From the WSJ:
Housing Bust Lingers for Generation X
The group of Americans known as Generation X has suffered more than any other age cohort from the housing bust, according to an analysis of federal data, suggesting homeownership rates for that group could remain depressed for years to come.
The data show an enormous swing in the fortunes of people born between 1965 and 1984, the group defined by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies as Generation X.
Compared with previous generations, Generation X went from the most successful in terms of homeownership rates in 2004 to the least successful by 2015, according to the data, which date to the early 1980s.
The culprit: a historic bull market for housing, fueled in part by easy-to-get mortgages, that encouraged record levels of home buying until the financial system cracked and the housing market collapsed. Earlier generations such as baby boomers, who entered the market before the frenzy of the early 2000s, have fared better.
Generation X “came into the market at precisely the wrong time,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president at Ten-X.com, an online real-estate brokerage. “We’ve effectively wiped out a group of homeowners who historically would have been on their second or third properties by now.”
In 2004, people then-aged 25 to 34, the core of Generation X, had a homeownership rate of 49.5%, the highest for that age group since the U.S. Census Bureau started regularly collecting such data in the early 1980s.
Last year, by contrast, the homeownership rate for 35-to-44-year-olds was at a more than three-decade low of 58.5%, down from an average of 65.8% for that age group. The upshot: Generation X experienced a much smaller increase in homeownership rates than previous generations as they hit middle age.
Much of the discussion of the future of the housing market centers on millennials, the group born between 1985 and 2004, according to the Harvard Center. Their tendency to live at home with parents and delay getting married has raised concerns about long-term homeownership trends.
But Generation X’s travails promise to disrupt traditional real-estate patterns as well. The housing market can be viewed as a progression through time: younger people start out renting, save enough to buy houses, build equity and then trade up to more desirable homes.
foist
When someone tells you they’ve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they’re locked into jobs they hate; that they’re broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they’re fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It’s profoundly depressing.
Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
Why does everyone of these stories include a Gen X flipper who watched a few Carlton Sheets or Tom Wu videos?
Late night TV for the Gen X crowd. They were all conditioned to move to Florida and become flippers
.
Watch “Tom Vu – “You Deserve to Be Broke!”” on YouTube
https://youtu.be/kzsSpDyBc_4
From Wikipedia:
Vu continues his parallel career as a tournament poker player. As of 2014, he has won more than $1,800,000 in casino poker tournaments, including a second-place finish in a no limit Texas hold ’em event at the 2007 World Series of Poker[3]
In April 2006, he finished ninth in the Season Five World Poker Tour championship event, earning $216,585.
So much for Plankton Theory.
Tom Vu is a straight up gangsta baller.
Word is he still grinds real estate in Vegas and is doing very well.
He could have had a great career in comedy. Ken Jeong has nothing on this guy.
By the way – Tom Vu = Mr. Chow?
WHY IS THIS MAN NOT TRUMPS RUNNING MATE
TRUMP VU 2016
Today is first day for soccer however no soccer this spring, my son chose Karate. I kind of like the early morning class too, and hopefully the dicipline will translate to the classroom. He had to go see the principal twice this week for outbursts and taking back etc, he wants to be the class clown, and told me he wants to be a ninja comedian. Maybe he can be both.
Is that how a Polack says fcuk you?
grim says:
April 9, 2016 at 9:22 am
TRUMP VU 2016
Grim that ticket would be a sure fire winner.
#11 grim
If he reused the TrumpU logo and website, I don’t think anyone would notice.
Can I suggest an Economic Spokesperson for him.
http://tinyurl.com/hvhxdye
Cant fault this guys logic. I have always said that Kasich was the only one of the 17 starters who had a chance of wining the White House. This may be his ticket through the primaries.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/john-kasich-will-be-the-r_b_9638598.html?
The writing’s on the wall in the Republican Party: John Kasich will be the Party’s nominee in 2016, with Marco Rubio as his running mate. Only the media’s delight at continued Trumpian drama is keeping politicos and pundits from coast to coast from stating the obvious.
Cardinal Dolan tossing gasoline on the fire
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-dolan-in-iraqi-seminarians-you-will-convert-the-world-75241/
Too busy to join it but a reasonable tax policy discussion over past three days. Finally to point where we could convene a panel
Another uniquely GenX experience—-from the NYTimes
AT HubSpot, the software company where I worked for almost two years, when you got fired, it was called “graduation.” We all would get a cheery email from the boss saying, “Team, just letting you know that X has graduated and we’re all excited to see how she uses her superpowers in her next big adventure.” One day this happened to a friend of mine. She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager that she had two weeks to get out. On her last day, that manager organized a farewell party for her.
It was surreal, and cruel, but everyone at HubSpot acted as if this were perfectly normal. We were told we were “rock stars” who were “inspiring people” and “changing the world,” but in truth we were disposable.
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
$85 oil by Christmas? This analyst says yes
http://usat.ly/1S2Hsdf
Millennials have the savings too
Conventional wisdom suggests that Millennials are all moving to urban centers, buying bikes and giving up their drivers’ licenses. But, like so many other popular perceptions, that’s not quite on target.
If anything, studies suggest that as Gen-Y ages, members of this tech-savvy generation are heading back to the suburbs, starting families and, yes, even buying cars. Indeed, new research by Bankrate.com finds Millennials more likely to buy a car than any other age group over the coming year.
“The notion that Millennials are not interested in buying a car is being turned on its head,” said Mike Cetera, Bankrate’s personal loans and credit analyst. “This is starting to shift from what we’ve seen before.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/forget-stereotypes-millennials-are-buying-cars-survey-says-n553066
I would like to see a chart by age cohort of how many people actually pay off their mortgage(s) and stay mortgage free on primary residences. That would be a true measure of who actually owns homes. Grim posts some large percentage of homes in NJ that are mortgage free but I would like to see those numbers sans investment properties. I suspect the majority of us rent, we just like to convince ourselves otherwise.
“Well, I made the film—I was approached with the offer to make the film by a well-known Canadian producer, Nathalie Barton, who had been contacted by a Canadian fiscal expert, Brigitte Alepin, who had written a number of books on the imminent collapse of public finances in the Western world, and they asked me if I would be interested in taking on the project.
And after I thought about it a bit, I realized that the issue of taxation is actually a lens through which we understand power—who has it, who doesn’t and whether the average person has a hope in hell of getting ahead in life. And once I had that perspective on it, I was happy to take on the project.”
http://m.democracynow.org/stories/15646
23- No morals. These people are sick. Society is doomed if the top of the pyramid refuses to do their part in taking care of the rest of the population. There is a critical relationship needed between the elite and the rest of the population in order to provide stability. As the elite disrespect this relationship, they jeopardize the stability of our society.
“AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from your amazing film, The Price We Pay. During a British parliamentary hearing in 2012, Labour MP Chuka Harrison Umunna questioned Barclays CEO Bob Diamond about his company’s tax practices.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: Would you say that one of the ways companies meet their obligations to society is through the payment of tax? Yes or no?
BOB DIAMOND: I think payment of tax is an important responsibility of businesses, yes.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: Could you tell me how many subsidiary companies your group uses and that are incorporated in the Isle of Man?
BOB DIAMOND: I don’t have that number with me. I’d be happy to look into it and get back to you.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: Well, according to the return that your group company put in last year, you have 30 subsidiaries operating in that jurisdiction. Can you tell me how many subsidiary companies you have operating in Jersey?
BOB DIAMOND: I don’t have that number with me, either.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: The number is 38. Can you tell me how many subsidiary companies of your group are incorporated and operating in the Cayman Islands?
BOB DIAMOND: Same answer.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: You have 181. Now, of course, all of these are well-known tax havens, which are used by companies. And a cursory reading of your group return shows that you have over 300 such companies operating in tax haven jurisdictions around the world. You will understand, Mr. Diamond, that there’s obviously—I mean, if you look at the facts that I’ve just presented, that would suggest that your bank is engaged in tax avoidance on a grand scale, would it not?
BOB DIAMOND: Well, I don’t know what you—what—I think “tax evasion” is a very clear phrase. And it’s a space we would never go to.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: I know. And I didn’t use the word.
BOB DIAMOND: And I—I chose the word “tax efficiency,” which is our obligation, and it’s something that is in line with government policy.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: Your “efficiency” may be our “avoidance.””
These individuals gets it.
“AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from the film, The Price We Pay, where—this, again, in Britain—Labour MPs are questioning Amazon’s director of public policy, Andrew Cecil. The clip begins with Austin Mitchell questioning Cecil, then Labour MP Margaret Hodge speaks.
AUSTIN MITCHELL: I’m interested in why you pay so little tax, corporation tax particularly, in this country, so that we can pay some kind of benefit to all the booksellers you’ve put out of business, because undoubtedly you put a large number of booksellers, some of them local, in my case, out of business. And I don’t get, frankly, from all this interview, why Luxembourg is so lucky. I mean, the books are here, the warehouses are here, the billing is here, the business is here, the customers are here.
ANDREW CECIL: We have paid in excess of 100 million in payroll taxes in the last five years. We’ve paid tens of millions in business rates in the past five years. And—
MARGARET HODGE: I’ve heard this argument before. Let me just kill this argument, because it really makes me cross. On the one hand, so does every other business. So the community-based bookshop that you’re putting out of business also pays business rates, also pays its PAYE, also pays VA—actually, probably pays VAT in a way that you don’t, and you—in the same way. And you’re making it uncompetitive.
And the other thing is, you depend on the services that come out of the tax you pay. So, you know, you depend on the ability of your—of getting your goods around, so you’ve got to get in the truck, the roads in place. You depend on all those things.
And probably, worst of all, both you and Mr. Alstead employ people on probably minimum wage, if we’re lucky. And then we, the taxpayer, pick up tax credit bill for that, too. So we’re putting a lot of money back into the people you put, and you’re not putting enough tax into our economy. That’s what’s riling us all.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Labour MP Margaret Hodge, interestingly, questioning Amazon. Amazon has just announced they’re opening their first actual bookstore—after putting out of business many actual bookstores around the country—in Seattle, Washington. But I’d like to turn to another clip from the film which features Labour MP Margaret Hodge, as we just were listening to her, and the vice president of Google UK, Matt Brittin.
MATT BRITTIN: What’s different about Google versus the other businesses you’ve been talking about, we’re not selling books, and we’re not making coffee.
MARGARET HODGE: You’re selling advertising space.
MATT BRITTIN: We’re—well, the services we provide to consumers are based on the computer science. That is what creates the economic value for Google.
MARGARET HODGE: What does Bermuda create?”
“AMY GOODMAN: That is again Labour MP Margaret Hodge and vice president of Google UK, Matt Brittin. The significance of these interactions that you put into your film?
HAROLD CROOKS: Well, the significance of the interactions is the culmination of a story with which the film begins. The film begins with the creation of offshore world—and I’ll try to do this very, very quickly. And we need a historical context for this. The British Empire collapses after the Second World War. London, which had been the capital of global finance up to that point, needs to find a new way to maintain its position as the capital of global finance. What it begins to do is transform its colonial dependencies, particularly in the Caribbean and other places, into secrecy jurisdictions or tax havens. That begins in the late ’50s and ’60s.
When we get into the 21st century, the high-tech corporations, the major high-tech corporations of the cloud economy, like Google, you know, like Amazon, etc., etc., have devised ways for gaming the system so that they are able to put their most valuable assets—the patents and intellectual property to their technology—and book them to a tax havens, where nothing is going on, with the result that hundreds of millions—and now, you know, there’s this estimate that over $2 trillion—of untaxed U.S. corporate profit is booked offshore. Well, offshore is really a fiction. It’s a legal and accounting fiction. The money is actually not there. It’s merely on a separate set of books in New York or London or Paris or New Haven.
And the point of all of this, Amy, is that the offshoring of the world’s wealth is undermining some of the major social innovations of the 20th century—the middle class, Social Security. These are things that never existed before the First World War. And they’re very, very dependent on a whole interconnected bunch of things—progressive taxation, to start with—all of which is being undermined by this offshore world that is now being gamed to the tune of trillions of dollars.
AMY GOODMAN: James Henry, we have 15 seconds. What do you think is most important to do right now?
JAMES HENRY: Well, there’s a global tax justice movement. It recognizes this is a global haven industry that we’re fighting, not just an archipelago of individual havens. And there’s all kinds of tax reform that we need to put on the agenda, going forward. But this is not something that’s going to be made in Washington. It’s going to be something that citizens have to get involved in.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Occupy began the movement?
JAMES HENRY: I think Occupy contributed to awareness, but I think, you know, we’ve got to make the focus on tax, because otherwise we have, essentially, these people are becoming citizens of nowhere, for tax purposes, and they have extraordinary representation without taxation.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. James Henry and Harold Crooks, thanks so much for joining us. The film is The Price We Pay.”
Bingo! “Extraordinary representation without taxation”
“JAMES HENRY: I think Occupy contributed to awareness, but I think, you know, we’ve got to make the focus on tax, because otherwise we have, essentially, these people are becoming citizens of nowhere, for tax purposes, and they have extraordinary representation without taxation.”
“SEN. CARL LEVIN: Does Apple Inc. own directly or indirectly AOI, AOE and ASI?
PHILLIP BULLOCK: Yes.
SEN. CARL LEVIN: And where is AOI a tax resident?
PHILLIP BULLOCK: It does not have a tax residency.
JAMES HENRY: You know, we’re talking about 10 to 15 percent of the world’s financial wealth basically being invested offshore beyond the reach of tax authorities.
JOHN CHRISTENSEN: So, far from being a success story, I regard the city of London as the world’s biggest tax haven.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: Can you tell me how many subsidiary companies of your group are incorporated and operating in the Cayman Islands?
NARRATION: Barclays Bank at U.K. Public Accounts Committee.
BOB DIAMOND: I don’t have that number with me, either.
CHUKA HARRISON UMUNNA: You have 181.
TIM RIDLEY: There are $1.6 trillion booked to Cayman Islands banks. Almost none of that is actually in Cayman.
STUART FRASER: Many politicians have an illusion that they actually run their country, when actually they run their country within the confines that the global financial system places on them.
ANGUS CAMERON: There was a period before we had a welfare state. We had the welfare state under a certain set of conditions, and those conditions have changed.
SASKIA SASSEN: The social contract is broken.
UNIDENTIFIED: People didn’t invest money into services. I mean, you look at the state of the roads here, the most basic thing, and there’s potholes everywhere. Property tax, they’re introducing, water tax—all these new taxes, personal taxes.
MATT BRITTIN: What’s different about Google, we’re not selling books, and we’re not making coffee.
MARGARET HODGE: You’re selling advertising.
MATT BRITTIN: Consumers are based on the computer science. That is what creates the economic value for Google.
MARGARET HODGE: What does Bermuda create?
JARON LANIER: Kodak had hundreds of thousands of employees—really good, solid, middle-class jobs. The new world of photography is Instagram, which had 13 employees and sold for a billion dollars to Facebook.
NICOLAS COLIN: [translated] Businesses die from this industrial revolution. They stop paying taxes, and the benefits move the tax havens.
SASKIA SASSEN: At some point, more inequality is not simply more inequality. It needs another name. People are being expelled from livelihoods.
PROTESTERS: We are the 99 percent! We are the 99 percent!
JEAN ROSS: People used to, in their positions, use that money, to invest in our country, to invest in people, and they’re not doing it anymore. And as a nurse, I would say they’re probably a little bit mentally ill. It’s not normal to want to hoard all that money. And the people in this country need it.
MATT BRITTIN: We pay all the tax you require us to pay in the U.K. We paid 6 million of tax last year.
MARGARET HODGE: Yeah, maybe. We’re not accusing you of being illegal. We’re accusing you of being immoral”
Does Pump’n’Dope even know how a link works?
I’m trying to highlight why govts are going into debt. I’m trying to highlight the issues that could bring down our society. So I’m a dope? You might be the dope for not being able to see the long term consequences of income concentration and tax avoidance by the wealthy. So keep mocking my fight to save your kid’s future.
The Original NJ ExPat says:
April 10, 2016 at 11:56 am
Does Pump’n’Dope even know how a link works?
Just had a JJ moment when I saw a recipe on the Boston Globe website for “Mysore pak, Indian style fudge”.
I miss JJ
Space X landing a Rocket on Drone ship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=46&v=lSx4DGBstYA
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/04/how_njs_largest_corporations_legally_dodge_us_taxes_opinion.html#incart_river_home
[32] yome
That’s all I hear about. We are friends with the family of one of the engineers and they are busting over this.
[33] pumps
A good article. Ironically, the Boston Globe has crossed a new boundary in modern partisan journalism to castigate the one candidate who actually proposes attacking this at the source.
Say it with me: Donald. Trump.
You see, ATEOTD, this is a function of three sources of law: tax code, trade agreements and tax conventions. For all his hubris and lack of tact, he proposes modifications to two of these. His opposition except for Sanders proposes a leash on multinationals that will make them (1) invert or redomesticate sooner, (2) make them attractive for foreign acquirers, or (3) turn them into much smaller versions of what they are now. And neither the public fisc nor our unemployment rate would improve much as a consequence.
[35] redux
That isn’t to say I support The Donald. But he is talking about the root causes and promulgating policies, however undeveloped, that address the issue in constructive ways.
What the fcuk?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/colorado-gop-tweets-nevertrump/
#35/36 Tin pot
Are you serious. have you read his plans.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/tax-reform
Leaving aside the Great 10% repatriation holiday, the dems will bury him on offshore money. How much is he holding offshore and why wont he bring it home? That is before the questions on why the Trump clothing brands are made in Mexico and China.
But the biggest will be “Trump Panama, explain that!”
He made a comment about policy and you respond about the campaign. Do me a favor and bookmark the link to this thread so you don’t have an excuse next time you ask for proof of how stupid you are.
So a candidates positioning on their campaign, has no relation to their stance on policy”
Got it!
Fabu [40];
So a candidates positioning on their campaign, has no relation to their stance on policy”
It was true of your messiah, His O’ness. His tax cut promise hit its expiration date before his first inauguration; Merely the first in a long, and notorious line of expired Obama campaign positions and promises. Still waiting for my $2,500 savings on health insurance.
Rory,
Go back and read. And if you are going to try to articulate my position, get it right.
I said he is discussing root causes in the tax code and treaties, and the others aren’t (some discuss tax code but that’s it).
I’ve not said I agreed with his prescription, only that he was talking about the disease, not the symptoms.
Nice try at deflection but weak as usual.
Rory,
Go back and read, or do they not teach English in England?
When you do, quote me the passage where I said I agreed with his policies.
I said only that he is identifying actual causes, not just symptoms. Again, nice attempt at deflection but as usual, only an attempt.
All gluteus has is deflection, straw man and move-the-goalposts.
#42 TinPot
“That isn’t to say I support The Donald. But he is talking about the root causes and promulgating policies, however undeveloped, that address the issue in constructive ways.”
Saying he is addressing the issue in a constructive way, I read as support.
Lets take one of his policies, our favorite, deferred income. We will separate policy and campaign as although they are linked I don’t want Joyce getting her Bettie Rosss in a twist.
POLICY
I actually support the use of deferred income, I don’t support the abuse. Let the companies expand oversees and funnel the revenue back here. Give them a two year break on paying the taxes, as there are issues with the likes of cash flow, if the taxes have to be paid straight away.
The US corporate rate is actually competitive, but with the endless deferral, companies, can hold off paying. Let the companies have their choice, pay the local tax and get a break under double taxation or repatriate and pay to the US.
A 10% holiday if a gift and a cave in to the corporations. It will not spur jobs here as I pointed out before, the repatriated cash will go to the like of stock buybacks and not jobs.
CAMPAIGN
He will have a hard time selling this as (I assume) he is deferring income himself. He has enough golf courses and hotels around the world that form part of his 10 billion, so he is generating significant revenue. Is he repatriating or is he holding it offshore. If so, where. I would suspect Caymans.
Trump Panama, the hotel for Tax Dodgers, is a very bad optic.