patrick.net

Brand, where are you at? I'm in San Diego and the weather is absolutely perfect. Not a cloud in the sky.

Malcom,

the breakthrough is much further away than you think. However, if oil price soars to $200, that will certainly bring us much closer to the breakthrough.

No way, dude! I claim credit for spotting BigBrother as ConfusedRenter like ten threads ago.

Brand,

Sorry if I unduly gave SP the credit. You've gotta be less obscure with the references to make it more obvious for those of us not paying close attention and/or slow-witted!

Malcom says: To me this phenomenon of blaming the lender for lending you too much is very new.

No it isn't. In the last decades we have become a complete victim society. I can burn myself with coffee and sue McDonalds. In the 1950's you would have been laughed out of court.

wade, are you in alberta, specifically edmonton, by any chance? i've read there's a huge housing boom there because of all the oil money flowing in there.

OO, it is already starting. The Prius is now the 9th best selling car on the road. In just a few years the extra battery will make 80% of the driving gasoline free for these cars. We are this close to getting biodiesel pumps at certain stations. The US carmakers seem to have finally woken up, and are being pressed by the market instead of being dragged kicking and screaming by the government to stop tinkering around, and really put some new concepts into production. I really believe this time is for real. Our Prius is the coolest freaking car I've ever seen.

@Brand,

Notice I said "almost".
I'm fine with letting individual stupid people suffer the consequences of their actions. The problem with letting (or actively subsidizing) huge numbers of them do stupid things en masse is that OTHER PEOPLE (namely responsible borrowers, savers and taxpayers) get "punished" too.

Fed drops short rates to 1%, making it virtually impossible to loan money at a loss. Congress passes the "24-month" Flipper Enrichment Act. Mr. Greedbag McBankster originates a few $Trillion in neg-am/option-arm loans, providing huge back-end commissions to crooked mortgage brokers, who in turn loan them out to anyone with a pulse. Mr. GM then bundles the loans up as "safe" MBS/CMOs and sells the risk "downstream" to suck --er, "investors".

End results:

1. I get punished, first, by being shut out of the housing market unless I'm willing to take out my own NINJA (I'm not).
2. I get punished again, by being forced to bailout these assclown lenders and FBs, since I'm the only one left with any money but no political clout.

Brand, agreed on the victim thing, I'm specifically talking about blaming the lender for too much of a loan. What is scary is both parties in DC are finding common ground here. This is not the issue I wanted to see bipartisanship on.

Also, someone told me that above $70, many innovative ways of extracting oil will become viable (tar sands is much cheaper to process than $70).

Remember, oil is in abundance. Only cheap oil is in short supply.

That's how this progressed HARM. Some actually IMPORTANT people lost enough money that now we 'need' to bailout the subprimers.

There has to be a point when people are accountable for their own actions. To me this phenomenon of blaming the lender for lending you too much is very new.

It's not about "blaming" the lenders. It's about NOT BAILING THEM OUT when they went into this 6-year credit orgy with eyes wide open, and couldn't care less about the consequences.

Peter, as with electricity, if we knew then what we know now cars, and houses would be powered totally differently.

What a great thread-

Here are mine:

"It's a lifestyle, you can borrow home equity to take vacation trips to Europe, buy a new car, remodel or whatever you like to do.."

"The high end is fairly well insulated from any downturn"

My favorite, although not from a realtor, but rather the seller, posted on a refrigerator while on a showing-

"I need money badly!"

Malcolm, the market is sticky. However, technology will move much faster if we stop trying to protect "victims" from changes.

I agree HARM, my pet peeve is that these guys are being called victims in the press. Someone whose house washes away in Katrina is a victim. Someone who becomes an FB through perfectly forseable circumstances is a loser, not a victim.

I'm not convinced that BigBrother is ConfusedRenter is MarinaPrime. They're all related, but BigBrother may be the most entertaining one yet.

Anyone here suspects that BigBrother is a product of 1984?

Paul, you gotta give credit for the honesty on the last one.

Peter P,

I believe I read that the tar sands number is in the high 30's to $40 per barrell. This is probably a moving target depending on how much the USD declines against the Canadian.

Recharging electrically is a better deal. We are so close.

Malcom,

When I saw that on the refrigerator I turned to the sellers agent and said "this probalby doesn't help their cause!?!"

Paul

the market is sticky

And so are tar sands. :-)

(I don't mind gas prices shooting up, but let me take my Alaska trip first)

Yeah, I wouldn't think so.

I hate the victim mentality.

In Nature, there are only winners and losers, the survived and the extinct; there are no victims.

In human societies, we do enforce law. This puts us above other biological beings on earth. If someone loses because another person has committed a crime, this is understandable.

Calling any loser a victim will not improve humanity. It will incentivize people to become losers. It is a crime against Nature.

And so are tar sands. :-)

Mud pies too. :)

I believe I read that the tar sands number is in the high 30’s to $40 per barrell. This is probably a moving target depending on how much the USD declines against the Canadian.

Yep. That is what I heard.

Malcolm,

How's the Prius in cold weather? My impression is that it doesn't run very efficiently in cold weather.

You know what an insult it is for me to hear the bailout plans for fixing loans at 5.5%? With perfect credit, the best I EVER got was 5.75% on a 15 year fixed. How is this a fair solution? This is not even just a handout, it is preferential treatment, and completely backwards.

skibum: Okay, I came off too cocky there. :)

Anyway, I'm surprised that a young doctor like yourself, what with knocking down $200-400K/year in San Francisco, didn't spot the troll earlier. But as Space Ace points out, that's why engineers are the king of the heap, the cream of the crop, the best of the best. It's our infallible and deeply penetrating minds that push us to the side of society by the commoners who just can't take the (intellectual) heat!

:o

There are times when I purposely don't set upon Confused Marina immediately. First, you never know when a different anxious realtor has found this forum. You want to give them an equal opportunity to hand us enough rope to hang them, right? And second, CR/BB/MP/FR tends to stop posting shortly after being outed. That's just depriving yourself of watching Randy H dismantle her ridiculous arguments. People have been admitting lately that we're a little starved for entertainment... what better gems of mirth than "it always goes up" from the mouth of a true believer?

You know what an insult it is for me to hear the bailout plans for fixing loans at 5.5%?

I do not mind them getting 5.5% so long as they are forced to pay 20 points up front.

Astrid,

The Prius must run ok in the cold. There are soooo many here in Chicago.

Paul

Astrid, we bought it in February so I can't say. We did get 45 MPG actual for strictly freeway driving, so I think it is performing well. They are rated for 50 freeway but I guess that is at 55 MPH on a nice level road.

They are rated for 50 freeway but I guess that is at 55 MPH on a nice level road.

IIRC San Diego has the best roads in California.

They really are fantastic cars, and they even look cool. Mine is charcoal grey, and it looks so sleek, that I can only imagine it is a matter of time before you see some real pimped ones.

Is there a bubble in oil prices Peter P?

I don't know. But chances are that oil prices may rest on a permanently high plateau.

I’m all for bailouts. We pay enough taxes. Moral hazard is a good thing that keeps the economy running smoothly without any hiccups.

The point is that taxes should be lower. Moral hazard is something that keeps the economy running smoothly until it does not.

That's not saying much, some of the roads are pretty bad here. The best roads I've seen for condition would have to be the east coast.

The southern states, I don't really know the northern roads.

Okay Randy, I give up. I've tried to post 3 versions of an original comment. Please delete all. I will try one more time with additional modifications.

Okay, my original response to “Big Brother” has been hanging up in moderation for a while now. So here’s it is, modified given her ridiculous response to Hi_there and HARM:

How many a$$umptions, exaggerations, and, frankly, talking-out-of-your-a$$ statements can one person make? Apparently many, as Big Brother continues to demonstrate to us.

I can’t comment on the banking field, but I can say from personal first-hand knowledge for both doctors and lawyers. BB’s numbers are very skewed upwards. Doctors CAN make in the range of $300k plus, but that is a exceedingly small minority, limited to subspecialists who perform procedures or high-end practices, especially in areas of doctor oversupply like the Bay Area, which on top of that is dominated by modestly-paying Kaiser.

Lawyers start out at $150K or so out of law school ONLY at top-tier law firms. There is a fixed, almost herd-driven pay increase scale at these firms that NEVER reaches $300k. Lawyers at these firms make that much only at partnership, or in a huge bonus year. And that’s only a miniscule fraction of lawyers, even at these top-tier firms.

Bottom line (to use a TOS technique): Big Brother, you are FULL of $HIT.