patrick.net

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term.

Their level of scum is stronger.

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term. I had one friend in the business who was a sweetheart and very ethical, he had a lot of repeat business with people who took choosing a realtor very seriously.

The REA industry is broken and has not much transparency when dealing with the public.
They base their interaction on misinformtion and speculation with the public. Much the same way
Wall Street operated pre-1929 crash. People bought and sold shares in companies which never disclosed their revenues and earnings.

Your friend like many other REA may well be the most honest people, but the industry isnt overall honest.

Oldy but Goodie... There is no RE bubble...

"The market is much better than you might hear or read," says Tom Stevens, NAR's president. "Consumers should take advantage of this perfect alignment of low rates and extraordinary inventory before market conditions change," November 3, 2006

"This email is in response to the many inquiries that NAR Research has received from state/local associations since I delivered my presentation at the Leadership Summit in Chicago last week. As promised, NAR Research will be distributing anti-bubble reports for many of the metros across the nation to all state and local associations."

klarek says

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term.

Their level of scum is stronger.

"The scum is strong with this one"

I was not extolling the virtues of China. I have been there on business and I will stop here.
I only mention that Apple products are coveted anywhere.
I was also in a small city in Mexico last December. In the Starbuck's I saw iPods, iPads, Apple laptops.
In airports last fall I saw Macbook airs all over the place.
I think Apple has sold about 59 million iPhones so far, but I am not sure.
Either way, I do not really have the strength of my convictions, I have the vast majority of my financial investments in mutual funds, and I hope to leave them alone for 15+ years.

clambo says

I was not extolling the virtues of China. I have been there on business and I will stop here.

I only mention that Apple products are coveted anywhere.

I was also in a small city in Mexico last December. In the Starbuck’s I saw iPods, iPads, Apple laptops.

In airports last fall I saw Macbook airs all over the place.

I think Apple has sold about 59 million iPhones so far, but I am not sure.

Either way, I do not really have the strength of my convictions, I have the vast majority of my financial investments in mutual funds, and I hope to leave them alone for 15+ years.

I understand. I just kinda was ranting about China anyways to someone else while I stumbled on this thread again ;)

I just did. In fact, the same source one of your Liberal govt-loving peers referenced, but didn't read it correctly. He referred to Whitney Ross's excellent site: www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com but did not read it as carefully as I have for the past 2 1/2 years. The orchestrated program by BJClinton and his ilk like Barney Frank who railed on banks for 20 years before, was a program designed to increase home-ownership to poor people, by 8million or actually more, using requirements for banks and backstops by Freddie and Fannie. Thanks boys, for starting the housing bubble with all your directives and programs!! Thks for doing so much 'good' !

sbourg says

Until the mid-1990s, lenders did not make loans to people with bad credit in large numbers because such borrowers were unlikely or unable to repay those loans. Why suddenly during the mid-90s did lenders begin to ramp up subprime mortgages in a large and growing capacity?

No--the obvious answer is that the MBS market emerged allowing them to sell these loans as AAA rated securities.

Listen--you can believe whatever you want. If you look dispassionately at the data, there is absolutely no way to conclude that the CRA had any more than a VERY minor effect. If anything it probably helped mitigate the crisis:

1. Loans in CRA approved areas actually defaulted at lower rates than the rest of the market.
2. As Mark showed earlier, the major players in the subprime market were not regulated by the CRA
3. Freddie and Fannie were actually very late into the subprime game

I know the CRA theory is Fox News wet dream, but it's just not true...

Maybe you all should read Whitney Ross's excellent website just a littttttle bit more carefully. And why don't you do your OWN research like I did in early '09 to find the ACTUAL regulations to the CRA, regulations that were effective 7/1/95 and I READ THEM in '09 and they were TOUGH on banks, requiring them to lend to poor people for home loans. FIND THEM YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CALL ME A LIAR. I read the exact regs.

Better yet, why don't you pontificate your navel a little more, and maybe design new and better ways to tax 'the rich' to turn our economy into nirvana. Maybe you can send your ideas to Paul Krugman -- he'll love it if you're creative and it won't matter to him that it won't actually help the economy. Oh, wait, you all actually think taxing the 'rich' more and more has some way of helping the economy because somehow it gets into the paychecks of lower-paids, or lowers rents, or some such nonsensical hypothesis.

Go bash another Republican. It's time for you to squabble amongst yourselves, who has the best ideas for your magic formula of more and more federal govt interference into everything and more and more money to them, for, as Democrats believe, for the 'common-good'. Argue amongst yourselves. Clearly you started bashing me again before you actually read Whitney's website theaffordablemortgagedepression.com that you quoted to disprove me, but it turns out I knew her writings much better than you all, and she knows that I know what she's describing and I agree with her. So study up chums. And happily pull the lever for Obama in '12 as I know you will -- lemmings, all of you. Towards the economic cliff. But you're dragging your children too.

Why suddenly during the mid-90s did lenders begin to ramp up subprime mortgages in a large and growing capacity?

Because they were MAKING TONS OF MONEY DOING THIS.

Why is this hard for you to understand? In an up market, home mortgages are just printing money for the banks with literally zero risk to them. Defaults/short-sales were impossible because a year down the road even a 100% loan would have 90% LTV or more.

Here's a graph of the bubble:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=to

The red line is total national real estate valuation. Up, up, & away!

Blue line is total household real estate borrowing.

Green line is 30 year mortgage rates, which is somewhat deceptive since in the 2003-2006 period negative-am became common so the downward trend of interest rates actually continued from 1990-2007, with only two brief checks in 1994 and 1999.

Additionally, employment was booming in the 1990s:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=tp

greatly expanding the pool of borrowers who had capacity to pay but perhaps had shitty credit.

This CRA bullshit is one of the bigger lies of the right, and it's really quite odious in both its ignorance of the true perpetrators of this financial disaster (rich white wallstreeters, real estate industry pumpers -- agents, loan brokers, appraisers, everyone -- and the Republican regulators running the whole scam 2001-2008) and pegging poor minority people as a cause of the problem.

Blaming Clinton/CRA is just a naked attempt at CYA, and shame on you for pushing this utter pack of lies.

It was the entirety of the US -- everyone -- who bought into the housing bubble boom/bust. CRA/subprime were caught up in it, but not drivers. The core driver was the suicide lending that was allowed to go on 2002-2006.

Negative-am, interest-only, stated-income -- these are the products that killed us and are banned now.

CRA lending and subprime were & are different in nature to that.

sbourg says

And happily pull the lever for Obama in ‘12 as I know you will — lemmings, all of you.

LOL. This is kinda like the ink a squid leaves as he's trying to slip away from the argument.

You're wrong regarding the 'chicken and the egg" debate. The requirement to lend to basically non-qualified buyers came first, in 1995 due to the CRA Regulations. Then the realization by lenders that they could off-load the crap to GSEs and other creative loan selling, ESPECIALLY because it was seen by everyone that property-values were skyrocketing, and everyone was 'winning'. So the loans multiplied. But the start, the 'impetus' was the govt-edict requirement to lend to non-qualified buyers. So the lenders also figured how to make money off it and then offload the junk.

sbourg says

Maybe you all should read Whitney Ross’s excellent website just a littttttle bit more carefully. And why don’t you do your OWN research like I did in early ‘09 to find the ACTUAL regulations to the CRA, regulations that were effective 7/1/95 and I READ THEM in ‘09 and they were TOUGH on banks, requiring them to lend to poor people for home loans. FIND THEM YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CALL ME A LIAR. I read the exact regs.

Or you could just post the regs yourself since you are so familiar with them.

Of course you won't though because you are full of shit.

I can't post the 7/1/95 Regulations cuz it wasn't easy to find in '09 when I was researching this issue profusely. But I read the thing -- it was only 30 pages or so and it was HARD-BALL. It was not playing around.
Listen fellas -- you quoted Whitney Ross's website yourselves -- I've been reading that site since '09 when the S_IT was hitting the fan, and in all my researching I found the Regulations. Whitney thought it was Congressional action to put teeth in the CRA, but it was not. It was an amendment by regulation.
To read the entire, pretty darn good story by Whitney, read her site, many of her chapters:
www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com and you'll see that the Clinton/Frank/Cisneros/Cuomo edict by the govt 7/1/95 took on a life of its own that had all the effects that you all describe, including GSEs who were also required to take on the 'junk', and the creative buying/selling/insuring/collateralizing of the poisonous loans -- loans that weren't so poisonous as long as the home values were rising. As long as they would rise, the problem was nonexistent -- all the sharks and even homeowners who were re-selling, were making money. But it was a house of cards.

Those who shorted microsoft a while ago were the right ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4

sbourg says

I can’t post the 7/1/95 Regulations cuz it wasn’t easy to find in ‘09

It's linked from wikipedia:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=22156&dbname=1995_register

But it was a house of cards.

We're not denying that. We're saying CRA and subprime wasn't a major driver of that.

CRA/subprime refers to borrowers with subpar credit scores and histories.

The lending boom got out of hand from too much leverage and the introduction and popularization of suicide lending, much if not most of which going to PRIME borrowers and RICH people.

The fancy word for suicide lending is basically "Alt A" -- it was the rise of Alt A lending -- largely 2001-2006 and not subprime that caused the overextension, since rising valuations allowed borrowers to take cash out of their places to support their borrowing, a horrific feedback loop.

Stated income and negative amortization loans to the masses were the things that enabled the system to go out of whack, and these got rolling AFTER Clinton.

Of course, COMMERCIAL valuations zoomed up more and crashed more than the housing market during the Bush Bubble, and CRA didn't have anything to do with that. Commercial loans often explicitly included a little extra to cover interest payments for two years, a wonderful way for speculators to leverage up.

A generally falling interest rate environment of the 1990s, skyrocketing employment set up the bubble in 2000, but it was deregulation and laissez faire-enabled control fraud among the real estate industry that blew things up 2003-2005. By 4Q05 the market topped out and for all of 2006 and 1H07 the market was just running scared.

We'd done screwed up.

sbourg says

Clinton/Frank/Cisneros/Cuomo edict by the govt 7/1/95 took on a life of its own

It must have been a hell of a life, it managed to cause a world wide housing bubble and bust. How did the CRA regulations manage to jump over international borders? Pretty strong stuff. Even more amazing was that the vast majority of the subprime lending and bust was in CA, FL, AZ, and NV in area's that don't even come close to being subject to the CRA. Don't let pesky facts stand in the way of a good opinion.

to terriDeaner - Dude or Dudette I can view a site many times without having to make a comment. Duh

For starters, you should read theaffordablemortgagedepression.com more slowly. That policy of Clinton and Cisneros his HUD director, to want 10 million more homeowners starting in 1995 was frightening as an actionable federal policy -- and yes folks GSEs Fannie & Freddie were an important part of it. Still being used by the way. If we don't default on the national debt, our children will be paying for that crap, plus Obama/Reid/Pelosi's overspending for decades. Guess you all would rather think about taxing the 'rich' though. That's an obsession for you folks. I'm not saying the 'rich' shouldn't be taxed a bit more, but it's a spit in the ocean to close-up the $1.7T/year deficit we have now. It's not a means to actually fix it, OR to do any good for the economy. Period.

sbourg says

It’s not a means to actually fix it, OR to do any good for the economy. Period.

Actually, not period. We had a very good economy when the top marginal rate was 90%. You don't have the facts or logic on your side, just wishful thinking.

Raising rates on the top 2%, won't, in fact, close the deficit. But if we're not going to cut spending we're going to need to raise taxes on people, and the top 2% are the only ones with rising real incomes these days.

and yes folks GSEs Fannie & Freddie were an important part of it.

No they weren't. The bubble went far above the conforming limit, and it was the loans the GSEs WEREN'T making that was causing much of the bubble valuation increase 2002-2003 -- the stated income loans to flippers and the pay-option loans that let them and everyone else lever up, and the cash-out refis that bled out into the wider economy giving us a feedback loop of fake prosperity until the credit ran out.

Cisneros had nothing to do with this, though, since you like conspiracy theory, you should in fact read this:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/080928_rove.htm

Should be right up your alley, assuming you're just racist and not a Republican partisan.

plus Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s overspending for decades

LOL, Pelosi only controlled 2 Obama budgets, and much of that deficit spending served to keep the system together and turn things around in 2009 -- TARP ($25B or so) and the ARRA ($300B in tax cuts and $500B in spending).

If we were looking for overspending, we'd have to look at the Bush crew, with their $1.2T war, plus increase of the defense budget from $366B in 2001 to $800B/yr in his last budget -- more than $5T in total on defense the previous decade. Talk about overspending! At least will get some bridges, infrastructure, and new trains for the ARRA.

Plus $66B for Medicare Part D this year alone, a simple transfer payment from the US Treasury to big pharma, which already is into us for tens of billions of profit each year.

It's really amazing how clownishly reality-challenged your partisan attempts at argument here are. You fit right in with the other conservatives here. Wish we could find some actual intelligent conservatives. Or honest ones, for that matter.

sbourg says

If we don’t default on the national debt, our children will be paying for that crap

Our debt is not "crap". It is the money we spent on government services. We were irresponsible to run it up like we did 2002-now and we're going to need to find the maturity to buckle down and start getting our house in order.

This largely means much higher taxes, but if you've got any spending cuts to propose to Congress they'd love to learn what you think about that too I bet.

At the peak of the capitalism, you need to pay to breath.
This will move GDP to a new level !

shrekgrinch says

So what?
That’s poll is meaningless.
The only thing that matters is how people poll in EACH congressional district. We don’t fill up the seats of Congress via national elections…we do it with nationally coordinated elections at the state and district levels.

You may find this hard to believe--but there seems to be a correlation between national polls and local polls.

tatupu70 says

What freedom did you lose exactly?

We are loosing our freedom of choice Comrade Tatupu70, are one step closer to a fascist dictatorship corporatocracy.

What is really behind all this is the move to control information that is on the internet through the back door. The free flow of information is the death knell to all governments that wish to rule rather than simply govern. Powerful governments operate best under the cloak of secrecy. There was a time when American’s access to information was limited to the three major networks and the major print media. It was very difficult back then to verify what was being promulgated to us as “news & facts.” The internet has dramatically changed all that, and much of what government is doing and how it operates is being exposed for all to see. This is anathema to politicians that are addicted to power. I look for an increased effort by the government to continue along these lines in an attempt to drastically limit access to uninhibited information.

How about increase the capital gain tax from 15% to a higher rate? This is where the meat is. Famous Buffet's line, not the exact, "My secretary pays more tax than I do!". He fails to mention his secretary does not have millions or billions in capital gain. Raising income tax will solve only small part of the revenue issue, congress should take a serious look at the capital gain tax rate. I guess Republicans in congress will jump off the bench if this is mentioned.

The government should sell all these bank and GM stocks, reserved gold and oil, CA lands, and green cards to corrupted Chinese/Indian government officers.

Problem solved.

Tenouncetrout says

tatupu70 says

What freedom did you lose exactly?

We are loosing our freedom of choice Comrade Tatupu70, are one step closer to a fascist dictatorship corporatocracy.

Again--what choice did you lose?

"We are loosing our freedom of choice"

You mean freedom of choice whether to have an abortion? I agree. We are losing our freedoms. Someone should tell the Communist bug government loving Republicans to keep their hands off our healthcare!

kimtitu says

How about increase the capital gain tax from 15% to a higher rate?

I'm all for having capital gains income be taxed at the same rate as regular income. Otherwise this simply directs a lot of money off into stock market. Housing and stocks should not have preferential treatment compared to someone trading labor for a living.

clambo says

Those who shorted microsoft a while ago were the right ones.

Thats completely unrelated.

If you walk into the Apple store today it will be packed, their products are flying off the shelves.

On the other hand Steve Balmer at MSCorp has been struggling to come up with any revolutionary ideas. I think windows phone and cloud computing will be interesting few years down the line, but ultimately Microsoft for whatever the reason does not invent, they just embrace and extend.

Life would be so exciting if the debt ceiling is not raised. No government! No taxes! No police! Food riots will start within 48 hours. Mansions and expensive cars will be torched by angry mobs.

Chris, that's what I have seen also. I have written my positive opinion of Apple above. Presently I think it is a juggernaut. I love making fun of Microsoft since Ballmer was on record making fun of the iPhone, etc.
Under Ballmer microsoft stock nav has been flat or falling. I wonder if they will kick Ballmer to the curb soon.
Apple rocks.

World ends may 21 anyhow

I look at Jobs and Ballmer and I see two totally different personalities. Former is an engineer who can really lead, and latter is more of a politician.

To me it was interesting when several days ago Microsoft acquired Skype, knowing Ballmer there is something big being planned, but I'm really not sure what it is.

Sarcasm noted.

HousingWatcher says

Food riots will start within 48 hours

More like 1,920 hours (give or take a few...). August 2nd is a ways off. Even Bill McBride agrees on this:

More on Debt Ceiling Charade
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/05/more-on-debt-ceiling-charade.html

First, even though the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling on Monday, there are games that Treasury can play - so Congress has until August 2nd. And there might even be some more tricks that can delay the date further - like promising to pay defense contractors sometime in the future.

I'm not sure I'd call Jobs an engineer. He has way more tech chops than most people give him credit for, but his real skills are imagination, vision, and hiring and motivating super-talented people who share (or will internalize) those ideas to make them happen.

I see Ballmer as a bombastic B-school guy of totally unknown talent.. All of the years of MSFT success could easily be attributed to Gates' leadership (with Ballmer's presence but contribution unclear), and the last decade of MSFT stagnation attributed to Ballmer's direction or lack thereof. Gates stumbled frequently on the vision thing, and arguably held back the industry as a whole, but he still channeled a fair amount of that exogenous force (moore's law, etc) into products.

I totally disagree about the Skype thing. I think the "something big" is integration with MSFT's existing services that people don't use or care about. That acquisition was a defensive thing. I don't believe that MSFT knows what to do with Skype, nor how to value it...just that Skype has a popular consumer service that they don't know how to build themselves, and don't realize how close it is to being commoditized.

terriDeaner says

More like 1,920 hours (give or take a few…). August 2nd is a ways off.

Can the Fed just forgive some or all of the US treasury debt of ~1.5 T that it holds?
That would lower the outstanding debt by same amount and allow another 1 year of borrowing at the same clip. And then the Fed can buy more T-bills and forgive them again, I guess.

Not just the Fed, btw. Various agencies (the Social Sec. system, Mil. retirement board, etc.) hold another ~3T of US debt is "special book" non-marketable securities. Could they just forgive some of that as well?
Never underestimate what the govt. could do!

Woz was the genius engineer.

Jobs will always be famous to me for one quote, while hiring Scully from Coke he asked him:

Do you want to "sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?

I think this was Jobs in a nutshell, he's the passionate vision guy.

And an updated story about APPL price manipulation:

As we saw in Thursday's post, Apple's (AAPL) share price tends to gravitate with uncanny accuracy toward the closing price that causes "max pain" to option buyers and maximum profit to option sellers -- often in a burst of last-minute trading.

In that respect, Friday's close was picture-perfect.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/15/how-the-market-in-apple-weeklys-is-rigged/?iid=HP_LN

Good point. It would be nice to get a better sense for how dependent states and local governments are on SLGS financing right now. I suspect dependency is not uniform across all users.