Housing Bottom?

National Review, CNBC, Wall St Journal and every talking head on the tee-vee is convinced the housing bottom is here. Then why may I ask is Morgan Stanley cutting off access to HELOCs? Could it be they think that the housing free fall is nowhere near a bottom?

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS - News) told thousands of clients this week that they will not be allowed to withdraw money on their home-equity credit lines, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the situation. Most of the clients had properties that have lost value, the agency reported, citing a person who declined to be identified.

The second largest U.S. investment bank will review home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, monthly from now on, the agency said, citing the person familiar with the
matter.

Now I'm no financial expert or nothing, but it stands to reason that if housing were at a bottom, Morgan Stanley wouldn't be doing this.

Not so smart

The Smart car has a 70 HP engine and gets 36 MPG combined. The sheep are buying these up and it is quickly becoming the new status symbol for the usual suspects. However, what the dealer and MSM won't tell you is that you need to feed it the high octane gas which is about 10% more expensive that regular. Ooops that 36 MPG just dropped to 32.4. And you're driving around in a go-kart with a plastic shell on top.

Or you could buy a Chevy Aveo which gets 32 MPG and uses regular gas. Oh and it also has 4 seats, a trunk and well, is not a freaking golf cart.

Not so smart after all.

Good News!!

The recession is over and a new (the 47th I believe) housing bottom is predicted. This time by the usually realistic editors of National Review. Looks like the kool-aid that Larry Kudlow has been drinking made its way over to the editorial board's water cooler.

Based on the government’s first estimate, the economy grew at a 1.9 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of the year. While weak, that’s not a number that signals recession. Even better, growth is picking up. The economy appears to have shrunk by 0.2 percent in the last quarter of 2007 and grown by 0.9 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Unemployment is a lagging indicator, so the economy, especially the private sector, is continuing to shed jobs. But job losses, too, have been well below recession levels, and it is reasonable to expect job gains in the months to come. The housing market seems likely to find its bottom soon, too, notwithstanding Washington’s best efforts to interfere.

1.9% GDP growth in a quarter where the government sends out $150B worth of "rebate" checks. WOW! Hey NR, you're right this economy is on fire. Give me a break. This past quarter was an outlier. Unless you expect $150B of money to be printed and sent out every quarter, you should know better than to cheer this meaningless number.

And that 1.9% number will be revised downwards as the number always is. Remember, the negative 0.2% in Q4 2007 was initially a positive number that was - very quietly - revised down. This is the game the government plays. Headline number that says good news, then bury the revision a few weeks later on p.89 of a revision report. And given that we have a clueless MSM that doesn't even understand what GDP is, it's no surprise the MSM ignores the revision.

How is the housing market likely to find a bottom? The number of homes for sale as a % of all housing units is at an all time high. Almost 5% of all houses in the country are for sale. And the wave of ARM resets is not even 1/2 done. There is no way in hell the housing market finds a bottom for at least another year and more likely 2 or more years. And since the government has now decided to "fix" the housing market, another 5 years of price falls is not that far fetched. Given the rule of two, ie whatever problem the government tries to fix becomes twice as much of a problem. Don't believe me? See public education and social security as examples one and two. Just wait until the government fixes health care. God help us all.

I thought NR got it. They used to get it. But now that election season is near, they have to be good Republican soldiers. And instead of telling it like it is, they have to start doing the talk radio host thing and say all is well. It's pathetic.

Watching the news Americans won't watch

After a hard day of doing the work Americans won't do, illegals across the land also watch the news Americans won't watch. Spanish newscasts are numero uno in NY and LA. And if you read far down enough you'll see how the Spanish tv stations are registering their viewers to vote. Are you paying attention Juan McAmnesty? Do you care Jorge W. Arbusto? Is saving 4 cents on a lb of tomatoes worth it to you?

USA 1776-2009
RIP

I see stupid people

It's tough to read or hear people talk about oil these days. The amount of wrong information is amazing. My summation of the stupid shit I've been exposed to lately:

1. EVIL BIG OIL makes record profits and that's bad. Missing from the discussion of course is the fact that EVIL BIG OIL also paid record taxes. And also missing from the discussion is the fact that the government is making record profits from gas taxes. Gas taxes are a % of the price of a gallon. The higher the price, the more the tax. Combined state, county and federal tax ranges anywhere from 40 to 70 cents per gallon throughout the country. So for all you enviro-conscious drones with a "GOT OBAMA?" sticker on your Civic in Berkeley or Cambridge or Missoula bitching about EVIL BIG OIL as you fill up....realize that of your $70 to fill up, about $15 is going to the government. To put in terms you can understand, that's enough to buy 2 cups of 1/2 caff, non-caf, decaf, low fat soy latte with a twist of cinnamon at your locally owned, non-Starbucks affiliated, green friendly, hippie house of coffee.

2. Drilling is useless because it will take 10 years before any oil makes it to the gas station. This one is probably the stupidest thing I hear. While it's debatable whether it's 10 years - some say it could be as little as 2 years off the coast of Cali - people with no sense of economics don't get it. The price of oil is set on the belief of what is coming in the future. After all the majority of oil trading is in the FUTURES market. People buy and sell contracts to buy and sell oil in the FUTURE. That's what those EVIL SPECULATORS do. If there is a belief that in the FUTURE there will be more oil, the price goes down. Hence, if right now you knew today with some certainty that in 1 or 2 or 5 years there will be more oil, you will be willing to pay less for a FUTURE contract of oil. So it doesn't matter when there will be more oil. The only thing that matters is do people think there will be more oil or not. Unfortunately the average American thinks he pays no income tax if he gets a tax refund, so it is no wonder that he also believes the Democrat and MSM lies told to him nightly about how the price of oil works.

3. If we drill off the coast, lots of that oil will go to Japan or China so it won't lower the price of gas at home. OK. I take it back. This one is the stupidest one I've heard. Oil is a global commodity. Oil from Alaska is no different than oil from Saudi Arabia. It all goes into the same pool of available oil for the world. The more there is in that pool, the lower the price. Doesn't matter if Alaskan oil is sent to Japan and Saudi Oil is sent to Florida. The price is set at one centralized point regardless of who produces or who consumes the oil.

4. Drilling more means no investments in alternative energy. Right. Since this whole issue is binary. It's either drill for oil or explore alternatives. Or so the MSM and Democrats (I repeat myself) want you to believe. As I type this there are people all over the world exploring for alt. en. They know that they stand to make a shitload of money if they come up with the magic bullet. The reason the far left and the MSM can't understand this concept is simple. They believe it is the government's job to do everything. So either the government allows drilling. Or the government allows research for alternative energy. The far left and the MSM (there I go again repeating myself) can't clue in to the fact that Exxon can drill for oil and at the same time GM and Honda and some dude in a Garage next to MIT can keep on coming up with ideas for that 150MPG car. This country can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Hollywood Liberal Hypocrite #44718

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - She might be known worldwide as the Material Girl, but there's more than a little of the small-town Michigan girl left in Madonna.

The pop superstar arrived in this northern Michigan resort town Saturday to introduce her documentary, "I Am Because We Are," a highlight of the Traverse City Film Festival. The event was co-founded by filmmaker, author and fellow Michigan native Michael Moore.

Hundreds of fans cheered from behind barricades as Madonna, wearing a black dress, high heels and sunglasses, stepped out of a black sport utility vehicle that pulled up in front of the State Theatre. She hugged a waiting Moore, who sported an orange baseball cap, and posed for photos with him.

Come again now? She got out of an SUV. Hmmm. Is this the same Madonna who once claimed to be a super enviro-nazi:

But Madonna insists, following her involvement with Saturday's (07Jul07) Live Earth event, she has been forced to re-evaluate her stance on climate change.

Her spokesperson says, "Madonna's agreement to sing at the Live Earth event is merely one of the first steps in her commitment to being environmentally responsible.

"She is educating herself and her family and has begun to make changes around her that reflect her awareness and concern for the future of the planet."

Just like Al Gore, yet another liberal hypocrite that for some reason is adored by the unwashed masses. Hey Michigan, I got some news for you. When Al and Madonna are done saving the earth, the end result will be an unemployment rate of 40% in your state when all cars are banned and we're all left biking around. But don't let that distract you from the circuses being put on by these people.

A Bush "YES" man speaks

Don't worry. Be happy. So says Michael Novak.

U.S. output today is just about 40 percent higher than it was when President Clinton left office. The nominal GDP has grown from $10 trillion at the end of 2001 to $14 trillion at the end of January 2008. In other words, the U.S. has added to its national wealth an equivalent to the whole nominal GDP of China (in 2007, $3.25 trillion). The U.S. today is as big as it was in 2001, plus the whole GDP of China.

Oh really? Has it occurred to him that the value of the dollar has eroded about 40%? In January 2001 one $US bought 1.08 Euros. Today one $US buys 0.65 Euros. The US hasn't added anything but a case of near-hyper inflation.

He goes on to say

At the end of 2001, when President Bush’s economic policies were just beginning to take hold, total civilian employment was just over 136 million. At the end of January 2008, it was 146 million. Some ten million new jobs! Not the greatest, but not bad; certainly not “horrible.” During the last six months, the number of the employed is down 100,000 — not as huge a decrease as everyone has been imagining. The total employment in June was 145.9 million.

Where to begin on this one? First off all the end of 2001 was the start of the Fed's insane interest rate policy. That created millions of jobs in the housing bubble. Everything from realtors to construction workers (90% of whom are illegals of course and are a net drain on society), to title company workers etc. Give me free money and I'll create jobs too building up a Ponzi scheme.

But even setting that aside, 10 million jobs created over 8 years in a country as large as the US is not exactly impressive. The population in 2000 was 281 million. The population in 2008 is 301 million. That's a growth of 7.1% in the population. The number of jobs grew from 136 million to 146 million. That's a growth of 7.3%. WOW!! Job growth kept up with population growth. I guess that means Bush's face should be added to Mt. Rushmore ASAP.

So even with the Ponzi scheme knows as the housing bubble, the free money handed out to anyone with a pulse by banks, there was 0% job growth over this decade. Not that a proud Bush yes man would ever point these kinds of things out. No, just keep telling us everything is just super duper and all will be well. Just spend your stimulus check(s) like good little drones and don't worry about a thing.

Obama is the messiah

This just in:

Twice on Wednesday and again Thursday morning, Obama traveled to a lakefront apartment building near his Chicago home to work out with a friend at his gym. On Wednesday night, Obama also spent an hour at the East Bank Club, a mammoth exercise facility just north of the city's famous business Loop where he is known to play basketball.

A distinct lack of visible sweat on the Illinois senator triggered questions about whether he was actually exercising or using the gym visits as cover for conducting vice presidential vetting or interviews.

That view held credence among some of the photographers who regularly accompany Obama. They said that even when he shot hoops earlier this year with members of the University of North Carolina varsity men's basketball team, they didn't see Obama sweat.

Wow. Not only will he single handed save the world, but the guy doesn't even sweat when playing basketball. I mean holy cow, this guy's one small step from turning water into wine.

But wait, as they say, there's more. One of the overlooked paragraphs in this "Golly Gee look how awesome Barry is" piece said this:

On the former occasions, reporters accompanying Obama saw him get in and out of an SUV wearing a baseball hat, white T-shirt and black sweat pants.

WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! He got out of a what now? An SUV. Is this the same guy who said this:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,"

Yet another example of a liberal Democrat doing one thing and saying another. Just like Al Gore flies in private jets but lectures me about the environment. Just like Mr "Two Americas" John Edwards lives in a 20,000 sq ft house and gets $1200 haircuts lectures me about not caring for the poor.

But they have a "D" next to their names so the MSM says nothing.

Say It Ain't So

Nancy, Harry and Barry want to send out Tax Rebate Check Part Deux. Good god does nobody in Washington have even the basics of economics down? Can someone please send an econ 101 book to each and everyone on of these baboons? This is the reasoning for the Democrat push to spend more of my increasingly worthless tax dollars:

July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Congressional Democrats are considering a second round of rebates to taxpayers, saying the benefits of the first checks sent to more than 100 million households this year are being eroded by rising energy prices.

So if I understand correctly Nancy, Harry and Barry want to send out checks because oil is expensive.

Those $1200 checks sent out are no different than if the government had printed $1200 in new
bills and sent it out instead. It was a bad idea. No I take that back, it was an awful idea. It's simple really. The more dollars that are printed, whether physically or electronically, the less each dollar is worth. Your basic economics lesson of supply and demand. Oil is priced in dollars. So the less the dollar is worth the more oil costs. The higher the price of oil, the more gas costs. The more gas costs the more everything costs since everything is shipped from point A to point B at some point in time. And the more everything costs the more wages workers demand to buy the products. And the more wages workers demand leads to companies having to raise prices on their products to afford to pay their workers the higher wages they demand to buy the more expensive products. And on and on it goes until you get to a vicious circle of hyperinflation. Not unlike was is happening today in Africa

Zimbabwe will soon run out of the paper it uses to print its increasingly worthless currency, thereby setting the stage for what the Los Angeles Times describes as "economic paralysis -- and potential collapse."

So far in less than 6 months the government will have printed close to a trillion dollars in various stimulus and bailout schemes. That 1000 billion dollars. To put such a large number in the context where most Americans can understand...it's like more money than Hannah Montana has. Yeah dude, it's that much. $150B for stimulus 1. $150B coming for stimulus 2. $300B for the Countrywide Chris Dodd written bailout bill. $30B for the Bear Sterns bailout. $30-50B for the Fannie and Freddie bailout. And now another $150B for stimulus #2.

That's about the cost of Iraq give or take. Democrats scream about wasting money there. But they don't bat an eye when an equivalent amount is squandered here.

But why should I complain, I hear Best Buy is having a big sale and will give me an extra 10% if I cash my check there. Another plasma TV baby! Oh wait, never mind I'm too rich to qualify for the full stimulus and I have no kids. So I'll be lucky if I get a $50 check. But the illegal alien down the street who pays no taxes will get his full $1200 rebate along with his welfare check, his wife's WIC check, his low income housing assistance check and of course his free health care.

America. What a country, by which I mean what a joke.

United States of Corrupt Socialism

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced steps Sunday to shore up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose shares have plunged as losses from their mortgage holdings threatened their financial survival.

In other words use tax dollars to buy up shares in the bankrupt companies. One of the companies - Fannie Mae - was until recently run by one of Obama's advisors, Mr. Jim Johnson. And holy cow surprise surprise, Obama is all for the bailout. The bailout was orchestrated by Henry Paulson. Before becoming Secretary of Treasury, Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs. And who was CEO before him you ask? John Corzine. Ring a bell? It should. He is the current governor of NJ and former Senator from NJ. Doesn't matter anymore. Democrat, Republican, same incestuous pigs at the corruption trough.

After swearing up and down that the bailout of Bear Sterns was a one time only event, Bush, Paulson and the rest of the crooks in Washington are bailing out Freddie and Fannie as well. And when Wamu or Bank of America is on the brink, a few hundred billion of your dollars will be ready as well.

This kind of shit is to be expected in African countries. It's to be expected in Mexico. It's to be expected in Eastern Europe. It's not to be expected in the USA.

Stupid White People

This kind of myth is prevalent in the media

Last month’s Newsweek poll put Obama ahead of McCain 51 to 36 but in this month’s poll the gap has closed to Obama 44 McCain 41. The McCain camp can take further encouragement from the fact that 85 percent of undecided voters are non-Hispanic whites and the vast majority of these voters do not have a college degree; Obama has had real difficulty in gaining traction among this demographic.

Right. I see. People without a college degree are morons. And morons vote Republican. Check.

Except they don't, at least not according to 2000 and 2004 exit polls which showed that those without a college degree voted for Gore and Kerry. Those without so much as a high school diploma voted for Gore and Kerry as well. Those with a college degree or some college, voted for Bush both times.

But why let facts get in the way of a good old fashioned liberal myth?

Indywhatnow?

Indymac is no more. Kaput. Adios. See ya later. Except most people reading about it probably are thinking what the heck is an Indymac? Is that like a special Big Mac that they serve in Indiana? This on top of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stories. It's almost like an Onion joke or something wit these names.

Nonetheless a big bank has failed. The bank failed because it made bad loans to home "owners". These weren't subprime loans. They were Alt-A loans. These are loans that are deemed less risky than subprime but in reality aren't. An Alt-A loan is basically someone with ok credit who states their income but does not document the income. These loans are also called liars loans because as any reasonable human could tell, if you can't document your income, you're lying about your income. San Francisco was and is sometimes referred to as Alt-A by the Bay since such a huge proportion of loans there were Alt-A. Your typical software engineer making $125K a year getting a loan for $675K with a stated income of $250K.

The media has been calling this a subprime issue for years now. I have said on numerous occasions it is not about sub prime at all. It is about people of all income levels taking out too much debt. The failure of Indy proves that point once and for all. And all those McMansions and high end condos foreclosing by the truckload on a daily basis will be the end result of this mess.

Now of course the Fed will bail out everyone involved just like it did with Bear Sterns. The Indy executives who ran the bank into the ground will get their multi-million dollar bonuses. Wouldn't be surprised to the Indy's CEO in the Obama administration. Maybe Sec. of Treasury. Why not? Obama did hire the ex-Fannie Mae CEO to find a VP.

And yet even with all this going on, the MSM is still printing stories like this claiming now is the time to buy a home.

Phil Gramm for Prez

It was nice to the good Senator call a spade a spade. Americans are a bunch of whiners. He hit the nail on the head. But of course that is a cardinal sin for a politician. The second those words came out of his words, the MSM went into hissy-fit mode and now he's the worstest person in the world.

Americans have gone from a country full of independent thinkers to a country full of people with their hand out waiting for the government to throw them some money. Take out a $480K loan on a $20K salary? Not your fault. You want a government bailout. Weigh 300 lbs, smoke and eat at McDonald's every day? Not your fault you're in piss poor shape. You demand the government pay for your health care. Drop out of high school and now make $7 an hour at Walmart? Not your fault. You try to unionize and destroy the one company that will pay you anything for your "skills" which amounts to breathing. You drive an F-250 and can't afford to fill it up? Why it must be someone else's fault and you complain about the big bad oil companies.

Pathetic.

Idiot of the Weeks

Grandma loses her house. Boo hoo says the MSM. To hell with her say I.

Only weeks after moving into their first home in 2006, Margarita Rios celebrated Christmas with her two daughters and their families. They finally had the room to do it right, with decorations outside the Valley Stream, N.Y., house and a nice tree surrounded by presents inside.

In February, faced with an unexpected jump in her monthly mortgage bill, Rios stopped making payments and abandoned the home, shattering her life and scattering her family.

Despite relatively meager earnings - she makes $25,000 a year at the factory - she managed to save $20,000 for a down payment. Careful use of credit cards helped her establish a good credit history.

Soon, Rios was the owner of a $489,000 four-bedroom home with a monthly mortgage payment of $4,100.

So let me get this straight. This woman bought at the peak of the bubble. Stupid move #1.

She bought using an adjustable mortgage. Stupid move #2.

She bought a house with a payment of $4,100 on a salary of $25,000?!?!?. Stupid move #3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.....99, 100, 101...1000, 1001.

And now I am supposed to feel sorry for her because she is literally too stupid to survive on her own. I don't care if you are the most financially unsophisticaed person in the world If you sign up for a $4100 mortgage when your gross income is $2000 a month you are indeed the stupidest person alive.

And yet Juan McObama wants to bail people like this out with my tax dollars.

Juan McObama speaks to LULAC

Both of these amnesty pushers spoke to LULAC recently. LULAC is La Raza with a longer and kinda funnier name. It is yet another Hispanic victimology group which both candidates were bending over for.

One of the following two quotes is by Obama. The other is by McCain. Try to guess who said what.

"We have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. And they should have to pay a fine, and learn English, and go to the back of the line. That's how we'll put them on a pathway to citizenship," he said.

"we will address the burden U.S. employers are enduring by creating a temporary-worker program, so employers can hire and people can have jobs. And as important, we will be sensitive to the immigrant workers and their families who are doing the work that must be done," he adds."

Indistinguishable to me. Which makes sense since both McCain and Obama are liberals who support amnesty for illegals. At least Obama is consistent. He has always supported amnesty and doesn't back away from that support. Juan McCain on the other hand was for it then against it, then didn't know what it was, then thought he heard someone say something about it, and now looks like is right back on the amnesty bandwagon.

What is ironic is that both of them used the majority of their speaking time to focus on the economy. Both talked about how families are hurting, jobs are going away, blah blah blah. And yet given this background both of them want to import 20 million, non-English speaking, unskilled, uneducated peasants from Mexico. Can someone please explain to me how doing so will help any of these people that are suffering?

As for this getting to the back of the line business. Bunch of nonsense. Juan McObama thinks there is some giant queue out there for immigrants who are processed one by one by their spot in line. In fact there are about 100 different lines based on different visa categories. There are business categories and family categories. And within family there are different lines for people who have relatives that are citizens and people who have relatives that are permanent residents. And within those lines there are sub lines for kids and adults. Spouses and fiances. Brother and sisters. And within those lines there are sub lines based on where you're from. And then there is the line for a temp worker visa. Which is actually about 25lines since there are 25 or so temp worker visa categories. And sub lines within each of those based on your skills, your employer's size and your country of origin. The number of forms available from the USCIS (what the INS is called these days) rivals the number of forms available from the IRS.

So exactly which line will these illegals get to the back of? Will it be the line for business temporary farm workers? Or business temporary non-farm workers? Or maybe temporary workers via an H1-B? But then will it be the 3 years or the 6 year version of the line? And what if you're from Mexico but have lived here for 5 years? Well then you can get in the line that says you have a fast path to getting a green card? But then you'll cut in line ahead of someone from India who has been patiently waiting LEGALLY for 3 years to get a visa. And what if you have an uncle in the US? Do you get into the family line or do you get into the temp worker line?

And let's assume that they do all get to the back of some line. So what? That means that the next person who wants to immigrate legally now has 20 million more people in front of him. It still punishes those who do things legally and rewards those who break the law. And neither one of these dumb asses can figure this out.

In reality what will happen is simply a new line will be formed just for illegals. And the first person in that line will be on par with someone who has waited in one of the other lines for years, in some cases decades. And it will be a slap in the face to every single LEGAL immigrant that has ever done things the right way.

VIVA JUAN MCOBAMA!!

Time to ban knives

Imagine you read a story that went like this:

NEW YORK (AP) - The tabloids are calling them the "Tarantino murders."

The two young Frenchmen, promising research students at one of America’s top universities, had been bound and shot repeatedly in the head, neck and torso before their bodies were doused in fuel and set alight. A senior FBI detective said their wounds were the worst he had ever seen.

Even for a city assailed almost daily by reports of gun crime, this was shocking—a seemingly burst of brutality reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino film. No one has been charged in the June 29 deaths that horrified people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean prompted some French journalists to depict New York as a city of mean streets, rampant crime and "no-go" areas.

What would be the reaction of the MSM and its allies in the anti-gun movement? It would be yet another call to ban guns of course.

But what if the story goes something like this instead:

LONDON (AP) - The tabloids are calling them the "Tarantino murders."

The two young Frenchmen, promising research students at one of Britain's top universities, had been bound and stabbed repeatedly in the head, neck and torso before their bodies were doused in fuel and set alight. A senior Scotland Yard detective said their wounds were the worst he had ever seen.

Even for a city assailed almost daily by reports of knife crime, this was shocking—a seemingly burst of brutality reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino film. No one has been charged in the June 29 deaths that horrified people on both sides of the English Channel, and prompted some French journalists to depict London as a city of mean streets, rampant crime and "no-go" areas.

This actually did happen in London. That's London in England where all handguns were banned 10 years ago. And also where crime of all sorts including savage murders like these have skyrocketed since the gun ban.

So of course now the only rational thing to do is ban knives in the UK. Using the logic of the anti-gun crowd that is the right course of action.

Katie says...

Oil is in the mother of all bubbles prediction and will crash. Still sticking to that prediction. I bet on it crashing by late July. So far that bet has been a bad one, and I will lose some money. No, I take that back, I will lose a lot of money. Can't win 'em all and what the hell, you need a nice solid kick in the ass every now and then just to keep you humble. Oil, you have kicked me and kicked me hard. Thank you sir, may I have another? And just to show that I am just a little loco, I have more or less gone double or nothing on oil crashing by buying October puts.

I have also been buying up some SPY and QQQQ. These indexes have been whacked badly. I've been buying this stuff into my IRA and SEP. So it's long term. I may well miss the bottom but I figure 20% down is good enough for a 25 year horizon. And it's also part of the 'if they say sell I buy and vice versa' strategy that's been working fairly well for me over the past couple of years.
For housing that capitulation has not come yet. The so-called experts have been calling bottoms forever. I have yet to see a consensus that buying real estate is a bad idea, period. That is kind of the consensus now with equities. Not universal, but the MSM is saying it and that's good enough for me. Juan 6-pack listens to what Katie Couric tells him. And right now Katie is very bearish on stocks. Katie however still thinks housing is the greatest investment ever, and hence I am still not ready to buy real estate. Probably another 9-12 months until Katie gives me the green light to buy, buy telling Juan not to buy.

OK. Now it's serious.

If the housing crash wasn't proof enough. If GM's stock at a 50 year low wasn't proof enough. This should finally be enough proof to the perma-bulls that the economy is in the shitter;

No tourist resort can afford to lose its buzz. Yet the slump now runs so deep it's starting to hurt even the town's Elvis impersonators, wedding chapels, and sex industry. When money's tight, the prospect of stuffing another $20 bill into a lap-dancer's gyrating stocking-top somehow doesn't seem quite so enticing. "This year already we've seen the Minx closing, the Mensa club closing, and the Crazy Horse closing," says Dolores Eliades, owner of the OG, the second biggest "adult cabaret" venue in the world. "By another 12 months from now, I expect another two or three major venues will have gone.

The demise of the Las Vegas "sex-industry" (which entails topless dancers only and despite what most people think still does not have legalized prostitution) is a perfect nation-wide representation of the boom and bust of the 2000s. While I lived in Las Vegas for 5 years, it was a bit of a fantasy world. And not because of the Strip and the silly hotels on it.

No, it was the fact that in a town where the median income is $45K a year, every 2nd car on the road was either a BMW, Hummer or Escalade. And I'm not exaggerating. You'd go to $600 a month apartment complexes and see multiple $50K care in the parking lot. You'd go to a middle class subdivision and see boats, tricked out Harleys, customized pick-ups in the driveways. You'd go to a Best Buy on a Saturday and there would be a line of people coming out with $4,000 TVs which of course would be loaded into the $50K SUV. And strip clubs as well as nightclubs were wall to wall people week in and week out. Not that I ever went to one myself, it's just what I heard from a friend of a friend who new a guy whose brother went to a strip club once. Uhm yeah, that's it.

And of course all this consumption was fuelled by easy credit. Easy credit for homes which turned into HELOCs which turned into cars. Easy credit for credit cards with 0% intro rates. Even easy credit for payday loans which allowed even the poorest of the poor to get in on the fun. On top of that Californians were swimming in housing bubble money drove the 4hrs up I-15 every weekend and plunked down a lot of $20 (or more) down those g-strings, further adding fuel to the consumption fire.

Well now the party's over. It has been over for quite some time. It's only now really starting to settle in. Las Vegas has been down before and it pulled itself back up. Which is something I really dug about the city. There is no real history there. As soon as a building becomes too old to make money, the building gets blown up and a newer, bigger and shinier one takes its place. And this cycle will repeat itself and the town will be great once again. But for now, things will probably get a lot worse before getting better.

It was a pretty cool ride though and I'm glad I was part of it.

So who won the cold war again?

US income tax rates currently:

Corporate: 35%
Personal: 15-35% (soon to be over 54.9% when Obama takes over and includes social security and medicare tax on top of the 39.6% highest marginal rate)

Now compare US rates to foreign rates. Most former Soviet Block countries, now have a low flat tax. Russia 13%. Romania 16%. Ukraine 15% . Bulgaria 10%. Slovakia 19%. Estonia, 22%. After 60 years of communism, those countries know to stay the hell away from it. Even Germany's top income tax rate is only 45%, less than what the top tax rate will be under Obama. And Germany has a lower corporate rate too. As Europe is moving away from socialism/communism, Obama, Nancy and Harry are taking the US in the opposite direction.And yes European countries have a fairly high VAT. But I would gladly trade a lower income tax for a higher sales tax.

I often hear liberals including Obama, bemoan the fact the US is not like Europe. Well, OK Mr. President-to-be, let's become more like Europe in this aspect. Let's lower income tax rates to a nice flat 15 or 20%. How about it?

'84 or '80?

McCain is in such dire straits, it seems possible he will lose Montana according to this poll. Granted Montana does have its fair share of the crunchy tree hugging types who will naturally vote for the messiah. But holy 1984 style wipe out Batman. I've read some articles claiming Obama could even win Georgia. I thought, yeah right wishful thinking. But now who the hell knows? Obama's commercials are pretty good. He comes across as an aw shucks, raised in the midwest, worked his way through college kind of dude. Anyone not paying attention will see those ads and believe it. The MSM won't ever tell the masses about the real Obama. So all they have to go on is the make-believe garbage they will be seeing the media for the next 5 months. And given that McCain has not made even the faintest attempt to attack Obama, the truth about him will never reach Joe 6 Pack.

If McCain can't even win Montana which is about as red-state as it gets, the only question left for November is this: will Obama's trouncing of him be like 1984, when Reagan won 49 states or like 1980 when Reagan won only 44? Add a nice solid 60 Dem Senators and probably a 50+ majority in the House and look out below.

Once again, good job GOP. You nominated an old liberal who will be trounced by his opponent. You passed on Giuliani because he wasn't extreme enough in hating gays and banning abortion. You passed on Romney because he was a Mormon. Well OK. You'll end up with Obama instead, a guy who will make Rudy look down right Bush-like when it comes to those precious social issues you care so much about. And get ready for 3 or 4 Ginsburg type Supreme Court appointees by Obama that will strike down just about everything you hold dear. 10 Commandments in the town square? You'll be fighting to keep those tablets in your churches once those judges get going. But at least they won't be Mormon and that's what counts, right?

Think about all this for the next 8 years. And if your party is still around in 2016 maybe you'll get your shit together then and get back to being a party of fiscal discipline and not so concerned with who can marry whom and who reads what bible.

Doesn't make sense

Washington DC has (had?) the most restrictive gun control in the country. So how can a "progressive" blogger get shot on a DC street? As a bona fide member of the "progressive" movement, surely he believes that if you ban guns, gun crime will go away. And yet here he is in the DC gun free zone and the dude gets shot. I'm at a loss for words.

As the saying goes, the definition of a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. I wonder if his views on concealed weapons will change at all. I wonder if he will have second thoughts on allowing criminals to get off with junk like anger management. Probably not since he has too much to lose by publicly admitting any of this. He will most likely come back and say something like "I told you banning guns is a good thing". Liberals, gotta love 'em.

Senile or just wishfull thinking?

McCain is under the impression he can win New Jersey. Reality says otherwise. And wasn't this one of the supposed strengths of McCain in the primaries? He could win blue states like NJ, NY, and even be competitive in California. Yeah right. The last poll in California has Obama leading by 20%. In NY it's also 20%. And on top of that he is losing Virgina and Colorado and barely hanging on in North Carolina. And in New Hampshire, the state with no income tax, no sales tax and the motto LIVE FREE OR DIE, he is down by 14% in the latest poll.

Good call Republicans. You've nominated someone who will lose New Hampshire and N. Carolina.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

I finally saw that documentary and was surprised by it. I was expecting a Michael Mooreesque far left, paranoid movie that proposed Bush and Cheney went to the electric car factory in the middle of the night and blew the place up. But instead it was a fairly down the middle portrait of what happened.

The story goes something like this: GM came out with an electric car in the mid-90s. This was done in order to meet the California law that mandated any manufacturer who sold cars in the state had to have a certain % of their sales in the form of 0 emission vehicles by the 2000s. But GM was also at the same time, lobbying hard against that law. The law was thrown out and with it went GM's electric car program as well. GM took back all the cars it had leased (didn't sell any) and destroyed them all. GM contends that this was because there was no interest in the car. The movie contends there was interest but GM didn't try to capitalize on it and even acted to sabotage its own products. It's a he said, she said kind of movie, presented I think fairly, even with the obvious skewing of the movie maker.

The movie claimed that the cost of electricity to run the car would be the equivalent of $0.60 a gallon. They never said exactly how that was calculated. But even if that number were doubled or tripled, it would still rock right about now. So there is something odd about GM getting rid of such a car. It really doesn't make any sense and does raise some interesting questions.

See for yourself.

A trip in the wayback machine

Larry Murphy, president of SalesTraq, reported similar numbers. His median new home price was $297,289, up 6.4 percent from October 2004. He has existing home prices at $285,000, relatively flat from $284,500 in September, but up 14 percent from a year ago. Murphy said there is no housing bubble in Las Vegas, nor will there be one in the near future. "Frankly, the vaunted housing bubble is just like Y2K-- a scary proposition put forth by people who do not understand the real estate fundamentals of this market," he said.
- Las Vegas Review-Journal 10/29/05

Las Vegas home prices, like many parts of the country, have continued to rise strongly. There has been widespread media coverage on the possibility of a housing market bust. However there have not been many statistics to support his theory. In fact the statistics reveal that there is very little danger of a housing bubble bust. In fact the latest report released by the Research Division of the National Association of Realtors shows that the local housing market is in excellent shape.
- Las Vegas Real Estate Buyer's Guide 12/11/06


CBS Marketwatch: Is there a housing bubble?

Toll Brothers CFO Joel Rassman: I don't think so.

- CBS Marketwatch 6/7/05



A zillow chart of Las Vegas prices over the past year and a half.

McCain the warrior

It's rather pathetic to watch McCain. Obama's henchman questions his military service and his rebuttal is essentially "please don't say that, it's not nice". What he should have said was something along the lines of "question my military service again and I'll stick the business end of an M-16 up your ass, asshole". He can't stand up to a McCain henchman in June and yet he will stand up and fight in October? Yeah that'll work out real well. McCain and the rest of the RINOs out there just don't get. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

As for questioning Obama's patriotism, not much to that either. He is patriotic using the modern definition. For the MTV crowd patriotism means blame your country for every ill in the world. It means being anti-military. It means assuming your country is always in the wrong and your enemies are in the right. It means deferring to the UN instead of Congress. It means allegiance to international law over US law. Using those modern measures, Obama will be the most patriotic president ever.

Is this the most pathetic woman in America?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/ap_on_fe_st/heart_for_sale

The 8 Ball says yes.

Pssst, wanna make a quick $750K tax free?

The Senate passed the Countrywide - Chris Dodd Bought and Paid For - Bailout bill. It will cost $300 billion dollars. And it is supposed to save 400,000 home "owners" from foreclosure. I ain't no mathematician or nuthin, but that comes out to $750,000 per house. And my question to the senate is HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND? Even if all the 400,000 are in So. California that is still an insane amount of money to spend her house. But why let pesky details like that get in the way of a feel good story. Now the corrupt Chris Dodd and the 82 others worthless pieces of garbage that voted for this bill can go home and say they helped home "owners". But hey, what's another $300B in wasted tax dollars these days? Once the ink is dry on this bill they'll get right back to figuring out how to give me FREE health care which will cost $3 trillion.

At the end of the day it still won't do anything to end the housing crash. The result will be bank will only lose single digit billions instead of double digit billions. The deadbeats who would foreclose this year will foreclose next year or the year after. The only winners from this debacle are shareholders of countrywide and Bank of America. The other 99.9% of Americans are getting a big middle finger from the people supposedly elected to represent us.

$300M more wasted dollars

McCain's lack of economic understanding is beyond belief. He's now proposing $300 million of taxpayer money as a prize to someone who comes up with a super duper neato battery operated car. The MSM screams with delight. Gee wiz how wonderful, look McCain cares about mother earth.

What nobody in the MSM - nor anyone on McCain's team - seems to understand is that the $300M is not needed. If someone can come up with that kind of car, he will make $300M many times over from selling the car all over the world. It is sad that the Republican nominee for president doesn't grasp such a simple capitalist concept. Nobody had to give Bill Gates government money for coming up with Windows. Nobody had to give Sergey Brin and Larry Page money to create Google and they now have more money than most countries. Pierre Omidyar wrote the code for eBay on a whim in his apartment and is now a multi-billionaire. The government had no role in making any of that happen.

McCain should not spend a cent on any of these foolish prizes. There is a necessity right now for cheap transportation alternatives. Someone will come up with it and make a shitload of money doing so. We don't need McCain or anyone else from the government throwing around hundreds of millions of dollars to make it happen.

Corruption

The count is now at 23 and most likely growing. That is, 23 Senators who received special treatment when borrowing money to buy a house. That is, 23 Senators who are about to vote on a bill that will use taxpayer money to bail out mortgage lenders. That is 23 Republicans and Democrats who are corrupt.

I like this quote:

Many senators who did not provide mortgage information contend that the details are private. Elly Pickett, a spokeswoman for Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), wrote in an e-mail to Politico: “Sen. Enzi’s mortgage isn’t with Countrywide, and since that company is at the center of this issue, I fail to see how having a loan with another company is at all relevant.”

Uhm Senator, unless you have been living on the moon for the past 100 years, you know very well that once you go into politics nothing about your finances is private. And it shouldn't be. And furthermore Senator, just because you got your loan at Wamu or Bank of America doesn't mean you didn't get a payoff. Nor does it mean you won't stand to directly benefit from the bailout bill.

Used to be politicans would get bribed and try to hide it. Now they don't even bother hiding it. They just take the bribe and then bribe the voters in return. See "stimulus" checks for further examples. Also see Hillary's $5000 per baby proposal. Also see Obaama's entire campaign.

Buying homes Americans won't buy

Gotta love those immigrants. First they do the jobs Americans won't do. Now as if that weren't awesome enough, they will buy the houses Americans won't buy too. That is the new spin on the housing crash. After 2-3 years of saying all will be well, things aren't well. And the credibility of people who have been saying all will be well has vanished.

So now the so-called experts have a new card up their sleeves. It's those kick ass immigrants once again. They will buy up all the unwanted overpriced pieces of junk out there.. So Jose and Maria who make $8 an hour under the table will solve the housing crash and buy all those houses with $700K asking prices in California.

Uhm I ain't no expert with no fancy shamncy Harbard PhD or nuthin, but wasn't the bubble exacerbated by illegals buying homes they couldn't afford in the first place? Remember the $14K a year strawberry picker who bought a house for $720K? Obviously Mr. Restinas doesn't. But that makes since this this expert was saying there is no housing bubble back in 2006. You'd think after getting it so wrong he would be ignored by the MSM. Instead they go back to him for predictions on when the housing crash that he said would never come will end.

And on the game goes.

Pssst...wanna make $70K tax free?

I came across a neat little program the good citizens of Atlanta have going for them. It's quite simple. If you make under $71K ($81K if you have a kid) you get 14% off the cost of buying a house in the city of Atlanta. They take 10% off the price of the house and give you an extra 4% down payment. And on top if it, no matter how bad your credit is, you get a guaranteed 6.25% 30 year fixed mortgage. Only requirement is that the house being purchased has to be within the city limits and at the time of purchase you can't already own another property. Although it doesn't say anything about owning another property outside the city.

So on a house with a price tag of $500,000, you pay $450,000 and the city of ATL chips in the last $50K. And on top of that you get another $20K as a down payment. And there are no closing costs either, the city pays for that as well. All you need is $1500 and you're all set.

Here is the choice for someone today who lives in Atlanta. Earn $140K and pay $500K for a house. Or earn $70K and pay $430K for the same house. Hmmm, what do do. What to do indeed? Work twice as much and end up with the same. Or work 1/2 as much and end up with the same? Gawwwly I wonder what the better option is.

Unfortunately I am too rich to qualify for this giveaway at the present. However I will inquire as to how that $71K is calculated. If it's simply based on gross for the current year, I can predict right now with a 99% confidence level that my income for the year 2009 will be $70,850. If you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em at the government trough. And by then Obama will have started his hope and change programs. Who knows I might even qualify for free gas, free food, free health care. I won't even need $70,999. I'll be just as well off making $8 an hour at WalMart and getting the rest from Uncle Barry.

I also found out that one of Georgia's two Republican corrupt senators, Johnny Isakson - the other corrupt Republican Senator is Saxby Chambliss - made his fortune in real estate in Atlanta. He ran the largest local real estate company for 20 years. And completely by coincidence he is one of the most ardent supporters of the Countrywide Bailout Bill currently being debated in Congress. No mention of this in the local media. Republican or Democrat, doesn't matter. The media protects those that feed it. And the largest source of revenue for newspapers is real estate ads. You do the math on whether or not a newspaper like the Atlanta Journal Constitution will be for or agaianst the Countrywide Bailout Bill and whether or not it will say a word about the corruption involved with it.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Bush has said he will veto this abomination of a bill. He said he will, we'll see if he follows through.

Dumbass of the Week

I love articles like this.

Miller, 29, and his wife bought a fixer-upper on Melrose Drive in southwest Atlanta in December 2006, lured by ever-rising property values. They saw it as a long-term investment, buying it for around $90,000 — about $20,000 less than what other homes in the neighborhood were going for.

The Millers spent $75,000 and six months cleaning and refurbishing the home before hiring a property manager to find tenants. Potential renters, however, only wanted to pay about half of what the Millers needed to cover most of the mortgage. Quinon Miller refused to lower the rent, not wanting to attract bad renters that could lower the value of the property. It's been a year and a half and the home is still empty, forcing Miller and his wife to cover two mortgages.

"It broke us — without a doubt," Miller said. "It sucked us dry." Burglaries made it worse. They've had at least eight so far, he says. "Me and my wife will not ever, ever invest in real estate again," Miller said. "As far as we're concerned, we're done."

I can see the conversation that took place in 2006:

Dunbass buyer: I don't know about buying a house here.

Idiot realtor: But now is a great time to buy. You are getting this house well below market value. You have instant equity.

Dumbass buyer: I don't know man, it's pretty risky.

Idiot Realtor: If you don't buy now you will be priced out forever. And think of the investment income you will get. Investing in real estate is how people get rich. Real estate never goes down.

Dumbass buyer: But the housing market is slowing and it may be in a bubble that is about to pop

Idiot realtor: In Atlanta? No way Jose. Maybe in California or Phoenix. But Atlanta is different. Everyone in the world wants to live in Atlanta. It is the fastest growing city ever. You will have no problem renting your home out. All the projections say the city will boom in the next 15 years.

Dumbass buyer: But this is a crime infested part of town. I doubt anyone will pay the rent I will need to just break even.

Iidot realtor: It's a crime infested area now. But it is on the upswing. You are getting in on the bottom floor. Five years from now your house will be worth $500K. Trust me on this one. I've been doing this for a long time and I can tell this area will turn around fast.

Dumbass buyer: OK I suppose, but what if it doesn't, we're going to be broke.

Idiot realtor: Not at all. Just get an interest only negative option ARM. Then in 2 years refinance. Everyone's doing it and getting rich. You don't want to miss out on this do you?

Dumbass buyer: No I suppose not. OK so I get a negative whatever something loan and then I refinance in 2 years and so that means I won't lose any money right?

Idiot realtor: Exactly. Now let me give you the number of my friend at Countrywide, she will set it all up for you. Don't bother reading any of the documents. It's just broing legal stuff, I don't even understand any of it. Just go in to her office, sign and this house will be yours in 2 weeks.

Dumbass buyer: Sweet I am now a home owner!

And this same kind of bullshit is still being spewed by idiotic realtors today. I went to look at an open house a couple of weeks ago not far from where I live. The asking price was $550K. I told the realtor there I would be interested at $350K. She started her usual "now is a great time to buy" crap. I told her for someone to afford $550K using the traditional mortgage approval process, they would need an income of $125K a year minimum. And only less than 10% of the population in the area makes that much. And of that less than 10%, 90% already owns a home. So the pool of people who can realistically afford that house is about oh, nobody. It was kind of funny because I think she clued in when I put it in those terms. But even then she went on with the "now is a great time to buy" gibberish. I',m not sure if she was truly that stupid or if she has been drinking the kool-aid for so long that she can't help herself from speaking in NAR (National Association of LYING Realtors) doublespeak.

The house has been for sale for 3 months in a subdivision where the last house to sell - not be listed, actually sold - was over a year ago. And yet she thinks that someone will pay an asking price of what the house last sold for 3 years ago.

But like I said at $350K I would be interested.

I want to like you, I really do

John McCain has once again shot himself in the foot. Earlier this week he came out and said he is all for drilling for domestic oil. Except that is in ANWR. So if I understand this, he's OK with drilling off the coast of Florida where 20 million people live. He's just fine with drilling off the coast of California where 30 million people live. But he's opposed to drilling in the middle of nowhere where the closest human is hundreds of miles away.

I'm not saying we shouldn't drill off the coasts. I just can't understand his logic on this one. If some shit goes down and there is an oil spill off the coast of Florida the state' tourist economy would grind to a halt while the cleanup takes place. Billions of dollars will be lost for Florida. If a spill happens in ANWR, exactly where is the risk? A caribou will die. It makes no sense. ANWR could not be a better place to drill for oil. Nobody would ever see it. Nobody would ever be affected by a spill. It would involve no land right battles since nobody owns any land there except the government. And unlike in Florida or California, there would be no local opposition. And yet McCain opposes this one perfect place to drill in order to placate the eco-nazis who will never vote for him, no matter what he says.


The liberal Democrat campaign theme is "McCain is Bush's 3rd Term". As idiotic as that sounds, it rings true in a different way. McCain is using the same play book Bush used. Try to make nice with liberals and hope they will like you. Bush gave them the Ted Kennedy no child left behind. He gave them the Medicare prescription bill. He gave them $50B of aid to Africa to fight AIDS. He gave them amnesty, or at least tried. He gave them all that and what did he end up with? A 20% approval rating. Liberals still hate him and now most conservatives - moi included - can't stand him either.

Republicans just don't get it. Liberals do not want to be friends. They have an agenda of taking this country down the path of socialism/communism. They don't want bi-partisanship co-operation. They don't want to work together. They want France. And they will fight, scratch, claw, kick and bite to get there. Meanwhile Republicans sit there grinning like morons and taking it day after day.

Come on Republicans, I know there has to be some backbone in that party. Go find it please.

Gotta hand it to 'em

When it comes to propaganda, liberals get an A+. Through the manipulation of mass media they have shaped the minds of generations. Movies, TV, newspapers, publishing and of course the Nightly News is dominated by the left and has been for decades. They shape the debate in their terms. In that debate liberals are "moderate" conservatives are "extreme". The right to have an abortion at 8.5 months is "reproductive rights". Anyone who stands up and says whoa, that's not cool is a right-wing fascist. Corporate profits are inherently evil. And on it goes.

Well "new media" was supposed to change the playing field. No longer constrained by the left's hold on traditional media, conservatives were supposed to go out and finally express themselves. Ideas would flow and the masses would be swayed. Or so the theory goes.

Yet today who is taking the most advantage of new media? Sure as hell ain't conservatives. The liberals may have lost the initial blog battle but they are winning the war and winning big. Google is run by leftists. YouTube has become an Obama love fest complete with vitriolic hate for all things conservative. The latest is the slickly produced "I'm Voting Republican", complete with every stereotype around about what it means to be a conservative. Compare McCain's website with Obama's. Not even close in quality. Try to find anything positive about conservatives on MySpace, if you do let me know, I'd love to see this beast.

It is quickly becoming clear the new media will be like the old media. Controlled by the left with the right constantly playing defence and playing by the left's rules. For all the supposed business savvy in Republican circles they sure are thick when it comes to this area. They ignore the web and nominate a 72 year old for president who probably wouldn't know a YouTube video if it came and bit him on the ass. I do have to hand it to the left. It saw the opportunity for using the web and pounced on it.

About the only thing the right still has going for it is talk radio. But that too is a dying medium. And how many 20 year olds listen to talk radio compared to YouTube watchers? That is new generation that the left is brilliantly cultivating. And once indoctrinated with the left's rhetoric, there's no coming back for the generation raised on MySpace, YouTube, MTV with a healthy dose of "Johnie Has Two Daddies" books read to them in school. The foundation for a lifetime of socialist/liberal activism was laid during 12 years of public school indoctrination. The new media is simply building on top of that.

The Obama phenomenon is just the beginning and as this generation gets older and the older generation dies off....look out below.

Hey MSM, if you have a minute....

The MSM is having a month long requiem for Tim Russert. It is still on the Obama high. And Tiger Woods is playing golf. Plus there is a flood in the midwest. So it is not surprising that the Countrywide Pay for Play story is being widely ignored.

In a nutshell: Democrat senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad both got sweetheart deals from Countrywide on their mortgages. The CEO of Countrywide set the deals up himself. Completely coincidental is the fact that both Dodd and Conrad are leading the fight for a mortgage bailout, which stands to help Countrywide more than any other company. Both Dodd and Conrad are playing stupid claiming they didn't know their mortgages were anything un-kosher.

So of course the media is ignoring this story. Just like it ignored the fact that Obama's hand picked guy to search for his VP was also involved in some mortgage fraud. But Obama, Dodd and Conrad are all Democrats. And of course Democrats do no wrong and therefore and never asked the tough questions. Had McCain driven within 200 yards of a Countrywide office the media would be swarming all over him asking questions. But there is no double standard in the media, no sir.

And I suppose in the week long mourning over a leftist journalist who has time to report on actual news. After all now that Tim Russert is dead, how will the world move on? Yeah the guy was a good interviewer, get the fuck over it already. He wasn't the Pope for crying out loud. He was a newsman from Buffalo who liked - no really liked - the Bills. Who cares that US Senators are being bribed with cheap mortgages in exchange for a $300B bailout? Tim Russert is dead after all and we can't possibly talk about anything else.

Vote for me and I will literally give you money

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought it was illegal to bribe voters. But that is exactly what Obama is doing. His latest plan will literally give everyone making under $75K a year a $500 freebie every year. No questions asked. Just sign up for the plan and the $500 is yours.And this of course will be the starting point. Soon enough that $500 will be $1000. And then $2000 and soon enough $10,000. This is how all government plans work. Start out small and snowball into a trillion dollar cluster fuck. If you doubt it, see the income tax, social security and Medicare as exhibits A, B and C.

In addition to that free money, Obama will also give the "poor" free health care. And if the "poor" can't afford to make the mortgage payment of the house they overpaid for, no worries he will make your mortgage payment too. And what's this, you can't afford your gas? No worries once more as Obama will make it so that gas is free too.

And where will all this money come from? By taxing the "rich" of course. Used to be anyone making over $250K was considered "rich" in Obamaland. Now I see the threshold has dropped to $75K.

Oh the pain this man will bring.

Stuff

I was away for the weekend sans TV or web access and didn't have a chance to see much of anything. This morning I watched a bit of CNN and on cue, discovered that global warming (or is it climate change?) has destroyed Iowa. As I understand it, given CNN's coverage, up until Jan 20, 2001, Iowa had never seen a flood. Then Bush and his BIG OIL pals in evil Texas started making the earth warm up (or cool, or change, still not sure which one). And ever since that awful day 8 years ago, rivers have been flooding. And a couple of new phenomenons have started too. Tornadoes and hurricanes. Those too had never happened pre-2001.

As I posted before, I noticed everyone is still driving 75 and faster. They scream about $4 gas and claim poverty due to it. Then they jump into the V8 holding their $5 cup of coffee and gun it from 0 to 80. And as they get to the Best Buy store credit card in hand ready to spend a record amount of money on video games, they bitch some more. To paraphrase that Ditech commercial...People are idiots. Although the fact a communist will be elected president should have tipped everyone off by now.

Excessive

John McCain has gone off the deep end once again. Not content with banning free speech he now wants to ban profits too. Or at least ban what he thinks are excessive profits. First he will start with the big bad evil OIL companies. They make so much money you see that they need to have some of it taken away. How much money do they make? Must be something outrageous likie a 75% profit margin. Or at least a 50% profit margin. In reality it's about 9%. For every dollar an oil company spends, it makes $1.09 back.

But in the eyes of John McCain making nine cents on the dollar in profit is too much. So I ask the Senator, what percentage does he consider non-excessive? 8? 7? 2? And how does he come up with that number? What criteria, if any does he use? Or does he just pick a number out of his ass? Who the hell is John McCain to decide that it's too much. Last I checked this was a supposedly capitalist country where a company's sole existence is to maximize profits. A company is not in existence to make OK profit.

And while he's in kill the oil company mode, he might want to look at this list of industries and the profit margin for each of them. Oil's 9% profit margin is quite average compared to other industries. Google has higher profit margins than Exxon. But Google contributes lots of money to McCain's party (the Democrat party) and so they get a pass. Evil oil on the other hand contributes money to McCain's opposition so they get the hammer thrown down.

And while he is bashing the 9% profit margin on oil, he is very silent on the profits of beer makers. Anheuser Bush has a profit margin of 18.7%. Twice that of the evil oil. Yet McCain is strangely silent about those excessive profits. I wonder why that is. Hmmm could it be because his wife Cindy McCain is an heiress to a beer company?

And yes I know, Obama would be even worse. On a scale of 1-10 of economic policy disaster potential, Obama is a 12, McCain is a 9. Either way we will pay higher prices for everything and pay more income tax, while earning less money.

Today I downloaded the application for a Euro passport. I keep hoping I won't have to move but every day McBama says something so idiotic and scary that that hope is fading fast.

Spike Lee should shut his face

It's not often I get involved in the Hollywood nonsense of moron starts arguing with other moron stars. But in this case it is a moron star arguing like a moron against one awesome old dude who knows WTF he's talking about. Spike Lee bitched like a little girl that there were no black actors in the movie about the 5 ***WHITE*** soliders who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Eastwood countered that Spike Lee should shut his mouth since he has no effing idea what he's talking about. Yes there were blacks in the military during WW2. But this particular battle and more to the point, these particular 5 soldiers that raised the flag were white. I mean holy shit Spike, get a grip man. Sometimes white people do good things and are to be admired for. Sometimes, black people aren't involved. Not every critical moment in history has a part for Denzel Washington to play.

From the 'Do as I say, not as I do' file

The Democrats have decided to privatize the Senate restaurants. It appears that the joints are run so poorly that they may be about to close down, due to so colosal piss poor management. The restaurants are losing $250K. Given that a Democrat Senator is mich too important to eat a bagged lunch or at Subway, the Demos have decided to allow - GHASP - a private operator to come in and save the day.

The Federal government is not competent enough to run a Senate cafeteria. Yet we are told over and over by the likes of Hillary and Obama and Diane Feinstein and Ted Kennedy and John Kerry that we should allow the federal government to run the country's health care.

If it weren't so sad, it would be funny.

Is that it?

After a 5 days of nothing but fawning, front page publicity, I see that Obama leads McCain by a couple of points in national polls. Pretty much the same lead he had a week ago. You'd think after all the non-stop coverage in the MSM, his lead would have increased over that time. I'm guessing this is not a good sign for him and shows that he may have reached a ceiling of support.

It is also worth nothing that Dukakis at one point had a 17% lead over Bush I in 1988 and went on to lose 40 states to Bush. It is also worth noting that Ross Perot at one point was leading both Bush I and Clinton I during the summer of 1992. Gore and Kerry also led by fairly big margins in 2000 and 2004 before losing. So the fact that Obama is now only a little ahead, at a time where he should be well ahead in the polls, might be an ominous sign for the fall.

Usually I would be happy about this. But then I remind myself that oh shit, McCain will be the winner if Obama flops. And my joy vanishes.

When they say sell, I say buy

The death of the SUV is here so says US News. I disagree.

Gas is $4 a gallon. Ouch indeed. But that is ouch compared to 2006. Compared to 1980 or 1960 or 1940 it's about the same adjusted for inflation. For example in 1980 - the last time oil prices went bonkers - the average price of gas was $1.35. Today gas is 3X higher at $4. But median income in 1980 was $17,700. Today it is $49,000, just under 3X 1980 levels. So as a % of income gas costs the same now as it did 28 years ago. Not that the MSM would ever bother telling you that.

This lemming like rush to small cars by people is somewhat understandable. When every day you are bombarded by "news" reports of how the world will end when gas hits $4, you start thinking hmmm maybe driving a Hyundai isn't such a bad idea after all. Multiply that by millions of people, and there you go. Same thing happened in the 70s when the original oil spike occured after the 1973 Israel Arab war. Lots of people went out and bought Hondas and Toyotas which at the time were dirt cheap and about the only option for small cars. But then eventually oil came down in price. And people demanded bigger cars again. Honda and Toyota started making bigger sedans and SUVs and trucks.

And the same will happen this time around. Oil is in the bubbliest bubble there ever was. It may not ever go back to $10 a bbl. But it will fall back to the infation adjusted price we're used to. And that will mean $2 to $3 gas eventually. Which adjusted for inflation is right around where it's been over the past 50 years. And people who like big cars will go back to driving big cars. People who like trucks will go back to trucks. People who like small cars, were probably already driving small cars to begin with before the spike in oil and will continue to do so.

What I do predict is that there will be a glut of used Civics, Sentras, Versas, etc in about 2 years time from now and a big demand for SUVs that won't exist.

Disclaimer: I own an SUV but not a super gas guzzler, along with 2 other cars that get middle of the road gas mileage.

Got Food?

181 Nations Agree to Lower Food Prices says the headline today. And no this was not an Onion article. There was a UN conference in Rome where well fed bureaucrats hung out in luxury hotels, ate 5 star quality food, drank $5000 a bottle wine and in between threw around ideas about how to make food cheaper. Kinda like Al Gore flying around in his private jet and thinking about ways to reduce polution.

After a week of brainstorming and crunching numbers, this is what they came up with:
- tariffs are bad for food prices
- using farmland to grow corn used in biodiesel is bad for food prices
- growing more food will lower food prices

The only real shocker for me out of this meeting was that somehow Bush wasn't directly responsible for high food prices. Or maybe it is his fault but that is so obvious to everyone, no need to actually say it.

So now what do we do? On one side we have the Global Warming alarmists screaming about bio-diesel. But now the UN has finally clued in that when you use farmland as a substutute for oil fields, that lost food production doesn't magically appear out of nowhere and people go hungry. What to do? Save an endagered molusc which will die if the temperature rises 0.01 degrees or feed a hundred million people? And no this in not a rhetorical question, this is the real world situation that we are facing right now.

And it is also a preview of things to come. Every insane proposal from Kyoto to the Lieberman-Warner bill will have the same sort of unintended consequences. This cult like following of Global Warming is going to cost untold amounts of money and even lives. Yet the vast majority of media outlets and politcians - from both parties - are still on board with this madness.

Good times are here again!!

Right on schedule the clueless MSM reports on the 'unexpected' rise in retail sales for May. Gee I wonder what could have caused that to happen. Hmm what even occured in May this year that didn't happen last year? Oh I know. The government sent people $1200 checks, that's what. And what do you know? Retailers saw higher sales in May. Absolutely shcoking!

And right on cue stocks are up in a frenzy over the news. However as any 1st year econ student will tell you a one time shot like this does not matter in the long run. And the present value of stocks is the discounted future value. So since this one time shot will have no effect on the future value, it is silly to bid up the price of a share today. Not that the MSM would even try to provide this kind of analysis. Just go on autopilot and report what the government feeds you. Good times are here once again.

On a completely unrelated note, foreclosures set yet a new record. Continental is laying off 3000 employees. And all this as the 4 week moving average for 1st time unemployment benefits continues a downward trend.

But why let pesky facts like that get in the way of an uplifting day on Wall St?

Need money for your mortgage?

Last night I watched an episode of Law & Order, Special Victims Unit. It was on DVR so I don't know how old it was. The story included a jury member who was paid off by the bad guy to vote not guilty. Why was the juror so morally deficient as to accept the bribe and risk going to jail you ask? Well she an interest only mortgage and was desperate for money. Oh and she also had a kid with a disease. Sad indeed.

The line the character said was "if I lose this place, we have nowhere else to go and Billy (or Bobby or Timmie or whatever) will be taken away from me." My reaction was of course, hey lady how about renting an apartment instead? I mean hell this is New York City after all where most people rent. It's not the end of the world to be a renter there, you're in the majority. Yet in the MSM, "owning" a home is so important that people justify breaking the law to keep "their" home. The character was portrayed sympathetically. After all she couldn't possibly let her son live in a rental, that would be like child abuse or something. And although we learn the punishment for doing what she did is 4.5 years of jail time, she ends up getting no jail time since her situation was justified.

Not to worry though. In about 8 months time nobody will have a mortgage payment to worry about anymore. As soon as Barry Obama gets in, we will all have our mortgages paid for. Along with car payments, credit card payments, gas costs and of course "FREE" health care for one and all.

SI SE PUEDE

Suicide

CHANGE

HOPE

CHANGE

HOPE

CHANGE

HOPE

CHANGE

HOPE

CHANGE

It all translates to this: vote for Obama and the USA is no longer. The ultimate suicide pact between voters. It is times like these when I'm glad I have citizenship in 2 other countries and have an escape. I used to joke that I would pull an Alec Baldwin and leave if he were elected. After watching his speech tonight, 'tis no joke any longer. Only question now is will it be Canada or will it be Europe. I never thought I'd see the day when I would leave the US to escape and oppressive taxation regime....and go to Canada or Europe for crying out loud. Under an Obama regime I will be paying over 50% of my income in taxes. Fuck that and fuck him.

L'Idiot du Jour

It never ceases to amaze the stupidity people exhibit regarding money these days. Here is the latest example.

Question: I have two home loans totaling 100% financing. Both are variable rate, interest-only loans. The 80% loan is a 5-year ARM; the 20% loan is a home-equity loan in which the rate changes monthly. I have been in my $389,000 home since July 2004 and I am starting to have trouble making the payments, but I have not missed one yet.

The present value of my home is probably less than what I owe on it, but not greatly so. The only money I have available to continue to make the payments is my 401(k). Should I withdraw funds to stay in the house and sell it when the market turns around? Also, if I do, would the withdrawal be considered a hardship withdrawal in IRS terms?


Hmm where to begin with this one. First off amigo, your house is nowhere near $389K if you bought in July 2004. $350K is you're lucky. But that $350K is really $325K after you've paid all selling expenses which run about 7%. So your question is should I blow my retirement money on a house that is depreciating in value daily and in which I have $0 equity? My response back would be, is your IQ less than 45? Because only someone with such limited mental capacity would even think of asking such a question. The answer of course is send the lender your keys and walk away. You have nothing to lose. You've put $0 into your house, you walk away with $0. No harm no foul. Why on earth would you want to keep feeding this alligator month after month? Have you had drunk much NAR Kool-Aid that you still believe owning a house at any cost is a good idea? Are you so brainwashed into thinking that being a home "owner" means destroying your financial future?

And you gotta love the so-called exert's response. A bunch of nonsense about selling the sports car. As if that option is available to everyone. Oh shit why didn't I think of that. Instead of dipping into my 401k, I'll sell that Ferrari just sitting in the driveway collecting dust. No mention that perhaps this home "owner" shouldn't own anything more expensive than a Cappuccino maker since he obviously is not responsible enough to handle it.

Where do they get these financial writers from?

Hey buddy, wanna get into a new car?

Numbers for sales in Japan came out today and it was bleak. The so-called experts are predicting numbers for the US to be as bleak. $4 gas, blah blah blah, you know the rest. However what the so-called experts are missing is a key ingredient. And that is the $1200 tax rebate check.

Maybe it's localized to my neck of the woods, but holy shit I have never seen so many new cars grouped together outside of a car dealer. The office where I'm hanging out these days has 10-15 new cars in the parking lot. This is for a parking lot that holds maybe 200 cars. I know they are new because they have dealer tags. At first I couldn't figure it out. Was there some huge bonus that the company gave out I though. Nope. It was the bonus courtesy of Uncle Sam in the form of a $1200 bribe to get out and spend spend spend some more. And man oh man did the masses spend it. The checks started going out the 2nd week of May. And coincidentally enough that is when the new cars starting popping up as well. So much for the "I will pay down debt with my bribe check" theories out there. And also so much for the $4 gas hurts theories. There is a new Range Rover, a BMW 5 and a Land Cruiser among the new toys on the lot. Which makes me think oh boy, you bought an $80K car with a $1200 downpayment. Yeah, that's gonna get really ugly really soon. Not unlike the 0% down, $800K house.

So all this means there should be a slight pop when new car sales come out for May. I want to buy some calls, but not sure which ones. The BIg 3 are hurting due to truck sales, but they could surprise by not hurting as much as everyone expects them to hurt. The Japanese are hurting in Japan, but if they have a blowout May in the US, investors will overlook the bad news. They always seem to. In a conflict of good vs. bad news, good usually wins. Or all this could be a fluke localized to one zip code. I doubt it but you never know.

Whatever pop there is will be short lived. About the length of the stimulus check bribe-athon. As soon as those stop coming, it's bye bye auto industry for the rest of 2008 and 2009.

Far-left hypocrisy #25571

Sometimes you see something that looks somewhat odd and think, nah gotta be missing part of the story somewhere. Then the more you look the more you realize that yes it is as absurd as you first imagined.

Today I had a similar experience. In the parking lot of a shopping plaza in one of the "Change and Hope, Hope and Change" kind of neighborhood. Parked next to me was a Volvo XC90. No surprise there. On this XC90 there were several bumper stickers expressing a plethora of anti-Bush, Obama and most prominently, green themes. No surprise there again.

Forget a second about the irony that a supposed environmentalist drives an SUV with an EPA rating of 15 MPG in the city. That is a standard far-left do as I say not as I doism. Again no surprise there. The surprise however came when I noticed the engine was on but there was nobody in the car. Yessir, the owner left the car running in the parking lot while he/she went shopping. I'm guessing this was so the car would stay cool while she/he was in the store. And this was in the parking lot itself, the car wasn't parked on the curb where someone went in to drop off a letter in a mailbox or anything. It was running when I got there, it was running 10 minutes later when I returned to my car. All that emission sent into the atmosphere killing tens if not hundreds of baby seals so the owner could be cool for the 45 seconds it takes a car's A/C to kick in and cool a car down.

For shame liberal, for shame.

Everybody all together now.....AWWWWWW

In its seemingly never end series on the woes of the middle class, CNN is now throwing out high gas sob stories. It used to be sob stories about IHOs (Idiot Home Owners) who bought $500K homes on $40K salaries and surpise, surprise couldn't afford to keep the house. Now high gas prices are the storu du jour and we get gems like this:


Brian Washburne
Credit analyst, 29, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Fortunately for 9-1/2 month old Mikey, he has two grandmas that love him more than anything. Unfortunately one lives in suburban Atlanta and the other lives in Ames, Iowa. It used to be that we could pack up the SUV and surely not forget a thing while traveling at an affordable fare that barely hurt the bank account. Now, after downsizing vehicles to save gas, we can't bring everything -- and mommy is cramped in the back seat with Mikey while our dog Chopper rides shotgun.


My God! The horror of it. Mommy is cramped in the back sea. Someone call Amnesty International ASAP. This simply cannot be allowed to happen. I mean come on people, this is supposed to be evidence of the assault on the middle class? Mommy can't stretch her legs out in the Escalade anymore and has to ride in the back seat of an Accord while on the way to visit Grandma?

Arlington Heights, IL to Atlanta is 1500 miles round trip. This yahoo is saying he can't make the drive because of $4 gas. Bull - SHIT! The SUV that they downsized from and could fit the kitchen sink got 15 MPG highway. That was 100 gallons. At $2 the cost was $200. Now they downsized. I'm assuming an Accord or something like that, which gets 25 MPG on the highway. That's 60 gallons at $4 per gallon equals $240. WOW!! A whole extra $40 for the trip. Double WOW!!

Once again this myth about gas prices is exposed. If this guy can't afford an extra $40 for the trip, he's either lying or is so stretched out, he's got bigger issues than gas costs. And if you are that stretched as to not afford $40 more, here's a thought to mommy: GET A JOB. Work 20 hours a month at $10 an hour serving coffee and you will be able to go visit grandma every month. Much easier to just bitch and whine about how tough life is instead of getting off your ass and changing your life.

But I won't let pesky facts stand in the way of a good "see how bad things are, if we only elect Obama everything will be better, I promise" story courtesy of the MSM. And yet the gullible fools out there salivating at the prospect of an Obama presidency buy every word of it. Since as we all know as soon as Obama gets in, he will give us** all a free house, free gas, free health care and we won't have to work more than 25 hours a week for any of it.

** Anyone making under $50K and considered poor. Anyone making over $50K and considered rich will have their taxes doubled.

In 2000 when Bush lost the popular vote, all I heard from the yahoos on the left was popular vote, popular vote, popular vote. California even has some ballot measure in progress that would allocate it's electoral votes to the candidate with the highest popular vote, or something silly like that. So popular vote is the end all and be all of elections. Except when it means the MESSIAH OBAMA might lose the popular vote. Then it's all about delegates and super delegates. Play by my rules unless my rules cause me to lose the game and then I will change the rules but only if the new rules means I win. In case I lose both ways, it must be because my opponent is cheating....and racist, homophobic, sexist, ageist and every other ist I can come up with.

Hillary is still staying in and good for her. She is the only hope left for this country. Obama as president is a communist nightmare I can't even begin to fathom. McCain as president will mean the erasure of the southern border which will lead to communism long term. Hillary has been spat on, beaten down, kicked, punched and left for dead by the far left. She owes them nothing and will give them the finger if elected president. She'll be no cup of tea for conservatives, but she'll govern like Bill did and be tolerable for a couple of years until the GOP can get its shit together, get back to its conservative roots and take back Congress.