patrick.net

When my sister had knee-replacement surgery, I called her handicapped mirror-hanging permit a "cripple space permit" to her disgust. But then again she's a democrat.

Notice she didn't refuse the USE of that permit. :)

GC,

Don't take it so hard. After all, we did not know from your previous posts if you were a man or a woman.

Now you claim to get better action than the bloke who takes his drink "shaken, and not stirred,"

The pawnshop guy I traded the guitar for pellet gun to, described the gun's ex-owner as "all crippled up" and that's not an uncommon expression around here.

GC'd hate the common expression for his people around here lol!

PS - people - on my comment on the working poor, at the time I was a 5 buck an hour worker, there was no EIC, thank you, Republicans!

I'm not sure all of the working-poor know to take the EIC when they file, but hopefully the word's out. They might be getting some fat refunds if they're not into delayed gratification enough to tinker with their W2 and get less taken out.

GC - you don't wave a $20 you just flash a crack rock, right?

at the time I was a 5 buck an hour worker, there was no EIC, thank you, Republicans!

EIC came out in 1975, but got its biggest boost in 1986, under Republican Ronald Reagen. How long ago are you talking about?

Let's see, making $5 an hour from 1984-1987, making less earlier than that.

If it existed it was a deep, dark, secret but then I lived in a democrat stronghold, that does not surprise me.

Thank God for Reagan, now if we could only elect an even bigger right-wing mofo the little guy might have a chance.

PS - just in case you guys don't know that, the new "thought crime" bill is Dem born and Dem boosted, will be Dem passed if we don't do something.

And let's see..... the libtards are trying to convince us working-class troops the "KKK" are our enemies? Hell man, they're sponsoring highways, doing good deeds, they're US.

I was thinking the same thing. I started working in 1988. I think EIC was only for families, if not I missed out too. I seem to remember in the 90s it started applying to individuals. I remember a sliding scale where it cut off at $14,000 but who knows?

I mean, youse guys have gotta be tired of my right-wing rants at times, but this is the point arch-liberal (and one of the few I have some respect for) Joe Bageant is trying to make, that the Repubs may treat the little guy badly, but the Dems treat 'em worse and sneer with delight while doing it.

Malcolm - Not sure on the history of the EIC, but it may be that it did not apply to me as a single until after I left the really low-wage end of things.

Again, Thanks, Repubs!

Is it final that we are going to get $1600 per couple?

My plan is to buy a stash silver coins (I think silver will appreciate faster in the next few months), and just in case the USD collapses, I can use the silver coins to buy grocery at Safeway.

I am not sure if $1600 can buy much gold by the time it is dispersed. So when are we going to get our check? Let me call up some bullion stores first.

And let’s see….. the libtards are trying to convince us working-class troops the “KKK” are our enemies? Hell man, they’re sponsoring highways, doing good deeds, they’re US.

When they opened fire on the Ohio State Patrol near Wilmington Ohio one of the cops killed was the older brother of a high school friend. He was white, Christian, conservative, had a wife and 2 kids, and probably voted Republican in every election since he was 18.

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.

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.