patrick.net

We let OBAMA know the bailouts backfired, (he does not seem to know)
We demand OUR money back !!!
We elect a president to protect PEOPLE, NOT fat cat banks !!!

J.K. You NEVER get anything back from any gubmint.

Auntiegrav says

I disagree, unless the building of that home is paying the community back in some way (an estate that allows people to visit for some reason (education, recreation, etc.). The money people tie up in accumulating wealth represents resources that should be utilized to rebuild the soil, the air, the water, political stability, community skills, etc. The idea that it is OK to compete against our own future (storing wealth beyond our physical security needs) needs to be reevaluated in the context of diminishing fossil resources

This really resonated with me. I'm not saying that I agree with all (or any) of it, because deciding what I think about this subject is difficult...but it speaks to how I feel about the topic, and it was presented better than I could say it myself. Well said, thanks for that.

-S

Market should have been left alone.

There is a difference between abolishing the entire mortgage model, and getting rid of the mortgage tax deduction.

Who here thinks the latter is still a good idea? All it does is encourage people with money to buy more house than they would have otherwise, and by people with money, I mean upper-middle income coastal dwellers from expensive places. Like, say, Silicon Valley.

Folks from places where homes cost less don't pay enough in interest to bother itemizing tax deductions.

Don't get me started on Prop 13.

We're already past the inflection point of the deflation so acceleration is negative.

"I see the news always talk about how banks are holding on to properties in Bay Area. But throughout the years, I can only spot a few."
Gotta look deeper for the shadow inventory.
If banks were fully exposed and revealed for their possessions, tbey would be revealed as insolvent.
Which some of them are.

Oh, and thank whomever for the Patrick point, I know it cost you a dollar, and I'm glad you're supporting the site.

monkframe says

And where is the prosecution of the fraud perpetrated on many ignorant home buyers by agents, banks,etc., who passed the crap loans up the chain without responsibility? I see plenty of blaming of starry-eyed would-be homeowners, but where's the responsibility of the carnival tent proprietors? They are the ones who made money from this process.

If the prices were not so inflated, but were around 1996-97 prices plus inflation and income growth, most likely half as much... no matter what loan the buyer had (Crap or otherwise) foreclosures would have NOT occured. Its not the loans at fault .. it the irrational buying by consumers who pumped prices beyond any rational reason.

If there were no mortgage debt, there would be no negative equity or foreclosures.
If there were no mortgage debt, the banks never would have had a mortgage debt crisis.
If there were no mortgage debt to compete against, your savings could buy a nice house

Buying with cash, or no mortgage debt, does not protect you from price drops. Its about having some common sense and money smart.

Those who stupidly overpaid, reap their own rewards of losing money.

Steven Spielberg Sells Malibu Home at a Loss (1998)

Not everyone is making money in the California real estate boom. Director Steven Spielberg just sold his oceanfront Malibu home, not his primary residence, for approximately $4.5 million or $1.5 million less than he paid for the property when he purchased it in 1992. His loss is his lucky buyer's gain.

http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/19980819_celebrity.htm

"it the irrational buying by consumers who pumped prices beyond any rational reason...."

That's true, but the consumer was aided and abetted by all the real estate agents, mortgage brokers, banks, securitizers, ad nauseum, who all made piles of money from crap loans that they knew many people would become trapped by.

bgamall4 says

thomas.wong1986 says

Those who stupidly overpaid, reap their own rewards of losing money.

I am actually tired of hearing this. If markets are manipulated and people don't know what things are worth, how can overpaying be stupid?

Buying something without knowing its worth can pretty easily be classified "stupid". Buying something just because the price is rapidly increasing is a pretty good metric as well.

Right now, interest rates are at the lowest they've ever been. Are people rushing out to borrow money? No? Well, not for houses anyway. Clearly, easy money alone doesn't cause the problem.

As to thomas.wong's comment, most people didn't "lose money" on the deal. They may have sold for less than they paid, but thanks to ol' Bushie they no longer have to claim the difference as income, as they should, so the losses fall onto the banks and the public.

And as to monframe's comment, let's not forget the people who bought the mortgage bonds ... most likely some of the same people who just made a mint flipping their overpriced house. The sellers certainly knew the house's true worth.

bgamall4 says

cc0 says

Buying something without knowing its worth can pretty easily be classified "stupid". Buying something just because the price is rapidly increasing is a pretty good metric as well.

Monday morning quarterbacks are a dime a dozen, don't you think Thomas?

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've been telling people not to buy houses since 2002.

Now I know better.

bgamall4 says

Do you know how to diagnose your own illnesses to and fix the computer on your car? Not everyone knows what everyone else knows Thomas.

This thread has just gone absurd.

You don't need to be a car mechanic to know that buying something solely because the price is going up is a bad idea.

bgamall4 says

It is not absurd. You diagnosed the prices of houses in a way that most have no clue how to do. Very few people knew in 2002 that houses would peak in 2007 and fall back to as low as 1990 prices at the time of this post.

I'm not claiming any super-powers here. In 2001 I was shopping for a house. I finally found one that I liked that was a little out of my price range. I tried to offer what I thought I could afford and the listing agent said she wasn't even going to entertain it because she expected multiple offers over the listing price. I had no idea what was going on but knew that's not how things work. You list for more than you want, expecting to haggle. But prices kept going up, and I sat on the sidelines.

I didn't know when the peak was. I didn't know anything about real estate. I knew my income as a professional was higher than the majority of the people in this area and I was being priced out. I was scared by Realtors® saying I was being priced out of the market forever, but I had already decided what I would pay and I wasn't going to overpay because some schmuck told me "It's only $X per month".

Maybe I was lucky because in 1996 I went to a car dealer who refused to tell me how much a car cost. "We don't do that here," he said, "We only go by the monthly payment."

Say what? "I don't think so, buddy," says I, and leaves.

Maybe it was 2003 when I started saying not to buy houses, but it was somewhere around there when I heard people say that they were buying second homes and condos and time shares so they could flip them. If I knew what was going to happen, I would have flipped to some of these idiots but I didn't make a dime off this mess.

A few years later some of my younger friends started to say that they were going to buy a first house. This may have been 2005-2006 time frame. At this point it was simply blatantly obvious that things were overpriced. Houses that I'd looked at for $160k were now being listed at $280k. Someone else I knew sold his house just so he could rent. Here I said many times over not to buy. The only people who thought differently were greedy idiots who were buying for the sole reason that they knew that they were expensive. They just expected that to go on forever.

This is just plain stupid. Whether it's houses, stocks, tulips, or cabbage patch kids, buying things because they're expensive is stupid.

There is nothing absurd about criticiziing arrogance. If the financial system had thought people were as smart as you they never would have attempted the housing bubble in the first place.

Methinks you prescribe too much to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance. There's a lot of people on Wall Street who are a lot smarter than I am, but I'm pretty sure that the bubble was well underway (say, 2003/4) before anyone really realized what was going on.

What happened after that, though, was criminal. Or would have been hadn't Clinton deregulated it. But there were many forms of malfeasance so it's difficult to ascribe all of it to Clinton's legislation and Bush's being a crony lovin' moron. bah!

I'm not saying that innocent (though naïve) people didn't get caught in the mess. They did: I don't know anyone who listened to me when I told them not to buy. But, at least in this area and I'm sure in yours, most of the money came from the northeast and north-central areas, and the houses they bought are vacant.

Read through my other posts (there aren't that many). Even though the Realtors® should have been actual professionals giving genuine advice, that doesn't absolve even the "innocent" people from being dumb. At some point they had to do an evaluation and they determined that paying $1500/mo to buy a house was a better deal than paying $900/mo in rent. These people probably believe that the American Dream really is home ownership, too. Ignorance is no excuse.

And don't forget that Clinton began the plan to increase home ownership by reducing eligibility requirements. Clinton's actions stimulated the economy but - like fire, like government - needs to be run by competent people. I'm just not ready to buy that the banks intentionally created this, as you seem to assert. The banks - especially the smaller ones - are run by the same idiots.

Actually, didn't http://www.zillow.com/blog/2009-06-03/geithner-cant-sell-decides-to-rent/

So, let's get back on topic.

When prices fall these people are going to get screwed even harder. Unless they do the smart thing and walk away. Then we all get screwed as our money (which is just debt) gets destroyed. Which brings about world economic collapse unless the federal government produces more money by issuing new debt. Which could be good because it turns unproductive money into productive money by improving infrastructure. Which means that money moves and we can start collecting taxes again. But all the income goes to the people who aren't taxed all that much, relatively speaking. So we aren't actually able to pay down the debt. So we go bankrupt and bring about world economic collapse again.

How do we get started??

Patrick--There is yet one more way to hasten the normalization and dropping of house prices! I agree with having a moratorium on buying ANY property using debt/mortgage. But look at this idea. Real estate "professionals" enjoy control of the market via the MLS, enjoy the use of "teamwork" to increase housing costs, and use tricks such as the "multiple offer" ploy...where there are actually NO offers. they would rather NOT sell, than allow anyone other than their fraternity (or sorority) to get the lower prices.

For those of us who OWN our properties debt free....we can always place the house on our FSBO market using the internet to PUMP DOWN the prices. Sell the house to a spouse or other trusted family member...especially with a different last name. Give it a go with at least a 60 Days "on market". You than "accept an offer from yourself at a MUCH lower price....down down down she goes. This will have an immediate effect on comps in the neighborhood, and in many areas of the country, will also result in LOWER PROPERTY TAXES and lower house insurance costs! Who cares what the "paper" equity is...it's only a scam for Real-A -Tors and mortgage brokers, who rely on it as their lifes blood. HIGH PRICES...keeps the mortgage Ponzi scheme going.

This will have NO EFFECT on people who just want to live in their houses. No debt, no mortgages....I guess the Real-A-Tors will have to go back to serving fast food or selling used cars? Do you want fries with this? LMAO

"Even though the Realtors® should have been actual professionals giving genuine advice, that doesn't absolve even the "innocent" people from being dumb."

Uh, real estate agents have a vested financial interest in the public being "dumb," i.e., uninformed.

"And don't forget that Clinton began the plan to increase home ownership by reducing eligibility requirements."

It's amazing how many crimes that Mr. Clinton committed that he's NOT being held responsible for and this certainly isn't one of them. A right-wing canard, this ridiculous charge lives on like Dick Cheney returning to his box of consecrated earth each morning.

How'bout Alan Greenspan? The man who never enforced the laws already on the books about lending standards and associated fraud? He did nothing as the bubble inflated and then warned about the consequences after he's retired and out of office. What a creep.

monkframe says

How'bout Alan Greenspan? The man who never enforced the laws

One of us is very confused. Greenspan's job was not to enforce any law, it was to manipulate the currency. And employment for some asinine reason.

monkframe says

It's amazing how many crimes that Mr. Clinton committed that he's NOT being held responsible for and this certainly isn't one of them.

bgamall4 says

As far as Clinton and the CRA, according to the Fed's stats they only made 24 percent of the subprime loans [...]

Please don't misunderstand me - I'm not blaming Clinton, but he did, I feel, sow many of the seeds of this mess. He took off the training wheels, as it were, and then we the people (or really, we the courts with Al "I concede" Gore) put an H.L. Mencken approved president in charge of a now-tipsy economic system.

At the time, I might have even thought it was a good thing. It also passed with overwhelming support. But if the next presidential election's candidates were Zombie Reagan, Read my Bush Lips, Slick Willie, and Bush the Lesser, I'm going for Willie. If we really want to get all finger-pointy, everything (including Bush II) points directly at Nixon.

bgamall4 says

And also at Basel 2 they allowed false risk management math thought up by a guy who used to work at JP Morgan, to be adopted as the math accepted for risk. But they knew it wouldn't work and didn't care.

I'm not familiar enough with the Basel Accords, but I don't understand what you're saying. It looks like you're referring to Basel 1, approved in 1988; Basel 2 wasn't enacted until 2008. Basel 1 set the reserve requirement at 8%, and JPMChase used CDSes to effectively drive it down to 1.6% (per Wikipedia, fwiw).

If that's what we're talking about - and even though JPMChase was one of the strongest banks coming out of the crisis - I find it difficult to believe that they did this with the express intent of destroying the banking system 20 years later solely to increase their own market share. At the basest levels, more leverage equals more profit, plain and simple. Greed, yes. Conspiratorial malfeasance, not so obvious.

bgamall4 says

If the financial system had thought people were as smart as you they never would have attempted the housing bubble in the first place.

Home prices in the Bay Area doubled between 1997 to 2000. Where were bankers ?

Dan8267 says

Whoever holds the note should have to pay taxes on real estate. This includes banks. If the banks had to pay all the taxes on foreclosed houses, then they wouldn't be able to just hold on them w/o bleeding money.

Banks do have to pay taxes on foreclosed houses. They put it on their balance sheet as REO -- real estate owned. Why would they be able to dodge property tax?
Dan8267 says

Now, an MIT or Cal Tech degree, I can see meaning something.

Why is an MIT history degree better than a Harvard history degree?

Agree with the general premise of this thread however -- the real crisis in housing is that prices are still too high and the government keeps propping them up.

bgamall4 says

That was when the private MBS totally replaced the CRA (community reinvestment act) lending.

Yes, there are plenty of charts that show this. Private lending skyrocketed during the most recent housing boom, while government sponsored lending dropped. Of course, government made up for it by becoming the housing market most recently and subsidizing homeowners significantly in order to prop up prices.

corntrollio says

Banks do have to pay taxes on foreclosed houses.

I'm not very knowledgeable about how that works, but I've read a lot of articles that say towns and cities are losing a lot of tax revenue and running deficits because of all the foreclosures. If banks had to pay taxes on the foreclosed houses, how could this be the case?

corntrollio says

Why is an MIT history degree better than a Harvard history degree?

Harvard and Yale let people in and let them graduate on the basis of who their family connections are. Yale gave Bush an undergraduate degree, and Harvard gave him an MBA. Any college that gives someone as retarded and lazy as Bush a degree, especially a graduate one, does not deserve respect. Such a college has sold its academic integrity for kickbacks and political connections.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone can make a case that George W. Bush should even have a high school diploma or G.E.D. And that has nothing to do with his politics. He really is an illiterate moron. He even seems proud of that fact, as if it makes him more "American".

At least MIT and CalTech let people in and graduate based on merit, not connections to old money. So I know that an MIT or CalTech graduate is intelligent and has worked hard. I can't know that for Yale or Harvard even if most of them did graduate based on their own merits rather than connections.

Dan8267 says

but I've read a lot of articles that say towns and cities are losing a lot of tax revenue and running deficits because of all the foreclosures. If banks had to pay taxes on the foreclosed houses, how could this be the case?

Because the owners are squatting for years at a time and not paying taxes.

Dan8267 says

Harvard and Yale let people in and let them graduate on the basis of who their family connections are.

That's not universally true, and the statistics don't agree with you. In fact, only a small percentage of the class gets in on a legacy basis. It ain't the 60s any more. Harvard and Yale's classes are far too competitive and many legacy kids get denied. In contrast, schools without nearly as much demand are more easily able to let legacy students in. You're probably more likely to have a random small private college admit your kid on a legacy basis than Harvard and Yale these days. The Bushes are another story -- and even so, one of the Bush twins went to UT, not Yale. Prescott Bush was worthy of Yale and so was HW. You can't judge a school on one graduate. Just look at average SAT scores, for example.

Dan8267 says

At least MIT and CalTech let people in and graduate based on merit, not connections to old money. So I know that an MIT or CalTech graduate is intelligent and has worked hard.

This is bullshit. MIT and CalTech are just as likely to let legacy kids in as Harvard and Yale. This misperception just sounds like Ivy-hate from people who don't know better.

bgamall4 says

They applied the risk management and off balance sheet banking cooked up in 1998 in mid to late 2003. That is when the private MBS exploded. That came from Basel 2.

Hmm.

Well, I'm not seeing it yet. That same time you mention was also a recessionary period; the stock market had just bottomed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasdaq2.pn%67) and interest rates were very low (http://www.ferc.gov/legal/acct-matts/interest-rates/2003.asp), MBSes were good sources of "safe" income for investors in an otherwise low-return market.

Then I want to say we should apply Ockham's razor: When the banks collateralize a mortgage and then sell it, it's easy to understand (on the surface) an argument that they don't need to keep it on their books because the debt was sold and they're just collecting bond payments. Keeping the debt off-book gives them more capital with which to write more loans, satisfying the (inherited and expanded upon) Bush goals of a home ownership society.

Now, epsilon below the surface that doesn't make much sense since the banks have to pay the bondholders, but people believe all sorts of stupid things - trickle-down economics, the Laffer curve, intelligent design, fractional reserve banking, Keynesian economics, etc. (the last two of which actually do provide some benefit, albeit ultimately temporary).

I can also appreciate the reference to Enron but that's not quite apples-to-apples: even in the banking sector what they did was illegal. On its surface, Basil II seems innocuous (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1899133/basel_ii_overview/) although I will grant you that (a) the people who should have known better were blinded by greed, and (b) any dependency on having competent people in appointed positions performing oversight is bound to fail.

Lots of people were complicit in the failure - AAA-rated garbage, etc. - but I'm not convinced that catastrophe was intentionally baked into Basel II for JPM's benefit. I also think that as far as (b) in concerned, we need to reframe the "small government" discussion, but that's a subject for another thread.

Thanks for the discussion.

Any particular college is not the problem.

Rather the college system is the problem. Tuitions are insane with the most irresponsible student loan lending practices. And they tuitions keep going up above and beyond inflation for no reason whatsoever.

Everybody thinks it's smart to go to college right away instead of maybe later in life. Same mentality with the housing market during the bubble.

And what do you get in return? Nothing usually. They force you to take useless and completely worthless classes which has nothing whatsoever to do with the career you are majoring in. Why? So they can suck the most money out of you. It's extortion to demand students to take classes which has absolutely no relevance or benefit to what they are majoring in. And if you don't comply they will not award you your certification/degree that you are competent/trained to work and employable in certain lines of work.

That fits the very definition of extortion.

But it goes even more than that... The syllabus in all subjects and classes are for the most part completely useless. Filled with mostly misinformation and only half truths.

Than you have idiots rallying behind this pathetic scam system thinking that by sitting in a seat staring and mindlessly filling their brains with information which has no outlet with which it maybe applied qualifies them as superior in ability and talent.

These so called "geniuses" called college graduates (most of them) are nothing more than dependent idiots who are so docile and clueless that they need another moron as stupid as them but only slightly smarter enough to read off information from a book and shove it down the throats of these saps.

This faulty education system starts off as early as preschool.

Elementary, middle and high school are not their to teach you anymore. They are there to condition you to go to college where your position in society will be formed.

Colleges are all the same for the most part when it comes to it's merits. That's the scam.

Harvard, Princeton and Yale along with other ivy league schools are nothing more about the name.

They only give the graduate a advantage in the sense that people think that they are defiantly geniuses compared to the other herd.

But the truth of the matter is that these types of schools are mainly to separate people from society as either favorites among the elite, they elite themselves or useless sheep to be exploited.

But you know what?

I have come to not hate the bankers but rather admire them and praise them. They are good in my opinion because they shaft people who deserve to be shafted.

The sheeple are the true enemies. They are ignorant based on their own accord. And on that very premise - they are the problem themselves. The bankers are not.

The bankers are the solution. A globalist one world government run by the bankers in electronic currency is exactly what this world needs.

Because the majority of this world is compromised of sheep. The majority of sheep need to be murdered, exploited, and ripped apart.

I no longer serve the sheeple anymore because they refuse to listen to people who always try to help them.

As cc0 said that nobody listened to him when he warned about the danger in purchasing an overpriced box.

Let the stock market crash.

Let the housing market crash.

Let the currencies around the world become useless one by one starting with the Euro.

Let wars continue as it benefits bankers with interest, collapses nations and murders more sheeple along with bringing us closer to the new world order.

Let poverty rise. Destroy the middle class.

Create famines and hunger worldwide. Create more wars.

Create riots to bring marshall law. You sheeple rioting about how the elite are such crooks would find it in your best interest to keep quiet.

I'm sorry. I really am but I'm not a sheep. I have nothing in common with them - my mentality in many ways is of the elite. It's always been this way from the start of my life.

Can you believe at the age of only 8 - I thought and believed the world should only have one single currency and one single government from my own mind?

That type of intellect is natural born. It is inbred. It is a part of nature and a necessary part of nature.

The members of the aristocracy are my best friends. The sheeple are my worst enemies.

My purpose in life is to be a banker, a globalist, a royal aristocrat elite and a robber baron holding 99% of the wealth accumulated forcefully through any means required to accumulate it. I am proud of this. It is something noble to achieve.

My respectful regards to: Rothschild Family, Rockefeller Family, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, George Soros, Henry Ford, Goldman Sachs, Federal Reserve Private Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and all other members of the aristocracy.

MCMSinger says

Can you believe at the age of only 8 - I thought and believed the world should only have one single currency and one single government from my own mind?

That type of intellect is natural born. It is inbred. It is a part of nature and a necessary part of nature.

You and I clearly have different definitions of intellect.

As to your other points about college, I think I'm okay with college as two constructs, even though it sounds like you're not:
1) something vocational that gives you job skills (e.g. engineering/sciences, often)
2) something smart and motivated people use to differentiate themselves from sheeple (e.g. someone who goes to be intellectually challenged, to be around other thinkers, to be around more people who are different but are similarly motivated)

The people who will fail are those who go to a crappy school and become an art history major without any interest in becoming a museum curator or engaging in some other profession where art history is useful and aren't particularly motivated. I'm okay with that.

The problem is not Harvard and Yale or even NYU and USC, but rather the list of crappy schools that overcharge and don't get you much. Certain law schools, for example, might fit into this category, as would many online colleges.

What an idiot: "HOMES are the primary form of wealth for most Americans."
Homes are not a form of wealth, they are places to live and nothing more.

Our economy will keep crashing until this idea of wealth in homes completely wash out. Home prices are nothing but a burden.

michaelsch says

Homes are not a form of wealth, they are places to live and nothing more.

Our economy will keep crashing until this idea of wealth in homes completely wash out. Home prices are nothing but a burden.

You are defiantly not a sheep.

You are correct. Homes are a shelter. They are an expense like food, clothing, protection and transportation.

corntrollio says

1) something vocational that gives you job skills (e.g. engineering/sciences, often)
2) something smart and motivated people use to differentiate themselves from sheeple (e.g. someone who goes to be intellectually challenged, to be around other thinkers, to be around more people who are different but are similarly motivated)

The people who will fail are those who go to a crappy school and become an art history major without any interest in becoming a museum curator or engaging in some other profession where art history is useful and aren't particularly motivated. I'm okay with that.

The problem is not Harvard and Yale or even NYU and USC, but rather the list of crappy schools that overcharge and don't get you much. Certain law schools, for example, might fit into this category, as would many online colleges.

What you say is true. I don't disagree with it actually.

MCMSinger says

What you say is true. I don't disagree with it actually.

I didn't think you would, necessarily. Just was trying to make some clarifications here. I had a friend who legitimately wanted to be an art history major because she wanted to be a curator. Fair enough -- she was bright and highly motivated and knew what she wanted to do.

By the way, lots and lots of MBA programs would fall in the "crappy schools that overcharge and don't get you much" category.

Dan8267 says

Frankly, I don't see how anyone can make a case that George W. Bush should even have a high school diploma or G.E.D. And that has nothing to do with his politics. He really is an illiterate moron. He even seems proud of that fact, as if it makes him more "American".

Being an illiterate moron does make GWB more American! That was exactly his biggest political selling point. Many millions of working class Americans feel dissed every day as illiterate morons, especially if they don't have a college degree. This makes them resentful and leads to voting for people like GWB as a kind of revenge, ironically.

I'm halfway through "The Hidden Injuries of Class" by Sennett and Cobb, and though it's not well written, it does clearly make the point that working class people have a big hangup about having limited prospects because of:

1. Their working class background
2. Their lack of a college degree

GWB talked like one of them, though he's about as opposite as you can get, being from patrician east coast Ivy League stock, the son of a president, and very rich. But he sure talked like a moron, and so they overlooked his real background. And they delighted in how much Bush annoyed those "liberals".

Of course now they are deep in the shit because of Bush, probably unemployed, no medical care, foreclosed on, but they sure showed us college boys not to tell the working class who to vote for.

investor90 says

For those of us who OWN our properties debt free....we can always place the house on our FSBO market using the internet to PUMP DOWN the prices. Sell the house to a spouse or other trusted family member...especially with a different last name. Give it a go with at least a 60 Days "on market". You than "accept an offer from yourself at a MUCH lower price....down down down she goes.

I love it! But I can't see any owner doing that, because they don't have a motive. Unless they want to buy something nearby for much less...

corntrollio says

As to your other points about college, I think I'm okay with college as two constructs, even though it sounds like you're not:
1) something vocational that gives you job skills (e.g. engineering/sciences, often)
2) something smart and motivated people use to differentiate themselves from sheeple (e.g. someone who goes to be intellectually challenged, to be around other thinkers, to be around more people who are different but are similarly motivated)

Education that provides more job skills is certainly very usefull and would motivate students far greater. Unforturately the educational institutions have shifted to make a more well rounded citizen than a useful economic contributor to our nation. I seriously disliked the elective courses that had no bearing on my career. All it did was suck out more money, time and effort which could have gone elsewhere.

corntrollio says

Because the owners are squatting for years at a time and not paying taxes.

Nah, that can't be it. If you tried live in your house w/o paying property taxes, the local government would gladly seize your house and auction it off. They'll get all the taxes, plus "court expenses" or, more honestly, pure profit.

corntrollio says

That's not universally true, and the statistics don't agree with you. In fact, only a small percentage of the class gets in on a legacy basis.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but your missing the point. It doesn't matter what the percentage is. The fact that there are high-profile instances of that happening is enough to make me doubt a Harvard degree regardless of what percentages are earned.

It's like Wikipedia. Some of the articles may be honest and accurate, but there are enough articles that are either ridiculously inaccurate or subtly controlled by parties with selfish interests that the only way to tell which articles are crap and which are not is to do your own research about the subject matter. And that defeats the entire purpose of using Wikipedia. You might as well ignore whatever Wikipedia says and do your own research anyway.

Same thing with Harvard degrees. Since I can't tell who got in due to connections and who didn't, I have to completely ignore the degree and do my own research anyway. Hence, the degree from Harvard means nothing to me. If anything, it's a red flag. Sorry, but that's the price a university pays for selling its academic integrity. No integrity means no trust.

corntrollio says

You can't judge a school on one graduate.

True, but G.W. Bush is hardly the sole example. And I can judge a school by its repeated actions. You can tell the real values of a person or an institute, not by their words, but by their actions.

corntrollio says

Just look at average SAT scores

Oh, don't get me started on the SATs. They are the biggest crock of shit in academia. You see, the SATs are mostly controlled by liberal arts professors, not mathematics, science, or engineering professors. This makes them extremely biased in favor of liberal arts rather than math, science, and engineering.

Quite frankly, the math part of the SATs is a sad joke. If the math SATs were made to truly test math knowledge, then the people interested in liberal arts majors who score way the fuck lower in total SAT scores than those interested in science and engineering majors.

You see, the math/sci/eng nerds would still score high or at least well on the verbal portion, but all the future liberal art students would get the lowest possible scores on the math portion. In fact, the SATs are designed to make sure the liberal arts students score as well in combine scores as the math/sci/eng students. The only way to do that is to dumb down the math part.

Oh, and it gets so much worse when you go to graduate school. You see, although math/sci/eng students are forced to take lame ass liberal arts classes in college, the reverse isn't true for liberal arts majors. So when most liberal arts majors apply for graduate school, the last time they had a math class was in high school and they don't even remember simple algebra.

So, the GMAT, the graduate school's equivalent of the SATs, has a verbal section that is more advanced than the SATs, but a math section that is even more dumb down and rudimentary.

Not to mention that the verbal sections of the GMAT and SATs are way biased for liberal arts language, which quite frankly is less important than engineering language. For example, the SATs loves the word cacophony. When was the last time you used that word? It means noisy. There's a dozen words in the English language that means noisy. How much value does another add?

But here are some far more useful words that NEVER appear in the SATs: quark, hyperbolic, recursive, relational, covariance, contravariance, normalize, determinant, isothermal, isomorphic, isochoric, isobaric, adiabatic, isentropic, coenocytic, dikaryotic, dipolor, homopolar, boson, lepton. Every single one of these words is unique. There is NO other word in the English language that has the same meaning as any of the above words, yet none of them ever appears on the SATs even though cacophony, one of many words that means noisy, is often in the SATs.

Why? Because if the verbal section of the SATs contained as many words from science and engineering articles as from liberal arts article, then the liberal arts students would have LOWER verbal scores than the math/sci/eng students. And that would embarrass all the liberal arts professors.

To summarize, the SATs suck ass. Oh, and before some smart ass tries to claim I'm saying this because I got a low SAT score, mine was a respectable 760 math, 610 verbal, 1370 combined. And this was before they dumbed-down the SATs even more in the mid/late 1990s. I have no problem criticizing a test that says I'm smart, because if the test sucks, it sucks.

corntrollio says

This is bullshit. MIT and CalTech are just as likely to let legacy kids in as Harvard and Yale. This misperception just sounds like Ivy-hate from people who don't know better

Ok, you are completely wrong about this. Math, science, and engineering nerds don't form "old boy's clubs" the way that ivy league schools do. Have you ever hung out with MIT nerds? I have since my brother graduated from that school. There's a lot of shit you can say about MIT students. References to the Revenge of the Nerds movies would actually be accurate. But to say that the MIT nerds establish dynasties like Harvard graduates? I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.

The thing about being a nerd, is that it really is all merit based. Yes, they have a lot of goofy criteria for what constitutes a good nerd, but it's an even playing field. Your last name means nothing in the science lab. Who your dad was is null to the hackers. Trust me on this one. If you ever went to a bachelor's party for an MIT graduate, you would not compare them to Harvard graduates. Imagine storm troopers instead of strippers. And sadly, I'm not kidding about that.

MCMSinger says

Elementary, middle and high school are not their to teach you anymore. They are there to condition you to go to college where your position in society will be formed.

My impression is that most elementary and high schools are daycare centers meant to keep children and teenagers off the streets while their parents are working. Teaching the kids anything is secondary to containing them. There are, of course, some private schools that are really about learning. The thing about those is that they can choose to only accept students who want to learn, which I think is a minority.

MCMSinger says

Colleges are all the same for the most part when it comes to it's merits. That's the scam.

I agree. Calculus at MIT is no different than calculus at a community college and is no different than just learning calculus own your own using the Internet. With few exceptions like becoming a doctor, there is nothing that college can teach you that Google can't.

Unfortunately -- or fortunately according to some people -- you can't download a cadaver or fissionable material from Google. So with those few exceptions where you can't get hands on experience w/o college, Google trumps college. As such, getting a bachelor's degree should cost under a $100 excluding your computer which you probably have already. The $100 is for the electricity you use.

Being an illiterate moron does make GWB more American! That was exactly his biggest political selling point.

Unfortunately, I cannot disagree with you. The typical American voter is just as illiterate, including math and science literacy, and does not want his president to be smarter than he is.

Meanwhile, I'm the opposite. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and I still want my president to be smarter and wiser than I am. Sorry, I slipped into Marvin mode there for a second. The point is, the president should be a smart person, especially today when the world is more complicated and interconnected than it has ever been.

Dan8267 says

Nah, that can't be it. If you tried live in your house w/o paying property taxes, the local government would gladly seize your house and auction it off. They'll get all the taxes, plus "court expenses" or, more honestly, pure profit.

Okay, what is a better explanation? That homeowners aren't paying property tax (as I said) or that banks aren't paying it (as you said)? ALso factor in that you seem to know very little about foreclosure, as evidenced by our prior thread.

Usually, when you have a mortgage, the bank will collect property tax every month as part of your mortgage and put it in an escrow/trust account and then pay the property tax directly. They do this to protect their security interest -- their loan is subordinate to a tax lien. If you aren't paying the mortgage, then the bank isn't collecting anything, and it has to come out of the bank's end. After foreclosure, obviously it still comes out of the bank's end. In either case, the government could foreclose, but often doesn't, at least not in a timely fashion.

Dan8267 says

Oh, don't get me started on the SATs. They are the biggest crock of shit in academia. You see, the SATs are mostly controlled by liberal arts professors, not mathematics, science, or engineering professors. This makes them extremely biased in favor of liberal arts rather than math, science, and engineering.

What is your evidence of this? I've always felt the verbal portion is as dumbed down as the math portion.

Also, don't forget about the SAT IIs, which are more advanced (the math actually goes beyond middle school!).

Dan8267 says

Oh, and it gets so much worse when you go to graduate school. You see, although math/sci/eng students are forced to take lame ass liberal arts classes in college, the reverse isn't true for liberal arts majors.

Actually, at many schools, such as Yale, liberal arts majors are required to take some science classes, and not all of them can be Physics for Poets. This is true at many schools, including some state schools, if I remember correctly.

Dan8267 says

For example, the SATs loves the word cacophony. When was the last time you used that word? It means noisy.

It actually doesn't, because it's a noun. :p

Dan8267 says

Trust me on this one.

Thanks, but I think I'll take my own experience with such things and believe that in addition to your anecdote. :) You're seriously talking about the Ivy League in the 60s, with no Jews and no minorities. You watch too many movies. I had a bunch of MIT co-workers, and they had their own culture, sure, but it's just as aristocratic about nerd-dom. The funniest thing was when I asked them about a particular frat at MIT, and there was a pause. After some prodding, my co-workers said, "oh, well that was the dork frat." Hah! I had friends who were in Random Hall with the bathroom stalls and laundry machines that were wired to the Internet, so you could check if they were empty.

The "dynasties" comment is outdated, mostly stated by people who couldn't get in to one of these schools. It's actually hilarious to me that people think these people are so elite -- some of my Harvard/Yale friends are the ones who are down to earth and tended to be the down to earth people for graduate degrees too. Very few people care who your dad is (or mom, these days, actually) these days, and everyone else tries to avoid those people who think it's a thing.

As I mentioned, there are stats on the number of legacies that get in, and it's far lower than it used to be, because the criteria to get in are much more stringent than they used to be. You can't let in dumb legacy kids because the rest of the class is too qualified, and you can't justify it. Let's not forget that Dubya went there before there women were integrated into campus.

Dan8267 says

Calculus at MIT is no different than calculus at a community college

If you're taking calculus (single variable, anyway) at MIT, you're either a humanities major or in remedial math. :p

GWB talked like one of them, though he's about as opposite as you can get, being from patrician east coast Ivy League stock, the son of a president, and very rich.

Oliver Stone's movie W pretty much summed up that point. W lost an election in Texas and said something like -- and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't remember the exact words -- "I will never be out-Jesus'd or out-Texan'd again!" Although that movie altered a lot of facts and stories, it nailed the essence of Bush. In a way it's like Bush's Braveheart, historically loose but essentially correct.

Of course now they are deep in the shit because of Bush, probably unemployed, no medical care, foreclosed on, but they sure showed us college boys not to tell the working class who to vote for.

I guess that explains quite a few things. We shouldn't have told them not to fuck their first cousins either.

Maybe we should launch a "rock the vote" campaign in the south. Tell them all to vote because we liberal know-it-alls have determined that they should do so.

thomas.wong1986 says

Unforturately the educational institutions have shifted to make a more well rounded citizen than a useful economic contributor to our nation.

If that was the intent of colleges, then they have failed miserably. All you have to do is look at all the comments on patrick.net to see that people are divided into camps, particularly left vs right, which means that people in our country are generally not well-rounded. Unless, of course, by well-rounded, you mean physically. In which case, Americans are definitely well-rounded.

corntrollio says

Okay, what is a better explanation?

OK, I've done a little bit of research on this now, but not much. It appears to vary from state to state. In an example from Rhode Island there appears to be a bill from January 2009 that would require banks to pay property taxes it. I don't know if this bill has passed, but it does show that banks had not been paying the property taxes -- perhaps the taxes were passed on to whomever bought the property.

corntrollio says

What is your evidence of this?

You mean, what is my evidence that the SATs are a crock? What exactly would constitute evidence? How exactly does one prove that something is "shit"? I mean, that Transformers movie by Michael Bay was pretty much shit, but how do I prove that? Seems like a Zen question to me. What is the sound of one turd plopping?

Weren't my examples convincing enough? If not, I don't think I could convince you.

corntrollio says

It actually doesn't, because it's a noun. :p

Syntax doesn't change the meaning of the word. Context could, but not syntax.

corntrollio says

bathroom stalls and laundry machines that were wired to the Internet,

Yeah, for some reason MIT students are obsessed with wiring everything to the Internet even when it serves little to no purpose. How often does the soda vending machine run out of orange flavor soda? I guess its a culture thing.

corntrollio says

Let's not forget that Dubya went there before there women were integrated into campus.

That's true, but it takes a much longer time to repair a reputation than it does to destroy one.

Again, I'm not saying that most Harvard students don't deserve their degrees. I'm saying that I can't trust a degree just because it is from Harvard. Granted, that's true for most colleges, but more so for some colleges than others. And the only thing that can restore Harvard's image in my mind is if it goes through a century of not letting anyone like GW Bush in. And that's going to take some time.

corntrollio says

If you're taking calculus (single variable, anyway) at MIT, you're either a humanities major or in remedial math.

True. My point was that calculus is the same no matter where you learn it. So when you go to college at a place like MIT, you're really paying to have classmates who are as smart as you. It's the students that make the college and not vice versa.

Personally, I don't see much point in college as a learning vehicle. It's too corrupted by money since colleges are just corporations. The Internet renders college obsolete as a learning vehicle for almost every subject. Notable exceptions being things you cannot legally do outside of a regulated profession like medical school. Although I have played doctor in the past and my patients were quite satisfied.