patrick.net

The sf.gov website used to have a lot of information up about properties, I used it when a friend was looking for a house about 4 or 5 years ago. The site is still up, with the taxes per year and parcel number for each address, but they took down the deed holders' names.

When I said “local” I meant fairly large establishments, such as Zion’s Bank and State Farm Bank, that had local B&M offices. I understand that the “3rd national bank of Nampa” may be a little more risky.

Is there any reason why one should go to a local bank as opposed to a bankster bank that cannot be let fail?

HiThere,

What concerns me about the future of the US economy is that for the American middle class real income has declined for 5 straight years. The upper class is fine, but I fear that the middle is increasingly being pushed downward economically while at the same time living an aspirationally driven lifestyle financed by easy credit. The whole subprime mess to me seems to be partially a result of this aspirational/luxury lifestyle change.

Subprimes may have been a fairly small part of the mortgage market, but with this change in zeitgeist the demand in the secondary market for jumbo mortgages has dried up, which will certainly have some effect on the RE market in the bubble states.

BOFA did not invest, they LENT $2B to CFC at 7.25%.

The loan it is convertible to common stock (later) at $18.
It is not an "investment" until it is converted to stock, rather
than owed to BofA.

That is 2B/18=111M shares or dilution of 17% when the time comes,
and the stock reacted by jumping $4+ to $26? Weird.

Is it just me or do HiThere and TOS share the same affinity for Ben Stein?

SFWoman,

While I'm sure the upper class will fare better I'd read Romney had a HUGE HF loss. Sure, he can weather it better than most but we may find this meltdown affects the wealthy more than previous downturns.

Like Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel'd and Dimed) says, "Stick it to the super wealthy! Don't pay your mortgage (and don't move out!)"

DinOR,

I think there will be a lot of HF problems. The economic upperclass has done EXTRORDINARILY well for the past 5 or 6 years, however, while the middle has really fallen behind. The lowest economic class actually made a tiny bit of progress.

Skibum, Accredited Home Lenders has stopped lending only to the US. Time to buy abroad?

I've been in Europe for a while now, enjoying the awesome spending power of the Euro and British Pound (NOT).

Can't get a mortgage, even if I wanted to buy an overpriced home in BA, can't get any value for my US dollars abroad, and now the Fed is moving toward lowering the Prime rate.

Back to the topic... I was amazed at the number of foreign looking names I found on Property Shark. That doesn't necessarily mean they are foreign owners, but I suspect that is the case.

With the falling US dollar, I would expect an even greater influx of foreigners buying up BA properties. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just wondering where I can put my money.

Guess I'm moving to Mexico? Should be plenty of fixer uppers in the Cancun area.

FYI, tonight's mega millions is up to 200 million pesos, er dollars.

With the falling US dollar, I would expect an even greater influx of foreigners buying up BA properties. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just wondering where I can put my money.

Asian currencies have not appreciated too much against the Peso yet.

The Bay Area is too boring for European. Get real, people. The Bay Area is very nice (for those who are can afford only one "primary" residence) but rich Europeans have seen the world.

>. Discount window lending is *not* inflationary unless the Fed keeps renewing those loans indefinitely. That’s actually the intent of the discount window — most loans are 1-3 days in duration.

FED is willing to do 30 day loan indefinitely. Correct me if I am wrong ...

Wilbur Ross said this:

I recently overheard two men arguing about who was better off. One boasted about his new car, the other about a plasma TV and so on, until one proclaimed, "I am better off because I owe more than you are worth." The second man conceded defeat. This anecdote summarizes the mortgage bubble. Americans spent more than they earned in 2005 and 2006 and borrowed the difference. The federal government did the same. Everyone secretly feared this was unsound but wanted immediate gratification, so there was applause for talking heads who said global liquidity would make these borrowings safe. Alan Greenspan went so far as to suggest that people take out adjustable-rate mortgages.

Is there any reason why one should go to a local bank as opposed to a bankster bank that cannot be let fail?

Bankster banks (e.g. BofA) pay around 2% on MM accounts: the ones I chose pay over 5%.

Bankster banks (e.g. BofA) pay around 2% on MM accounts: the ones I chose pay over 5%.

Fidelity has MM funds that are paying over 5%.

BTW, IIRC MM funds are investment products and they are not guaranteed against losses.

Rich Europeans may have seen the world, but they've seen mostly rain this summer. Northern Europe has been soaked. I came back looking like a prune this year. So glad to be back in the sun.

If I were a rich European, particularly in the North, I'd be seriously considering a nice house on the sunny West Coast of CA. The further away from Greenland one can get, the better off. (Greenland has about 8% of the world's glaciers, all melting right now, and falling on London and Amsterdam)

But it's not likely most Europeans will want to put up with the likes of Bush.
I think they'd rather drown.

Hi Everyone; been a while since I've been on here. Has anyone seen this "Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007". ?

The Lyndon LaRouche committee is trying to get congress to pass this insane bill. Since I haven't been here in a while, I don't know if you've had any discussion on it; if not, I think this could really use a thread of it's own.

If I were a rich European, particularly in the North, I’d be seriously considering a nice house on the sunny West Coast of CA.

That would probably mean Santa Barbara... or perhaps Newport Beach...

The best parts of the Bay Area rain a lot.

The Bay Area is attractive only to those who think humans live to work... and that Monta Vista is the Holy Grail of success.

Yeah, I saw that Allah, and also Chuck Schumer's effort to bail out mortgage owners.

http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/

It's a crime. Let the free market work, dammit. If the economy implodes because Americans can't make their mortgage payments, so be it. No amount of money in the US coffers is going to save us anyway. We need China for that. We've made our bed, and now we have lie in it.

Or emmigrate.

The number of "insane" legislative initiatives across the political spectrum of the US w.r.t. mortgage bailouts is leaning me toward that latter option (among other factors).

I would say yes to a new thread on crazy bills to 'help' the poor mortgage owners. I'd also say, write your representatives.

SP

What do you mean by majors? Let us say hypothetically, despite spreading things around a bit, I have in excess of the FDIC limit in a couple of places. What would you consider a ‘major’, something like BofA? At the moment, I don’t feel comfortable handing my money to merrill lynch to manage either.

Money markets at large, national banks will not be allowed to fail. I doubt money markets at large brokers will either. The consequences of even a tiny failure in this regard results in the following news report:

"Mary Smith went into her local Wells Fargo to tap into her savings account to help pay her rent for the month. She lost her job, like hundreds of thousands of others, due to the current recession. But when the teller told her she would only get $80 for every $100 she deposited, and for the rest she'd have to fill out a form to submit to the government, she began to cry uncontrollably."

"Like millions of other hard working Americans, Mary found out that up to 20% of her money was simply 'gone'. And, though the government guarantees this money through FDIC insurance, Mary will be unable to pay her rent in the coming months unless someone gives her money back quickly."

This report would be followed by scattered reports of massive lines at closed bank doors, sporadic violence, and appeals for calm.

Instead the government will just make sure that money market funds are redeemable. It hasn't been long enough since the Great Depression yet for the government to let the banks *be perceived* as failing. Not yet anyway. Maybe in 20-30 years, but not today.

If I were rich, I would live in...

Spring: Sedona
Summer: Côte d'Azur or British Columbia
Autumn: New England
Winter: Florida, Hawaii, or Gold Coast

I hear ya Peter P. It takes only a few days in Europe to realize how much we work to live here in the good ole US of A.

Not yet anyway. Maybe in 20-30 years, but not today.

So long as the Boomers are alive and voting, the electronic printing press is going to run 24/7.

You really shouldn't be spending Winters in Florida if you want to avoid the Boomers. Plus, the bugs are still as big as your head in Winter as they are any other time of the year. I grew up there and still appreciate a healthy respect for the Palmetto bug.

Go for Hawaii, where you will encounter only one of those pests.

I am afraid of bugs. :(

Me too, especially big ones that FLY! Oh the horrors...

OK, no Florida... back to the good old Bay Area. :)

About Europeans coming to America, I think they really did between 1990 and 1995. And not a few of them bought vacation homes, though I don't think many kept them for more than a few years.

Were there Asians aplenty in the BA at that time?

Oh, I apologize.

I forget - and probably will again - that something which happened twelve or seventeen years ago isn't "recently". Never mind.

BTW, IIRC MM funds are investment products and they are not guaranteed against losses.

I think we are quibbeling over definitions. What the banks used to call a savings account are now called money-market accounts, and are insured to $100K by FDIC. Credit unions call savings accounts MM accounts too, and are insured by state or fed. CU insurance. MM accounts through a brokerage are a different animal.

How safe are CD's at Patelco (a credit union) ?

Peter P Says:
If I were rich, I would live in…
Spring: Sedona
Summer: Côte d’Azur or British Columbia
Autumn: New England
Winter: Florida, Hawaii, or Gold Coast

I would rather live some place where it didn't matter if I was rich...

btw, Corsica is just as nice (and much less touristy) than the Côte d’Azur. It is also inexpensive enough to make it a decent year round domicile,
SP

I would rather live some place where it didn’t matter if I was rich…

Well, so long as there is good food. It is not possible to have good restaurants without the presence of the rich.

It is also inexpensive enough to make it a decent year round domicile

But won't you get bored with a place?

From Patelco site:
"Patelco Credit Union is privately insured by American Share Insurance up to $250,000 per account.
This institution is not federally insured, and if the institution fails, the federal government does not guarantee that depositors will get back their money.
Accounts with this institution are not insured by any state government. "

That's odd. My accounts with Star One CU (formerly Lockheed CU) and Idaho Central CU are federally insured by NCUA.

For NCUA information see http://ncua.gov/Publications/brochures/insured_funds/funds.pdf

I use Patelco as my main bank, too, and I think it is cute and friendly and all, but I would not really want to hold substantial assets there. I am not really sure who "American Share Insurance" is, but an institution that touts that touts on its home page that it has "hired three new employees in the audit department" does not have that reassuring ring of solidarity about it that I really want in my financial institutions.

All my real money is with "Too Big To Fail" Citibank.

You know, I have been harboring this suspicion for a long time that most of these hedge funds must really be extremely elaborate Ponzi Schemes in disguise. Perhaps so elaborate that even their managers are not fully aware of this. This explains why they are so hush-hush about their techniques. The recent run on them just confirms this suspicion.

"praise Allah…
them people down south."

And lets give a shout-out to Applewhite and his Heaven's Gate cult as well......

(With honorable mention going out to the People's Temple...of course)

Peter P,

I disagree that it is not possible to have good restaurants without the presence of the rich. There's nothing I love better than finding an actual great local casual restaurant when I'm traveling, and I've found lots of them, particularly in Italy, France, and Mexico. A perfect, fresh meal made out of local whatever in some little restaurant I discover is more exciting to me than going to whatever is the haut cuisine temple du jour to me.

Unfortunately, in the past 20 years (basically since I've been an adult) the great little local places in the US have been increasingly replaced by ghastly chains such as Applebees (which has to have the most horrid food that has ever existed) and its ilk. Driving north on I5 to Oregon and it's a culinary wasteland.

SFWoman,

You might want to check out

http://roadfood.com

It's dedicated to reviewing and recommending good local eats across the US. Their rating system even includes a rating for how much out of the way you should be willing to drive to get to each place.

We've found a few good places from this site, including our recent favorite, Red's Eats in Maine, a little lobster roll shack on the side of the road that has some of the best lobster rolls I've ever had.

skibum,

Thank you. I will try it. I'm just amazed at how when you get off the freeway to eat you can drive all over a lot of towns (Red Bluff, Medford, etc) and not see anyplace that isn't a chain.

skibum,

I just looked at the California and Oregon listings, there is only one restaurant listed between SF and Ashland, Oregon. It's in Winters, I guess I'll try it next drive up.

I can't believe all this talk about money market accounts. If you are that worried, why not just open a treasurydirect account--it is a bit of a hassle if you need to access the money, but at least you know if will be there.

Unless you are nearing retirement, I don't know why anybody would have more than 10-20% in cash anyways.

In some ways, it seems to me that stocks are safer than cash. If a company owns valuable assets and the Fed allows rampant inflation, then those assets should increase in value.

WalMart stock, for example, can be purchased for around $44 (or .5 x sales). If inflation doubles the cost of everything over the next decade, then WalMart's nominal sales and profits will double even with zero "real" growth. If WalMart can continue to make a 3.5% profit margin and their nominal sales double, then that is a 7% return for shareholders--ignoring any non-inflationary (real) growth. So the stock should be worth $88 in ten years. Plus you get a 2% dividend. Plus, if you tack on 3% real growth, then the stock would be at $114 (assuming no PE expansion or contraction) and you would have received over 10 in dividends.

Meanwhile, even if you assume that: (1) money market yields stay at 5% over the next 10 years (big "if" since we will likely have another "down" cycle in rates and a less competitive market in MMFs, led by large, trusted institutions) AND (2) that your MMF doesn't blow up, your $44 would be worth less than $72 (or $36 in 2007 purchasing power) in ten years.