patrick.net

tsusiat,

But "ass pounding" is gender neutral. If HARM used another term, that might be construed as sexist ;)

Graphics on Patrick?

Now that's what I call irrational exuberance.

My apologies to anyone offended by the term "ass pounding".
I'm still not removing it, but you have my sincere apologies :mrgreen: :twisted:

Owneroccupier

The nice thing about german is you can add words together in compound fashion to express yourself better. How about this?

Luftblase Panik

literally, Bubble Panic.

I like that one.

Housing bubble, literally Gehäuseluftblase

That's good too

tsusiat...how do you say-ass pounding?

Zum Ende der Gehäuseluftblase kommt das Torschlusspanik. Vom Torschlusspanik geniessen wir Schadenfreude.

haha, my high school German teacher would be so proud of me :-)

tsuiat,

what is the rule of converting a verb to noun? adding "ung" or "schaft" to verbs?

tsuiat,

Ich glaube, dass du dieses nützlich finden.

Ich fühle Schadenfeude gern. Ach ja! Ich doch genieße Schadenfreude viel!

Randy,

ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen, aber, nicht so viel.

I believe you might have fun savouring your boatful of malicious glee....

This just reminds me of a post I read on Craigslist housing forum the other day.
"A friend wants me to buy his single family home in Dorchester, MA for $600K, and sell it back to him in 3-6 months. I have excellent credit. He owes $550K on it. He said he wants to pull $50K equity out of it, and keep $30K and pay me $20k when he buys it back from me. I checked prices, and that is a very high price for a single family in Dorchester. Is this too risky of an investments. Why should/shouldn't I do this?"
He received a lot of replies, most of them warning him sincerely against the idea. But I just can't help thinking if this person would even consider going into a risky and shady deal like that, he is either stupid or just very greedy (much more likely) and does not deserve the kind of concern.

Leitrollenflachlegung [tech] maybe it can be used in the near future for new type situation, literally "bubble collapsing assembly" to describe the current paradigm

or

GehäuseluftblaseAngstverkäufer, literally "housing bubble panic seller"

or

Schaumbad, literally "bubble bath", but a whole new interpretation drawn from the zeitgeist (spirit of the times)

;)

By the way, "du" is a tad "informal" for this decourous forum, methinks...

tsusiat,

Nice one :)

I'm working on my "bubble collapsing assembly" right now in Excel, lol.

Bubblizer 1.2.1 just released. Check out the new scenario analysis, which demonstrates just how much of a FB you too can become if you buy now.

Even the Germans are reading about Freddie Mac:

http://de.mabico.com/en/news/20060212/european_community/article59997/

Wirklich!

Shogunai: "Shit happens." (Japanese)

Agreed on asset price increases. They can increase due to building new capital stock, replacing depreciated capital stock, labor supply and demand, and best of all "productivity". In the long-run, only productivity truly creates higher asset prices that are in equilibrium. But, in the real world, fools usually drive asset prices as we experience them. I've been trying to find the fabled land of "the long run" for many years, to no success.

Michael,

actually I heard a Japanese say, Shogun-fuckin'-nai, no kidding. Then I found out there is a bar in Tokyo called exactly that.

ajh,

thanks mate, you made my day. Your countryman Different Sean was trying to convince me that Oz levies the same tax as us, nay said I.

Until you guys start to have something like 5-15% capital gains tax, I don't want to hear anything about Oz' taxation system.

Randy,

how did you type the umlau and the "ss" on an English keyboard? Thanks

go mr. bubble go, “One lady broke down into tears” i wonder what is the next bubble going to be. or will the world return back to normal……

well, well, well, capitalism and greed contain the seeds of their own destruction...

and what's 'normal'? a decent social contract?

what will be the next pointless bubble? doesn't the business cycle go shares -> property -> cash -> shares ad infinitum... capital chasing its own tail...

hate to rent:

Regarding: http://yahoo.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?storyID=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20060412:MTFH22368_2006-04-12_03-41-26_SEO180136

Which assets is he referring to? In my mind assets is a broad category, so curious what the former chairman of the Fed has in mind for his definition? Thanks for the link, it was informative and would be doubly so if I could nail down what he views as inflated presently!

I am also searching for the next bubble. Actually, I am hoping there is one. Without one, the windfall receipts from capital gains followed by windfall re-assessment property taxes still barely maanged to keep local governments afloat. It'd be weird to see several major cities issuing junk bonds and defaulting on them due to bakruptcies.

Problem is, I just can't figure out what the Fed could inflate to persist revenue collection to pay off warring and allow local governments to pay their bills also.

I bought a bunch of gold at 410-425 an ounce, but now I have that "it is over extended" feel. However, if they keep printing dollars or there is no following bubble I think it could continue and be its own bubble... Too many moving parts in economics and investments, but I hope I can catch on to the next bubble if as another poster had said, Dent called it right about bubble shifting from one thing to the next.

p.s. i don't believe mr ooi even exists, he is a creation by the murdoch press to try to make an example and encourage the govt to slash the top rate for the rich readers of The Australian.

not many asians in australia would work in england, it's almost unheard of, unless they got sponsorship overseas, as he would be unlikely to have ancestry rights. this person sounds like a composite, a chimera, trying to appeal to everyone at once...

every article in The Australian is a right-wing spin, in fact the Financial Review published by rivals Fairfax, which is purely about business, is a much better and more balanced read, as it always provides the downside of situations as well in order for business readers to make a sensible decision on matters. Fairfax also publish the fairly balanced and centrist Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, and my blog contains many articles from those papers. Thank God for more diluted media ownership, altho it's still pretty concentrated here.

you should do a google on 'what rupert murdoch owns', and you will find it's half the influential press in UK, US and oz, loads of TV and radio stations in US, all of Fox enterprises, and some book publishers. he makes and breaks govts by influencing public sentiment and publishing adverse stories. govts are in absolute fear of him...

and don't forget the heavy metal umlaut, as per
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut

At one Mötley Crüe performance in Germany, the entire audience started chanting "Mertley Crew-e" - a pronunciation often used in Hungary as well.

In 1997, The Onion published an article called "Ünited Stätes Toughens Image With Umlauts", about a congressional attempt to add umlauts to the name of the United States of America to make it seem "bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy metal manner".

I like:
métro-boulot-dodo
A star among phrases for an untranslatable succinctness that sums up a pointless existence (subway, job, sleep). The full line of the original poem titled Couleurs d’usine by Pierre Béarn is even more eloquent:

Métro boulet bistrots mégots dodo zero
“Subway work bars smokes sleep nothing”

Someone please delete chapz the troll.

This is from another vignette from the full WSJ article:

One lady broke down into tears. Her husband bought two investment properties, and they are now going to lose their 'life savings' if they sell the homes in today's market.

Boo hoo, but what numbskull puts their "life savings" into one asset class? Did you stop to think that this exact scenario might happen? It just points out the idiocy of thinking RE prices never decline.

I guess I can't help but feel a little sorry for some of those people who put their retirement on the line with investment housing. The reason being that like the stock market, the media hyped and bantered on for years about how great RE was, and how that people were buying "before they got locked out" yada yada yada. They did this for years. In fact, just a year ago, many of the national publications discussed how great housing was. Even up until about 5 months ago, the title piece in Time was all about the wonders of home investing. So what did everyone do? they went out and bought houses by golly. And as we see, the same media that so carefully cast the light on how great housing was is now churning out a diffrent kind of story- the fall of housing. So while it is totally the responsibility of the buyer to decide how much of a risk they are willing to stomach, I can't help but feel that most people are somewhat gullible,believe the press, and as a result, these poor folks are going to have to pay the piper.
On the other hand, it hasn't been exactly fair yo all of us sitting around waiting for things to be at least realistically affordable. One( At least I) can only hope that the same meyhem that's occuring in much of the country will eventually spread to california.

Hate To Rent,
I'm not disagreeing with you on the " cash is king" statement, but how would this be helpful in a depression since the dollar could get signifigantly erroded?

The reason being that like the stock market, the media hyped and bantered on for years about how great RE was, and how that people were buying “before they got locked out” yada yada yada.

contains the seeds of its own destruction...

SFwoman,
well I am in total agreement with you. But again, MANY people believe anything they hear coming out of the radio or read in the papers. The fact is that most of the media produced in this country is owned by only a select ffew companies: Clear Channel and Scripps Networks. Even the seemingly independent grungy rags are owned by huge corporations, like the East Bay Express, which is owned by Knight Ridder. I personally don't believe one word I hear nor do I watch the news.

nomad,
You're letting the "masses" off too easily. No matter what the press says about how great an investment RE is, people can't be absolved from making rash and foolish financial decisions. This justs feeds into the typical American victim mentality when it serves their purposes.

Skibum,
Oh yes.. I too say let em' squirm. This whole entire fiasco undelies the single biggest human flaw- Greed. Money blinds people, and when people see a potential for making easy money just by breathing oxygen and not working for a living to do so, the suckers come out of the woodwork. Too bad the rest of us will probaby have to do some cleaning up after them. I still feel a little sorry for some of them, especially if they have kids that have no clue why their parents are selling and buying houses.

SFWoman Says:

A player-hater snivler? Are real estate speculators now calling themselves players? Pathetic. It sounds like something that scummy guy married to Brittany Spears would call himself.

We shouldn't encourage trolls like this. However, maybe Mr. chapz-the-playa should read this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114480865922123703.html?mod=economy_lead_story_lsc

In case he doesn't have a subscription to the WSJ, it's an article titled, "When to Sell an Investment Property in a Cooling Market for Real Estate" (April 12, 2006). 'nuff said.

Different Sean wrote:

"the top (Australian) marginal rate of 47% is a bit higher than some countries, but not many people are in that bracket. ‘mr ooi’ (if he even exists) is paying 3 different rates, and now paying 47% only on amounts over $95K - most people earn much less than that, as salaries are generally low here. the new rates have been completely restructured, it’s now 42% for $63K-$95K"

I had no idea from Different Sean's posts that he was Australian... His posts made me think that he was a rich trust fund kid living in the Mission cashing checks that Mom and Dad send up from Portola Valley every month (and hating the fact that his Dad makes so much money).

I don't want to pretend to be an expert on Australian taxation, but in the last three years I've spent a total of six weeks in Australia (diving wine tasting and exploring). I am very impressed with the Australians overall knowledge of world affairs (even the good looking tall blue eyed brunettes). Very few American's could name the Australian Prime Minster, but almost every Australian knows the details of our last election.

As a whole Australians love to travel and the talk often turns to money since many want to try and "figure out" how I am able to travel so much. At the end of the day I can't figure out how most Australians even get by. As a whole most make less money than Americans, pay higher taxes than Americans and buy things that cost more than they cost in America due to the high VAT taxes.

P.S. I just went to a currency exchange site and a the current A$ to US$ exchange rate of $0.72-$1.00 the 42% tax rate kicks in at US$45K (right around the lowest starting pay for a kid with a degree in the Bay Area)...

DS,

I think Owneroccupier is not interested in OZ because of the way it counts for capital gains. He’s interested in what OZ can do for him, not if it yields a more optimal society wide outcome.

I, as a negative net worth student, find OZ’s system much better than the American one. America’s system of lower capital gains tax and higher payroll tax essentially rewards capital and penalizes work. My personal view is a graduated flat tax (based on total income) for all income with no exemptions (including health and retirement and housing), because that is less likely to distort the market and lead to undesirable behaviors like RE specuvesting.

The OZ, the Canadian and the Western European governments are also covering costs that should most worry middle class families (health insurance and university education). That means they’ll probably hold on to a middle class for a longer time than America.

As for my talk with newsfreak and Robert Cote yesterday morning…I was sleep deprived and some of the replies weren’t fully thought out. However, I don’t like tax subsidies unless they’re demonstrated to be absolutely necessary. Whenever a government gets involved, there are problems of regulatory capture, abuse, waste, politics, etc. Sometimes, the alternatives are worse or the subsidy corrects for market under-investments, so I’m not against subsidies completely, when those are the cases.

As I’ve said, my economic understanding is not that far from the Libertarians on this blog. I just see a bigger and more necessary role for the government.

Owneroccupier Says:

"Michael,

actually I heard a Japanese say, Shogun-fuckin’-nai, no kidding. Then I found out there is a bar in Tokyo called exactly that."

Sounds like a rockin' place!