patrick.net

sbh says

Homeboy says

rootvg says

My parents were here to visit several weeks ago.

If I were your parent I would disown you.

If you were my father I wouldn't visit you in prison or bring you a shiv to end your pointless life.

It's impossible for me to be your father, because I am not a mutant retarded scumbag who married his sister.

One more time.
George Carlin:
"Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions."

"Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls."

Damn! I almost clicked [Submit Comments].

Fuck Democrats & Republicans. Stop. I mean Democratic & Republican voters.

Write in "Any Ole Pile of Shit" The latest poll says we have a winner.

Quigley says

Bitcoin is destined for universal currency status, possibly becoming the most legit money in the world. A currency that isn't subject to the arbitrary whims of a feckless nation and its sociopathic politicians is better than gold. As the marketplace moves more and more online, the need for physical money representation is less and less.

The US government shut down yesterday. This can't be great for dollar values. It does make bitcoin more attractive, and if it can be spent without Uncle Sam dipping his hand in for his cut, all the better.

For a fictional example of this by an extremely intelligent author read "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.

oh please shut up thanks.

Bitcoin is not controlled by banks, it's controlled by whomever has the money to purchase hashing power. It's the dumbest thing since the Dutch Tulip Mania.

bob2356 says

Illegals are generously allowed to pay into social security knowing they will never be able to collect to the tune of 7 billion dollars. Pretty shameful.

... you mean they are generously allowed to be extorted by organized crime from back home ...
extortion, human trafficking, drug trafficking kidnapping, murder etc etc. It is not possible to have illegal aliens contribute to so called Social Security.

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/26/mexico.human.trafficking/index.html

t is indeed big business. Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative forms of crime worldwide after drug and arms trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in April.
In Mexico, it is a $15 billion- to $20 billion-a-year endeavor, second only to drug trafficking, said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America.

"And that may be a conservative estimate," Logan said.

That money, which used to go mostly to smugglers, now also flows into the hands of drug cartel members.

thomaswong.1986 says

... you mean they are generously allowed to be extorted by organized crime from back home ...

extortion, human trafficking, drug trafficking kidnapping, murder etc etc. It is not possible to have illegal aliens contribute to so called Social Security.

So you are saying the IRS and Social Security Administration lied about this. The social security suspense file doesn't exist. It's all part of a world wide conspiracy to floridate drinking water or something like that?

I sleep better at night knowing only you and Jimmy Hoffa know the real truth. You really need to lay of the hallucinogens.

you have to read between the lines here.

the Bankers are THREATENING us not to default against our debts. They are holding Americans hostage for this debt liability.

Souvlaki anyone?

Blurtman says

He denied doing this - a terrible lie -

Par for the course for mopes like him.

Blurtman says

He seems a bit mentally unbalanced.

LOL, Ya think? His narcissism is only overshadowed by his pathetic ideology beliefs and strict adherance to the glibertopian dream. His sky-is falling schtick is pretty predictable and well worn out, and yet his fellow mopes still listen to it like he's giving them some unknown revelation.

He used to amuse me, now it's just annoyingly pathetic.

PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE.

Facebooksux says

PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE.

Not sure what there is to explain. Lets assume for the time being that this article is 100% factual. The question then is are these vampire homes:

(a) a brand new, never before existing threat to the housing market which will be released en-masse, causing prices to collapse as they were 2007-2009

or

(b) an ongoing phenomena, for all or part of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, during which time prices (i) stagnated and then (ii) slowly started rising.

Far as I can tell, this is more of the category (b) can kicking we have seen for the last half decade. Meaning that the banks will continue to slowly add to, or reduce homes from the "vampire" ranks, causing the exact same effect on prices that we see today...which is to say little to no effect at all.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

Cannibal Anarchy Culinary Arts (CACA)

It's a brand new degree being marketed (I mean offered) to prospective students at Universities across the country. The BLS estimates a severe shortage of CACA professionals by the year 2020.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

Pubah Pat programmed the site so people who open threads moderate them.

Quite a good idea and rather unique site. It works.

It doesn't matter. In popular cities/areas the foreclosed houses are either sold directly to flippers who then charge a premium for the property, or packaged and sold to investing groups for future rental property. Either way it won't contribute to lower pricing. Foreclosures haven't been hitting the actual market for a couple years now. No bargains exist. You want a house, you pay a premium. Any bargains are snatched up with cash.

There will be a boon to the economy & house prices will sky rocket when the banks finally foreclose & evict these deadbeats. lol

Please recall that in the last go round, Obama made a troubling strategic move, in that he prioritized payment of the marketable US Treasuries ahead of payment of the special US Treasuries in which the Social Security surplus is invested in (the SS Trust Fund, if you will). This is a ridiculous thing to do from a financial perspective. Keep in mind that the US Treasury calculates the return on these special Treasuries, and that the risk of these special Treasuries should have shot through the roof upon Obama's pronouncement. At least in a fair world they would have. Want to bet that the US Treasury made no such adjustment?

In general, Obama undermines the special Treasuries by insisting we pay of the investors in the marketable US Treasuries before we pay the investors in the special US Treasuries. If he is to pull the senior panic card, he better also pull the Chinese investor panic card, too.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

Agreed. It is all nonsense. There is no greater time to buy in our lifetime
than today. This threat of shadow inventory has always been overblown and at
this point I believe it was all a lie. No one really lost their house. Everyone
is flush with cash and gold, even the McD's workers are buying 1m+ homes. This
country is awesome

Lets try and unpack what part of your response was sarcasm, and what part was legitimate. As I noted, in post #9:

CDon says

that's not to say that housing couldn't tank for other more pressing reasons,
such as the govt shutdown. But again, for these shadow inventory stories, what
more is there to explain?

As I said then and as I say now, going forward, when is the shadow inventory (and only the shadow inventory) going to matter? When can we put the threat of shadow inventory (and only the "threat of shadow inventory") on the pile of nonsensical BS that is best to ignore?

tatupu70 says

Are you comparing appreciation only in housing to appreciation in stocks? That's not the correct comparison, IMO. You HAVE to add the rental cost that you paid to get closer to apples to apples. Once those costs are added, I think housing as an investment looks favorable assuming a relatively long time horizon (to make up for the transaction costs)

This statement makes no sense to me. Please explain. You disagree with several leading economists who have focused their life work on investments and the things on which people spend money. Robert Shiller, for one.

As if the mortgage were the only cost.

Agree that mortgage payment is far from the only cost of buying a house. Not sure if you were responding to my post or just the thread in general, but the reason I wrote that I'd buy in a second if I saw those numbers is that the relative difference looked big enough to make buying better.

Of course I was also thinking those numbers in exactly the place I want to live. I'm not so desperate to buy a house that I'll ruin years of my life by living just anywhere I can afford a house.

The truth is that housing can go up 30% in the next 1-3 years or it can fall 30% in the next 1-3 years or it can fall 50%, absolutely nobody can predict this because it depends on a HUGE number of factors that are changing on a day to day basis. Housing has become extremely speculative and volatile in the last decade and that brings with it huge unpredictable swings in either direction.

Wonder what his district looks like.

Ah, rural.

He won with no opposition in 2010, but it'd probably be easy for the Tea Party to primary him out, like they did to Lugar next door.

FunTime says

This statement makes no sense to me. Please explain. You disagree with several leading economists who have focused their life work on investments and the things on which people spend money. Robert Shiller, for one.

I'm not sure what is unclear, but my point is simply that the real comparison is buy vs. rent. If you come out ahead on that basis, then investing in a house beats investing the money in the stock market (and renting). Good rent vs. buy calculators take opportunity cost into account so they will tell you if renting and investing in the stock market is better.

The BA is an unusual case, to be sure, but I'd still say owning beats renting for the VAST majority of houses with a 20+ year time horizon.

But perhaps the biggest "secret" is that putting your money in the stock market has almost always been a better deal than putting your money into a house.

but you do have to live somewhere...

Can we all read the Barclay opinion from 2001, and then 2004, and then 2007, and then 2010, and then 2013? I think that might be some cool graph data from one of you graph-data-masters. For me, if they were wrong 3/5 of the time, then their opinion should be weighted 3/5.

Why are you guys celebrating this? I thought everyone here was against war on drugs...

No pun intended.

MershedPerturders says

Bitcoin is not controlled by banks, it's controlled by whomever has the money to purchase hashing power. It's the dumbest thing since the Dutch Tulip Mania.

It's also so untraceable that when somebody steals it you can't even prove you had the money in the first place.

I don't care: Klinton sold the Lincoln bedroom, and the arrogant Obama has disrespected veterans by closing a war memorial.

ASSHOLES!

Say hey! This was in the Wall Street Journal on March 30, 1999. Note "... how much it will buy."

Holy cow/interesting/compelling ...!

And where is it up to date??? Right here ... see the first chart shown in this thread.
Recent Dow day is Thursday, October 3, 2013 __ Level is 95.8

WOW! It is hideous that this is hidden! Is there any such "Homes, Inflation Adjusted"? Yes indeed, go here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219038&c=999083#comment-999083

bgamall4 says

You are getting weird. There is only one man between the government operating and not operating. That man is John Boehner. There are the votes in the House to get the government going again. Boehner is holding the House and the hostage.

Uh, Boehner is trying to cut spending and taxes, as Reagan would do.

Therefore, Boehner need not obey the Constitution or any other constraint of the American political system. Since conservatives are not succeeding using elections and playing by the rules, it's time to junk the system.

The system is only good insofar as conservatives win.

bgamall4 says

Ah, the Republicans already did that and the Democrats approved the Ryan budget for 2014.

I don't care about facts.

Whether or not taxes and spending have been cut in the past is not relevant. By definition, taxes must be cut more.

If we have just one more set of tax and spending cuts, the economy will turn around, and growth will blossom.

Then we will be able to cut taxes and spending some more!

Maybe someone should say: I know what you want, you want this! and then at that moment the doors swing open and in rolls a huge, 5 ton Tea Pot with about 5,000 gallons of sweet tea which then pours all over the floor making a big sticky mess. Then the person who delivered it would say" There's your tea party! ha ha ha!

This chart allows the recent Dow day to be judged in the context of the long term Dow, which is commonly omitted because it is SO instructive.

Ah, good ol' Indiana. This is the reason me and all of my high school classmates with IQ over 90 left the state as soon as we could...

sbh says

The limiting factor is the amount of $ the Koch brothers are willing to expend in order to fund the "grassroot" sod of the Tea Party.

The KBs don't want the gov to default on their asses.
But how much control do they have on their beast?

Once they unleash it, it's hard to bring it back.

I drove through Indiana when I was a teenager. It to me was sort of like Ohio: a whole lot of nothing. It had to be about the most boring state I've ever been to.

bgamall4 says

egads101 says

I'd say the people who dropped low are the ones threatening the economy...

The biggest threat to the economy are the banks. They are pumping housing bubbles to give the illusion of wealth to people whose wages are decreasing. It is a massive scam.

Banks can't do that without low interest rates created by QE and fed bond buying.

So what you are really saying is that the federal government is the biggest threat to the economy. Which I agree with.

HydroCabron says

Uh, Boehner is trying to cut spending and taxes, as Reagan would do.

revisionist history once again. Reagan only cut taxes, not spending. Were you not aware of where the first 4 trillion dollars of debt came from?

bob2356 says

HydroCabron says

Uh, Boehner is trying to cut spending and taxes, as Reagan would do.

revisionist history once again. Reagan only cut taxes, not spending. Were you not aware of where the first 4 trillion dollars of debt came from?

We are living in the end times, so I think you may live to regret these thoughts.

There is ample proof that God had more than one son, and that His second one was given unto us to assume the Presidency in 1981. Heed these words, ignorant liberal: what Reagan said and believed probably came from on high!

bob2356 says

HydroCabron says

Uh, Boehner is trying to cut spending and taxes, as Reagan would do.

revisionist history once again. Reagan only cut taxes, not spending. Were you not aware of where the first 4 trillion dollars of debt came from?

Not possible.

Reagan would never have done that. That would have been a doctrinal deviation.

sbh says

We'll see if the Koch brothers let him keep his job.

The Kock brothers also need to grow a pair. Again, no pun intended.

I betbgamall4 says

HydroCabron says

Not possible.

Reagan would never have done that. That would have been a doctrinal deviation.

But that is what happened....so what do you mean?

I bet you believe that Bush's tax cuts didn't generate an economic boom either, and that Saddam didn't have WMD.

You probably don't even remember John Wayne and Reagan, fighting the Japs at Tarawa!