patrick.net

Hap Hap Happy New Year All!

Southsiders (Suze Orman included) didn't want this year to end! It is now 2006, and with it, ominus realities. While I hope it's not another 88 years until we have something, anything (1959 AL Champs) to celebrate I do believe that 2006 will go down as the year of the "reckoning"! One of the articles Patrick posted blandly observed that "there is nothing left to do but to sit back and watch". MAN! This is GUHRAND! I'm savoring this more than waiting 46 years to wear a White Sox ball cap without getting grief! Yes; all good things in time and yes, all "crash" fans will be WELL rewarded! Mind you BULLS, this is not the same as the guy on the street corner waving a "THE END IS NEAR" sign. You no doubt will be eager to point out that yes, eventually, even this bum will be right. You won't have to "haunt" Vegas to see subdivisions unfinished. Ya see BULLS, being a builder is risky even in the best of times. The meter is ALWAYS running. Bridge Loans don't have sick days. When "in-fill" and smaller builders can't move inventory their first concern will not be "Mister You can't go wrong with RE"! It will boil down(rather quickly) to saving their own hyde. There will be NO friends during the crash. Realtors (TM) will turn on buyers, sellers, their employers and yes, their own young! Mortgage brokers will turn on their lenders. Borrowers will turn on brokers and "appraisers" and this whole thing will look JUST LIKE Elliot Spitzer and his "Witch Hunt". Everybody looking for someone to blame! Unlike the "Tech. Wreck" which seemed to unravel before you could say SELL!, The RECKONING will be televised! In glaring, harsh, unflattering and protracted light. Enjoy.

Umm... can we talk a little bit about real estate bustage and stuff, or is that too boring? Like, the factors that could make the bust worse in the Bay Area than anywhere else? :-)

newsfreak says (in part and poetically, though wrongly blaming Bush) that:

"Until America becomes
post post-modern
and uses solar, wind,
invents new better,
and boots out
the fanactical fundamentalist
old world order
20th century Bushites,
we will continue to attract
many who come to consume..."

Actually, the forces of the old world order
are the forces of sanity...not the forces of
whole wheat toast, Grapenuts and nude beaches.

As for the term post-modern, it's merely a euphemism for nihilism.

The trend in towards cultural desolation and tribalism as witnessed by
today's youth sporting nipple, nose, and tongue rings, odd winged-tatoos
prominently displayed on the edge of girls' butt cracks, ass haning out of their holey jeans, chicks pulling down the front of their pants as far as they can get away without revealing their packages, as seen on the cover of every other magazine at the grocery checkout stand, are all post-modern (nihilistic) trends...

This is the reductio ad absurdem of the 60s-era/Baby Boomer/
Ben and Gerry's Ice Cream/Greatful Dead/hippy-ass/"it takes a global village"/Bonged-out Boomer crowd, of which the Clintons are the patron saints.

Just more flotsam, jetsam and liberal death wish gibberish...

Suicidal if you ask me...

I see the same behavior among chinese, turkish & Korean immigrant tech workers/managers. US-born or raised folks of all ethnicities are a world apart, and working with/for them is highly enjoyable. This is really quite a conspicuous issue for me on a daily basis.

It is a culture/class issue. More like Great Mall vs Stanford Shopping Center.

When it come to real estate, these Indians want to buy all homes in Cupertino and Palo Alto, and drive the home prices even higher.

I do not like to see that happen, but it is free market at work.

American workers and small business owners are already under pressure from American Big Business. Why should we also be subject to competition from these foreign intrests.

The tide of globalization is unstoppable. Either cheap labor comes here or employers will have to hire cheap labor elsewhere. Which would you prefer?

Blame airplanes, the internet, and the global financial system.

Umm… can we talk a little bit about real estate bustage and stuff, or is that too boring? Like, the factors that could make the bust worse in the Bay Area than anywhere else?

We should try... but it is like predicting the sunset at 4pm. Since it is so certain, it is no longer interesting. :)

Ok, I give up.

Peter P writes:
The tide of globalization is unstoppable. Either cheap labor comes here or employers will have to hire cheap labor elsewhere. Which would you prefer?

Blame airplanes, the internet, and the global financial system.

Global openness and free trade seem to be cyclical. In the U.S. several laws limiting immigration were enacted in the late 10s and early 20s, and the prohibition laws seem to have had a certain anti-immigrant angle (targeted towards not-so-puritan catholic immigrants from Germany, Italy and Ireland perceived to endanger the prevalent culture).
Judging from the comments here, we may be heading for a turn of the tide?!

Global openness and free trade seem to be cyclical.

Individuals are mostly irrelevant. So long as money flows freely, globalization will be going strong.

Judging from the comments here, we may be heading for a turn of the tide?!

Perhaps. However, unless global enterprises are deterred by cetain geo-political events, or a global depression, the tide will go on.

New thread: Bay Area housing crash continues

Hey Peter, I put up a new thread too. Should one of us take ours down temporarily so there aren’t too many new threads?

Don't worry. No one worries about having too many threads on Ben Jones' blog. ;)

Multi-threading might lead to too much confusion and thread under-utilization

It may make it slightly more difficult to inflation thread bubbles though.

Oops. There is no thread bubble!

this blog may have jumped the shark in the last couple weeks.

Nah. It's just taking a nap. It feels much better.

It thinks it will go for a walk!

Cheers,
prat

Sunnyvale_renter,
Your opinion is important and should be heard. Keep it up and dont be discouraged. RE is directly effected by the things you mention.
Some people cant handle the truth but need to learn that it cant be avoided.

Sunnyvale_Renter Says:

"The truth is NOT pretty...And yes it affects RE when your job is gone, when the 15 illegals in the house next door have decided they want your house too and move right in, the police being too busy trying to quell food riots, when the Chinese Army is landing on the West Coast with almost no resistance because of their sleeper agents in the national laboratories, defense installations, defense corporations, and your corner store, and in fact evene occupy the position of police chief in your town (SF)."

Ten years ago, I would have thought you were a kook.

Not anymore.

Maybe a little far fetched on the police chief angle,
but there ARE many, many Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)
front companies in the U.S. gathering technological info. and spying.

Many new immigrants aren't assimilating but want to continue their country within this country. And why not? They don't have to obey our laws, so why not just do whatever? Isn't that the 60s friggen' hippy ass ethic anyway?

California is capitulating and history is repeating itself in the Balkanization of a once great state.

Ancient Rome was never defeated from without, they just degenerated to the point that barbarians simply walked in.

You think the average liberal clown in San Francisco will even lift a finger to defend this country? No way! To busy living a hedonistic life of pleasure. Even my liberal cousin, who writes for a major lib newspaper,
thinks places like Santa Cruz are too liberaled out.

When the windfall tax profit from all of this housing bubble nonsense stops feeding California's coffers for its huge beauracracy, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the barbarians that have come to expect free government handouts take to the streets to take by force what they think is theirs by virtue of entitlement, when the free ride ends. I mean, what have they got to lose?

Even the Catholic Church and monasteries screen out those they deem undesirable and set standards for quality applicants. Why shouldn't we have some basic qualifications for citizenship...like obeying our laws?

You either see it or you don't. The liberal mind seems to be incapable of seeing reality for what it is. History mearely repeats itself...

This year's Darwin Award goes to the California liberals, purveyors of the great liberal death wish...

I was just thinking about the theory of white people being originally from Africa, as all mankind, and moving north to northern europe. I wonder if they were in search of a peaceful place away from people of color.
As a white person living in the bay area, I sometimes wish I could go someplace like Idaho and just be around other white people. The choice would be to endure the cold weather but be around people that were like me. I wonder if this was a simular choice made by the 1st northern europeans. I raise this point at the risk of censorship on this blog.
I should point out that the migration of white people out of California will have an effect on property values just as the outsourcing of jobs will.
And before I'm tagged as a racist, take a look in the mirror. There's nothing about what I'm writing that's the least bit racist.

That is SCARY to me. Personally for me, things look much better back in INDIA. Outsourcing has created a HUGE opportunity in India and the local economy is growing gangbusters.

The US is creating a future strategic competitor.

Like it or not, globalization is here to stay. The major challenge infront of the Americans is “to move on and innovate”. Friedman says “it doesnt seem to be happening” and I couldnt agree more.

Very true. Unless we are to fight a third world war, international trading interests will ensure the progress of globalization. This interest group is huge and powerful as a collective.

In the long run, if everyone in the WORLD becomes more PRODUCTIVE and contributes, the US will enjoy a MUCH better lifestyle since goods and services will be CHEAPER. (If not for China and Taiwan, you wouldnt get no $200 PCs).

I agree. This is all part of globalization.

Sunnyvale_Renter Says:

"Ten years ago the stuff I’ve talked about here was kooky indeed. Now it’s becoming normality. In fact, it’s a very forseeable future."

Exactly. The problem is, if we get a looney left-wing Pres. like Hillary
Clinton, the right-wing backlash will be worse than in the Bill Clinton years.

The liberal excesses of the Weimar liberals will bring about a fascist
right wing response that plays on people's fears.

The problem is that since we see reality for what it is WHEN it is,
we're the oddballs.

I guarantee you, if a quasi-fascist movement starts in this country,
once again, you and I will be considered kooks for not jumping on
the bandwagon and for alerting people to the danger.

That's the curse of dudes like you and me. We're never in fashion.

See, when I grew up in San Jose, actually from '68 then leaving in '98 for Phoenix, people basically got along. We had black guys, Mexicans, Asians, etc. but everyone pretty much got along because we all grew up in Cali.

The new immigrants don't care. In a way, they are like Americans in that they import their lifestyle. Unfortunately, our lifestyle isn't moving 20 people into one house and growning corn in your front yard with the goats.

"Unfortunately, our lifestyle isn’t moving 20 people into one house and growning corn in your front yard with the goats."

Or, should I say, fortunately!

When I got here in 70 we rode dirt bikes in the east foothills. There was a good mix of whites, blacks, chicanos and of course all of the asian groups. There seemed to be a certain harmony but occasionally there was a little violence. Many of the parents worked at the Ford plant in Milpitas or the other one in Fremont. Locheed was a big employer too. The Sillicon Valley was just being born. You could work at the Ford Plant and buy a house for $30k. The bay area was a great place to be with lot's of blue collar home owners. A new Cadilac cost $10k. Good jobs paid $8 bucks an hour. Those seem like the good old days.

Sam Says:

"What a bunch of bigoted losers this website attracts ! Those with a real interest in economics should go to www.mises.org . The losers and whiners with a sense of entitlement (that somebody in America owes them a job with a Non-Indian/Non-Korean/Non-immigrant manager, a home that costs pennies, a hummer with gasoline at a dollar) should continue watching Lou Dobbs."

Thanks Sam.

Unlike other people on this site, you're obviously winner.
How do you do it?

Keep up the good work.

You're gonna be a star someday, Sammy!

Everybody's gonna love you when it happens!

Till then, shut up & keep rowing...

I am reading with much interest how this discussion has taken a racial turn. I am an immigrant from India and I think Sunnyvale renter and other do have some valid points (and plenty of misinformed ones).

First of all, Indians are human beings too and therefore, individuals. Believe it or not, one billion people do not think alike and act alike. Your claim that a billion want to come here is ridiculous xenophobia. First of all, only the technically educated Indian can move here. In the last few years, I have seen plenty of Indians go back to Bangalore. That happens after they realize that living in the bay area means saving nothing and doing your own laundry, dishes etc., while in India, for the money they get, they could live like kings.

Also, Indians don't have thirteen kids. Please show me one Indian (non-muslim) family that has many kids. In fact, population control has drummed into Hindus for so long that, on an average, Indian families have only two kids. That is about the American average too.

Having said that, I do understand many of the frustrations. There is a huge cultural gap that can get irritating to the "natives", be it food, loudness or whatever. In the work place, birds of a feather do flock together often and this unfortunate but understandable. If I start a company, I will look for the best people. Period. Race will not be an issue. But, one glance at an Indian resume and I can tell a lot about that candidate's background, schools and capabilities. This is not racism; just practical convenience. For instance, you can kinda compare candidates from Stanford and a community college easily. It is harder when you throw in someone from REC, Calicut. How good is that school in India? Do you know?

Anyway, getting back to real estate. Indian (and other Asian) immigrants come here at the prime of their life and earn good money in the tech field. Then, because of unfamiliarity, they tend to follow the crowd. Everyone buys shares using etrade; they will too. Everyone buys a house; they will too. Peer pressure plays a huge part here. Another factor is that most Indian immigrants are good, family-oriented people who want to settle down - hence the interest in buying a house. Nothing basically wrong with that.

About the only relevant thing you could blame non-whites for, is that by buying houses, they fuel demand and cause prices to go up. That is, however, a stretch.

Think about it this way, though: If the housing market and the job market go down, these dark-skinned people you hate so much, will be the first to leave. Then, you will have a lot of cheap pickings! Happy, now?

I am not going to blame anyone. The housing bubble is a natural product of greed and fear. We will just see it play out.

Trolls are getting very desperate though. A very good sign indeed. Fear be upon them.

I agree with DesiRenter — ASIAN CORRUPTION and HERD MENTALITY and UTTER MEDIOCRITY should be brought out with ELOQUENT ARTICULATION!!

Herd mentality describes most of humanity though. :)

Lets attempt to become the shepherd, hearding sheeple next time. ;)

DesiRenter, I don't disagree that there are many people who hire people from their own country/state/village. That is not a bay area thing.

That is unfortunate but the free market will take care of them. If they hire substandard people for geographic or religious reasons, then they are compromising on quality and will get sorted out. Meritocratic companies will outperform them.

Like I said before, Indians and Asians do buy a lot of real estate before all their friends are doing it. But, then again, they will also sell on masse. Just wait and see. In the late 90s, every Indian guy I knew offered me stock tips, but today no one even talks about stocks. It is the same way.

If the immigrants helped artificially jack up the price, they will also play a part in making the prices plummet. Just wait and see.

I was just thinking about the theory of white people being originally from Africa, as all mankind, and moving north to northern europe. I wonder if they were in search of a peaceful place away from people of color. U can move to idaho but still u are going to find jerks who come in all colors and stripes.
I can tell u from my personal experience in the us for the last 13 years successful whites in their eagerness to compete do not want other whites to succeed. This is human nature.

Being an Indian and in the medical field it is very humorous to see 2 of ur colleagues fighting over trivial issues.

Regarding employment, one of my teachers was a jewish doctor, who was a very good doc and nice mentor. after finishing his fellowship he went to tampa, florida to join a group practise with other indian doctors. He came back to cleveland and told me how the east indian doctor mafia control the hospitals in florida. The indian doctor mafia try not to employ physicians of other background. However for every story there are 2 sides.

Imagine u are the one providing emergency medical services to a hospital through a exclusive contract. In this case u happen to be an indian. Now the hospital is expanding and they want more doctors. Since the indian doctor happens to be doing an exceellent job the hospital goes back to him and ask him to help in recruiting. Recruiting doctors to rural america is a night mare.
In small town America, The only pool u have is physicians who are immigrants, or physicians who have some problems either be it academic, professional or personal problems or have malpractise lawsuits or worse still have anger management or addiction problems.
Now tell me whom will u employ for ur needs. Will u employ a physician who will give trouble to all others and rock the boat or some body who is docile and does extra shifts when the need arises? These are no easy solutions.
The major problem plaguing the american medical system is the legal system. Nobody wants to take any liability and this is more obvious when the patient happens to be a pediatric patient or OBstetric patient. The hospitals do not want any liability, so they contract out emergency services to other corporations. The doctors are not getting paid by the hospitals and their malpractise premiums are soaring. These doctors therefore refuse to do the work. so can u really blame them.

BTW : There are excellent white and african american doctors in this country. Some of these are very very good human beings.

That is unfortunate but the free market will take care of them.

Perhaps this is another stable disequilibrium. :)

As far as declaring Google to be a runaway success, let’s give it a few years and see where they stand then (especially with their primary income stream based on advertising revenue - let’s see how that holds up in a down economy).

Enron was a runaway success too.

The major problem plaguing the american medical system is the legal system. Nobody wants to take any liability and this is more obvious when the patient happens to be a pediatric patient or OBstetric patient. The hospitals do not want any liability, so they contract out emergency services to other corporations. The doctors are not getting paid by the hospitals and their malpractise premiums are soaring. These doctors therefore refuse to do the work. so can u really blame them.

We have to put a stop to the lawsuits. There must be some form of limits to the liabilities. Punitive judgements should be disallowed.

Townhouse in East Palo Alto - $600K

I will not pay 60K if I have to live in it.

I have funds and income to move in to a 750K house TODAY!

We all know that you are the high-earner that perhaps only MarinaPrime can challenge.

Condo in Stockton - $500K?

Wow! Absolutely surreal. There is no excuse for this.
You've got to be kidding me. Bwahahaha...what a sick joke.

Anyway. Back to the immigrant topic.

I really like Indian people and their work ethic. Working on my
Masters with Indians was a great experience because they were
smart and enterprising.

Like I said. I'm from San Jose and am down with every ethnicity.
It's just the illegal angle and outsourcing to China that bothers me
so much.

Wow, quite a thread on immigaration. For those of you (if there are any) who enjoyed the rant I started (and didn't finish), I'll be happy to print a copy of the "end game" if you buy me sushi. My copy paste won't work. The state's rights issue is complicated and subtle--we have enough of that in this thread. I like Toro, Sake, and ebi.

OK. My $.02 on Asians. I am one of the few white people at a Chinese company. The management team is---Well if you have nothing nice to say. My boss (chinese) has become a close personal friend and mentor. He is the best boss I have ever had. I have had many great bosses.

Tip #1: If you don't like your boss for any reason, find a good one. They are out there. Your career and happiness are too valuable.

He hired me because he believes that Chinese people are too obedient. It is certainly true that the management team's militaristic style is a major detriment to shareholders. There is much to do, and no one will lift a finger until they are told exactly what to do.

So my boss is the rebel. So am I. Why do we get away with it? Well, my company is just like every other company. It has problems. It needs people to fix them. Which leads me to my next tip:

Tip #2: Every business is screwed up. Business is a competion to see which one is only slightly less so. If the one you are in is screwed up, leave or fix it. But don't delude yourself that the grass is greener on the other side. I have worked for world class organizations, and they are screwed up, regardless of ethnicity. Which leads me to tip #3

Tip #3: If you work hard and make a difference in your screwed up company, they will pay you money. This is expecially true if you are in sales.

"Screwed up" is an equal opportunity affliction, just like AIDS.

WRT Asians sticking to themselves,all I can say is dude.......have you ever lived in a foreign country where your grasp of the language was less than 100% and everything seemed strange? It is not that easy. Cut people some slack.

--Deo Vindice

I see a possible depression coming as there is an erosion of the middle class. I don’t have answers to all of this.

The Great Depression happened when there was "erosion" in all classes. If the rich is relatively safe, we shall be spared a depression this time. :)

WRT Asians sticking to themselves,all I can say is dude…….have you ever lived in a foreign country where your grasp of the language was less than 100% and everything seemed strange? It is not that easy. Cut people some slack.

Wow, I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but... I agree with Deo Vindice 100%. Though I don't mind discussing race/immigration issues (as long as there's an arguable point), this thread has taken on a real nasty edge with regards to asians/Indians.

I've worked in I.T. with/for 1st generation asians and Indians, and in my experience (can't generalize/extrapolate for everybody), they have been no better or worse overall than native-born Americans. Most of the (legal) immigrants I've worked with have been really nice people and not xenophobic, but of course there are always nortable exceptions. Many of the native-born and/or white American bosses I've had, OTH, have been real two-faced a-holes. I've also noticed that after a generation or two, immigrants --regardless of country of origin-- start to think/behave more and more like Americans, so racial nepotism/xenophobia becomes less and less relevant the longer they are here.

My point: it's easy to overgeneralize/stereotype from a few bad experiences. As anyone following this blog for the last few months knows, I am not a fan of illegal immigration or third-world wage arbitration/outsourcing. Even so, let's cut some slack for those who choose to come here LEGALLY and are working hard to follow the rules and respect American culture.