Home, Home Down the Drain...

Let's see now...

June's existing home sales dropped nearly 1%. And approximately 70% of all mortgage applications are for refinancing, NOT for purchasing.

Also, prices for NEW homes in June rose. And (surprise, surprise) it didn't help the market much.

Banks are starting to bulldoze the worst of the foreclosed properties to help get rid of the glut, and some of the banks are giving the land back to the cities.

Increasingly, it appears banks are turning to demolition teams instead of realtors to rid them of their least valuable repossessed homes. Last month, Bank of America announced plans to demolish 100 foreclosed homes in the Cleveland area. The land is then going to be donated back to the local government authorities. BofA says the recent donations in Cleveland are part of a larger plan to rid itself of its least saleable properties, many of which, according to a company spokesperson, are worth less than $10,000. BofA has already donated 100 homes in Detroit and 150 in Chicago, and may add as many as nine more cities by the end of the year... And BofA is not alone... The banks do the deals because once the properties are donated they no longer have to pay taxes or for upkeep. Tax experts say the banks may also be able to get a write off for the donation. That appears to be a better deal than trying to repair some of these homes.

Home sales for July dropped 3.5%, reaching a new low.

The number of people who bought previously occupied homes fell in July for the third time in four months. This year is on pace to be the worst in 14 years for home sales, as more Americans worry that the economy could slip back into another recession.

Home sales fell 3.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.67 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That's far below the 6 million that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

Housing starts for July dropped, as well. More info here.

Gary Shilling (one of the few who predicted the housing bubble burst) thinks that housing prices need (and will) drop down to as much as another 20% in value. More info with video here.

Excess inventories are the mortal enemy of housing prices. Lower prices are needed to unload surplus inventory, but in turn, lower prices bring forth more inventory from anxious sellers. The anxiety of house sellers and the reluctance of buyers are enhanced by the realization that house prices can fall – and are falling for the first time in 70 years.

Those excess inventories are huge. Historically, new and existing inventories listed for sale have averaged about 2.5 million. So that's the normal working inventory level, and anything above 2.5 million is excess. It's currently about 4 million, implying excess inventories of 1.5 million. But wait! There's more! As foreclosures keep mounting, a "shadow" inventory of as many as 500,000 additional homes will become visible as many more Americans choose to sell rather than endure further price declines.

[The] huge and growing surplus inventory of houses – at least 2 million above normal working levels – will probably depress prices considerably from here, perhaps another 20 percent over the next several years. That would bring the total decline in house prices from the April 2006 peak to 45 percent. My forecast may be optimistic, because declines tend to overshoot on the downside just as bubbles do on the upside.

After the markets did their major downturn last week, and after the S&P downgraded the debt holdings of the U.S., the Federal Reserve stated that they will keep interest rates at their current lows for another 2 years (until mid-2013).

The Federal Reserve sketched a dim outlook for the economy Tuesday, suggesting it will remain weak for two more years. As a result, the Fed said it expects to keep its key interest rate near zero through mid-2013.

It's the first time the Fed has pegged its "exceptionally low" rates to a specific date. The Fed had previously said only that it would keep its key rate at record lows for "an extended period."

The Fed announced no new efforts to energize the economy in its statement released after its one-day policy meeting. But the statement held out the promise of lower rates on mortgages and other consumer loans longer than many had assumed.

The decision was approved on a 7-3 vote. Three Fed regional bank presidents who have been worried about inflation objecting. It was the first time since November 1992 that as many as three Fed members have dissented from a policy statement. [emphasis mine]

Hmmm... dissension in the ranks of the Fed Board? More here.

Anyways...

Today, the 30-year mortgage rate dropped to it's lowest level on record:

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level on records dating to 1971.

The rate on the most popular mortgage dipped to 4.15 percent from 4.32 percent a week ago, Freddie Mac said Thursday. Its previous low of 4.17 percent was reached in November.

The last time long-term rates were lower was in the 1950s, when 30-year loans weren't widely available. Most long-term home loans lasted 20 or 25 years.

Few expect record-low rates to energize the depressed home market. Over the past year, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage has been below 5 percent for all but two weeks. Yet prices and sales remain unhealthy and are holding back the overall economy.

Five years ago, the average 30-year fixed rate was near 6.5 percent. In 2000, it exceeded 8 percent...

...After previous recessions, housing accounted for 15 percent to 20 percent of overall economic growth. This time, in 2009 and 2010, housing contributed just 4 percent to the economy...

...The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage, which is popular for refinancing, fell to 3.36 percent, also a record low. It's the third straight week of record lows for the popular refinancing option. Freddie Mac's records date to 1991, but analysts believe the new low on the 15-year mortgage is the lowest ever.

For someone like myself and my wife, as potential first-time home buyers, this all could bode well come this fall and winter. Remains to be seen.

ObamaCare Debacle...

AARP has gotten an ObamaCare waiver.

In May another 200+ got waivers.

As of July 14, the total number of individual companies, organizations, unions, etc. (even the state of Maine!), reached 1471. And that's just the numbers up to the end of June.

Obama-appointed Supreme Court Justice Kagan (and the White House) lied about her role in ObamaCare litigations. So, I hope this means that she will have to recuse herself when all those lawsuits reach the desks of the "9 in Black".

HotAir has this post of the coming cost explosion due to ObamaCare.

Obama concedes that ObamaCare won't control costs (surprise, surprise).

And a Federal Appeals Court ruled 2-1 that the individual mandates are unconstitutional.

UPDATE: On the 1472 waivers (that will last three years).

It's All in the Numbers and the Solution is Common Sense...

THIS gives you an inkling of an idea of what the issue - THE issue - is today. Namely, the national debt.

MORE charts and numbers from Hot Air.

Hmmm... $16 trillion in loans to banks in just three years. Read it. It'll pi** you off.

Rep. Paul Ryan points to healthcare reform (true reform) as a key to the debt crisis. Remember that, in my post yesterday, I quoted the S&P head saying that:

"The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest."

...the agreement last week to reduce the nation's debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years "fell well short" of comprehensive reforms that some had advocated.

In other words: ObamaCare, Medicare, MedicAid, Social Security.

Remember, also, that CC&B (Cut, Cap and Balance bill) that sailed through the House, but stalled in the Senate and was threatened a veto by The One himself. Seems that, 2-to-1, adults approve of that bill. And it's a CNN poll. The ratio of approval, I'm sure, would be even higher for registered voters. And higher still with likely voters.

Let's re-watch Rick Santelli from a couple days ago:

(with analysis by HotAir here)

Rick goes off some more here:

(thanks to Gateway Pundit)

So, let's go way back to February of 2009 and watch Rick's original rant on CNBC:

Inspiring, isn't it?

Sarah Palin posts her views here (required reading!):

HotAir comments here:

...Sarah Palin came through today with a Facebook post that strikes the right tone and is at once simple, direct, and comprehensive. It doesn’t rail at past mistakes, nor does it come across as a raised-voice, you’ve-got-to-get-this-people communication. Palin takes it for granted – with refreshing common sense – that we are in a crisis, its features are obvious, and the task now is to deal with it, not continue to argue whether it’s really a crisis or how big it is or whose name we can pin on it.

She makes no bones about the significance of the problem we face. I am particularly impressed with her point that if we don’t square ourselves away, the specter hangs over us of IMF staffers showing up on our doorstep with China and France and Germany arrayed behind them, ready to throw folders on a desk and start telling us how much we can spend on cable TV and incidentals each month. Whether things would really play out for the US as they are playing out for Greece and Ireland is a valid question, but Palin is quite correct that the pitched confrontation is on the horizon now, as it was not six weeks ago – and she has the courage to face that possibility head-on. It’s not pleasant to mention it, but it’s the right thing to do.

The last third of Palin’s post is devoted to laying out what we need to do. Grow the economy by releasing the regulatory clamps on it, starting with the energy sector. Cut spending and reform entitlements. She doesn’t pretend the latter would be easy, but she faces head-on the fact that it is inescapably necessary. I urge you to read her post for the discussion of particulars. It is material and convincing without being in the weeds.

The piece is positive and encouraging for its forthrightness. There is nothing “clever” to be done in this situation; it’s all straightforward. The US federal government has to cut spending and let the economy grow, even if that means breaking the stranglehold of unions on the public trough and overruling advocacy groups and government bureaucrats who don’t want the economy to grow. Pretending that the federal budget is too complex to be governed by the ordinary rules of accounting – or that the US is too special to be limited by the ordinary definition of fiscal solvency – is a dodge, not a sign of insight or expertise.

Palin focuses like any good executive on the big picture. We have to cut spending and get government out of the economy’s way so it can start pumping out revenues again. These things are increasingly obvious to everyone, and moreover, they constitute a plan.

Palin in 2012 with Santelli as Treasury Secretary!!!

The Obama Alphabet...

Brought to you by Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal on-line:

A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.

B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.

C is for China's military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.

D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.

E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.

F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA's signed by the current president: zero.

G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America's future if we don't reform our entitlement state.

H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can't believe I'm writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.

I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.

J is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.

K is for Karzai, Hamid, Afghanistan's feckless leader. Still, the Obama administration probably did itself no favors by publicly dumping on the man, leading him to seek new best friends in Tehran.

L is for Laden, Osama bin. The president's greatest triumph, which will forever put him one notch—if only one notch—above Jimmy Carter.

M is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels.

N is for NATO, once a pillar of Western security, which Mr. Obama is in the process of destroying through his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his refusal to give NATO the push it needs to win in Libya.

O is for ObamaCare, which goes far to explain B, D, J as well as the Greek part of G.

P is for Pyongyang, whose ruler the administration is once again attempting to engage in the six-party talks. This is after the Kim regime welcomed Mr. Obama's plea for a nuclear-free world by testing a nuclear bomb, torpedoing a South Korean ship, shelling a South Korean village, and unveiling a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility.

Q is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller's low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978.

R is for the reset with Russia, the principal result of which is an arms-control treaty that brings us to parity in strategic nuclear weapons, leaves us behind in the tactical category, and ill-equips us for the challenge of a proliferating world.

S is for shovel-ready. Enough said.

T is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for "millionaires and billionaires"—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.

U is for Iran's uranium enrichment. When Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend his hand to the mullahs, Iran had enriched 1,000 kilos of uranium. Today they have produced more than 4,000 kilos.

V is for Venezuela, a country whose extensive subterranean links to Iran the administration has consistently downplayed.

W is for the Dubya, whose presidency now looks like a model of spending restraint.

X is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like.X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.

Y is for Yes, We Can! Unfortunately, it's also for Yemen.

Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

It's getting ugly (except for oil & gold)...

(UPDATED)

After S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday after the markets closed, the Dow (and other markets) take another dump.

Since the July 21 high of 12747, the Dow is now currently at 11125. That's a 13% drop in just two and a half weeks! Oil has dropped to $83/barrel (one bright spot in all of this) while Gold breached the $1700 threshold (another bright spot IF you invested in gold).

Moody's thinking of lowering the U.S. credit rating, as well:

Ratings agency Moody's Investors Service on Monday warned it might also downgrade the U.S. government'scredit rating if its planned measures to reduce its budget deficitturned out to be not "credible" after all.

In his first comments after the move by rival rating agency S&P, Moody's analyst Steven Hess sounded a note of caution about Moody's rating of the U.S., repeating that the August 2 plan to cut deficits by $2.1 trillion was positive for the U.S. credit standing, but not enough to keep its rating on a stable outlook...

..."If the process for further deficit reduction that is included in the budget control act produces results that are not really credible, that combined with the economic performance could potentially cause an early move on the rating," Hess told Reuters in an interview.

Meanwhile, today S&P downgraded Frannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and others:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.

The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.

All the downgrades were from AAA to AA+, reflecting the same downgrade S&P made of long-term U.S. government debt on Friday.

The S&P head stated that:

"The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest."

...the agreement last week to reduce the nation's debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years "fell well short" of comprehensive reforms that some had advocated.

Via Hot Air, Rick Santelli (he of Feb '09 fame who's impromptu on-camera CNBC rant sparked the Tea Party movement) says, "they're still not listening":

UPDATE: Dow now down 523 points just for today! That's almost 15% down since July 21.

UPDATE#2: The markets closed with the Dow down to 10810. So, in just 13 business days the Dow has gone down 15.2%, the S&P down 16.4%, and the NASDAQ down 17.5%.

Down Dow Down... Up Gold Up...

UPDATED and LINKED

The Dow closed down over 500 points today. The worse single-day drop since Oct 22, 2008 (remember THAT time?...can YOU say TARP, QE1-2-3, Corporate Bailouts, Freddie & Fannie Faux Pas, Too-Big-To-Fail-BS, and the beginning of all this mess?). Since Monday morning, the Dow's dropped almost 900 points. All the markets (S&P, NASDAQ, etc.) were hit even harder.

Gold's at $1650/ounce, though! The average price of gold in 2008 was........ $872. The average price in 2005 (before the housing crash began?)..... $445. Gold was stable for many, many years, until 1933. Then it up-ticked a bit. Stayed stable again until the early 1970s when it went from $36 in 1970 to $124 in 1976 to $615 in 1980. Nixon/Ford, then came Carter, and look out!

Gold stabilized and fluctuated in the $317-460 range thru the late 90s. Dipped into the high $200s for a few years. In 2001 it was at $271, then it went back to it's 2+ decade range until... 2006. It went from $445 in 2005 to $603 in 2006. Then to $695 in 2007, $872 in 2008, then $972 in 2009, then $1224 in 2010. And now it's at $1650. Welcome back, Carter!!

(link)

Phantom Budget Deal Passed & Signed, So What Does Moody Say?...

News Link

Rating agency Moody's upheld its AAA rating for the United States Tuesday after Congress passed new legislation to raise the debt ceiling that averted a possible default.

But Moody's added a "negative outlook" on the grade, saying a historic downgrade could still come if fiscal discipline weakens or economic growth deteriorates significantly.

So, how did Wall Street respond today?

News Link

The S&P 500 turned negative for the year on Tuesday as the wrangling over the U.S. debt ceiling faded and investors turned their attention to the stalling economy.

The broad-based index fell for a seventh day and crashed through the key 200-day moving average in an ominous sign for markets. The seven days of losses mark the longest losing streak since October 2008.

"It is going to be a long week," said Jim Maguire Jr., a NYSE floor trader at E.H. Smith Jacobs. "The bid is not here in the market."

The selloff accelerated into the close as volume jumped well above average. The fall was broad-based, with four stocks falling for every one rising on the New York Stock Exchange.

The index also broke through its 2-1/2 year uptrend line from itsbear market low in March 2009. Thursday was the index's worst day in a year...

..."Investors have made the shift from Washington to what I'm calling economic realities," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at The Davidson Cos. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Mm-hmm...

DEBT and BBA...

(via Ace of Spades)

THIS is why a Balanced Budget Amendment is so necessary!

Hmmm... didn't I post a suggestion about this in 2005 and 2004?

The Housing Chronicles...

Let's start with a March 31 report that shows "all cash" sales in housing are at record highs (gee, that makes buying a house soooo much easier for 95% of the population).

Nationwide, cash buyers grabbed 33 percent of all used homes sold in February, the National Association of Realtors reported March 21. The figures, based on agent reporting, do not include foreclosure auctions on courthouse steps, which are usually cash-only.

In early May, Flopping Aces had a great post about "The Housing Recovery That Wasn't". The numbers and charts are staggering.

Capt. Ed then posted about how the home buying credit from last year really didn't do much for the market.

"... it turned out to be a pretty bad deal for those who used the credit as well as taxpayers. Thanks to the artificially higher home prices that the tax credits provided, buyers have lost almost twice as much in value as the credit itself, and in some cases 150% more..."

The AP then talks about how the low interest rate on mortgages aren't helping matters much because:

In many metro areas, real estate is straining under the weight of foreclosures, higher down-payment requirements, tighter credit, still-high unemployment and buyers' expectations of even lower prices.

"If people aren't confident about the economy, about jobs and home prices, they certainly aren't going to sign up for the biggest purchase of their lives," said Greg McBride, a senior analyst at Bankrate.com.

Then April's existing home sales slipped nearly 1%.

And new housing starts fell nearly 11% that same month.

"The Census Bureau reported today that the annualized rate of new residential starts dropped over 10 points from March to April, and that single-family starts dropped 5.1%. Permit applications also declined by 4%, which indicates that no one sees much hope for renewed demand in the market."

Reuters, then, stated the obvious:

Residential construction is being crowded out by an oversupply of used homes on the market, in particular, foreclosed properties, which sell well below their value.

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air asks the all-important question - "Where have all the home buyers gone?":

The four worst states for housing sales were Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada. But regionally, the biggest drop came in the Northeast. So who were the big winners? Among them, South Carolina and Texas. One of the biggest individual losers in the Northeast? Connecticut.

What do the elements of this tale have in common? States embracing right to work laws and electing legislatures who are lowering taxes to attract businesses which bring jobs are seeing growth in housing sales. States who seek to balance their budgets on the backs of higher taxes and engage in anti-business practices are seeing their populations flee and their houses go unsold.

By the end of May, housing foreclosures still accounted for 28% of all homes sold. That's still six times higher than normal.

Foreclosure sales, which include homes purchased after they received a notice of default or were repossessed by lenders, hit the highest share of overall sales in a year during the first quarter, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

"It's an astronomically high number," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. "In a normal market, you're looking at the percentage of homes sold in foreclosure to be below 5 percent."

The pace at which homes are entering the foreclosure process has slowed in recent months amid bank and court delays. But distressed properties remain a fixture of a housing market still searching for a sustained recovery. The properties, often in need of repair, typically sell at a discount, weakening prices for other types of homes...

The report continues:

Bank-owned homes accounted for nearly 19 percent of all sales, up from 17 percent in the fourth quarter and up from 18 percent a year ago, the firm said.

That's not good news for the housing market.

RealtyTrac estimates there are 872,000 homes that have been repossessed by lenders, but have yet to be sold. At the first-quarter's sales pace, it will take three years to clear the inventory of 1.9 million properties already in some stage of foreclosure.

For bank-owned properties alone, that amounts to a 2-year supply.

And how about in my neck of the woods?

In California, foreclosure sales accounted for 45 percent of all home sales in the first quarter, down from nearly 48 percent a year earlier.

The nationwide home-price index has fallen to such an extent that:

Prices have now fallen further since the bubble burst than they did during the Great Depression. It took 19 years for the housing market to regain its losses after the Depression ended....

...Many economists think prices nationally will drop at least 5 percent more by year's end. They aren't likely to stop falling until the glut of foreclosures for sale is reduced, employers start hiring in greater force, banks ease lending rules and would-be buyers regain confidence that a home purchase is a wise investment.

"Folks are having so much difficulty in getting financing for a home," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo. "It may be early next year before prices hit bottom."

Another obstacle to a rebound in prices: A delay in processing foreclosures. Homes in foreclosure sell for, on average, 20 percent discounts. When they do, they pull prices down further. But many foreclosure sales have been delayed while federal regulators, state attorneys general and banks review how those foreclosures were carried out over the past two years.

Once those homes are eventually foreclosed upon, they will trigger a further price drop in many markets. Those declines are "etched in stone," said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

Judson Burger picks up on the state of things in this report:

The bleak prediction comes after he released a report estimating that since the collapse began from the pricing peak of 2006, prices have fallen 33 percent -- more than the 31 percent dive recorded between the 1920s and 1930s.

Remember, though, that the boom from 1998-2006 was severely artificially inflated to more than triple in just eight years. He continues:

The data underscores the trouble the U.S. economy is having emerging from what is described as the worst recession since the Great Depression. "The sharp fall in house prices in the first quarter provided further confirmation that this housing crash has been larger and faster than the one during the Great Depression," the analysis said.

Dales said the collapse has eclipsed that of the Great Depression because the boom that preceded it was much bigger. Unlike during the 1920s, access to the housing market was far more open leading up to 2006.

"This boom was characterized by homeownership becoming the norm for pretty much anyone," Dales said, noting that the boom has effectively been thrown in reverse.

A key sentence here:

Nationally, prices hit a new post-collapse low in the first quarter, and have returned to roughly 2002 levels.

Exactly! It still needs to get back down to 1998 levels (adjusted to the low inflation rate over these last 13 years). Which is why home prices still need to drop (and will drop) over the next 1 to 2 years.

And then yesterday's AP report just continues with more of the same:

Home sales sank 3.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. That's far below the roughly 6 million annual sales rate typical in healthy housing markets.

Since the housing boom went bust in 2006, sales have fallen in four of the past five years. Analysts say they expect sales to level off at about 5 million a year. That's not much better than the 4.91 million homes sold last year, the worst showing in 13 years...

...One sign of the housing industry's struggles is that fewer first-time buyers are entering the market. The number of first-timers ticked down to 35 percent of sales last month. In healthy times, they drive about half of sales.

First-time buyers are critical because they tend to improve their properties and invest in their communities, a combination that raises home values. And their purchases allow sellers to move up to pricier homes.

Instead, the market has been saturated with foreclosures...

...Bigger required down payments, tougher lending rules, heavy credit-card and student-loan debt and a shortage of desirable starter homes are keeping many would-be buyers away. Even some who do have enough money for a down payment and a solid credit history are holding off, worried that home prices will keep falling.

Investors are filling some of the void. They are spending cash to scoop up deeply discounted homes in hard-hit areas of Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tampa. Last month, investors accounted for 19 percent of all sales.

Peachy, ain't it?

The reason why I haven't posted lately...

... is because on Wednesday, June 8, at 3:30 PM I will be getting married.

:-)

10 Years Later... Justice Delayed... Justice Served...

The evil bastard is finally dead!

DNA confirms it.

Tuesday Toss-ups...

The truth about light bulbs (CFLs vs. Incandescents).

So, you bought an electric car to (a) save money on gas, and (b) "save the environment". GUESS WHAT?!

Meanwhile, about those gas prices (currently no lower than $4.13/gallon in my area).

Are food and fuel prices the death knell for The One? Apparently, when fuel energy costs surpass 6% of consumer spending we head into a recession. IT'S DOUBLE-DIP TIME!

Here comes inflation!

And, what about that shrinking workforce?

How's that job search in California going?

JP Morgan downgrades its the nation's prospect.

S&P also lowers it's long-term outlook for the country.

Plus the coming Treasury Bond crisis looming on the horizon.

Then, finally, there's the housing issue... which is THREE TIMES worse than you think, with a double-dip happening there as well.

Ain't it fun???

Jobs, Inflation, Gas/Oil Prices... Up, Up & Away...

Jobless rate is much higher than the 8.9% in February:

Since November 2010, the unemployment rate has tumbled from 9.8% to 8.9% in February. That seems to signal a return to healthy job growth. But is it real?

While unemployment has fallen nearly a full percentage point, just 407,000 payroll jobs have been created — a mere 0.3% rise.

How can that be? Maybe it's because the real jobless rate — which includes those unemployed Americans so discouraged they've stopped looking — is higher than 8.9%. Much higher.

"Though the official unemployment rate is improving, according to our poll, we still have at least 20% of able Americans looking for full-time employment," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, IBD's polling partner...

At one time, the jobless rate included all people without jobs.

But during the first Clinton administration, the BLS changed its definition to exclude long-term discouraged workers. As a result, the unemployment rate has looked far lower than it really is.

The labor-force participation rate, now 62.2%, is at a 27-year low. If you're not in the work force, you can't be "unemployed."...

Gallup's "broader unemployment" measure combines the unemployed with part-time workers seeking full-time work. It rose to an alarming 19.9% in March, from 17.2% in December.

March's "official" number dropped to 8.8%, but Gallup's true numbers rose to 20.3%. Also, there is this tidbit:

Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

Via Hot Air, on April 5 the Washington Post reported that inflation is here (duh!) and wages are lagging behind (double duh!!):

Today, Wall Street stumbles on news of inflation going up, the March unemployment numbers "unexpectedly" as initial jobless claims went back above 400,000. Core producer prices are up, too. I like this gem of a quote from The One's Labor Dept:

The Labor Department said on Thursday its seasonally adjusted index for prices paid at the farm and factory gate -- excluding volatile food and energy costs [emphasis mine] -- rose 0.3 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in February. Economists had expected core PPI to rise 0.2 percent in March.

Yeah, let's just EXCLUDED those pesky food and energy costs. And prices still rose!

Is there a bubble forming in food commodities? Via Daily Eudemon, there's this:

And, about those energy prices???

Energy prices, which rose 2.6 percent, accounted for nearly 90 percent of the increase in wholesale prices last month. Energy prices rose 3.3 percent in February.

Gasoline prices rose 5.7 percent after increasing 3.7 percent in February.

Let's chart that sucker (thanks to PoliPundit):

Here in southern California the cheapest gas price I can find is $4.11/gallon. (Ouch!)

What else could also be affecting the cost of government? How about this fact!:

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers.

The One's OMB admits that the Prez's budget won't reduce spending at the federal government level at all.

Flopping Aces has an antidote for too much government.

So where the heck am I???

Been busy...

... Putting together the complex pieces of the puzzle of a wedding...

... My wedding...

:-)

... which will occur in a couple months.

I will occasionally be blogging soon. Mostly good collections of links to stories and articles of note.

Hehehehe...

Chris makes me chuckle (click on the image below to see enlarged and in full):