patrick.net

According to this book i am reading, essentials of real estate economics by mckenzie and betts: M1 refers to coins, paper and demand deposits (checking accounts). M2 is M1 plus things that can be converted quickly to money-CD's,money market accounts. M3 is M1 + M2 plus large CD's over 100,000.
Whenever I think of money i always think first of an amazing paragraph written by the novelist Henry Miller, somewhere in Tropic of Cancer i think he writes; To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money, or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

Hi,
here's a great chart/link that may or may not work from this forum, but shows a plot of the M1 money supply over time:
http://www.Economagic.com/chartg/fedstl/m1sl.gif
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/charter.exe/fedstl/m1sl

It looks like the M1 supply (currency) was relatively constant between 1995 to 2001 at 1.1Trillion. Essentially since Bush took office in January 2001 there has been a nonstop increase in the money supply to around $1.4Trillion. That's printing about 25% more money than 4 years ago. This of course devalues the dollar and makes it even easier for the government to pay it's insanely large DEBT, now nearly $8Trillion ($8,000,000,000,000) (not the overhyped yearly deficits we always hear about). By comparison our entire yearly GDP is only about $11trillion.

It's interesting how if you extend the M1 series far back, you will see that money supply WAS increasing barely above a constant linear rate until increasing in the middle of Reagan's term. Money-printing hit it's zenith near the end of the Bush I administration. It rose quckly for Clinton's first year before flattening in the second and essentially stopping (even shrinking) the rest of Clinton's terms. Knowing Greenspan has led the fed for about 20 years, which just perfectly coincide with printing money for his Republican buddies has to make you wonder who this former Ayn Rand acolyte is really serving.

Anyway, printing all that money is essentially a cowardly stealth tax that this government has used to pass the debt on to the public (inflation) without having to officially raise taxes. The Bush clan was probably able to minimize the expected inflation from the expanded money supply probably because of collusiong with Greenspan to keep the interest rates TOO low for TOO LONG creating insanely high demand for that currency. It's all funny money in the end and the real workers of America will end up footing the bill for the parasites on top.

Sad but true.

One more thing,
Is the "edrosenthal" above, THE Ed Rosenthal of Marijuana leglization fame? I bought one of your books in curiousity 2 years ago in a book club and it really opened my eyes.

Also enjoyed your courageous legal stance/defense against the feds a few years ago!

There is intrinsic value in other things besides labor. Resources such as food, land, and commodities also command markets. There are also less intrinsic, yet not less valuable items such as intellectual property and specialized items (art, collectibles, experiences)

For sale for $150,000.

This house was purchased by the current owner on 5/31/2006 for $366,500. He put $100,000 of upgrades into it and now expects to sell it for $465,000!!! You may think the bubble didn't affect the Northeast very much, but I'm finding bubble math real estate agents everywhere here. Everyone says now is a great time to buy, but please tell me why I should pay $465,000 for a home that was only worth $366,500 at the height of the bubble? Zillow has a zEstimate on this house of $358,500, and says it has lost $17,000 of value in the last 30 days.

I'm in Fairfield County as well (looking in the Norwalk area) and I'm seeing the same things. From what I can tell, the updates put into that property are cheap upgrades--there's no way it's worth that much. And, even in this area, Zillow overestimates the price on properties so in my opinion, that seller is dreaming.

how does zillow attain its #s?? just area CMA's?...or closings. between zillow and trulia ive often wondered if #s werent somewhat....odd.

I love to use this condo complex as comparison for central san francisco condo values versus rents. Rent 11th floor studio: $1595/mo. Own 10th floor studio condo: $390k + $430/mo HOA (same sq.ft both places, 520). Wow, condo prices need to go DOWN. Details: Rent for 11th floor corner condo, 520 sq.ft. (from craigslist): $1595/mo http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/1104090875.html Own 10th floor studio, 520 sq.t. (from sfarmls): $389,900 + 430/mo HOA. http://sfarmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N772077876,-N233569,-N,-A,-N17795405

What is the fee to be a RealtyTrac member. I am trying to buy a foreclosed property in Cupertino school district (Lawson + Monta Vista).

The fee is usually about $49 per month. However, last summer they ran a special, $49 bought you access for all 3 months of the summer.

O.K, the 1st guy that says; "______ isn't really part of the Bay Area anyway..." gets it right between the eyes! Just to preclude comments of that nature in the future. Or should we anticipate the obligatory "At least 'we're' no where's near as bad as ____!" And of course my patented response: Whatever dude.

To the person who wants to buy in the Cupertino School district - why do you want to make your kids (assuming that you are buying it for yourself and family) go through the mind stiffling competition that is bound to destroy their minds and make them book worms or even worse depressed. I have so many of my colleagues kids who are in a constant state of panic not being able to keep up with the Indian and Asian kids who go to the schools in that district. I do agree a good school district in general is a good thing for your kids - becoz. private schools are expensive ..but pls. pls. think twice about subjecting your kids to the kind of mindless competition which will only break their spirits.

There are very very few foreclosures in good school districts. So far the foreclosure wave hasn't touched the West side of the Bay. As far as schools are concerned every kid is different. The best thing is to put your kid in a school that fits him.

While I am not a fan of Cupertino school district, but I definitely do not want my kids to start off in an easy school and be left behind when it is time for him to apply for college. I probably will start my kids off the most competitive school I can find (private or public) which accelerates the hell out of their curriculum - and trust me, I went through this kind of drill as a student and came out not depressed nor unhappy, in fact I miss the school days a lot. Once in class, my teacher pointed to those "happy students" from other so-so schools and said, one day you are going to eat their lunch. The kids may be happy in a crappy school, but then he will more likely face a crappy life. Doing the drill for 20 years to get off easy for the rest of your life is a good deal. Once you get into the right college (in the right subject), right grad school, the rest will be so much easier than someone who didn't, unless he comes from the right family. But for those who of us who didn't win the womb lottery, schooling is probably the best way to attain a financially secured life. Nobody in my kids' generation will be able to goof off and enjoy middle class American lifestyle any more. They will have to fight competition not just from Chinese and Indian students in America, but the best, brightest and more driven students all over the world for the same piece of pie. Get ready.

Bank Failure Friday: 1, 2, 3, .... and counting

For those of us who can't afford the RealtyTrac subscription, Trulia pulls in the RealtyTrac foreclosure info. They display the street, but not the number. If you are savvy enough, you can use Zillow to find the street number by matching the square footage numbers ( and then PropertyShark to pull the loan information). Yes, I've done this... And for the unbelievers: MARINA IS STILL PRIME! Pull it up on Trulia if you don't believe me. (Well, full disclosure... Randy H. has a ForeclosureRadar subscription and claims there are a couple of foreclosures in the Marina neighborhood. See the latest thread on capitalsm2.org. The Trulia info may be slightly out of date...)

What is Marina's zip code?

There are even foreclosures in Atherton, Los Altos Hills, and actually plenty in Hillsborough, I do NOT believe that Marina has zero foreclosure.

The Federal Reserve took on more than $74 billion in subprime mortgages, depreciating commercial leases and other assets after Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. collapsed. In its biggest disclosure of the securities accepted to stabilize capital markets, the Fed said yesterday it had unrealized losses of $9.6 billion on the assets as of Dec. 31. The bonds, swaps and notes were taken in from Bear Stearns, once the fifth-biggest Wall Street firm by capitalization, and AIG, which had been the world’s largest insurer. The losses on securities backed by assets such as home loans in Florida and California signal that U.S. taxpayers may be forced to reimburse the central bank through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California-based Institutional Risk Analytics.

In rich towns, more kids She's traded her BMW for a Honda van, and entered a separate appointment schedule on her iPhone for each of her three children. Yet, still there are days when Kiran Khanna sits back and thinks: Wow, it would be great to have another child. Khanna laughed with recognition at the phrase — "Three is the new two" — a saying that echoes through many of Silicon Valley's most affluent communities. "Two," she said, "it almost feels like, from what my friends say, it's almost a little incomplete." While the population of young children is relatively flat throughout Santa Clara County, new census data shows a surge of young children in many of the valley's more affluent communities, including Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and Los Altos. Experts point to fertility treatments and parents feeling financially comfortable, at least before the recession, raising more children as a few reasons for the increase. ............ ........... Chi Huang looked on as her 4-year-old daughter, Skylar, learned how to wait her turn. "Three is the new two," said Huang, of Palo Alto. She has two close friends about to give birth to their third child, but she considers herself "old school" because she only has two. Turning to her friend, Huang said, "I would have a third in a heartbeat." If only, she said, her husband would agree to it.

Khanna and her husband, Ramaneek, a software architect, had twins — Rani Sam, a girl; and Krishen, a boy — using in vitro fertilization in 2007. She grew up in California as an only child, and both she and her husband wanted a larger family, like the five or six children that were typical of their parents' and grandparents' generations in India.

What is Marina’s zip code? 94123. According to Wikipedia The area is bounded to the east by Van Ness Ave, on the west by Lyon Street and the Presidio, on the south by Lombard St. If you use Trulia, you can specify different neighborhoods within San Francisco.

American Journeys Searching for Silicon Valley http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/travel/escapes/17Amer.html?ref=technology WHILE on a bike ride in the hills behind Stanford University, I was helping a fellow cyclist fix a flat tire when a rental car full of lost Italian tourists pulled over. Clutching a map in his hands, the driver beseeched us, “Can you tell us where we can go to see Silicon Valley?” The cyclist, Tony Fadell, an Apple engineer who led the iPod and iPhone design teams, and I grinned at each other, but we had to sympathize with the driver’s plight. Perhaps more than any region, Silicon Valley has transformed the world in the last half century. Yet exploring — or even finding — this patchwork quilt of high-tech research and development centers, factories and California suburbia can be baffling. That’s because the valley is as much a state of mind as it is a physical place. Over the last four decades, the dream of being the next Jobs or Wozniak has captured the world’s imagination and turned the valley into a global crossroads. Nowhere is that more clear than on a visit to the Naz 8 Cinemas in Fremont, the manufacturing community southeast of San Francisco Bay. Billed as the first multicultural entertainment multiplex, it shows Bollywood movies from India as well as films from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines on eight screens with 3,000 seats and 5,000 parking places.

Tony Fadell Current SVP, iPod Division at Past CEO and Founder at Fuse VP, Strategy and Ventures at Philips Electronics CTO and Senior Director, New Business, Philips Mobile Computing Group at Philips Electronics Lead SW/HW Engineer at General Magic Education University of Michigan

View from the Top - Shantanu Narayen, chief executive of Adobe By Chrystia Freeland and Paul Taylor Shantanu Narayen, aged 45, is modest about his personal accomplishments - which include holding five patents - but passionate about technology, Silicon Valley and Adobe, the $3.6bn-a-year desktop software pioneer he now leads as chief executive. Before joining Adobe in 1998, Mr Narayen, an electronics engineer from Hyderabad, India, who loves golf and his two sandy-coloured Labrador dogs, worked at Silicon Graphics and Apple, and co-founded Pictra, an early pioneer of digital photo-sharing over the internet. As Adobe's president and chief operating officer until he took over the chief executive's job in December 2007, he helped spearhead the $3.4bn acquisition of Macromedia, a deal that expanded Adobe's software portfolio and strengthened the company's presence in key markets ranging from enterprises and vertical industries to mobile devices and multimedia publishing.

Yahoo Real Estate also lists foreclosures by zip code, and has "featured houses by RealtyTrac". So I guess they pull in the numbers from them too. As mentioned above you get the street, stats, and sometimes a photo so you can do some legwork and fiture out the street address number. Marina is 94123. Yahoo shows 2 NODs, 1 foreclosure sale, and 1 REO. The REO is actually on Marina Blvd. and is shown at $2,187,000.