patrick.net

thomas.wong1986 says

Prices in the north bay are still dropping back to the trend lines…
Bay Area Home Sales Fall Sharply; Median Price Dips Below Last Year
Round two of knocking off speculators/flippers and so called “all cash” buyers will certainly be interesting to watch!

good to see the trend continue to head in the right direction.

Bap33 says

Combat roles will be filled by those who were born warriors.

You can either deploy a 500,000 man army into a country or force of "born warriors". You can't have both.

Granted, things probably would have turned out better in Nam if we had limited our involvement to 5,000 combat troops willing to fight for more than just 12 or 13 months in-country.

We didn't even train our troops to understand such basic Vietnamese as "ambush ahead!". It's really no wonder we lost that war. Same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending people who don't really want to be there will result them damaging the mission with stupid mistakes like Abu Ghraib.

Fisk says

The Vietnam set-up was earily parallel to Korea, even wrto the North and South sides.

Superficially, yes, and that was one of the draws that led us into intervening. But the actuality was quite different.

For one, the N and S regimes in Korea were equally illegitimate, while the communist regime in Vietnam had just defeated the French and had true nationalist credentials. The Viet Minh operated extensively in the S of the country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Without_Joy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mang_Yang_Pass

and many areas were 100% pro-VC through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Our frustration with the VC sentiment led to the My Lai 4 massacre in 1968, and plenty of ugly harrassment of pro-VC villages elsewhere by us & especially ARVN.

Secondly, Korea was a peninsula and the 150 mile DMZ was over a natural barrier between the two sides, while S Vietnam was a narrow, long country with a 700 mile exposed flank with Cambodia and Laos.

To win Vietnam would have required isolating the battlefield by invading Cambodia and SE Laos early and often. SE Laos was some of the most militarily difficult ground on the planet.

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/2217pgs.pdf describes in detail the difficulty for the US to operate in Laos in any strength.

Thirdly, in Korea we integrated the Koreans into the US Army and could fight with them. But in Vietnam we overcommitted to fighting their war for them 1965-58, which while very successful on the battlefield inflicted substantial casualties to us, and also made the USARVN footprint on their society greatly destabilizing, both culturally and economically. This resulted in a corrupted and compromised military that wasn't fully able to fight for itself when the time came, 1970-75.

Fourthly, in our haste to GTFO we really left the job half-finished in 1970-1972. We never could really control PAVN's infiltration through Laos and Cambodia, which resulted in the Hanoi regime being able to forward deploy many of its divisions that directly threatened the entire GVN, from Hue to Saigon.

This battle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSB_Ripcord in 1970 was the pivotal moment for us when we backed off from trying to fight PAVN in the interior in attritive toe-to-toe battles like the previous year's Hamburger Hill.

By late 1972, PAVN owned damn near every battlefield we had fought them for, from Khe Sanh, to the Ashau Valley, down to Dak To, the Ia Drang valley, and all the Cambodian border sanctuary areas that supported forces that threatened Saigon and the Mekong Delta area.

While the post cease-fire period in 1973-74 did have ARVN do a decent job defending the areas it held, by late 1974 PAVN had the complete upper hand strategically, with rebuilt forces ready to strike again in repeat of its 1972 offensive. Without a return of our bombers (the main thing that stopped them in 1972), the south was doomed. Once PAVN found a weak spot in the Saigon regime's defenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ban_Me_Thuot their strategic position was irretrievably compromised.

Fisk says

But the Korean one has ended differently, in part perhaps because of McArthur

Macarthur was removed from command less than one third of the way into the war due to his screwup in bringing the Chinese into the war and general insubordination to civilian control of the military. Our horrific experience fighting the Chinese in Korea GREATLY informed our actions in Vietnam -- our greatest fear, among the politicians at least, was mixing it up with China again on its immediate periphery.

Fisk says

The main driver behind the 1960-s peace movement was, of course, not ideology or moral considerations but unwillingness to submit to draft

Actually, it was a mass unwillingness to die for a real loser of a war. In 1968 80% of the combat riflemen KIA (MOS 11B10) had been drafted. Real good way to kill any civic enthusiasm for the war.

If people in 1965 could have seen how bad the war was going in 1968-69 nobody would have wanted us to get involved like we did.

Same thing in Iraq, 2006-2007 vs 2003.

Vietnam really wasn't winnable. Not without mobilizing the reserves and moving much of our uncommitted forces into Laos and Cambodia to quarantine the battlefield.

And just escalation to more bombing or mass murder of the N Vietnamese was no solution either. They had the protection and great support of the Communist bloc, almost a blank check. Escalation was a two-way street there.

The Korean Conflict was structured such that the bulk of the fighting was finished in the first year. The landings at Inchon came just a few months after the initiation of the conflict, and once the Chinese kicked our asses back away from their border the situation had rather quickly re-stabilized into stalemate in basically the no man's land of the rugged middle spine of the country.

Vietnam was an entirely different experience. We were stuck reinforcing failure there, with LBJ and McNamara outright lying to the people about how tough the fight was and was going to be. It was left to Nixon to "Peace With Honor" our asses out of there.

Fisk says

Nearly all present Iraqi oil fields were originally discovered, developed, and owned by “Iraqi Petroleum Company” (IPC), co-owned by several US and British oil companies. Those were expropriated by the Saddam regime and turned over to his newly formed National oil company.

I see you snuck in the "and owned" there.

"To prove a legal title to land one must trace it back to the man who stole it." -- David Lloyd George.

See, there's the sticking point. All oil producers nationalized their fields during the early 1970s, and rightly so. It was their oil, not ours, even though our industrial technology was the reason it was valuable and productizable in the first place.

Fisk says

Same, btw, applies to Iran and its oil fields similarly expropriated from US and British companies

What a loony thing to say. I have no other response, really. Good luck with that, I guess.

Fisk says

Nearly all present Iraqi oil fields were originally discovered, developed, and owned by “Iraqi Petroleum Company” (IPC), co-owned by several US and British oil companies. Those were expropriated by the Saddam regime and turned over to his newly formed National oil company.

You again don't know what you are talking about. The IPC was originally the Turkish Petroleum Company and was entirely European owned. American oil companies were not included until much later when the US government got involved and insisted through very tough threats that American oil companies also be included. US oil companies only owned 23% of the shares. The other major shareholding countries were Britain, France, the Dutch, and Italy. IPC was a British corporation.

The IPC never owned any oil fields of any kind. They were an exploration company paid in royalties from oil extracted. The ownership of the oil was always belonged to the sovereign country. The IPC wasn't expropriated, it was nationalized. Iraq was originally supposed to be a 20% shareholder in IPC but the oil companies never turned over the shares creating huge ongoing resentment. The west's (especially the US) backing of the state of Israel was another major source of resentment that led to the overthrow of the western friendly Hashemite regime. IPC was nationalized in 1972. Saddam took office in 1979. Nice trick that he managed to turn back time.

The IPC made the same arrangements of exploration for royalties throughout the middle east, including Iran. So explain us all again how it is US "owned" oil that we should be fighting for in the middle east?

bob2356 says

The IPC was originally the Turkish Petroleum Company

Ah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calouste_Gulbenkian -- Mr 5% -- rears his ugly head.

Whenever I drive by the Getty Center on the 405 I just shake my head at the colossal amount of money stolen from the people by the oil men. And that money is still with us, making its interest.

bob2356 says

You again don’t know what you are talking about. The IPC was originally the Turkish Petroleum Company and was entirely European owned. American oil companies were not included until much later when the US government got involved and insisted through very tough threats that American oil companies also be included. US oil companies only owned 23% of the shares. The other major shareholding countries were Britain, France, the Dutch, and Italy. IPC was a British corporation.
The IPC never owned any oil fields of any kind. They were an exploration company paid in royalties from oil extracted. The ownership of the oil was always belonged to the sovereign country. The IPC wasn’t expropriated, it was nationalized. Iraq was originally supposed to be a 20% shareholder in IPC but the oil companies never turned over the shares creating huge ongoing resentment. The west’s (especially the US) backing of the state of Israel was another major source of resentment that led to the overthrow of the western friendly Hashemite regime. IPC was nationalized in 1972. Saddam took office in 1979. Nice trick that he managed to turn back time.
The IPC made the same arrangements of exploration for royalties throughout the middle east, including Iran. So explain us all again how it is US “owned” oil that we should be fighting for in the middle east?

Yes, IPC was nationalized in 1972. Though Saddam was formally second-in-command (after Al Bakr) until 1979, he was effectively in charge since Baas took power and in particular oversaw the nationalization of IPC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein

"On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector."

Rigorously, I should have perhaps referred to the "Baas regime" and not "Saddam regime". That obviously does not affect the outcome, even if Saddam had not been personally involved at all.

Yes, only ~24% of IPC was owned by the US companies (Standard Oil, as i understand). The rest, as you note, was owned mostly by Europeans: British (today's BP), French (today's Total), and Shell. This is what I said: "US and British oil companies". Sorry, forgot the French, but US and British had the control packet. Even 24% of Iraqi oil is A LOT, btw. And British greatly participated in the OIF, too.

You are right that IPC did not legally own the fields, my use of term "own" was inaccurate. It had very long-term exclusive concessions (like for 70 years) on very favorable conditions, such that it controlled all aspects of the operation and distribution of oil, and kept most of the proceeds and profits. In 70 years, most of those fields would likely be empty or close, meaning that IPC effectively "owned" most of the oil contained there.

The implication that "nationalization", "expropriation", (or, per Wikipedia, "seizure") of private property or legal rights of "Western" companies (same thing, which term you prefer obviously depends on your desired impression) was somehow reasonable because "Western" governments supported Israel is beneath contempt. First, that property was owned by private companies (which did not support Israel) and not any government. Second, "Western" governments have equally supported many Arab states, incl. Hashemite Iraq. But even if none of the above was true, that still creates no right to confiscate anyone's property. That would be like my robbing your step-daughter because you are friendly with and occasionally help out a neighbor of my cousin with whom he has on-and-off boundary disputes.

Same applies to Iran.

Troy says

Whenever I drive by the Getty Center on the 405 I just shake my head at the colossal amount of money stolen from the people by the oil men. And that money is still with us, making its interest.

I see. I understand you would prefer that money to be left with Saudi, Iranian, and Saddam "people" so that they could fund more terrorist indoctrination schools, train, support, and comfort more suicide bombers, publish and broadcast more rabid nationalistic and antisemitic propaganda, build and procure more nuclear reactors, missiles, and chemical weapons, start more "Mothers of all Battles", behead more blasphemers and apostates, find and hang more adulterers, torture more helpless domestic servants, and afford more 13-year old virgin "wifes" to rape. While, of course, still having enough left after those godly pursuits to buy up choice RE in London and elsewhere, get drunk on vintage champaigne, smash Ferraris while racing on Swiss highways, and hire the company of international models.

That all is so much more worthwhile than collect and research art and make it all available for all to enjoy in a beautiful setting.

Fisk says

The implication that “nationalization”, “expropriation”, (or, per Wikipedia, “seizure”) of private property or legal rights of “Western” companies (same thing, which term you prefer obviously depends on your desired impression) was somehow reasonable because “Western” governments supported Israel is beneath contempt. First, that property was owned by private companies (which did not support Israel) and not any government. Second, “Western” governments have equally supported many Arab states, incl. Hashemite Iraq. But even if none of the above was true, that still creates no right to confiscate anyone’s property. That would be like my robbing your step-daughter because you are friendly with and occasionally help out a neighbor of my cousin with whom he has on-and-off boundary disputes.

Read more carefully. I said that the west supporting Israel set the stage for the downfall of the western friendly Hashemite government. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you truly believe that rights to produce 24% of the oil in Iraq or Iran makes it America's oil God bless you. If you truly believe that taking over the exploration and production of the oils fields is confiscation then so be it. Even IPC acknowledged Iraq's right to nationalize and paid Iraq 100's of millions of dollars in settlement for lost revenues.

bob2356 says

If you truly believe that rights to produce 24% of the oil in Iraq or Iran makes it America’s oil God bless you. If you truly believe that taking over the exploration and production of the oils fields is confiscation then so be it.

Thanks for your blessings.
I think that, as the economic conditions in the US and other "Western" countries get harder (oil becomes more scarce and prices skyrocket, the trade and budget deficits worsen further, and dollar possibly loses the reserve currency status allowing us to buy oil in our own money), the idea to righten most aspects our economic ship (get the oil, deny or ration the oil to our competitors such as PRC, fix the trade and budget deficits) by using the last capability where US is still supremely competitive (i.e., the military) to re-capture the Middle East oil fields that once belonged (were operated by, whatever) to US and British companies and restore them in control would become quite attractive to the desperate public, and a political leader will arise to pursue this plan. (Iraq was sort of a test run for this, although not implemented in full.) I will support such a candidate, because:

1. It is legally right. Those "nationalizations" were, of course, illegal no matter what companies might have said under threats, duress, and coercion. Sure they did not abandon and release those extremely profitable concessions on their own free will, nor was there any court decision about that (even by some sham Iraqi court, however "independent" that might be). They are about as legal as if the US govt. decreed to grab/"nationalize" Citgo because Chavez is unfriendly to the US. In fact, we have a lot more right to nationalize Citgo because (i) it is Venezuela govt. property, not a private company and (ii) Venezuela has nationalized some US-owned companies there.
2. It is philosophically right. As Georgists like Troy should agree, ownership of land is theft as no human created the land (or minerals under it). True owners are those who expended capital and labor to discover and develop those resources - the Western oil companies.
3. It is morally right, as sundry sheikdoms, dictatorships, and theocracies in the region have all time and again demonstrated utter unfitness to use those resources for any good or even benign purpose, and (in case of Iran) their militarization enabled by control of them presents a growing and exceptional threat to our civilization.

And because I see no other good workable way to get the US out of economic predicament that is so thoroughly and knowledgeably discussed on this board.

Those “nationalizations” were, of course, illegal no matter what companies might have said under threats, duress, and coercion.

LOL. Some random ex-Ottoman Pasha handin' out oil development contracts is not much of a foundation for "legality" these days. Not even PNAC would attempt to go down this road. You're really on your own here.

True owners are those who expended capital and labor to discover and develop those resources - the Western oil companies.

No, there are no "true owners". There is no overarching moral philosophy about who gets what on this planet. Generally speaking, there has been a balance between might makes right (Mexican-American War) and right makes might (Kuwait intervention, 1991), though exactly what "right" means in that context is open for debate.

At any rate, Georgism says the economic rents of resource extraction largely belong to the "community", which can be defined in our current system not as corporate entities but the people on the ground that are attached to the land and constitute the political entity that controls the territory in question.

The capitalists who extract the resources are morally owed the capital returns due their investment, risk, and opportunity costs, nothing more, and certainly not any "ownership" interest in the in-ground resources in question. That way lies the current division of the world we have between the monopolist intergenerational rich and the powerless multitudes mired in intergenerational poverty.

It is morally right, as sundry sheikdoms, dictatorships, and theocracies in the region have all time and again demonstrated utter unfitness to use those resources for any good or even benign purpose

yeah, well, good luck with taking their shit. The world kinda moved past that 60-odd years ago and the sundry peoples you don't particularly like do in fact have a vote on these sort of actions.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d41_1290394845

And because I see no other good workable way to get the US out of economic predicament

we just have to raise taxes on the rich here. First back to Clintonian levels, and if that doesn't work back to Carter levels. That should work. Figure out how to get the yuan into parity with the dollar might help too.

Wow Fisk. Do people like you ever visit the real world once and a while or do you live in your Tom Clancy alternative reality 24x7? You must have committed the sin of onan when Rumsfeld said “We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.".

Troy says

we just have to raise taxes on the rich here. First back to Clintonian levels, and if that doesn’t work back to Carter levels. That should work. Figure out how to get the yuan into parity with the dollar might help too.

Sure we should. But that's not much better than the favorite baloney of McCain and some other (R) about eliminating earmarks. By the current (Obama's, btw) definition of "rich" being >250 K annual household income, ending Bush tax cuts would get ~80 B/year extra "headline" revenue (i.e., assuming constant tax base in static calculation), and actually less (~50 - 60 B) in dynamic calculation because of some tax base shrinkage. This is ~5% of the current 1.4 T deficit, which is going to get worse as SS and Medicare deficits explode. Reversing Bush tax cuts for all, which even Obama doesn't dare proposing, would get much more (~350 B/year in static calculation and likely ~250 - 300 K in dynamic scoring), but that's still only ~20% of the hole.

But that's not even the nexus. Suppose even you enact a progressive "luxury tax" on the ASSETS of rich and confiscate them all (what they don't hide or remove from the US) down to, say, 5M in 5 years. Yes, you would close the budget deficit and perhaps even go into surplus for a while. But that's rearranging chairs (in this case, paper scrip) on the Titanic.

Our foreign suppliers don't need and can't use much more of our paper and paper promises, no matter how much you extract from our rich. How you close the TRADE deficit? For that, you need real goods and not just $$ to treasury. About 1/2 of our trade deficit is oil imports, and the fraction increases as oil gets dearer. If we could capture enough foreign oil, we could eliminate that and perhaps close the other half or about by exporting some.

If yuan comes to parity with $ as you propose, the PRC purchasing power (and demand for oil) will raise to the level where gas would reach ~$ 20/gal (as smb. already mentioned here) and many other things in proportion. Then not some puny PNAC but a LOT of Americans would be "with me", likely you included. I know one, far more topical than PNAC these days, who has some experience with oil industry and firm grasp on how critical having (and exporting) your own oil it is to keep the state budget in shape despite having ZERO and effectively negative taxes (on rich and poor alike), guess who that is?

Well, Fisk, I really can't find anything in your above to disagree with -- Congratulations : )

Actually fixing things is going to require more than just raising taxes.

We're going to have to wring more efficiency (care/$) out of our healthcare sector.

We're going to have to either control the oil trade or start getting ourselves off of it by the end of the decade.

It'd be nice to cut back defense to match our actual needs, but that might conflict with the desired aim of global conquest.

shrekgrinch says

This time is different!
This time is different!
This time is different!
This time is different!

Is that an original thought or did you get that from the Duck?

bob2356 says

Wow Fisk. Do people like you ever visit the real world once and a while or do you live in your Tom Clancy alternative reality 24×7? You must have committed the sin of onan when Rumsfeld said “We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.”.

We visit your world every so often, mainly to gather ideas for better construction of ours. But, as hospitable hosts, what we most enjoy and prefer is sharing our alternative reality with others. Iraqis have been long-term guests over the last decade, and we are now busy enlarging our realm in expectation of new, more numerous visitors arriving soon.

I didn't sin as you mention, but opened a nice bottle of champaigne upon seeing Saddam where he always belonged - on the gallows, long overdue and (truly) way over budget. I generally prefer French, but, that being unsuitable for the occasion, Italian Spumante had to do. I'm keeping another for when ayatollahs and pasdaran end in the same place after pointing fingers at each other swearing they "just followed orders", as is usual for such great leaders and courageous fighters in their final hours.

If however, the same proclamation is made by certain M-me President, I must admit the sin of Onan would be hard to avoid.

P.S. Meanwhile, NK is now attacking not only on sea, but land as well (for the 1st time in decades), the "young general" is going to cook spicy dishes.
We need to start expanding our alternative reality faster, looks like yet more visitors will be coming. :-)

RayAmerica says

Duck Hunting Season must have opened. Duck seems to be in hiding. What I and others have been saying all along. The shadow housing inventory is not only real, it’s huge:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/11/corelogic-shadow-housing-inventory.html?utm_source=patrick.net

Yeah but the Duck quacks “investors flush with cash will buy all of em”

Duck Hunting Season must have opened. Duck seems to be in hiding. What I and others have been saying all along; the shadow housing inventory is not only real, it's huge:

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/11/corelogic-shadow-housing-inventory.html?utm_source=patrick.net

Fisk says

bob2356 says

Wow Fisk. Do people like you ever visit the real world once and a while or do you live in your Tom Clancy alternative reality 24×7? You must have committed the sin of onan when Rumsfeld said “We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.”.

We visit your world every so often, mainly to gather ideas for better construction of ours. But, as hospitable hosts, what we most enjoy and prefer is sharing our alternative reality with others. Iraqis have been long-term guests over the last decade, and we are now busy enlarging our realm in expectation of new, more numerous visitors arriving soon.
I didn’t sin as you mention, but opened a nice bottle of champaigne upon seeing Saddam where he always belonged - on the gallows, long overdue and (truly) way over budget. I generally prefer French, but, that being unsuitable for the occasion, Italian Spumante had to do. I’m keeping another for when ayatollahs and pasdaran end in the same place after pointing fingers at each other swearing they “just followed orders”, as is usual for such great leaders and courageous fighters in their final hours.
If however, the same proclamation is made by certain M-me President, I must admit the sin of Onan would be hard to avoid.
P.S. Meanwhile, NK is now attacking not only on sea, but land as well (for the 1st time in decades), the “young general” is going to cook spicy dishes.

We need to start expanding our alternative reality faster, looks like yet more visitors will be coming.

I would have went with the French anyway. So after we spend a long weekend knocking off the middle east to recover "our" oil maybe we should head north to central asia. There's lots of oil there too. It's not technically "our" oil, but dammit we're Americans, we are after all 5% of the worlds population, and we deserve it. Plus they have camels for transportation, food, heating.

Once we run a little low maybe the north sea? After all we still owe the Brits a good thrashing about that 1812 war thing and the scandinavians don't really need it, they could just go back to herding reindeer.

Need more still (we would never just conserve a little or formulate a rational energy policy, dammit we're Americans)? There's brazil and indonesia, they have oil tool. They are just a bunch of people running around in the jungle with spears. Vietnam certainly proved the american military is without equal in jungle warfare. Plus how hard could it be? The brits knocked the crap out of brazil over some islands, falklands or something (was that brazil? who cares it was one of those countries down there).

You know russia has a lot of oil also. Maybe we could mount a campaign one summer that starts 2 months late, gets delayed 2 months in route, then hit moscow about Jan 1st. That's a plan.

I sleep better every night just thinking about all this.

All of the signs for real estate prices continue to point in one direction ... DOWN. New Construction statistics show housing starts are down a whopping 80% from the bubble peak:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/24/real_estate/new_home_sales/index.htm?hpt=patrick.net#storyBrandingBanner

More bad news for the residential housing bulls. Those facts just keep getting in the way:

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/22/why-the-housing-bulls-are-wrong/?iid=patrick.net#post-6578

This same Duck thinks the way to eliminate the national debt is "just print the $12-$14 trillion" that's needed and the debt is now "$0." No ramifications whatsoever, except for what the Duck refers to as a "little inflation." His posts seem to be getting weirder and weirder, kind of coinciding with CA passing Medical Marijuana.

Even more good news for our little Duckling. "U.S. Foreclosure Inventories at all Time Highs in October, 740% Above Historical Averages and Rising." When applying the Duck's twisted logic, this has to be great news for real estate prices:

http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/real-estate-october-mortgage-monitor-report-lender-processing-services-home-foreclosure-rate-foreclosure-inventory-home-default-rate-bank-reo-properties-3545.php?source=patrick.net#FeaturedColumnists

Question: is the Duck photo a registered trade mark for Lawrence Yun?

When average household income will be approximately 3x the cost of the house....
(for example: if average family makes 50,000 a year, houses in area would have to be no more than 150,000).

Can't give you an exact date, but all real estate is local.

It'd nice to compile a data set of actual sales that happened near Duck's bottom(spring 2009) and those sales has hit the market again this year and will hit early next year.

robertoaribas says

we didn’t have a real estate bubble, it was flat if you wait a couple decades!

LMAO.

Nothing but bad news on housing. It's official, the double-dip in housing is here (as if we didn't already know minus one particular Duck):

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-case-shiller-september-2010-11?source=patrick.net#yui-main

Down 10, up 5, down 10, up 5, down 10, up 5 rinse wash and repeat until houses are inline again.

The next few years should be interesting to watch.

Bap33 is entertaining. He had me at
....a rose by any other name....

He is hot tonight.

Bap33 says

cash-for-clunkers have been repoed

Jan 21, 2010
Many cash-for-clunkers buyers have higher repo, late payment rates

Among subprime credit borrowers, those who used the clunkers program had a 4.8% repo rate, more than double the 2.2% who bought similar vehicles but didn't use the government incentives.

gameisrigged says

If someone references Case/Shiller to prove you wrong, you will declare Case/Shiller meaningless. But if somehow there is an uptick in either C/S OR median prices, you will immediately take credit for your “prediction”.

LOL! sort of like PMS.

@thomaswong, thank you.

I expected the default rate to be higher. Maybe they defaulted on another car that they already owned to keep the CFC one? THat sure would be tuff data to collect! lol

Well Bap, the 5% today may well swell higher soon enough !

Bap33 says

I expected the default rate to be higher. Maybe they defaulted on another car that they already owned to keep the CFC one? THat sure would be tuff data to collect! lol

Bap--just curious. Why would you expect the default ratio to be high on cash for clunkers? That would imply that banks hadn't learned their lesson and were still giving out risky loans... Could certainly be true--but what makes you suspect it?

tatupu70 says

Bap33 says

I expected the default rate to be higher. Maybe they defaulted on another car that they already owned to keep the CFC one? THat sure would be tuff data to collect! lol

Bap–just curious. Why would you expect the default ratio to be high on cash for clunkers? That would imply that banks hadn’t learned their lesson and were still giving out risky loans… Could certainly be true–but what makes you suspect it?

Just my personal evaluation of the program and those it targeted.
Does the 5% default seem low to anyone else? I would guess we should look at total numbers, and back out those that were not financed, but were just bought outright, there by not making the mistake of looking at total sales vs total defaults. We need total FINANCED (lets say, for more than 12 month term) vs total default. Heck, that may be what we already are seeing, I don't know.
New cars are the only ones that can get 100% financed. THe CFC was an amount just high enough to pay for taxes, license, and doc fees.
Most of those cars that were 100% financed still have 2 years of payments to go (in my best guess), so we shall see.

Bap33 says

Just my personal evaluation of the program and those it targeted

But who it targeted is not really relevant. The decision whether or not to approve someone for financing was completely out of the government's hands.

I agree. I "think" most new cars can be financed "in-house" by some extended function of the manufacturer, but I'm not fosho.

Roubini is now predicting another $1 trillion drop in real estate prices. I thought the market bottomed out in 2009?

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/dr-doom-predicts-another-1-trillion-in-housing-losses/?ref=patrick.net#entry-328309

Does this sound like a prediction or data to you...

The United States “real estate market, for sure, is double dipping,” Mr. Roubini said. “The apparent increase in prices has been fully reversed, demand is falling, and supply is going to increase.”

Scores of mortgages, she wrote, will go bad, adding to the wave of foreclosures and short sales. For example, Goodman estimates some 70% of borrowers—those who previously defaulted on their loans but are now current—will run into trouble, again