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Here is your open thread for the mid-week on June 20th, 2012. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
Be sure to also check out the forums, and get your word in the user-driven discussions there!
NOTICE: If you have comments to make about politics or economics that do not somehow directly relate to Seattle-area real estate, they may be posted in the Politics & Economics Open Thread. If you post such comments here, they will be moved there.
By Pegasus @ 34:
LOL. I never realized it, but is it possible you don’t know how to do go the older threads? I thought you were just ignoring my responses, but maybe you can’t figure out how to see them when they’re old?
In case you missed it, and are ignorant of how to navigate a web page on the Internet, I did respond to your last post in that other thread. I commented:
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RE: Pinnochio Krismer @ 1 – Pinnochio tells another lie after being caught and exposed. Watta surprise! You need some PR help because no one believes you. It’s funny watching you attack and fabricate without even doing your homework. Try reading the article I post first next time before you post your smear. Got some slobber on your chin again.
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Tim, Its Time to Step In
We all have different views at times….that’s fine and normal.
I believe personal name calling is not allowed on your blog….for one thing it lacks professional demure and persuasiveness too.
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Cantwell, Murray to regulators: Get tougher on banks
Washington’s two U.S. senators are calling on regulators to get tough on big banks in the wake of JPMorgan Chase’s trading loss of more than $2 billion — a loss that is widely seen as a symptom of a system that allows banks to take too many risks.
But if the Senate Banking Committee response to JPMorgan Chase’s (NYSE: JPM) gambling loss is any indication, there is a limited amount of political will in Congress to tighten the regulatory lasso around banks.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2012/06/cantwell-murray-urge-dodd-frank-action.html
Note to Krismer: This is a snip from the article and not my own writing.
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Thought of the day: Is it possible to launch an effective anti-obesity campaign when the Surgeon General is morbidly obese?
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RE: Blurtman @ 5 – He will be a great example if he kicks the bucket choking on a Kentucky Fried Chicken drumstick. I wonder if he is a smoker, too?
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By Pegasus @ 4:
That should be obvious to everyone by now. What we don’t know is whether you agree, disagree, think it’s important or unimportant. It’s just a random post, sort of like the one you just posted in the other thread on the 5 price tiers which isn’t even applicable to that topic.
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West coast gasoline inventories continue to rise, and are now at almost normal levels after the refinery fire.
http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WGTSTP51&f=W
When they stop increasing entirely we’ll see more normal pricing in gasoline (affected more by things like the price of oil, etc.)
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 7 – No “we” about it. It was directed only to Krismer since he alone is unable to comprehend routine posts and often uses them to post rabid dog ramblings. Also what I choose to post here and how is none of your business.
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Lower Interest Rates Will Prop Seattle’s Home Prices Up
But Boeing’s CEO [or the other CEOs for that matter] aren’t happy with this current self-centered bailout mentality, RE: to prop hiring and wages up.
Article:
“…A survey of chief executives shows fewer large U.S. companies plan to hire or boost spending in the next six months, reflecting a weaker U.S. economy.
The Business Roundtable says 36 percent of its CEO members plan to add workers over the next six months. That’s down from 42 percent when the survey was last taken three months ago.
Jim McNerney, the group’s chairman and CEO of The Boeing Co., blamed the dip in sentiment on “concern over increasingly persistent obstacles to a stronger recovery.” Those include uncertainty over potential U.S. tax increases and spending cuts early next year and Europe’s financial crisis….”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fewer-us-ceos-plan-hire-150424128.html
Yes, bailouts mean likely tax increases to our CEOs. Are they right on? Let’s put it this way, does it matter, when its obviously putting a wrench into the economy’s job creation machinery.
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How city of Portland deals w/ vacant houses:
http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2012/06/vacant_homes_many_in_foreclosu.html
I wonder about how fire insurance works on empty houses. Can the banks get insurance policies on empty houses?
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By softwarengineer @ 3:
Thank You, Software Engineer. I’ve disagreeed with you on things here a couple of times, and maybe even thought you were nuts once or twice.. But you’ve always been a perfect gentleman, and have never once been insulting.
Some people just can’t help themselves, and, I don’t know, maybe the anonymity of being online allows some people to feel that they have no accountability. So we get the ” You’re a liar!”, ” Yeah, well you’re a moron” back and forth, and not only is it immature, it takes up too much space. Keep the love affair going via email or something. It’s boring.
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I have heard discussion in other forums about the Fed increasing the money supply by as much as 300%, yet little clarity as to what that means. It is True the balance sheet of the Fed has increased 3 fold, but the actual money supply would appear to have been only increased by 30% to 35%.
I have included this link regarding historical currency circulation.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/
Horror stories of impending inflation are often told will result in this increase, yet inflation has been tame. Many banks are also sitting on large amounts of this currency collecting the difference between borrowing at 0% and earning .25% from the fed.
It would seem that the contraction in asset values has been replaced by the expansion of the Feds balance sheet.
Thoughts?
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By ChrisM @ 11:
When banks get the insurance on a house they don’t own, such as where the owner lets the insurance lapse, they can get insurance, but it’s very expensive. From memory, over $2,000 a year on a modest house. In that case the coverage is limited to the amount of the debt.
So let’s say Joe Homeowner owns a $400,000 house, only owes $50,000 and lets the insurance lapse. If the house burns down the insurer would pay the bank something like $52,000 (the debt plus the cost of the insurance which gets added to the debt), and Joe Homeowner would be out $350,000 of equity.
I suspect the rate is closer to normal once they actually own the house, but it is probably still relatively expensive.
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RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 12 – Yes it is boring, but I’m not about to let an anonymous admitted troll insult me without responding. Too bad being proven wrong over and over doesn’t deter him. It’s hard to embarrass someone who’s anonymous.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 15 – You poor baby. You started all this with a fabricated post and then refused to respond once I pointed out your fabrications. This morning you decided to answer the post with baloney and then drag the posts over here to clog the blog. Then you start telling me how and what to post. Now you are turning that attack around saying you are being insulted. Hahahaha. I am done playing with you for today. Got a quick hike planned up on Cougar. Too nice to stay inside. Kary you need to go inside now and tell your Mommy to change your diaper.
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RE: Jon R @ 13 –
Rents Can Go Up With Chronic Population Density Increases
But with a caveat, the number of wage earners per household paying like rent, increases simultaneously too [as does wear out of the units]. Will lower and/or stagnant wages increase Seattle home prices with simultaneous chronic population density increases?
Let’s put it this way, there was price increases when the federal treasuries could be reduced and mortgage interest rates [with bank profits on top of zeroed down federal treasury interest rates] brought down. We’re pegged out at zero that route; that’s why Bernanke stopped this fiscal remedy method the last few years.
How about more QEs and Stimulus bailouts [to banksters]? This is way too Conservative Tea Partyish to me [cut everyone else but me] and not across the board sharing of the austerity we need to shoulder when and if the tax cuts continue at the end of the year. If there are no tax cuts, we’ll all have to make do on smaller paychecks by 2013, just as college loan interest rate bailouts are phasing out in about a week and they shoot back up to normal private enterprise lending rates. Should this happen to home loans too?
Cut them and not me? Austerity is not a political exercise or option to exclude higher incomes, its today’s reality for all income levels together. Something an old fashion Democrat used to say.
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I know it is not the point, but the dimmed-out responses always make me want to read them, instead of not want to read them. I guess it is a sort of micro-Streisand effect. I enjoy comments from both Kary and Pegasus, but yes, the odd couple routine needs to stop.
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RE: softwarengineer @ 17 –
Feds to Continue Buying Their Own Federal Treasuries
To keep interest rates down.
Not enough buyers [foreign, ma and pa, etc] evidently.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/?wpisrc=al_comboNE_b
And to all you folks that see the MSM “recession’s over” hogwash as true and not propaganda, this sure blows a giant hole in your logic.
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RE: wreckingbull @ 18 – I’ve always limited deleting comments entirely to really terrible, over-the-top content like blatant spam or copying entire articles from elsewhere.
I have considered creating a “time out” or “limbo” thread that wouldn’t be linked anywhere prominent (maybe just a link at the top of each open thread) that I could move lame name-calling garbage to. Thoughts?
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RE: softwarengineer @ 19 –
Rather Than Watch the Long Video [With Advertisements]
My email summed up the Washington Post article:
“…Fed announces extension of bond-buying stimulus program
The Federal Reserve said it would extend for six months a bond-buying program designed to provide a modest boost to the economy. The Fed said there were signs that hiring is slowing and the U.S. economy is facing significant new threats from financial troubles overseas….”
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RE: The Tim @ 20 –
I Like Your Idea Tim
Its your website and its not good for it, when there’s even a hint of defamation of character in it. Its illegal too, BTW.
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The Pinocchio comment was pretty amusing. I always thought he had a one-word name, like Cher. Now I know he can have a last name too.
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RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 12 – “and maybe even thought you were nuts once or twice.. ” at least you got that part right………
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FHFA: House Prices Up 3 Percent Year-over-Year
House prices tacked on another increase in April, bringing the annual increase to 3.0 percent according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA’s) Home Price Index (HPI) issued on Thursday. April’s HPI was up 0.8 percent from March although the March increase was revised down from the 1.8 percent increase originally reported to 1.6 percent.
Prices were up in six of the nine census regions with the largest increase in the Pacific and Mountain regions at 2.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively. The largest decrease was in New England, down 1.2 percent.
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/06212012_house_prices.asp
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I love it. Kerry Killinger is complaining that the book portrays him poorly. I especially like his defense “that many in the financial industry failed to predict the extent of the housing collapse”
I think I have heard that excuse about a dozen times from these wall street twits.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/washington-mutuals-former-chief-takes-issue-with-books-portrayal/
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RE: wreckingbull @ 26 – He was just a victim of circumstances….coulda happened to anyone. Reality was that he was a lot cleaner then the rest of the big bank CEO’s. He just did not have the political capital as I have said before. The banking industry was gunning for him to lose while they survived. Thank god no one went to jail over these unfortunate circumstances.
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RE: Pegasus @ 27 – Right. Sucking 100 million dollars in compensation out of a century-old, rock-solid financial institution while simultaneously running it into the ground is being a victim? When that fateful weekend occurred, the only circumstances he was a victim of were the circumstances he created.
Is your post sarcasm? I honestly can’t tell.
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RE: wreckingbull @ 28 – A bit of sarcasm in part, truth in the other.
He was just a victim of circumstances….coulda happened to anyone. sarc/
Thank god no one went to jail over these unfortunate circumstances. sarc/
Reality was that he was a lot cleaner then the rest of the big bank CEO’s. He just did not have the political capital as I have said before. The banking industry was gunning for him to lose while they survived. truth/
Citicorp got about 2.5 Trillion in bailouts, guarantees, etc.
The bank that ended up with WAMU’s assets was JP Morgan Chase. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance.Dimon had to deal with $113 billion in risky subprime, home-equity and adjustable-rate loans that JPMorgan originated.
During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
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