From Newsday:
LI home prices jump in April as inventory plummets: MLS
The number of homes listed for sale on Long Island plummeted last month, driving up prices as buyers competed for scarce listings, the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island reported Thursday.
The median home price in Nassau County was $475,000 in April, up 8 percent from a year earlier. In Suffolk County the median price rose 9 percent, year over year, to $340,000.
The number of closed sales fell, year over year, by 9 percent in Nassau and increased by 0.6 percent in Suffolk.
Buyers are getting into bidding wars over the most desirable homes, and some repeatedly lose out because they refuse to raise their price enough, said Andy Yakubovsky, manager of Century 21 American Homes in Oceanside. “Usually by the third time, they say, ‘I see a pattern here, I need to go full or over asking price,’” he said.
But with inventory so tight, in some cases sellers accept a bid and start looking for their next home — only to realize there’s nothing acceptable in their price range, Yakubovsky said. Some of those contracted sales fall through, contributing to the decline in closed transactions, he said.
Homeowners, he said, “are basically saying, ‘Never mind, I’m staying,’ ” he said.
P3nis!
My wife’s grandmother, when she lost her mind, used to just yell Pen1s! Pen1s! Pen1s! Pen1s! Pen1s!
She was in good physical shape, I think she just had something on her mind.
Nobody here uses thinkorswim except me, right?
Nobody here uses Ameritrade’s platform except me, right?
Sorry for the duplicate posts. It seemed liked the first wasn’t permitted. I’m not promoting.
Ok so I’ve been pondering a theory a bit lately, and want to run it by the crew.
It’s an alternative view on the dynamics of interest rate movements.
The conclusion is that interest rates will never go up, substantially, again.
The premise of the theory is that a large subcompnent of an interest rate isn’t risk, but the productivity or friction of the underlying capital to make the loan/investment.
The long term trend of decreasing rates has less to do an increased acceptance of risk but a significant decrease in the friction of capital.
The cost to manufacture an investment/loan has been decreasing and this sub component of the rate had gradually been eliminated.
If this is the case, it’s highly unlikely that we would ever return to “historical” rates again.
So no easy bullets in the Feds handgun?
Raise the rates and the wall of cards collapses.
Ex, this Garys?
http://Www.garyswine.com
We are in the coffin corner.
Damn… Donnie don’t play
@realDonaldTrump 30m30 minutes ago
James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
There will be a concerted effort to keep rates down despite lip service otherwise, yes, so some of that is at play. Grim I agree with your hypothesis to some extent you are right rates will never go up to historical levels simply because the variety of instruments available in capital markets that essentially increase the amount of available capital. Rates will eventually go higher but we will not revert to historical norms as the amount of capital available in the capital markets as a percentage of money supply has increased reducing the rate and as you state efficiencies have reduced the overhead in lending. The 10 percent mortgage isn’t coming back baring total collapse of the Dollar in my mind. It is hard to know the effect of the printing press though, if the fed contracts the money supply, rates could spike sharply in my mind.
Prediction: Trump will die penniless in a federal prison.
May 12, 2017 at 8:57 am
Damn… Donnie don’t play
@realDonaldTrump 30m30 minutes ago
James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
“Prediction: Trump will die penniless in a federal prison.”
If the Clinton’s didn’t, certainly Trump won’t.
Unhinged!
I am Michael’s younger brother and long time lurker. It is time to defend the Dudko family name and challenge the negative fools on this board. Michael has taught me so much about life since our days playing in basement with Daddy’s green paper rolling machine and chewing on the yummy white paper flakes we found down there. I just closed on a lovely home in the valley of Manville, thanks to Michael’s guidance. I am invested in some fine investment properties in Central Ward, Newark. He said Newark is can’t miss due to it’s proximity to NYC. It is going to be a killing over time he said. Can’t wait to be real estate rich like my big bro.
Don’t forgot about your brother’s Atlantic City call?
Some feedback from the front lines in LI – parents put house on the market and it did not even hit MLS. House was priced right at comps and what I would consider to be at the top of the realistic scale. That first day of private showings had two offers come in. One at what would be considered a regular offer (7% under asking) likely looking for some middle ground under asking. The second came in at 3% over asking. Buyers had been in multiple bidding wars and lost and wanted this house (nothing to do move in ready). I am glad I pushed my parents hard to get on the market by May 1. Timing, timing timing.
Grim, interesting theory. I think that your theory def plays a role in it, but this is the reason for the low rate environment……income and wealth inequality. I know it’s a very complicated issue when it comes to rates, but like I always state, let’s keep it simple and at the fundamental level. High rates are reflective of the growth in the economy and inflation. The higher take on avg investments, the higher the rates. The lower the take on avg investments, the lower the rates. High rates are also reflective of the fed trying to cool the economy from runaway inflation.
Remember, high rates also cause people to save more, as they are rewarded for not spending their money in an effort to cool the economy and provide investment when it bottoms. With no inflation, there is no need to reward savers to stop them from spending. Right now, we want them to spend it all, and they have, and the result is no inflation because they don’t have enough money in their hands to drive up pricing.
So the point is this….how can you have high rates in an environment of extreme money concentration in the economy? You can’t. The extreme concentration of wealth and income prevents inflation and high growth in the economy. It’s impossible to have high growth and inflation with the money in so few hands. Literally impossible to have too much money chasing too few goods under these conditions. It’s no wonder the only growth is in luxury goods…..that’s the only area of the economy with excess money in the consumer base. It also drives up asset classes in their effort to maintain wealth.
It’s easy to fix all this, just stop the insane accumulation and concentration of wealth. It serves no basis in a capitalist system. Everyone including the wealthy will be better off under these conditions. A growing economy lifts all boats.
I do think the tide is starting to turn. More Americans are working now than ever before. People collecting unemployment is down to 1988 levels. The circle is beginning to turn, and money is starting to get back into the consumers hands. Just need to get wage growth going for the majority, not just the select few.
“But plenty of folks will be stuck in that bottom 40 percent category forever. And as the OECD report points out, this is a big problem for everyone — even the top one percent.
Their data shows that more inequality equals less economic growth: Between 1985 and 2005, the OECD estimates that increasing inequality has knocked nearly five percentage points off growth in OECD countries.
If you’re one of the fortunate ones with money in the bank, you can think of this as a five percent smaller return on your investment over that period, simply because the less fortunate aren’t able to contribute to the economy as much as they could otherwise.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/21/the-top-10-of-americans-own-76-of-the-stuff-and-its-dragging-our-economy-down/?utm_term=.5dbbcb7f2b3e
Interesting.
“A new book by Stanford historian Walter Scheidel (pdf) comes to a rather striking conclusion about the most successful ways to reduce inequality: “war, revolution, state failure and pestilence acted as the main equalizers of income and wealth both in the distant and the more recent past,” he writes. “We must ask whether fiscal policies that seek to curtail inequality are likely to succeed in the absence of these destructive forces, and what this suggests for the future of global inequality.””
Grim, JCERs & interest rate.
You are right as long as the present Fed Reserve+Primary Dealers Debt/Electronic money system is in effect. After all, they have manage to create an inflation machine that they control who benefits, so to limit too many people in it and ruin it.
Think Venezuela. They only know to print physical cash, which everyone gets it and creates hyperinflation. What if the Venezuela or Zimbabwe central bank had the ability to ensure the good benefits of the inflation created accrued to their political and family lackeys, but not bad benefits like hyperinflation was noticeable by anyone else. A special currency that only those in power have and it disappears when it touches the common person. And you would not have to go to the trouble of cooking the books like Argentina and Venezuela did to make it look everything is normal.
Now, the moment we go into a real asset demand issue. Whether gold, land, I don’t know, but something that the Fed Reserve and the primary banks can’t manipulate, control or rig. Then back to how it was.
https://youtu.be/15QngStkp-E
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2017/05/05/construction-abound-atlantic-city-rebound/101151098/
Steamy Cankles Foundation says:
May 12, 2017 at 9:42 am
Don’t forgot about your brother’s Atlantic City call?
Beginning stages my friend, it’s only getting started in the surrounding nyc area.
“The second came in at 3% over asking. Buyers had been in multiple bidding wars and lost and wanted this house (nothing to do move in ready). I am glad I pushed my parents hard to get on the market by May 1. Timing, timing timing”
Good analysis, Gluppy. That was our family nickname for Michael.
Is it any wonder why so many Democrats are confused?
Democrats pre-Comey firing:
“Comey sucks, he should be fired!!”
Democrats post-Comey firing:
“Comey shouldn’t have been fired!”
. I just closed on a lovely home in the valley of Manville, thanks to Michael’s guidance.
And you have exactly 1 day to buy flood insurance. Or you may find out that housing actually does go up once the water lifts it out of the foundation.
So you don’t agree that rates are low due to extreme concentration of wealth/income? Rates sole purpose is to heat up or cool the economy. I mean they dropped rates as low as they could go to try and spur inflation, but it failed due to the extreme concentration of wealth. I mean it can’t get any more obvious when they drop rates to nothing and still can’t get inflation or good economic growth. The rates have no impact when the money is so concentrated.
Chippy Dudko says:
May 12, 2017 at 10:40 am
Good analysis, Gluppy. That was our family nickname for Michael.
My only comments on Comey are:
1. You don’t hold pressers to discuss the results of investigations
2. You don’t decide what the evidence does and does not show.
Number one was distasteful but not beyond the pale. Number two was and I spit out my coffee when I heard him do that (and I was driving to Virginia at the time so that sucked).
Aside from that, there is a whole lot of smoke coming from a very small fire. Everyone’s fighting over optics, not substance. That is why I haven’t been commenting on that. Also, busy.
I should clarify:
2. You don’t decide what the evidence does and does not show with respect burden of proof.
Pumpkin, not sure what you are getting at but the ultra low rate environment has been created by increased money supply both from the federal reserve as well as phantom dollars created by derivatives and complex financial instruments, basically there is a large pool of debt that doesn’t really exist, the fed created it with QE and the WS banks through various derivatives instruments can mimic the creation of money over the short term. Income inequality is an indirect result of this, money is flowing to businesses(particularly large, rich businesses) and at an extremely low cost. With the available capital businesses are investing in automation and cost cutting programs that further increase margin, so what we see is businesses increasing margin but not really growing with regards to products sold(the general consumer is tapped out, has too much credit, can’t borrow anymore, hasn’t seen wage inflation) and they have not lowered prices, in fact prices are rising. Unskilled and lesser skilled labor is in a bind as automation and outsourcing have reduced the demand for this labor and thus reducing the need to increase pay to attract employees. My hypothesis is that the income inequality is not the driver of the economic condition it is a symptom. There has been inflation you just need to look in the right places some things are massively more expensive than they were 15 years ago it all depends on the market dynamics, certain things are kept cheap because consumption is driven by cost and with the lowest cost of capital ever and new efficiencies, production is cheap as it ever has been. Also unfortunately in capitalism human factors are sticky, things aren’t rational always and when prices go up they tend to stay higher longer even once the impetus for the increase goes away.
Pumpkin you have it backwards, they dropped rates to zero not trying to spur inflation but rather to prevent deflation, asset devaluation, bad debt, and insolvent companies. It was always about propping up the financial system, buying time for banks to recover…..a big gift to the financial industry. You cannot create inflation without demand, we have seen massive inflation in certain areas, rents, healthcare, tuition, building materials. The idea is to incentivize economic development by reducing the cost of capital, not to spur inflation, they want everyone working and controlled inflation at 2-5% per annum.
Cab Calloway (clot Edition):
A dead man was found aboard a train Friday morning in Brooklyn, police said.
Police found the 57-year-old man on the A while it was in the Jay Street-Metrotech station at about 7:50 a.m.
Northbound A, C, and F trains were delayed and rerouted while the NYPD investigated. Service resumed at about 8:45 a.m.
Comey’s an idiot that deserved to be fired, the left and the right should agree on that. If there was something behind this and Trump was being investigated it will still come out. The left is really unhinged, my wife had us listening to NPR in car this morning, based on the topics they were discussing you’d think Trump had declared he was opening forced labor camps for illegal immigrants.
grim: just bear in mind that this metric is pulled from the same ocean and has been consistently and frighteningly low.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EVIX?p=^VIX
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but your supposition in my opinion would have more impact on volatility and spreads than the actual mean nominal level of rates.
Grim says:
May 12, 2017 at 7:55 am
Ok so I’ve been pondering a theory a bit lately, and want to run it by the crew.
It’s an alternative view on the dynamics of interest rate movements.
The conclusion is that interest rates will never go up, substantially, again.
The premise of the theory is that a large subcompnent of an interest rate isn’t risk, but the productivity or friction of the underlying capital to make the loan/investment.
The long term trend of decreasing rates has less to do an increased acceptance of risk but a significant decrease in the friction of capital.
The cost to manufacture an investment/loan has been decreasing and this sub component of the rate had gradually been eliminated.
If this is the case, it’s highly unlikely that we would ever return to “historical” rates again.
I should clarify…..I mean bid/ask spreads, not credit spreads…..
These are all the symptoms of extreme wealth concentration. When you only focus on the profit side, this is the result. Profit has taken on too big of a percentage of the economic pie, it’s the equivalent of giving labor too big of a percentage of the pie, it sends negative ripples through the economy. This is what happens when you combine ultra greed with short term outlooks….you get people only focused on profit at the expense of everything else. You forgot to add that most of that money was just used in stock “buybacks,” which is the ultimate sign of extreme concentration of capital. Refuse to give raises, refuse to invest in new technology, and instead just buy back stock to put more money in your pocket…..amazing how ignorant these individuals are. You want to put money in your pocket, then grow the damn economy by giving raises, adding jobs, and investing in future growth.
“With the available capital businesses are investing in automation and cost cutting programs that further increase margin, so what we see is businesses increasing margin but not really growing with regards to products sold(the general consumer is tapped out, has too much credit, can’t borrow anymore, hasn’t seen wage inflation) and they have not lowered prices, in fact prices are rising.”
As always, excellent write-ups, Jcer!
The Great Pumpkin says:
May 12, 2017 at 12:26 pm
You have all the symptoms of extreme superfluousness.
They lowered rates a long time ago and opened up the faucet for easy loans to address the problems created from extreme income/wealth inequality. This inequality has been growing for decades. The negative rates were the result of a helpless effort to keep growth going……they no longer could keep growth going with debt (easy loans) to substitute for the lack of growth in wages due to “profit” consuming all economic growth. Inequality is not the symptom, but the source of the problem.
jcer says:
May 12, 2017 at 11:50 am
Pumpkin you have it backwards, they dropped rates to zero not trying to spur inflation but rather to prevent deflation, asset devaluation, bad debt, and insolvent companies. It was always about propping up the financial system, buying time for banks to recover…..a big gift to the financial industry. You cannot create inflation without demand, we have seen massive inflation in certain areas, rents, healthcare, tuition, building materials. The idea is to incentivize economic development by reducing the cost of capital, not to spur inflation, they want everyone working and controlled inflation at 2-5% per annum.
Oh Great RumplePumpkin: the internet and its pervasive impact is the source of the inequality…..scores of people and their careers are being permanently replaced by an iPhone and a few swipes of the finger…….if you do not understand this basic and fundamental dynamic then stop pontificating, start reading more and posting less….
Chi, but it’s also not right for so called job creators to eliminate jobs at already profitable companies just to pad profit. Profit at all costs is harmful to the economy. It’s the definition of short term thinking. If companies are highly profitable, and the rich are beyond wealthy, what good does it do for everyone else if they have nothing? How can the economy function with such a low participation rate?
Friday Afternoon NYC Highway & Tunnel Traffic Report (jj & clot Edition):
The Lincoln Tunnel became the tunnel of self-love when a man high on PCP blocked traffic with his minivan to take time to pleasure himself, officials said Friday.
Port Authority police busted Ismael Esquilin, 48, of Passaic, N.J., about 7:15 p.m. Thursday when his Dodge minivan was found stopped in the middle of the New Jersey-bound side of the Hudson River tunnel, holding up traffic.
When cops approached the car, they found Esquilin removing his clothes and “performing a lewd act,” Port Authority spokesman Joe Pentangelo said. The idling minivan was running and the keys were in the ignition, officials said.
Cops also found a glass pipe and small glass bottles containing PCP on the passenger seat floor.
After cops covered Esquilin with a blanket he admitted that he had smoked PCP, but refused to take a Breathalyzer test.
Esquilin was taken to Hoboken Hospital for observation.
Cops seized the drugs and impounded the minivan. Esqulin was charged with drug possession, driving under the influence of drugs, reckless driving and impeding traffic, officials said.
@PaulKrugman
Just to be clear:
senior R in the Senate defending coverup
of possible foreign subversion of U.S. government.
The authors detail how Clinton went out of her way to pass blame for her stunning loss on “Comey and Russia.”
“She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way,” a longtime Clinton confidant is quoted as saying.
The book further highlights how Clinton’s Russia-blame-game was a plan hatched by senior campaign staffers John Podesta and Robby Mook, less than “within twenty-four hours” after she conceded:
That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.
The Clinton camp settled on a two-pronged plan — pushing the press to cover how “Russian hacking was the major unreported story of the campaign, overshadowed by the contents of stolen e-mails and Hillary’s own private-server imbroglio,” while “hammering the media for focusing so intently on the investigation into her e-mail, which had created a cloud over her candidacy,” the authors wrote.
““The pricing is better than I expected, better than everyone expected,” said Hugh Bromley, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance who had been skeptical about the potential market impact of the new product. Tesla’s cost for active solar tiles is about $42 per square foot, “significantly below” BNEF’s prior estimate of $68 per square foot, Bromley said. Inactive tiles will cost $11 per square foot.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-s-solar-roof-is-finally-ready-for-you-to-buy
Take a failing company; slap the name Tesla on the products; raise prices 30%, take advantage of a biased liberal reporting at Bloomberg; and rook the public with ugly, oversized and frankly dangerous (ask any fire department) black glass. What a ponzi!
The Great Pumpkin says:
May 12, 2017 at 1:34 pm
““The pricing is better than I expected, better than everyone expected,” said Hugh Bromley, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance who had been skeptical about the potential market impact of the new product. Tesla’s cost for active solar tiles is about $42 per square foot, “significantly below” BNEF’s prior estimate of $68 per square foot, Bromley said. Inactive tiles will cost $11 per square foot.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-s-solar-roof-is-finally-ready-for-you-to-buy
“@PaulKrugman
Just to be clear:
senior R in the Senate defending coverup
of possible foreign subversion of U.S. government.”
And this has what to do with economics?
Paul Krugman does not even have a poli sci degree. Yet the elitists lean on his every word. Remember, Yasser Arafat won a Nobel too.
One of these days, Tesla might sell a product for more than it costs to produce it.
When you stop to think about it, Musk and Trump are pretty much playing the same game. Musk exploits government subsidies. Trump expoits bankruptcy and other real estate tax advantages. Both produce nothing much more than empty promises.
grim – If you were carrying a huge load of debt that you would probably never be able to pay off AND you could set the interest rate, where would you set it? The interest on the US debt is actually LESS than before Obama and friends doubled it.
Japan 2.0
The conclusion is that interest rates will never go up, substantially, again.
leftwing – Nope, this one:
http://www.garysliquors.com/index.html
Ex, this Garys?
http://Www.garyswine.com
grim –
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/22/75-years-of-net-interest-payments-on-us-national-d.aspx
I just saw Ron Insana on CNBC. I remember a decade ago when he was an anchor. He says he’s in the camp that believes Trump won’t even make it 4 years. I always had a neutral feeling about Insana, but my FIL, hated, hated, hated him. My FIL used to say he was the guy who was always running to a fire to throw gasoline on a fire. I kind of see that now.
BTW, IIRC, Insana started his own hedge fund that failed spectacularly in very short order.
Yep.
On March 1, 2006, Insana left his anchor duties when his contract at CNBC expired to start his own hedge fund, Insana Capital Partners. In August 2008 the fund ceased operations because of investment losses and he joined SAC Capital Advisors in an unknown capacity. On February 27, 2009, Mr. Insana left SAC Capital.
Who is going to congratulate me on my call? That’s right, The Great Pumpking was right all along. You can only have fun in New York for so long before you are drawn to the suburbs to raise your family, because you can’t find flowers like this in Manhattan or ANYWHERE ELSE! That’s why I took all of the cheap money I could get and bought as much of a busy house on a busy street that I could afford! It’s a no-brainer, and I have no brain.
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/environment/2017/05/12/rare-wildflower-only-blooms-north-jersey/316912001/
Pumps,
“It’s the definition of short term thinking”
No, that definition is your father not wearing a jimmy 37 years ago..
I am amazed on a daily basis that people don’t understand “inflation”. We’re getting to point in time where the masses have never seen the real thing in their lifetimes. First, there are *exactly* two types of inflation. Monetary inflation and price inflation. Monetary inflation is tied to the money supply, the Fed controls this. Monetary inflation is a cause and the effect can never be known in advance. The other type of inflation, and I guess you have to be pretty old by now to understand it, is price inflation. Price inflation is an effect and needs to be treated, much like cancer. No oncologist tries to figure out where you “caught” your cancer. The third thing that, especially now, people fail to understand is the difference between price inflation and rising prices. They are not the same. Price inflation means *everything* is going up in price *every* day (Google Venezuela). College tuition and health insurance are not going up because of price inflation, they are going up because of misallocation of capital. If we had true price inflation you would be appalled at how much hot dog buns go up in price every day.
Now here is the irony.
The Fed *absolutely* controls monetary inflation. They do it in the hope of controlling price inflation.
Read those two short sentences over and over again and you will eventually get it.
After all, they have manage to create an inflation machine that they control who benefits
buy more puts on Wells-Fargo.
Oh you are insuffrable!
I’m not sure if this is related to the UK malware/virus attack, but my Windows 10 Surface Pro was suffering yesterday. All freaking day long Windows Defender was “finding” and “removing” Exploit:SWF/Meadgive. I turned the sound down, let Defender go at it, but it was incessant. I even ran an “offline” Windows Defender session (maybe that is the “safe” mode) and still not respite. I ran a full scan and that didn’t stop it either. I finally downloadedMalwarebytes (first time I’ve needed it on this machine) and then we were done.
I usually keep a thumbdrive around with ComboKill, malwarebytes, and something else (don’t remember), reboot into safe mode and that does the trick. This is the exact reason I moved my wife and daughters off of windows and on to Mac products 5 years ago. It’s a pain when I fix this crap for myself, but it used to really suck when I had to do it every two weeks for the family.
Just completed a roadshow tour of AI, machine learning, and NLP companies in NYC.
NYC is the new Silicon Valley, Bay Area does not hold a candle.
That is all.
All your jobs are belong to us.
Grim,
I went to a presentation at Google a few months back. what they are doing looks pretty but is not really new. Neural networks have not really changed since I last looked at them in the 90s. The only difference is that the processing and storage has evolved to the point where the initial leaning databases are deep enough to be basically useful.
I think what IBM is doing with Watson is much more impressive.
Stu, Juice,
I read articles like these and it throws up questions that just can’t be ignored. This is not just selling condos to dodgy people. This is licencing your name and joint developments with dodgy people and dodgy money.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/03/28/trump-business-past-ties-russian-mobsters-organized-crime/98321252/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15629410/trump-russia-lester-holt-business-ties
Fab,
Just to be clear. Trump is not my hero. I would not be surprised if he rubbed elbows with the Russian Mob. My dad used to own a factory in Williamsburg. Whenever the inspector came in, my dad would run to the bank. He paid for protection too. Don’t know of any RE developers who have not had to grease palms to get things done. I never liked Trump because he really made his fortune exploiting bankruptcy laws. About the only thing I liked about him was his willingness to say exactly what was on his mind. With that said, I doubt he is squeaky clean. But what does this have to do with the elections?
Stu,
Trump and Force Majeure
The only difference is that the processing and storage has evolved to the point where the initial leaning databases are deep enough to be basically useful.
The difference is the tools that are used to build these networks, lexicons, processes, etc – have evolved to the point at which a non-PhD business person can very quickly and effectively utilize these tools, without specialized programming knowledge. Your latter point is actually not the case, and one of the researchers we met with actually worked to develop algos that are more effective on shallow datasets, as that is a more typical use case. He was a key researcher on the Watson team, and technical lead on the Question/Answer system. Remember, the Watson team is located in Yorktown NY, just a few miles north of NYC.
The other major factor is dirt cheap processing power, incredibly fast GPUs for what is nearly free. Not to mention the availability of high-power processing in the cloud, at pennies per hour.
Grim, long NYC economy?
Expat,
OMG, having a flashback. Had a brief thing once with a nurse from RI. When she talked dirty, she still used anatomically correct terms. It was really off-putting
I have to admit, Gluteus, that was a pretty second goal.
Crouch denies the clean sheet!!!!!!
@davidfrum
This isn’t remotely like Watergate.
During Watergate,
honorable people in government resigned rather than be associated with improper acts.
Stu,
What does it have to do with the election? Everything. To paraphrase Sally Yates, I need to know if Donnie is compromised. The fact he took 18 days to fire Flynn, gives me more concern. That either shows complicity or a severe lack of judgement. Did Donnie pay the kremlin, no, but thats not whats being asked. I think both sides were hacked, the decision was made to support Donnie to punish Clinton. I think someone said, I know a guy who knows a guy and the leaks will start coming out against her. I think there was a chuckle and yes let the fun begin.
The election is over Donnie is in the big house and needs to be held accountable for all the actions of his administration. What we have seen so far has been a train wreck and I said back in the day, this election was a tough choice, but you have to vote the the best of two bad choices. If you voted for Trump or didn’t vote, I hold you accountable for what we have today. You get to explain to your kid how he is now back to a pre-existing condition. That vote would have been meaningless with Hillary holding a veto pen.
@MaxBoot
Republicans are discovering that the cost of selling their souls to Trump is much higher than they expected.
Grim,
You sort of make my point for me. Processing and storage has come to the point where it can start to make this useful, but its is still a long way off.
TensorFlow is just a pretty looking GUI API to make programming easier. Just like Gates did with Visual Basic and Jobs with NextStep. Dumb it down to plug and play. It doesn’t really change whats underneath it just makes it more user friendly. Yes there has been some work on algorithms but its all extensions of the applied math work done back in the 60s. Its not that it doesn’t have value, its just not leading edge research.
GPU’s are nothing new, remember the days of math co processors hanging off the back of a 486 box. The Google cloud is a nice pricing model, but your few pennies mount up very quickly when you go for serious horsepower. I don’t see it doing 80 Terraflops either. What you get is a bigger distributed parallel architecture, that it is the millennial version of SETI.
Even Watson has its limitations, there is a little statement in the current H&R Block ad, that results will get better with time.
Here is the difference. Both Clinton and Trump were s***t.
Trump does not know his way around the Federal Bureaucracy and that is why he’s acting like a bull in a china shop. Trump’s ignorance will limit the damage he does. Trump’s behavior will make sure a certain crowd start seeing him as illegitimate. From the Good Sheperd. https://youtu.be/jl_9ayxs69A
It just a matter of time the GOP infrastructure which detest him, gets over the gumption that it will be the 2nd republican president impeach in less than 50 yrs and votes for impeachment and control under Pence.
Clinton would have been exponentially more dangerous. Simply because they have been in 1600 for 8yrs. They would have had the experience from the past administration to go straight to the power choke points and do something really nasty and lasting.
Riddle me this, why would anyone over 45 buy a Tesla roof when it’s likely to not post a profit until you die?
5:29 no one is pining for Clinton, she a complete tool, but you gotta wonder if Trump isn’t off the rails completely. Buyers remorse??
6:46 same reason someone becomes a teacher. Bad judgement.
Fab…Let’s see if they find anything. Let’s also see if this healthcare bill passes. Last I remember, your ladies legacy was not being able to pass healthcare reform. ACA was truly a mess. I know. I paid for it, even though I was covered through my employer. My taxes were so bad this year I had to pay a penalty for not paying enough estimated. Thank goodness my profits in UNH covered much of the difference.
Almost spit out my drink….lmao
Gone Goose says:
May 13, 2017 at 9:19 pm
6:46 same reason someone becomes a teacher. Bad judgement.
6:46 same reason someone becomes a teacher. Bad judgement.
You’ll get no argument from me. Anyone that enters this profession willingly is insane.
BRT,
Unless you are retired or close to it. Then you are “grandfathered” and it was a good deal.
OTOH, law enforcement is still a good deal.
Ultimately they will be the enforcers and therefore no one will touch their benefit package.
BRT,
What would you consider to be a good profession today?
Phoenix anythjng where you start at $75k and can top out at over $300k plus plus plus
Pumpkin puts at what date?
The belt tightens evermore.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-13/employers-beware-about-63-of-u-s-workers-are-open-to-leaving
Teaching is a joke, plain and simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise has lost touched with realistic compensation for equivalent quality of employee. Only suckers would invest in college to top out at 100k in 2017.
Phoenix says:
May 13, 2017 at 10:28 pm
BRT,
Unless you are retired or close to it. Then you are “grandfathered” and it was a good deal.
OTOH, law enforcement is still a good deal.
Ultimately they will be the enforcers and therefore no one will touch their benefit package.
And meant no respect to teachers or anyone who thinks 100,000 is well off.
To put in context, 100,000 family breadwinner can afford what in nj? What can they afford…300,000 house? What is that in northern nj? Can even get into lower middle class with 300k and under range.
Goose, some examples. Also what percentage of workers make the kind of money you suggest?
Pumps, it is not what they can afford. It’s not the 100k. What should a teacher be paid, 200k? Are you still going to be able to afford your taxes? Will others? It’s not that teachers are making enough, it’s because of people like you that expect someone to pay you an enormous profit on your real estate ventures, there is a side effect of housing costing way more than it is worth. You brag about it all of the time but you are part of the same problem you are complaining about.
What would you consider to be a good profession today?
While I don’t regret my decision, I was fortunate to be in the one subject in education where there are literally less than 10 applicants a year in the state and 9 of them are god awful. It made it easier to get ahead. Anyone else entering education is insane. They likely won’t make 50k for a number of years and the union/pension/health care contributions are eating their paychecks alive. Combine that with step freezes during contract negotiations, it’s just a crapshoot. My first six years, my take home pay never went up a single dollar. That’s what people don’t realize. They look at a database and say you got a $1k raise each year when in fact, your healthcare contributions go up $1.5 k each year. Teachers statewide have been on an effective salary freeze for about 8 years.
Places I think kids today (not necessarily true 4 years from now) should think about.
Finance. Woulda said stay away after 2008 but it seems to have a stranglehold on capital. Some of the biggest tools I know make the most money in finance and they aren’t even good at their jobs.
Computer Programmer. I have several former students that abandoned Science for Comp Sci at schools like Carnegie Melon. They are getting swooped up by Silicon Valley out west and Hedge Funds on the east coast.
Science and Engineering is a crapshoot. You aren’t poor but you aren’t rich either. The big joke of this whole STEM push is that if it was ever effective (which I doubt it will be) all it would do is lower the salaries of Science and Engineering workers.
Owning your own business. In corporate, I’ve heard way too many stories of people busting their butt just to watch other people get promoted over them. If you own your own business, the money you make is a function of the work you put in. Ultimately, I’m going in this direction and will eventually own my own business, whether it be landscaping or a pizza parlor.
BRT,
Unless you are retired or close to it. Then you are “grandfathered” and it was a good deal.
OTOH, law enforcement is still a good deal.
Ultimately they will be the enforcers and therefore no one will touch their benefit package.
Yes, keyword being “was”. The kids graduating now becoming teachers are destined to be poor their whole life.
Ray, I’m just taking advantage of a capitalist system based on supply and demand. They will never change the system, so you play the game too. If you can’t beat them, you join them. If real estate prices were regulated, these high prices you speak of will just go into another sector of the economy and drive up the price from the excess money saved from putting a cap on housing price. Just the nature of the beast in a capitalist system. Energy and food go down in price, then education and healthcare go up. Education, healthcare, and housing will always go up because they are serviced based industries in which the quality can’t be easily replaced with low cost automation.
So that’s why I point out that teachers need to be paid more. Based on capitalist principles, no one in their right mind will get a degree to max out at that kind of money. It’s a completely bad investment. You are better off taking that money and starting a business or getting a degree in something that will make the cost of the educational investment worthwhile.
The result of this will be an education system that crashes and burns with a bunch of losers becoming teachers. They will have to lower the standards to fill the teacher voids(we all know they won’t pay teachers more), this means putting people in the positions without degrees or certification.
High cost of living areas need to figure out how to pay service based positions as you point out. Do they create special housing for low paid service workers that must live in high cost of living areas they can’t afford? For example, teacher villages in sf created to house teachers? The only problem with this is what I alluded to in the first paragraph. You are just driving the cost up for everyone else in their housing by doing this. So what difference does it make if you pay them more in salary or artificially lower their housing cost, the other participants in the economy will pay for it either way. Or they can just leave the salaries low, force them to find expensive housing, and watch the quality of education go to hell, which every economic participant will pay for anyway in the long term as the economy feels the impact of a crappy educational system.
Don’t know what the answer is, but there is no easy fix. If we want a quality education system, we have to pay up one way or another. The education system is the lifeblood of the economy, and people need to stop playing their ideological political games with it or risk destroying the future of this country.
If we only want to save money in the short term at the expense of the future, then keep the current mindset in place, and watch it all burn. I promise you that you can’t maintain the quality of education everyone wants on the current salaries. No smart individual will go into it.
Inside Kushner Cos.’ Monmouth Mall Makeover – The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/Aen_kML9bQuuxXA0POIrmqg
Ray pumps is an expert on the schools gets he has not sent / one the rough the system yet.
How about your supply/demand curves for your posts here……the supply is immense and there is no demand……..hence you utility curve is asymptotic with zero……
The Great Pumpkin says:
May 14, 2017 at 9:57 am
Ray, I’m just taking advantage of a capitalist system based on supply and demand.
It’s economic fundamentals. You think you can somehow produce great students under an education system that relies on a revolving door of inexperienced teachers because the compensation and work load chases everyone away. To save a buck, you willingly accept that your son or daughter will get a teacher that is already looking for an exit after their first or second year. This is brilliant for the long term health of our society and economy. Great to see where our priorities are. Short term thinking will be the death of our society if things don’t change.
3b says:
May 14, 2017 at 11:18 am
Ray pumps is an expert on the schools gets he has not sent / one the rough the system yet.
If you are not in a position of decision making authority, being in corporate beyond age 45 is sweating bullets until you retire……the same thing in technology….age bias and sexism is rampant……once you have a few gray hairs on your head, you are considered an absolute fossil…..if you are a woman, you get treated like sh!t….unless they think HR or lawyers are watching……
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
May 14, 2017 at 9:36 am
Owning your own business. In corporate, I’ve heard way too many stories of people busting their butt just to watch other people get promoted over them. If you own your own business, the money you make is a function of the work you put in.
Nom – My wife’s grandmother was a nurse.
OMG, having a flashback. Had a brief thing once with a nurse from RI. When she talked dirty, she still used anatomically correct terms. It was really off-putting
The same reason someone buys a house on a high speed double yellow that is a short cut between a turnpike and a highway. Bad judgement.
Riddle me this, why would anyone over 45 buy a Tesla roof when it’s likely to not post a profit until you die?
If you are not in a position of decision making authority, being in corporate beyond age 45 is sweating bullets until you retire…
Doesn’t apply if you are very good looking. Then again, if you are very good looking you are probably SVP or similar.
Just like the Tom Brady skit on SNL
Rule #1: Be handsome
Pumps the taxes are out of control. The spending is out of control it’s not sustainable. That is what you refuse to recognize.
If you do an in depth analysis, you’ll find that most districts are not spending too much at the local level. The drain on the taxes is abbott money. I am still baffled how they are allowed to siphon off money and spend 30k per student. None of it makes it to the teachers or the classroom. It just goes to big construction projects.
I’ll say it again. Trying to minimize teacher salaries in your town is a sure fire way to ensure that the teacher syou employ are mediocre.
12:42 .. unless you are actually very skilled at what you do. Then corps will pay you ridiculous amounts of money to work for them.
1:59 that, my friend, goes without saying.
11:55 – bear in mind that most teachers are women and are married so it us a second income.
Blue I have no problem with qualified teachers being well paid. Some of these new ones are horrible and don’t give crap. I do have a problem with tons of over paid administrators and principals and multiple support staff paper pushers.
This mindset is the norm across the country. I just don’t get it. Your type only focuses on the govt side (public spending) of the economy. Why does your kind completely ignore the private side of spending in the economy? Why is it okay for private businesses and institutions to spend recklessly, but the public side must be 100% efficient or it is unacceptable? Why isn’t the same standard applied to both? Private businesses and institutions spending recklessly and inefficiently doesn’t harm our society in the same way? I don’t get it. It’s all a part of the same economic system, we should do a better job of getting on private companies for pissing away capital and natural resources on pure waste. Whether it’s public spending or private spending, they both go hand in hand in the same economic system.
Example; 2008 crash was created due to incompetence in the private sector with the end result being the public sector having to bail out the private sector or risk the world falling into complete chaos. From this example, it shows you how much more dangerous and corrupt the private sector is. So much so, that the private sector has gone onto eat the public sector with its power. The public sector answers to the private sector now, not the other way around. For all this talk of the govt becoming too powerful…blah blAh blah….it’s actually the other way around. The private sector is all powerful and controls everything. Anytime they f’ck up, they just put the blame on the public sector and people like you eat it up hook, line, and sinker. All this anger at the politician or govt like they are the problem, no it’s the private sector oligarchs you should be mad at, but you praise. You hail the private sector as if they are some kind of gods making this country better for everyone with their hunt for profit. When will you wake up and realize everything you blame the govt for should really be aimed at the private sector lords who have hijscked this govt for themselves?
Taxes? When will you realize if these corporations paid rightful property taxes, your wouldn’t be going up.
When will you realize that if they paid a worker a decent wage and provided decent benefits the worker can survive on in retirement, your taxes would be significantly lower?
If they actually provided heath benefits instead of passing the buck to you, your taxes wouldn’t be so high.
So stop thinking it’s a spending problem or a revenue problem, and realize this oligarchy is sticking it in your a$$. Passing all the cost onto you while they claim they are getting killed by taxes they really don’t pay.
3b says:
May 14, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Pumps the taxes are out of control. The spending is out of control it’s not sustainable. That is what you refuse to recognize.
Pumps Ain’t nobody sticking anything in my @ss as for the rest of your post more gibberish.
But you do their bidding by smashing ideas like “unions,” one of the only tools the general public has against the power of these oligarchs. That’s how good their propaganda is, gets people to go against each other. Divide and conquer, baby!!!
Riddle me this…..why is there no talk of the harm of excess profits? None. None whatsoever. Yet, there is constant talk of the harm of excess wages. They paint a picture of the sky falling if you raise the min wage or overpay on labor, but in the same context, no talk of the harm of excess profit. That’s okay. I see right through the bs, just wish people like you could too. Stop beating down your fellow workers. They are not greedy for wanting better pay and benefits, they are trying to survive and provide a decent living for their family. Go cry about the billionaires taking money out of your pocket by making you pay higher taxes, but continue to cry and rally around the idea that their taxes should be lowered….you are MVP for their team, yet don’t let you enjoy any of the spoils. So keep crying that govt workers are robbing you and increasing your taxes.
3b, what do you have to say about this? They are sticking it in your a$$, dude! Why no anger at this dispicable behavior based on short term thinking to put money in their pockets now at the expense of our society’s future? Do you understand the destruction this brings to our economy?
“From Value Creation to Value Extraction
For three decades I’ve been studying how the resource allocation decisions of major U.S. corporations influence the relationship between value creation and value extraction, and how that relationship affects the U.S. economy. From the end of World War II until the late 1970s, a retain-and-reinvest approach to resource allocation prevailed at major U.S. corporations. They retained earnings and reinvested them in increasing their capabilities, first and foremost in the employees who helped make firms more competitive. They provided workers with higher incomes and greater job security, thus contributing to equitable, stable economic growth—what I call “sustainable prosperity.”
This pattern began to break down in the late 1970s, giving way to a downsize-and-distribute regime of reducing costs and then distributing the freed-up cash to financial interests, particularly shareholders. By favoring value extraction over value creation, this approach has contributed to employment instability and income inequality.”
“Given incentives to maximize shareholder value and meet Wall Street’s expectations for ever higher quarterly EPS, top executives turned to massive stock repurchases, which helped them “manage” stock prices. The result: Trillions of dollars that could have been spent on innovation and job creation in the U.S. economy over the past three decades have instead been used to buy back shares for what is effectively stock-price manipulation.”
https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity
Sure it’s “private” money on the cover, but in theory, there is no such thing as private. It’s all a part of the system. It was only given the label “private” because it was thought that this was the most efficient means of creating value from the economic system by placing private ownership into the hands of the economic players and letting them “compete.” It really all belongs to the economic system. Communism leaves no illusion to this, it tells you everything from the get go is owned by the “economic system.”
So the point is, whether communism or capitalism, its important that money be used for the benefit of the economic system as a whole. Right now, our economic system is not running efficiently and income inequality is your proof. The system is not working properly when so much capital is concentrated. I bang my head trying to explain this, but people just can’t seem to grasp it. I’ll keep trying till they do.