patrick.net

I’m proud of my SoCal owners. Median prices broke $500,000 and is now at an ALL TIME HIGH!

Congrats indeed! Kalifornia Roll, banzai!

You weren’t at the barbeque I hope.

How about having it steamed with sake?

From wikipedia, "In most mammalian species, the mother bites through the cord and consumes the placenta in order to avoid predator attraction."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placenta

That condo looks awfully cheap compared to the district 7B condo SFWoman was looking at.

HITMAN is an IB turned real-estate broker. Just ignore him.

--

A man went to a brain store to get some brain to complete a study. He sees a sign remarking on the quality of professional brain offered at this particular brain store. He begins to question the butcher about the cost of these brains.

"How much does it cost for a programmer brain?"

"Two dollars an ounce."

"How much does it cost for engineer brain?"

"Three dollars an ounce."

"How much does it cost for an Ivy League MBA brain?"

"Seven dollars an ounce."

"How much for Realtor(tm) brain?"

"$1,000 an ounce."

"Why is Realtor(tm) brain so much more?"

"Do you know how many Realtors(tm) we had to kill to get one ounce of brain?"

HITMAN you are a cocksucking little maggot, why don't you just venture over to Craigslist where you belong. Your fucking postings are great, a "condo" that went for 100K over asking, and you can't have a dog. Go fuckyourself. You are correct real estate is going up and up, just like your lovers cock up your fucking fat ass. Good for you buy more RE, elbow-pads for you and knee pads for big al your loan guy.

Peter P. please delete the fucking troll.

Sincerely, California does really have something to be proud of. The more important thing is, we should make it better. And I am sure we can.

Sorry for not acting earlier. I was eating pork cutlet.

why am I always getting moderated? What did I do wrong?

nomadtoons2 Says:

California was the golden state- the state where a middle income citizen could live well within their means, get a world class education, and participate in a society that was in large more tolerant regardless of race.

While tolerance is still above the norm here, all the rest is long gone. You WILL NOT prosper as a middle class citizen here, and this is why it is losing and will continue to lose it’s future.

Sorry I’m being negative, but I travel back and forth between the SE and CA and I see what it happening, and it’s pretty much a 360 degree change of what I grew up with. Change is in the air.

_______

Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in what he said.

I never realized how good I had it growing up in Cali. I never thought it would become too costly, so prohibitive, so taxed, so resticted.

Bummer.

Tonkatsu

Yep. Somehow I was craving it.

astrid,

could you tell me which part of the message is causing the trouble? I removed the dollar sign, it didn't help, then I thought perhaps Mr. H's handle was banned, it didn't help either.

Since you could post without a problem, perhaps my handle got banned? :-)

perhaps my handle got banned

Never.

Owneroccupier,

Sadly, no. It got stuck in purgatory too. Peter P checked in and patched them through.

So it's certainly not your handle:)

I really can't imagine why it got banned. Wordpress is so weird.

I really can’t imagine why it got banned. Wordpress is so weird.

It uses a very complex stochastic fractal hyper-uncertainty algorithm.

Peter,

I'm not sure if what you've just said is true or come out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :P

I think WordPress is developing consciousness. It has transformed Jukubot(tm) into the ultimate troll-fighting machine.

WordPress just called me on the phone. This is getting wierd.

Let me show you another money-losing beauty of Marina PRIME, the place in SF that never goes down!

Here is a listing on MarinaPrime's favorite MLS, of course in our favorite Marina district
http://www.sfarmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N927557355,-N186830,-N,-A,-N2933561

Listed for 1.195M, if it sells 100K above asking, don't be surprised, why?

Because accoding to zillow, its comparable (1737 sf) was sold for 1.441M in 2005. So even if it is sold for 1.3, that means the market is down.

So the next time our favorite Marinaprime shows us something selling for 100k or 200k above asking, check the zillow transaction price first before you get angry, he is just showing us in a different way how the market has already turned.

Things to be proud of:

The work culture at some companies in the valley (and probably elsewhere, too). Some random attributes I can think of:
Freewheeling, gentle, non-authoritarian, innovation-fostering, multi-cultural, unbureaucratic, energetic.

This is very, very hard to copy.

It can be overdone (and it has been at some places :-) ), but if it's done right, it's without competition in the world.

WordPress just called me on the phone. This is getting wierd.

It just synthesized a piece of sushi in front of me.

It got off your plate at 10:48pm but it appeared in front me at 10:31. It has time travel capability!

I wonder if I could have eaten it before 10:31? Creepy. Perhaps it was always destined to disappear, uneaten at 10:48, and if I'd eaten it I'd have killed my own mother before I was born.

Back to the theme, proud Californians.

The one single thing that I am most proud of is amount of brain power I met here. Joe Schmoe mentioned it before, I could have packed and headed for a place with lower cost of living, but my brain doesn't get half as much stimulation and after a while, it starts to get very boring.

This is the most diverse place on earth precisely because we have so many top talents from all around the world interacting with each other, bouncing ideas off each other. You won't meet half as many interesting and brilliant minds anywhere else.

This is the most diverse place on earth precisely because we have so many top talents from all around the world interacting with each other, bouncing ideas off each other.

This is true. We need to make sure that the system will continue to encourage this.

You won’t meet half as many interesting and brilliant minds anywhere else.

How about Boston? Brilliant minds can discuss their ideas eating steamer clams and chowdah.

Boston is a bit too old money for me. California is all about nouveau riches :-)

Plus I hate Boston weather, so damn humid in summer and so damn cold in winter, the only bearable time is foliage season in fall.

The best thing about California is... Stockton!

Come to the Asparagus Festival next weekend. But stay close to the crowds because stragglers are killed and eaten.

Every night sounds just like the fourth of July. The Talking Heads described it perfectly in the oldy Life During Wartime: "The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I'm getting used to it now."

pretty much a 360 degree change

wouldn't it be 180°? 360° would be back to how it was. heh :lol:

Did the notorious HH get disappeared? Or just sulking?

On April 18th @ 10:24 PM Girgl said:

Things to be proud of:

The work culture at some companies in the valley (and probably elsewhere, too). Some random attributes I can think of:
Freewheeling, gentle, non-authoritarian, innovation-fostering, multi-cultural, unbureaucratic, energetic.

I'm pretty sure you're serious. I don't work in the valley -- or apparently on the same planet as you do -- so I haven't a clue. I have had a handful of great supervisors through the years. And a few flamers.

Owneroccupier: This is the most diverse place on earth precisely because we have so many top talents from all around the world interacting with each other, bouncing ideas off each other.

Peter P: This is true. We need to make sure that the system will continue to encourage this.

This gives me hope when folks decry the loss of heavy manufacturing in America. Do we really want to be China with 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities? Building new, cleaner and more efficient factories for the products we will use in the future is easier than building an educated middle class. We don't need to be the world's leading manufacturer of horse drawn carriages.

This gives me hope when folks decry the loss of heavy manufacturing in America. Do we really want to be China with 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities? Building new, cleaner and more efficient factories for the products we will use in the future is easier than building an educated middle class.

There was some heavy-duty chastising (sp?) going on a few threads back when someone gleefully wished for higher gas/oil prices. Your point is exactly why higher gas/oil prices can be a good thing, as hopefully market forces will drive innovation into alternatives to carbon-based fuels. There should be more pressure on industry to innovate, and there should be more incentives for innovators to gravitate towards the energy industry.

I've seen this urban legend/statistic:

Mexico city is the only city in the world with a larger population of Mexican citizens than Los Angeles.

Just out of curiosity, can anyone conclusively confirm or deny this? I don't know what the ultimate significance is either way. But if you want to know what the Golden State is about today, we have to start here.

About manufactoring... Over 11% of the state's population works in manufactoring related jobs.That's compared to 5% nationally. The sector as a whole comprises 1/5th of California's income. That is fairly signifigant since California has such a massive population. Imagine if this sector were to fold entirely? That's more people than live in some states. A loss of this sector would put a sizeable dent in the local economies of entire areas of the state that are heavily reliant on it's success.
Since 1990, 15% of this industry has either folded or moved away, either to other states or other countries. This rate has accelerated since 2001 years due to obvious cost factors related to environmental regulations, taxtation, cost of living and wages demanded by their employees,and even power costs, which can be as much as 2/3 cheaper in other states. Add to the fact that other states offer millions in tax cuts, incentives, and cheap land and according to one california economic newsletter I susbscribe to, and the general feeling is not if they will move, but when and where.
I see other vulnerabilties in the tech sectors, where industries that were once specialized and therefore fully able to pay very high wages to these specialized employees are now just a few of the countless national and international companies and R and D facililities that can do the same and more for less with a fresher, younger staff. The fact that the CA housing boom accelerated the cost of housing out of relation with actual wages is what caused this severe vulnerability. People in the region say wages are down, but in reality, if wages were down, then the cost of living should have come down as well to reflect the change in industry expansion outside california.
The above statement is what I use as a gauge to measure how far housing might come down. I think California could potentially be in for not only a severe correction in housing costs, but a correction in the cost of living as well, as their once specialized industries become further absorbed into the nationl mainstream, hence California may actually come in line with the rest of the country, and in the end, this will be better for the state, which will benefit from not being so out of whack in relation to cost nationally that other states and countries can take such easy advantage of it's talent, erroding its future.

Has anyone else been perusing the just-released minutes to the most recent Fed meeting and the media/market responses? Very interesting stuff:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/minutes/20060328.htm

Uniformly, the media outlets have been portraying the minutes as a signal that the Fed is "nearly done" raising rates this go-around. I don't think this is correct, if you read the entire minutes. At the risk of a long post and quoting out of context, here are a few key statements:

House price appreciation appeared to have slowed from the rapid pace of the summer, but price increases for both new and existing homes remained well within the elevated range that has prevailed in recent years.

Since the available indicators showed that the economy could well be producing in the neighborhood of its sustainable potential and that aggregate demand remained strong, keeping rates unchanged would run an unacceptable risk of rising inflation. Most members thought that the end of the tightening process was likely to be near, and some expressed concerns about the dangers of tightening too much, given the lags in the effects of policy. However, members also recognized that in current circumstances, checking upside risks to inflation was important to sustaining good economic performance. The need for further policy firming would be determined by the implications of incoming information for future activity and inflation.

My naive interpretation of this document is this: First, the economy is more or less where they want it to be. However, keep in mind inflation can still rear its ugly head, and we'll have to raise rates as a result. Yes, we want to signal to you investors in particular, that we MAY be near the end of rate increases, but we won't say "told you so" if we decide to continue rate increases, based on economic data.

The wall street response to this yesterday seemed to be sheer exuberance. But interestingly, the very next major econ indicator out today is CPI, up to 0.4%, core 0.3%! Maybe Ben and co. are pure geniuses, able to walk the line between preventing wall street sheer panic and continuing to justify rate increases, or maybe there really IS some conspiracy going on. Yes, DinOR in particular is upset that the Fed has been dicking around with tiny rate increases, but my interpretation is they are very cognizant that anything more drastic is going to send investors panicking.

An important side note to all of this is that housing's slowdown gets a very hefty mention during the meeting - the Fed is clearly aware of what's going on in the housing market, and again, to me they're saying yes, housing may be slowing down, but we've got bigger fish to fry.

Sorry for the long post.

"House price appreciation appeared to have slowed from the rapid pace of the summer, but price increases for both new and existing homes remained well within the elevated range that has prevailed in recent years."

It seems like this report was written just like every other report- with the key langauge being written for homeowners. There's a lot of obvious conclusions left out of it. It almost sounds like there isn't anything to worry about at all, as if housing prices are through rising and will simply level off and continue rising on a slower scale. BS. I agree with your statement that anything else would cause sheer panic and a massive selloff, so perhaps making a rosey report like the one above is good disaster control for the masses.

The FT this morning had a small column about economists disagreeing (apparently quite intensely) over what the Fed is really signaling, or even if they are signaling at all. Being a Fed watcher is about as fun as being a Supreme Court watcher. You sound real smart talking about this or that factor, precedent and signal; but you're often wrong (just when you most need to be right).

Randy,
Either way, it's fun stuff. Despite the fact that even the "experts" are often wrong, the concept of reading into Fed signals and what not clearly have a large impact on market behavior, as we saw yesterday. I'm sure doing it is a full time occupation for more than a few economists, and it's kept them employed for quite some time!

Vincent,
While California's cost of living will probably not degrade to the level of other states, the fact that CA has on average 7 times the number of people than the avg US state tells me that there are virtually entire frontiers of new land available for future opportunities. California's greatest contribution will be it's outward movement of young people with their skills to be applied to new regions. I am a firm believer in this.
Someone mentioned that unlike Europe and Asia, Americans were far more likely and willing to relocate for better potential sucess in other states, and that's exactly what will continue to happen unless the cost of living here comes down. As we speak, it is over 4 times the cost of the country avg. It was double that in 1992, so While some people expect as much as a 50% correction in housing costs, I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of living came down as well due to legislative changes in state operational policies in order to stem the tide of business out migration.

nomad,
Yes, I agree that a lot of what the Fed puts into these minutes/statements is to make sure the masses are placated/sedated so they can keep on truckin'.