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...and now (your predictions welcome)


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2007 Aug 12, 1:36am   36,768 views  326 comments

by Randy H   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

crystal ball

What do you think comes next. Let this stand as a record of your incredible intuition and insight. Or let it just be a scratch pad for your musings. All takers welcome.

This thread will be permatroll free, my commitment to you. (Don't bother responding to trolls, I'll get around to deleting the comments).

--Randy H

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1   Randy H   2007 Aug 12, 1:50am  

I'll get things started:

I predict the Bay Area will see a growing shift in jobs, but not as bad of job losses as most other areas of the country. We'll suffer a lot of pain due to lost real estate related employment, though a boom in foreclosure-related employment.

But technology will, perhaps ironically, serve as a bit of a safe haven. Tech companies are about as far from the RE meltdown as any sector. Tech revenues come largely from corporate spend, which itself is cyclical and driven by competitive and productivity pressures. And that cycle is on the upswing.

I am careful to also predict that even the best-case tech-haven scenario doesn't spare the Bay Area real estate market. Even while our greatest techs continue to chug along, salaries won't inflate anywhere nearly enough to rescue bubble house prices. So house prices come down, down and down. Probably 70%+ in war-zone areas, 50%+ in bullshit areas with bad schools, and 20%-30% in prime areas. I think the _very least_ the Bay Area gets away with is half of those price reductions.

I also predict:

* No Second Great Depression
* No Hyperinflation
* No US collapse and subsequent wonderful new world of internationalist Kumbaya sing-ins
* No direct relief to FBs even if there is a bailout of their lenders
* At least 1 more Patrick.net author will buy a house in the next 12 months

2   B.A.C.A.H.   2007 Aug 12, 2:18am  

My prediction is that there's gonna be a backlash against the federal government when the analog TV signals go dead next year.

This backlash will motivatie a small number of normal non-voters to the polls to reject what they perceive as status quo candidates. It will be a relatively small number of voters but if there's a close election it could be enough people to be important.

3   justme   2007 Aug 12, 2:43am  

Randy,

* No direct relief to FBs even if there is a bailout of their lenders

This is an interesting subtopic to me.

President Bush has been quoted as saying in essence that he does not favor *direct* relief to homedebtors. Of course, between the lines, one can see that he probably favors relief for his buddies on Wall St and in the lending/banking industry.

All in all a typical republican approach to economics: Bail out the rich sinners, and to hell with the poor or middle-class victims (although of course the victims are hardly pure nor innocent in this case, just overly greedy).

4   Malcolm   2007 Aug 12, 2:54am  

Definitely no hyperinflation; in fact, I predict the inverse bordering on hyper deflation. As expected credit has all of a sudden become tight and is now rippling. (The clear answer to the nitwits here who start questioning whether bondholders hold enough risk, and whether investors earn too much yada yada ya, this is what happens when they don't).

The steepest part of the downward curve in home prices is now just around the corner as the inflection point has now clearly just passed. Couple that with growing pressure from overseas outsourcing of more and more technical and higher wage executive postitions salaries will freeze, and even decline in some sectors significantly. Add to that technological disruption of traditionally high earning professions (ex the travel agent, realtor, and stockbroker examples) we end up with even greater loss of consumer spending power here, however that also will 'outsource' as international markets which have been doing a lot of our value add gain spening power so exports will continue to rise (see unexpected profits of Ford and GM) as glimpse of this emerging trend.

Precious metals will stabalize and decline as fear of inflation relents. The domestic slowdown will also curb demand for oil however internation demand will pull prices back up. So expect gas to drop to the low $2 mark and then rise to a stable high $2.

5   justme   2007 Aug 12, 2:58am  

Malcolm, if a "high $2" means $2.90, I can agree with that, but I'm not expecting to see the "low $2" ($2.25) ever again.

6   Malcolm   2007 Aug 12, 2:59am  

Just a couple of days ago I received a pretty well written letter in response to our letter writing campaign from Barbara Boxer. To paraphrase there is currently no legislation proposed to help the FBs, however it seems that there are 3 pieces of useless laws being proposed, the same old nonsense, telling lenders to act responsibly which they already learned the hard way. What is disturbing is that she does use the words predators and victims to describe lenders and borrowers. I still don't understand at what point people stopped using their natural consumer instincts to compare different loans when "credit was too easy to obtain."

7   Malcolm   2007 Aug 12, 3:03am  

Well, we'll see, it has been my observation that a small disruption in demand for gas has a pretty harsh impact on pricing on the price curve but time will tell. I wouldn't be surprised if it dipped just below $2 if we have a really sudden slowdown. I think a lot of the experts are way too conservative as far as how quickly things can change. The credit crunch blindsided the market, yet we have often talked about tightening as a result of the meltdown here.

8   Malcolm   2007 Aug 12, 3:08am  

Justme, your post about Bush is interesting to me as well. I've gone on record here stating that the talk of bailouts by BOTH parties is a direct result of the right people facing huge losses. No one seems to care about some black family who really did have their ignorance exploited by a broker somewhere but man as soon as some white collar fund managers start losing their livlihoods the most diehard free market types start talking about the government riding in on a white horse. That Cramer spot on Youtube is hysterical. He wants to cut the rate to stabalize the market yet at the same time blames Greenspan for lowering the rate, WTF?

9   Brand165   2007 Aug 12, 3:14am  

I made my prediction for Fort Collins, CO on the last thread. Reversion to mean on the 4% trendline, with a significant overcorrection to burn off some of the inventory glut. I will be looking to buy on the overcorrection, at which point there will probably be a -20% to -25% reduction compared to 2003 asking prices. This will correspond to $85-95/fin.sqft, below the present $100-110/sqft + unfinished allowance.

Note: my standard unit of measure is a typical 2000-2500 finished sq.ft. SFH on a 0.2 acre lot, cul de sac location with a good school, within 2 miles of work.

10   Bruce   2007 Aug 12, 3:43am  

I believe we'll see an extended downturn in financial and real estate interests with a statistical trough showing in the summer of 2009 and public sentiment recognizing the beginning of recovery a few months after. Along the way, there may be a few unpleasant surprises when corporate interests in other sectors are found to have exposed their balance sheets to RE and IB risks not ordinarily associated with their primary lines of business.

I anticipate a xenophobic response here and abroad, a souring of international relations, and a rise in opportunistic extremist activities.

Places like SF with large banking, lending and insurance interests will undoubtedly experience the loss of 'good' jobs in significant numbers, but the area's record of viable R&D and technical enterprise suggest the BA will feel less pain than many other metropolitan areas. I would nevertheless submit that an overall tightening of operations will occur, and that consequently some employment enabled by good times will vanish as viable companies go lean.

I will be surprised if equities do not in the end reflect overall trends, or if the resulting downdraft doesn't carry all before it. There will be no lack of premature bottom calls. By 9/09 I believe the words 'leverage', 'adjustable', 'realtor', 'hedge' and a few obvious others will be inadmissible in polite company and never be spoken in front of the children.

11   jeffolie   2007 Aug 12, 4:19am  

My expectation for a systematic crisis in the summer of 2008 comes from the volume of resetting adjustable rate mortgages (ARM's) which peak next March. There are over $500 Trillion in derivatives world wide. Some of those Trillions directly play off the mortgage backed securities (MBS) that are now worthless since no one will give a bid to buy them when hedge funds and pensions must sell them.

The unfortunate homeowners lose their houses when their mortgage reset to higher monthly payments according to the terms of the adjustable mortgages (ARM's) ending their teaser, introductory, low rate periods. These mortgages have been bundled together when they were first made and sold to investors as bonds labelled MBS's. The MBS's also were accumilated in colateralized debt obligations (CDO's) which function like mutual funds that instead of being full of stocks are full of MBS's and derivatives. Banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other financial institutions bought these MBS's and CDO's because the rating agencies described much of the MBS's and layers of the CDO's as AAA, AA, and A, which are the labels for the very best investment grade bonds and financial instruments. Much of the CDO's and MBS's came from mortgages that defaulted or will default over the next 18 months. The term used for these mortgage related complex financial instruments which no one will buy and thus have little or no value is 'toxic waste'.

Everyday now the main street media is full of TV and print stories about houses being foreclosed. The financial media is full of hedge funds and banks losing vast sums of money from the toxic waste. The worst is still ahead. The first peak in resetting ARM's is in October. It takes at least six months for a house mortgage to go from the first nonpayment of the mortgage to the bank owning the house (REO). This is a downward spiral that lowers that comps that other houses get their prices. Add to this that house sales have declined and more houses are being built, the future for toxic waste can only be worse.

One index that tracks the declining value of toxic waste used for derivatives called the ABX shows in dramatic detail the collapse of derivatives: http://www.eurobondonline.com/abx-HE-AAA-06-2.Htm

There you can see how the rating agencies such as Moody's, S&P and Fitch have done horrible jobs of describing MBS's as AAA, AA, A, BBB and BBB- because the prices of these bond bundles and bonds have collapsed reflecting them as toxic waste. Rating agencies are starting to regrade the toxic waste to lower labels, but that is like shooting a dead horse then pronouncing it dead when it was already dead before shooting it.

Now comes the politics of the Democrats promoting a bailout and the politics of the President rejecting a bailout of the unfortunate, stupid people who signed up for the ARM's, the banks that made and sold the MBS's and the world wide investors of MBS's, CDO's or derivatives based on toxic waste. Ms Clinton's proposal will be a campaign issue. But, if my evaluation plays out, then the US and the worldwide investors will be in deep shit by next summer well before the fall 2008 elections.

I have tried to make this simple and readable. The financial instruments involved remain far more complex. It takes days and weeks for experts to place a true price on the financial instruments by pricing them to what real buyers will pay for them. This mark-to-market price remains difficult and the lack of clarity in what they are worth changes moment to moment so they are decribed as having a lack of transparency or opaque. When investors try to get their money from funds having toxic opaque waste, the funds can deny them access to thier money claiming that there is no bid or they don't know what their toxic waste is worth.

Added to this horrible development, the Federal Reserve (Fed) is coming to the rescue of the banks through its primary broker dealers on Thursday and Friday. The Fed makes temporary loans to its primary broker deals called repurchase agreements (repos). The Fed takes the toxic waste as collateral and gives the banks Treasuries notes to use. The repos must be repaid in 3 days by the banks. World wide Central Banks such as the Fed have added over $100 Billion dollars on Thursday and Friday.

Please remember that the worst is still ahead.

12   PermaRenter   2007 Aug 12, 4:40am  

>> Now comes the politics of the Democrats promoting a bailout and the politics of the President rejecting a bailout of the unfortunate,

This is the reason I would NOT vote for Democrats in 2008 ...

13   Randy H   2007 Aug 12, 4:40am  

Malcolm

I actually believe we've already passed the inflexion point of global outsourcing and wage arbitrage. I base this on the following:

1. The absolute advantage enjoyed by cheap labor markets is eroding, and becoming a normal comparative advantage. This is hastened by both the dollar weakness and increased insistence by consuming nations on product safety standards and worker safety standards.

2. Except for specific functional units of labor much of what has been offshored has proven less efficient over the medium term than low-cost "onshoring". This is especially true in technology/IT/knowledge worker roles.

3. The US is entering an increasingly isolationistic period which, coupled with weak dollar policy, will serve as a pressure to produce locally, at least within US free-trade zones.

The China-types are in a conundrum. To keep their comparative advantage they have to keep manipulating their currency weak versus the dollar by buying dollars. To bring about a reckoning in their relationship with the US, they need to quit buying so many dollars. By slowing the purchase of dollars they hasten the flight of offshore production from their economy.

But, ultimately, it is the isolationistic era we're likely on the cusps of that will halt all these worries -- and give us a whole other set of worries (which in my opinion are ultimately much worse). It's not just the US, the entire world with the exception of the Asia-to-US trade has been steadily erecting trade barriers against one another. Hell, even India has been increasing their US-to-India trade barriers even as they argue the inverse would be profoundly unfair. President Hillary will solve that headache (by lopping off the head of trade, unfortunately).

14   thenuttyneutron   2007 Aug 12, 4:47am  

@Randy

I might buy my first home in the next 12 months if the price is right. I rent now for $350 a month and have found a home for sale that is similar to what I rent now. This home was owned by an old woman who passed away last May and it is owned 100% by the daughter. They want 88k. I think the home is worth only 64k. With 0% appreciation on the home, taxes, insurance, P+I, etc. I have found I will save about $8,000 over 15 years if I continue to rent. I factored in 0% inflation on rent because I don't think my landlord will ever raise my rent. She is too happy that I stick around. I may consider the "owner" tag in front of my name to be worth $500 per year. I don't know just yet. I would meet the 20% down barely with what money I have now.

With my wife finally entering the job market here in Ohio as a teacher, the family take home income will increase by about $25,500 a year. I may be able to pay this home off in only 2 years by devoting 100% of her take home on the house. We currently only have my income, we can continue to live on that.

15   astrid   2007 Aug 12, 5:07am  

I predict I will be spend some time away from this blog as it goes it's periodic "yeah Republicans are thugs but I would never vote for Dems because..."

See you all later.

16   Malcolm   2007 Aug 12, 5:14am  

You could well be on to something there Randy. I had not factored a lower cost of domestic labor and burdens into the global equation which definitely will make the US competitive, and yes, China is not all it's cracked up to be. One of my bosses/mentor used to say that in many cases the shop rate in China was not much lower than the US all factors considered. I do still think there is a way to go at reaching capacity in places like India but it will be interesting to see.

I guess I could add to my prediction some more trade protection like tariffs here as a way to stave unemployment mainly for political reasons. If that happens I would have to flip over to your point which I do agree with as a very good possibility.

17   newsfreak   2007 Aug 12, 6:06am  

I predict the first permit for a nuclear electrical generation plant in thirty years within U.S. borders will be granted within a year.

Mr. Newsfreak

18   skibum   2007 Aug 12, 6:12am  

Randy H,
One point I disagree with you on is the fate of tech companies in this upcoming downturn. They will likely not suffer directly from the RE fallout, but I believe they are in for a world of hurt from the overall "credit crunch." Startup funding WILL diminish - this will take a while to work "through the system" in the form of weeding out the BS social networking/web 2.0 type startups. However, the tightening of credit will mean leaner times across most sectors, resulting in trimmed capital spending, which I think will significantly affect tech companies, both big and small. This will probably take a couple of years to have a real noticeable effect on Bay Area jobs (2008-9) I predict...

19   Jimbo   2007 Aug 12, 7:20am  

The Fed takes the toxic waste as collateral and gives the banks Treasuries notes to use.

This is not correct. The Fed only takes guaranteed (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) MBS as collateral for loans.

20   Brand165   2007 Aug 12, 7:30am  

Jimbo: So if the default rates are higher on FM/FM loans, who guarantees the MBS performance? As I understand it, the Federal government. Which means the taxpayers would eat the difference.

21   SP   2007 Aug 12, 7:46am  

There is much more pain still to be experienced as the combination of excess leverage, MBS and carry-trade liquidity passes through the financial sector's lower intestinal tract. There will be one major fracture in one of the big pillars of the current financial market structure - this could be one of many things - a collapse of a big bank, a sharp reversal in carry trade, a major political upheaval, a US/China trade spat, another terrorist attack on the 9/11 scale, etc. What makes prediction very difficult is that we don't know which one of these supports will break, and each will have a different set of after-effects.

However, just based on what has already happened, I would guess a general recession is a strong possibility. The lack of 'free' home-equity money itself will cause consumer spending in big-ticket non-essentials to drop sharply. The psychological effect of the R-word will have an even greater lingering impact.

I am not so confident about the Bay Area either - depending on the extent of the recession (plus on the unpredictable 'fracture'), corporate spending could be tentative and cautious. Coupled with a general bust in the "me-too" web2.0 employment sector, I expect the job market to be considerably less fun in a few months time.

(Can someone dig up a link to the previous 'Prediction' thread? I think we had correctly predicted the sub-prime bust this summer. Would be fun to go back and check...)

SP

22   requiem   2007 Aug 12, 8:03am  

Well, I just picked up a copy of _Manias, Panics, and Crashes_ yesterday, so it will take while longer to finish. That said, I think we will see a collapse (or bailout) of at least one major financial institution. While the Fed's repo operations this past week weren't that large, the European Central Bank alone provided about $212 billion on Thursday and Friday. When looking at the collapse of IKB, it looks as though the other German banks may have exposure.

It's really not comforting to read statements like this one from WestLB:
``We're relatively relaxed regarding the long-term valuation of our securities because of their high underlying quality,'' spokesman Hans Obermeier said in an interview today. Of the subprime securities, 98 percent are rated A or better and 87 percent AA or better, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agzHof0_tkRQ

According to the article, WestLB has about €1.25bn in such securities, but I don't know if that includes their Brightwater unit; my guess is that it does not (I guess most of the banks there set up such subsidiaries to make such investments). So, the above was more about Germany, mostly since I was trying to find more info on last week's rumors about the ECB shutting down interbank lending for a few hours to bail out a major German bank or two. The feeling I get is that the situation is not much different back home and that a significant credit event is still coming down the pipeline.

For the Bay Area, my sense is that there's still plenty of cheap money around (be it from Web 2.0 or elsewhere) that could vanish relatively quickly in a recession, so I'm still betting on a decline. I'll try to get a better prediction in tonight, since I have socializing to do today.

23   jeffolie   2007 Aug 12, 8:16am  

Jimbo Says:

August 12th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
The Fed takes the toxic waste as collateral and gives the banks Treasuries notes to use.

This is not correct. The Fed only takes guaranteed (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) MBS as collateral for loans.

This is the first and only time I know of that the Fed did take MBS's (and they took only MBS's) as collateral for repos.

24   jeffolie   2007 Aug 12, 8:23am  

The U.S. federal funds rate opened at 6 percent, a six-year high. It sank as low as 1 percent in late trading, according to ICAP Plc, after the New York Fed staged three repurchase operations, buying assets including mortgage-backed securities. The total of $38 billion, following $24 billion yesterday, was the highest amount of temporary funds since Sept. 12, 2001.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVxY19yfBpAI&refer=home

25   PermaRenter   2007 Aug 12, 9:17am  

>> This is not correct. The Fed only takes guaranteed (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) MBS as collateral for loans.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/omo/dmm/temp.cfm

Typically, when the Desk arranges RPs it accepts propositions from dealers in three collateral tranches.

In the first tranche, dealers may pledge only Treasury securities.

In the second tranche, dealers have the option to pledge federal agency debt in addition to Treasury securities.

In the third tranche, dealers have the option to pledge mortgage-backed securities issued or fully guaranteed by federal agencies in addition to federal agency debt or Treasury securities.

From time to time, for operational simplicity, the Desk has arranged RPs just in the third tranche, under which dealers have the option to pledge either mortgage-backed securities issued or fully guaranteed by federal agencies, federal agency debt, or Treasury securities. Today's RPs were of this type.

26   skibum   2007 Aug 12, 9:31am  

Yes Randy, I realize we're supposed to "ignore the trolls" in this thread, but I feel the need to clarify one of TOS' preposterous contentions/threats. She makes the assertion that per the recent NYT article, interest rates for prime jumbo mortgages are now 13%.

First, the article itself clearly states that the example it cites is unusual. Most jumbo rates are less than 100bp higher than "conforming loans" per the same article. Second, even if rates shoot up, the consensus is that this is a temporary spike, and the rate will likely settle out much lower, albeit higher than it has been in recent months. Third, higher interest rates affects all buyers except those planning to pay entirely in cash. This means this will merely be yet another downward pressure on home prices - all the more reason to continue to wait, at least in the intermediate term IMO.

27   justme   2007 Aug 12, 9:36am  

PermaRenter,

>In the third tranche, dealers have the option to pledge mortgage-backed >securities issued or fully guaranteed by federal agencies in addition to >federal agency debt or Treasury securities.

This is another important tidbit about how the whole "injection of liquidity" works, and an important point that I missed in our previous go-round on the topic (last thread).

Per the above statement. it appears that various Fed primary dealers (big banks, big Wal Street brokerages, big foreign banks) pledged their "good" collateral (Fannie Mae bonds etc) to get cash to shore up their bad collateral, namely subprime/Alt-A MBS bonds.

It is starting to make sense how this causes the losses and uncertainty to ripple through from the "bad paper" to the "good paper" and then into the stock market.

28   justme   2007 Aug 12, 9:39am  

Jeffolie,

I followed your link and indeed it said federal funds traded as low as 1% interest rate. Can this be for real, or is there a typo in the article?

Per an older post I made, how does this NOT constitute a big cut in interest rate, and without giving official notice?

29   justme   2007 Aug 12, 9:42am  

By the way, did anyone notice that (a subsidiary of) Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE:CFC) is on the list of the Fed's Primary Dealers?

I can only imagine how "fun" this is going to get tomorrow when the stock market opens...

30   Randy H   2007 Aug 12, 9:44am  

skibum

Tech companies are notorious for *not* using corporate credit, especially software tech. Certainly new ventures are mostly equity-funded, which as SP says could dry up during a decent recession (though that will lag because VC cycles lag due to overhang), but mature software companies are banks. If anything, most carry far too much excess cash on their balance sheets (from a shareholder perspective).

I do agree we'll see the Web 2.0 me-too social networking mini-bubble pop. But I am not yet convinced that we're set to see the trend into infrastructure, energy, and clean-tech dry up any time soon regardless of recession -- unless it's a terrible, long recession. Ironically, the implosion of so many hedge funds will have the effect of forcing a lot of money back into traditional VC funds.

31   skibum   2007 Aug 12, 9:50am  

Per an older post I made, how does this NOT constitute a big cut in interest rate, and without giving official notice?

justme,
As I understand it, this temporary 1% Fed funds rate is unusual, but it doesn't constitute an "official" rate cut. The overnight Fed funds rate set by the Fed at it's periodic meeting is not a cold hard trading rate. The actual trading rate is in part set by supply/demand by the banks and institutions that participate in overnight lending. The target Fed rate determines how the Fed injects or removes cash to drive the actual trading rate towards its goal rate, currently at 5.25%.

32   skibum   2007 Aug 12, 9:59am  

Tech companies are notorious for *not* using corporate credit, especially software tech.

Randy H,
Of course I don't doubt that you are correct on this statement, but I don't think there needs to be a direct cause-and-effect of tech companies holding lots of credit running into trouble due to credit squeezing and related phenomena. With a truly global credit squeeze clearly underway, eventually, tech will suffer as worldwide, industries across the board batten down the hatches and cut back on spending, which of course includes tech upgrades and related expenses. On top of that, spending on personal electronics - cell phones, computers, anything with a chip in it (most things these days) will be curtailed as the HELOC gravy train derails.

33   justme   2007 Aug 12, 10:13am  

Astrid,

Republicans, the masters of the "wedge issues". My god, I hope borrower or lender bailout does not turn into the holy cow mother of all wedge issues.

34   DennisN   2007 Aug 12, 10:26am  

"Just a couple of days ago I received a pretty well written letter in response to our letter writing campaign from Barbara Boxer. "

When they were my Senators, I wrote several letters to both Boxer and DiFi. I always received at least a courtesy reply from Boxer, but never received anything DiFi.

"I predict the first permit for a nuclear electrical generation plant in thirty years within U.S. borders will be granted within a year."

There's a company aggressively seeking a permit to build a commercial reactor complex here in Owyhee County (ID). It will probably be the first to be granted since the NIMBYs aren't a factor here. Both the Dems and GOP favor nuclear plants to replace dams so the salmon can thrive (Idaho green politics). The Idaho Nat. Labs here already has about 600 reactors so most people don't get all upset about them.

I'm not sure if I want to make any predictions since I've been wrong too often in the past. I quit my job in June 2005 to clean up my SJ house for sale since I thought the market would tank any day. Looks like I was about 18 months early on that one. Now I would say the bottom of the market will be hit more than the top of the market. But who knows...the "move up" guys have to unload their current houses too. Maybe a dead bottom will mean a nearly-deal upper market.

Never underestimate the power of outsourcing offshore. I became a patent attorney in the early 1990's as a "outsource-proof" career change. Nowadays big companies are outsourcing much of the work to India and only keeping US counsel for proof-reading and filing in the USPTO (need a US reg. number to be allowed to file a case).

35   Randy H   2007 Aug 12, 10:50am  

I predict the first permit for a nuclear electrical generation plant in thirty years within U.S. borders will be granted within a year.

Being that I'm working in the energy sector right now, and I just visited a large customer back East, I can guarantee you're right. In fact, you're wrong only in that there will be probably 15-25 or more plants started within the next 15 years. This one mega utility alone is planning for capacity of 2 per year.

There is a very serious energy problem looming which is compounded by emissions issues. Nuclear is a near term solution, and it is being pursued aggressively. Bear in mind that the US Government changed the rules for proposing new plants by requiring a huge up front-fee, but then protecting the investors from any regulatory delays by making them whole on their project TVM.

I became a patent attorney in the early 1990’s as a “outsource-proof” career change.

Not only do we not use Indian patent attorneys, but we only use local ones. They are extremely expensive, even more so for a young company, yet these are dollars well spent. I would not trust our barriers strategy to slop Indian processing centers.

36   DennisN   2007 Aug 12, 11:10am  

Stupid question time...how do I flag italics on this board? Is it [i]text[/i] ?

37   Brand165   2007 Aug 12, 11:17am  

Dennis: use <I> and </I>.

38   EBGuy   2007 Aug 12, 11:40am  

My prediction is that there’s gonna be a backlash against the federal government when the analog TV signals go dead next year.
Do you think the politicians would be crazy enough to do this in an election year. We actually have a bit more time before the cutoff -- Feb 17, 2009. Oh, and the backlash will be against the cable companies and their crowded, expensive pipes (where the HDTV channels get compressed more than on the free, over the air broadcasts). At any rate, you can probably figure out that my household does not have a cable bill, yet has more channels than I could ever watch (5 PBS channels for KQED in the BA alone!) Thats right, TV antennas will make a comeback and of course, all this will be exacerbated by FBers who have to unplug their cable boxes and will discover free, wireless digital TV on their soon to be repoed high def plasma screens :-)

39   DennisN   2007 Aug 12, 12:17pm  

EBGuy,

Yeah, the local PBS affiliate here has up to 5 simulcast DTV channels www.idahoptv.org/schedules/digital.cfm . And the transmitter is up at the Bogus Basin ski resort about 6,000 ft. above the plain. So we all have direct point-of-view direction to the transmitter from our cheap $30 antennas bought at Home Despot that we put up in the garage rafters. Free is good. Why pay cable?

40   Lost Cause   2007 Aug 12, 12:46pm  

Guide for prediction:

1) Calculate the maximum dollars exchanged.
2) Figure the absurdity of the political claim.
3) Make certain prediction.

Like this:

A second nuclear reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Approved.

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