patrick.net

tatupu70 says

gameisrigged says

Translation: you are a troll.

Is that how you see the world? When someone points out that you are wrong, they are a troll? That explains a lot…

Think of that one all by yourself, did you?

xenogear3 says

This “Huntsville, Alabama” thing is overrated.
The wage is so low in that place. I doubt any real good engineer will go there.

True with all regions, but thats where you find more SV tech workers than local SV workers because they are cheaper.

sybrib says

pkowen says

thomas.wong1986 says

sybrib says

And for comic relief,
thomas.wong1986 says

Silicon Valley, may lose its competitive advantage to emerging Huntsville, Alabama

Comic huh? Laugh while Rome burns I suppose.

The comedy of it, is what competitive advantage?
The author of that piece refers to our competitive advantage, but he doesn’t even say what it is. I will tell you what it is: a magnet for Cool and Hip people from other parts of the USA, magnet for well-to-do Asian immigrants who seem only want to live and work in Fortress Enclaves, a magnet for illegals who want to be domestic help for corporate titans, say like, Meg Whitman.
What kind of competitive advantage is that? Maybe we should ask the management of Toyota & GM that fired thousands of Bay Areans when they closed the NUMMI plant instead of reducing operations somewhere else, or Intel which used to employ thousands of folks in manufacturing in Santa Clara County (but not any more), or IBM which did the same.

Cool and hip people in the Silicon valley? LMAO!

It looks like Congress punted on the Bush tax cuts; it will certainly make for an interesting lame duck session. I think the Dems need to buy the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" guy a bus ticket and send him to Republican rallys. Nothing as fearsome as a stampede of old folks on election day...

marcus says

I think it’s pretty hard for us to see the whole picture. The big picture. What if what’s best for the year 2150, or 2500, or 3000, isn’t what’s best for certain groups right now ? Not that anyone is actually looking at that.

By 3000AD Walmart will be purchasing all of its goods from Alpha Centauri - it'll be cheaper to manufacture there and ship through the Stargate.

Perot was victimized by the media for speaking his mind - he didn't get where he was by being dumb or crazy but they sure framed him that way. I saw him speak once and found him quite intelligent and cogent - and as a result I voted for him in 92.

Nomograph says

How do you know we aren’t sitting at the top of an inverted parabola? You don’t.

Now I do.

shrekgrinch says

and by moving assets out of the financial system

that's . . . productive. For every buyer there's a seller!

I'm a taxi cab driver and my wife's a waitress in san diego. We heard gold was a good investment....we're thinking about taking all of our tips to Vegas and hitting up the Gold ATM's. Thoughts??

I have $1,000.00 to invest in gold. Can anyone make any recomendations for gold options?

$1,000.00 won't get you very much.. Maybe some a few 1/4 ounce coins or some small gram bars.

Check out Apmex.

All of Obama's job stimulus programs have proven to add nothing as far as permanent employment. His programs are as fraudulent as FDR's New Deal. After 8 years of New Deal policies, Treasury Sec. Henry Morganthau reported to Congress that: “I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!” The lesson is that government is a hindrance to creating viable, stable economies that employ people in sustainable jobs. Obama, like FDR, is proving this to be true.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143426/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-September.aspx

For Moraganthau's statement:

http://blog.heritage.org/?p=2233

The bankers are in for some interesting times.

Buying gold in Dubai is supposed to be the best place to buy actually. Low overhead costs and strict rules on quality.

Especially gold jewelry, where you never know what might be in it! The places over there are tightly controlled.

What I found interesting in shopping in those stores over there is that they charge per gram for jewelry. So if you wanted a broach, the price was listed right there. $150/g (or whatever it is now+markup for workmanship), and then it would list how many grams of gold was in the piece. Every piece was charged in this fashion, unlike our jewelers here who charge based on the workmanship put into the pieces.

How about setting up a gold pawn shop on mall kiosk and collect gold for 15-20% off.

Monthly rent of kiosk: 3K
Estimated margin per oz $200/oz
Salary, overhead, fixed cost 10K
Total fixed Cost 13K
Oz/month to break even. 13,000/200 = 65oz
per day 2.0 - 2.5 oz per day

buy 5 oz a day and you'll be making 15K+ a month in addition to salary draw included in fixed cost. I imagine there will be some people who would sell their jewerly for christmas gifts.

2oz is about 2-3 2mm 16" 24 karat gold necklace

Actually, I think I was way off. When I saw these jewelery shops it was about $16/gram. Of course gold was only about $400/oz back in 2002 range.

I've seen a few articles on those "gold collectors", where you mail in your "gold" and they send you a check. Apparently they're incredibly sleazy, giving you only a few days to tell them "no" on their offer, they mail it late and of course put up lots of walls to block you. After X days, they melt your product down apparently, so you're stuck with whatever cash they've given you.

Gold kiosk around here would be pretty hard to operate I think. I'm betting there would be quite a few laws in handling and selling gold, especially appraising it.

Gold is pretty easy to appraise if you treat them like they will be melted. There are equipment to measure the gold unit oz. and equipment to weigh it. The value is strictly gold unit. The markup is simply what the gold pawn is willing to accept. The design of the jewelry is irrelevant. So if you bring something from Tiffany's, it would be appraised the same as a no-name.

Zlxr says

Ray just enjoys giving ellie mae some of her own medicine. Nothing more

Wow, I'm so awesome you're bringing this up a couple of months later? I do enjoy that ya'll can't get enough of me, but I do understand why.

My ex used to work for a huge-ass govt contractor - they'd say "a million here, a million there ... pretty soon it adds up to real money."

I think being in political office is like working in a casino cash cage - you see so much money go past you that it loses its meaning. A million bucks doesn't seem like much when you're dealing with millions or trillions, but a hundred dollars is the difference between eating and starving for many people.

RayAmerica says

Morgenthau made this “startling confession,” as historian Burton W. Folsom Jr. calls it, during the seventh year of FDR’s New Deal programs to combat the rampant unemployment of the Great Depression.

How did he make this startling confession about being "8 years of this administration" in the 7th year of the FDR's presidency. Especially since the date it was 6 years and 5 months after FDR was elected. That doesn't make sense. I would like to see the whole statement, not just the abridged out of context part that Burton W. Folsom Jr provided. What is in the "..." that he didn't want us to see. Even more odd the quote is attributed to a meeting at the ways and means committee, but is cited as being from the Morgenthau dairy. Where are the meeting minutes? I'm no fan of FDR or the new deal, but something isn't right here.

By the way, was that the same Burton W. Folsom Jr that wrote a book calling the robber barons "constructive visionaries who benefited consumers"? Same guy as writes for NRO? Just curious.

What do you ALL think the EFFECTS will be on the MARKET (total freeze, Price squeeze, Banks unwilling to make new loans?) {doubtful as they sell them to GOV anyway}, I see Realtors suffering greatly without inventory, and an unsure outcome, who would buyers be of course some but by and larger most will likely choose to sit and wait it out and now millions of people could stop making payments knowing full well that they can live now maybe 36-48 months enough to save 3K a month say, 24 =75K 36=108K and if they can hold off banks 48 months 150K I mean wow, I don't know how to figure this out I would love to hear everyones thoughts on what the effects will be, I wrote Patrick and asked that he consider writing something from his educated point of view.

So you are calling the architect of FDR's New Deal economic policies a liar?

RayAmerica says

Bob … seriously … get the book that Folsom wrote. It is very well documented and a real eye opener.

I'm open to reading it, I'm not a great fan of FDR. He actually reminds me a lot of Bush II (except the flip side of the political coin) in terms of abuse of power and politicizing every issue. Like Bush he was an utter and total failure in the business world. Like Bush he used government agencies to hound and harass anyone who disagreed with him. Like Bush he desperately wanted to centralize more power in Washington and hated the supreme court. As political operators they are very much twins.

But since you have the book in hand then provide the citation from the quote that you are so enamored with. Was it from the diary or the actual minutes from the meeting. If the diary, then why didn't he back it up with the minutes? Something in there that contradicts his claim perhaps? I'm still very suspicious of this.

Ray--

Morgenthau was hardly the architect of the New Deal. From the little I have read about him, he seems to been against most of it--in fact he was not Keynesian at all. He was actually one of promoters of the balanced budget in 1937 that pushed the US back into recession.

If you have the book, you surely know this. Why do you continue to post the rubbish about him being the architect of the New Deal

It will take decades for the interest rate to go to 10%.
It is not something you should worry about.

Let’s assume that currently, a $200k house can get a mortgage rate of 4.0% 30 yr fixed.
Down payment: 20% ($40k)
Loan: $160k
Monthly payment (less property tax): $763.86

@10% interest rate, an $85k mortgage would be $745.93 30 yr fixed (those 2 monthly payments are close enough).

So at 10% interest rate, the same house would be $106,250.
Down payment (20%): $21,250
Loan: $85,000

You’d be losing ~45%-46% just from interest rates going from 4% to 10% if purchasing power does not change.

If interest rates went to 10%, inflation would be humming. The ~$750 payment would be more like $900 in today's dollars....incomes would be rising in step. And that would be if interest rates rose to 10% in a small amount of time, like 3 years. If it took like 10 years, with inflation the $750 would likely have doubled.

A house would be about $130,000 given your terms if inflation rockets interest rates to 10% in three years. Thats about a 35% loss.

In ten years, the house would be about $215,000 given your terms. Nominally, it would have increased in value.

The calculation itself should be fairly straightforward.

$200,000 @ 4.0% APR (30 year fixed): $954.83

at 10% APR (for a 30 year fixed loan) the comparable house price is $108,803.66

$108,800 @ 10% APR (30 year fixed) = $954.80

But the correlation between interest rates and prices is not nearly as straightforward as the above example. Second, you ask how much will you "loose". Loss is subjective. If your talking about lost equity, it depends on whether or not you have a loan, the loan balance, etc.

If you have a fixed rate mortgage, then a rise in interest rates won't effect you.

I guess I'm having difficulty determining what you are really asking. If rates were to suddenly go from 4% to 10% overnight, then all heck would break loose. But this isn't reality. Rates will (eventually) trend upward over an extended period of time. If anything, rising rates (if sustained) may cause a slight increase in house prices, as buyers on the sidelines start to buy in order to "lock-in" the lowest rate they can. Plus, rising rates would most likely occur only after growth is seen in the economy, so a broader recovery (including rising home prices) is possible.

At the end of the day, I expect we will see rates low for an extended period of time. (Sub 5% until mid 2012). Followed by a semi-dramatic rise in rates. prices, and yes even wages, as inflation finally starts to take hold.

Look at the past 30 to 40 years. The stagnation of the 70's lead to the growth of the 80's. We may be in a rut right now, but eventually things will turn the corner in a big way. Even the great depression didn't last for ever, and it was followed by a period of rapid economic expansion.

You should assume the other ways --> 0% not 10%.

xenogear3 says

It will take decades for the interest rate to go to 10%.

It is not something you should worry about.

No it doesn't. Once the market realizes the sovereign debt crisis and once the magnitude of the problem exceeds the fed's ability to manipulate the market, it can take all of 2 days for interest rates to rise 10%. That's what happened to Greece. The US is only able to delay the problem by temporarily forcing interest rates down through currency manipulation.

theoakman says

No it doesn’t. Once the market realizes the sovereign debt crisis and once the magnitude of the problem exceeds the fed’s ability to manipulate the market, it can take all of 2 days for interest rates to rise 10%. That’s what happened to Greece. The US is only able to delay the problem by temporarily forcing interest rates down through currency manipulation.

I sure hope so then. I can retire now and just live off interest income from my savings account. Who needs a 401k's, social security, and pension?

theoakman says

xenogear3 says

It will take decades for the interest rate to go to 10%.
It is not something you should worry about.

No it doesn’t. Once the market realizes the sovereign debt crisis and once the magnitude of the problem exceeds the fed’s ability to manipulate the market, it can take all of 2 days for interest rates to rise 10%. That’s what happened to Greece. The US is only able to delay the problem by temporarily forcing interest rates down through currency manipulation.

That's not what happened in Greece. Greece could have addressed large parts of its problems through controlled inflation, but since Greece doesn't have its own currency it was unable to do so.

The US doesn't really have much in common with Greece at all, unless you really squint, get drunk, and look at it upside down. Very different economies, very different sets of problems, very different solutions needed to address them.

Hell, Greece's GDP is only about $350B. We have multiple companies in the US that do that much in sales in a single year.

Ah Mr. Kevin, spouting your ludicrous ideas on this blog now! Wake up and smell the reality. The US is no longer the mega-power it once was, and it is loosing that 1st world status just as we speak. There is no company in the US today, which is as big or bigger than companies in our nations like Brazil or China or India, for that matter. There is only one thing , which is still great about this country, though, and which is why I am here to stay. The price of real-estate is soon to be the cheapest of any other country in the world with a population of over 100M! And that you can take to the bank!

dunnross-

Are you by any chance related to Apocolypse?

No, I am related to "Realismus"!

dunnross says

Ah Mr. Kevin, spouting your ludicrous ideas on this blog now! Wake up and smell the reality. The US is no longer the mega-power it once was,

In what sense? Is there some other country with a larger GDP already? Some country with a stronger military? No? Ok.

and it is loosing that 1st world status just as we speak.

Oh, yeah, the US isn't a 1st world country anymore. Largest economy on the planet, the only country with a population over 100M with a high standard of living. Yep, we're going to be exactly like Mexico pretty soon.

There is no company in the US today, which is as big or bigger than companies in our nations like Brazil or China or India, for that matter.

I'm not sure how to parse this (is English not your primary language?) You're either saying:

- There is no company in the US that is as big or bigger than companies in Brazil, China, or India, which is simply false. 400 of the 500 largest companies in the world are American.

- There is no single company in the US that is larger than than the entire economy of Brazil, India, and China. That's true, though both Wal-Mart and Exxon come pretty close to the GDP of Brazil.

I'm not really sure what that has to do with anything though.

There is only one thing , which is still great about this country, though, and which is why I am here to stay. The price of real-estate is soon to be the cheapest of any other country in the world with a population of over 100M! And that you can take to the bank!

Just so we're clear:

You're claiming that US real estate is going to be cheaper than real estate in India, China, and various third world shitholes, and yet you'd want to stay here? Have you ever even been to any of those countries?

This is more of a troll than your "real estate will fall to 1975 levels" claim. Keep it up.

Kevin says

dunnross says

Ah Mr. Kevin, spouting your ludicrous ideas on this blog now! Wake up and smell the reality. The US is no longer the mega-power it once was,

In what sense? Is there some other country with a larger GDP already? Some country with a stronger military? No? Ok.

and it is loosing that 1st world status just as we speak.

Oh, yeah, the US isn’t a 1st world country anymore. Largest economy on the planet, the only country with a population over 100M with a high standard of living. Yep, we’re going to be exactly like Mexico pretty soon.

There is no company in the US today, which is as big or bigger than companies in our nations like Brazil or China or India, for that matter.

I’m not sure how to parse this (is English not your primary language?) You’re either saying:
- There is no company in the US that is as big or bigger than companies in Brazil, China, or India, which is simply false. 400 of the 500 largest companies in the world are American.
- There is no single company in the US that is larger than than the entire economy of Brazil, India, and China. That’s true, though both Wal-Mart and Exxon come pretty close to the GDP of Brazil.
I’m not really sure what that has to do with anything though.

There is only one thing , which is still great about this country, though, and which is why I am here to stay. The price of real-estate is soon to be the cheapest of any other country in the world with a population of over 100M! And that you can take to the bank!

Just so we’re clear:
You’re claiming that US real estate is going to be cheaper than real estate in India, China, and various third world shitholes, and yet you’d want to stay here? Have you ever even been to any of those countries?
This is more of a troll than your “real estate will fall to 1975 levels” claim. Keep it up.

Mr. Kevin,

English must not be your primary language, because you don't even read what other people have written. I told you, before that I just came from New Delhi 2 weeks ago, and then you ask if I've been to other countries. Also, you like to contradict yourself, a lot, like in:

"English is not your primary language" and "Have you ever even been to any of those countries?"

Now as far as US RE being cheaper, it is already cheaper than China, and not to mention Europe, South America and many other places in the world, to which I have been.

Now, what I meant to say is that other countries in the world like Brazil and India already have corporations which are on the same scale, or bigger than the biggest companies in the US. I think that is quite difficult for somebody as myopic as yourself to comprehend, but that is reality. For example Petrobras, Brazil, recently raised $70B through a secondary offering, more than any American company in history ever received.

Your gonna find much of the economic/corporate data from China and South America politicaly driven by governments and highly inflated using different methods and accounting standards, not to mention not as transparent as their US counterpart. Corruption is way of life in those nations.

Oh yes, we already know about the transparency of these US banks who are hiding all their losses, not to mention Enron, World Com, and many others. How about CTO's of many of silicon valley companies back-dating their stock options. In fact, even the biggest silicon valley companies of today, have off-shore accounts which they don't make known to their stock holders.

dunnross says

Now, what I meant to say is that other countries in the world like Brazil and India already have corporations which are on the same scale, or bigger than the biggest companies in the US.

The largest corporation in the world is Wal Mart with gross revenue of 413 billion followed by Exxon Mobil at 310 billion. The biggest company in Brazil with revenue 91 billion is the only company in Brazil to make the top 250 corporations, the biggest company in India is Tata Group revenue 72 billion followed by India Oil at 52 billion the only two companies in India to make the top 250. Over 90% the companies on the top 250 are headquartered in America or Europe. Myopic or not it just ain't so joe.