patrick.net

A samilar disease afflicting larger business organizations.

It seems that any large entity becomes bogged down by its own bureaucracy and internal politics. I am somtimes amazed that government entities and large businesses do not blunder more than they do. Of course, some do blunder spectacularly.

The significance of the TV program: The words Alt-A and option-ARM will now be household words.
I still carry an Ivy Zelman reset chart in my wallet... Does this mean I will get a spark of recognition when I bring it out and start talking about ARMaggedon?
Condo towers in SF are about to go critical. Looks like prices are sliding and hitting "developer pricing" of a couple of years ago. Not good for the specUvestors.

I think if Moore were to be correct on economics - it is either
a) accidenal - like a broken clock that is right twice a day
b) someone else's thought - as in someone told him, "say this"

I was suprised to see Yahoo people let go before the Holidays and before they chose a new CEO. The best I can tell, this signals an impending acquisition by Microsoft. It just does not make sense otherwise. . .

I am somtimes amazed that government entities and large businesses do not blunder more than they do. Of course, some do blunder spectacularly.

In my experience working in the public & private sector I've encountered three fundamental type of employees.

A. The Rock Star.

Worth their weight in gold. Innovates and motivates. Is genetically wired for quality. Workaholic. Makes everyone else look bad.

B. The Dead Wood.

Doesn't provide much value, yet is unobtrusive enough to not impede progress. Will do a few hours of good work a week if sufficiently motivated/prodded.

C. The Douche Bag.

Totally incompetent. A broken clock is right more often. Suffers from delusions of grandeur. Destroys all they come in contact with. Insecure at heart, so they will actively try and rid their organization of Rock Stars in order to replace them with fellow Douche Bags or Dead Wood. The Dunning-Krueger effect made flesh.

What I've found is that all organizations are basically a battleground between the 'A' and 'C' employee types. And ultimately their success/failure is predicated on which group is dominant.

Something I've always admired about Google is that they have filters in place to actually prevent hiring Douche Bags (they call them 'bozos') while also actively expunging ones that slip through the process. I attribute their success almost entirely to this practice. Preventing bad employees from sabotaging your core business is just as important as hiring great ones to build it.

Kewp,

lol, agree on your observation.

Yahoo is a place full of douche bags, that I know pretty well. I have had quite a few dead wood acquaintances who churned through the revolving door, claiming that even the rock star wannabe cannot stand it.

It is such a shame because I think Yahoo still offers some of the best products in the market, Yahoo finance rocks, Yahoo IM rocks, just that the whole Yahoo sucks.

It only takes time for Douche Bags to emerge in any organization. Complacency breeds incompetency.

Kewp,

Where in this spectrum does President Bush rank?

TOB,

I would call that a Douche Star. In other words, a Douche Bag that tries to masquerade as a Rock Star, mostly by stealing the product of the real Rock Stars.

Those are also quite common. In fact, most outwardly successful Douche Bags are really Douche Stars.

Neutron,

Bush doesn't even fit in this Trichotomy. The classifications only work well in organizations in which the outward goals are generally agreed upon, I think.

But if I was going to give it a try, I would say Cheney is the Rock Douche. and Bush is the Deadwood Douche.

Note to self: One of these days I'll have to find out why douche bag is such a big put down in American culture.

TOB,

Cr*p, I did not see that before I posted, and I 'm not just saying that, or being a Douche Bag :-). Anyway, some minds do think alike.

Re: Google

Someone would have to tell me, but at a distance, especially Sergey seems like a rather big douche to me, but of course I could be wrong.

There is no way that company the size of Google does not have a large collection of douche bags, and I am not just talking about the shower rack at the Marissa Mayer penthouse here.

A bit off topic, but I could not resist. I wonder how many Latinos are going to choking their purple headed Bishops when they see this.

From the Pluck It Like a Money Chicken files comes 2608 McGee Avenue, Berkeley, CA.
Sold in 1988 for $50,000.
Refinanced in 2003 for $320,000.
Refinanced in 2006 for $630,000 ($560k first, $70k second, both variable interest).
Taken back by the bank for $395,250. Currently for sale at $389,900.

TOB,

I wish that would always work. What if there were no women in the first place?

What's now happening in the best neighborhoods of the city-

http://tinyurl.com/58tno6

TOB,

As has been mentioned in further comments; the hallmark of a douchebag is indeed that they they *think* they are a rockstar! This is the essence of the douche. It has even been studied, as I've alluded previously:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

In fact, if you want to determine who's who in an org, just show them my list and ask where they fit in.

If they immediately self-identify as a rock star; consider that the flag o'bag. They get a bonus point for negatively labeling their peers without being asked.

If they schedule a meeting to discuss it further or ask you to put the list in a spreadsheet, print it and fax it to their secretary; dead wood.

If they are either two busy to talk to you; or dismiss the list as a crass oversimplification and then sketch out an optimized version in UML on their whiteboard with personality traits weighted by the relevant DSM-IV... well there is your star.

I'll add that many highly successful people are an amalgam of douchebag/rockstar. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, the list goes on.

Frank,

I would say Dubya is a pretty good mix of Dead Wood/Douche Bag and a Rock Star at dodging flying shoes. Seriously, the boy is pretty 'effin quick and I would definitely pick him over Cheney in a good ole' fashion shoe fight.

*Delurking*

Hey all, glad to see everyone still kicking and in overall decent spirits.

Justme,

RE Microsoft acquisition of yahoo search.

On the whole, a very valuable asset. On the business side, what they are after is search market share. They are getting that through yahoo's "installed" base of users, all the eyeballs that they drive through their various online properties. This market share is probably what is really coveted, as significant barriers exist to grabbing share through alternative channels in current environment. Indeed, most of their expensive efforts have fallen flat in this regard.

Greater market share means possible critical mass and greater pricing power and market control. Their sales team will also have an easier time pulling greater share of major agency ad monies.

My guess other assets are likely secondary, including intellectual property associated with search algorithms and back end processes.

On technology side, I suspect they will forklift out yahoo's analytics and back end eventually, replacing with their superior solution in that area. Migration to occur at all deliberate speed but possibly taking significant time. Probably much of their iron will be redundant and handled as such.

I cannot imagine that they would actually just redirect that traffic to their own search infrastructure. Many risks associated with user change. But doing so would be relatively trivial.

Many scenarios are possible on how to handle the overall migration, much analysis will take place. All problems that are solvable technically, what microsoft is really buying is the market share and real estate.

NVR,

I think you're right that it does not make sense to redirect from the yahoo home page, at least not at first. Users are fickle and would quickly switch to google or elsewhere if the yahoo home page stops being an integrated one-stop-shopping site.

But I would bet that MSFT would try, eventually and gradually, to lure people across to their own site. They would have to be VERY careful not to drop eyeballs in the process.

Personally I dislike MSN because it is much too gaudy + transient, and the content too bubble-gum fluffy for my taste. I would not be surprised that is the main reasons people prefer Google and Yahoo overall.

>> Yahoo is a place full of douche bags, that I know pretty well. I have had quite a few dead wood acquaintances who churned through the revolving door, claiming that even the rock star wannabe cannot stand it.

I agree. I joined Yahoo Platform Engineering on first working day of 2006. I left after five months -- can not imagine working there again.

"Privately-owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000."

WOW. Talk about falling off the cliff.

http://www.census.gov/const/newresconst.pdf

Who else is suprised at how well prices are holding up in core BA areas? Outlying areas have had massive capitulation - as low as $150/sq ft on new construction in Gilroy. But prices in and around the Penninsula are still 7 figures at > $600 sq/ft. The delfation CPI and job reports is just not creating any sense of urgency for sales. Only thing that makes sense to me is the homes listed are of the retiring work force who need/demand the old prices to fund their sun birding?

Justme,

By redirect I meant whose back end actually service and serve search results back to originating page. So you enter a search term in a box, well whose engine, whose algorithms, whose indexes, whose crawlers, ect would actually be servicing the search.

I don't suspect Microsoft will ever actually execute a full page high jacking, little to gain and much to lose there.

Excellent point relative to simplicity and user experience. I suspect that is one of my emotional buying triggers in using Google. Of course, I would like to think it is expediency and relevancy of returned results, but I do like goggles’ logo and simplicity as well.

Who else is surprised at how well prices are holding up in core BA areas?
I hear ya Duke. These folks are not going to be leaving quietly as there is real cash invested (in many cases). A combination of marginal players (sincere folks who stretched so as not to be "priced out forever") and high-end "homesitter/speculators" (think $250k tax free) are eventually going to be driven from their abodes by the recasts. Over 70% of Bay Area homebuyers in 2005 used option or IO ARMs. Throw some job losses into the mix and eventually even the retirees will capitulate when it is clear the direction the market is taking...

We are now in the 0.0% to 0.25% range for the FED rate. I wonder how long it took Japan to figure out that a ZIRP was not working.

Jobs, comrades, it is all about jobs.

I have argued here many times for fortresses to cave in big time, you need massive job cuts. This is not happening just yet. The job cuts so far are on the peripheral.

Want to see Palo Alto half price off? Google layoff will do it. Cupertino half off? Apple layoff will seal it. I am not saying all these people living in such areas work at Google and Apple, but that will have a huge psychological impact on buyers and sellers. And I am not talking about contractor layoff, I am talking about at least 10% perm getting the pink slip at GOOG or AAPL.

OO,

The only thing I would be worried about in that regard is that laid-off googlers would suddenly decide that investing in real estate would be a nice hobby. Flashbacks of the dot.com bust flicker before my eyes.

justme,

googlers are not that rich. Most of them are not. Look at the stock price and you can figure out whoever joined after late 05 are having their options under water, and there is a lock-up vesting period, so they cannot possibly cash all out at the top. Most importantly, post IPO, GOOG gives out very few options upon joining, basically you cannot become a millionaire from stock options. GOOG doesn't pay that well either, it pays below the market because of the brand name.

Those early Googlers who can afford a home have all bought a house. They won't suddenly go out to buy a second house.

Btw, USD crashes across the board today. Very nice.

EB and OO,
I think you both hit it right on the head.
My wife and I have been sniffing around the Santa Cruz County housing market as first time buyers. Places like Aptos, Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Soquel have had horribly sticky pricing... even with increasing foreclosures. Watsonville and the San Lorenzo Valley have been getting hammered, but both are fairly undesirable from a first-time buyer perspective. The former places all are much more attractive and have the farthest to go.

What we have seen is realtor foreclosure "specialists" pricing homes out of first-time buyer reach or the smart ones pricing it so low (still not low enough) that they cause a bidding war to break out. The bottom line is that we can still rent a VERY nice house at a rate that is about 1/2 of what the home prices should be. The foreclosed homes priced near (not really that close yet) a decent break-even level to us are complete pieces of shit. Over $50k in repairs to make them liveable. Excuse me, but unless I am batshit insane, there is no way I am going to stretch beyond my rent to drop another $50k in repairs to pay property taxes and further upkeep costs on a pile of crap.

All of the retiring boomer sellers are holding their prices or offer decreases just above the real selling prices. Their realtors (along with the greedy ass mortgage brokers) have convinced them and themselves that now is the best time to buy EVER. Then I watch month after month as they drop another $20-50k and pray some fool is out there with cash.

I don't know what is in everyone elses starbucks every morning, but there are only two ways housing prices are going back up until a normal first-time buyer (like myself) can afford a house. (BTW, an affordable house for me is about $300-330k and the decent houses are still double that in most places).
1) Wages Increase - that is a long, long, long ways away. We have nothing but job losses and pay decreases and wage stagnation for a long long time. Deflation at its best.
2) The Availability of Cheap Easy Credit - This is still around kinda. I can still buy a house with 3% down through the FHA program and those kind of mortgages are part of the price-sticking problem. I could buy a $450k house right this second, but I know better. However, the ARM's and no-doc loans have gone the way of the dinosaur for this generation. That kind of crap is like the 9/11 hijackings... it only works once, but once the trick is known no one is going to let it happen again. It took us over 70 years since the great depression to fool ourselves into that crap again, but I will be dead in the next 70 years.

So anyone that has been trying to tell me that house prices are great right now I tell explain the above two items. Hard to argue that either of those facts of reality are anywhere near the horizon... even realtors and mortgage brokers have been stunned speechless. The only line I ever get from them is "Yeah, but this area is different." It won't be that different from everywhere else when the google millionaires and sillicon valley money is gone. Every person buying a house now is one more person out of the way so that the prices can get to where they are heading anyway.

Btw, USD crashes across the board today

Yep, and the DOW shot up over 300 pts. Rate cuts and other little triggers have caused such swings several times before, only to give back the gains over the following few days.

Rate cuts does nothing to the stock market, but Fed will make sure USD crashes against everything else so that we can pay back our debt easier.

Trade with the Fed, I am all for trashing the USD. Let's go baby.

BTW, when are they going to roll out the 4.5% refinance? I am actually loving this depression or whateversion, free lunches everywhere. I hope we are all going to get some nice rebate check in a couple of months or so, after all, we need to be stimulated too.

Rate cuts does nothing to the stock market

Now that is a puzzling statement, considering past responses to rate cuts along with what happened today:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/16/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

damenace,

The market hasn't capitulated yet.

It will, trust me. The Alt-A/Neg-am timebomb will do that nicely.

Btw, USD crashes across the board today
FWIW, I am putting in stops on my PM holdings as they go positive. Next cycle down and I am out.

I am so angry now about the ZIRP that the FED is going to use. I hope OPEC stops taking our dollars for oil. They are so foolish to not have switched to something more tangible by now.

EBGuy,

you have to hang on till Benny Boy does his "putting an explicit ceiling on US long-term Treasury yield".

I am not going to miss his action on raw print on massive scale, gotta take a good seat to watch that up close and personal.

EBGuy,

Looks like you see a reprieve and are going to take it! I agree.

OO seems certain the the gov can out-print the de-leveraging.

Time will tell.

I hope OPEC stops taking our dollars for oil.

That might have an adverse effect on demand from thier biggest consumer. A switch to Euro would inflate the Euro vs the Dollar, and the resulting higher USA oil price would cause American consumers to cut back. That cutback would put seroius downward pressure on world oil prices, as seen before when USA demand for oil falls. I have read that oil prices below $30/bbl would put serious economic and political hardship on Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

Want regime change in Iran? Don't invade, just do everything possible to knock oil down to $25/bbl. And if oil prices do fall that much, I hope we put a high enough tax on it to keep demand low, and have the tax money for US coffers rather than extra profit for theocracies and short dictators.

I am so angry now about the ZIRP that the FED is going to use.

We effectively were at zero interest for weeks now, the 30 year UST yield is probably lower than it ever was, Obama is planning a quadrillion dollar spending spree and the Fed reiterated it buy everything and anything.

Well if that is not paramount to having shot their load, I can't imagine what could be.