patrick.net

Do women always say what they want?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/studywomenliketechtoysmorethanshoes

Buy Apple stock.

I'm looking for women partners to go into tech toy business.

Can anybody give me the skinny on unpermitted square footage?

I've just been having a look on Zip for houses, and half of them say 'unpermitted bedroom/bathroom/studio' etc...and almost all say that the buyer needs to check permits, square footage.

Does this mean that, as a buyer, you need to make sure that all the work has permits before buying? Is it 'normal' to expect the buyer to do this, or is this just a vestige of the 'sellers market' mentality'?

Also, does the taxed assessed value have any bearing on reality? Is it a way to find out the 'fair' value of a house, or should it just be ignored?

Sorry, I've asked this before, but I'm still unclear.

Also, OT

Let us speculate on the effect of Castro's death. For one thing, Cuba will be opened up within next 5 years.

screened in porch

The caviar eating gilded Bay Aryans will pay top dollar for one of these, especially if it's a turbo.

SFWoman, I'm sorry I thought they meant "screened in porsche". ahahahahaha

SFWoman,

I like your RE bubble prediction. It's a great idea.

What I’d like to know is this: who’s going to pay for my rehab now that I’m addicted to these bubble blogs?

I tried quiting for two days. Today I stayed home and went back on the dope again.

Seattle lags the national hot spots by at least a year. The cranes in downtown Bellevue went up only last year. The frenzy is going to continue for some time.

I hope you are not pulling my legs. In any case, my take on the Seattle situation.

Major appreciation started sometime last year. Depending on when you sold your house, your ex-house is now worth 20-40% more than what you sold it for.

Slowdown in this area isn't likely to happen until the recession hits. Even then, MSFT will keep enough people on its payroll and the local housing market will have a good support. There will be RIF after vista ships, but not enough to drastically impact the local housing market. Boeing is also doing well. So if you intend to buy at a much reduced market price (say at 2000-2001 level), you may not get your wish or at least you'll have to wait for a 2-4 years.

Peter P says:
I like Cupertino. I feel safe in it. People there will do no harm.

That's right.
They will also tend to not acknowledge your presence if you're a member of the wrong (a different?) ethnic group or maybe: economic class. In almost two years, several of our immediate neighbours have never once returned our friendly "hello"s.
Well, in reality, we've given up after a few unsuccessful attempts.

One other thing that puzzles me: A lot of folks refuse to use the sidewalk, but rather walk on the street, even when there's some traffic. No idea why.

artdoggie Says:

"...We just got back from a weekend in upstate New York where we make the mistake at stopping at the wrong Dunkin Donuts & got verbally harrassed right out of the place. It was really frightening..."
_____

WTF?

SQT,

Welcome to the asylum :)

WiS:

Best luck. You took quite a risk: You might have sold too early. I used to subscribe to Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letter. On the bulletin board, old people were talking about getting out of CA RE. That was 2002-2003. I guess some must be regretting now.

In general, a rising RE market is bad for most people, except those who sell and MOVE AWAY. It's more expensive to upgrade in a rising market, because the price differential also increases. Owners are taxed more. Blah and blah.

Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t want to profit off others’ misfortune, and feel bad about what I believe is to come, but I do want to buy another house. I’m just not going to pay too much for it. So, I’m waiting for prices to come down.

You should not feel bad about this. The "others with misfortunes" are not passive actors. They were free to make the same decisions you made, only chose not to do so due to greed, ignorance, apathy or just plain different beliefs about the future.

There are always winners and losers. You took a risk by selling. They took a risk by not buying/holding. That they may deny the risk existed makes no difference, because if they come out the losers then clearly it did; but only you recognized it for what it was.

I bristle at the "when I win I'm deserving" but "when I lose I'm a victim suffering a misfortune bestowed upon me" mentality. Like I've said a hundred times, most Americans are not capitalists. They only pretend to be when they're winning.

I still maintain that houses are a durable good. Thus, lower housing prices would be like lower PC prices...it's bad for the producers but good for everybody else.

GC,

I'm Shanghai born, so no Hong Kong bias. I love Shanghai but the food/culture is still middling and I don't get all the fuss. It's cool to live there as an ex-pat and feel 5X richer than you actually are, but it's not an exceptional city yet. I'd say it's more like Indian mega cities or SE Asian cities with a touch of the first world.

I saw a Papa John's the last time I was in Shanghai. Perhaps better fast food franchises are moving in.

The only thing I really miss are the steamed mini pork dumplings and the fried mini pork buns, but that's more street food.

Peter P,

Shark fins are tasteless and NoCal has some of the best abalone in the world. In fact, most of the expensive Chinese ingredients are utterly tasteless and gooey and involve extreme animal cruelty - like camel humps and bear paws.

Randy,

One interpretation is that the concept of the market is an unstable concept that tried to fill in when human society evolved beyond kinship groups. After that, our altruistic impulses and our selfishness just got all confused. (DS ought to like this idea, since it would support going back to a noble savage like existence)

The only thing I really miss are the steamed mini pork dumplings and the fried mini pork buns, but that’s more street food.

That's the stuff I love. Add a few other street food items. I was in heaven when I visited last year. When I was in primary school, I had a lunch plan with a restaurant. But one day, the restaurant was closed. So my mom gave me some money to eat at a place of my picking. I went to a street-food restaurant next to school and ordered two (or perhaps three) servings of wonton soup. They asked me why I didn't get one wonton and something else. I told them, "I like wonton."

In fact, most of the expensive Chinese ingredients are utterly tasteless and gooey and involve extreme animal cruelty - like camel humps and bear paws.

Tiger penis.

Here is a recipe from the web:

tiger penis soup
(thing) by zgirll (2.7 mon) (print) ? 1 C! Wed Jun 13 2001 at 18:42:58

This recipe was graciously given by "Miss Casey", the head waitress at the Pu Chung Pao resturant in Taizhong, Taiwan. If you prefer, you can buy a bowl of this tasty?? soup for a mere 400 dollars. This recipe makes 8 bowls of Tiger Penis Soup.

1 tiger penis, dried
24 other spices and medicines, including rhino horn, bear gall bladder, tiger bone, and ginseng
Soak the tiger penis in water for one week. Simmer with the 24 spices and medicines for 24-26 hours. Serves 8

Tiger Penis has long been valued by practicioners of eastern medicine as an aphrodesiac. The penis can be taken in soup, ground in wine, or soaked in rice alcohol for 6 months. Results vary, and recent interviews indicate that the recent influx of Viagra into the traditional markets of China, South Korea, and Taiwan has caused the demand for tiger penis to drop. Apparently Viagra has more reliable results than penis of tiger. That could also be due in part to the common substitution of ox or deer tendons for real tiger penis by some unscrupulous shop owners.

Medicinal uses of tiger parts has contributed greatly to the extinction of some species of tigers, and the near-extinction of others. Worldwide tiger populations, over 100,000 at the turn of the century are now estimated to be around 9,000. Despite the outlawing of killing tigers for body parts in virtually all the places where they are found, a brisk trade still exists in tiger medicine. In April, 1999 and survey was taken of Chinese markets in New York's Chinatown by the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international non-profit organization. Sixty three percent of the markets surveyed either sold or claimed to sell goods containing tiger parts.

Traditional Chinese medicine gives body parts of certain animals the ability to transfer the power of that animal to a human consuming or wearing that body part. The tiger is able to mate vigorously and repetitivly over several days. The average length of these mating is only 15 seconds, however. hmmmmmmm.

Other traditional uses for tiger body parts are:
whiskers - give protection from bullets, give user courage, and prevent toothache.
eyeballs - rolled into pills, prevent and treat epilepsy and convulstions
brains - mixed with oil and rubbed over body - cures laziness and acne
bones - mixed into wine, cures rheumatism
tail - rubbed on body, said to cure skin problems
heart - cooked and eaten, imparts strength, courage, and cunning

please unlock my posting. It's quite funny.

test word penis

I see. it's the via ... gra word

In fact, most of the expensive Chinese ingredients are utterly tasteless and gooey and involve extreme animal cruelty - like camel humps and bear paws.

You forgot one thing: Tiger penis.

Here is a recipe from the web:

tiger penis soup
(thing) by zgirll (2.7 mon) (print) ? 1 C! Wed Jun 13 2001 at 18:42:58

This recipe was graciously given by “Miss Casey”, the head waitress at the Pu Chung Pao resturant in Taizhong, Taiwan. If you prefer, you can buy a bowl of this tasty?? soup for a mere 400 dollars. This recipe makes 8 bowls of Tiger Penis Soup.

1 tiger penis, dried
24 other spices and medicines, including rhino horn, bear gall bladder, tiger bone, and ginseng
Soak the tiger penis in water for one week. Simmer with the 24 spices and medicines for 24-26 hours. Serves 8

Tiger Penis has long been valued by practicioners of eastern medicine as an aphrodesiac. The penis can be taken in soup, ground in wine, or soaked in rice alcohol for 6 months. Results vary, and recent interviews indicate that the recent influx of via ... gra ... into the traditional markets of China, South Korea, and Taiwan has caused the demand for tiger penis to drop. Apparently via ... gra ... has more reliable results than penis of tiger. That could also be due in part to the common substitution of ox or deer tendons for real tiger penis by some unscrupulous shop owners.

Medicinal uses of tiger parts has contributed greatly to the extinction of some species of tigers, and the near-extinction of others. Worldwide tiger populations, over 100,000 at the turn of the century are now estimated to be around 9,000. Despite the outlawing of killing tigers for body parts in virtually all the places where they are found, a brisk trade still exists in tiger medicine. In April, 1999 and survey was taken of Chinese markets in New York’s Chinatown by the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international non-profit organization. Sixty three percent of the markets surveyed either sold or claimed to sell goods containing tiger parts.

Traditional Chinese medicine gives body parts of certain animals the ability to transfer the power of that animal to a human consuming or wearing that body part. The tiger is able to mate vigorously and repetitivly over several days. The average length of these mating is only 15 seconds, however. hmmmmmmm.

Other traditional uses for tiger body parts are:
whiskers - give protection from bullets, give user courage, and prevent toothache.
eyeballs - rolled into pills, prevent and treat epilepsy and convulstions
brains - mixed with oil and rubbed over body - cures laziness and acne
bones - mixed into wine, cures rheumatism
tail - rubbed on body, said to cure skin problems

heart - cooked and eaten, imparts strength, courage, and cunning

Shark fins are tasteless and NoCal has some of the best abalone in the world. In fact, most of the expensive Chinese ingredients are utterly tasteless and gooey and involve extreme animal cruelty - like camel humps and bear paws.

Shark's fin tastes great when cooked with supreme soup made of chicken and ham broth. Most restaurants do not cook it right because they go cheap on the broth.

Do you know if it is still possible to get bear paws legally?

I have never tried bear paws but I heard it is a delicacy.

Peter P,

You can learn bear hunting. I recommend Marlin 1895G (lever action) as your first bear gun. I've seen great reviews of 1895. There are organized, guided bear hunt trips in Alaska. To you, they should be affordable.

To you, they should be affordable.

Perhaps not. I am not Marina Prime. :)

Vodka Advice

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak. After mass he asked the monsignor how he had done. The monsignor replied, "When I am worried about getting nervous on the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip."

So the next Sunday he took the monsignor's advice. At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to talk up a storm. Upon return to his office after mass, he found the following note on his door:

1. Sip the Vodka, don't gulp.

2. There are 10 commandments, not 12.

3. There are 12 disciples, not 10.

4. Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.

5. Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass.

6. We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C.

7. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior, and the Spook.

8. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.

9. When David was hit by a rock and knocked off his donkey, don't say he was stoned off his ass.

10. We do not refer to the cross as the Big T!

11. When Jesus broke the bread at the Last Supper he said, "Take this and eat it, for it is my body", he did not say, "Eat me."

12. The Virgin Mary is not referred to as the, "Mary with the Cherry".

13. The recommended grace before a meal is not: "Rub-A-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yeah God". and finally...

14. Next Sunday there will be a taffy-pulling contest at St.Peter's, not a peter-pulling contest at St. Taffy's.

who is marina prime?

Peter P,

From a website:

Fall bear hunting trips 10 days 1 hunter X one guide $9500
Spring bear hunting trips 14 days 1 hunter X 1 guide $9500

$10K is what some ex-military park ranger said on another board.

Even with an experienced guide, hunting grizzlies is still a dangerous adventure.

SQT, Thanks.

$400K in IB is nothing. A couple of mil a year, then the man is somebody (possibly a junior VP).

Grad school friend from Germany told me that his college classmate is now a technical fellow (computer network security) at JP Morgan (or Morgan Stanly or whatever) in London. Younger than I. late 20's. 700K a year. Not sure if it's dollar or pound sterling.

WSJ report today that Robert Fallor's condo-tels developments in Miami Beach and Chicago are in jeopardy. He hasnt made any payments for several months. "Hedge funds are stepping in to takeover the investments..." Not a good sign.

Nonadamas, you think Jacksonville racist? I used to travel to SF. Try getting served in a Chinese restaurant in China Town where locals are. They look at you like"what the F are you doing here?" I quickly found out what racism is in the US. Worse try walking the streets of inner city America- you are in for a real surprise Nonadamas.

One interpretation is that the concept of the market is an unstable concept that tried to fill in when human society evolved beyond kinship groups. After that, our altruistic impulses and our selfishness just got all confused. (DS ought to like this idea, since it would support going back to a noble savage like existence)

oh yes, love it. i was reflecting on this just yesterday by a coincidence -- really truly. we live in an atomised, depersonalised society, where we see other people as instrumentalities, as things who will provide us with something, where we get caught up in endless acquisition and systems of status markers... i think i was trying to understand why there is constant saturation advertising everywhere and salespeople exist...

doc1,

What's not to like? Standing back (at a safe distance) and watching these P.T Barnum types and their road show "Condo Flipper's Circus" implode has become quite a hobby of mine. You've really got to try it!

HARM,

LOVED the Kalifornia Guide to Dealing with the The New Reality (I mean lowball offers). Like Michael Anderson said, people in Bend seem to want to think 200% appreciation in a few years is "normal" and yet a 50% correction would some how be a depression?

Start liking it!

StuckinBA,

Great article from the OCC. Of all the regulatory agencies these guys have been the closest thing to a consumer advocate to date. Also not surprising to note that the only group that had any objections to a tightening of lending standards was the NAR! Safe Haven always has "da goods". Thanks.

George,

Good point. Is this the last hurrah for FB's and GF's? The other aspect that is going to plague the lending industry is that as DTI skyrockets many of their clients will no longer be approved for "slam dunk" HELOC's etc. Or certainly at the low rates they've been touting in the past. So no more re-financing your way out of a painted corner!

MA,

Doesn't surprise me at all. There CAN be legitimate reasons for tapping into one's 401K. Because your home "equity" is exhausted and you need to further fund your "lifestyle" isn't one of them. Perhaps these are some of the "lost men" SFWoman warned us about? To be sure most are still very gainfully employed and are slipping down to HR during their break to "fast track" their loans.

Now we're seeing the "other" side of the housing boom. Instead of the home that keeps giving and giving (Housing ATM Machine/Equity Liberator) what we now find is the home that keeps draining and leaking! An "alligator" if you will. Rather than a constant and unending source of liquidity they now require regular feeding.

June Phillips,

I spent a large portion of my adulthood overseas. Trust me, no one would have liked to sit this debacle out more than me. You're sick and tired? Ahem, you have been graciously spared having house rich homedebtors (people that are deluded enough to believe they actually own the home, not the bank) rub their HELOC funded lifestyles in your nose at every opportunity.

There is ample evidence that the long awaited crash is now in full swing. Please feel free to go through the archives and watch as housing "perma-bulls" have vacated and are now very much on the defensive. Also visit the many other housing bubble sites that will absolutely overwhelm you with data from coast to coast. Read, research and enjoy. If you would like please feel free to "buy now before you are priced out forever" but do so at your own risk. Smart money has long since taken their profits and like many here are waiting eagerly on the sidelines.

MA,

Good question. The truth is that seldom if ever are these loans repaid and the "extractor" gets a 1099 at the end of the year heralding the arrival of income they will be additionally taxed on. (On top of 10% early withdrawal penalty). More times than not the individual does not have the liquidity come the 14th of April so the elect not to file. Chalk up one more entrant either to the "underground economy" or a newly minted member of the "The IRS is F'ing with Me" club!

astrid said:

One interpretation is that the concept of the market is an unstable concept that tried to fill in when human society evolved beyond kinship groups. After that, our altruistic impulses and our selfishness just got all confused. (DS ought to like this idea, since it would support going back to a noble savage like existence)

DS said:

oh yes, love it. i was reflecting on this just yesterday by a coincidence — really truly. we live in an atomised, depersonalised society, where we see other people as instrumentalities, as things who will provide us with something, where we get caught up in endless acquisition and systems of status markers… i think i was trying to understand why there is constant saturation advertising everywhere and salespeople exist…

Hmmm. Let me think about this notion. A "market" is somehow a contrived, artificial concoction; markets wouldn't exist "naturally" except but for all this human greed and consumption. The extension is that in the "pre-market" dawn of human civilization people lived some kind of gentle, noble utopian existence.

The second idea is so preposterous it need not be countered thoughtfully. Archaeological evidence is to the contrary. Early human societies -- at least any you might label "pre-markets" -- were marked by short, and often intensely violent lifespans. I posit that anyone today prognosticating about the virtues of ancient existences would not survive themselves in such an environment for more than 2 weeks.

The first idea is just a misunderstanding of what a "market" is. Markets exist whenever there are more than one person competing for the same scarce resource. Many primate species exhibit distinct market making behaviors. There are also aspects of market making that occur in organized collective hive insect colonies.