patrick.net

DennisN Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am
"By the way, whatever happened to HUD? Is it still around as a cabinet-level position?"

I thought so, that's one of those token black person jobs that will always be around.

These "idiots" understand the issue perfectly. They want to keep up the price so that one low-price transaction won't "destroy" the value for the whole neighborhood - i.e. balance sheet of banks holding these houses as collateral.

Gold is still dropping. It is not ready for staying above 990 yet. :(

Not investment advice.

sp,
Thanks for the manufacturing output list. Keep in mind, however, that the numbers from that total list are far overshadowed by consumer spending in this f'ed up country of ours. That's why until recently, bulls and pollyannas kept saying that manufacturing job losses didn't matter as much, since the "reilient" consumer would hold up our economy.

Now look what's happening. So much for that one.

@Peter P & DennisN,

Sick, just... sick.

HARM, don't worry. Mr. Market is bigger than any government.

Anyway, isn't the HUD secretary the "housing czar" you wanted? What the heck is the HUD secretary supposed to be doing in this crisis? Why is the ball in the court of the FED chairman and Treasury secretary?

"This starting to get silly now"

Certainly is. Johnny Isaccson (rep. AND realtwhore) talks about a serious recession for housing? Well Who TF cares? That's why I think Reid is closer on this one. Firstly it's $10 bil. LESS and secondly rather than focus on propping up prices (bank collateral) his plan salvages the FB's they can and bulldozes the rest!

Get out da' way!

The DQ numbers are out for SoCal. It's chock full o' eye-popping data:

http://www.dqnews.com/News/California/Southern-CA/RRSCA080313.aspx

How's this one:

"Of the homes that resold in February, about one-third, 33.5 percent, had been foreclosed on at some point since January 2007. A year earlier the figure was 3.5 percent."

Or:

"The median sale price dropped by a record 17.6 percent from a year ago, a real estate information service reported."

Or:

"Last month's sales total was the second-lowest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The prior month's total of 9,983 was the lowest ever. Since September, sales each month have been a record low for that particular month."

DennisN,

The OFHEO Director has aready gone on the record as saying he thinks bumping Jumbo limits is the dumbest thing he's ever heard so he's been marginalized. What the admin. wants is a Housing Czar that will shore up existing prices!

Sometimes I wish I knew more about hacking...

www.hud.gov/foreclosure/index.cfm

Wouldn't it be fun to put in a re-direct to www.youwalkaway.com on that HUD page?

They want to keep up the price so that one low-price transaction won’t “destroy” the value for the whole neighborhood - i.e. balance sheet of banks holding these houses as collateral.

All they need to do is play with the bookkeeping.

What they could do is publish a "true comps" list. All data for sales such as foreclosures, short sales, and the like would be excluded, and only "true home sales" data would go into the "true comps".

-4. You get a personal consultation with one of our highly experienced Real Estate Attorneys making sure the lender followed the law perfectly. If they did not, you may have a case against them.-

YouWalkAway must be reading the blog since this was my idea for something missing from their model. They used to specifically say they weren't lawyers. Their credit repair is fishy because they just buy a credit repair attempt from one of those shady companies that sends out zillions of frivilous credit disputes to the agencies. My model at least didn't involve credit fraud.

I don't see them on the main page. I guess they aren't advertising with Patrick anymore. I hope he made some money off of them.

Soldiers are not getting payed.

Source?

Anyway, isn’t the HUD secretary the “housing czar” you wanted? What the heck is the HUD secretary supposed to be doing in this crisis? Why is the ball in the court of the FED chairman and Treasury secretary?

All good questions deserving of further research. As far as I can tell, HUD has little or no authority to regulate mortgage lenders, the GSEs or Realtor groups, such as NAR. Sec. Jackson also does not appear to have the authority to influence rate decisions at the Fed, or to regulate how MBS/CDO securities get issued. So, the short answer is... powerless?

http://www.hud.gov/about/secretary/jacksonbio.cfm
http://www.hud.gov/library/bookshelf12/hudhistory.cfm

Only a slight bearing to the subject of the thread... but what is with the EU continuing to harass American companies?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/intel-defends-itself-before-european/story.aspx?guid=%7B4CE9A7FA%2DD792%2D4700%2D95B6%2D0AFB77094AA9%7D&siteid=yhoof

Does anyone know exactly where the money generated from these fines go? If their intention is truly to promote fair play in the marketplace, then most of the money should go to the offending company's competitors. However, I would say that is very unlikely. Anyone know?

Ah... here you go...

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/125&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

goes straight into the EU budget. What a bunch of BS.

I don't know if you guys heard about the Hershey plant in Oakdale shutting down, but that is one shuttleing that pissed me off. They made Kisses and Miniatures, etc. It was a profitable operation, in the black, stable, local workforce, the whole package. The excuse in the paper was that it was running at 40% capacity. Ok, bummer number, but they closed Oakdale and moved the 40% to Mexico to up the capacity in the cheaper to run plant. It wasn't that Oakdale wasn't profitable, it was that Mexico was MORE profitable. Profit is profit but there is a limit. I would have closed the Mexico location, brought that production here and hired more bodies. Remember, Oakdale was profitable. Can you imagine the public relations boom. WE'RE KEEPING JOBS IN AMERICA! WE'RE PATRIOTIC! WE'RE AMERICA'S CHOCOLATE COMPANY!!!!!! And the list could go on for ever. They wouldn't be able to keep that stuff on the shelves.

If I want to buy foreign chocolate, I'll buy Nestle'. And I do.

NOT CHOCOLATE BUYING ADVICE

My point is that a whole lot of manufacturing could come back to the States and do very well it's just that the proft margin is so much greater when you pay people with grains of rice instead of money. That worm will turn.

TOB,

Uh... that would be me. I get payed by the post! I have some extruded aluminum engine cowlings, where did you want me to set them? The living room? You got it!

I know plenty of people that work at Leatherman's (tool maker) Warn Winch (automotive/marine) and PrecisionCastParts (aviation). My wife works for a company that makes ultra-sound equipment along with scores of other products primarily re-sold to OTHER mfrs! Now we DID lose Techtronix (and basically Freightliner) but they were on their way out anyway. We have start-up/spin-off firms and St. Jude makes some pretty hi-tech stuff here too. Medicated stent technology.

So whatever.

TOB,

You do have a good point.

Who else finds Paulson's conflict of interest on banking/housing disturbing? I wrankles me when he commnts on regulation.

While I agree it is needed, I am angered to hear it coming from a man whose personal wealth is estimated at $700 million and who made his money in sub-prime and who was only able to exercise his options at an abosulte peak price by taking his current job.

Cnogress just drug Prince, Mozilla, and O'neal into chambers. Why not Paulson?

"Mexicans are 'pliant'"

I'm not saying that they aren't and I'm not saying they're not capable but my wife's company tried to out-source there to make cables. Not fiber-optic cables like she works with, just AWG copper conductor cables.

In 18 months of sending proto-types back and forth and all kinds of training and visits they were not able to turn out ONE cable that passed QC... not one. This was with the FULL support of a Fortune 500 company!

So if you can show them where they went wrong (after considerable expense) I'm sure they'd be open to hearing about it.

Duke,

Hard to argue that!

One of the things that will help American manufacturing is the Company Store mentality that's developing with over seas manufacturers.

I had a customer come in the shop a few days ago that needed a shaft for a machine. No biggie. It had a spline, a few seal diameters and a gear cut into it and no heat treatment. The manufacturer wanted almost $8700.00 for the thing with a six week lead time. This was at three in the afternoon. I ordered the material from the local steel house, had it by five. I started cutting at six in the morning. I had it turned, cut, and ground by one in the afternoon. All for about $1200.00. The machine was back up the next day.

In a lot of ways, we are very competative.

In the end, the average American did not profit one bit from the whole arrangement.

Average people never profit. Period.

Do you understand the concept of a ZERO SUM game?

(Hopefully, Randy will come back... )

My biggest fear is really about the returning veterans.

The # of payday loans set up right next to GI camp has gone up exponentially in the last few years (I remember seeing a number of 95% growth in 3 years). These people saw their colleagues die, amputated, injured, or may have gone through a few nasty episodes themselves. They will feel maltreated or neglected once they come back home with no jobs waiting for them.

Worse still, the quality of US soldiers has been going down drastically precisely because of Iraq war. People with self-respect or financial options would not join the army in the last 4 years. So who joined? Gang members. Such an unique phenomenon has actually gotten lots of news coverage.

So what do we get when these veterans come home? Disgruntled, hopeless people with combat training. Tim McVeigh won't be the last home-grown terrorist.

If I were FDR:

1. I woud not have frozen banks accounts.
2. I would not have called loans due.
3. I would have bee pro free-trade.
4. I would not have allowed war-reperations against Germany to be so lopsided as to foment the acceptance of Hitler in the hyper-inlated Germany.

I've thought about that myself. They joined the military because, in many cases, they had no options. Now they get out, very well trained in the use of guns and explosives, with no options.
Yeah, well guess what. With that kind of training, you can make your own options. Things are going to become very real.

TOB, only change is permanent.

It is vital for a society to adapt. No one deserves protection from Free Market.

(Well, it is justifiable to defend the integrity of the market, namely the banking and financial system.)

They joined the military because, in many cases, they had no options.

As I have said many times, the only way out is a dramatic tax cut to stimulate business and employment. There can be workfare-driven public projects, but the use of welfare should be massively reduced.

skibum :

The language in DQ release is amazingly frank for their usual standard.

CR wrote a comment at the end and that captures the pathetic nature of the market so well.

If it wasn't for foreclosures, the sales number would really be awful.

Very well put.

Europe cannot possible compete with us in the long run because of their welfare state and high rate of taxation.

It is not difficult for the US to compete with the Third World. Wage is only one factor. Taxation is a big issue.

I've never tried to make some broad statement saying that America's best Mfr. days are ahead of her? Have I?

This is the very group think Randy H warned about when it comes to perceptions about mfr. in general. You can call the MexMafioso all you want, they're not turning out useable product. Now our daughters will likely never work in mfr. but that's why we did it (so they won't have to)

One is well employed for a state mental h/c facility and the other is finishing school. One thing that I DO regret is that cheap labor has done away w/ the RE-manufacturing business! Talk to anyone in tires. They can ship new ones here cheaper than we can re-tread (even for heavy trucks) so now otherwise useable casings stretch to the sky.

this argument assumes one important thing, that NAFTA was some kind of inevitable natural phenomenon. It was deliberate and its drafting was sold to the public as a benefit.

I am not a fan of NAFTA because it is a form of regulated "free" trade.

I get a clear feeling that most arguing against me are part of an older age group.

Huh? I had my first Saturn Return not long ago.

Peter, did it ever occur to you that your social/economic position was perhaps obtained (or maintained) by biased policies? You speak from this position of self-assurance that what you have is yours and obtained by divine ordinance (and this includes fancy degrees).

Huh? WTF?

Tax cut won't necessarily stimulate investment in business activities, if the other aspects of the society is f*cked up. Speculation is a much easier option for the rich to protect and grow their asset in this kind of environment. Why would I want to invest in producing anything (other than speculating on hard commodities that everyone MUST consume) with the biggest consumption machine running out of steam? Who is going to buy my stuff?

Tax cuts this time will precisely spur speculation, most probably in hard commodities. If President McCain gives more tax cut, I think my gold will head to $5000.

btw- Headset I supplied the sources but theyre in moderation-

I saw them. (Putting in multiple links gets you into moderation.) I thought you were saying that the run of the mill active duty soldier was not being paid. From my experience in the Air Force, I noticed that we got paid even when civil service did not. Your links refered to a soldier beng improperly discharged, promised benefits not being given to discharged soldiers, and a veto on increase in military pay. The first two are outrageous, I'll agree.

Tax cut won’t necessarily stimulate investment in business activities, if the other aspects of the society is f*cked up. Speculation is a much easier option for the rich to protect and grow their asset in this kind of environment.

Tax cuts include targeted credits and/or other incentives.

Tax cuts this time will precisely spur speculation, most probably in hard commodities. If President McCain gives more tax cut, I think my gold will head to $5000.

:)

Soldiers should be treated well. They are the heroes.