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"The Great American Housing Rebound"
When it comes to provocative financial magazine covers, until now this has been the domain mostly of the Economist and Barrons. Which is why we were not surprised to see Bloomberg do all it can (and it sure can afford to do a lot) to steal the spotlight. With this week's cover page of "The Great American Housing Rebound" it may have done just that, for obvious reasons, or rather one politically uncomfortable reason. And just as expected, the blistering critique is already quite fast and certainly furious - precisely as had been intended all along.
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With regard to CRA and Washington Mutual:
Remember Washington Mutual, the bank that collapsed in 2008? WaMu has practically become a synonym for bad lending practices. The background on what happened is significant. When Washington Mutual signed a merger agreement in 1999, it was permitted to do so only after it also signed a written agreement to make loans to urban constituencies, especially poor and minority constituencies, under the Community Reinvestment Act. WaMu's combined resources after the merger came to about $150 billion in total assets. It was required to make a 10-year CRA commitment of $120 billion, plus contributing 2% of its pretax earnings to not-for-profits, which eventually helped to bring about its collapse.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904857404577342680482638196.html#articleTabs_article%3D0
Too Big to Fail... Set Up to Fail.
households are full of morons.
the toilet paper named the economist magazine belongs to the rothschild cockroaches.
Shizz; it is an impossibly ignorant and cynical cover art job. What intelligent man or woman can fail to feel revulsion as the govt. and media minions spray Lysol all over this shithouse. I'm only paying attention because I want to be short when the shithouse goes up.
That's when the circuit breakers kick in & we all get Chavez'd.
Looks like a bad neighborhood. Side of the house is blown out, floor joists will never support live load, pipes are clogged (dogs dehydrated) and the lawn is out of control and everyone looks like they're on drugs or retarded.
The Bloomberg house reminds me of "the house that Bernanke built."
The builder, Ben Bernanke, is taking the economy back to the 1930s while thrusting the nation forward into a super-national sovereignty -- as envisioned by Keynes.
“It is a device for removing power from democratically elected officials” – the Keynes blueprint.
This drift toward international harmonization, this swing forward into world governance “by unelected and often self-perpetuating experts is an important part of Keynes’s legacy.”
Nor did Keynes’s form of state planning disparage Fascism or Communism, says Hunter Lewis in his book Where Keynes Went Wrong. Keynes made no bones about the intent of his policies in the foreword to the German edition of The General Theory (published in Nazi Germany but not included in The Collected Works). He noted that his ideas
Bernanke is right on schedule, “jamming long, fat sticks into the spokes of the market wheel, subverting the price/profit system,” and then calling for more Fed powers to fix the wheel. Keynes called for controls that restricted every field of private business activity, says Lewis. These included controlled interest rates (some of the most critical prices); exchange rate controls and manipulations, commodity price controls, high taxes, government run monopolies, and trade protection. And, yes, Wall Street.
Says Lewis, “although Keynes did not want government to run Wall Street day to day, he did want it to make the key decisions.”
Keynes of course did not merely wish for the bankers and the banker-connected to rule nations, “he wanted them, at least in monetary policy, to rule the world through the device of a global central bank.”
Lewis, in his study, was hopeful that the Keynes “intellectual bubble” would not last forever.
“Let us hope that we do not have to wait too long for Keynes to join Mao and Marx and other faded and false utopians”, he said; that by relegating Keynes to the dusty book shelves we can discard this Keynesian utopia and once again attain a stable economy built on truthful prices and profits…and freedom.
For as P.J. O’Rourke so succinctly put it: “Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, ’Dad burned dinner, let’s get the dog to cook.’”
So if they put non-caucasions in the house, they are racist. If they exclude non-caucasions from the house they are racist.
I learned this technique from my local demorats.
Only jews get their own exclusive word "anti-semite." Only jews possess the supreme, most coveted, and unassailable icon of western culture, called "holocaustianity." Only jews get to make up boogey men (mulsims) and legally degrade them into dirt for sport. Only jews are chosen to be saved because jew males (gods) are the only ones on earth with magic fairy dust gism.
What's up with the picture filled with minorities? One more pysops program to influence the proletariat? Hmmm......
Yep, and remember the folks on BET look just like you !
The Philly Housing Index is an index of housing vendors.
http://bullandbearmash.com/chart/philly-housing-index-daily-falls-sharpl...
This is likely this first leg of a bigger trend down.
Mean while Europe housing is fixed:
From BBC;
"The bank, which received aid of 18bn euros, made a loss of 19.2bn euros (£17bn, $25.2bn) for 2012 and put aside provisions of 26.8bn euros.
Last year, Bankia and its parent firm, BFA, asked for EU funds to help rebuild its capital.
Spain's bank rescue fund said Bankia itself had a negative value, although its parent had some worth."
Can any US bank match that.
Someone needs to seriously look at the number of homeless and unemployed people that exist in order to draw any conclusions and make any extrapolations about housing.
And if housing and the economy is doing so fine and dandy then why are so many big chains closing down stores by the hundreds and why are so many malls looking like deserted towns?
By the way has anyone bothered to draw up a chart showing what percentage of people have 100%, 90%.......0% ....-10% equity in their homes? This I think will show us the true depth of the problem.
Any so called strength in housing at the moment is simply masquerading behind historically low rates and very low deposits.
Strength in housing? Personally I would rather bet on the leaning Tower of Pisa.
So damn easy to troll these days...
those houses are in the Lost City of Atlantis, underwater
Those people in the picture are drowning in worthless fiat.
The "Greater Fool Theory" in practice. Flip that Sucker !
You get hit with about 3-5% fees when you buy a house then banged again to the tune of 10% when you sell. It's a "Lose-Lose" situation since Americans move on the average every 4-5 years.
But , as kerry said the other day, "It's ok to be stupid."
been telling people (who remember) to get out the 70's playbook, which is inflation inflation inflation. that was the golden age of house flipping. you did it on your credit card(s) and there was no home depot. no granite tops, no tile at all, just paint and sheetrock. but they did it, kids barely out of high school. there is no Paul Volcker this time around, USG/UST/Fed can sit on interest rates, but what they can do (tools in the Bernankes bag) is restrict credit to keep the economy from overheating. we will have a situation where you can borrow 0APR, but no one qualifies. a few new wrinkles but the same story, gold is good (you couldn't say bitchez then) and we'll probably finally get even with Iran for taking those hostages.
As the collapse continues, the government mouthpieces will scream good news louder and louder.
Yesterday I read that homeowners in Detroit stopped paying property taxes due to:
1) no longer having such public services as police, street lights and trash pick up.
2) receiving property tax bills valuing houses at 10 times the value.
Welcome to the new USA.
That is a really disturbing image if you look at it from the imagery and colors that are used but especially the depictions of the people in the house. It is pretty clear that the image (and the subtitles below) are meant to mock the title of the article.
Speculation driving up gas prices = BAD
Speculation driving up housing prices = GOOD
Is that a drone outside my window?
Housing speculation makes middle class people rich - ergo, GOOD.
Oh yes, I forgot.
Is that a coon-dimindium?
Having gone through the scam of trying to renegotiate my mortgage after losing my primary source of income - my job - I have promised myself never to finance anything again. If I cannot pay for it , then I will do without. I think my original motgage was sold 3 times over the course of the 21 years I carried it. I understood too , my financial obligation to the lender , so I did not play games . I sold the house at the first opportunity . These banks are shooting fish in a barrel when mortgagors walk in for the loan . They suffer no consequences for thier own bad underwriting and financial decisions in that process. America has some significant troubles just under the surface and the temperature is rising .
Yet the FBI which said in '07 that there was epic rates of mortgage fraud that had occurred and were occuring. I have a friend who worked at the DOJ and has subsequently gone into private practice. He said the only change between the Obama administration and the GW Bush one is that the Obama one has been aggressive about going after select insider-trading cases & 'making examples' of some people which has largely been left up to the SEC. Bush appointed people who were either incompetent, friends, or just didn't care with a general attitude of leting people in the financial industry steal outright and didn't even remotely give a $hit.
Large-scale prosecution and significant prosecutions though which some in the government did want never happend when Obama came in. The official line is that they were too concerned about the overall economy but the real issue is that there key backers included a bunch of financial guys who wanted the thing swept under the rug. Eventually they got it when DOJ and Holder got all of the State AGs to back off and that they would just agree to pay some large-scale fines with almost on criminal prosecutions & a halt to civil suits.
That whole process is when I pretty much thought we were really on the road to becoming a banana republic and there was no going back. Even in the late 80s/early 90s, there was still enough of a significant presence in the federal gov't to go after the Savings & Loans conmen along with scum like Milkens and others with criminal prosecutions & the threat of jail time. No more. Instead it is pay a fine, avoid jail, and go to Go and collect a hell a lot more than $200. HSBC was just the latest chapter.
Laws? Bankers don't need no stinkin' laws!
Bankers trumped justice back in '08 by playing their “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE" Monopoly card, according to Jesse’s Café Americain. Here’s the July 2011 story:
Not Prosecuting Corporate Crime Aggressively Has Been US Government Policy Since 2008 :
In case you were wondering what the Congress and the Administration were doing with all those faxes, cards, phone calls, and letters you were sending in about the need for financial reform and tougher law enforcement, they decided to make it official policy not to aggressively prosecute the laws against white collar crime in 2008. Another innovation in outsourcing justice through extended self-regulation...
The guidelines left open a possibility other than guilty or not guilty, giving leniency often if companies investigated and reported their own wrongdoing. In return, the government could enter into agreements to delay or cancel the prosecution if the companies promised to change their behavior…
The guidelines left open a possibility other than guilty or not guilty, giving leniency often if companies investigated and reported their own wrongdoing. In return, the government could enter into agreements to delay or cancel the prosecution if the companies promised to change their behavior…
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/07/not-prosecuting-white-collar-financial.html
So this is what a dead cat on a bungie looks like?
In year 2006, one day I was waiting in a doctor's office and picked up a Time Magazine with cover printing "Home, sweet home", inside talking about how hot Atlanta's real estate is and the fever spreading all over US. You know what happened later.
Bazooka Joe comics contain more value and insight than Time. What a piece of utter trash that has been for a long time now.
I was raised on Ronald Reagan and Time Magazine. It took me a while to learn just how bad both of them really were/are.
Schizophrenic much ?
22 WMR, a great round.
Based on the cover art, my subconscious remains at ease because it feels like the message should be good.
FHA, FHA rah rah shish boom bah, FED buy paper, bk loans,
rah rha rha rah rah, no doc no doc ya ya ya,
bubbles bubbles Bernake scam rah;
realtors hookers, pimpers, liars media and whores.
buy a house be a louse, default poo bah;
3% 2% 0 down Bah, Fha fha, scam dem taxpayers lah dee dah
bk them foreclose, them student laons rah,
monetize monetize print yah yah.....
SUCKERS and BANK BAGHOLDERS.
Oh Dear,
A rag trying to boost sales by using a controversial (to the tenderhearted) cover...
I'm shocked.
I did notice that none of the folks depicted had a 24 oz. soft drink cup made out of styrofoam.
is this off topic or not?
qe"infinity" has the effect of allowing banks to pay incredibly low rates of interest and torund tripping all borrowings..in other words...qe "infinity" allows a few (hundred?) trillion of debt to cost the banks nothing. direct amounts like SOMA are not the full extent of support for banks as
this is a political decision by the Fed.
qe infinity could have been applied directly to the mortgagees in the fraudie and funny (aka freddy and fanny) by, for example, extending interest payment forgiveness by way of a similarly irredeemable loan at zero interest rates (present vale of a zero coupon perpetual =......zero, which is what printing money is worth to the economy).
that is, fraudie and funny have 5 trillion of mortgages..interest rates on these mortgages are c. 4% costing mortgagees 200 billion a year..the fed could have loaned 5 trillion of funny money to these two "conservatorshipped" communistic entities that need never be paid back at zero interest rates in lieu of the interest rate component of mortgages owed by individuals who are (perhaps) underwater on their mortgages) allowing individuals to build capital by increasing home equity. this woul dbe instead of allowing banks to rebuild their capital after banks had been guilty of fraud, malfeasance, corruption, market manipulation etc AND paying themselves billions upon billions in benefits, sourced directly from the Government and the Fed.
of course those guilty of crimes will not say they are innocent else they will go to jail, when a system delivers a negative "rent" to the vast majority of people it exudes the rank stench of corruption and denial.
If this magazine was printed on toilet paper at least it would have one good use.
Looks like a Will Banzai special edition.
hujel
Every time I turn on CNBC and see that Bartotomo chick talking about the housing recovery, I throw up a little bit in my mouth.
If we're all so ga-ga over real estate and making so much free "money"...SOMEONE must be paying for the stuff.
Who?
The fascist take over home ownership by people continues to fall (US Census) ownership by hedge funds continue to rise .
love all you dummies talking like you know what the fuck is going on in housing.
The Bay Area is insane right now, a $500,000 dump in RWC just had 92 offers and is going for 800, all cash.
I just accepted an offer on my house in Oregon, 13 grand over asking. 80grand down.
But yeah its all coming down.... idiots.
well done for getting 80 grand down..did you buy in the bay?
you look like you are dealing well in the rigged market of 4 million loans being held in foreclosure across the country and 1 million that are empty and being gutted by people stealing copper tube and wiring..
do you think this is isolated to the two states you mentioned or is happening in michigan, tennessee, va and mississippi for example?
I bought a short sale over a year ago in San Carlos for 580, I could problably sell it now for close to a million as is. But why would I do that? There aint shit for a milion in the bay, its all dumps.
The house I just sold was in a metro area of Portland. Inventory is at an all time low, had three offers in 24 hours. But that nothing, like I said a dummp my cousin was going to try and buy in the Bay went for 800, all cash and had 92 fucking offers in four days.
Do I think this is happening in those states? No, who the fuck wants to live in Michigan, Tenn. or fucking Mississippi?
CA and AZ is the focus of hedge fund buying while home ownership is declining buyers are competing with HFs with billions in cash. By the end of 2014 HFs will have purchased $1 trillion worth of single family houses.
heh, somebody has to! ...well done again..
Your area may be an exception. Where I live is just the opposite. One location does not make up the entire US market...
Two examples in two different states... no it does not make up the whole market. But its not all doom and gloom everywhere.
This looks like the 1st of the month when the ABC entitlement programs send out thier checks and fill the gov "gimme" cards...
Everything the gov gives away free is for sale for cash, just have to know where to look!
A black ex-coworker lived in a ghetto area. He said asthma inhalers had a healthy black market trade. The ghetto types get prescriptions for them and sell them.
So Columbia thinks the cover is racist? But seventy years of the west telling Germans they must be punished in perpetuity for stuff that dead people did (and did not do) in Germany 70 years ago is perfectly good and fine. And 2000+ books tellling lies about Muslims is all dandy.
Yikes! I wee bit "Uncle Remus" no? I'll bet a dollar to a dount Bloomberg gets some heat on this one.
Oops http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/bloomberg-business-week-housing-cove...
"It is difficult to free fools from their chains they revere." –Voltaire
Meanwhile in Canada: "
CMHC Foreclosures Rule Change Raises Suspicions About Mortgage Insurer's Motives" http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/27/cmhc-foreclosures-rule-change_n_...Canadian gov't entity that insures mortgages seems to be trying to hide foreclosure data during sales.
Is this a depiction of a house with a hole in the wall in detroit?