cars never wear out anymore and folks just dont drive like they used to. Kids near me who used to all summer long cruise Long Island, now connect via social media from home, take train to go out in city or hop train to Hamptons or rent in Long Beach where everything is walking distance . Today there is no need to even buy a car if you are a kid out of school. You live away at college for four years, move home for a bit borrow Dads car, hop in a share in NYC for a few years then at around 32 get your first car to drive to train station. Heck my brother in law has not owned a car in 30 years. My two nephews dont own cars. I really dont even need a car. I think electric cars are now useless. When I was single and drunken driving was still ok and no internet or email existed I used to drive like 12k miles a year just to go out. Now even if I was single kind drive to a bar anymore, people go out in city or hamptons, no place to drive too. The driving thing died out around time I met my wife. By time I was 32 most of friends no longer own cars. At one point I realized when I lived in City I had not started my car in six months. Cars are sooooooo 1990s. Nobody has them anymore.
The charger hardware (and even instal) may be free, what about the power draw?
Looks like 6.6kw per hour for 3 hours, 240v 2 phase. Looks like just shy of 20kw hours per charge.
I think I’m paying 18 cents per kwh – all in.
So roughly, $3.60 per charge, which gets me 82 miles, just under 4.5 cents per mile.
My Legacy gets 240 miles on a tank, usually costs $60 to fill her up (93 octane). That’s about 25 cents a mile. It’s a turbo, all wheel drive, it’s not great on gas.
I drive the subaru about 12k per year. That is $3,000 a year in gas, probably another $100 in oil changes.
The EV should run me about $550 a year in additional electric.
JJ [43];
Right. We already punish people who want to fly someplace by molesting their kids and grandmas. Now the plebes can just walk places like their great-grandfathers did. HOPEY-CHANGEY!
The only reason the deal makes sense is that they cut the lease price from $389 to $259.
At close to $400 a month? No freaking way.
The Focus is a close second at $284/mo, but they also want an additional $929 down, which really makes it $310/mo.
I don’t believe they give you a charger (Another $700-$1000) plus they don’t give you included collision coverage.
(43) That’s because LI has always been a hell for drivers. I avoided it in the 70’s as the LIE was notorious for backups 40 years ago! That’s what happens when you stuff too many rats in a cage.
Only fun I ever had in LI was during a CSNY concert at the Coliseum and afterwards when everyone was trying to exit the parking lots. I had my rustbucket 68 Impala and played Chicken with every car that came by. I always won. I had to put 2x6s in the trunk sides to keep my stuff from falling out of that car. It did take me thru college but suffered an untimely death.
…but Chris, I was waiting by the phone for your call!?!
Gov. Christie appoints N.J. Attorney General Jeff Chiesa to Lautenberg’s Senate seat
Grim,
How in the world do you pay 18 cents per kWh? In Maryland here we deregulated the electrical power industry from the power distribution and you can shop for a new power company whenever you like. We are sitting somewhere around 7.9cents per kWh. Of course there are fixed distribution costs and regulated taxes but it doesn’t nearly come up to 18cents per kWh. I would say that it is 70/30 with 70% being power generation, 30% being power distribution. Maybe 11-12 cents per kWh?
Unless power generation is different in NJ then I think you might be overestimating the charging costs. Or you need to lobby for deregulating power generation in NJ.
Another way to calculate annual gas costs:
The Honda Fit gets 100 miles on every 29kWh of electrical energy. That means if you drive 12,000 miles per year then you will use ( 29kWh / 100 miles ) x 12,000 miles = 3480 kWh.
At 18 cents per kWh it ends up costing $626.40 a year to drive the Honda Fit 12k miles.
At 12 cents per kWh it ends up costing $417.60 a year to drive the Honda Fit 12k miles.
http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=6721-en
The Coliseum had some really good concerts back in the day. What was amazing back then whole lot was filled with 70s rust bucket the kids drove, everyone got wasted in the parking lot, then everyone was smoking pot and drinking from flasks in concert back out to lot to finish what in cooler than right out onto Hempstead Tpke to hit the dive Hofstra Bars. No seat belts, airbags, antilock breaks four bald bias belted tires and off we went without a problem. Nickle bags and knockoff tee shirt sellers going car to car too. When the Dead played there is was like Mecca for drugs.
Sadly I only attended like 25% of the concerts I had tickets for as I used to scalp there a lot and I sold them all if I could. Then take profits and go out.
The batteries will eat you alive in the electric cars. You have to factor in changing them. For instance I see old 64 mustangs on road near me with like 100K miles on they. That is an almost 40 year car. They have orginal engine. Just tune ups gaskets etc. And electric car the battery discharges and wears out whether you use it or not. That is why they are leased. They stink as long term cars.
Nicholas says:
June 7, 2013 at 11:51 am
Another way to calculate annual gas costs:
The Honda Fit gets 100 miles on every 29kWh of electrical energy. That means if you drive 12,000 miles per year then you will use ( 29kWh / 100 miles ) x 12,000 miles = 3480 kWh.
At 18 cents per kWh it ends up costing $626.40 a year to drive the Honda Fit 12k miles.
At 12 cents per kWh it ends up costing $417.60 a year to drive the Honda Fit 12k miles.
http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=6721-en
My rust bucket broke down in the worst part of the Bronx (it seemed at the time) coming back from Jones Beach one night. Needed gas, pulled off and filled up, car had trouble starting. Finally got it up and running, died again driving back. This was before the cell phone days too. Finally found a pay phone before I got killed, called my brother. To this day I have no idea how he found us, we didn’t even know where the hell we were.
Came back the next day to try to get it back to Jersey. I’d left it unlocked with the windows open, hoping it’d disappear during the night. No luck, who knows they probably tried to steal it. So we finally got it started and the god damn thing DIES on the the approach to the GWB. I look back and flag the semi behind me, he gives me a thumbs up and pushes me over the GWB into Jersey (at pretty much 55mph). Finally got to roll off where I could get the thing towed back by a friend of mine.
I don’t know how the hell anyone lived without gps and cell phone.
But that’s pretty much the reason I hate crappy cars. The first time something goes wrong and even hints at leaving me stranded, I dump the thing.
#44…sounds high, PSEG is charging me 11.3 cents
It’s so much easier these days to drive an older crappier car.
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/about/press/2006/061120.shtm
These trucks are all over my commute route.
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/commuter/roads/I78/pdf/esp_brochure.pdf
Grim…I’ll let you know if I can get one. I too think you are overestimating your KW costs. I’m in no rush to get the car either.
I found a guy to fix my AC cheap on my Civic. He too is pretty sure it’s an O-ring.
In other news, we closed this morning on the two refinances and I did my math on the final numbers. Do to the reduced insurance costs bought through John Wilkens at Robert Wilkens Insurance Agency (Tower Insurance, 320 Palisade Ave, Bogota NJ 07603, 201-343-1741, http://www.wilkensagency.com), we got a 15-year at 3.5% (down from 4.75) on the multi no cost. This saved us a little under two years in payments and our payment went down $62 per month. On the primary we are at 2.75% on a 15-year (down from 3.875) saved three and a half years of payments and our payment went up $64. So all in all, cut a total of 5 years in payments for virtually nothing. Ben saved me close to 150K. Maybe I’ll send him a Hanukah card his year.
I dont use GPS. Real Men dont need directions or help with erections.
My worse car was a Fiat Strada which while on the FDR drive going 50 in the tunnel caught on fire and flames were shooting out from under dashboard. but I could not pull over. I reached under burnt my hands and pulled out a fist full of wires while opening window and sunroof and shifting the manual transmission. Somehow make it through tunnel and off to side of road.
I was able to use electrical tape to get ignition going, and with no headlights, tailight, indictators, dashboard lights etc. got it started again and drove off to happy hour in it. Later the reverse function gave out and someone blew our rear window a bb gun I had to keep pushing it backwards out of spots which was funny at work when people saw me. Good thing it was light.
I drove it a few more weeks and finally called the junk yard who refused to take it as who needs Strada parts and it was so light he said it aint worth effort to crush and then said but if you pay me $200 I will come and get it. I called a few more places.
So finally I take a plate I found in the garbage, strip the vin numbers, take out battery and radio and jump it drive till I get to nearest swamp and floor it into the reeds as far as it will go and left it. All I saw was the bumper sticking out of swamp. A fitting end to a Fiat. My old Dodge I dumped on a street in Queens near cross island was so bad as I drove to school I would pass it once in awhile and it sat there for six months with no plates no one wanted it. Used to be hard to get rid of junkers when metal prices were so cheap and junk yards were stuffed to gills with rusty Darts, Pintos and Mavericks, my 1963 Dart made it to 163K miles and had three major accidents to boot. Was not a single part of value in it but it drove, barely. Amazing what we drove back there. A 40 year old rich man drove a car back then that an 17 year old working at trader joes would drvie today
grim says:
June 7, 2013 at 12:00 pm
#53, 58
I only had my license for about 5 years before cell phones became “the standard”, but it wasn’t too much of a deal to walk to the nearest house and ask to use a phone. (I didn’t grow up near pay phones). Now you can’t do it as it’s expected you have a cell on you and powered up at all times.
I only got a GPS for the first time two years ago and I echo what JJ is saying. It’s good when you’re lost in a crappy part of town, but I purposely try not to rely on it…I take great pride in my dead reckoning abilities.
Yeah the Oldsmobile blew up on me on the Parkway a few weeks after that. Problem was the stupid coil-on-plug ignition coils. One or two of them died on me, which meant the engine was misfiring … BAD. I didn’t want to get stuck on parkway, as the parkway tow drivers will rape you just to take you to the nearest exist (f*ckin MOB).
So I tried my damnedest to get that thing to the exit. I had it floored and it was only doing like 35.
Little did I know I was pumping gasoline into the exhaust. I had some guy trying to wave me over, I thought he was just pissed because I was going 35. Few minutes later. BOOOOOM. F*cking thing explodes in a fireball. Flames, Smoke, Red hot metal and exhaust parts all over the highway behind me, I imagine most of the contents of the muffler too. Cars were skidding everywhere, one guy went completely off the road into the median.
I pulled over and ran away from the car as fast as I could, I thought it was going to go up. After a couple minutes I came back and looked under, the entire exhaust was red hot, manifold to muffler (what was left of it).
Worst part was I still had to pay the god damn parkway tow crooks, and the car didn’t burn to the ground, so no insurance money.
There wasn’t much left of the catalytic converter, so we cut it out and welded in a piece of pipe, got some $29 cherry bomb muffler too. Thing was so loud after that you could hear me driving 4 blocks away.
Change You Can Believe In…..
POTOMAC WATCH
An IRS Political Timeline
President Obama spent months in 2010 warning Americans about the ‘threat’ to democracy posed by conservative groups, right at the time the IRS began targeting these groups.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Perhaps the only useful part of the inspector general’s audit of the IRS was its timeline. We know that it was August 2010 when the IRS issued its first “Be On the Lookout” list, flagging applications containing key conservative words and issues. The criteria would expand in the months to come.
What else was happening in the summer and fall of 2010? The Obama administration and its allies continue to suggest the IRS was working in some political vacuum. What they’d rather everyone forget is that the IRS’s first BOLO list coincided with their own attack against “shadowy” or “front” conservative groups that they claimed were rigging the electoral system.
Below is a more relevant timeline, a political one, which seeks to remind readers of the context in which the IRS targeting happened.
Aug. 9, 2010: In Texas, President Obama for the first time publicly names a group he is obsessed with—Americans for Prosperity (founded by the Koch Brothers)—and warns about conservative groups. Taking up a cry that had until then largely been confined to left-wing media and activists, he says: “Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads . . . And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation.”
Aug. 11: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sends out a fundraising email warning about “Karl Rove-inspired shadow groups.”
Aug. 21: Mr. Obama devotes his weekly radio address to the threat of “attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them. . . . You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. . . . The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.”
Week of Aug. 23: The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer authors a hit piece on the Koch brothers, entitled “Covert Operations,” in which she accuses them of funding “political front groups.” The piece repeats the White House theme, with Ms. Mayer claiming the Kochs have created “slippery organizations with generic-sounding names” that have “made it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington.”
Aug. 27: White House economist Austan Goolsbee, in a background briefing with reporters, accuses Koch industries of being a pass-through entity that does “not pay corporate income tax.” The Treasury inspector general investigates how it is that Mr. Goolsbee might have confidential tax information. The report has never been released.
This same week, the Democratic Party files a complaint with the IRS claiming the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is violating its tax-exempt status.
Sept. 2: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warns on its website that the Kochs have “funneled their money into right-wing shadow groups.”
Sept. 16: Mr. Obama, in Connecticut, repeats that a “foreign-controlled entity” might be funding “millions of dollars of attack ads.” Four days later, in Philadelphia, he again says the problem is that “nobody knows” who is behind conservative groups.
Sept. 21: Sam Stein, in his Huffington Post article “Obama, Dems Try to Make Shadowy Conservative Groups a Problem for Conservatives,” writes that a “senior administration official” had “urged a small gathering of reporters to start writing on what he deemed ‘the most insidious power grab that we have seen in a very long time.’ ”
Sept. 22: In New York City, Mr. Obama warns that conservative groups “pose as non-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups,” even though they are “guided by seasoned Republican political operatives” who might be funded by a “foreign-controlled corporation.”
Sept. 26: On ABC’s “This Week,” Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declares outright that the “benign-sounding Americans for Prosperity, the American Crossroads Fund” are “front groups for foreign-controlled companies.”
Sept. 28: The president, in Wisconsin, again warns about conservative organizations “posing as nonprofit groups.” Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS demanding it investigate nonprofits. The letter names conservative organizations.
On Oct. 14, Mr. Obama calls these groups “a problem for democracy.” On Oct. 22, he slams those who “hide behind these front groups.” On Oct. 25, he upgrades them to a “threat to our democracy.” On Oct. 26, he decries groups engaged in “unsupervised spending.”
These were not off-the-cuff remarks. They were repeated by the White House and echoed by its allies in campaign events, emails, social media and TV ads. The president of the United States spent months warning the country that “shadowy,” conservative “front” groups—”posing” as tax-exempt entities and illegally controlled by “foreign” players—were engaged in “unsupervised” spending that posed a “threat” to democracy. Yet we are to believe that a few rogue IRS employees just happened during that time to begin systematically targeting conservative groups? A mere coincidence that among the things the IRS demanded of these groups were “copies of any contracts with and training materials provided by Americans for Prosperity”?
This newspaper reported Thursday that Cincinnati IRS employees are now telling investigators that they took their orders from Washington. For anyone with a memory of 2010 politics, that was obvious from the start.
Leak found on the AC low pressure line. We’re going to try the brazing rod method since it’s aluminum. Otherwise it’s like $300 for the stupid replacement part from Honda.
You get better mpg without AC
“You get better mpg without AC”
And significantly better pick up too. You are talking to a guy who sweats toweling off after a shower. It’s an annoying hereditary trait.
And the ghetto Honda Dealer won’t tell me how long it will take to get the EV. They want a $1,000 deposit anyway. I’ll stop by there next week when I’m in Union and will go from there. I’m guessing it ain’t gonna happen.
Wow –
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-07/20-completely-ridiculous-college-courses-being-offered-us-universities
My personal fave – Cyberporn And Society” (State University of New York at Buffalo) – With classwork like this, who needs to play? Undergraduates taking Cyberporn and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo survey Internet porn sites.
Thought this was interesting list of stolen items in a safe in Montclair:
A burglary at a Gates Avenue home while a family was away for the weekend, as well as thefts and vandalism, in the latest Montclair police blotter:
Police responded to the 100 block of Gates Avenue of a burglary report on May 27. Officers were informed by the homeowner that they left for the weekend on Friday, May 24th at approx 11 p.m. When they returned on the evening of the 27th, they discovered their front door broken and the home burglarized. Entry was first attempted by ripping through the screened patio door. A side door was then damaged but entry not gained. Suspect(s) then came around to the front door and broke a pane of glass on the door and unlocked it. A heavy two foot by two foot safe (value $2000) was stolen. The first floor was heavily damaged from the safe being dragged across the floor. The safe contained the following:
– A Rolex Watch
– Unknown amount of Gold Bars
– A Commemorative Coin Collection with an unknown amount of coins with an unknown value
– A German Luger handgun
http://www.baristanet.com/2013/06/montclair-crime-safe-gold-bars-coins-and-audi-vehicle-stolen-from-gates-avenue-home/#more-144908
I thought Rudy Giuliani outlawed those type of showers
Libtard at home says:
June 7, 2013 at 2:28 pm
“You get better mpg without AC”
And significantly better pick up too. You are talking to a guy who sweats toweling off after a shower. It’s an annoying hereditary trait.
65 – I’m on two waiting lists, #1 at one dealership out in Sussex, #3 at one locally.
Dealers are only allocated 1 unit at a time, once they sell the unit, they are allocated another, assuming it’s available. Every unit comes from the west coast.
[58] JJ
“My worse car was a Fiat Strada”
A friend of mine had one that fried its forward gears on the way to Killington. He did the last mile in reverse.
He didn’t want to drive it home so we rolled it into a ravine and he called it in stolen the next morning from his home in Mass.
The statute of limitations on this ran out decades ago. He’s now a cop, probably since retired and on pension.
[61] chifi,
At some point, the investigators should be able to drill down to whoever were the point people. Then they have a decision to make: Fall on their swords, drop dime, or stick to the story that this was all some amazing coincidence.
I’m going with the latter. Unless there is a smoking gun (and it won’t be found), there’s no way to prove otherwise.
Yeah…been reading the forums.
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/09/20/2013-fiat-strada-first-drive-review/
That Fiat looks like a doorstop with wheels.
Grim…You leave a deposit? I told them no deposit without an estimated delivery date.
Hey what is up with you NJ folks. So Chris Christie said he is going to help sandy flooded homeowners towards finishing repairs as long as you earn under 250K a year.
Did he just pull that number out of hat and say that makes you rich. I know he is buddy buddy with President so he thinks 250K is rich
Meanwhile Cuomo is doing same program to help sandy victims and it is not income based. The 9/11 fund was not income based, red cross does not hand out hotdogs income based, DEC did not pump out oil tanks income based and FEMA was not income based, Flood Insurance is not income based. Why do you guys put up with him?
Anyhow Cuomo assigned me a caseworker and now I can see if I can make my Split as nice as Juice Boxes Split. JB give me the list of that 400K worth of repairs, I will forward it to Cuomo so I can have my same slice of heaven. Only fair, this is America after all.
Actually Chrisitie is in the paper all the time and Obama is in NJ all the time but Cuomo did a better job than Christie in actually helping home owners. Chrisite just focused on Boardwalks and photo-ops.
#75
Why do you guys put up with him?
This is why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvG3ngLfW0Q
One summer on a ride home after a wonderful weekend sleeping around Seaside Hieghts under the boardwalk, talking showers at the bath house and crisping my skin crunchy my 72 Toyota Carina blew the timing chain and then the engine exploded into a cacophony of grinding metal and breaking piston rods on the the Turnpike North at exit 13 by the refineries. I coasted onto the shoulder in the 100 degree heat. After three hours of waiting with no water I walked to one of those overpass bridges and walked into some dumpy place called Lookers and put in a few dimes into the phone and called dear old dad to come get me. Little did I know Lookers was a gentleman’s club. I spent the next two hours waiting in an air-conditioned erotic dance palace as the bouncer did not bother to id me and I had a few bucks to drink beers as I ogled some dancing ladies.
The car was already a rust bucket so I could care less what happened to it, and I never heard from the tow company, but I did hear from my dad laughing out loud as he walked into the bar to pick me up. One of my fondest memories of him.
There seem to be a lot of open houses this weekend in Essex. Is supply finally coming online or is this normal for this time of year.
Ridgewood seems a $1m+ open house party going on.
Grim…You leave a deposit? I told them no deposit without an estimated delivery date.
The last two dealers I talked to, both much smaller, and both had sold their initial allocation said Honda was forbidding the taking of deposits for the waiting lists for the EV. He said they were taking names and would be calling when they had a confirmed delivery date. He said they are going down the list, right of first refusal based on order, if you don’t take it when offered, you are off the list.
If you are talking about the big highway dealers (Rt 22), they told me deposits as well. I laughed at the dealer that wanted me to come in and leave a deposit, even though they had 7 already on the list.
JB I loved your Yelp review of Lookers
What’s better than taking my bro and my pops to a nudie joint for Father’s Day? Giving them a cool G to make it rain at any point in the evening, you say? Heh.
Lookers is truly a legit spot. No touching, just straight up looking at these “model/actress” wannabe’s. Sure, they are all constructed to be hot. Sure the music, lighting, and smoke machine make the entertainers much more attractive than they would be on the beach. Yeah, the drinks are mad expensive and watered down. Whatever.
Its all about male family bonding.
I am truly sorry, mom.
JJ – yeah after my into into that high form of entertainment at 17 yrs old we got to know all the places in the tri-state even the ones on Long Island, this was all well before I was even 20 years old. But them again I old enough now remember Studio 54 as I was there at 16 yrs old after it was sold by Rubell but before it became the Ritz, we used to take the bus in, and sleep on the am bus home, funny how the commuters going to work used to stare at us in Port Authority heading the other direction in our weird clothes.
JJ,
I had a roommate who was a DJ at Lookers. I went there once. Girl did the up the pants tug but smelled like a locker room. Was a major turn off.
First strip bar I went to was the Raven’s Nest in Oyster Bay……I still remember the silicon lady picking up wet $5 bills off the bar by whacking her breasts against the surface…..knowing about the defective design, I’m sure that ended well…..still the striking memory seared into my impressionable 18 year-old mind was the special “mystery trick” one of the other lady’s offered the patron next to me for $10. He handed over $10 and shot him in the face with milk……….ew!
JJ says:
June 7, 2013 at 4:08 pm
JB I loved your Yelp review of Lookers
What’s better than taking my bro and my pops to a nudie joint for Father’s Day? Giving them a cool G to make it rain at any point in the evening, you say? Heh.
Lookers is truly a legit spot. No touching, just straight up looking at these “model/actress” wannabe’s. Sure, they are all constructed to be hot. Sure the music, lighting, and smoke machine make the entertainers much more attractive than they would be on the beach. Yeah, the drinks are mad expensive and watered down. Whatever.
Its all about male family bonding.
I am truly sorry, mom.
10.43 inches of rainfall so far in Miami Beach FL.
Change you can believe in……
The IRS Can’t Plead Incompetence
If the agency didn’t know what it was doing, it wouldn’t have done it so well.
By PEGGY NOONAN
Quickly: Everyone agrees the Internal Revenue Service is, under current governmental structures, the proper agency to determine the legitimacy of applications for tax-exempt status. Everyone agrees the IRS has the duty to scrutinize each request, making sure that the organization meets relevant criteria. Everyone agrees groups requesting tax-exempt status must back up their requests with truthful answers and honest information.
Some ask, “Don’t conservatives know they have to be questioned like anyone else?” Yes, they do. Their grievance centers on the fact they have not been. They were targeted, and their rights violated.
The most compelling evidence of that is what happened to the National Organization for Marriage. Its chairman, John Eastman, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, and the tale he told was different from the now-familiar stories of harassment and abuse.
In March 2012, the organization, which argues the case for traditional marriage, found out its confidential tax information had been obtained by the Human Rights Campaign, one of its primary opponents in the marriage debate. The HRC put the leaked information on its website—including the names of NOM donors. The NOM not only has the legal right to keep its donors’ names private, it has to, because when contributors’ names have been revealed in the past they have been harassed, boycotted and threatened. This is a free speech right, one the Supreme Court upheld in 1958 after the state of Alabama tried to compel the NAACP to surrender its membership list.
The NOM did a computer forensic investigation and determined that its leaked IRS information had come from within the IRS itself. If it was leaked by a worker or workers within the IRS it would be a federal crime, with penalties including up to five years in prison.
In April 2012, the NOM asked the IRS for an investigation. The inspector general’s office gave them a complaint number. Soon they were in touch. Even though the leaked document bore internal IRS markings, the inspector general decided that maybe the document came from within the NOM. The NOM demonstrated that was not true.
For the next 14 months they heard nothing about an investigation. By August 2012, the NOM was filing Freedom of Information Act requests trying to find out if there was one. The IRS stonewalled. Their “latest nonresponse response,” said Mr. Eastman, claimed that the law prohibiting the disclosure of confidential tax returns also prevents disclosure of information about who disclosed them. Mr. Eastman called this “Orwellian.” He said that what the NOM experienced “suggests that problems at the IRS are potentially far more serious” than the targeting of conservative organizations for scrutiny.
In hearings Thursday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who disagrees with the basic stand of the NOM, said that what had happened to the organization was nonetheless particularly offensive to him. The new IRS director agreed he would look into it.
Almost a month after the IRS story broke—a month after the high-profile scandal started to unravel after a botched spin operation that was meant to make the story go away—no one has been able to produce a liberal or progressive group that was targeted and thwarted by the agency’s tax-exemption arm in the years leading up to the 2012 election. The House Ways and Means Committee this week held hearings featuring witnesses from six of the targeted groups. Before the hearing, Republicans invited Democrats to include witnesses from the other side. The Democrats didn’t produce one. The McClatchy news service also looked for nonconservative targets. “Virtually no organizations perceived to be liberal or nonpartisan have come forward to say they were unfairly targeted,” it reported. Liberal groups told McClatchy “they thought the scrutiny they got was fair.”
Some sophisticated Democrats who’ve worked in executive agencies have suggested to me that the story is simpler than it seems—that the targeting wasn’t a political operation, an expression of political preference enforced by an increasingly partisan agency, its union and assorted higher-ups. A former senior White House official, and a very bright man, said this week he didn’t believe it was mischief but incompetence. But why did all the incompetent workers misunderstand their jobs and their mission in exactly the same way? Wouldn’t general incompetence suggest both liberal and conservative groups would be abused more or less equally, or in proportion to the number of their applications? Wouldn’t a lot of left-wing groups have been caught in the incompetence net? Wouldn’t we now be hearing honest and aggrieved statements from indignant progressives who expected better from their government?
Some person or persons made the decision to target, harass, delay and abuse. Some person or persons communicated the decision. Some persons executed them. Maybe we’re getting closer. John McKinnon and Dionne Searcey of The Wall Street Journal reported this week that IRS employees in the Cincinnati office—those are the ones that tax-exempt unit chief Lois Lerner accused of going rogue and attempted to throw under the bus—have told congressional investigators that agency officials in Washington helped direct the probe of the tea-party groups. Mr. McKinnon and Ms. Searcey reported that one of the workers told investigators an IRS lawyer in Washington, Carter Hull, “closely oversaw her work and suggested some of the questions asked applicants.”
“The IRS didn’t respond to a request for comment,” they wrote. There really is an air about the IRS that they think they are The Untouchables.
Some have said the IRS didn’t have enough money to do its job well. But a lack of money isn’t what makes you target political groups—a directive is what makes you do that. In any case, this week’s bombshell makes it clear the IRS, from 2010 to 2012, the years of prime targeting, did have money to improve its processes. During those years they spent $49 million on themselves—on conferences and gatherings, on $1,500 hotel rooms and self-esteem presentations. “Maliciously self-indulgent,” said Chairman Darrell Issa at Thursday’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings.
What a culture of entitlement, and what confusion it reveals about what motivates people. You want to increase the morale, cohesion and self-respect of IRS workers? Allow them to work in an agency that is famous for integrity, fairness and professionalism. That gives people spirit and guts, not “Star Trek” parody videos.
Finally, this week Russell George, the inspector general whose audit confirmed the targeting of conservative groups, mentioned, as we all do these days, Richard Nixon’s attempt to use the agency to target his enemies. But part of that Watergate story is that Nixon failed. Last week David Dykes of the Greenville (S.C.) News wrote of meeting with 93-year-old Johnnie Mac Walters, head of the IRS almost 40 years ago, in the Nixon era. Mr. Dykes quoted Tim Naftali, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, who told him the IRS wouldn’t do what Nixon asked: “It didn’t happen, not because the White House didn’t want it to happen, but because people like Johnnie Walters said ‘no.’ ”
That was the IRS doing its job—attempting to be above politics, refusing to act as the muscle for a political agenda.
The IRS is simply the world’s largest mobster. They are nothing but shake down artists. If you looked at the books at most entities, they are a train wreck. The idea that the IRS can break them down and figure out anything is beyond ludicrous. They simply target businesses and people and try to get them to pay out. Some people bend over and take it. Others hire attorneys and pay nothing.
A few of these gubmint types take a bullet between the eyes, and the whole gubmint’s attitude would be different.
Grim
At 12K miles per year are you sure the EV is for you.
” What is the driving range on the Fit EV?
A: The Fit EV received an EPA combined driving-range rating (adjusted) of 82 miles[1] on a single charge. (For comparison to competitive claims, the unadjusted driving range for the Fit EV as tested by the EPA came out at 132 miles city, 105 miles highway, and 118 miles combined). Your range will vary depending on driving conditions, how you drive and maintain your vehicle, battery age/condition, and other factors.”
So how many days are you going to drive over 82 miles? Need a quick trip to the Poconos? Got home and forgot to plug in? Closing in Glen Ridge and the paperwork is in Ridgewood?
This is aimed at the 5000 mile set that have a 20 minute commute and never socialize outside a two town radius.
#61 grim
I had the same issue with my Fiat Regatta. I got cheap tickets for the car train to the Channel Tunnel car train, so me and my buddy decided to do a beer run to France. The car got about a mile from the train depot in France and died. We got it going but it was down a cylinder. I got it going again and limped it back to the train. When we go back to Dover I had to drive about 60 miles through the center of London. It took me 3 fill ups as it was pouring white smoke out the back by the end. The only saving grace was that the car was pre cat so there was nothing blocking the air flow. A very expensive trip and no beer.
White smoke – blown head gasket, maybe it “jumped time” before that. It even happens to 7.5 liter Buicks with timing chain instead of timing belt. I had a Buick that jumped time. Because of this the valves are opening and closing at the wrong time, so you’re way, way, down on power and probably over-heating as a result and finally the head gasket lets go and you start dumping antifreeze into the cylinders along with the poorly combusted gas and air mixture, hence the white smoke. It took me and a car full of friends about all night to get back to Clifton from Seaside circa 1983 when this happened to me. Had a mechanic in Paterson replace the head gasket and timing chain that 455 was good as new. The mechanic said the cylinders were pristine looking as they had been “steam cleaned” by the antifreeze leaking in.
[60] grim – That story brings back so many memories. One of my biggest fears was breaking down on the Parkway because of the towing grift. Also on the Parkway I got the best view of a motor letting go violently at 100+ mph. On a sunny late Spring Saturday morning I was in my white ’84 CRX cruising North near the brig when a white mid 80’s Camaro started racing me and I was pretty close to the 105mph top speed of my rig when a white BMW 3 series pulled next to the two of us. It was actually kind of friendly and fun that we were driving these 3 white cars at 100mph, but more fun still when I saw the BMW blow his engine. A momentary flame front filled the air space under his vehicle. In contrast to the bright orange fire that filled the gap front wheel to tailpipe was the jet black oil dump that followed for a second or two after that followed by gray oil smoke as he coasted down. The Camaro driver and I looked at each other and started to laugh as we eased down to about 75mph. I’m pretty sure the unhappy Bimmer owner was shifting from 4th to 5th and found 3rd instead at a speed that was probably 20mph higher than redline in that gear.
Yeah the Oldsmobile blew up on me on the Parkway a few weeks after that. Problem was the stupid coil-on-plug ignition coils. One or two of them died on me, which meant the engine was misfiring … BAD. I didn’t want to get stuck on parkway, as the parkway tow drivers will rape you just to take you to the nearest exist (f*ckin MOB).
So I tried my damnedest to get that thing to the exit. I had it floored and it was only doing like 35.
Little did I know I was pumping gasoline into the exhaust. I had some guy trying to wave me over, I thought he was just pissed because I was going 35. Few minutes later. BOOOOOM. F*cking thing explodes in a fireball. Flames, Smoke, Red hot metal and exhaust parts all over the highway behind me, I imagine most of the contents of the muffler too. Cars were skidding everywhere, one guy went completely off the road into the median.
I pulled over and ran away from the car as fast as I could, I thought it was going to go up. After a couple minutes I came back and looked under, the entire exhaust was red hot, manifold to muffler (what was left of it).
Worst part was I still had to pay the god damn parkway tow crooks, and the car didn’t burn to the ground, so no insurance money.
There wasn’t much left of the catalytic converter, so we cut it out and welded in a piece of pipe, got some $29 cherry bomb muffler too. Thing was so loud after that you could hear me driving 4 blocks away.
[91] cont’d
Coil packs – Two weeks ago I left work in the afternoon to attend our two daughters’ Spring concert at their school. When my wife met me there she said just as she was parking our 2002 Mazda Tribute (Ford Escape, essentially) that the car started running rough and the CEL started flashing. From the school auditorium I diagnosed it as failed coil pack, probably on the back side of the V6 where you have take the top part of the intake manifold off to access the area. I drove the car about 50 yards after the concert and it seemed like it was hitting on 5. I told my wife to drive it the one mile to our mechanic just so we wouldn’t be clogging our cat with the unburned fuel. Sure enough, coil pack #3 on the back side, I’ve been expecting it to happen for years. Had my mechanic replace all the plugs, the back 3 coil packs (keeping the two good ones as spares for the front), both belts as they’re easy to get at, all the intake gaskets (there’s almost two dozen), clean the intake bits, replace the fuel filter and change the oil as it was due. $723 total bill, but the car runs like it’s new. The car was running fine before, but man is it quiet and smooth now. I’ve never had a car go 86K (all city) and 11 years on one set of plugs. I’ll take that as a pretty good run.
Perfect day to take my kids to the beach and boardwalk and survey what is left. The Bennies will all be scared off by the bad weather meanwhile it will be 81 degrees and maybe a shower or two during the day.
If this kid was trained he would not have missed.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/04/new-york-boy-10-grabs-intruder-gun-fires-shot/?intcmp=obinsite
#90 Expat.
Not a head gasket but it did need wires and a new carb. As for longevity of parts my Prius is at 95000 miles and is still on its first set of brakes. looking at the wear I think around 115K for a replacement. I think at that point I’ll throw expense to the wind and just replace the rotors for $40 instead of turning them for $20.
Do it up…….gotta take advantage……after Labor Day is the best……
Juice Box says:
June 8, 2013 at 10:28 am
Perfect day to take my kids to the beach and boardwalk and survey what is left. The Bennies will all be scared off by the bad weather meanwhile it will be 81 degrees and maybe a shower or two during the day.
Stay off the fckn GSP South if you can……it is worst in Jul/Aug right at this time…..
Does anybody interpret the index for the NYC area to imply that prices are still at historically high levels (especially compared to other markets)?
If not, why not? Will prices revert to the mean, or will the mean simply inch higher?
While there might be an imperfect correlation between interest rates and prices, I find it hard to believe that higher rates won’t put downward pressure on both sales AND price – especially if there is no corresponding incease in wages (and I haven’t seen any information leading me to believe that the standard 0-3% annual increases won’t continue to be the norm for the forseeable future).
Fabu [95];
my Prius is at 95000 miles and is still on its first set of brakes.
That’s because it has regenerative braking — the electric motor is your brake. Hope you don’t have to replace that part of the braking system in 20k.
NJRE&Topgear.com
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/02/08/how-the-brakes-on-a-prius-work/
How the brakes on a Prius work
Posted by Marshall Brain
If you have been watching the news, you know that the Toyota Prius is having problems with its brakes as well as with the accelerator. Here is a discussion of the brake problem – on bumpy roads the brakes don’t work right:
They can also fail on icy roads:
Toyota set to recall Prius hybrid over brake failure
In a deepening of the crisis at the world’s largest car manufacturer, Toyota will this week warn 300,000 Prius owners — 3,500 of them in the UK — that the brakes on their car may fail in icy conditions or on bumpy surfaces.
So what’s going on? Hydraulic brakes have been in cars for a century, and provide a very reliable braking system. Anti-lock brakes are a fairly new development, but when they fail the brakes revert back to normal hydraulic brakes. How did something so solid get messed up on the Prius?
The Prius is unique because it is one of the few cars to have “brake by wire”. When you push on the brake pedal, there is no direct connection to the actual brake pads the wheels. Instead, the pedal sends a signal to a computer, which decides whether the to activate the regenerative braking system, the actual disk brakes, or both. Because there is a computer in the middle, software problems can cause the brakes to work in bizarre ways. This article explains the situation:
Not your grandfather’s braking system
Several users reported odd sensations while braking, and attributed it to a slight delay that can be produced when the Brake By Wire computers switch back and forth from the regenerative motor system to the disc brakes while deciding how much braking is required.
This article gives a sense of how involved the system is:
Hybrid Vehicle Brake System
One interesting feature is a backup power supply that uses capacitors to keep the braking computer and actuator operable even if the car loses power.
So if the software has bugs in certain situations, the brakes are not going to get activated properly. That creates a huge problem if you are trying to stop.
February 8, 20106 Replies
Jenks rides open lines minimal weather great.
Clotluv,
Apparently there is no correlation anymore. Increasing rates are a signal to buy now..even though prices (and taxes) are astronomically higher than average. The stock market has made everyone rich. Bernanke has done it. He has saved the universe. Sing it “Happy days are here again..”
While there might be an imperfect correlation between interest rates and prices
By imperfect do you mean weak? The fact of the matter is that it’s easy to cherry pick your date ranges to find any correlation between prices and rates you would like, or simply no correlation at all. However, the longer your range in dates, the weaker any such correlation is.
Apparently there is no correlation anymore
When was there a correlation? See above. The fact of the matter is that mortgage rates are a shitty predictor of home prices. Yeah, I know it’s intuitive that it *should*, but it’s just not that easy or clear cut. There have been plenty examples of both interest rates and home prices increasing at the same time.
I know it’s tempting to graph them out, and draw circles over specific time periods to say “look, right here, prices fell when rates rose”, sure, they did, but every permutation is clearly visible in the same graph:
prices up – rates up
prices up – rates down
prices down – rates up
prices down – rates down
prices up – no change in rate
prices down – no change in rate
rate up – no change in price
rate down – no change in price
Which is why there isn’t the kind of clear cut, strong correlation that feels so intuitive.
Grim,
I generally agree. The correlation to rising housing prices should be income growth but we have been on a downward (or stagnating) trajectory for years. Without income growth, up and down movement of rates will be the correlation of housing prices. We know that low rates are putting the floor under prices. We have reached saturation regarding what middle class families can afford. I don’t see another industrial revolution or technology boom on the horizon to push wages. People still want to own but we are at the point where interest rates, taxes, and prices can’t move up concurrently without significant income growth. We know that local govts. won’t reduce taxes over the long run and we know the Fed has been doing everything in their power to keep prices up…so that leaves rates. Not saying that higher rates will hit all markets the same but NYC metro, for foreseeable future, is absolutely tied to Fannie Mae conforming limits high and low rates otherwise prices will sink. Just my thoughts..
re grim 104,
so on one hand, you admit the data is flawed…but on the other hand, you believe is it a bullish indicator (or at least not a bearish one)?
I realize that with RE, prices are “sticky” given the nature/magnitude of the investment, but why is it with nyc area real estate, everything works both ways?
global economy strong: good for nyc real estate
global economy weak: good for nyc real estate
rates decreasing: good for nyc real estate
rates increasing: good for nyc real estate
I guess the seller’s agents Gary meets are right, “We are special.”
Have you read the book “A Nation of Realtors”?
http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Realtors-Cultural-Twentieth-Century-Perspectives/dp/082233528X
I posit that when the supply of money to prop up real estate (and college tuition) diminishes, so will the price. Maybe not in real time, but the law of supply and demand is a LAW and not a theory.
Good luck to all speculators, including BC Bob and Make Money.
Clotluv,
Grim is hinting at the next RE bull based on the emerging three income household:
Kids, want to keep your own rooms and basement media center? Get to work
1980-house 40k; wife at home. 1990-house 100k; wife has part time job at town office. 2000-house 200k, wife full time job at town office. 2010-beyond; house 500k and wife needs six fogure job and gramps amd kids get working.
clotluva, RE prices are no more than a function of a completely rigged market, fuel-injected with the cr@ck c0caine otherwise known as little green pieces of Bernank.
It is all going down in flames. Only question is when.
If you hold precious metals in your portfolio, there is a good chance you fear hyperinflation and the crash of fiat currencies.
You probably distrust governments in general and believe they are self-serving and have no interest in your economic well-being. It is likely that your holdings in gold are your lifeline – your hope to get you through these times while holding on to your wealth.
But have you ever given any thought to the possibility of having this lifeline confisc@ted by the authorities?
http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/dont-dismiss-the-possibility-of-gold-confiscation
whoops 109 moderated…
#99 moose
They are almost bullet proof. Here is one of the uber geeks on what I can expect from my brakes at 100K miles. http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/maint100k/
100 Brian
Brake by wire has been on high end German cars for the past decade. If you have complete electrical failure a valve shuts and you are back on hydraulic. It is not servo assisted, but neither is a normal car under full electrical failure.
My bmw has electronic servo assist steering, I find it to feel very very odd. At low speeds its very much like the “one pinky” steering on my fathers old Ford LTD wagon with the faux wood panel sides, at high speed it does firm up quite a bit (I suspect at speed the servo assist is disabled).
Braking, however, is very much a standard hydraulic with a vacuum assisted brake booster as far as I can tell.
Advice requested
A CAC unit is 20 yo and on its last legs (fitted with hard start capacitor 3 years ago; now has to be reset by flipping the circuit breaker almost every time thermostat wants to start it). Unit using R22.
What is the best course of action (supposedly, yet bigger capacitor can’t be put in):
– Get a new R22 compressor (1 yr warranty, all-in price ~$1K)
– Get a new R22 condenser unit (5 yr warranty, all-in $2.6K)
– Get the whole new R410a system (from $4K and sky is the limit)
#112 redux
Hold that thought Mercedes seem to have pulled Senstronic so there are no brake by wire on the road today.
114
Been out of the standard residential AC game for a while, but I’d go with the highest efficiency R-22 unit you can find.
410a uses much higher pressures, I’d be concerned about the long term effects on the compressor.
R-22 isn’t going any where, too many older refrigeration and commercial users, although the price is jumping through the roof.
You also should replace your line set if you go with 410a.
53- I never say anything on here but I need to refresh my brothers memory. First he called me to pick him up. in my little Mitsubishi cordia, I picked up our older brother and drove around the Bronx. I did however have a cell phone. It was one that cost $30 for 30 minutes and anything over was about $2 a minute. Jim did give us some vague description of where he was and all 4 kids got in the back seat of a hatchback and complained the whole way home. I also remember Caroline complaining that I wouldn’t drive her home to Franklin lakes( or wherever she lived.) at 4am.
[111] fabius
Were my eyes playing tricks on me or were those old drum brakes on the rear? I thought those had been consigned to Smithsonian?
Hughesrep – thanks a lot! (looks though like the R22 units are now available only w/SEER13)
After Sandy, a new threat: Soaring flood insurance
$30,000 a year in flood insurance costs?
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20130609_ap_aftersandyanewthreatsoaringfloodinsurance.html
Jack Bauer’s cellphone must be ringing by now.
Whistlebower outs himself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why
Can you even buy a new RWD car that has manual Rack-and-Pinion steering anymore? I miss the times when a girl couldn’t drive a man’s sports car because she didn’t have the arm strength to parallel park it. A guy I know at work drove his 260Z (you don’t even have to say the year, real men know) and it jogged my memory, but not quite enough, about what it was that made a 280ZX girly, while a 280Z was still a man’s car. It didn’t hit me until a day or two later. Power-assisted Rack-and-Pinion. Way back when you needed some strength to drive a front engine sports car with Rack-and-Pinion. Mercury Capri, Datsun Z cars, Jaguar E-Types, everything European in fact, etc. Through the mid-80’s you could only get manual rack-and-pinion on FWD cars, which was cheating, because a tiny bit of throttle made the front wheels “powered” while parking. Mid-engine cars weren’t cheating, but the steering was relatively light while parking because there was little weigh over the front axle. In 1990 Mazda Miatas re-birthed manual rack-and-pinion for a while in their base models, but that was just a light 4 cylinder up front. I wonder what the last 6 or 8 cylinder mainstream front engine, RWD sports car or coupe was that had manual rack-and-pinion?
ONJExPat [121];
Here’s what separates the men from the boys:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/pictures/the-10-best-cars-that-still-offer-a-manual-transmission
119
Yes, most companies only offer them in 13 seer.
A few years ago, the federal government made it illegal for a while to manufacture AC equipment below maybe 14 seer. . I forget and am too lazy to google it while sitting by the pool drinking too many beers. When i say ac equipment i mean condensers and coils.
Somebody paid off somebody, somewhere, and maybe a year later manufacturers could then make 13 seer (maybe lower?) R-22 equipment, as long as it does not contain freon. Most regular systems currently and peviously came pre-charged. It is considered a replacement part for manufacturing purposes, within the HVAC supply community and their associated government lackeys. Nice work around, I’m sure the lobbyists earned their money.
As far as replacement systems their are calculators out there that based upon your cost of electricity and total job cost what the payoff will be, plus or minus. Keep in mind that most ac manufacturers test their equipment under lab conditions, and would most likely require the air handler source to be theirs to meet stated specs. Payoff on 13 seer vs 16 seer is based completely upon enough factors to keep you confused by the sales guy they send to y our house.
To do any HVAC or boiler system right you need to have a total heat loss and total heat gain done on your home. It should account for everything. For some people it make sense to go with higher efficiency. For people who use less energy, the payoff may not be worth it, or may, it depends. Confuse you? Can I sell you a high efficiency boiler?