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tatupu70
2009 Dec 28, 10:56am
or manybe pissed away by Congress on social programs before 911 ?
Nope. Maybe not.
“THERE IS NO MONEY…â€
One could argue that:
There never has been, and never will be.
or
There always has been, and always will be.
Social security funding is just a numbers game.
The reality is that people working now must produce the real goods and services consumed by people on Social Security now.
People working in the future must produce the real goods and services to be consumed by people on Social Security in the future.
Which pot of fiat currency is used to purchase those goods and services is a secondary factor, and an accounting construct.
If the nominal fund balance is insufficient, then we can just print more currency to buy the real goods and services needed. The real goods and services will be a real drain on workers no matter how we "fund" our Social Security system.
toothfairy
2009 Dec 28, 11:42am
it’s a bit local. I was shopping for a rental house in Oakland this time last year and there was plenty to choose from in the 100k range.
Now it’s slim pickings and anything halfway decent is in the 150-180k price range.
I’m thinking the best time to buy was back when prices were falling with “no bottom in sightâ€
Most of these were probably bought by cash only investors. What happens when no one buys the flip or when they can’t be rented? Exactly. I hear jobs in that target demographic are soaring (not).
Dead cat bounce IMO.
dead cat bounce huh? Let's hope so. The thing about paying all cash is that there's no pressure to rent it out. But the fact that these were halfway decent properties in Oakland the chances of it not being rented are pretty slim.
I could be wrong but somehow I dont think we'll be seeing those rock bottom prices again anytime soon.
The majority of it is now invested in tanks, planes, submarines, military bases all over the world, and the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Are you saying SS was in the black before the year 2000 ? or manybe pissed away by Congress on social programs before 911 ?
SS and medicare are still in the black and still paying part of the deficit. Congress just writes an IOU to SS/medicare every year and spends the money. Over 60% of the budget (without adding in SS/Medicare as they are funded separately) is military (if everything was accounted for properly), so over 60% of the pissing away is military. Pop quiz, what percentage of the federal budget,, is "social programs". Hint, interest on the debt is half of what's left over after defense.
EastCoastBubbleBoy
2009 Dec 29, 10:35am
Back to the original point, the latest Case-Shiller Numbers (released today, from October, 2009) idicate that :
All in all, this report should be described as flat.†says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s.
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I keep coming back to the idea that maybe the housing market is bottoming out. Granted it depends on where you live, but I'm starting to think that on a national scale, the bottom may be far closer than we'd care to admit to. I'm going to dig up some data, and I will post it a bit later.
OK... I took 10 Random Zip Codes, ball-parked the current house values (using Zillow) and then compared it with historic data (via the 1999 US census. and the 2007 ASC community survey). I have incomplete income data for 2007, but am working on getting it. For now, I have adjusted 1999 census data to approximate 2007 income until better data can be found.
The results of this unscientific back of the envelope analysis is this:
In 1999 90% of these random zip codes were "affordable";that is the Median Price / Median HH Income. Now, 50% are "affordable" not great, but certainly not as bad as I had expected. Even in my own area, prices have come down somewhat.
#housing