The workload is enormous at OldSouth's international corporate HQ (and if you believe he works from a corner office, then he has such investment opportunities for you! You see, we buy up all these dodgy mortgages, slice them into teeny-tiny pieces, and sell bonds backed up by all those teeny-tiny pieces. And, if anything goes wrong, the taxpayers make you whole, 100 cents on the dollar....well, never mind....).
No really, Saturday morning, we had to get out of the house, and treat ourselves to breakfast at a little family-owned place in town. Called the daughter in grad school, to see if she wanted to join us, no answer, oh well. Drove into our little town, past the increasingly vacant little office buildings, the vacant car dealership, the 'for sale' and 'for rent' signs.
We walk in the restaurant, and hear the daughter's voice: 'What are my parents doing here?' Great minds think alike, she's escaped to breakfast with her best friend from high-school, unemployed by the Great Recession. College education, industrious, attractive, bright sense of humor, papering her world with job applications. Usually, not even an acknowledgment of receipt of the application. Unemployment benefits still running, but of course no heath coverage. Living at home again. Some days, she says, she just doesn't want to leave the house.
Any number of thoughts come to mind. This young lady is now at least a year now from establishing a separate household for herself, even if she finds a good job next week. Marriage, family not on the horizon, and she's now twenty-five. This does not bode well for real-estate over the next five years or so around here.
She's not untypical, except she has the college degree.
OS is concerned that we are witnessing an entire group of young people slowly becoming marooned.
(Hmm...millions upon millions of jobs saved or created.)
Showing posts with label we're in deep doo-doo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label we're in deep doo-doo. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Woman Who Would Succeed Ted Kennedy
Ann Coulter refreshes our memory of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in American history.
And she reminds us that one of its worst actors was Martha Coakley, the Democrat nominee for the seat left vacant by the demise of Ted Kennedy. The tale is long and chilling, and worth considering.
Gerald Amirault had been imprisoned for fifteen years for crimes that never occurred. Martha Coakley, as a district attorney, had every reason to know this was the case, and yet lobbied against his clemency petition in order to make her feminist prosecutorial 'bones'.
The man languished in prison for three years more.
Imagine this woman in the Senate...
And she reminds us that one of its worst actors was Martha Coakley, the Democrat nominee for the seat left vacant by the demise of Ted Kennedy. The tale is long and chilling, and worth considering.
Gerald Amirault had been imprisoned for fifteen years for crimes that never occurred. Martha Coakley, as a district attorney, had every reason to know this was the case, and yet lobbied against his clemency petition in order to make her feminist prosecutorial 'bones'.
The man languished in prison for three years more.
Imagine this woman in the Senate...
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Never Mind!!!
The wonderful comedienne Gilda Radner left us with happy memories, and hysterically funny characters created from her fertile imagination.
My favorite was Emily Litella, the old lady, hard of hearing, who would rant during the news segments 'anchored' by Chevy Chase. He often struggled to keep a straight face while she demanded to know what all the fuss was about Russian Jewelry, or Endangered Feces. Every routine would end with him gently correcting the old girl: 'That's Russian Jewry, or Endangered Species. At which point she would smile sweetly at the camera and deliver the payoff line: Never Mind! followed by gales of laughter and applause.
This week, Associated Press quietly brought us one of those 'Never Mind' moments.
Pfizer decided to locate a major facility in New London, CT. Downtown, where other people owned the real estate. So the city fathers decided to condemn and seize the property. You know, for the 'greater good', since Pfizer would generate more tax revenues than the local proles.
Pfizer's pharmaceutical research center, which opened in 2001, was a catalyst for a planned multimillion-dollar private development that was to include residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park. City officials decided they needed 90 acres adjacent to the Pfizer center to complement the building.
Many homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood sold to accommodate the wrecking crews, but seven fought the city all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 2005 that cities could use eminent domain to take property for private development.
In the end, great damage was done, as the principle was established that a government could seize property from one private party, and hand it over to another private party, all in the name of increasing the tax revenue base. For the 'greater good', you know...
Anyone smell moral hazard in any of this yet? Have there been any instances in which real estate developers paid off local officials for zoning preferences, for instance?
So, here we are in 2009, and Pfizer decides they're not going to go through with the project, after all. How many millions spent in legal fees? And, the city now owns the property they seized from the previous landowners, and are out the money they spent buying the more cooperative ones out.
Bet they'll have an easy time selling all that 'Prime Commercial Property'.
To quote Emily: Never Mind!
We have a cultural problem, in that the Constitution has been reduced to something used to line the birdcages of the powerful.
This creates economic quandries. Eventually. Inevitably.
If we could just say 'Never Mind', smile and move on...
My favorite was Emily Litella, the old lady, hard of hearing, who would rant during the news segments 'anchored' by Chevy Chase. He often struggled to keep a straight face while she demanded to know what all the fuss was about Russian Jewelry, or Endangered Feces. Every routine would end with him gently correcting the old girl: 'That's Russian Jewry, or Endangered Species. At which point she would smile sweetly at the camera and deliver the payoff line: Never Mind! followed by gales of laughter and applause.
This week, Associated Press quietly brought us one of those 'Never Mind' moments.
Pfizer decided to locate a major facility in New London, CT. Downtown, where other people owned the real estate. So the city fathers decided to condemn and seize the property. You know, for the 'greater good', since Pfizer would generate more tax revenues than the local proles.
Pfizer's pharmaceutical research center, which opened in 2001, was a catalyst for a planned multimillion-dollar private development that was to include residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park. City officials decided they needed 90 acres adjacent to the Pfizer center to complement the building.
Many homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood sold to accommodate the wrecking crews, but seven fought the city all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 2005 that cities could use eminent domain to take property for private development.
In the end, great damage was done, as the principle was established that a government could seize property from one private party, and hand it over to another private party, all in the name of increasing the tax revenue base. For the 'greater good', you know...
Anyone smell moral hazard in any of this yet? Have there been any instances in which real estate developers paid off local officials for zoning preferences, for instance?
So, here we are in 2009, and Pfizer decides they're not going to go through with the project, after all. How many millions spent in legal fees? And, the city now owns the property they seized from the previous landowners, and are out the money they spent buying the more cooperative ones out.
Bet they'll have an easy time selling all that 'Prime Commercial Property'.
To quote Emily: Never Mind!
We have a cultural problem, in that the Constitution has been reduced to something used to line the birdcages of the powerful.
This creates economic quandries. Eventually. Inevitably.
If we could just say 'Never Mind', smile and move on...
The Casino Is Back In Business, Only It's Our Money Buying The Chips
This dispassionate account of newly bankrupt hustlers buying real estate with FHA guarantees is brought to us by The YewNork Times.
I never fail to marvel that East Coast media types can laconically report outrages of this magnitude with the same lack of passion they would use in reporting the scores of the Friday high-school football scores in South Dakota.
Do they understand what is at stake morally, much less economically, for the country?
Think of the passion expended by the Times on the folks who supported Hoffman in the still-unresolved NY 23 by-election.
Or the outrage expressed over the outing of a non-covert CIA agent.
Or...you fill in the blank....
Soooooo...
Long story short, each of three guys put up 11K to get in the game. The article tells the rest of the tale:
Their building, for which they paid $963,000, is on a quiet street in the up-and-coming Hayes Valley neighborhood, close to fashionable restaurants they have already been trying out. The friends plan to live in the bottom unit and rent out the top. Thanks to rock-bottom interest rates, none of them will pay much more than a thousand dollars a month. “Everyone should have the chance to do this,” Mr. Kurland said.
Everyone may get a chance.
A few weeks ago, Congress extended the higher lending limits for another year. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that he planned to introduce legislation next year raising the maximum F.H.A. loan by $100,000, to $839,750.
His bill would make the new limits permanent.
33K down to purchase a 963K building. 33/963=.0342679. My calculator is smoking...
3.4% down payment on a property whose value is destined to fall, and if our intrepid young men default, or decide to walk away, or someone gets unhappy the with the arrangement, or falls ill, or moves back home, then the taxpayer gets to eat the cost of the failure.
FHA has done this 107,000 times in California this year. Six a week in San Francisco.
FHA was not set up to support high-end real estate plays. People are supposed to do that sort of stuff on their own dime, aren't they?
Is all this o.k., because Obama and Barney Frank say so?
My children, and my grandchildren, will end up paying for these guys sampling the restaurants of San Francisco. I doubt these guys will get around to settling down and procreating their own children to help foot the bill.
I never fail to marvel that East Coast media types can laconically report outrages of this magnitude with the same lack of passion they would use in reporting the scores of the Friday high-school football scores in South Dakota.
Do they understand what is at stake morally, much less economically, for the country?
Think of the passion expended by the Times on the folks who supported Hoffman in the still-unresolved NY 23 by-election.
Or the outrage expressed over the outing of a non-covert CIA agent.
Or...you fill in the blank....
Soooooo...
Long story short, each of three guys put up 11K to get in the game. The article tells the rest of the tale:
Their building, for which they paid $963,000, is on a quiet street in the up-and-coming Hayes Valley neighborhood, close to fashionable restaurants they have already been trying out. The friends plan to live in the bottom unit and rent out the top. Thanks to rock-bottom interest rates, none of them will pay much more than a thousand dollars a month. “Everyone should have the chance to do this,” Mr. Kurland said.
Everyone may get a chance.
A few weeks ago, Congress extended the higher lending limits for another year. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that he planned to introduce legislation next year raising the maximum F.H.A. loan by $100,000, to $839,750.
His bill would make the new limits permanent.
33K down to purchase a 963K building. 33/963=.0342679. My calculator is smoking...
3.4% down payment on a property whose value is destined to fall, and if our intrepid young men default, or decide to walk away, or someone gets unhappy the with the arrangement, or falls ill, or moves back home, then the taxpayer gets to eat the cost of the failure.
FHA has done this 107,000 times in California this year. Six a week in San Francisco.
FHA was not set up to support high-end real estate plays. People are supposed to do that sort of stuff on their own dime, aren't they?
Is all this o.k., because Obama and Barney Frank say so?
My children, and my grandchildren, will end up paying for these guys sampling the restaurants of San Francisco. I doubt these guys will get around to settling down and procreating their own children to help foot the bill.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Cash for Clunkers--And These People Want To Run The Nation's Health Care!!
The Obama Administration is a ship of fools adrift in a sea of nonsense.
How many hundreds of TV ads, both national and local, have been run by the car companies and dealers touting the 'Cash for Clunkers' program? How much money was spent?
One day into the program, 221 million of the 1 billion has been spent, and chaos reigns at dealerships across the country. And the program is now suspended!
These are the same people who demand to run our health care system, set our energy policy, run the banking system, defend our borders, confront the Iranians as they develop nuclear weapons.
They also borrowed over $200 billion dollars in our name last week alone.
How many hundreds of TV ads, both national and local, have been run by the car companies and dealers touting the 'Cash for Clunkers' program? How much money was spent?
One day into the program, 221 million of the 1 billion has been spent, and chaos reigns at dealerships across the country. And the program is now suspended!
These are the same people who demand to run our health care system, set our energy policy, run the banking system, defend our borders, confront the Iranians as they develop nuclear weapons.
They also borrowed over $200 billion dollars in our name last week alone.
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