Thursday, May 20, 2010

And it stoned me...

/queuing Van Morrison/

I kid you not. On the way into work I was listening to a news report on the radio about whether California should legalize marijuana use. And the reporter's name was... Alex Stone........... STONE!!!

/face palm/

Sometimes you just can't make things like this up. LOL

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

UPDATED: More on the Housing Yo-Yo...

Housing starts were up in April (before the Federal tax credit ended), but building permits dropped 11.5%.

Housing starts touched a 1-1/2-year high in April, but a drop in building permits to a six-month low suggested the housing market recovery may struggle to gain momentum without more government aid.


Meanwhile, bank repo's are up, and shadow inventory is in the millions.

"... one factor that has experts really scared: homes that are ready to be sold but haven't been put on the market. Right now, there could be more than 4.5 million homes in "shadow inventory," according to a recent report by Barclays Capital.

This so-called shadow inventory is a recent phenomenon. In the past, inventory was either tight or it wasn't. But now, with home prices so low and so many foreclosures on the market, both homeowners and banks have been waiting to put properties on the market.

"These sidelined sellers closely watch the market for signs of a possible turnaround and rush in if there's a hint of good news," said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.

But as more sellers put their homes up for sale, supplies increase, which will depress prices again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

That vicious cycle could cause prices to bounce up and down for years. "I see a saw tooth bottom," Humphries said. "Prices go up; inventory rises, which sends prices down again. That plays out for three to five years of no appreciation. ... Without price appreciation, it leaves more homeowners in negative equity. That's toxic. Any setback, like a job loss, they go into foreclosure."

5/19 UPDATE: Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures break records in 1st quarter of this year:

The number of homeowners who missed at least one mortgage payment surged to a record in the first quarter of the year, a sign that the foreclosure crisis is far from over.

More than 10 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That number was up from 9.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 9.1 percent a year earlier...

More than 4.6 percent of homeowners were in foreclosure, also a record... up... slightly from the end of last year...


The number of American homeowners who have missed at least three months of payments or are in foreclosure has surged to around 4.3 million...

Four point three MILLION people are either in foreclosure or are behind in their mortgage payments by at least three months!

WOW!

UPDATE: More news on the backlog of mortgage securities that the feds bought:

Federal Reserve officials were divided over when the Fed should start shedding some of its vast portfolio of mortgage securities. The tricky endeavor would move the central bank closer to tightening credit for millions of Americans.

Minutes of the Fed's closed-door meeting April 27-28, released Wednesday, showed Fed officials expressed wide-ranging views about when and how the Fed should go about selling some of the $1.25 trillion of mortgage securities bought during the financial and economic crises. The assets were purchased to drive down mortgage rates and aid the housing market.

Its challenge is to sell those assets in a way that doesn't weaken home prices and jack up mortgage rates...

Most Fed officials favored "deferring asset sales for some time." A majority preferred beginning sales some time after the Fed's first increase in its key short-term bank lending rate. Such an approach would postpone any asset sales until the economic recovery was firmly entrenched.

The federal government sill sitting on a crap-load of mortgage securities.


Tuesday Hodge Podge...

Two Phoenix Suns fans were escorted out of the arena for wearing "Viva Los 1070" T-shirts.

A huge mosque being built at the site of 9/11 was quietly given the green light, and is now scheduled to open on... 9/11/2011.

And, remember the PA memorial to Flight 93 and it's crescent shape pointing towards Mecca?

Meanwhile, the new Miss USA is a muslim woman from Michigan over Miss Oklahoma who was asked a Q about the Arizona immigration law and gave a response that didn't sit well with certain contest judges.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Housing Market Still Has A Long Way To Go...

Ace points to this article from Yahoo Financial. Foreclosure filings in April dropped 2%, but actual bank seizures for the same month reached a record 92,000. Add to that the fact that 12% of all homes (7.4 million borrowers) are at least one month behind in their mortgage payments, while unemployment is at 9.9% and incomes are stagnant.

The Big 5 states affected by this housing bubble burst are: Nevada, Arizona, Florida, California and Michigan. Meanwhile, since the federal tax credit ended on April 30, new applications for mortgages since then have dropped 9.5%. Add to that, this little gem from ObamaCare - a nice little 3.8% federal tax on home sales.

The prices for housing in southern CA are still out of whack, despite what certain people may lead you to believe. The bubble's peak reached Cloud 9 in late-2006/early-2007, but it's still on Cloud 4 in 2010. More foreclosures, a flooded market, plus an exodus of those not able to find work will force prices back down to reality over the next 1-2 years.

UPDATE: More pins to burst that bubble further.

*SIGH*

Monday, May 10, 2010

Times Square Scare Follow-up...

(Via the Mike Gallagher show this morning)

Michael Goodwin on "The One's" administration and the fight against islamic jihad terrorists.

ONE of the most troubling tics of Team Obama is the frantic rush to declare that every terror attack on American soil is carried out by an isolated individual with no connection to al Qaeda or other groups. It was the gist of their rapid response to the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, to the Fort Hood shooter and, most recently, to the plot by Faisal Shahzad to set off a car bomb in Times Square.


Read it all.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

RE-POST: Bombs Away... (Weekend @ Times Square)

RE-POST for more info... 5/6 UPDATE: They took him off the watch list before the bombing attempt! WTF?!?

==================================

Over this past weekend we had to deal with THIS.

More info and analysis from Ace of Spades here, Gateway Pundit here, Flopping Aces here.

Car bomb alerts at east coast airports here.

John Bolton talks straight here.

But please remember now that The One's administration has recently implemented a policy where we can't use words like Islamic Extremism, Islamic Terrorists and Jihad when discussing things like this.


*sigh* This Idiot-in-Chief of ours is gonna get us killed.


5/5 UPDATE: He almost got away! What kinda guy was he? Hmmmm...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Malkin has the "path to citizenship" issue with this terrorist (and others)

MORE DETAILS UPDATE: Surprise, surprise, surprise...


Monday, May 03, 2010

Bombs Away... (Weekend @ Times Square)

Over this past weekend we had to deal with THIS.

More info and analysis from Ace of Spades here, Gateway Pundit here, Flopping Aces here.

Car bomb alerts at east coast airports here.

John Bolton talks straight here.

But please remember now that The One's administration has recently implemented a policy where we can't use words like Islamic Extremism, Islamic Terrorists and Jihad when discussing things like this.


*sigh* This Idiot-in-Chief of ours is gonna get us killed.


5/5 UPDATE: He almost got away! What kinda guy was he? Hmmmm...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Malkin has the "path to citizenship" issue with this terrorist (and others)

MORE DETAILS UPDATE: Surprise, surprise, surprise...