patrick.net

Is the decline surprising? The so-called 'Allah' drove out a bunch of educated regulars, and soon afterwards the vacuum was filled with the return of racists and pedophiles. I don't know what the hell value Patrick sees in race-bashing on a housing bubble blog.

I've resumed reading now that people like PAR, FAB and yourself are posting again. patrick.net used to be sort of a Calculated Risk lite with some cooking and travel thrown in. But I haven't seen astrid around in a long time, nor some other entertaining (former) regulars, and the discussions aren't around useful microeconomics anymore.

Brand,
I agree. Since the allah vs. Randy fallout, there's been a significant decline in the quality of the posts. There are still bursts of good stuff, but it's often drowned out by misogynistic and/or racist crap. I miss the "good old days."

On the other hand, talking about whether or not a housing bubble exists is clearly done for, so that may have had some effect too. I almost miss MarinaPrime/FR. Although, there are still somehow holdout housing bulls on Socket Site and CR.

It's true that we've reached a point where Joe Sixpack knows about the housing bubble. However, I note that Randy is much more aggressive about policing his threads for trolls. When he was posting a lot of articles, the trolls stayed off those discussions or got moderated.

We're in an election year. With the bubble deflating and the economy facing some hard choices, surely we should be having some lively debates about who to put in the White House and congressional seats. I've listened to Ron Paul's propaganda, and while I don't like some of his solutions, the guy has a wonderful grip on the problems facing this nation. He has probably become my front runner.

I think I can still author threads, but I don't really have (nor would I use here) moderation power anymore...since I departed. We had some of the regulars going on my blog for a while, including Astrid who was posting some cool stuff about her Iceland trip and how one eats whale meat, but she moved on to other things as did many others.

For a while I found it entertaining to argue on Zillow because there were still serious realtors and home-sellers there who denied a bubble, and later a credit crises existed. But I got drowned out by their "good neighbor policy" -- which translates into "only posters with official realtor-tags on their screen name can be abusive or insulting, everyone else has to be nice".

I am going to get my blog going again very soon. I've found a couple of other very interesting authors who I hope contribute. I'm just still trying to figure out a decent redesigned look. And, best of all, I'm experimenting with some thread-management plug-ins that let people self-police against trolls, spam and ignorant whack-a-moles who fantasize about being a foot soldier in some race war.

Please do not mention whale meat. Yuck, I still have the taste in my mouth.

I would still be interested in authoring that article about the middle class obsession with gilded wealth. In times past, up-and-coming Americans prided themselves on owning productive assets. The first productive asset most immigrants, farmers and working class people built was themselves--through hard work, sacrifice, education and living within their means. Debt was a tool used to build productive assets like businesses, not a method of buying luxuries people can't afford.

However, I'm not sure a monologue about industriousness and self-sufficiency would fit with Cap 2.0's fresh re-focus on economics and entrepeneurship, and the avoidance of straight up whining about the housing bubble. :o

Ben's blog has remained exactly the same in tone and with the same posters. That guy hasnt taken a day off from the blog in 2 years. hes a machine.

I saw over there DQ reported -26% median price for Santa Barbara county YOY for dec 07. We all know median is bs and this is partly due to the jumbo freeze or whatever its called.... but WOW what a big number. The numbers now are as big as they were on the way up.

Here is another awsome crash story from this week: builder William Lyon sold off 604 lots and a few model homes in SoCal to some hedge fund for 90m(average price about 150k!). I know someone who had put a deposit down on one of these - they refunded his deposit and said basically 'were done here, not building anything else'.

Had they built his house they would have a phase half built out....he cant understand why they didnt build it (950k purchase price) anyway I surmise the profits are too thin and it isnt worth building a few homes and sitting on lots for 2 years and paying salesmen and the marketing and bleeding int payments to the bank...then cutting prices to the bone only to get sued for 'lowering prices' by the last bunch of knife catchers. They are probably in the bahamas now anyway rolling in gold coins. The builders really dont eff around, they are the first to cut prices and the first to raise them. Watch new home prices closely to see where things are going.

here is the link for Wm Lyon story

http://www.buildingonline.com/news/viewnews.pl?id=6754&subcategory=13

I wonder how long the lots will 'rot away' before they build...

@OO,

Just put it in foreign stocks like I plan to. I have a large exposure to the Canadian Oil sands in SU and CNQ. That $1,600 gift from Bush will help me a lot for my investment plans in other contries :)

contries=countries

Dang no edit button.

DinOR @ 9:22 am,

How about Pay Down Consumer Debt?

My EXACT thought as soon as I heard about the rebate proposal.

For a couple facing 20% plus rates on their credit card debt, $1600 = $25:00 a month less interest.

That's worth having, and (to reluctantly give her some credit) it's what someone like Suze Orman would recommend in a heartbeat.

Trouble is, that behaviour has a lousy multiplier.

Also, since I've been offline for a few days, has anyone analysed how the California numbers issued by DataQuick this week change expectations about next week's Existing Home Sales data?

It seems to me that the YOY Western Region EHS Median could be a real shocker, since last year December Prices increased over November.

You, on the other hand, are beyond reprehensible. Now I know why so few of the regulars seem to post anymore, with the choads and jackasses seemingly having taken over.

Thanks Randy, I really don't know why people keep responding to ex-sv renter.

DennisN @ 4:39,

Many, many years ago I suggested in a casual forum that a reasonable proxy for inflation would be to only pay tax on 50% of interest received.

On the other side, of course, you would only be able to deduct 50% of interest paid.

Much to and fro discussion, leading to a general consensus that this would be much fairer than the present system, but also that it would be a revolutionary change to the current business paradigm and there would be truly traumatic changeover problems.

The problem with the proposed handout is not only do the government want people to go out and SPEND it, but let's face it, a lot of people have already spent that amount and then some on their credit cards for Christmas and just because they DESERVE it!

That money for a big number of people (at least in CA) does not even cover one months mortgage, let alone most of our rents here. So what is it really going to achieve - except maybe seem as though the government is actually doing something?

As for rent increases - let's face it - our landlords are going to be feeling the pain of increased gas prices/food prices etc, so of course they are going to want to increase their rents, especially if they have not increased their rents in awhile.

However, whenever my landlord increases his rent on us, we suddely have a lot of things that he needs to come and sort out and fix for us :-)

If your collecting welfare or some type of gov. assist. are you gonna get a refund/rebate too? If thats the case then give it back to the working class in our 2007 tax refunds or reduce my balance owed!

RandyH - the KKK never fired on the OH state patrol. You are citing an event that never happened.

If it had, yes, that is reprehensible and the people who actually fired on the OH state patrol should be tossed into a wood chipper.

However, since it never happened, it's kind of moot, isn't it?

Any IRS refund coming to me will go straight to my account with the IRS, so I'd not expect to see any of this.

Which is fine with me. I've got things trimmed down so far, I'm kind of hard to hurt financially.

Anyone on gov't assistance can probably expect to have taken with one hand what was given by the other, so I'll be very surprised if this windfall helps the really and truly poor.

What it DOES help is the cell phone company, the gas stations, the landlords, etc. And it's temporary, it may pay someone's rent for one month but it means they'll just be out on the street one month later than otherwise.

It does not change the fundamentals of the economy. An outright ban on Chinese made products would convulse the economy for a while, but would mean that Americans would make their own shoes and things again, which would vastly improve the fundamentals.

1997, Clinton County, Ohio. Near Dayton. The gunman was suspected to be a prominent klan leader, living in New Vienna, Ohio.

Check your facts asshole. If you'd like, we can go to the cemetery in Wilmington where I'll show you the grave, fucktard. In fact, there's a whole web site dedicated to the "conspiracy" between the KKK and the Ohio State Patrol claiming it was all a gov't setup.

@Patrick, isn't this piece of flotsam worthy of banning? What value does he add, and how much does he detract and drive away anyone with half a conscious?

Someone needs to say something about this!

http://www.fakepaycheckstubs.com IS THIS LEGAL? No wonder why we have the subprime mess we have when lenders USE FAKE DOCUMENTATION to help PUSH the loan through Quickly SO THAT EVERYONE DOWN THE FOOD CHAIN (from loan processor to the loan officer to the actual lender) can make the commissions they "WERE" making during the booming 90's!!! Now we are BAILING OUT THESE CROOKS....SOUNDS LIKE the good ol' 1980's Savings and Loan BAILOUT DAYS to me! http://www.fakepaycheckstubs.com see it with YOUR OWN EYES!

Someone needs to say something about this!

http://www.fakepaycheckstubs.com IS THIS LEGAL? No wonder why we have the subprime mess we have when lenders USE FAKE DOCUMENTATION to help PUSH the loan through Quickly SO THAT EVERYONE DOWN THE FOOD CHAIN (from loan processor to the loan officer to the actual lender) can make the commissions they "WERE" making during the booming 90's!!! Now we are BAILING OUT THESE CROOKS....SOUNDS LIKE the good ol' 1980's Savings and Loan BAILOUT DAYS to me!

TEST

Brand,

I seem to have lost a post there but if you... have to blame someone for "running off" astrid you should blame me. It was an argument over something that's already become mainstream thinking (but wasn't at the time) and she took offense to the way I handled it.

If anyone has contact w/ her I will make a $100 donation to the charity of her choosing (yes even it's PETA!) :(

DennisN, Malcom FAB and others!

Thanks for your candor regarding the CGE issue.

DinOR, the astrid scuffle was unfortunate. But I've been meaning to ask you, what's with... the Captain Kirk... posting thing? :o

>> the problems with the medical industry are yet another song on the ‘Boomers Rule America’ soundtrack.

Great TRUTH. Thanks for speaking out!

@DinOR

Since people are asking about your old posts, exactly how did you get a blow to the head at a wedding?

Ron Paul got 2nd place in Nevada! 13%!

The Original Bankster says: Also most Boomers followed a normalized life path ... I think the powers that be prefer to give them the money because they are far more predictable.

Or b), the "powers that be" are elected by this homogeneous group of people, and those representatives give their key demographic everything they want. Which is really how a democracy is supposed to work.

Generation X and Y don't have it bad. If things were bad, those "kids" would get off their asses and vote. The absence of their voting implies one of two things--either that they approve of the status quo, or that they're lazy, in which case they're getting what they deserve.

It doesn't matter what the boomers want, cutbacks in medicare benefits is inevitable.

The same thing has already happened in Japan. When recession hits, birth rate will take a dip, we won't be an exception. This inverted population pyramid means we will have even less tax revenue to support the current Medicare benefits.

Japan is a much more seniority-centered society than us. Even so, younger generations are skipping pension payments (even the ex-prime minister himself was caught not paying into the pension system). Medicare benefits for elderly is scaled back because there is simply not enough working young to support the dying old. People's attitude towards old people changed quite a bit in Japan, elderly were originally revered and respected, now they are seen as a burden. More Japanese families than ever are sending their "useless" elderly into homes, which was seen as a disgrace in Asian culture.

We will get there, it just take a few more years.

What really disgusts me currently is the abuse of Medicare benefits for all sorts of fancy operations on a dying population with very few years of expected residual life span while the younger generation are not even fully covered by medical insurance, this is very sickening. Worse still, after we pay for these dying population, we will have nothing left for ourselves.

The medical system can be one of the following and I will have no complaints.
1) universal coverage for catastrophic events for all age groups
2) no government coverage for all, and everyone's on his own with private insurance

but why should I be paying into a broken system that is guaranteed to go bankrupt when I retire and only benefits a certain dying age group?

For example, implantable defibrillator device (ICD) usually costs more than $20K just on the device alone. The lobby groups were publishing all sorts of papers arguing that elderly and very elderly should not be excluded from ICD implantation. But is it normal to have ICD implanted on a chronic heart failure patient who is 85 years old? The hopeful result is, his life may be prolonged by 2.5 years max, and most likely he will incur further medical and hospitalization cost in that period. Is it worthwhile to add on average several months of lifetime to a very old man with all sorts of co-existing conditions for $50-100K (device, hospital charge, follow-up consultation etc.)? My answer is NO. If that man has that kind of money and he would like to pay for it himself, kudos to him. If that man has to live on my dime, I'd rather let him go.

Isn't that chick worried that her ass is going to rupture if she sits down too hard? I'd be really worried about splinters, too. I really hope that's an altered photo, but unfortunately this planet has a tremendous supply of non-fictional stupidity.

TOB: Companies and politicians also pander to boomers because they have a lot more money than Generation X/Y. They're also apt to get into pissing contests with other boomers over things like granite countertops. Like my mom--so far behind in her unmatched 401(k) that she should probably never retire, yet wanting to buy granite veneers for her kitchen counters (mostly because my uncle got them, IMO).

Brand said:
I really hope that’s an altered photo

I have a plug-in on my browser which shows a list of images if there are other files with the same naming pattern. When I clicked on TOB's link, it listed Imagen016.jpg, Imagen017.jpg and Imagen018, which seem to be a series. Doesn't appear photoshopped, though you can't tell easily these days.

In any case, if the photo was not doctored, the butt was. :-) Seems to be a bit of a hack job, either way.

Has anyone checked out RealtyTrac recently? I did for Los Altos, Mountain View and Sunnyvale - Los Altos and Mountain View are starting to show foreclosures NOD's etc, not many but probably a year ago there wouldn't have been any - of course Sunnyvale is gettting tons and the further towards East Bay the more you get.

Has anyone else been following these - you can get their website to map them all for your area and I found it heartening for those of us who have showed fiscal prudence and not taken on risky and/or fraudulent housing loans.

Of course I still hear this area is different for Mountain View and Los Altos and the rents are going up - so any further eveidence people have of this area weaking would be greatly appreciated!

To correct some of Brand's misinformation:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/27/politics-and-the-dotnet-generation

Voter turnout has pretty much had a constant trend of about 20% less for under 30 year olds since the 70s, which were supposidly the politically active boomers. I'm gen X dead center and could only legally vote since about 1990 to put a time marker in the data.

The difference between generation participation is basically insignificant throughout the decades with only the 90s having any noticeable drop. I guess gen X has learned to be more involved since the numbers went back up since.

The middle chart has some even more telling stats for the modern day breakdowns of social participation.

While boomers always vote 53% of the time verses gen Xs 34%, WWII gen always votes 72% showing a consistent 20% difference as you move down the age brackets until you get to gen Y, roughly 10% less than X.

As you look further down the charts the other statistics are even more interesting. Basically one can conclude from the data that voting participation has remained somewhat stable throughout the decades, but for other measures of social activities comparing Boomers to the younger generations, the activities have almost no significant difference in present day. Literally single digits represent the differences. If you factor just the available time and wealth, one can argue gen X and Y are likely to be as active or even more active in social activities than their boomer parents are now or were when they were similar ages.

Malcolm: What you're stating is a truism. People tend to vote more as they get older. Right now the boomers are getting older, the "WWII generation" is dying out, and Generation X is (theoretically) coming into its own. I fail to see where I stated any misinformation.

I maintain that if something were systemically wrong for Generation X/Y, they would be attacking the polls en masse, creating a statistical anomaly. If anything, your graph supports my point. Everything is approximately the status quo, with no temporary or permanent deviations from mean.

Perhaps in a separate post we should discuss how absolutely pathetic the median has truly become (or has always been). If 2/3 of any eligible generation doesn't vote, how fair can any democracy truly be? Fairness in that case can only be determined by participation, not by argument.

First, to be clear, I do not think you are intentionally trying to mislead anyone. I just believe your conclusion is in error.

The chart clearly supports my point in that in 2004 the same percentage of under 30s voted as in 1976. As to you point about people tending to vote more as people get older as the norm, that is my point as well. It evidently is not that a particular generation is more active than another. Ironically you're saying I'm wrong and then mirroring my conclusion.

Then, respectfully, your conclusion about attacking the polls in higher numbers if there were something systemically wrong falls short. Your generation had way more social upheavals than mine did yet the voting levels for the under 30, as mentioned, is exactly the same as some 30 years prior. In order for your logic to work you would have to conclude that boomers were satisfied with the status quo and so gen X/Ys are just as happy with the system since the voting rate is 'currently' the same as it was. By definition boomers were not satisfied with the status quo hence the proudly worn lable of the 'counter culture.'

label ~sp

There are still bursts of good stuff, but it’s often drowned out by misogynistic and/or racist crap. I miss the “good old days.”

Yeah, I stopped posting and reading about that time, too. I was accused of being "bitter" the last time I posted: the only thing I have to be bitter about is the decline in this blogs quality, which for a while, was one of the best on the Net.

DinOR,. I passed your message on to astrid, she will reply if she feels like it. I still owe her some photos of the tomatoes I grew from the seeds she sent me.