patrick.net

"...she looked kind of like sandra bernhardt."

you are lucky there was a shower partition.

she looked kind of like sandra bernhardt

There's a carpet munching section of the campground?

SP,

True. German tourists are very good at following orders (eek, did I just totally offend the Germanic portion of this blog?) and were all model tourists. They stayed on the trail, they didn't smoke while hiking, they didn't pose for pictures on sheer cliffs.

The government jobs aspect is a little weird. Southern Utah is a mixture of New Age restaurants (very good and reasonably priced ones) and irrigated hayfields. I actually found the little old information ladies to be the most anti-federal government. I had one lady who thought the whole GSEscalante NM was created as a big Clintonian kickback.

Working for the park service does seem like a nice retirement gig. Exercise, sunshinek, clean air, human interaction. Beats Wal-mart greeting any day.

How to spot a German tourist, if you see someone who looks gay and is dressed a bit odd, kind of like Mike Myers as "Dieter" but has a girl with him, he's likely German. The give away is very odd sneakers.

Hmmm,

My boyfriend speaks German, so I just ask him. The German nose is also pretty distinctive.

I also encountered a lot of big (Mormon) families of eerily blonde people, including a family of at least eight kids, all with the same top and similar looking bottoms. That was just a bit creepy.

if you see someone who looks gay and is dressed a bit odd

LOL...sounds like a Berliner Grufti, but most Germans dress pretty normal.
Where's Ptiemann to do his "Dieter Dance"?
Sorry Pete!

did you know that mormons have to wear special underwear?

I bet Mormon goths were special black numbers.

Bhitis Says:
Don’t miss this on why the US will still be the only superpower in the world by 2030.

Nutters. The futurists in control would really create universal dystopia -- within a week...

Steel frame is obviously MORE earthquake-proof and that’s why you can get a discount on home insurance if your house is built with steel frames.

The only problem with steel frame is being careful with wiring -- you have to drill holes thru the frame to get wiring thru, and it's imperative you grommet them, otherwise the steel edge will eventually cut thru the wire insulation and make the whole frame live. the question is, how long does a grommet take to degrade?

Peter P Says:
Data can be twisted very easily. Research any side of the issue and you will be convinced. Research both sides of the issue and you will be skeptical of “Science” itself.

jeez, that sounds like the arguments of postmodernism! what next in here, communism!!??

I'm open to a discussion about dashi stock preparation...

surfer-x Says:
Sinners repeat.

freudian slip?

Did someone say postmodernism? ... I didn't think so.

Move along; go about your business.

did you know that mormons have to wear special underwear?

So do the Sikh's

Peter P queried: Let me ask you. What is the Theory of Global Warming?

The Theory of Global Warming is the thesis that if Al Gore sits on a talk show telling you that any scientist who disagrees with him doesn't know science (and that we are in for many more Katrinas) that you will not notice he arrived in a huge SUV @ 11 mpg and spends 2K a month on heating/cooling just one of his cribs.

I am going to predict in about 3 months, SFH rent will go down in the Bay Area.

I was just randomly going through some craigslist SFH rental listings, it seems to me that here are the established trends

1) More "just remodeled" properties available at a tad bit more expensive rent than usual (2200-3000 compared to 2000). My guess is that these properties belong to the flippers who got stuck in their flip-of-the-century.

2) More SFHs available for rent.

A few houses I recall having been there for more than a couple of months just dropped their asking rent. Naturally the FBs will want to increase their asking rent to make up for the *very* negative cashflow. But asking is all that they can do. The market will tell them what the market can bear, and the market won't bear much as long as there are apartments out there as another alternative. Lots of condo conversions are put on hold, and repartments are happening.

The rental market is much more efficient and responsive than the housing market. Rent will head down.

Returning:

Just wanted to weigh in on the CEO comp issue -- a bit late perhaps, but this is an area near and dear to my heart. Started my career in the compensation field and wrote my masters thesis (15 years ago) on exec. pay, pay structure, and firm performance in the packaged goods industry (guess what -- there wasn't any correlation).

My two cents -- many problems in this area.
1) Agency problem -- in that CEO's are the agents of the owners and the trick is to get the CEO interest aligned with the owners -- one of the initial reasons for options (e.g., the CEO is incented to improve the value of the company). But the agency issue has broken down -- CEO's just take care of themselves. The latest problem is issuing options after a market closes on a day when major positive news comes out.
2) All are paid as if they are "superstars". Some CEOs really do make a difference (cf. Eisner at Disney in his first five years) but most are really caretakers. But all want to be paid like they are the Ali of the world, but are really only Leon Spinks.
3) The Lake Wobegone problem -- "Our CEO should be paid at X% above average", which results in a never-ending upward spiral of compensation.
4) Because they can -- unless the CEO is well known and ends up with an egregious package (cf. Jack Welsh and the $400mm retirement package to the CEO of Exxon), CEOs can get away with almost anything.

My answer to "are they really worth it?" -- in short, no. What it takes is connections, education (the right schools, not just well educated), intelligence (OK, these guys aren't stupid by any stretch), and LUCK (right place at the right time and someone helping them early in their career). To cite an old example -- Lee Iaccoca was smart and successful, but did you know that he was 4-F and didn't serve during WW2? So when most people were in the military, he was at BS engineering degree and then did post grad work at Princeton. Not a bad head start to have finished a great education when your peers are just starting and trying to get a seat in any college.

I recommend "Fooled by Randomness" by N. Taleb -- should be available at your library and look at his thought on the impact of randomness on outcomes.

All the best

What's next folks ?

The trend is firmly established. Housing market is going down. Except a few buyers who are still willing to be mortgage slaves, everyone in the know is kind of accepting the fact.

Can anything change this trend ? What will it be is there is any ? Fed stopping the hikes. Will that change anything ? Can it prolong the agony ?

What else should we be watching out for ?

Sir Rick of Shmend Says:
Postmodern Essay Generator

cool -- i've been looking for one of those...

Robert Coté Says:
Do you understand the meaning of enumerable criteria?

apparently not. if it's not where i listed 4 things straight off, including the mathematical obviousness of greater cost in longer runs of materials used in providing public utilities? how is that an 'is, is not' argument? The State Premier articulated just such a concern with sprawling suburbia here some years ago, since he is the one responsible for providing those utilities. But all your arguments were completely mathematically flawed. How can housing people in higher densities contribute to MORE land use? That's patent insanity. i wouldn't have used so many words if all i had to say is 'is not'. you used trillions of words to make a lot of weak points previously , so it takes half a trillion to try to rebut them. oh, sorry, i'm not allowed to reply in kind.

More subjectively:

Apparently the number of Americans who have close friends has plummeted in the past few decades:

Confirming the central thrust of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, a study released in the American sociological review today shows that Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than they did 20 years ago. In 1985, the average American had three people in whom to confide matters that were important to them. In 2004, it dropped to two, and one in four had no close confidants at all.

Apparently this is due to a number of factors: car-centric post-war urban design and the disappearance of public space where people can meet and contribute.

Bay Area Newcomer Says:
Just wanted to weigh in on the CEO comp issue

absolutely. all robber barons. i don't know when the community is going to wake up and realise the joke's on them, and how much real value has been leached away by predators and parasites and a dysfunctional form of capitalism.

They'll be the first against the wall come the Glorious Revolution.

* Disclaimer: not revolutionary advice *

we've only got:

2) teenagers of all races
4) Asians who first learned to drive after the age of 35
10) Ooooooooollllllllllllllddddddddd people

which is bad enough. and maybe variations on:

5) full of machismo

squalor of the European cities

??? they're held to be charming now... and 450 million europeans live there...

Interestingly enough this can be the case. That’s why people never provide enumerable comparisons to support their assertions. Higher densities require additional amounts of public dedications in order to function. Wider streets, more freeways, power plants, remote waste treatment and landfills and the roads and wires and pipes to those locations. Intense urban enclaves induce far flung urban development to support those locations.

fascinating, i'm sure lots of things can be the case. however, I don't see why there should be far flung utilities with high density development any more than low density. If anything, high density gives you more land choices for situating utilities than suburban sprawl that covers all available land. Currently, sydney is having a lot of trouble finding a suitable site for a much needed second airport further out of the city, but sprawling subdivisions were allowed to be built too close to all the earmarked sites. now they have a political shitfight -- everywhere they try to locate the airport, they have a NIMBY backlash from carpetbaggers who shouldn't even be there.

I absolutely contest that you need wider streets and more freeways, etc. For the same number of people, it doesn't make any difference -- you won't need larger utilities or power plants, that's a mathematical and engineering nonsense. The savings are in shorter infrastructure runs, common walls, floors and ceilings reducing building materials and so on. There are loads of English towns that are built at quite high densities and don't have 'wider freeways' etc because everything is co-located. the longer you need to run power lines, for instance, the more power attentuation you will get. not including the higher cost of construction itself.

we haven't even factored in the ongoing extra costs of continually burning extra fossil fuels to cover the longer distances, longer commute times, road congestion throughout road-dependent conurbations, extra pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.

good quality arable farming land is increasingly being turned over to sprawling suburban subdivisions. local and state govt are increasingly unhappy to pay for infrastructure, because they argue infrastructure costs go up with the square of the distance. apparently you know a whole lot better than all of the people who actually have to pay for the infrastructure to be put in and have the maintenance and forward planning headaches. not to mention the outright cost of extra materials. apparently you've spreadsheeted it and come up with different answers, but the govts just aren't listening.

where are your magical 'enumerable facts' demonstrating that high density developments need MORE land than low density, given equal sized populations for fair comparison? and that long run infrastructure costs less?

it's like building 2 4/2/2 houses, but making one house 3 times larger than the other by designing long connecting corridors between the rooms, then insisting that there were no extra building materials required, that heating costs won't be higher, etc.

however, i think that sensible urban planning is required quite apart from questions of density -- industries have to be located reasonably near dormitory suburbs, i believe housing options should be more flexible, etc.

Yea but we’re talking about a time when environmental sensibility was considered trying not to hit anybody when you through the bucket of the families’ daily defacations out into the street.

that's why edinburgh was called 'auld reekie'. they don't do it now, tho

In the decade surrounding the year 1666, one third of the entire population of Europe died from Bubonic plague directly associated with the bloom of the rat population.

yes, and the destruction of wooden buildings in the great fire of london cleared up a lot of the problems with the plague and allowed parts of london to be rebuilt in a more planned fashion with more substantial buildings and wider streets, etc, under christopher wren. his original plans involved rebuilding the city in brick and stone to a grid plan with continental piazzas and avenues.

paris was substantially redesigned by baron haussmann in the 1860s.

Why have no threads been created related to Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”? That might raise up the level of discourse a scootch.

it's had a mention... questions of sustainability and long range planning are increasingly important with high consumption levels and large populations.

Little Al,

When I was stationed in San Diego someone told me they had a trolley line that ran all the way to University Park (?) and then back to Downtown. I guess it ran up to and through WWll? People seemed to love it.

Returning to BA,

Um, I grew up in Chicago and still have many friends and bus. contacts there. I even have a client that now resides in Newport Beach but spends his summers in Chicago! (I know, sounds weird to me to) but if I had his money I'd burn mine. (Owns golf courses but still makes me pay, you get the idea O.K?)

It absolutely kills me to say this but in spite of their brutal winters on balance they have more "nice days" than Portland Oregon ever thought about having. A REAL spring and summers where you can get by with a T-shirt at 10 O'clock at night. Try that on the Oregon coast!

So many of our coastal communities have tried many times over the years to sponser surfing events but they refuse to take hold. We took the kids out to Pacific City one AUGUST and there were TWO people surfing! AUGUST! I could go on and on about the OR coast and depression (and a generally unhealthy environment) but I think you get the idea. I don't think Surfer X would be caught dead up here. What would his surf buddies think!

I put my money where my mouth was and sold my house in October. I feel pretty good about that. I just signed a one-year lease to rent. I'm interested in what everyone's crystal ball is saying about when it would be smart to buy again.

In reality, I'm going to evaluate the market every year and make the decision, but it would help with my financial plans if I could figure out how many years of renting I should do before I buy.

If someone held a gun to your head and you had to buy in July, what year would it be? Depending on my mood, my typical guess is 2008 or 2009.

>>So, I have a different perspective than those on this blog who grew up without humidity. To them, it is a cut and dry negative. To me, humidity is okay so long as it is not hot.

I'm with you. Since I grew up in northeast Ohio, I find humid summers to be a lot nicer--green and lush. I find the West Coast summers to be disappointingly dead.

The whole West coast looks brown to me, in fact, as opposed to the lush green rolling farm hills I grew up with.

Even the Washington and Oregon valleys look brown. I think the difference is in the east coast's green tangly dense vegetation "woods" as opposed to the west's brittle crackly coniferous "forests."

I find the summer dryness on the West Coast to be frustrating. It leaves everything brown.

I was pretty shocked when I first moved here, but it's sure easy to get outdoors between may and november. :) That said, Bay Area weather is overrated; everyone has their own preferences. It took me years to get used to the summer heat. The S. Bay feels like a desert to me; N. of SF is much more humid.

RTBA,

6 years is a common answer because of history, so that makes sense. Seems long to me because the last two years have been so over-the-top that I'm expecting a panic on the downside. But your argument is a reasonable one.

Michael Anderson Says:

If someone held a gun to your head and you had to buy in July, what year would it be? Depending on my mood, my typical guess is 2008 or 2009.

We sold our place in Boston 11/05 (just at the start of Boston's noticeable and significant downturn in RE prices - we were lucky). We moved back to the BA (who moves back here anymore? I think we and RTBA might be the only ones in recent memory), and have been renting ever since. Plan is to track the market and consider buying in as early as 2 years, perhaps as late as 4-5 years, depending on how this all plays out.

Robert Coté asks Different Sean (who like most liberals has obviously never actually built anything):

> Do you understand the meaning of enumerable criteria?

Different Sean Says:

> apparently not. if it’s not where i listed 4 things straight
> off, including the mathematical obviousness of greater
> cost in longer runs of materials used in providing public
> utilities?

While it may "seem" to make sense that it is cheaper to build a 100 unit high rise in the center of San Francisco than 100 single family homes north of Sacramento this is just not the case. Sure the cost of wire and pipe to connect to the power and sewer system is more with the single family homes but this is just a small part of the overall cost of a new development. A good example of infill vs. new suburban development is that it cost Mayor Willie Brown about $250mm to "renovate" about 100 public housing units in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill while at the same time Angelo Tsakopoulos was able to buy the land, build the roads, and build 100 brand new single family homes in the Sacramento area for less than $250mm...

Where did you move from that it took you years to get used to the heat?

N. Washington coast: generally cool and foggy all year; 80 was a rare hot summer day. (Nobody owned A/C) Moving to S.Bay felt like a desert; it was the heat as much as lack of humidity. I'm back in a marine climate now, and I can deal much better. Yeah-I know what you mean: AC sucks; I don't even like using it my car.

I think wherever we grow up defines our taste on the weather. We may like hot summer nights or dry summers. For me, a cool stiff breeze off the ocean can't be beat. :)

I know this point has been raised before but Buyers dont seem to be comparing the prices pre2001 to now when they give offers for houses.
The link provided by daytwah: the buyers went for a $9000 drop from the asking price and they believe they got the best deal. I am not sure of the Detriot market but that does not seem like something you want to cheer about. I am thinking we will see more of it here in the bay area as well where buyers see a drop of $20K as if they got the best deal.
Need to ride this down to the bottom and hope there will be some decent places still available at the bottom which i expect will be another 2 yrs. I think it will be different from the other boom bust cycles as this boom had lot of money injected and it will evaporate at the same pace.

I know this point has been raised before but Buyers dont seem to be comparing the prices pre2001

You're absolutely right. It's very easy to lose perspective in the Bay Area, especially if you moved here after 2001. House prices had also ramped up prior to the tech boom, and few remember what it was like pre-2000, when a 4BR tract home in the Cupertino school district went for $400K. The same house would sell for $1.1M in 2005; we have a long way to the bottom.

I have no doubt that there will be some buyers all the way down. By the end, most people should hate real estate.

I was younger (weren't we all?) for the last two busts. I don't remember such a cult of real estate. I remember certain people were good at buying houses and renting them out, but I don't remember it being such a mania. Am I right? Or was I just not paying attention?

Caps Lock

We aren't growing like Bacteria in a Petri dish. At least in developed countries, we are now reproducing below the rate to stay constant.

Space travel would be a great way to spread, but it can't help our population problem here on earth, can it?

LILLL,

Wow, that's something. Hard to believe a guy bought last month to flip! I thought flipping was over six months ago. Pathetic.

Godel is Real.

(unless declared integer)

I am seeing that the stresses that have been building up for a long time are starting to make folks crack. They are cracking up at the job, and there was a recent article, they are cracking up in Gilroy and Morgan Hill with record high incidents of domestic violence. Now their personal finances are cracking too. Some people are losing their homes because they have a problem. Soon this will cascade into an avalanche. Sadly we are seeing the very beginning of the scenario Dr. Tablot from UCLA Anderson School of Business predicted in his recent book about the coming crash in real estate. It is going to be fundamental to our economy and how people live their lives in the months and years to come.