So it wasn’t subprime?

From Quartz:

House flippers triggered the US housing market crash, not poor subprime borrowers

The grim tale of America’s “subprime mortgage crisis” delivers one of those stinging moral slaps that Americans seem to favor in their histories. Poor people were reckless and stupid, banks got greedy. Layer in some Wall Street dark arts, and there you have it: a global financial crisis.

Dark arts notwithstanding, that’s not what really happened, though.

Mounting evidence suggests that the notion that the 2007 crash happened because people with shoddy credit borrowed to buy houses they couldn’t afford is just plain wrong. The latest comes in a new NBER working paper arguing that it was wealthy or middle-class house-flipping speculators who blew up the bubble to cataclysmic proportions, and then wrecked local housing markets when they defaulted en masse.

Analyzing a huge dataset of anonymous credit scores from Equifax, a credit reporting bureau, the economists—Stefania Albanesi of the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Geneva’s Giacomo De Giorgi, and Jaromir Nosal of Boston College—found that the biggest growth of mortgage debt during the housing boom came from those with credit scores in the middle and top of the credit score distribution—and that these borrowers accounted for a disproportionate share of defaults.

As for those with low credit scores—the “subprime” borrowers who supposedly caused the crisis—their borrowing stayed virtually constant throughout the boom. And while it’s true that these types of borrowers usually default at relatively higher rates, they didn’t after the 2007 housing collapse. The lowest quartile in the credit score distribution accounted for 70% of foreclosures during the boom years, falling to just 35% during the crisis.

So why were relatively wealthier folks borrowing so much?

Recall that back then the mantra was that housing prices would keep rising forever. Since owning a home is one of the best ways to build wealth in America, most of those with sterling credit already did. Low rates encouraged some of them to parlay their credit pedigree and growing existing home value into mortgages for additional homes. Some of these were long-term purchases (e.g. vacation homes, homes held for rental income). But as a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report from 2011 reveals (pdf, p.26), an increasing share bought with the aim to “flip” the home a few months or years later for a tidy profit.

Come 2007, investors accounted for 43% of the total mortgage balance for the top credit-score quartile. For the middle two quartiles, speculators were responsible for around 35% in 2007.

This set up a dangerous dynamic. The mortgages these prime borrowers were able to secure were much bigger than those taken out by poor homebuyers. Worse, speculators have less incentive to hold onto their extra homes than those who only own one home. So when the housing market started tumbling and the economy soon followed, they were much more willing to default and foreclose, as you can see in the chart below.

This would explain why, as the researchers put it, “the rise in mortgage delinquencies is virtually exclusively accounted for by real estate investors.” The share of single-mortgage borrowers who couldn’t keep up on their loan payments barely budged between 2005 and 2008.

Recent research—particularly that by Antoinette Schoar, a finance professor at MIT Sloan—has been helping rewrite the received wisdom of the “subprime crisis” that has blamed the crisis on poor, reckless borrowers for the better part of a decade. Schoar’s work reveals that borrowing and defaults had risen proportionally across income levels and credit score, but that those with sounder credit ratings drove the rise in delinquencies. This new paper’s investigation into the habits of middle- and upper-income real estate speculators in the run-up to the crisis marks yet another chapter of the history books in desperate need of revision.

This entry was posted in Foreclosures, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, Risky Lending. Bookmark the permalink.

88 Responses to So it wasn’t subprime?

  1. Mike says:

    Good Morning New Jersey

  2. Grab them by the puzzy says:

    @TheStalwart
    This is a must-read from @CalebMelby and @davidkski on the burgeoning financial headache facing the Kushners

    “Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away.

    His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.”

  3. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Aka the boomers hit peak spending years, creating the bubble based on their huge demographic spending patterns. How long has Pumpkin stated this? The crash came when they finally started pulling back on spending because they were going into their next stage….retirement. When a demographic group comes close to retirement, they simply stop spending. It’s as simple as that folks. And I have been saying this for how long?

    “Recall that back then the mantra was that housing prices would keep rising forever. Since owning a home is one of the best ways to build wealth in America, most of those with sterling credit already did. Low rates encouraged some of them to parlay their credit pedigree and growing existing home value into mortgages for additional homes. Some of these were long-term purchases (e.g. vacation homes, homes held for rental income). But as a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report from 2011 reveals (pdf, p.26), an increasing share bought with the aim to “flip” the home a few months or years later for a tidy profit.”

  4. The Great Pumpkin says:

    You think I could make a prediction back in 2012/13 and be right on a lucky hunch? It was based on demographic spending patterns and business cycles.

  5. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Just think about it. The biggest demographic group was in a competition/race to spend on housing driving up the price to unheard levels. They suddenly stopped, and the prices were no longer sustainable since those prices were based on their spending competition. So they stagnated or dropped. Simple as that folks.

  6. grim says:

    His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue.

    Who cares? Every commercial real estate company is sitting on a pile of debt, and a building on 5th Ave isn’t going to be owned free and clear. This is nonsense, not news.

    What next? Because it’s #666, clearly this is unequivocal proof that Trump and Kushner made a deal with the devil?

    When is Bernie’s wife going to jail for her failed real estate fraud anyway?

  7. Grab them by the puzzy says:

    “It was 2006—the height of the real-estate market boom—when Kushner Cos. agreed to buy 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, then a record for a Manhattan building. All of it was borrowed except for $50 million. The company still holds half of a $1.2 billion mortgage, on which it hasn’t paid a cent. The full amount is due in February 2019.”

    “If that building was beginning to look obsolete at the time of purchase, it is totally obsolete now,” says Jesse Keenan, a Harvard lecturer on architecture who wrote a 2013 report on the building for Kushner Cos. He notes that Manhattan is in the midst of its largest office-construction boom since the 1980s. The most prestigious occupants—hedge funds, private equity and law firms—are moving west to new buildings, shifting the center of gravity away from the Kushners.”

  8. grim says:

    Have you seen the redevelopment plans? It’ll be a beautiful building.

    Do you know that the Kushners hired a Muslim woman who was born in Iraq to design it? Go figure, right?

    https://www.dezeen.com/2017/03/23/zaha-hadid-architects-666-fifth-avenue-skyscraper-compared-glass-dildo-architecture-offices/

    Will be valued near $12 billion.

  9. D-FENS says:

    Amateur video going viral of a white sedan trying to ram the presidential motorcade in Missouri.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yqa5PUViPo

  10. JCer says:

    Puzzy, morons in the media know nothing about real estate and business. Kushner and the Kushner Companies are not liable on the debt, it’s all about salvaging their 50m+ investment which is a considerable sum even to Kushner who is likely worth 1bn but it will not break them. The likely occurrence is the debt is negotiated down and restructured or the creditors take the building and the LE that owns the building and the associated debt goes bankrupt. My money is on a conversion of debt into equity and new capital injections because the belief that Kushner with his powerful connections will be able to redevelop and unlock value. The only thing that is proof of is that Jared is not the real estate investor his father, uncle and grand parents were, he flash not substance.

  11. Yo! says:

    So many news sources had credibility then lost it – Fox, CNN, NY Times, njrereport. Cause is diminishing quality of contributors.

  12. Yo! says:

    Manhattan office building today are like New Jersey office buildings 20 years ago – horrible investments.

  13. JCer says:

    Over paying for assets is never good, the value is always in the dirt so Manhattan is a better bet than suburban offices ever were. Keep in mind this is all purchased with very cheap money and there is little skin the game. I have seen 150m deals where the developer has 4m invested the rest is borrowed.

  14. Bystander says:

    Yes I hear back in 2002, all people born between 1946 and 1964 held a meeting on how to use their vast wealth to create a housing bubble. Idiot. Some us actually worked in the finance and real estate industries and thus saw the machinery first hand. We don’t need your vague and witless econ101 statements to theorize what happened.

  15. No One says:

    One bit of exciting news for NJ is that for high income earners, the effective state income tax rate after Federal tax deductibility ends could nearly effectively double from 5.4% to 10.75%. Right now NJ’s top rate is at 8.97%. But that’s deductible from the top Federal state bracket of 39.7%. So the effective marginal rate is 5.4%.
    The new federal income tax reform rumors are that state income tax will no longer be deductible, (or as the lefties say, “will no longer be subsidized”). At the same time, Phil “I got you back (stabbed)” Murphy is vowing to raise top state income tax rates to 10.75%.
    So effective marginal NJ income tax rates could rise to 10.75% from 5.4%.
    No wonder I see so many For Sale signs on the big $3m+ mansions in Mendham.

  16. D-FENS says:

    @BevHillsAntifa
    Follow
    More
    Tips for new Antifa members

    https://twitter.com/BevHillsAntifa/status/881559375768297472

  17. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    “His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue.”

    If he declares bankruptcy, I imagine it would receive a fast-track approval. No?

  18. 3b says:

    Los Angeles dumps Columbus Day and replaced it with indigenous peoples day. Poor Chris held responsible for all that came after him.

  19. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    “Poor Chris held responsible for all that came after him.”

    Nigger please. Columbus didn’t have to suffer the extreme guilt of privilege like the progressives currently are.

  20. grim says:

    Bankruptcy? Not a chance.

  21. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    I kid.

  22. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    Absolutely stunning building by the way. It will definitely find high end tenants, both commercial and residential. It has that Middle Eastern, nouveau-riche style that sultans and emirs like to burn their oil wealth on.

  23. 3b says:

    Steam this country is going to tear itself apart. As my dear Immigrant Father used to say if Ametica goes down. The whole world goes with it. I believe he is right.

  24. grim says:

    And why the f*ck is anyone surprised that foreign capital drives commercial real estate development in the US?

    Shocking that China and the Middle East invest in US real estate, right?

    Jesus christ.

  25. 3b says:

    All commecial real estate have mortgages most of them will never be mortgage free nor is the intention there that they ever would be mortgage free.

  26. grim says:

    If you were billionaire in China or Russia and wanted your money to be safe, where would you put it? First National Stalingrad? Chengdubank?

    Nobody complained when half the subprime bubble was underwritten by China.

  27. 3b says:

    I just wonder how this all turns out with more companies adding work form home options. Supposedly for quality of life. But I suspect more to save on leasing costs.

  28. grim says:

    I can drive you through Alpine and point out no less than 20 $5 million plus houses owned by Russians. Most are sitting empty, or being house-sit by grandma babushka.

  29. grim says:

    Foreign nationals, not citizens, lots of plutocrats and Russian oil money.

  30. grim says:

    Who, by the way, are paying astronomical property taxes, paying for lots of government employees, lots of pensions. Evil Russians, all of them. Probably trying to hack your email as we speak.

    Democrats vilify Russians like Republicans vilify Muslims.

  31. 3b says:

    The left wanted engagement with the Russians when it was the brutal Soviet communist dictatorship that murdered millions. Now that it’s just a regular old dictatorship they are evil. China who is far more of a threat to the USA in multiple ways is ignored.

  32. 3b says:

    Liberals vilify Christians because of their stand on various issues and intolerance yet Muslims share many of these same beliefs even the moderate ones and in many cases are more intolerant than Christians but the left is silent. Just saying.

  33. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    3B,

    I would argue that this country today, though divided politically more than ever, is far from tearing itself apart. The political class is loving every minute of this. Instead of the populace focusing on the corruption of pay to play politics, which keeps them both in power and enriched. We are instead focused on bullsh1t social and environmental issues or bullsh1t economic issues. The truth is, the soc1alist didn’t change the average American life whatsoever, nor has the orange one. At the end of the day, I go to work, I collect my paycheck, I spend it on necessities and occasionally take a vacation. Sure, a few homos feel less threatened now and a few coal miners got their jobs back. But at the end of the day, I go to work, I collect my paycheck, I spend it on necessities and occasionally take a vacation.

    I can’t emphasize this enough. The BIG ISSUES that both parties flaunt are crap. No one dare touches the sacred cows. The goal is to enrich the political class. The rest is bread and circuses. Trust me.

    In ten years or so, I will be laying on a hammock in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica laughing at you silly Americans worrying about auto emissions and hermaphrodite rights with nothing to worry about except what kind of fish I will be catching tomorrow.

  34. 3b says:

    Steam perhaps you are right. And I agree with much of what you say. I used to be the political geek loved politics since I was a kid. Now I don’t care anymore and with the exception of a few posts I am silent. I now get lectures from people who identify as left who prior to Trump were a political could not care less. Now they are experts. On the other side I get fox speak. No critical thinking on eithe side. Ironically the only person I can have an intelligent political conversation with is a friend who is a retired NYU professor and an advowed communist. He shares your belief it’s the elites on both sides who created this madness. Finally if we are not tearing ourselves apart than I would argue our best days are behind us as a nation.

  35. D-FENS says:

    The comment on China is completely wrong and misinformed.

    3b says:
    August 31, 2017 at 11:27 am
    The left wanted engagement with the Russians when it was the brutal Soviet communist dictatorship that murdered millions. Now that it’s just a regular old dictatorship they are evil. China who is far more of a threat to the USA in multiple ways is ignored.

  36. JJ fanboy says:

    Gas is now $2.49 a gallon, up about 30 cents in less then a week. And every gas station in my town in north Texas has a line of at least 20 cars

  37. Fast Eddie says:

    Stu,

    Don’t you at least want to stick around to pummel snowflakes in their p.ussy hats? Its coming soon. It’ll be done with long before you leave.

  38. 3b says:

    D fenss You can disagree with me but you cannot say I am completely wrong. I believe China is a threat to us in both the short term and the long term.

  39. Steamturd, Part Time Orientalist and Full Time Mysoginist says:

    Gary,

    I agree, the pussification is annoying. But it will swing back. It’s all low hanging fruit.

    3b,

    Yes, the best days are definitely behind us, unless of course, the people stop fighting over the crumbs. This country still fosters incredible ingenuity and creativity. If our government could actually get back to doing what is best for the people, rather than what is best for their own pockets, we’d still have a chance. Unfortunately, it would probably take a “real” war to get us focused on what matters again. Not that I wish for this.

  40. JJ fanboy says:

    My town has become crowded in the last two days. Other locals have noticed the same thing. There are probably tons of evacuees who drove to my area to stay with friends and family. Gas stations, restaurants and grocery stores are all much more crowded.

  41. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Maybe if you got your head out of your ass, you would realize I’m right. You are trying to tell me that zero down loans are responsible for that huge bubble? It’s a symptom, not the cause. The cause was plain and simple, the largest demographic group were in peak spending years (aka flush with cash for simple minded idiots like yourself). They took the money from dot com bust and went nuts buying real estate. The zero down loans were just a creation from their appetite to buy anything and everything they could get their hands on. You can blame the details, or you can blame the real reason….a huge demographic group went all in on investing in real estate during their peak spending years. Without that huge block of spenders, there would never ever have been such a high demand for real estate. Btw, go f!ck yourself for trying to belittle the individual trying to educate you. Class dismissed.

    P.s. Don’t forget that our economy growth is based on 70% consumption before you spit out some more nonsense.

    Bystander says:
    August 31, 2017 at 9:44 am
    Yes I hear back in 2002, all people born between 1946 and 1964 held a meeting on how to use their vast wealth to create a housing bubble. Idiot. Some us actually worked in the finance and real estate industries and thus saw the machinery first hand. We don’t need your vague and witless econ101 statements to theorize what happened.

  42. bi says:

    good surprise to see you guys are still alive. enjoy your labor day weekend

  43. The Great Pumpkin says:

    “Best Buy jacks up prices in Texas hurricane – charges $42 for a case of water – and then, after being exposed, corporate headquarters blame local employees. What the “free” in free enterprise means.”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/best-buy-water-hurricane-harvey-2017-8

  44. 3b says:

    Class dismissed!! Too funny! Self awareness indeed.

  45. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Biggest crooks are in private sector business…and we want to take away regulations? Yes, let’s take the government’s power to stop these crooks from fu!king everyone. Great idea.

    Cringe when I hear there are too many regulations. More like there are too many damn crooks that can’t be trusted. Regulations would not have been created if these crooks didn’t create a need for them in first place….fact.

  46. 3b says:

    Let’s have government regulation too as in revgualte the government employees. I mean people are people right? Or is it only the private sector that has the bad guys?

  47. Steamturd supporting the Canklephate says:

    Here’s a regulation. If a politician is found guilty of behaving in an unethical manner, a poisonous snake is shoved up their ass.

  48. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Scumbags. Never fails with these types. Hey, welfare is bad, till I need it….

    “Texas lawmakers are rushing to defend their 2013 votes against spending $50.5 billion on Hurricane Sandy relief.”

    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/hurricane-sandy-relief-fact-check.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=http://m.facebook.com

  49. The Great Pumpkin says:

    The guys that are crooks in the private sector are the ones that hijack the govt. They are responsible for the corruption of our govt. Understand this. Blame the real problem, rich greedy businessmen that turn to the dark side and corrupt whatever they touch. They bribe the govt.

    3b says:
    August 31, 2017 at 1:56 pm
    Let’s have government regulation too as in revgualte the government employees. I mean people are people right? Or is it only the private sector that has the bad guys?

  50. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Can the same law be applied to business?

    Steamturd supporting the Canklephate says:
    August 31, 2017 at 2:00 pm
    Here’s a regulation. If a politician is found guilty of behaving in an unethical manner, a poisonous snake is shoved up their ass.

  51. The Great Pumpkin says:

    If a businessman or politician is found guilty of behaving in an unethical manner, a poisonous snake is shoved up their ass. Much better.

  52. 3b says:

    Pumps it’s not just that. Lots of goverrnmndt employees bilking the system every day. Padding over time. No show jobs. And so much more. Are you going to blame the business class for that as well?

  53. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s not the entire business class. Only the crooks. Too bad the crooks get most of the power.

  54. JCer says:

    No one that’s insane, is it not bad enough that the high tax states subsidize most of the federal government but they want to tax money used to pay local taxes? How about we shrink the federal government to a more reasonable size and we can pay more in tax to the local government? As bad as NJ’s government is the feds are arguably worse and seem to be even less efficient spenders.

  55. D-FENS says:

    What’s wrong with your statement is that it IS currently being dealt with. It’s no coincidence that N Korea is in the news around the same time economic pressure is exerted on China.

    3b says:
    August 31, 2017 at 12:08 pm
    D fenss You can disagree with me but you cannot say I am completely wrong. I believe China is a threat to us in both the short term and the long term.

  56. Phoenix says:

    3b,
    Until we are willing to consider white collar crime in the same manner as other crime the padding will only continue.
    People in America spend more time in jail for smoking weed then for stealing a million dollars. Destroying a family financially is just as devastating but is less morally disagreeable. Barack Obama should have sent those bankers to prison. Money talks.

  57. Phoenix says:

    Pumps,
    Tie the relief funds to this: You want the funds, you recuse your right to vote against disaster relief in the future. Texans make your choice.

  58. Grab them by the puzzy says:

    @ericgarland

    BREAKING:

    Presidential pardons unlikely to stop Trump from avoiding prosecutions on MANY CRIMES in MULTIPLE STATES.

  59. 3b says:

    Dfens it’s smoke and mirrors in my opinion. China is a threat.

  60. D-FENS says:

    White House weighing a tax on remittances to Mexico to fund border wall
    by Gabby Morrongiello | Aug 31, 2017, 1:12 PM

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-weighing-a-tax-on-remittances-to-mexico-to-fund-border-wall/article/2633089

  61. Phoenix says:

    China has a backdoor in every computer hardware chip they manufacture. Or is it the USA government? Well someone does anyway..

  62. Phoenix says:

    DFens,

    Better not rush to build that wall just yet. Texans need lots of cheap skilled labor to rebuild their water logged homes. Contractor s going to need them soon!

  63. Phoenix says:

    Should also be a tax on remittances from seniors that cash out in Jersey and move somewhere else..

  64. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    I sold all of my Utility and Precious Metals stocks today. I’m usually wrong/early with moves like this.

  65. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    Stupid article,

    no one who was in the know ever claimed subprime were the cause. Anyone who was in the know knew the entire housing market and all its aspects were unhealthy. To try to blame on a single cause is stupid.

    Rich people, middle class, poor people, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, bankers, investors, congressman, bad legislation…there are many bad actors.

  66. Grab them by the puzzy says:

    @foxnewspoll

    BREAKING! 56% say #Trump “tearing the country apart” @FoxNews #Poll

  67. Bystander says:

    Let me destroy your stupid argument.Peak spending occurs by mid-40s, particularly on housing. So, asshat, tell me how being born between 1946 to 1956 (which more than 50% of boomers were) puts the generation in peak years during bubble? It shows smartest boomers sold with huge equity gains, and stupidest ones probably took HELOCs and blew it on cars, kids and vacations. The people holding the bag were gen x, late boomers and oldest millenials who needed housing in their 20s and 30s.

  68. Yo! says:

    Somebody mentioned Costa Rica. I’m headed to soccer game tomorrow. US-Costa Rica biggest soccer game in state since Italy-Ireland in 1994. World Cup qualification at stake.

    In addition to the game, I’m excited about the journey. Looking forward to PATH trip through Journal Square and Harrison stations. Best real estate news in decades coming out of these neighborhoods.

  69. D-FENS says:

    Dianne Feinstein stuns California crowd by saying Trump “can be a good president” washex.am/2iIXO2v

    Grab them by the puzzy says:
    August 31, 2017 at 6:11 pm
    @foxnewspoll

    BREAKING! 56% say #Trump “tearing the country apart” @FoxNews #Poll

  70. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Bystander,

    Baby boomers went to 1960.

    “To my knowledge only one well known economist has done the necessary research on this extremely interesting economic statistic. As we know, the consumer (singular, couples and companies) accounts for almost 75 percent of spending – government bodies spend the rest. Therefore, one would deem an thoughtful investigation of consumers spending habits to be critical information to any economy. Mr Harry Dent Jnr, who was a New York Times financial writer for fifteen years, is the economist who has pinpointed that the age at which consumers spend the most is 46 years. At this age their kids have left home(hopefully), so they upgrade to a bigger lavish home and maybe a luxury car, along with updating furnishings and white goods. It makes sense, as that is what I did . Being born in 1946, I was the first year of the massive baby boomer generation. We are retired or preparing for retirement, and our big spending days are past. The next generation has not begun to enter its peak spending years yet, as the oldest is about 42. This is why inflation is so subdued and cannot rise to an acceptable level until about 2022, albeit slowly. Our lacking central banks strategy of money printing to stimulate inflation was doomed from the beginning. They’re still scratching their heads.”

    Now is there a coincidence that the youngest boomers hit peak spending year in 2006? Then the economy slowly went downward till it crashed from their lack of spending. Open your mind, pumps is dead on with this.

  71. Yo! says:

    I read the paper blaming flippers for the real estate crash. Was a waste of time. Intellectually dishonest. No mention of why Texas avoided the crash. Just a vapid piece. The lead author’s main academic is gender studies.

    Not that flippers don’t deserve some of the blame. I know many who walked away from traps in “gentrifying future Hobokens” in places like Paterson.

  72. ex-Jersey says:

    Is gender studies the new communications degree? Or is it dog whistle for liberal writer?

  73. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Our own state politicians stabbing us in the back for these other states. Check out this gem from 2011. I hope they vote him out.

    “The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed an amended energy and water bill Friday that would divert $1 billion from high-speed rail projects — including electrical upgrades on the busy Northeast Corridor Line in New Jersey — to pay for flood relief along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.”

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/house_of_representatives_passe_1.html

  74. The Great Pumpkin says:

    To all the doubters, answer this.

    How do you build an enormous bubble in real estate without a huge demographic cohort flush with cash? Please explain, I’m all ears.

  75. The Great Pumpkin says:

    That’s the got damn text book definition of how a bubble is created. A bunch of people with money competing over the same asset driving up the price. If the boomers didn’t support this pricing, the speculators would have not came out of the woodwork. The boomers spending created the market environment for speculation.

    Why do you think it was so easy to double your money in the beginning years of the real estate bubble 2000-2004…..you had an enormous amount of buyers buying multiple properties. Jesus, it’s like taking candy from a baby, the demographic bloc of spenders all converging at the same time….talk about market support for higher pricing.

    Why is this so hard to understand?

  76. The Great Pumpkin says:

    If I had to guess, I would say the huge investments in the energy industry helped Texas economy stay afloat. Just a guess, I have no idea.

    “No mention of why Texas avoided the crash.”

  77. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    Pumps is a fearful pawn that has never left Passaic County. His cowardice dictates his reality.

  78. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    ^^^built upon the foundation laid by a dodgy upbringing.

  79. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    chifi – You may be right that Bloomberg radio is still biased. I never listen past 10AM. When I stated that they have dropped their bias I was talking specifically about Tom Keene. He was so snide right up until the election, but seems to be nowhere near as overt anymore.

  80. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    vis-à-vis education: I’m just glad that NJ, Westchester, and LI folks are smart enough to send all their tuition, housing, and “emergency” credit cards to Massachusetts with their progeny. I think I might have had a one night stand with Pumps wife when she was here.

  81. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    IMO, the stupidest school funding model is the one they use in New Hampshire. Essentially everyone pays the state and the state sends the money to the poorest districts. Here’s the real kicker – the districts receiving the money have no obligation to spend it on schools! They can (and have) built swimming pools and other such crap with the money. We used to have friends who were empty-nesters in NH and they couldn’t stop themselves from talking about how much they were getting robbed.

    http://www.nhpolicy.org/report/new-hampshireamp39s-latest-school-funding-formula

  82. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    A few weeks ago I found an NY style bagel store only 2 miles away from our house. If you leave before 7AM you can park right in front and be back home with 13 fresh bagels for $8.50 in less than 20 minutes.

  83. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    Sold 12,000 shares yesterday at 8.99. I have 77 shares left. It’s up another 0.93% this morning in London.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=lon%3Aaal&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS695US695&oq=lon&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j69i61j69i57j69i59j0.2410j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    The Original NJ ExPat says:
    August 8, 2017 at 8:08 am
    Even if you like your 30%, 60 day returns, I would start taking some money off the table. I am.

    The Original NJ ExPat says:
    June 12, 2017 at 8:29 am
    Stock pick of the day: NGLOY

  84. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    Astros acquired Verlander yesterday!

  85. Bystander says:

    1964 actually dufus and most had houses and were raising kids by 2000. You don’t need a “generation” when you are handing out loans like speeding tickets on your street (apparently). There were multiple causes and shams along the way, not one. It has been discussed to death. Go continue to jerk to your single economic “theory”

Comments are closed.