Monday, March 24, 2008

USA: The Worlds Deadbeats

Probably the best thing I saw all week on the Housing Bust was a CNBC interview by Jimmy Rogers, so here it is:




I love Rogers interview style; he's combative & pissed about anyone even suggesting that he's 1% wrong. So great.

But he's dead right. There has arisen this strange mindset that the business cycle can & should be abolished at all costs. And the primary cost is that the dollar has been let go. We're the New Mexico! The dollar will soon have the same dreadful stench of failure as the peso.

No country has ever printed it's way out of a crisis. In fact, almost all collapses into 3rd World Status have resulted from firing up the printing presses.

And amazingly, in response to what is almost certainly the greatest bubble ever created, our government has decided to throw More Money at the problem. What solves a crash brought on by excessive credit? MORE CREDIT!

How Do You Cure A Credit Bubble?

I'm a bit puzzled by some of the underlying thought processses behind those proponents of a massive government bailout of some sort of the US housing industry. On one hand, they seem, for the most part, to be agreeing with the premise that the state of the US balance sheet, whether our private (consumers) or our public (the government) is at minimum unsound and in the long term creates extreme risk. On the other hand, they seem to be saying that the only way out of our current difficulties is to continue to expand credit. Huh?

Via Financial Times (a fine paper in many respects, but can't say I agree with this particular opinion):

Moreover, the US has structural vulnerabilities that Japan did not have: low household savings, untested derivative markets, and a large current account deficit.

But there may be a conflict between the private interest of the banks and the public interest in continued credit expansion.

So, were financially unsound and its in the public interest to become more financially unsound? Continued credit expansion, the so called "hair of the dog" approach is really what we need? When does it reach the point where it's time to enter a good detox center (managed credit contraction) instead? So, levering the entire world's output and the entire worlds stock market capitalization at over 10x thru derivatives alone isn't enough (estimated size of derivatives market $516 trillion divided by $48 trillion world GDP or by $51 trillion world stock market capitalization)? Keep the frat party going as long as possible, keep misallocating far too many resources into financial engineering and real estate?

Then of course, there are those within the "We'll fix our balance sheet by borrowing and leveraging some more crowd" who want to "fix" our situation via some sort of upside down Nixonian price controls, i.e. price floors. So is the thought process something along the lines of "Just because temporary price controls were a disaster doesn't mean temporary price floors won't work out just wonderful"? This via the Senate banking committee chairman (Chris Dodd):

What we're trying to do here, in addition to providing assistance to the homeowner, is to create a floor...

So what is the right price to set it at, i.e. the floor? Is it better set by free markets or by government subsidies? Furthermore, what if Chris Dodd and the like were to actually to "succeed" in putting a floor on house prices (doubtful but lets just play "what if"). Is having housing prices artificially subsidized at levels far above long term trends actually in the long term best interest of our economy? Further, is it in the best interest of those looking to buy a house both now and in the future to not only have to pay some of their tax money subsidizing the cost of housing, but to overpay once more in buying an artificially overpriced house?

It seems to me that trying reflate the bubble in some way shape or form is about the worst thing we can do. The only viable long term solution is to attempt to deleverage / contract the credit cycle to a market driven level of balance, but given the magnitude of the rise, to do it in some sort of managed fashion. As to the particulars of how best to manage it? There are plenty of arguments to be made on each step of the way, sure to provide plenty of fodder for discussion. Some of my own thoughts are here, including perhaps the less conventional belief that it may be time to consider putting away the interest rate tool after this coming week.

Our Fed has already thrown BILLIONS at the problem, trading US treasuries for toxic crap mortgages. So have NO ILLUSIONS, we are BAILING OUT WALL STREET, shoving BILLIONS at Wall Streeters, and all this will be borne by US taxpayers. Add to all this a war that is sapping our finances for BILLIONS EVERY WEEK, and you can easily see that this crisis may be beyond our governments ability to handle:

Sub-prime collapse 'beyond the US Federal Reserve'
By David Uren
March 18, 2008 12:17am
  • US Federal Reserve 'lacking funds to help crisis'
  • Losses yet to come 'easily exceed remaining $400bn'
  • Not going to be able to deal with situation on own
FEARS are growing that the US Federal Reserve may soon find itself short of the funds needed to continue propping up the nation's financial system. The central bank yesterday used its financial muscle to back the bail-out of the stricken Wall Street investment banking giant Bear Stearns, which will be taken over by rival JPMorgan Chase at a fraction of its worth last week.

But analysts believe the threat to the financial system, which continues to flow from the collapse of the sub-prime mortage market last year, is getting too big for the Federal Reserve.


"This is now beyond the Fed," ANZ international economist Amy Auster said.
"It is not going to be able to deal with this situation on its own." Cash reserves drying up She said the US central bank had already extended support of about $US400 billion ($426 billion) to the US financial system, compared with its assets of $US800 billion. She said financial system losses yet to be reported could easily exceed another $US400 billion. "What is missing at the moment is the US Treasury," she said.

But Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has already declared his hostility to federal measures to help the sinking financial sector.
"Let me be clear: I oppose any bail-out," he said in a speech 10 days ago. "Most of the proposals I've seen would do more harm than good - bailing out investors, lenders or speculators who, instead of getting a free pass, should be accountable for the risks they took," he said. " I believe our efforts are best focused on helping homeowners who want to stay in their homes."

More could follow Bear Stearns


There remains a vast quantity of financial assets of doubtful value that will expose banks and other financial institutions to the kind of panic that brought investment bank Bear Stearns to the brink of disaster on the weekend.
"When the fifth-largest investment bank is in trouble, you have to become concerned about the solvency of the system and the banks in the system," Ms Auster said.

In 2006 alone, there were $US550 billion of "collateralised debt obligations" issued, she said.
These are the bundles of mortgages and other securities that have been at the heart of the sub-prime crisis. Ms Auster said the market for these securities depended upon the ratings agencies, bond insurance and collateral. "

All three elements of this infrastructure - the three bands of the bridge have collapsed," she said.
When the Federal Reserve announced its extraordinary Sunday afternoon bail-out of Bear Stearns, it also extended a lifeline to all the other major investment banks, offering them access to emergency funding for the first time since the 1930s.

As in Australia, the central bank is assumed to be the lender of last resort for the commercial banks, which take deposits from the public, but not for investment banks and stockbroking firms.
But the tangled web of counter-party arrangements that has developed between financial institutions over the past decade means that allowing Bear Stearns to go broke would have jeopardised major banks.

"If Bear Stearns defaulted on their paper, it would pull at least another bank down," senior economist with finance broker ICAP, Matthew Johnson, said.


Drop in the ocean


Mr Johnson said he estimated the Federal Reserve was halfway through the ammunition it had to deal with the crisis.
"The $US450 billion remaining is a drop in the ocean compared to the asset classes in trouble," he said, noting that in addition to mortgage-related debt, some of the big private equity deals were beginning to unravel.

The biggest risk to the real economy is that credit dries up, as bankers become scared to lend.
Morgan Stanley chief economist Gerard Minack said while the Federal Reserve was cutting interest rates, its efforts were being neutralised by the banks.

"Nobody is enjoying easier financial conditions," he said.
Mr Minack said there were no grounds for equating the coming recession in the US to the Great Depression, but it could still be as nasty as the downturn in 1974.

Ms Auster said Australia would not escape the effect of the recession, with its share market having already fallen further than US markets.


So the writing is on the wall: If you wonder which way we were going to swing on letting this thing unwind, it is now clear:

STAGFLATION

There is no Economic Force On Earth that could stop a multi-trillion dollar evaporation in homeowner wealth from SOMEHOW affecting our economy. NOTHING. Throw money at it, bail out Wall Streeters, give every American $600 each, do whatever you want, the shit is GOING to hit the fan... HARD.

We could have taken our lumps, let bad securitized mortgages take down the idiots that owned them, let foreclosures just happen, and let the natural cleansing process work itself out.

But no. Not only are US taxpayers bailing out those responsible, we are starting up the cycle again. Gee, I wonder what happens this time?


Remember the post about this country actually becoming economically dependent on bubbles? Look at this chart & you can see that is ALL WE KNOW HOW TO DO. In stifling the rampant inflationary byproduct of a stock bubble, we have created an even more monstrous, dangerous and completely uncontrollable housing bubble, and our response?

"Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It"

Except this time, gentle reader, there will NOT be another bubble as the result of trying to avert the bursting of the last one. Nope. It'll be straight up stagflation.

But I guess in some respects that IS a bubble. A hyper-inflation in the price of everything.

And curiously, Fed cuts have not EVER been a panacea:

Deep Fed cuts no help for home prices

March 18th, 2008

posted by Jon Lansner/O.C. Register columnist

When the Fed cuts hard, watch out! LA/OC home prices haven’t fared well in the past two decades after the nation’s central bank throws serious stimulus into the economy. Same can be said for big cities in one nationwide index. That’s what my ol’ pal, Professor History, found looking back over 20 years of Fed and price history. History’s trusty spreadsheet has data going back to 1988 showing the “effictive Fed funds rate” and the S&P Case-Schiller home-price index for the region, plus a 10-city index. Then we pondered what home prices in the year that followed any one-year change in the Fed funds rate. We choose to study this relationship, with a built-in delay, because Fed actions — either tightening money or making it cheaper — takes significant time to work through the economic system. Here’s what was found (Or just look at chart above. Click on it to see larger version!) …

• Periods of steep Fed cuts, which we are clearly in, produced on average the lowest home-price gains locally. Nationally, they were below average. Why? The Fed is only this generous, rate-wise, when the overall economy is hurting. And housing, at its core, reacts to the broad economy, not rates.
• Another weak period for housing is when the Fed hits the economy brakes with rising rates. In fact, that’s the worst time for national pricing, based in this 10-city index. Again, the resulting slower economy isn’t peachy for local housing.
• Thus, the best time for housing are those eras when the Fed isn’t much in the news and is either doing nothing or simply polishing its interest-rate policy with minor moves.

The influential Fed funds rate is the overnight rate banks charge each other and is a market for many short-term yields. The Fed clearly does not control longer-term rates, such as those that help set many fixed-rate mortgage deals. Still, the Fed’s actions appears to offer good hints at the economy’s future — and seem to show what’s next for real estate.

Here’s how Professor History’s math sliced the past 20 years into five periods, from the ones with the steepest one-year Fed funds cuts to the ones with the harshest increases — and those in between vs. annualized home-price changes for LA/OC and a 10-city U.S. index one year later …

And I just watched Meet the Press with nitwit Maria Bartiromo commenting on how the Fed cuts, and fiscal stimulus will end these bad times.

How ludicrous.

This woman is predicating the idea that we are in some sort of marginal slowdown; a normal cyclical slowdown of a few percent in GDP that actually can be mitigated by Fed action. A slowdown of a few percent usually can be altered by some Fed Marketing; Some sort of borrowing stimulus that brings a lot of projects to a positive NPV by lowering interest rates.

Lowering Interest Rates Is The Root Cause Of The Current Problem!

Bartiromo & MANY, MANY others are assuming that this slowdown is like all past slowdowns. It is NOT. It is unprecedented in history, except for possibly The Great Depression. The worst post-War slowdown was the 1970's -- wait for it -- STAGFLATION crisis, which if you recall, had to be solved with 20% interest rates that literally BROKE towns like Bend for a good 10-15 years afterwards.

But I actually think we might have a short respite from calamity, about 6-9 months. Why?
ARM resets lessening over the next 6-9 months, before a spike higher

ARM resets are actually going to lessen dramatically over the next few months, before exploding again.

Be careful.

MANY will call this The Bottom. ALL CLEAR.

Not so. This will simply draw in new buyers who are decimated in the next wave of resets & the subsequent foreclosures. DOn't even think about buying until The Rest Of The US hits bottom, probably in 2010 or 2011... and of course there will be Bend, lagging 2-3 years behind and at 5X the losses. The decimation here will be simply incredible.

What was The Death Knell, the WORST story of the week for us locally?

Wells Fargo gives Deschutes housing market soft ranking

Bank may require bigger down payments

By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin

Published: March 19. 2008 4:00AM PST

Deschutes County home buyers seeking a mortgage from Wells Fargo & Co. might have to come up with a bigger down payment because of new rankings Wells Fargo has given Deschutes and other counties across the nation.

The San Francisco-based financial services firm, the nation’s second-largest mortgage lender, recently gave counties one of four rankings: normal, soft, distressed and severely distressed, according to a Feb. 25 document sent to its wholesale mortgage lending customers.

Deschutes County is one of four West Coast counties with a soft housing market, according to the document. The rankings are based on declining property values, an oversupply of homes and a greater than six-month average to sell a listed home.

The soft ranking means potential borrowers might have to put more money down to secure a home loan, said Doug Houser, the bank’s Central Oregon home mortgage branch manager. In normal markets, the bank can lend money to borrowers with as little as 5 percent down for a conforming loan. Now, because of the soft-market ranking, some borrowers may have to put at least 10 percent down, said Houser.

However, Wells Fargo continues to offer other loans that do not require any money down, he added.

Conforming loans are those below $417,000 for single-family homes, the maximum amount Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy from banks and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-chartered private corporations that purchase home loans from banks and mortgage lenders.

Wells Fargo does not sell its loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, said Houser.

The recently signed federal stimulus package temporarily ups the conforming loan limit in Deschutes County for a single home to $447,500.

The down payment requirements for nonconforming loans, also called jumbo loans, also went up, from at least 10 percent down to 15 percent down, according to the Wells Fargo document. A nonconforming loan is any loan greater than $417,000 for a single-family residence.

Houser said the Wells Fargo housing market rankings are based on home values.

“It isn’t news to anybody that sales prices of homes in Central Oregon aren’t what they were, so if you have sales prices that are less than or are declining, it’s a soft market,” said Houser.

Deschutes County home prices depreciated an average of 2.84 percent in 2007, according to a recent report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Houser said that not all housing in Bend is in decline, saying that some “micro-neighborhoods” are increasing in value or remaining static. In short, from a customer’s point of view, Houser said being in a buyer’s market is good news.

“Basically, the opportunity is ripe,” said Houser. “For a borrower, it’s just a great time. Values are great and interest rates have remained low, which usually don’t happen at the same time.”

The other West Coast markets labeled as soft are Jackson County, where Medford and Ashland are located; Washington’s Pierce County, which is home to Tacoma; and San Luis Obispo County in Central California.

There were no distressed or severely distressed markets listed in Oregon and Washington. All other counties in the two Northwest states were ranked as normal markets.

Worse off are markets ranked as distressed and severely distressed in California and Nevada. Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties were ranked severely distressed, along with Nevada’s Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, meaning home buyers seeking a nonconforming loan will have to put down at least 25 percent of the home value’s for a down payment. Similar restrictions apply for conforming loans in distressed and severely distressed markets.

This is what is just IRONICALLY HILARIOUS about attempts to prop up this market. PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT BANKS are doing all in their power to mitigate losses due to BAD IDEAS initiated during the bubble. Their natural inclination is to STOP LOSING MONEY by throttling back their bubble practices. Our governments inclination is to do the exact opposite. This should tell you what is going to happen to our government & BY EXTENSION, us over the next few years. Our government is bankrupting us so that FOR PROFIT institutions will be bailed out.

And of course, I can't let a post get by without putting Renaissance on the front page (as I recall, didn't some local blogger actually predict this last OCTOBER?):

Bend subdivision faces foreclosure
Renaissance Ridge owner says he plans to refinance with local lender

By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin

Published: March 20. 2008 4:00AM PST

Renaissance Ridge, a partially-developed, 210-lot subdivision in southwest Bend might be headed for foreclosure, according to documents filed with the Deschutes County Clerk’s office, but developer Randy Sebastian said he’s working hard to prevent it.

The number of homes going into foreclosure continues to rise in Deschutes County, and Renaissance Ridge would be among the largest casualties to date of the local real estate downturn.

The default notices filed March 7 against Aspen Landing, LLC, a holding company for the subdivision’s developer, Renaissance Homes, say Cleveland-based KeyBank is owed approximately $13.1 million plus interest by Aspen Landing. The Renaissance Ridge subdivision property owned by Aspen Landing is to be put up for auction July 25 in lieu of payment.

Sebastian, the owner of Renaissance Homes, said he is committed to the development located off of Brookswood Boulevard and plans to refinance it with a local lender within 60 days. The Portland resident, who was in Bend on Wednesday for the opening of his company’s design center at 55 N.W. Wall St., said he is not walking way from the development; rather, KeyBank is getting out of the housing market.

“It’s not a Bend issue, not a Renaissance Homes issue; it’s a lender that wants out of the builder/developer market, and they don’t want to extend their loans,” said Sebastian. “I’ve got my life savings out there.”

In a statement sent to The Bulletin by KeyBank and attributed to Roberta Fuhr, a senior vice president and manager of the Homebuilder Group, the bank confirmed it has initiated foreclosure proceedings on Renaissance Ridge in accordance with Oregon law, adding: “This is an unfortunate situation for all involved. It is never a lender’s preference to foreclose in order to enforce its creditor rights.”

The statement also said that although KeyBank has discontinued lending to builders outside of the 13 states in which it has branches, it will continue to originate loans for home builders in Oregon and other states within its branch banking market.

Sixty-four homes in the subdivision have been built or are under construction. Deschutes County land records — in which the subdivision is legally recorded as Aspen Rim — show that 36 homes have been purchased.

Homes in the development currently range from $369,000 to $590,000. The rest of the development has been subdivided, paved with streets and strung with utilities, but the individual lots are unimproved.

The development has dangled some incentives for prospective home buyers in recent months, including offers to buy down interest rates on home buyers’ loans for up to $14,000, and in February 2007, offering a free Mercedes Smart Car.

It also shaved prices on its homes in February by 11 percent to 20 percent, according to The Bulletin’s archives.

Renaissance Ridge homeowner Bill Ormsby, a Southern California retiree who has lived in the development for a year, said he has wondered about the profusion of empty lots in the development but said he feels confident he and his wife won’t be leaving.

“We’re gonna stay put,” said Ormsby. “It shouldn’t affect us too much.”

Renaissance Homes is also developing a 60-home subdivision near Shevlin Park and a 30-unit townhome development in Bend’s NorthWest Crossing. Sebastian said he has sold units in each of his three Bend developments within the past week and that activity is “still strong.”

“There are some positive things happening,” Sebastian said. “We’re not leaving Bend.”

Not the first

Renaissance Ridge is not the first subdivision in Bend to receive a notice of default, a legal device used to notify potential creditors that an entity is behind in the payment of a loan.

In May 2007, Umpqua Bank filed a notice of default on a 38-acre plot of land approved for 265 homes in northeast Bend then owned by Proterra Development Ventures, according to The Bulletin’s archives. The bank sold the land in October 2007 for $10 million to the Edge Development Group, which is in the process of developing a subdivision on the property — titled Mirada — with homes ranging from $189,900 to $249,000.

A notice of default is not a guarantee of foreclosure, said Tom Greene, the president of the Central Oregon Association of Realtors. Greene said the vast majority of defaults are remedied before foreclosure proceedings — usually held six months after a notice of default — ever begin.

“Under Oregon law, the occupant of a home has up until five days before (a property) goes to court to make a deal with the bank, to sell to someone else or buy it (outright),” Greene said.

Greene added that should Renaissance Ridge go to foreclosure, homeowners in the subdivision would be legally unaffected.

Softening market

Home sales in the region slowed down during the past couple months, compared with last year.

Combined single-family home sales in Bend, Redmond and Sisters dropped from 470 in the first two months of 2007 to 263 in the first two months of 2008, according to data provided by the Central Oregon Association of Realtors, and housing supplies in those three cities remain at 11, 12 and seven months, respectively, according to the association.

In addition, through March 17, Deschutes County has recorded 265 notices of default, according to county records, which is an increase from the 75 notices recorded in the same period last year. For all of 2007, the county recorded 591 properties that had entered the earliest stages of foreclosure.

Market fears

Elsewhere in Bend, Buena Vista Custom Homes has rented 18 of the 29 homes in its Forum Meadows development near St. Charles Bend since efforts to sell the homes in mid-December at auction failed to produce a single sale, said Mike Higgins, a spokesman for the Lake Oswego-based builder.

“It was done in a loss position, but it was better than the alternative,” Higgins said. “If we can’t sell them, we’ve got to do something. We looked to auction the homes, but it didn’t work. Builders right now are just trying to make the mess go away.”

Homebuyers and builders have moved from overconfidence to fear of a sluggish market that won’t recover, said Peter Storton, the owner and broker of RE/MAX Town & Country Realty in Sisters.

“The next 12 to 18 months will be a reverse of what we have seen,” Storton said. “We have to hang on to the customers that we have and convince people that it’s a good time to buy.”

Greene wondered if all the recent housing turmoil is ultimately a good thing for homebuyers. He said he hates to see people get into financial trouble, but “land prices in Deschutes County got so high, and this is one of those steps in this correction,” said Greene. “It’s like the stock market; that’s basically what’s happening here.”

What is HILARIOUS is that Sebastian, Storton, and every other Central Oregon RE wanker greases up their MAN-TWAT for the RE-fuckfest every time they even see a reporter.

And of course, hardly a mention that Foreclosures are UP 253% Year Over Year In Deschutes County. Nope, We Are Bend. We Are Different, We Are Special. Sheesh.

And someone wanted me to post a Sweet-Ass piece of Marketing Goodness about the Plaza:

Anonymous mailer regarding fantastic Plaza condos

(S)he said they received this postcard anonymously, not a customer or friend of Breeze & Co. THAT is pretty damned desperate.

And I'll say again that Breeze is merely 49% responsible for this abomination. Her LENDER is 51%, and that is the party that is going DOWN. And in fact has already gone down. The proliferation of this midset will spawn what is probably the most profound shift in thinking with respect to Middle American finances EVER. From an anonymous comment:

Anonymous said...

Today there is no incentive re-pay your debts. Worse case scenario is you won't be able to obtain more credit.
>>

I have a sister near LA, who has been declaring bankruptcy every 7, for the past 40 years, and shes still living the life.

She gets a new house every few years, contract purchase never pays a single payment, or down, gets a new car every year, drives off the lot with nothing down, always stated-income, her husband is a contractor,

About every 3 years they evict her, and about every other year they repo the new car, and she applys for credit cards everywhere she goes, I once ran her SSN for her back when it was legal, and she came back with a dozen aliases,

She has been doing this for 30+ years, ...

Her children, her husband, they do it to. One time I asked her about it, and she said "For what I paid in taxes, they owe me", I thought that funny as she never had a job in her life.

Most of her friends live this way, why should she work, car dealers want to move cars, nobody loses on a repo, nobody loses on a non-paid card, nobody loses on a home repo,

They never even look, most people are just too happy to sell the house, or get the car off the lot.

My sister learned when she was young, that she could enjoy the best things in life for free, without working, and the best part is she's now in her 50's and going strong, even with the new bankruptcy law, shes' still driving new cars, got fuel in the tank, and lives in a new house.

Oh, and she even collects welfare, food stamps, medical-aid for the whole family, her husband works under the table his whole life, there's never been taxes filed, they don't make money, ...

Most of her friends do the same,

Here's the point, and it may not be now, but my guess is more than 10% of Americans live this way in cali, and they're now in Bend, living this way, something has to give,

I have long predicted a return of debtors prison, and some states have done it, but we all pay, and easy-money credit, while it keeps our way-of-life running, simply can't keep running this way, eventually the party will end.

March 21, 2008 4:09 PM

THIS will become the economic status of MILLIONS of Americans. And if our government remains true to form, there wll be yet another overhaul of the Bankruptcy System in this country.

It will be reduced to Bad Check status.

Is it bad? Well, it's more of a blemish on your record than a permanent black mark. They will start expunging bankruptcies & other financial black marks from peoples credit records en masse. They will have to. FICO scores will be rejiggered. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion will, at GOVERNMENT MANDATE, start to "lose" negative financial events on our credit records.

GUARANTEED.

The only consequences for default now are irritating phone calls:

Duncan McGeary said...

I had a bit of a epiphany when I was behind on my credit card debts. Years ago....

If I didn't answer the phone, and let it go to the answering machine, there wasn't a whole more they could do to you....

(Addendum... as Dunc states in the comments, HE DID PAY OFF THESE CARDS!)

And to date, this harassment has been manageable. Not since the Great Depression will so many people be in dire financial STRAITS (yeah, I said "straits"!). They will have to go beyond this to somehow avert the fact that vast swaths of the consuming US public will be UNABLE to make large-scale, credit based purchases (ie HOMES, CARS, APPLIANCES) until our credit system is almost totally abolished.

That means all FICO ills forgiven, credit reporting companies MUST starting expunging black marks SOONER that 10 years.

The responsible will be PUNISHED, the irresponsible will be REWARDED.
Bubble Behavior Rewarded Yet Again.


We are going down the roads the Japs did for the past near 20 years,Prop Up The System At All Costs. What happened to them?

I say again, that Rent & Invest The Diff is the Best Idea EVER, especially in Bend:


Ratio of OFHEO house price index to personal consumption expenditures on rent

What was probably the Most Important Story of the week, at least according to our fearless leaders was this:

High Desert population: Coming or going?

Moving cos. see more departures than arrivals this year

By Deanne Goodman, KTVZ.COM

Census numbers from July 2007, released Thursday, estimate Deschutes County's population at just over 154,000, having grown by almost 34 percent since 2000.

But these days, moving companies are seeing more people leave the area than come.

"We did probably about 12 moves out last month, going to different states and maybe saw five or six come in at the most," said Jason Taroli, a sales manager at Prestige Storage and Moving.

U-Haul also reports more trucks leaving than coming into the area. In 2007, they helped 4.1 percent more families move to Bend than leave. But since January of this year, U-Haul has helped 19.8 percent more families move out of Bend.

Employees at Prestige Moving and Storage blame the cooling real estate market and economy.

"Even last summer was not as busy as we were used to being," Taroli said. "We were still fairly busy but compared to past summers, when we were crazy busy, last summer we were comfortable busy."

But one company says it stays busy whether people move into the area or leave.

"It's expensive to move, and a lot of time people have it in their mind, they'll store their stuff until they can come back and get it. Either way, it works out for us," said Robert Hurzeler, a manager at Secure Storage.

Hurzeler says regardless of the economy, his units stay 100 percent full. Thursday morning, two became vacant and then he got a call a family in Arizona. They reserved the two units for their move to Deschutes County.

"This is a beautiful place, and I think it's going to continue to grow because a lot of people want to live here," Hurzeler added.

If the population keeps growing at the rate it has the past seven years, Deschutes County will pass the 200,000 mark in 2013.


This is The End. We have THOUSANDS of spec homes & empty lots already available. This doesn't even come close to counting the onslaught of foreclosure-bound properties which will be setting the New Low Comps around here. It's going to be a nightmare.

And maybe not surprisingly, almost everyone is relying on the old It's Beautiful In Central Oregon So People Will Forever Want To Move Here.

This reminds me of when I went to The Bahamas many years ago. I went out in "the countryside" of this paradise, only to find hundreds of overgrown concrete foundations that had been poured. They were everywhere. Paradise. But also Desolate Poverty. Bend 2012.

Finally, there is the Cruel, Cruel Irony of Tuscany Buttplugs. This was posted over on BendBB yesterday:

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:
Paul-doh! wrote:
EVIL, WHINY Paul-doh!
If she goes forward, she WILL be a builder. ONCE. Tuscany Idiots will be her first, last, and only HURRAH. She should SAVE HER MONEY, and be a librarian.


Interesting that she just put her personal residence on the MLS:
http://tinyurl.com/32lft9

She's trying to raise $1.8MM in Tuscany Pines Venture Capital by selling the old McMansion. As I said... she will be a builder... ONCE.

And such is the destiny of So Many around here. They will lose everything, home, business, cars, boats, everything. All for want of a bubble fortune.

And speaking of bubbles, there's been a bit of a bubble in the comments section, last weeks count going over 600. Is it due to my brilliant writing? Ummm, almost certainly not. Personally I think there are 4 reasons for the apparent popularity of this blog:

First & foremost, it should speak to some in our local media that people around here are tired of bullshit. They want the straight dope on what the fuck is going on. Our current media sellouts are still butt-fucking their buddies in the RE industry, and when a reporter even THINKS about not towing the line, they are BLOWN OUT THE HATCH. People are sick of this.

Spurting love juice a'comes Mike Hollern
Spreading STD's and a'caller'n
On Costa, cuz he's a'swaller'n
Bulletin standards, they are a'faller'n

Second, the housing bust is not just a national story, it's coming into the Cent OR area FINALLY, after our requisite 18-24 month lag time. We are just starting to see the deleterious effects of this thing. And in a place that has triple to quadruple the exposure to housing, it is virtually impossible to ignore, and pretty naturally people thirst for whatever straight shooting, unvarnished news they can get on the subject.

Third, as an illustration, my wife's initial reaction to blogging, sight unseen, was "that's just a bunch of biased, personal ranters with their own agenda, just like The Bulletin!". Then she began to read the comments on this blog. And read. And read. And read. And her initial comment was, "Wow, there people are posting TONS of hard facts, that are NOT BEING REPORTED ANYWHERE." Contrary to popular delusion, and my own initial preconceptions, bloggers are starting to post headlines before the mass media. I actually look to local Bend blogs now, before the online mass media bullshit of the Bulletin or KTVZ, for "real news".

Look at Fishers Dismissal from The Bulletin; I'm not sure if he actually called OPB, but the only other conceivable source for this story was either this blog or BendBB. There is of course chaff with the wheat, but the amount & quality of the wheat is pretty fucking amazing. Especially since no one here is in it for the money.

Finally, this blogging stuff is pretty fun! I mean where else can you post your own take on things, whether on target (or topic) or not, and KNOW it's going to be aired? Everywhere else, including the blogs of mass media around here, as well as RE blogs that shall remain nameless, have some sort of moderation, and that means DISCRIMINATION no matter how you slice it. And it almost always ends up egregiously in error.

Many moons ago "Becky Breeze" posted to a local board, "her" comment was removed as a fake (which is why I can provide no link to it), but then was reinstated once sufficient verification procedures were satisfied by the moderator.

I mean, sorry, but that's just stupid. Neither before nor after was "her" identification EVER proven.

Give people an open, brawling, dog-eat-dog forum without oversight or moderation... and good things will come. Well, at least that's my opinion.

I'll end with this piece on The Great Deleveraging, something that will be the defining trend of Our Time:

The Great Unwind has begun, Citigroup warns
Avoid leveraged companies, countries and consumers, bank's strategists say
By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:51 p.m. EDT March 19, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Great Unwind has begun, Citigroup Inc. strategists warned on Wednesday.

As markets and economies de-leverage across the globe, investors should avoid companies and countries that have grown to rely too much on borrowed money, they said.

That means favoring public-equity markets over hedge funds, private-equity and real estate, while leaning toward emerging market countries and away from developed nations like the U.S., the bank's global equity strategy team advised.

Within equity markets, the financial-services should be avoided because it's still over-leveraged, while other companies have stronger balance sheets, the strategists said.

"Steady growth, low inflation and rock-bottom interest rates encouraged economic and financial participants across the world economy to gear up over the past few years," Robert Buckland and his colleagues on Citi's global strategy team wrote in a note to clients. "Easy money encouraged many to buy a bigger house, a bigger car or a bigger speculative position."

"But now, any behavior that relied upon continued access to easy money is being dramatically reassessed," they added. "Leveraged banks must lend less, leveraged consumers must consume less, leveraged companies must acquire or invest less, and leveraged speculators must speculate less."

Financial-services companies are the most vulnerable to this reduction of borrowed money across the globe, they said.

During the last credit crisis in 1998, European banks were leveraged 26 to 1. In the early part of this decade, leverage grew to 32 to 1. Now the sector is geared 40 to 1 on average, according to Citi's European bank research team.

"The banks have a long way to go," the strategists said. "We would continue to avoid the sector while they are de-leveraging."

Other companies are in much better shape, having rebuilt cash from strong earnings since 2003. Emerging market companies have developed particularly strong balance sheets, having learnt hard lessons from the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.

However, even though some companies may not have much debt themselves, they may be exposed to over-leveraged customers or highly leveraged investors, Citigroup warned.

Automakers, home builders and electronics retailers benefited as customers borrowed money cheaply in recent years to buy cars, houses and flat-screen TVs. That attractive financing is now being withdrawn.

"There will be plenty of companies that have strong balance sheets, so may not be most immediately vulnerable to the credit crunch," Citi said. "But they may find that their leveraged customers are vulnerable."

The difference, or spread, between interest rates on investment-grade corporate bonds and Treasury bonds has jumped in recent months, even though most companies aren't very leveraged.

This widening may be caused by leveraged investors such as hedge funds having to sell good quality assets to meet margin calls, or requests for more cash or collateral.

"It is the leverage of the investors who hold these bonds that is now being brutally exposed," Matt King, a Citigroup credit strategist, said.

"We are now confronted by a broad bloodbath in the credit markets," Citigroup said. " The most leveraged paper is falling in value because it is leveraged, and now the least leveraged paper is also falling in value because it is owned by leveraged investors."

Investors should also avoid hedge funds themselves, along with private equity, Citi added. Both types of investment rely at least partly on borrowed money to generate returns.

"Private equity returns have been especially strong. Without leverage it will be much harder to meet excessive investor expectations [most surveys suggest 20% annual returns are expected from the asset class]," Citi warned. "Similarly, many hedge funds have generated healthy uncorrelated returns by adopting cautious underlying strategies, but applying significant leverage. Again, that looks unsustainable in the current environment."

Leveraged economies, like the U.S., should also be avoided, in favor of emerging market countries, which have reduced borrowing, the bank advised.

With less capital sloshing around the world, and the dollar falling, the U.S. may have to compete more to finance its deficits.

"The U.S. shows up as the world's greatest consumer of external capital," Citi noted. So it "has the most to lose as this capital becomes less freely available."End of Story
Alistair Barr is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.

Wanna know where the Next Big Thing is? It's here, managing The Big Unwind, the greatest De-Leveraging of all time. Some will make BILLIONS in "managing" this debacle for the victims. Or should I say "victims".

The unfortunate ultimate result is that the US will become The Worlds Deadbeats.

250 comments:

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Duncan McGeary said...

Er....I do want to make it clear that I DID pay off my credit cards, in full.

I just realized that, since I had no capital assets, there was very little they could do to me if I didn't.

I was such small fish, I doubt anything would've happened.

But I do believe in paying your debts, even if they're screwing you will rates...

Anonymous said...

I want to fuck Homer, and bad, but first I have to payoff these liens.

Liens used as means to compel payment Project owners, subcontractors work to sort out Roberts’ obligations

By Diane Dietz
The Register-Guard
Published: March 23, 2008 12:00AM


When Gale Roberts Construction company filed for bankruptcy this month, it set off a chain reaction involving dozens of sub­contractors — and the owners of the projects they were working on.

For the subcontractors, it has meant scrounging for pay for work they’d done for Roberts on three Eugene projects.

For the project owners, it has meant learning that they will have to pony up a second time for work that subcontractors had done, and that the project owners already had paid Roberts for.

Most of the people affected say they never saw the failure of the longtime Eugene company coming. And most say they bear Roberts’ owners no ill will.

The situation is a case study of what happens when a large general contractor such as Roberts fails, and the difficulties in sorting out what some in the industry have called a no-win situation.

Oregon construction law allows the subcontractors to collect from property owners even though their initial contract was not with the owner but with the general contractor. Even if the project owners, or developers, have paid the general contractor, they are still on the hook for any money owed the subs by the general contractor.

In Eugene, some of the negotiations between project owners and subcontractors have been amicable. At least one has turned into a bitter, sprawling argument that has yet to be concluded.

“For the most part, the gang has all hung in there because they believe we are trying to do our very best to get them taken care of,” said Kent Jennings, part owner of Jenningspitts Development, which employed Roberts to build The Farm, a condo development on Cal Young Road.

None of the owners of the three projects that Roberts had been working on — Arlie & Company, Jenningspitts Development and Metropolitan Affordable Housing — would disclose the total sum that Roberts owed the subcontractors.

The amount appears limited to their December pay, said Jennings, who like others said he was surprised by the company’s failure, but didn’t have any animosity toward its owner.

“Jiminy Christmas. Micheal (Roberts) has been the president of the Chamber of Commerce,” Jennings said. “He’s given tremendous amounts of time and energy to this community in charitable ways, as well as being a good guy doing business. You know, it just happened. He lost track of it. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Leverage counts

When a contractor fails to pay his subcontractors for any reason, including a business failure, the state law gives the subcontractors some powerful leverage. The subs have the right to place a lien on the properties where they had worked if they have not been paid for the work.

Six subcontractors and their suppliers placed eight liens worth a total of $818,992on Eugene-based Arlie & Co.’s $53 million Crescent Village, a mixed use project in northeast Eugene. Thirty-three others were content to first negotiate for payment with Scott Diehl, Arlie’s chief operating officer, for the lost money.

Only one subcontractor filed a $136,570 lien against another big project, the $18 million WestTown on 8th apartment building in downtown Eugene. About 10 other subcontractors on that project went the less contentious route of talking with the developer, a nonprofit organization that builds low-to-moderate income housing.

The liens are a potent hammer: The financiers of the projects expect the project owners to immediately remove the liens, because liens compromise the banks’ security. This means the project owners either have to come up with large sums to pay the subcontractors what they are owed, or post bonds guaranteeing payment.

Bonding means Arlie paid a premium to Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland to hold a pool of money as a guarantee that the subcontractors that filed liens would eventually be paid if their claims were found valid.

Posting the bond meant the liens were taken off the property and attached to the bond.

Subcontractors still negotiate with Arlie or take court action against Arlie to collect. The bond money is a last resort — and if it is necessary for Fidelity to pay, it will immediately move to collect the sum from Arlie.

This lien-clearing procedure, however, is only one of the costly steps that has to be taken to put the projects back on track.

Picking up the pieces on the projects also means re-establishing, or bringing in new, general contractors.

In the Roberts case, this cost some of the project owners additional money because the new contractors needed time — and pay — to get up to speed.

The process set all of the projects back about two months, which means the owners will lose thousands of dollars in rent money because of the delay — not to mention additional interest payments and, potentially, higher interest rates if those rates go up during the delay.

“It’s extremely expensive. It’s extremely painful. And you just deal with it and move on,” said Kent Jennings, whose Jenningspitts Development is a contract developer on WestTown on 8th on behalf of the nonprofit Metropolitan Affordable Housing.

Some contentious dealings

Slapped with eight liens, Arlie & Co. had to put up a bond to clear those liens so construction and rentals at Crescent Village could go on.

Arlie officials say they already had given Roberts — lately called Roberts Professional Construction Services — the money to pay the subcontractors, but it did not, according to the company.

Some subcontractors said the liens were purely procedural and they expect an amiable settlement with Arlie.

“What I’m seeing so far from the owners and general contractor is that they seem to want to act in good faith,” said Ken Tellez, Springfield branch manager for the Eugene-based Christenson Electric, which filed a $94,788 lien against Arlie. “The wheels turn a little slow, though, with some of this. A person does have to have some patience.”

But with another lien against Arlie, negotiations have become tense on both sides.

Jerry Vicars, president of Fabrication & Mechanical Group Inc. of Eugene, filed a lien saying Arlie owes him $558,014 for forging the balconies for the multistory buildings at Crescent Village.

But in bankruptcy filings, Micheal Roberts, president of the defunct general contractor, reported the sum owed to Vicars as $225,201.

Now Arlie and Vicars are locked in a quarrel over how much, exactly, Arlie owes. Vicars told The Register-Guard earlier that he has interest payments on his line of credit. He owes suppliers and his own subcontractors.

Arlie officials say they’ve already settled with the majority of the subcontractors and they’d be glad to settle with Vicars, only Vicars has refused for weeks to provide invoices to substantiate how much his business was owed by Roberts.

“We have verified every single contractor with the amounts due except one, and that’s with Jerry Vicars,” said John Musumeci of Arlie & Company, a family owned business he operates with his wife Suzanne.

“By the time this is over with, everybody is going to get paid what has been agreed upon,” he said.

The next step that Vicars could take to force Arlie to pay is to file a foreclosure in Lane County circuit court. There, he would lay out for a judge the basis for his claim for $558,014 and Arlie would counter with evidence for a sum that it believes accurate.

Vicars declined comment on what his plans are. “My attorney says not to say anything to anybody,” he said.

In the meantime, he said he has re-hired his crews and they’re preparing to work on their next big job: The Keizer city hall and police station.

Keeping the faith

Only one company filed a lien against the WestTown on 8th project, and that was a Canadian firm, Minaean Power Structures, which erected the steel ribs of the mammoth, 102-unit apartment building downtown.

When news of the Roberts bankruptcy broke, Kent Jennings was point person on behalf of WestTown on 8th and also for the separate housing project that Jenningspitts owns, The Farm.

Jennings said he gathered the subcontractors together on the site and told them what he was going to do to try and recover their lost payments.

“We’re a community and if you look these people in the eye and tell them you are going to pay them — or you tell them what the problem is and that you’re doing your very best to pay them — they’ll hang in there with you, and they have,” Jennings said.

“You have to deliver — and people have to have faith — and the faith and the delivery part have to go hand in hand.”

Determining how much to pay the subcontractors wasn’t so difficult because Micheal Roberts aided Jennings by supplying the construction company’s records and its accountant to help reconcile the sums, Jennings said.

“A lot of builders in his situation would have thrown his cell phone in a garbage can and gone to a bar and gotten drunk, but not Micheal,” Jennings said.

“He stood in there as best a man could possibly do in a godawful situation. He tried to transition as best he could. He didn’t run away from anything.”

In most cases, Roberts’ records and the subcontractor’s records matched up, Jennings said.

Minaean released its lien on March 17 without requiring a bond.

“We essentially came to a compromise that works for both of us,” said Richard Herman, executive director of Metropolitan Affordable Housing.

In the case of The Farm, Jennings and his partners simply put up the money and paid the subcontractors. With WestTown on 8th, the situation was much more complex, Jenning said. The affordable housing was being built with tax credit financing and the financiers, who are in the East, needed to understand the situation before approving a large draw to pay the subcontractors, he said.

“There’s money owed to people and we’ve got a very large approved draw request. It’s been complicated and its been slow but it is flowing,” he said.

“I’ve been in business in Eugene for 35 years and I plan on being in business in Eugene until I can’t do business anymore.

“It’s just important to do the right thing, or at least try, I have to keep qualifying (my statements) because these situations are difficult and you can only do what you can do.

“But we’re trying, and so far so good.”

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Actually Dunc, I think it's pretty impressive you hung this info out in public. Precious few, I think, would do the same.

Actually, I'm really interested in what exactly happened... possibly too personal. But I think many around here will have to undergo the same process SOON, and might learn from your experience.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And I actually would not have written about the topic, except it seemed fair game since you have posted on your blog & here as well, a few times. Sort of seems you have either gotten over the stigma of it, if there was any to begin with.

I guess the point of why I brought it up, was that it will become a FAR more common occurrence in the near future, and there will be some sort of systemic approach to handling it. It's one thing when 1-2% of the country is at any given time in financial straits... but not 10-20%.

I've heard that "DON'T PAY, WALK AWAY" is becoming very acceptable in CA recently, and it's spreading like wildfire. There's really no choice.

Anonymous said...

The Ode To Hollern bit... hilarious!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I'm "re-printing" this from last weeks comments section because it's so horrendous:

Even during hard times, don’t forget about Bend’s dreams
By John Costa / The Bulletin
Published: March 23. 2008 4:00AM PST

Given the economic realities of the day, it figures that dreamers are in short supply and realists rule the roost.

Still, it is important to look beyond today and think creatively about the future.

We are in a difficult time.

The real estate and building industry, which has made us all a little wealthier, has fallen on difficult times.

It’s happened before. We’ll recover, and it will happen again.

In the meantime, people, businesses and governments in the region are struggling.

Last week, the city of Bend projected a shortfall of about $20 million in revenues of about $200 million over two years and wisely began the process of trimming expenses.

It’s the right thing to do, which does not mean it is not very painful.

We won’t have the services we are accustomed to, and people will lose jobs.

It is hard to soften the impact of this downturn.

But there is something we can do for the next one: We can continue to diversify the job base of Bend and the region.

“I’m never giving in,” Bend City Councilman Jim Clinton said. “Diversification is the only tool to avoid the oscillations” of cyclical economics, he said.

That’s an erudite way of saying — I think — that putting too many eggs in one basket is not the wisest course.

One of Bend’s best opportunities for diversification is Juniper Ridge, the 1,500-acre city property that holds the dream of a major master development of housing, of course, but more importantly a place for a university, research and industrial development.

It’s not the only part of a more robust and diversified future, but it is a big one.

“A university is a catalyst,” Clinton said, for attracting innovative, knowledge-based industries.

“Otherwise,” he added, “we are like any other town” begging for top quality jobs.

As much as we all love Central Oregon, that’s the position we are in now.

We have quality of life in spades. And there isn’t a better place to raise a family.

But in the competition for information-based, high-tech or research companies, what we have to offer is not, as painful as it is to say, distinct.

That’s the truth.

Clinton’s council colleague Mark Capell agrees with him.

“I think absolutely that I would be surprised if a (single) council member is (opposed) to moving forward on this (Juniper Ridge) project,” Capell said.

It is slowed down a bit right now for solid reasons, he said.

The city wanted to make sure it had the best deal it could with potential developers, and there are traffic and other infrastructure costs that are significant.

But the master plan for the project, he added, is just months away from being completed.

“There are cool things going on,” Capell said.

While Juniper Ridge certainly is at the top of the dreams list, Capell said, it’s not the only interesting possibility.

Among other things, he believes there is incredible potential at Bend Airport.

“There is the potential for (a great number) of good paying jobs.”

“If we can find the money for a control tower and put in some of the other support needed,” he said, the job growth potential is great.

Whatever it is, it is critical to keep thinking like his and Clinton’s alive.

Of course, money is tight, and the focus of city managers is on getting through this tough patch in the best possible way.

But a decade or more from now, there will be another tough patch.

And we will have learned nothing and failed miserably as a city and region if we are as dependent on a single industry — whatever it is — as we are today.

Whether it is a university-centered research and industry complex or an airport-based aviation center or anything else like them, we owe it to the future to keep our boldest dreams alive.

John Costa is editor-in-chief of The Bulletin


This lunatic's "Proclamation From On High" attitude is sickening. HE is guilty of fanning the flames most of the "ills" he is talking about.

He is, like most good charlatans, mixing fact & bullshit in just the right quantities so that what he's saying sounds believable.

"Real Estate is in the shitcan?"

Wow! What insight!

Then he goes on to talk about the Cyclicality Of It All, like This Sort Of Things Happens All The Time.

NO. It doesn't. This is a 1,000 year storm, and it won't happen again in our lifetimes.

"The jobs cuts in local government are good"?

NO. They are NOT.

We SHOULD have RAISED FEES & SAVED during the good times, and SPENT MONEY & lowered fees NOW. We are doing the exact opposite.

We SHOULD HAVE diversified in other sectors DURING THE BUBBLE, We did not, and wanks like Costa DID NOT WANT THAT AT ALL.

This guy is a PATHOLOGICAL LIAR. He's spouting forth a bunch of OBVIOUS home-spun homilies, but if you look close you see he is INCAPABLE of thinking even remotely rationally about our current situation.

He's in Bubble-Mode. He's in This-To-Shall-Pass Mode.

WRONG. It will not pass, it ain't the same old slow down this time.

THIS IS A FUCKING DISASTER COSTA, and you and your buttplug golfing buddies ARE TO BLAME.

FUCKING SCUMBAG.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...


As much as we all love Central Oregon, that’s the position we are in now.


Classic "reveal" into the mind of a CULT LEADER WHO IS STILL DRINKING THE KOOL-AID.

"We all"?

FUCK YOU JIM JONES COSTA.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

While Juniper Ridge certainly is at the top of the dreams list, Capell said, it’s not the only interesting possibility.

Interesting admission that City Councilors are DREAMING. Out of touch with REALITY.

JR has NOT slowed down for "good reasons"... it's slowed down because REALITY has reared it's ugly head, and THE MONEY IS GONE.

We're BROKE, and LUNATICS like Mark Capell are still is DREAM WORLD mode.

Wake up WHITE PEEPUL!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

We have quality of life in spades.

Hey! Don't forget the Mexicans!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

It is hard to soften the impact of this downturn.

But there is something we can do for the next one: We can continue to diversify the job base of Bend and the region.

“I’m never giving in,” Bend City Councilman Jim Clinton said. “Diversification is the only tool to avoid the oscillations” of cyclical economics, he said.

That’s an erudite way of saying — I think — that putting too many eggs in one basket is not the wisest course.


Uh huh. See, then why don't you sell-out fuckers, STOP SELLING OUT TO RE!

You COCK SUCKERS are still selling out to RE, right NOW!

"NORMALS" have been talking about "DIVERSIFICATION" of our job base throughout the entirety of this bubble, but you fuckers thought "DOUBLE DOWN ON RED AGAIN" was the wiser course of action.

Closing the barn door after the horse has escaped... ran down the hill... got on a boat... was processed into dog food... and fed to Crooked River ranch dogs & poisoned them.

OK, it's too LATE! Costa, you & that pack of buttplugs on City Council are 5 years beind the fucking curve!

You should be SPENDING & LOWERING FEES to stave off this disaster, but that is IMPOSSIBLE now cuz you DOUBLED DOWN ON RED & THE MONEY IS FUCKING GONE!

MY GOD!

Just go over & grease up Jim Clintons MAN-TWAT, and do what you do best, you fucking pathological lying excuse for dogshit. FUCK YOU COSTA.

Anonymous said...

We have quality of life in spades. And there isn’t a better place to raise a family. - BULL

*

First of all HOMEE, thanks for reposting this.

Secondly this goes back to Bruce-Pussy the other night saying, "WHAT is wrong with a 17yr old getting Blow Job from a 14yr old girl"?

Here it folks, like the nurse said to me the another night 'infections' in Bend are ASTRO.

A 17yr old ( or older 'boy' ) is highly likely to have STD's ( venereal ), this past week national reports 1/4 of white-girlz, 1/2 of black girls have STD, most oral.

Blow-Jobs are RAMPANT in Bend, Bruce-Pussy doesn't have children, I have friends that do, in our elementary schools there are coming home reports of girls giving blows jobs. Its an epidemic here in Bend.

Jr-High is rampant oral sex.

High-School like Summit is latch-key kids, drugs,

The MOST common problem so say my friends, is about 1/4 of parents buy the drugs & alcohol for the kids and let them bring their friends over.

It's the 'cali-family' values program friends, you wanted it, and its HERE.

MY POINT? Quality of Life? Good place to raise the kids? Best in 20 years?

FUCK YOU BULL.

p.s. FUCKING BRUCE-PUSSY, the judge did the right thing, 17yr old boyzs are why the 14yr old girls have ORAL STD, and my nurse friend from ST-CHARLES says that the rate of 'infection' in Bend is over 25% for girls under 14 in Bend.

Great place to raise kids, I didn't say in then, but I'm saying it now BP, the reason the judge threw the book at your 17yr old hero, is because its a fucking epidemic.

Anonymous said...

We're BROKE, and LUNATICS like Mark Capell are still is DREAM WORLD mode.

*

Knife-River is about Hap-Taylor, who is about Mark Capell.

Developing Juniper-Ridge to date is-was $800k/acre to blast rock, all the money went to Hap-Taylor ( Mark Capell ).

There is $20M missing from city-hall treasury. Knife-River got $20M last year just from JR and a Building they sold the City of Bend. $15M for making JR 'shovel ready' for Les-Schwab, and $5M for an old building near JR.

They say $20M is missing, they can't find the money.

Mark Capell knows that Knife-River is going to have to leave dodge, if they don't do another $20M corporate-welfare somewhere in Bend, to keep Knife-River busy.

Bruce Pussy is a fucking MORON. Keep fucking talking the dream, but remember ONLY taxpayer money will ever be used to BLOW-ROCK at Juniper-Ridge, as NO rational person is going to use THEIR money develop that SHIT-HOLE, city of bend paid .06 cents/acre, and they over-paid.

Anonymous said...

While Juniper Ridge certainly is at the top of the dreams list, Capell said, it’s not the only interesting possibility.

Among other things, he believes there is incredible potential at Bend Airport.

*

There you have it, $20M will soon be spent of taxpayer money so Knife-River ( Capell ) can stay in business in the area.

What might they do? Build a bigger airport, bigger than the one at Redmond.

Why not? It's just like the 1930's 'works programs', gotta keep the Les-Schwab & Knife-River busy, CDO-MUNIS are still easy to write, lots borrow what's left of Bends credit.

Who gives a fuck about bankrupting bend?? It was always about feed the BOSS-HOGG pigs.

Look at fucking SDC's lets drop so we can incentive-ize the building process.

PR&MARKETING, and corporate welfare, but what do you expect, its all these people know, its all they have ever known, like COSTA, all he knows is BULLshit. Don't expect anything else,

Much better to just sit back and watch stuff implode.

Hell it might at this point for bloggers to be quiet and say "who would have figured", "what a mystery", ... Trouble now that the BULL has admitted a problem, YOU FUCKING know they'll offer a solution.

It will be a JOBS debt fiasco for Knife-River & Les-Schwab. Got a problem? We got a solution.

We also have to help out HOLLERN, he's the biggest employer when you integrate all fifty of his area LLC's, got to create projects with taxpayer debt, to help him out.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

While Juniper Ridge certainly is at the top of the dreams list, Capell said, it’s not the only interesting possibility.

Among other things, he believes there is incredible potential at Bend Airport.


It's like hearing depression-era children talk about Santa Claus.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

When a contractor fails to pay his subcontractors for any reason, including a business failure, the state law gives the subcontractors some powerful leverage. The subs have the right to place a lien on the properties where they had worked if they have not been paid for the work.

THIS is why bundled projects, aka CONDOS & BUSINESS CONDO'S, will go down. The general contractor goes broke, then anyone fool enough to buy in early, will PAY AGAIN.

"But I'm getting it at 50% off!"

Not when you pay twice, you ain't.

tim said...

Hope everyone read my "tin ear" comments on Costa (final comments of last week's post).

I can't remember who said he had a tin ear, but that was dead right. Aside from the editorial being stupid, the writing is bad.

tim said...

Reproduced here:

timothy said...

"We are in a difficult time.

The real estate and building industry, which has made us all a little wealthier, has fallen on difficult times."

Tin ear worthy of Jack Haley.
March 23, 2008 8:14 AM
timothy said...

>>this tough patch

>>we owe it to the future to keep our boldest dreams alive

>>We have quality of life in spades

>>It is hard to soften

Arrrgh! Vogon poetry!

Dude must have a powerful, muscular right arm from turning the crank of his cliche machine.
March 23, 2008 8:21 AM

Anonymous said...

"Secondly this goes back to Bruce-Pussy the other night saying, "WHAT is wrong with a 17yr old getting Blow Job from a 14yr old girl"?
-----------

Mormons claim abstinence, but go at it like dogs in heat. Rampent sex from both the guys and the gals... they are very horny, if I do generalize a bit.

Sad. Morals from our very own Bruce-pussy.

But don't worry, I sense a anti-Bush rant and some sermonizing from the Preacher Kos and his daily diaries.

Anonymous said...

It's like hearing depression-era children talk about Santa Claus.

*

Yes, but SANTA is coming, and SANTA just gave Knife-River $20M last year in Secret Session, to date NOT a comment anywhere, oh but the 3/4 of it helps Les-Schwab, and the other 1/4 the building, that help BAT, ah just like Santa helping people, so does the city of Bend.

Trouble is OUR santa is 'bad-santa', and he's robbing the city-treasure to pay for his generosity.

Given that to date all fraud in Bend is 100% safe, it will continue. The only thing I see coming is the June trial of Friedman Bend HOA Mayor, and his crony's, but like JR/Kuratek they'll find a way to avoid trial, and the taxpayer will pay.

Anonymous said...

Sad. Morals from our very own Bruce-pussy.

*

Our bruce-pussy does generate his own blogger-fodder.

I only imagine what working on a 10,000 executive session complaint would do to my morals.

Look what all the sermonizing did for Spitzer.

The MAIN POINT, however and lets NOT let the BULL get away with this, and that is BEND-OREGON is NOT a good place to raise kids. Bend Public schools are mediocre in national comparison, and drug-use is rampant.

Sexual infections are an epidemic in young girls.

Great place to raise kids. Not. Just one more continual myth coming out of our BULL.

Anonymous said...

Homer,

Too much national, you need more Bend.

One thing given your obsession with national is "election year", you don't focus enough on that.

The republicans are simply giving away the store to get past this election.

I agree with Rogers as always, even though I don't watch TV, for the hell of I watched your stupid fucking video. Can't we get away from TV even here??

I have long said and agree, and rogers said it that their will be a 'Volcker' who will do what it takes and bring back 20% interest rates.

Thats why +2010 are going to be so terrible, with our 18-month Bend lag. Bend will be at its worse, just about the time that we're in the next ADMIN and they start rescuing the dollar by raising rates.

Many of these 'best in 20 suckers' that by now, are buying on variable, because of the 4% prime, they're going to see 5X increase in payments when it goes 20%. The foreclosures the pain will go on for years.

The National story is told too much, and over-sold.

Bend is the worst place to be in terms of over-valuation.

Focus more on Bend Homer. I know its hard, but there was tons of blogger-fodder last week.

I don't see the point of always post TV clips, I don't own a TV, but I sure everyone here lives in front of a TV, as most Americans do. This should be an attempt to get away from that shit.

tim said...

The danger of Youtube clips is that even people who try to stay away from TV get TV. Pretty soon YouTube will be hi definition (there's already a trick to get to Google's test of higher quality videos on YouTube) and we'll all be zombies again.

The difference is we'll be picking the clips we want to watch the way people pick the political sites. On the Internet, people get drawn in with like-minded people and eventually become caricatures of themselves.

Duncan McGeary said...

I didn't think there was much stigma because I didn't do anything legally, morally, or ethically wrong.

I fell behind on payments for two months in 1997; not even enough to affect me credit rating.

But it intiated an avalanche of pestering phone calls.

Sold the mall store at the end of 1997 and caught back up.


Oh, and the Costa tin ear comment? That was me....

Bewert said...

Re: morals

If you think jailing a 17 year old for consensual oral sex is going to change anything, you are living in la-la land. Kids have been experimenting with sex forever, and since our media culture is driven by sex and violence, it's not getting any better.

Educating them on prevention of STD's would do us a lot more good. For the last eight years we have been teaching abstinence (which has been proven be as worthless as DARE) instead of prevention. And now people are suprised at the level of STD's in our high school kids?

Anonymous said...

More sermonizing from Brother Brucey-pussy.

Since he hates abstinence, maybe Brucey-pussy will cut a YouTube video of him unrolling a condom, and then inserting it into his Brucey-pussy.

Do it, Brucey-pussy, you know... for the kids! Protect the kids from STDs!

Be the video, Mr. YouTube-Pussy.

tim said...

>>Oh, and the Costa tin ear comment? That was me....

You were right. He needs to start reading his work out loud, which is the best cure.

---

Bruce, sounds like you need to get the statutory rape laws changed. 17 on 17 I understand. 14 on 14 I understand. 17 on 14 makes me sick. But if you make it legal, I'll accept it as legal, even if it makes me sick.

If a 17 year old messes with my 14 year old, he'd better convince his parents to leave town, and quick.

Anonymous said...

Over on the JR blog, Bruce writes:
"$2.5+ million dollars from Bend taxpayers without even a cursory debate. Whatever debate was held was in secret, in Executive Session. Not to be heard be the people actually paying this bill.

This is not only disgusting, but also may be illegal. The State Ethics Commission will weigh in on this."

Wow, brucy-pussy is disgusted by no debate votes (nothing illegal there, they discussed in Exec session, then voted in Regular session when they where all talked out), but is not disgusted when adults (17 yr olds are mostly adults) commit statutory rape.

Maybe Gov Goldschmidt was a buddy of yours when he had consensual sex with his 14 yr old babysitter?

I guess it is true, Utahinians like their women folk nice and young.

And Bruce, really, did you REALLY need to add this stupid statement: "The State Ethics Commission will weigh in on this."

The only way the Ethics Comm. will do ANYTHING about Bend city council is with a complaint. And given how lame you are with your lies about submitting complaints, regardless of if its 1 page or 100 pages, they ain't gonna see a complaint in my life time.

tim said...

This is exactly the frustrating problem with Bruce. He leaves a trail of unpalatable statements that can be used to discredit anything he wants to do.

"Oh, that's the Bruce guy from the blogs. Don't worry about him--he's in favor of statutory rape."

Bruce, you're like a guy who cuts off his manhood--you make yourself impotent.

Bewert said...

Re: adults (17 yr olds are mostly adults)

No, they aren't under the law. Simple as that. Fucking teen sex goes back beyond the Bible to the Talmud. Our culture has simply made it worse. The only way you are going to keep your 14-year old girl from thinking about, and then maybe experimenting, with sex, is....why don't you give me an answer to that. 17 on 14 is senior on freshman. If the senior is a jock, even worse.

But you people want to put him into prison? Don't you think that is just a little over the top?

I'm not fucking in favor of statuatory rape. Where the fuck did that come from asshole? Because "(17 yr olds are mostly adults)"? They aren't, and it isn't.

So you want to put every teenager who receives a blowjob from someone X years younger than him into prison? That's fucking stupid. If it was a 20-, 30- or 40- something coach or music teacher, I would totally agree with you. A peer is someone that is acceptable, as uncomfortable as it is.

Have you stupid fucks ever spent any time in our schools and seen the public displays of affection?

Thing is, they don't really seem that different from the 70's, when I was there.

Yes, I agree, if I had a 14-year old daughter and she was all excited about going out with a senior, I would be a pretty fucking upset, too.

But that's fucking reality. Don't like it? Perhaps you can chain her to her bed. Or maybe you have managed to instill enough of a sense of self and strength to feel confident she won't fall for the young man's charms and jump right into the sack with him.

What else can you do?

And this is my last fucking comment on the subject.

Anonymous said...

He leaves a trail of unpalatable statements that can be used to discredit anything he wants to do.

*

That's the problem with his JR work, yes he got the LS-Sales agreement and we needed that, but all else he's done as been a confusing redundant side-track.

When he first showed up, I assumed him to be an agent provocateur, no job, dives right in, ... Now its been almost six months, and other than the LS-Sales agreement he still hasn't accomplished anything that a lot of talk.

He complains that city-hall manager dissed him, but he does wacko shit. You have to wonder whose side he's on?

Bewert said...

Re: Bruce, you're like a guy who cuts off his manhood--you make yourself impotent.

Sorry, Timmy, I state things like I see them. I don't really have a overriding plan that makes me slant or not state things because it might fuck up "the plan".

Impotent?

You know, you guys keep fucking talking about how I am doing this huge doc, about how all I have to do is send them a letter saying "the Bend City Council is breaking the law".

That is not only fucking stupid, it is amzingly naive.

If you want some to take you seriously, you follow their rules. In lawsuits, it's called the Local Rules. In the Ethics Commission, the "rules" are here. They state that:

What should I do if I suspect a public official of a Government Standards and Practices law violation?

Complete a complaint form found under "Forms and Publications" on our home page or write to the GSPC outlining the violation and providing as much detail as possible.

When possible, provide documentation. For example, if the allegation is failure to declare a potential conflict of interest, include meeting minutes that record the discussion preceding the vote in question.

If the GSPC receives no specific information, staff will request the person submitting the complaint to provide more information before action can be taken.

What happens when the GSPC receives a complaint?

When the GSPC staff receives a complaint, the executive director first reviews the complaint to determine if the alleged violation falls within the GSPC’s jurisdiction. If the complaint is not within the commission’s jurisdiction, the executive director sends the complainant a letter to advise that the commission cannot take action.

If the matter does appear to be within the commission’s jurisdiction, the director notifies the public official named in the complaint.

About 90 percent of the cases reviewed by the commission are initiated as a result of written complaints. The balance of cases are initiated by the commission at regular commission meetings as the result of information obtained from other sources, such as government agencies or media coverage.

Preliminary Review Phase. When deciding to pursue an issue, the commission opens a case file and initiates a preliminary review. A decision to conduct a preliminary review means that the violation appears to be within the commission’s jurisdiction.

The preliminary review phase must be completed within 90 days of the filing of the complaint or initiation of action on the part of the commission. The objective of preliminary review is to determine if sufficient cause exists to conduct an investigation. "Cause" is defined by statute as "... a substantial objective basis for believing that an offense or violation may have been committed and the person who is the subject of an inquiry may have committed the offense or violation."
The GSPC is required by law to conduct the preliminary review confidentially. The GSPC will make no public disclosure or comment related to this matter other than to acknowledge that a complaint is pending if an inquiry is made. The confidentiality requirement applies only to GSPC personnel. The ability of any other persons to publicly comment about this matter is not affected.

A staff report will be prepared at the conclusion of the preliminary review and will be considered by the GSPC in executive session. If a finding of cause is not made, that matter will be dismissed. If cause is found, an investigation will be conducted. In either instance, all information concerning this matter will then become available to the public.

Investigative Phase. If the commission finds "cause" to pursue the case, the investigative phase begins. The commission has 120 days to investigate the issues, during which time it may issue subpoenas to obtain documents and oral testimony.

A staff report will be prepared at the conclusion of the investigatory phase and will be considered by the GSPC. The commission may:

Dismiss the case
Continue the investigation for no more than 30 days
Move to a contested case proceeding
Seek a negotiated settlement or
Take other appropriate action if justified.

If the commission decides a contested case hearing is in order, the public official may elect to move the process into the Marion County Circuit Court.


I have documented this to be such a fucking slam dunk that not even Judy Stiegler can derail it to protect fellow Democrat Mayor Bruce Abernethy.

If any of you fucking whining lame-ass cunts would make an effort to do anything like this, I actually fucking listen to your whining.

It's my ass on the line, not Timmy's ("you think Tim is my real name") or any of you fucking pathetic anonymouse's.

Think about that.

I actually fucking stood up, and did it under my own fucking name from the start.

I wish a few others had that courage around here. Because if no one does, we are fucked.

Bewert said...

Re: He complains that city-hall manager dissed him

Huh?

Where?

Pete Sachs, BULL reporter dissed me, but then at the last meeting he broke off from interviewing Kuratek and acknowledged me.

What exactly do you want from me on JR?

You know, it's my real name on those records requests, it my real name on my JR website, and all of you fucking whining pansies are scared to even think about going public.

Dunc is the only one.

tim said...

>>I actually fucking stood up, and did it under my own fucking name from the start.

Problem is you've used up your own good real name, which I've not done since I saw my young naive comments permanently plastered in Usenet.

Understand my complaint, Bruce, and don't conflate it with Buster's. I _never_ bitched about you not getting stuff done. All I've ever done is point out that if you're going to talk divisive stuff, attach it to a name that isn't trying to get shit done IF YOU'RE TRYING TO GET SHIT DONE.

Bewert said...

I can't do it all myself, folks. I work too. I'm not a trust-funder. My Dad kicked me out of the house and only paid for tuition if I had a B or better record. The rest I paid for myself. Reality set in early.

But I just don't fucking get whining and moaning anonymousely.

You simply don't have a leg to stand on. You can be ignored, as you don't even believe in your cause enough to publicly state you beliefs, with your name and reputation behind that statement.

At least Costa claims his beliefs.

Bewert said...

Re: All I've ever done is point out that if you're going to talk divisive stuff...

I've heard that, and have been trying. But I'm not one-dimensional. And that may be my weakness. Or a strength, if I can conflate all into a coherent worldview.

I am progressive, and believe that most people want to be responsible for themselves, want to work, want to help their families and communities. This is from almost 50 years of experience. But I also realize that there are some, often in positions of power, that will tilt things towards their own. I learned that lesson big time back in SLC in 1984.

So I'm sorry I can't just shut up about things sometimes. It's part of the package. Even though it drives you nuts.

foz said...

**But I just don't fucking get whining and moaning anonymousely**

Yeah it hard to take anonymous serious when they are all combined into one voice. Use a handle so at least one can reply to you. Anonymous post range from some really good stuff to incredibly stupid stuff. But averaged out it tends to the stupid side of things.

Bewert said...

Re: attach it to a name

Can't do it, because at some point you are going to be interviewed by Molly and a psuedonym doesn't cut it.

That's the difference, folks. If you don't attach your real persona, people don't think you are serious. They can ignore you. They don't see you. Because they don't have to see you.

Anonymous said...

A word from our sponsor

Black Swans Everywhere Written by James Howard Kunstler
by James Howard Kunstler

After a one-day reprieve from total meltdown in the financial markets, news media cheerleaders for the most reckless gang of bankers in world history declared the crisis over on Good Friday (with the markets safely closed). Whew, that's a relief. Problem solved. And just in time for baseball season, too, so none of the Banker Boyz have to sell their sky box leases.

Commodities Drop, Rally in Dollar, Stocks Vindicate Bernanke

What is meant by "meltdown," by the way, since the word is used so promiscuously by myself and others. I'd define it as the shock of recognition that many big institutions are worse than flat broke and are therefore powerless to conduct normal operations. By "worse than flat broke" I mean they are so deep in hock that all the accountants who ever lived, in the life of this universe and several others like it, using the fastest parallel processing computers ever built, could not keep up with their compounding accelerating losses (now approaching the speed of light).

The current vacation from reality on Wall Street may last a few more days, or even a couple weeks, but it seems as though a whole flock of black swan events is circling the sky over Financial-land and is about to blot out the sun. By black swan, I refer to the concept popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his recent book of that name, namely unexpected events of great power that tend to change the course of history.

For the moment, with the crisis "contained," and the Boyz getting ready to air out their Hampton villas for the coming season, we are once again primed to be blindsided by potent random events that nobody saw coming. The trouble is, there are enough potent potential fiascos already visible on the horizon.

The mortgage fiasco is still just gathering steam as it moves from the non-payment stage to the default and repossession level on the grand scale. Even the political wish to bail out feckless mortgage holders will stumble on the mammoth clerical task of administrating the process, especially since we've barely begun to sort out who actually holds the mortgages after they've been minced into a fine mirepoix of securities off-loaded onto countless dupe "investors" ranging from municipal funds in obscure corners of foreign nations to countless public employee retirement plans.

No matter how the authorities try to "nationalize" the sucking chest wound of bad mortgages, the body of finance will flat-line — and the American public will get stuck with the bill from the intensive care unit. Those who, for some weird reason, continue to pay their way and meet their obligations, will be none too pleased to pay for misdeeds of the deadbeats and their banker-lenders. This portends a taxpayer rebellion, which may translate into a voter rebellion.

It's too bad the current presidential candidates have been unable to address the unfolding economic nightmare. Their collective silence on the matter suggests that they don't have a clue what to say about it. As the nightmare plays out and black swans flock in to blot out the sun, and the hedge funds come a'tumbling down, and more big banks blunder into black holes, and businesses big and small across the land shutter up their operations, and the unemployment rolls swell, and families are thrown out of their houses even when bailouts are supposed to be saving them (but the bureaucracy can't get the paperwork done in time) — well now, they are going to be one pissed off bunch of people. What will they do at the conventions? Our outside the conventions?

In the deeper background of all this is the all-important oil story that nobody in politics or the media wants to pay attention to. Notice that in the fervid unloading of assets this past week, as investors dumped their positions in the commodities markets, the price of oil remained stubbornly above $100-a-barrel when it was all over on Thursday afternoon. Well, maybe they'll ratchet down a little further this week, but the trend line will prove to continue remorselessly upward in the months ahead.

Peak oil is for real. The supply can't keep up with global demand, even if it dips in the USA. And more portentous sub-plots develop in the story every month. Export rates are falling at a steeper rate than depletion rates. The exporting nations are not only buying more cars and running more air-conditioners, they also need to use more energy to lift the oil they've got out of the ground.

Another sub-plot is the fact that the equipment used world-wide to drill for oil and recover oil and move oil around the planet — all that equipment is now so old and rusty that it can barely do the job, and it is going to start failing altogether unless investments are made to replace it, which nobody is making.

By the way, Americans blame the familiar private oil companies for all the trouble with oil in their lives — Exxon-Mobil, Shell, et al — but they don't seem to know that oil nationalism is in the driver's seat now. The old private "majors" are only producing five percent of the world's oil. The rest is coming from the national companies — Aramco, Petrobras, Pemex, et blah blah — and the very operations of the oil markets are entering a phase of radical instability as they move away from auctioning their stuff on the futures markets and start making long-term favored customer contracts instead.

The bottom line is that high prices for oil is hardly the only thing America has to worry about. Pretty soon the US will have to worry about getting the oil at any price — meaning, we're in for shortages and supply disruptions sooner rather than later.

Also unbeknownst to most of America, the financial markets reflect all this instability around the basic resource of oil because industrial economies like ours are set up in such a way that they can't run without cheap and reliable supplies of the stuff. So the least little twitter in the reality-based world of peak oil means that everything to do with money and capital investment will naturally go batshit, since our expectations for increased wealth — i.e. "growth" — are predicated on the activities driven by oil.

It will be interesting to see what new machinations are unveiled this week. Whatever else this catastrophe is, it's a good show from the cheap seats.

Bewert said...

Kunstler is brave enough to face reality. That's some good shit.

tim said...

The Friday (market holiday) downgrades of financial institutions add an interesting touch to Monday's open.

I'm still not going to hazard a guess about how things are going to unfold in the financial system, but there sure is a lot of potential for trouble and mischief.

foz said...

**lot of potential for trouble and mischief.**

Oh yeah, you haven't seen anything yet. More bubbles to come and more popping of those. Bet on inflation. That is the only way out of the current mess, but of course that will cause a bigger one.

Anonymous said...

I _never_ bitched about you not getting stuff done. All I've ever done is point out that if you're going to talk divisive stuff, attach it to a name that isn't trying to get shit done IF YOU'RE TRYING TO GET SHIT DONE.

*

We killed this dead-horse last week. JR is dead. Now what are the goals. If the goal was to file a one-page ethics complaint long ago, that goal is a failure.

I keep saying, all I have seen is the LS-Sales agreement, but thats all I have seen. Hell I too go to most meetings at city-hall, and county, so what.

I like bruce, I'm just trying to help him stay focussed. He himself said he's got a dozen projects, but like the shit about telling city-hall that he's going to file-a-complaint, and sell them capstone butt-plugs. Now this Mormon moral relativism that 14 yr old girls are some 75 yr-old geezers wife in Utah. It's make us all look bad.

Like someone earlier said today, it cannot be assumed that this group supports statutory rape.

I could have dropped the hammer the other night, but I let it go.

I have Been playing politics in Oregon over 40+ years, we must have the moral high-ground. This is what my mentors taught me years ago, you lose that in Oregon and you ain't got shit.

Then you have bruce, who admits working with children out at the high-desert museum, then talks this shit. What in the hell is he thinking? He's either trying to be fucking funny with his real name, or he really is one twisted mother fucker, or what? It's some twisted shit. If I were HIM, and I was working with kids, I would keep my mouth shut. If you were a real teacher this kind of talk could get you fired.

Bruce, I'm fucking hard on you, I'm hard on everyone, but we must maintain the moral high-ground, or we'll end up right there with Costa, and Company.

I told you why its NOT cute for a 17yr-old to mouth-fuck a 14-yr old, because we have terrible vector-control infection problem in this town, and the court is doing something about it, before there is a total epidemic.

Like I said we all come to the common rock to piss, some backup a ton of shit with a tandem Knife-River load of Daily-Kos, ... Now we got someone writing "What's wrong with mouth fucking 14yr old girls?". We either clean the rock, or we tell the moron who write these statements exactly whats wrong with these acts. Otherwise passers-by, will assume he speaks for all.

Again, since quite often its all about bruce, Please Tim & Homer, and maybe even Dunc, please lets get this boy focussed one issue, so he can get something done.

Anonymous said...

He complains that city-hall manager dissed him, but he does wacko shit.

*

Eric Lane Bruce, then you change the subject to the BULL, and how that guy is sucking your cock, we know Bruce, we know.

A few weeks ago you said that the interim city-hall manager dissed you, for being a gadfly.

Do I have to repost?

Please bruce, don't make me pick on you I want you to do good work.

It's like Homer said the other day "WE DONT DO STUPID".

Bruce, your doing stupid, quit doing stupid. When you do stupid, your going to get shit wiped in your face.

Bewert said...

Re: Do I have to repost?

Yes, because I never said that. Eric King and I have had virtually no interaction.

Back up your BS, even though it makes absolutely no difference in the real world.


Re: JR is dead.

Did you not read Costa's column in the BULL today? They won't let JR die. So although you may believe that JR is dead because the current economic realities point that way, that doesn't mean that the BULL and our fine CC won't continue to insist on pumping millions of dollars into their dream.

We have to fight it, not ignore it.

Bewert said...

Re: The Friday (market holiday) downgrades of financial institutions add an interesting touch to Monday's open.

Man, is that an understatement. When you look at the overall picture, it's fucking scary. Sub-prime, energy, food, jobs, etc. It's like batten down the hatches, put your coin in the mattress, and build a greenhouse. Clean the .270.

The imbalance, the utter lack of transparency in multi-billion dollar mortgage "special investment instruments", is stunning.

Foz might give us a clue, at least to his thinking.

My question is when/what do we do when we realize that growth is non-sustainable? On a global basis.

Bewert said...

Re: Now we got someone writing "What's wrong with mouth fucking 14yr old girls?".

So you want to put every teenager who receives a blowjob from someone X years younger than him into prison? That's fucking stupid. If it was a 20-, 30- or 40- something coach or music teacher, I would totally agree with you. A peer is someone that is acceptable, as uncomfortable as it is. The 14-year old girl made her own decision. And neither of us actually witnessed it.

I am certainly not advocating such behaviour, but rather realizing that it exists.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Kunstler is brave enough to face reality. That's some good shit.

OK, is the guys name really KUNTSLER?

My God, I thought I had it bad.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And in some respects I agree with Bruce,with regard to the mouth2cock disease:

IS IT actually against the law for 17 & 14 yr old consenual sex... I mean, straight up, is it legal or not?

I'm under the impression that it's not.

I have no superior solution, but lets say this GIRL was one day older than the guy, they had been dating since 14 and "saving it", and SHE ticks over to 18 + 1 minute, and horny's up & cowgirls his ass while he's still 17. THAT IS ILLEGAL. FLAT OUT.

Do you file suit if you're the boys parents? DO YOU THROW THE GIRL IN JAIL FOR STATUTORY RAPE? Do you destroy HER LIFE Over It?

Me, if I'm that boys dad, hell no.

I'm NOT saying I KNOW where this alleged CUTOFF date is, and it has to be somewhere, but sometimes the cirCUMstances are slightly more important than the age of the partners, TO THE MINUTE.

I don't know the exact cirCUMstances of this, probably wonderful, blowjob & I don't wanna know, but this thing has all sorts of shades of gray to it.

If I'm Tim & the girl is my daughter & I really ain't crazy about the guy... that's one thing. But what if roles are reversed & it's the GIRL at fault? And it's statutory rape BY INCHES, NOT MILES?

This one seems cut & died at least according to my knowledge of the law, which is damn thin, nothing illegal happened. Maybe I'm wrong on points of law here, but I thought the cutoff was 18, no if's, and's or buttplugs.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...


I'm under the impression that it's not.


Sorry, bad wording.

I am under the impression that 17 & 14 is NOT illegal.

Is it?

Anonymous said...

Yes, illegal.

Especially a Man who is 17 and a Girl who is 14. State laws vary. Oregon says it is against the law. Might be a misdeamenor. Hence no Grand Jury. If it goes to the Grand Jury, they can always say "No felony" as they did in this case.

Anonymous said...

Bruce is right!

Are you neanderthals kidding with this? 14 and 17 is no big deal. Think back to your high school days -- freshman and seniors date all of the time. Come on!!

Every state has different statutory rape laws with anywhere from 16 to 18 being the cut off. But it's usually 18. After 18 you are breaking the law -- case closed.

Who would find 14 and 17 gross in a world where old men routinely marry girls that could be their daughters. Some old women are into young men these days too -- which is equally gross.

I say don't date anyone you could have given up for adoption.

Anonymous said...

Girl who is 17 and a boy 14, still a crime. But most go ignored (have you ever been stopped for going 72mph, but not ticketed? ... same thing), unless you are a hot 23 yr old blond school teacher doing freshman.

Between youth, they generally don't look away if the age spread is 4 years, and the young one is 14 or younger.

So, 16 vs 17 or 14 vs 15 are not tried. But 17 vs 14, that is called jail bait.

As to this idiodic statement:
"I'm not fucking in favor of statuatory rape. Where the fuck did that come from asshole?"
-------

Somebody who has more patience than I should educate the bruce-pussy. Statutory Rape is the familiar as well as technical (legal) term. It refers as much to the age of the victim as to the perp.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Are you neanderthals kidding with this? 14 and 17 is no big deal. Think back to your high school days

I just remember BEING 14, and wanting to FUCK 25/8. I heard bullshit about "14 year old boys think about sex 1 in every 7 seconds", and thinking, "DAMN, YOU FUCKERS ARE OFF BY A MILE!"

I thought about sex 3 seconds out of every ONE second. I thought ANY chick who would do it with me was up for a Nobel Prize. If they were 14, 18, 28, or 40, I was FINE with it.

Now, I'm a parent of course, and I'm supposed to be overly protective of my kids & guard them from EVIL, and shit... and I do, to an extent that is FAR MORE aggressive than most parents I know. And I am coming up on that age with my kids when they will start thinking about it...

And I want to do the right thing by ALL PARTIES involved, instead of some strange hyper-enforcement of an age limit, that could possibly get a perfectly innocent kid tarnished for life over an indiscretion that might be wrong by HOURS?

I don't know. Like you say, do you really want to THROW EVERY PERSON IN JAIL FOR FOR 5 YEARS FOR GOING 41MPH in a 40MPH ZONE?

Like I say, there are also egregiously WRONG age differentials. I think I heard in Tibet, girls can get it on when they are NINE! WTF! But there, they can fuck & get married when they are nine.

When I was 14 I was DYING to nail some chick. Hell chick would do. And there were some chicks who were dying to do it as well. Unfortunately they steered clear of me & my ugly ass.

When I was a Senior, there was an ENTIRE CLASS OF GUY WHO DATED 14 YEAR OLDS. THEY WERE CALLED THE FOOTBALL TEAM. And NONE of them remotely came close to serving time... in fact they were revered for their abilities to serially fuck 14 year olds.

I'm just saying, it IS Black & White, and on some level it HAS TO BE, but saying that each individuals "sexual maturity" is determined by the arrival of an EXACT SECOND on the calendar is just strange as hell.

Again, I don't know what the answer is, and an 18 year limit is as good as any, but I personally could not sight unseen prosecute such a case without knowing at least SOME of the circumstances.

Anonymous said...

So just lock up all the 17 year old boys in Oregon -- real fucking intelligent.

meanwhile how many real perverts are on the loose?

tim said...

Let's start a BendBlowjob2 blog for this and move the conversation there.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

It refers as much to the age of the victim as to the perp.

Again... who is who in this case?

Stautory Rape has the same stench of one-sidedness to it that "RACISM" does:

DEFINITIONS:
Racism: that quality of white people that flows towards blacks.

Statutory Rape: that quality of Male Perverts that flows towards Young Virgins.

"Victim"? What if the girl is The Perp? What if it is by MINUTES?

There has to be an arbitrary cutoff. But defining those involved in terms of where they are along that cutoff is INACCURATE.

I had to HUMP TREES until the ripe old age of 18 until I was bangered by some dumbfuck chick on a golf course.

I REMEMBER QUITE CLEARLY that I would have given my left nut to fuck any chick prior to that, and would have damn near every minute of every day! And I would have committed suicide if someone would anyone had threatened jail for such a bountiful Goddess... even if she weighed 300lb & looked like a mack truck just hit her.

I was never, unfortunately, a victim of stautory rape, by I would have KILLED to have been my entire High School career! KILLED!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Let's start a BendBlowjob2 blog for this and move the conversation there.

Seconded.

Anonymous said...

Okay, moving off of BJs and age limits...

Bruce-pussy has been aptly named because of his self-inflicted, idiotic behavior regarding the Ethics Comm.

Still spouting off about how hard it is to write up a complaint, everybody else is stupid because they don't go to meetings and expose themselves, nobody knows more than bruce-pussy, yada yada yada, my wife is a buff tri-sport, bike shop worker, etc etc.

So, from Bruce-Pussy's (BP) own quotes (does he even READ his own shit?):

"When the GSPC staff receives a complaint, the executive director first reviews the complaint to determine if the alleged violation falls within the GSPC’s jurisdiction."
---------

So, BP, here is where you start. You don't need the 100pg manifesto, quoting Daily Kos, butt-plugs, Bush/Hillary/McCain and all your religious beliefs and all other crap.

Here is where the 1-2pg complaint form starts.

"Preliminary Review Phase. When deciding to pursue an issue, the commission opens a case file and initiates a preliminary review. A decision to conduct a preliminary review means that the violation appears to be within the commission’s jurisdiction."
--------

Notice the word Phase, as in PRELIMINARY REVIEW PHASE.

Again, no 100pg manifesto needed. No premature ejactulation here either, BP. The time for massive evidence will come, but not yet.

"Investigative Phase. If the commission finds "cause" to pursue the case, the investigative phase begins. The commission has 120 days to investigate the issues, during which time it may issue subpoenas to obtain documents and oral testimony."
--------------

Another phase, BP. This one is called the Investigative phase. Notice that they do much of the data gathering. Yes, you can help, but don't feed them all your extra worthless shit opinions,

THEY will TELL you what THEY WANT. (notice who does what)

DON'T TELL THEM everything you think is important (like you do here on this blog, vomitting all your spewie onto us), they will tell you what you need to do, AFTER you file the complaint.

So, BP, take it from somebody who "maybe" has been through this process before, hasn't tipped his (or her) hand as to who/what/when and where he (or she) has been schooled on this issue, knows a bit about Regular Sessions, Executive Sessions and also what the lawyers say you can and can not get away with.

Start with the beginning, then move to Phase 2, and then proceed to Phase 3. And please don't be as condesending with the EC as you are with people on this blog. They don't suffer fools lightly. If you don't want to take a phased approach, then continue to bull shit your way around here and waste what little credibility you have left.

Bewert said...

Sorry, I made my last comment. If you want to read the law, it is ORS 163, see here: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/163.html

The limit on age is "In any prosecution under ORS 163.355, 163.365, 163.385, 163.395, 163.415, 163.425, 163.427 or 163.435 in which the victim’s lack of consent was due solely to incapacity to consent by reason of being less than a specified age, it is a defense that the actor was less than three years older than the victim at the time of the alleged offense."

Sorry, but this just seems like a tempest in a teapot.

Re: ...take it from somebody who "maybe" has been through this process before...

So how do you avoid filing individual complaints for each member? I wish I could just file one overriding one. Much of the paperwork is the same, but it changes depending on dates.

How did you _successfully_ file a claim? What is the name of that claim so I can go read the record and learn? They are all public records. That's how I've been figuring it out now. Just like a lawsuit, you go read the record of similar cases and decisions.

Bewert said...

You know, why do I even fucking give a shit. I am really starting to wonder.

Bewert said...

Re: They don't suffer fools lightly.

Yep, fuck it.

Anonymous said...

Not so easy BP. You can't give up now, unless you want EVERYBODY to think (know?) you were a poser from the beginning, with no serious intentions.

Anonymous said...

Some good reading on Bend from cybersmom -- scroll down on page 4 and again on page 5;

http://www.city-data.com/forum/oregon/178041-economy-bend-4.html

(12 % taxes in OR !! -- for what??)

Bewert said...

Re: Not so easy BP. You can't give up now, unless you want EVERYBODY to think (know?) you were a poser from the beginning, with no serious intentions.

That's not an answer to my question to you. With no answer, just some more BS, you just reinforce my feelings.

The complaint will go forward no matter what. You'll hear about it when it gets out, probably in someplace other than the BULL. I just won't spend much time here taking a pile of shit. Why bother?

Good night and good luck.

Anonymous said...

"How did you _successfully_ file a claim? What is the name of that claim so I can go read the record and learn?"
-------------
Search the records. Google 'hank'!

HA HA HAAAAA. Sometimes I crack myself up!

Seriously, BP, not going there! I am not anonymous, I am 'hank'. WTF? No difference, but some bozos felt better with some handle.


"So how do you avoid filing individual complaints for each member?"
-----
Short answer, you can't. They be individuals. Not some institution. File them as individuals, since you want the INDIVIDUALs to pay the piper.


"I wish I could just file one overriding one. Much of the paperwork is the same, but it changes depending on dates."
------------

See Mick Jager: "You can't always get what you want..."


So, are you a man, or a mouse?

Me, I am NOT an anony-mouse, I am an anony-hank.

tim said...

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Anonymous said...

"I just won't spend much time here taking a pile of shit. Why bother?"
----------

"Why bother?"
-----------

Ever read Glenn Reynolds book?

What's it called? (Google it, if it don't come right up in your cache memory)

An Army?

Of Davids? WTF?

Have you heard how fast Rather imploded?

Many people who knew IBM Selectric typewriters, and fonts, etc. They came together, and took him out in hours.

Not days....

Not weeks....

Not Months....

(how long you been on this EC kick?)

"Why bother?"
--------

Find an answer yet?

Maybe because the blogs have people who can help move the ball down field for you.

That is....

....if you are serious.

foz said...

I personally live by the half your age plus 7 year rule

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

:-)

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

So Timmy, how about that real estate bubble?

Pretty crazy, eh?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Why Bear's Shares Are Above $2
Are investors just in denial, or do the people bidding up Bear Stearns' stock know something?

by Roben Farzad

The building alone, they say, is worth $8 a share. Maybe all the copiers, BlackBerrys, and laptops could command a few bucks. Rip out the pipes, faucets, and elevator doors, and surely you could fetch top coin in this metals-crazed market.

Those are just some of the reasons, legit and otherwise, that shares of Bear Stearns (BSC) never did hit their now notorious $2-a-share, Fed-supervised "take under" price. Bear shares bottomed at just under $3 on Mar. 17 before they surged to as much as $8.50 on Mar. 18. Of course, this is all so much cold comfort to anyone who got in at $170 last year (or even $70 last week). Still, the fact that the stock is trading at triple its agreed-on buyout figure means 1) something is being lost in translation, 2) something else is afoot, or 3) the Wall Street arbitrageurs, who play spreads of a few nickels and dimes, must be having a collective aneurysm. Maybe all of the above.

What the mortgage-backed hell is going on?

The First Stage of Grief

A good measure of denial, for starters. After all, if you are a Bear shareholder, was it ever remotely conceivable just days ago that the firm had so much toxic waste on its books that its liabilities would come to represent almost the entirety of its enterprise value? Until recently, the 85-year-old brokerage had never posted an unprofitable quarter. Did any Wall Street analyst or short-seller dare to posit a Bear target price in the single digits—anticipating outright collapse? Wasn't Jim Cramer defending the stock at $63 just last week?

In the postapocalyptic aftermath, there's a rush to make sense of it all. There's also an outcome vacuum that creditors and shareholders are vying to fill. On top of the employees who are up in arms that management sold out at a 93% discount to the already pulverized stock price, Joseph Lewis, Bear's second-biggest shareholder, reportedly called the $2 offer "derisory."

That heel digging was egged on by positive earnings reports on Mar. 18 from both Goldman Sachs (GS) and Lehman Brothers (LEH), whose shares, respectively, skyrocketed 16% and 46%, and helped propel the Dow Jones industrial average up 420 points. "It's causing shareholders to wonder if things at Bear Stearns weren't that bad," says Matthew Albrecht, an equity analyst with Standard & Poor's. "So there is buying in the hope that the deal falls through and a higher bid emerges."

"There are people who want to hold and believe—hope springs eternal," adds Oppenheimer (OPY) chief market technician Carter Worth. "Oh, and there's also that building." Nevertheless, he thinks it's a done deal that Bear goes out at $2. On Mar. 18, Bear saw volume of 166.7 million shares, matching the panicky total it clocked on Monday, when the market first had the chance to move on the bombshell bid.
Holding Out for a Better Deal

But if there's any one lesson in the Bear drama, it's that the debt side of its ledger is far more make-or-break to the firm than its equity particulars. At this point, it's not so much a matter of the bank's earnings fundamentals and momentum as it is how much might be left for shareholders after all of Bear's offsetting liabilities are taken into account—which itself is no easy feat. Even so, some Street wags were mumbling Mar. 18 that Bear shareholders conceivably could pocket more than $2 a share if Bear were allowed to enter into an orderly bankruptcy (of course, "orderly" is the mother of all assumptions in this credit market).

Put it all together and there's a sudden desire to horde Bear shares to accumulate votes ahead of a shareholder referendum on the deal—especially as employees already control a third of the shares. A majority dissent couldn't be so hard to amass, right?

Of course, that would be inimical to the interests of Bear's creditors. As Bear's rallying bonds and credit default swaps have been manifesting, bondholders will be made whole, or closer to it, once JPMorgan Chase (JPM) assumes Bear's balance sheet. That would not have been possible absent the Federal Reserve's unprecedented $30 billion "backstop" intervention to grease the skids to a preemptive buyout. "It was tailor-made for JPMorgan," says S&P's Albrecht. "The board has already accepted it, and it is not at all certain that any other buyer could replicate the arrangement."

So, then, it's no surprise that creditors and hedge funds who are banking on Bear's creditworthiness are, too, racing to snap up shares (translated: votes). "Bondholders," says research firm GimmeCredit, "are wary of anything that may upset the apple cart."

Capital-structure civil war marks the final battle for the soul of Bear Stearns. Exciting drama, as far as business news goes. At least for now, though, two bucks isn't enough to get you in the door to this flick.

foz said...

Bear was just a sacrificial lamb. Cut off the gangrenous limb to save the rest. Problem is we could run out of limbs, and lambs rapidly.

tim said...

Limbs, lambs, bears, wives
How many were going to St Ives?

Anonymous said...

I just came here tonight, KTVZ mentioned this blog.

This 'bruce' you talk about is it Bruce Abernethy?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I hear they're doing a made for TV movie of the Inn of the 7th Mountain court proceedings. It's called:

STATUTORY PAPE

Get it? PAPE?

My talent is WASTED on you people!

Anonymous said...

Juniper Ridge Info: FLASH--Les Schwab Pays City
BRUCE PUSSY, Why don't you ask the correct fucking questions. The city authorized the $2.5M to be dispersed to KURATEK back on Oct 15, 2007. ...
juniper-ridge-info.blogspot.com/2008/01/flash-les-schwab-pays-city.html

tim said...

BULLETIN J. P. MORGAN REPORTED IN TALKS TO QUINTUPLE OFFER FOR BEAR STEARNS

Anonymous said...

If a 17 year old messes with my 14 year old, he'd better convince his parents to leave town, and quick.

*

The problem is the '17 yr old' is having sex with sexually active girls his own age who have STD's. Then on the side is getting blow jobs at Jr-Highs in Bend. The younger girls are the recipients of the STD's from the more sexually active older boys in Bend.

The court is trying to put an end to this rampant practice.

It's a public-health problem, this is why the court used the 'statutory rape' law. It's just a tool.

STD infection in children is huge in Bend. I have friends whose kids say that even in Bend elementary schools children a participating in oral sex at school.

I think your going to see more law enforcement in these areas of older boys preying on younger naive girls.

Bruce Pussy should go back to Utah if he thinks this is an acceptable practice.

Duncan McGeary said...

Sheesh. When you guys are done talking about this, let me know.

tim said...

DONE! DONE! Hey Duncan, we're done! DONE!

Duncan McGeary said...

Are....you sure.....?

Anonymous said...

http://money.aol.com/bankrate/retirement/retirement-hot-spots-compare-the-costs

Bend is the 7th photo -- ahhhhhh what a glorious view with the magnificent ol' mill shopping center in the background. What more could any "mature" American ask for? Save one of Becky's condos for me! I like the concept -- just seal me in and eject my wrinkled body into the river when the good Lord calls me home.

Hey -- why is that dog not on a leash? Why do all the promo shots of Bend flaunt this law?

PS. Could those shacks BE ANY closer together?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Kiss of Death for Sisters... being clumped together with LaPine & DRW... gross!


State targets Deschutes communities for economic development
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: March 24. 2008 4:00AM PST

Sisters, La Pine and Deschutes River Woods were labeled as “distressed communities” by the state’s Economic & Community Development Department last week, but the designation could help them qualify for additional state grants and loans.

The designation was based on U.S. Census data from 2000, according to Michael Anderson, economic analyst with the Oregon Economic & Community Development Department, based in Portland.

“Being a distressed area enables communities to have an extra advantage when applying for business finance programs,” he said. “It’s not so much a condemnation on any type of policy. It’s a way of pointing out areas that might need more attention than other areas.”

The evaluation is a guide that the state agency can use to target aid for economic development, he said.

The agency uses both state and federal data that are available annually to look at counties statewide in four areas: percentage of the population with a bachelor’s degree age 25 or higher, unemployment rate, percentage of the population below poverty and per-capita income.

If a county is below the threshold in three or four areas, as Crook and Jefferson counties have been at least the past three years, then all the cities in the county are considered distressed. If a county is not considered distressed, such as Deschutes County, the agency looks city-by-city at the latest census data, Anderson said.

Within Deschutes County, data from the 2000 census for Sisters, La Pine and Deschutes River Woods fell below the annual average for counties that met the economic threshold each year, he said.

Despite using old census data for the cities on the list, the agency’s intent is to help rural communities move forward economically, Anderson said.

Cities or counties that receive the designation are eligible for a number of business finance programs, including the Oregon Business Development Fund, which is a revolving loan fund that provides long-term fixed-rate financing for businesses in rural and distressed communities, Anderson said.

“If an area is distressed, any type of business can receive access to the fund,” he said. “Otherwise, only traded sector businesses (those that sell their goods out of state) are eligible.”

Additionally, the Oregon Capital Access Program gives banks state default protection to make more commercial loans available to otherwise risky businesses for either startup or expansion in a distressed community, Anderson said.

Other programs as well as the list of distressed communities can be linked from the department’s Web site, or www.oregon 4biz.com/distMethods.htm.

Both Sisters and La Pine received “severely distressed” designations for being below the state average in all four categories, according to the Economic & Community Development Department.

About 21 percent of Sisters’ population age 25 or higher had a bachelor’s degree in 2000, which fell below the threshold average of 25 percent statewide.

Sisters’ unemployment rate of 5.7 percent in 2000 was above the threshold of 5.5 percent, its $17,847 per-capita income fell below the $19,000 per-capita income threshold, and 10.4 percent of the population were considered living in poverty, just above the 10 percent threshold, according to the data. Although poverty doesn’t appear on the surface in Sisters, it exists in pockets, said Michael Robillard, president of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce.

“There’s a disturbing number of people who are utilizing our city’s food banks,” he said. “It is alarming. We need to strategize on getting businesses here that pay living-wage jobs.”

News that La Pine was considered “severely distressed,” a designation given to cities that fall below the state average in all four categories, did not surprise Robert Ray, owner of The Auto Parts Mart. Ray is running for Deschutes County commissioner.

Business has slowed in the past six months as many of his customers, construction workers, are out of work, Ray said.

“People are commuting to Bend for work because most of the jobs are in Bend,” Ray said. “The demographics have changed dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. There’s no industry anymore. I hope it gets better, but I think it’s going to get worse.”

Only 8.4 percent of La Pine’s population age 25 or higher had a bachelor’s degree in 2000, according to the data provided by the Economic & Community Development Department. It also fell short of state thresholds in the three other categories.

Deschutes River Woods fell below the state thresholds in three of the four categories, according to the data.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...


Hey -- why is that dog not on a leash? Why do all the promo shots of Bend flaunt this law?


DUDE! That guy is obviously up on Awbrey! Our laws don't apply to those people.

Just Eastsiders... and DRW... and the NE... and down South... Dude, ANYWHERE but the Westsieeeeeeeeeeeeede!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Both Sisters and La Pine received “severely distressed” designations for being below the state average in all four categories, according to the Economic & Community Development Department.

Damn... Sisters is worse off than DRW!

Shit, when I think of DRW, I think of shooting cars, hunting hounds, wife beatin', gun racks, and rusted out trailers with concrete block additions. Sisters is WORSE than that?

Awesome!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

“There’s a disturbing number of people who are utilizing our city’s food banks,” he said. “It is alarming. We need to strategize on getting businesses here that pay living-wage jobs.”

Should have done that before Peter Storton decided to Double Down On Red For The 20th Time. Now, you're fucked Sisters. Blame your fuckin' local Realtors.

The implosion of the bubble is going to take your little rat-turd town down.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Into the economic abyss

By RACHEL BECK and ERIN McCLAM
Associated Press Writers

NEW YORK (AP) -- For months, Americans have been subjected to a sort of economic water torture - a maddening drip of bad news about jobs, gas prices, sagging home values, creeping inflation, the slouching dollar and a stock market in bumpy descent.

Then came Bear Stearns. One of the five largest U.S. investment banks nearly collapsed in a single day before the government propped it up by backing emergency loans and a rival stepped in to buy it for a paltry $2 per share.

To the drumbeat of signs that seemed to foretell a traditional recession, this added a nightmarish specter - an old-style run on the bank, customers clamoring to pull their cash, a stately Wall Street firm brought to its knees.

The combination has forced the economy to the forefront of the national conversation in a way it has not been since the go-go 1990s, and for entirely opposite reasons.

As economists and Wall Street types grope for historical perspective - which is another way of saying a road map out of this mess - Americans are nervously wondering about retirement savings, interest rates, jobs that had seemed safe.

They are surveying the economic landscape and asking: Just how bad is it?

They are peering over the edge and asking: How far down?

And the scariest part of all? No one can say for sure.

---

Even before the crippling of Bear Stearns, the U.S. economy was acting as a slowly tightening vise - an interconnected web of factors combining to squeeze Americans from all sides.

Take Jaci Rae of Salinas, Calif. She runs a company, Luco Sport, that sells golf bags and accessories. The merchandise is made with foam, which is based on petroleum, so record oil prices have taken a heavy toll.

On the other end, her clients are feeling the pinch, too, and cutting back. Sales to retail clients are an eighth of what they were a year ago. So Rae had to cut five of her 20 employees loose.

Now the company isn't buying products as far in advance. With gas prices running high, she waits for shipping companies to pick up products from her headquarters instead of having an employee drop them off.

She is nickel-and-diming expenses at home, too. She eats in every night, has stopped going on road trips to visit her family, dropped her satellite dish and canceled her monthly Blockbuster movie rental.

"I want to make sure I have enough money to feed my family," Rae says.

Signs of the pinch are showing up everywhere:

-By the end of 2007, 36 percent of consumers' disposable income went to food, energy and medical care, a bigger chunk of income than at any time since records were first kept in 1960, according to Merrill Lynch.

-People are treating themselves less often. The National Restaurant Association says 54 percent of restaurants reported declining traffic in January, and the government says eating at home increased last year for the first time since 2001.

-Financial planners say that more than ever, parents are calling for advice on how to deal with grown children who have moved back in with Mom and Dad after losing a job or just to save money.

-Less trash is being set on the curbs of Mesa, Ariz., where surging home foreclosures are leaving more houses empty. That means fewer homeowners paying the city $22.60 a month for pickup. And William Black, the city's solid-waste management director, says people aren't throwing out as many appliances and bulk items, like furniture. They're sticking with what they have.

On top of an economy that was already groaning under the weight of a downturn, Bear Stearns came down like an anvil.

It tied together so much of what's wrong with today's economy - the housing crash, the credit crunch and a loss of confidence among investors and consumers alike.

Understanding how things got so bad means rewinding to the start of the housing boom. Wall Street and the banks made it far easier for people with shaky credit to get a mortgage - known as a subprime loan.

Investors wanted a piece of the fast-growing mortgage pie, so there was plenty of money sloshing around the market to pay for the loans.

Financial firms sliced up the mortgages and sold them as complex investments, finding eager buyers among pension funds, hedge funds and more who were chasing higher returns and willing to overlook risks.

As long as housing prices went up, the strategy worked. When they began to crumble, so did financial stability.

The same people who made a financial stretch to buy their homes are now defaulting on the loans at alarming rates. Many are "upside down" on their loans, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Nearly 9 million households now have upside-down mortgages, and for the first time ever, aggregate mortgage debt is bigger than the total value of homeowner equity - bigger by $836 billion, according to research by Merrill Lynch.

The housing problem set off the dominoes: Surging defaults meant the mortgage-backed securities plunged in value. That dried up the money to fund new home loans, and lenders everywhere became tighter with credit.

Bear Stearns found itself in the cross hairs. Market rumors began to swirl about the size of its exposure to mortgage securities, whether it had ample reserves to cover potential losses. Clients and investors began to demand their money back.

"This problem begins with the fact that we underwrote mortgages sloppily, which means no one really knows what those assets are worth," said Lyle Gramley, a former Federal Reserve governor and now an analyst with Stanford Financial Group. "That makes bankers very leery, and has resulted in a significant contraction in the availability of credit."

The credit crunch means corporations can't borrow as easily, so they are delaying big projects, which cuts into the job market. And many of the same companies were already smarting from the downturn in housing, which has made many Americans uneasy about their household wealth and caused them to scrimp on spending.

---

The last time the U.S. economy tilted into recession was 2001. And it was an entirely different animal.

Investors bore the brunt of that downturn as the stock market shook off the excesses of the late-'90s technology boom. Encouraged by their government - and fortified with tax rebates in their pockets - Americans kept spending.

Perhaps most importantly, there was no reason for anyone to doubt the stability of the financial system. There was no credit crisis to speak of, and the housing boom had yet to begin.

This time around, no one has declared a recession just yet: By the generally accepted rule, that takes two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic activity. The economy came close to stalling late last year but eked out small growth.

But the lack of an official declaration makes the pain no less real.

"I think the current financial crisis looks to me like the worst one since we got into the Depression," says Richard Sylla, who teaches the history of financial institutions at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Which is not to say this time will be anywhere near as bad - partly because, economists note, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Depression and appears to be steering the Fed toward avoiding the mistakes of back then.

That may be why the Fed moved quickly to back up JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s lifeline loan to Bear Stearns when it neared collapse.

The Fed dusted off other Depression-era tools, too. It allowed securities dealers to borrow directly from the Fed, a privilege once restricted to commercial banks. And it announced it would lend up to $200 billion to investment banks in exchange for the banks' beaten-up mortgage-backed securities.

The idea is to maintain confidence in the American banking system. If that fails - if more Bear Stearns episodes emerge - it could gum up the entire economy, historians note.

"No one would trust anybody else, no one would be willing to do business," said Charles Jones, a finance professor at Columbia Business School. "And if that happens, the economy would feel that right away. So the Fed is doing what it can."

Another key difference: Today, the United States is just one piece of a complex global economy. A century ago, an American financial crisis was America's problem. Today, emerging economies provide an extra layer of insulation.

"People are still going to eat in China and India. They're going to be buying clothes and cars and airplanes," says Robert A. Howell, a distinguished visiting professor of business administration at Dartmouth. "So I think it's a whole different ballgame."

A better comparison might be the economic downturn that gripped the United States in the early 1970s, a time now widely remembered for long lines at the pump. Today gas is plentiful, but summer drivers face the scary prospect of paying $4 a gallon.

And as David Rosenberg, chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch, pointed out in an analysis this week, the parallels to the 1970s go much deeper than just the shock of record oil prices, which tripled during the 1973-1975 recession and have seen a similar rise in recent years.

Then as now, food prices rose along with energy. Then as now, declining home prices gave homeowners ulcers over equity. And the dollar, which held up fine in the 2001 recession, is falling now even more than it did in the early '70s - 9 percent then on a trade-weighted basis, 14 percent in the last year, according to the Federal Reserve.

One other interesting difference: In the downturns between the '70s and today, the baby boomers used their massive buying power to help spend the nation out of the slump. In the 1970s, they were too young. Today, they are focusing on retirement.

"The mid-1970s is the best template," Rosenberg wrote, "if there is any."

---

If the 1970s truly are a guide, there's a lot farther to fall.

Back then, the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 36 percent from its peak to its trough. Right now, the S&P 500 has only lost 15 percent from its record highs of October 2007.

Finding shelter from this downturn isn't as easy as you might think. So-called private label products - no-name cereal or crackers usually far cheaper than brand names - are less of a deal because of soaring commodity prices.

Nearly 90 percent of chief financial officers of global public companies don't see an economic recovery coming until 2009, according to a new survey by Duke University/CFO Magazine.

And that's more than just crystal-ball gazing: If companies see a sluggish recovery, they won't be taking any steps to build their payrolls soon and will remain cautious in how they allocate capital.

So what's the way out?

Former Fed chair Alan Greenspan wrote in the Financial Times last week that the financial crisis - which he said would likely be the "most wrenching" in the United States since World War II - would end only when housing prices stabilize.

Already, the Fed has slashed interest rates. It has cut the closely watched federal funds rate, the overnight lending rate for banks, six times since September, from 5.25 percent to 2.25 percent - two-thirds of the cut coming in the last two months alone.

But the Fed can't work alone. Upcoming tax rebates for millions of people and tax breaks for businesses may give a little relief, but economists think that something will have to be done soon to slow down the number of foreclosures, a cornerstone of the economy's woes.

"We can't have financial institutions not providing credit to the economy," said Eugene White, a professor of economics at Rutgers University. "We have to stop that if we want to avoid a deep recession."

Economists and market historians seem to agree that this is more than a typical, cyclical slump. And the X-factor that sets it apart - determining how deep the wounds from the mortgage mess really are - also makes it impossible to map the path of the downturn.

"Financial crises happen, but they always do blow over," Sylla says. "It's a question of how long."

So in the meantime, Americans like Monica Nakamine are planning for a long road ahead.

The 37-year-old took a higher-paying job at a Los Angeles architectural firm, but has been putting the difference in her earnings right into savings. These days she's dyeing her own hair, picking through sales racks when she shops and washing her dog herself, rather than getting him groomed.

And she's considering some drastic actions in case things get worse - like moving to a cheaper city such as Austin, Texas, and getting rid of her gas-guzzling SUV for a hybrid sedan.

"Certainly I don't want it to get any worse," Nakamine said, "but I know it can."

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The Fed dusted off other Depression-era tools, too. It allowed securities dealers to borrow directly from the Fed, a privilege once restricted to commercial banks. And it announced it would lend up to $200 billion to investment banks in exchange for the banks' beaten-up mortgage-backed securities.

Yeah! The US Government has gone into the mortgage servicing business! I'm sure they'll be much more efficient than the private sector.

"Sir, this is Ben Bernanke of The Federal Reserve. We have not received your monthly mortgage payment for February. Please call us back, so we can avoid paying you a visit in person."

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

About 12,600 DJIA... I'd lighten on this short-term euphoria. A lot of "BS" buying will turn out to be BS.....

foz said...

**About 12,600 DJIA... I'd lighten on this short-term euphoria. A lot of "BS" buying will turn out to be BS.....
**

I'd hang tight before lightening up. No big news coming up and the dollar is picking itself up off the floor. The Fed really overshot (big surprise). Market won't get rattled again until we get some inflation news.

Anonymous said...

All you FUCKING newbies, so what?

Sisters was always a 'la-pines' of west-bend, and la-pines was the real thing, thing "LA" as in Los-Angeles when I say "LA-PINES".

Folks always commuted to LA-PINES, or Sisters ( think trailers ), or Redmond, they worked two part-time waiter jobs in Bend, nobody could afford to live in 'bend'.

Things are quickly degrading to their former selves. So fucking what?

You newbies thought your presence would change human nature? Now that your money is gone, things will revert to the good old days.

Anonymous said...

17 Yr Old Mormon Hair-Lip from LaPine Mouth-Fucks 14 yr old Bend girl; Judge Throws Book at Miscreant

The Bulletin (c), Bend-Oregon, March 24, 2008

Today the Deschutes County court through the book at a 17 yr old mormon man from La Pine. The sexually active Mormon Pedro Doh was running House of Ill Repute in Lapine. His madam a Sally Heatherton, had a brood of dozens of ex-Bend realtors, most in their fifty's all infected with strains of the notorious STD HIV.

Mr Doh, had been coming up to Bend to have sex with 14 yr old latch key children in Bend.

The sexually active 14 yr old's who were infected by Mr. Doh, were also having sex with elementary school children in the city of Bend.

County health officials demanded a zero tolerance for older men bringing STD's into Bend, and then being the vector to the elementary schools.

The Count Judge a Mr Pussy Ewert himself a mormon said, "Mr. Doh I hate to do this to you, but your getting 3 months in a cell with nothing but Daily Kos to read". Mr. Pedro Doh, fell to his knees, and begged, but the judge had no mercy.

The recent clamp down by county judges is the result of a demand by county health to stop the flow of STD's ( HIV, Herpes, ... ) into Bend elementary school population.

The demise of the real estate industry had forced most of the industry into prostitution in 2007, the understanding between organized crime and government had been to maintain a 'wall' between children and the new area 'industry'.

County Health officials were opposed from the start, but real estate officials demanded a sole monopoly in the new industry. Given their prior experience in the hospitality industry.

COVA & VCB have both invested $2M in 2008 in the new Bend area prostitution business. All actual prostitution must of course take place five miles outside of Bend, which is why Lapine has been so popular.

foz said...

Can't figure out which is the bigger blood sucker, the Fed or JP.
Now the Fed is immune to the first 1 billion of losses. And reaps all the gains of the 30 billion in collateral they hold, if there is any. And on top of that Black Rock will manage the whole deal. This whole deal stinks.

Anonymous said...

17 Yr Old Mormon Hair-Lip from LaPine Mouth-Fucks 14 yr old Bend girl; Judge Throws Book at Miscreant

***

Man you really missed he market on your ideal profession -- I about had a heart attack laughing. This is your best yet!

Anonymous said...

Y'all know about this?

http://www.city-data.com/real-estate/BEND-OR-97701.html

Things still selling high!

Anonymous said...

Y'all know about this?

http://www.city-data.com/real-estate/BEND-OR-97701.html

Things still selling high!

Anonymous said...

FYI - Lots of homes showing up both for sale and for rent on Craigslist these days.

I guess being a Bend renter can be a mobile lifestyle if they keep selling the houses.

Anonymous said...

Hey all you Bend Bubble Readers!

I am looking for your help!
I am a doom and gloomer, but everyone around me is an optimist, so I am gonna ask my questions here.

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS!

I FINALLY SOLD MY HOME IN BEND!

I am FREE! I don't even have Oregon plates on my car anymore. I am so HAPPY! I am NEVER coming back!

Now here's the deal: I really want to buy another home. I am in a rental now, and it SUCKS!

What would YOU do???

I am tempted to keep renting and wait for the other shoe to drop, but the housing market where I'm at is NOT on the blacklist. Housing prices have dropped, a little, but not significantly and I want a place I can call home...soon.

BEND was NOT home, and I was there for far too long. I long for a place to call my own.

My questions:

Would you buy now?

How long would you wait?

How do you gauge the market in a specific area?

THANK YOU BENDBUBBLE2!

foz said...

**Hey all you Bend Bubble Readers!**
Wait and then re-evaluate in 6 months. In realestate things do not change overnight so you have plenty of time. Plus it takes time to find the perfect place, it probably isn't even for sale right now. Take your time, you are in a good position.

PopGoesBend said...

Anonymous said...

Y'all know about this?

http://www.city-data.com/real-estate/BEND-OR-97701.html

Things still selling high!



I hadn't seen that. I have however seen this:



Marge Said:
March stats as of 3/21/08
All types of Residential Bend only

Sold: 61
Median: $284,000
DOM:179

In 2007 March to date:

Sold: 125
Median: $349,249
DOM: 188


So, not much selling and not very high. Unless you mean higher than it will be in a year.

Anonymous said...

POPULATION ESTIMATES

I finally got my hands on the population counts for Bend and Deschutes that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. These population estimates are from a company (can't say the name) that many big name retailers are using for market research -- they consider these numbers to be the best available, considering that demographers only have 2000 Census numbers to work with as the base. But this company has found an innovative way to estimate pop counts using other data (the US Postal service's zip+four codes). What’s more, it calculates the estimates quarterly versus annually.

BEND (five-mile radius)
2000 Pop – 53,777
Oct 2007 – 75,847
Growth over last quarter - 1.67%
Annualized growth – 4.49% (national average is 2%)
5-year forecast – 86,665 (low to high – 84,272 – 106,343)
Establishments/Employees – 4,292/42,858

DESCHUTES COUNTY
2000 Pop – 115,367
Oct 2007 – 157,200
Annualized growth – 4.21% (national average is 2%)
5-year forecast – 177,662 (low to high – 173,248 – 212,311)
Establishments/Employees – 6,441/62,397

Plus, I saw a map with the consumer segmentation breakdown. Interestingly, it showed a lot of single people in Bend – both “thriving singles” and “struggling singles.” Also showed a big swath of retirees in the NW sector. No surprise there. Richest sector (which is rather small) is Shevlin Park and Johnson Mountain Roads.

PS - Buster et al will scoff and huff and puff and try to blow hot air all other these numbers -- but if name-brand retailers are using them to make multi-million dollar trade area decision, I would suggest they are as accurate as you can get.

Duncan McGeary said...

Those figures seem pretty good to me. But, remember, it's looking in the rear view mirror.

5 years? No problem.

But my concern has always been the two to three year period after the bubble bursts. Which we've only started.

Hard to hold your breath if you're a business for 5 years. Or live on last year's stale air.

We won't know what happened until it's all over.

Anonymous said...

http://www.city-data.com/real-estate/BEND-OR-97701.html

This site seems very limited as to what has sold and most of the little red ballons are the wrong addresses.

If you want correct info, just ask me.

Anonymous said...

that hank dude upthread really nailed this topic....

read onward from the barney due:

"Force not alleged; 'age difference the issue,' police say

By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.COM

Redmond police have arrested an 18-year-old man on rape and other charges, accused of having sex with three 14- and 15-year-old girls several times since last June, officers said Monday."

Anonymous said...

And the rapist's name is JOHN EDWARDS.

Sick.... raping little girls while his wife is almost dead with cancer. Sicko Perverto Icko

Anonymous said...

Redmond police have arrested an 18-year-old man on rape and other charges, accused of having sex with three 14- and 15-year-old girls several times since last June, officers said Monday."

****

okay -- THAT is wrong.

foz said...

Asian markets up huge. This probably going to go to far to fast.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bend Unemployment Feb 2008: 8.3%

Last Feb? 5.7%

Things should start to get better from here. There hasn't been a Feb to Mar increase in unemployment in Bend in recent history. Jan & Feb are almost always the high water mark for the year.

But 8.3% is indicative that The Bad Old Days are Back... wild yearly swings, brutally HIGH unemployment during the Winter, only making money half the year, and all that good Old School Bend stuff.

Buster should be happy as a pig in shit.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I'm just glad that The Bulletin has chosen to put a piece about a fruit company online, and not these unpleasant stories about stuff like the local economy, unemployment, and job losses.

I mean, I hope that Redmond fruit co does OK... but The Lead Story? Oh brother.

Good call Costa... bury your head in the sand. That'll make things all better.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

ECONOMIC REPORT
Home prices plunge record 10.7% in past year
Of 20 cities, only Charlotte holds on to meager appreciation

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:22 a.m. EDT March 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Home prices in 20 major U.S. metro areas have plunged a record 10.7% in the past year as prices continued to decelerate, Standard & Poor's said Tuesday.

The 20-city Case-Shiller home price index fell a record 2.4% in January, the 18th consecutive decline in prices. For 10 major cities, prices fell 2.3% in January and 11.4% for the past 12 months.
"No markets seem to be completely immune from the housing crisis,' said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P. Of the 20 cities, only Charlotte, N.C., has managed any gains in the past year, rising a meager 1.8%. For the fifth straight month, all 20 cities recorded lower prices compared with the previous month.
Home prices in 10 of the 20 cities have fallen at double-digit rates in the past year.
Falling prices have eroded Americans' wealth, cutting into their ability to borrow against their home or to sell for a profit. Millions of Americans now owe more on their home than it is worth.
Falling home values could also trigger higher monthly payments for many homeowners.
But falling prices are likely a necessary ingredient in getting the housing market growing again.
The Case-Shiller index tracks sales of the same homes over time, so it's not influenced by the mix of homes sold in a period. However, it closely tracks only 20 cities, many of which had participated in the housing bubble earlier in the decade.
A similar index published by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight will be released later Tuesday. The OFHEO index covers more geographic areas, but does not include nonconforming mortgages such as jumbo loans or subprime loans. The OFHEO index has fallen 1% in the 12 months ending in December.
In the Case-Shiller index in January, prices fell 5.1% in Las Vegas, Nev., and 4.1% in Phoenix, Ariz. The smallest decline was the 0.2% in Charlotte.
For the past year, the biggest price declines have been in Miami and Las Vegas, Nev., both down 19.3%. Two cities that had continued to see price increases last year - Seattle and Portland, Ore., turned negative in January.


Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

Anonymous said...

Buster et al will scoff and huff and puff and try to blow hot air all other these numbers -- but if name-brand retailers are using them to make multi-million dollar trade area decision, I would suggest they are as accurate as you can get.

*

Buster has started many companys, and in the day bought many demographic products from many marketing companys. Most of these numbers were pulled out of someones ass. Then often its census which people just lie.

Given that our poster of the numbers is anonymous, and given that the source generator is anonymous the numbers are no better than if buster himself pulled them out of his ass.

Many companys sell this kind of data, your assertion that some REIT used this data to justify building in Bend, just once again, proves that you can buy anything to prove your case. It's all a bunch of crap. There really was never a question in the first place.

Here's one for you relevant, how many homeless are there in Bend today? Cite the source.

Hell if I had current demographic data, I wouldn't be afraid to tell the source.

This whole thing just sounds like bruce-pussy excrement.

Biggest news today is from the Willamette-Week that just got picked up by Bend-TV on the wire, Bruce-Pussy the 'man' is pregnant.

http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=11312

Like the willy-week says in gist, and this is a 'good one' for Bend-Oregon on INTL level, "ANOTHER FIRST FOR BEND".

Anonymous said...

My questions:
Would you buy now?
How long would you wait?
How do you gauge the market in a specific area?

THANK YOU BENDBUBBLE

*

Go bendbubble.blogspot.com, and read from the first post. All questions will be answered.

We have all long agreed by the we hit bottom, you'll not want to live here, if your not tied here.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I think the CSXR composite will go to the 120's nationally. We're at around 200 now.

Bend will get cut in half, to to bottom, and that's Best Case Scenario.

I was 3 months late (fingers crossed) on the "Medians In The $200's" prediction, so I won't put a time-frame on this, but we'll see medians in the $100's in Bend.

In the next 10 years.

Dammit, couldn't resist!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

How long would you wait?
How do you gauge the market in a specific area?


Wait until renting isn't an overwhelmingly superior financial alternative! Say, when a mortgage pymt on a house is within 30% of a rent payment.

If the rent is $1,000, the mortgage shouldn't be more than $1,300, with little down (which may not really be possible going forward).

Anonymous said...

This whole thing just sounds like bruce-pussy excrement.

Biggest news today is from the Willamette-Week that just got picked up by Bend-TV on the wire, Bruce-Pussy the 'man' is pregnant.

http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=11312
------------------

This demands more than just a link, this demands a picture:

(well, the picture did not cut and paste, so you'll have to go there)


Yes, a man is going to have a baby. Well, it's not that easy.


Thomas Beatie is a transgendered man. And he is a man. He's legally changed his official paperwork to reflect that.


On top of that, he's married to a woman.

Here is what he said in The Advocate's First Person column:


I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.
When the couple, who run a screen-printing business—called, of course, Define Normal—in the Central Oregon city of Bend, found out Nancy couldn't have a baby, Thomas decided to step in and take care of the job (with the help of cryogenically preserved donor sperm). Their daughter is expected in July.
===============

Bend, it's the place you want to be. You really want to come here. A year round freak show, with out the price of a circus ticket.

Anonymous said...

Things to think about, and especially non-anonymous blogging on this SITE. Everything you type is associated with your IP, and you will profiled as such. Soft on child-sex? Then WILL be profiled as such, and when a city needs suspects, you'll be on the list. Don't like your prez? Ditto,...

***

Patriot Act haunts Google service

SIMON AVERY

From Monday's Globe and Mail

March 24, 2008 at 4:05 AM EDT

Google Inc. is a year into its ground-shifting strategy to change the way people communicate and work.

But the initiative to reinvent the way that people use software is running headlong into another new phenomenon of the information technology age: the unprecedented powers of security officials in the United States to conduct surveillance on communications.

Eighteen months ago, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., had an outdated computer system that was crashing daily and in desperate need of an overhaul. A new installation would have cost more than $1-million and taken months to implement. Google's service, however, took just 30 days to set up, didn't cost the university a penny and gave nearly 8,000 students and faculty leading-edge software, said Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead's vice-president of administration and finance.

U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt its software model of the future, and today Mr. Pawlowski boasts the move was the right thing for Lakehead, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual operating costs. But he notes one trade-off: The faculty was told not to transmit any private data over the system, including student marks.

The U.S. Patriot Act, passed in the weeks after the September, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, gives authorities the means to secretly view personal data held by U.S. organizations. It is at odds with Canada's privacy laws, which require organizations to protect private information and inform individuals when their data has been shared.

At Lakehead, the deal with Google sparked a backlash. "The [university] did this on the cheap. By getting this free from Google, they gave away our rights," said Tom Puk, past president of Lakehead's faculty association, which filed a grievance against Lakehead administration that's still in arbitration.

Professors say the Google deal broke terms of their collective agreement that guarantees members the right to private communications. Mr. Puk says teachers want an in-house system that doesn't let third parties see their e-mails.

Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures.

"You have to decide which law you are going to break," said Darren Meister, associate professor of information systems at the Richard Ivey School of Business, who specializes in how technology enhances organizational effectiveness. "If I were a business manager, I would want to be very careful about what kind of data I made accessible to U.S. law enforcement."

Using their new powers under the Patriot Act, U.S. intelligence officials can scan documents, pick out certain words and create profiles of the authors - a frightening challenge to academic freedom, Mr. Puk said.

For instance, a Lakehead researcher with a Middle Eastern name, researching anthrax or nuclear energy, might find himself denied entry to the United States without ever knowing why. "You would have no idea what they are up to with your information until, perhaps, it is too late," Mr. Puk said. "We don't want to be subject to laws of the Patriot Act."

Google's free Web tools are advertising-based and they automatically extract information from personal content to build a profile for advertisers. Lakehead professors also object to this feature, although Mr. Puk says Google has refrained from attaching ads until the grievance is settled.

The privacy issue goes far beyond academia. In Toronto, at SickKids Foundation, which has the largest endowment of any Canadian hospital, employees have been keen to use Google tools. But the foundation's IT department blocked access for two reasons.

"Wherever possible, we keep our donor and patient records in Canada, as trying to enforce privacy laws in other jurisdictions is complex and expensive," said Chris Woodill, director of IT and new media at SickKids Foundation. Second, free hosted software offers limited support and no formal legal contract, limiting an organization's ability to demand additional privacy or security measures, he said.

Google says it has a strong track record in regard to protecting customers' data. The firm cites a court case it fought in 2006 against attempts by the U.S. Justice Department to subpoena customer search records. "We will continue to be strong advocates on behalf of protecting our users' data," said Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel.

But the Mountain View, Calif.-based company will not discuss how often government agencies demand access to its customers' information or whether content on its new Web-based collaborative tools has been the subject of any reviews under the Patriot Act.

Montreal security strategist Jeffrey Posluns says Google's software suite may suit some small businesses because cost savings are significant. But he warns that the deciding factor should be the sensitivity of the organization's information.

Anonymous said...

Homer,

You need to have this man/woman with child on your next blog. Like the 'willy-week' says, "Another First for Bend".

The WHOLE fucking world is laughing at Bend, OR.

The INTL butt-bangers ASSN are actually talking about having a INTL convention here because of this. This is big, if transgendered metro-sexuals feel that Bend is the next place. This could be what COVA/VCB has been looking for. This could be our holy-grail.

Bewert said...

Re: Things to think about, and especially non-anonymous blogging on this SITE. Everything you type is associated with your IP, and you will profiled as such.

Your IP is associated whether you are anonymouse or not, unless you use a proxy to feed fake IP's when you are browsing.

But, realistically, don't you think the NSA has figured out a way around anonymouse proxies by now? Especially since their data stream collection sits on the edge of the US, meaning your outgoing connection to your anonymouse proxy is going to go through NSA suction filters before ever reaching the proxy server?

Bend Economy Man said...

Costa and The Bulletin just love to trot out those airports every time they need something nice to say about the local economy.

Everything crashing down around them, and all they can say is "have you seen our airport? We got a hell of an airport."

Bewert said...

11 more NOD's today, including a $43,161 against Branic. We are over 300 for the year now.

Anyone no where Tanager Village is? It keeps coming up with liens on various parties.

Bewert said...

know...damn dyslexic typing...

Bewert said...

Actually, not NOD's, they are more liens. One step ahead of myself.

Bewert said...

Yep, only two more NOD's today, nothing extraordinary. We're sitting at 299 for the year. And we haven't even hit the big ARM reset coming this summer.

I want to record these numbers for NOD's, as reported to Deschutes County:

2007 591
2006 221
2005 310
2004 399
2003 432
2002 450
2001 391
2000 325
1999 307
1998 243
1997 221
1996 195
1995 134
1994 123
1993 101
1992 78
1991 66
1990 59
1989 108
1988 122
1987 200
1986 193
1985 221


1985 is the last year online. These are not adjusted for population growth, so the mid-80's must have been just as ugly as Duncan describes them.

Anonymous said...

Bruce said...Anyone no where Tanager Village is? It keeps coming up with liens on various parties.

I noticed at least 3 different subdivisions, that had 3 parties owning lots in some stage of developement, with liens.
What concerns me, is the possiblity, that true owners, not straw owners, may get tapped for constructions liens after closing.
It wouldn't be the first time it happened..liens posted after closing. We have laws to keep that from happening...but who knows now?
I think those straw buyers are part of Aspen Tree Homes. Although I didn't look it up.

Anonymous said...

Oh. The subdivision is off Bear Creek by Hwy 20 east of 27th.

Anonymous said...

RE: 11 more NOD's today, including a $43,161 against Branic. We are over 300 for the year now.

I saw a notice of a civil suit brought against Branic in the Bulletin a couple days ago. Anyone know what this is about?

tim said...

We're into the second inning of the housing bust for the lawyers. I need a hot pretzel and a beer.

News Junkie said...

The Perfect Real Estate Investment?
by Donald E. Loyd, Ph.D.



Are you looking for the perfect investment opportunity?
I may have exactly what you're looking for! My company, Aspen Tree Homes, LLC (ATH), offers a terrific way for new real estate investors (with little or no cash!) to realize huge profits. Let me explain a program we're currently offering which is unlike any other investment program I'm aware of.

For as little as $5,000 (total "out of pocket cash" for the project) in deposit money you can have a new home built with a strategy to get your $5,000 back and still earn $30,000 to $50,000 or more....

ATH builds for a niche market that is here to stay. We build almost exclusively for the investor market...As with all investing, there is risk in real estate investing. However, the safest bet is real estate. I know it's much, much better than social security or having your money in a bank or CD. It's better and safer than the stock market or mutual funds. But, there are no guarantees you will ever lease or sell the house. Having said that, history and experience says you will....

http://www.bridgefordbuilding.com/article_perfectre.htm

Anonymous said...

... the numbers are no better than if buster himself pulled them out of his ass.

****
Buster pulls everything out of his ass!

The source of the demographic data isn't relevent -- and I can't say because I didn't pay for it. It was a favor.

I know you can't ESTIMATE population down to the last man -- that's why it's called an ESTIMATE. And yes population estimating is rear-view-window looking process. Plus the further we get from the 2000 Census the worse it gets.

However, I'm saying these are the best numbers you'll find anywhere, because they are not just based on Census, but also on mail delivery addresses via the U.S. Postal Service down to the zip+4 (which can be as few as 3-4 homes).

Last time I checked, the homeless didn't get mail.

tim said...

Does it take a PhD to think out of the box like that?

Anonymous said...

Given that our poster of the numbers is anonymous,

***

I think about but about 2 people on this blog are anonymous. Would it make you feel better if I had a fake (anonymous) name?

Anonymous said...

Does it take a PhD to think out of the box like that?
****

say what?

tim said...

>>say what?

I'm always humored when someone uses their Ph.D. on their name to push their harebrained scheme.

Anonymous said...

Maybe he's a Doctor of Phraudulent Philosophy ??

Anonymous said...

Since this group has clearly run out of topics. BEM has a really good topic this week, "HOW TO FIX BEND".

He lists what needs to be done, and has many good ideas.

BEM's site is listed on the top of homers site.

Anonymous said...

Filed March 13
Case No. 08CV0200SF
The Home Center Inc., dba Johnson Brothers - Appliance and TV Centers v. Branic Homes LLC, and Brandon Nicol, complaint, $37,137.

Dang, that's a lot of tv's and appliances!

Anonymous said...

$37,137.

Dang, that's a lot of tv's and appliances!

*

What one house?

Remember they were giving this stuff away to sell houses. This is actually a very small number,

Anonymous said...

Branic is a small-scale builder. According to his website he builds only one or two homes a year.

http://www.branichomes.com/

Check out the pics. The wife's a cutie.

Bewert said...

Don the PhD is a great guy. Look what his website says about him:

A gifted communicator, Don's resume includes teaching under-graduate and through post-graduate course work. He serves as President of the Oregon Association of Professional Real Estate Investors and Executive Director of Northwest Real Estate Institute. Don is also an investment mentor and group leader of Central Oregon Real Estate Investment Club. Meeting weekly, the group learns the nuts and bolts of sound, safe real estate investing and receives encouragement in their investment career.

Don believes in giving back to the community. Over the last 30 plus years he has served in various roles for, and generously gives to, local non-profit organizations and churches. Believing some change needed to take place at the state level, he made a run for the Oregon State Senate in 2004. At this writing he serves as Vice President on the Board of Directors of High Desert Christian College.

He currently donates every Friday to helping new real estate investors learn how to create wealth, enjoy positive cash flow and eliminate bad debt. He has written numerous articles on the subject and is currently writing a book on the subject of creating wealth through real estate investing.


Imagine that, donating his time to teach new real estate investors, and serving on the board of a Christian College.

He sounds perfectly trustworthy!

Anonymous said...

*


"Homeowners Who Won’t Cut the Price"

By DAVID LEONHARDT
March 26, 2008 NY Times


In 2005, Randolph Harrison and his wife, Pamela, decided to move north from Silicon Valley, over the Golden Gate Bridge into wooded Marin County to be closer to her new job. They found a six-bedroom house that seemed ideal except for the price, $1.875 million. The current owner, they knew, had bought the house a year earlier for $1.475 million.

So the couple, who both have finance jobs in the technology industry, told their real estate agent that they wanted to offer $1.575 million. He told them that the owner wouldn’t even listen to such a low bid. The owner’s attitude was “we’ll just stay here until we sell it for 1.875,” the agent said, “even if it takes years.”

Three years ago, when the real estate bubble was still inflating, this sort of standoff was the exception. It’s the norm today. Overall home sales have fallen a remarkable 33 percent since the summer of 2005. Home prices, on the other hand, continued to rise until 2006 and are now only 5 to 10 percent below where they were in mid-2005, according to various measures.

In most other areas of the economy, this combination of plummeting sales and stable prices would not happen. When demand for airline tickets drops, the airlines cut their prices until they have sold their seats. When stocks become less appealing, share prices fall, sometimes sharply.

Just try to imagine stock prices staying roughly flat over a three-year period while sales volumes sank because investors considered the market overvalued. Bear Stearns is still worth $150 a share, and I’m not selling until someone pays me $150!

Real estate, though, is different. For both economic and psychological reasons, there is no asset more conducive to hopeful overvaluation.

That means real estate slumps tend to grind on for years, until sellers submit to reality and reduce their prices. This week’s batch of economic reports suggest that the adjustment is finally starting to happen. The decline in house prices is accelerating, especially in some of the big metropolitan areas covered by the Case-Shiller index released Tuesday, while the number of home sales has recently risen a bit.

But prices still have a ways to fall. Relative to the economic fundamentals — like incomes and housing supply — the average price nationwide seems to be about 10 percent too high. (This, of course, hides a lot of variation. In Texas, prices look sensible, while in much of Florida and Arizona, they are probably about 25 percent too high.)

The slow unwinding of the real estate excess, in turn, means that the turmoil in the financial markets and the country’s broader economic problems also aren’t anywhere near their end. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, recently told Congress that the stabilization of prices was “what we’re looking forward to.” That is, the end of the real estate slump is the only thing that can get the economy back on solid ground.

Until house prices stop falling, it won’t be clear how many more people will default on their mortgages. Even homeowners who stay current on their mortgage payments will be affected. With the value of their largest asset dropping, many will decide to spend less and save more, aggravating the economic slowdown.

On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that Americans were more pessimistic about the economy’s direction over the next six months than at any point since the bad old days of the 1973 oil embargo.

In many ways, it would be better if the housing correction would happen more swiftly and sharply. The pain might be worse, but it would be over quickly. We seem to understand this principle when we’re removing a bandage. Why, then, is it so much harder with housing?

Because houses are almost perfectly engineered to trick owners into overvaluing them.

For starters, people have an obvious emotional connection to their house. After you have raised a family or enjoyed long meals with friends there, you are naturally going to place a higher value on it than a dispassionate buyer would. It’s your home.

In normal times, buyers and sellers can still come to an agreement because inflation allows sellers to feel that they have made a nice return on their house. People don’t sell houses frequently, so the sale price of a house is almost always higher than it was when the current owner bought it, just as the price of food, haircuts and everything else tends to rise over a five- or 10-year span. Because of leverage — the fact that people buy houses mostly on credit — these inflation-driven price increases turn into true investment gains.

In the wake of the biggest housing boom on record, it’s understandably hard to accept a new reality. Robert Glinert, a real estate agent in the Los Angeles area, said he has recently been saying no to almost half the sellers who have asked him to represent them. Their initial asking price is just too unrealistic.

“People say, ‘I don’t care about the market — my home is still worth what I paid for it in 2006,’ ” Mr. Glinert told me. “And I say, ‘To you. Only to you.’ ”

Doing what Mr. Glinert is asking sellers to do — dropping the asking price below their purchase price — is especially difficult. It’s tantamount to admitting defeat.

David Laibson, a leading behavioral economist, categorizes this sort of behavior under the heading of “the principle of the matter.” His point is that people often go to great lengths to avoid taking a loss — or simply having to acknowledge one. “Even a small loss evokes a sense of frustration,” said Mr. Laibson, a professor at Harvard. “There’s something magical about ‘at least breaking even.’ ”

Often, this hurts no one so much as it hurts the would-be sellers. They stay in homes where they no longer want to live, rather than accepting their loss and moving on. Or they move but endure the hassle of renting out their old home, waiting, usually in vain, for the mythical buyer who understands its charms. All the while, their money is tied up in the house, and inflation is eating away at its real value.

Back in 2005, after Mr. Harrison and his wife couldn’t find a house they considered fairly valued, they opted to rent instead. They pay $3,250 a month for a four-bedroom home, which is a bargain relative to what their mortgage payments would have been.

And that six-bedroom house listed for $1.875 million? The last Mr. Harrison checked, it still hadn’t sold.

E-mail: leonhardt@nytimes.com




*

Bewert said...

Also posted over in BEMland:

Yeah, had to come over and take a look. Fine list. Good work.

The problem with PR is that a certain percentage of the hotel tax (IIRC 70%) has to go towards tourism development. That being said, an argument could be made that this doesn't necessarily mean to go to COVA. One would think that expenditures to make the city presentable to tourists, like sweeping up the damn cinders, might qualify.

And when COVA comes begging, which they ineitably will as the hotel tax revenues have been 40% to 50% under expectations the last three months, they should be cut off at the knees. Face the fact--it's a recession, gas is almost $4 a gallon, and people are going to be staying close to home.

You know, we all could see this coming a long time ago. I made a plea to the Council to not issue another $5 million in debt last fall. Of course they ignored it, and issued it last month. They don't seem to like input from the general public. Although COBA and the city staff has had "hundreds" of contacts regarding and increase in SDC's. They don't like them, of course.

On Juniper Ridge, at the Jan. 7 City/County Joint Meeting where they discussed the actual requirements for a Master Plan, Ron Garzini stated that "... there will be an advisory group working on the master plan, and it will include all interested parties. The Council will form the group and a conceptual level master plan will be prepared and brought to the County."

and

"Within the next three months, an advisory committee will be
formed..."

I emailed him about this yesterday and just got his response a few minutes ago:

"Regarding the Master Plan oversight, the advisory committee is going to be made up of those who have quasi statutory roles; for example school districts, park district, Boyd acres neighborhood, County and the like. There will also be a citizen`s meeting where everyone is invited to give their input. Next week, Jerry Mitchell is meeting with the planners and they will begin then to schedule these meetings. They will all be public and I expect them to begin within the next 30 days."

So expect a window of about three hours where the general public will be able to comment. Hopefully they will at least take written comments.

BTW, as far as the County is concerned, we probably could have used the OTAK Master Plan, as long as the public was involved and it followed the city's own rules. This whole JRP fiasco was just a way to squeeze in more housing when everyone thought they could get rich on RE. Complete idiocy, especially in retrospect.

I'm going to file a records request and see how much I can find out about the settlement negotiations, including any invoices, etc. that JRP provided to the city. Should be interesting.

tim said...

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine month."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Bewert said...

Timmy, that piece from the Hitchhiker's Guide is absolutely spot on :)

BTW I still think the opening couple of pages of "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" may be the best writing I have ever had the joy of reading.

Bewert said...

Got to love thehousingbubbleblog.com:

"The North County Times. “Analysts say that though prices will continue to fall, San Diego’s desirable weather and location means homeowners have to redefine what is affordable.”

“‘San Diego has gone through what is called a Manhattanization because there’s only so much land,’ said Nathan Moeder, a principal a San Diego realty adviser firm. ‘You can say (a house payment) should be a third of your income, but that’s not the case for San Diego. It might be the case for the Inland Empire, but if you want to be here in the sun, close to the water, you’re going to have to spend for it.’”

“Christopher Thornberg, an economist with Beacon Economics said he is unconvinced by the theory.”

“‘That’s totally bogus,’ he said. ‘The kind of population density in San Diego is nowhere near what you’re dealing with in New York. That you could possibly even pretend that is the case is absurd.’”

tim said...

>>BTW I still think the opening couple of pages of "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" may be the best writing I have ever had the joy of reading.

So much so good. I like the Electric Monk bit in Dirk Gently quite a bit.

I was disappointed you made no reply to my reference to The Man in The High Castle the other day.

Bewert said...

Update from Garzini:

Bruce
The meeting referenced is about the conceptual master plan, and that alone. Comments about overall Juniper Ridge development would not be relevant to that meeting. Your idea of a comment form is a good one. We will follow-up


I'm not really sure what a conceptual master plan refers to, since an actual master plan is what is needed. Really kind of a cryptic answer.

BTW, the comment form thing is having the city put up a form for JR comments on their website. If they do, let's work to bombard it with comments about the importance of jobs lands. No more housing!

At least not until we sell the 10,000 or so we have in process.

Bewert said...

Re: I was disappointed you made no reply to my reference to The Man in The High Castle the other day.

I got pissed off and didn't come in for awhile.

Anonymous said...

Timmy, that piece from the Hitchhiker's Guide is absolutely spot on :)

*

There has to be a godwins law for invoking HHG, bruce-pussy has finally dropped this blog to his level.

Bewert said...

Re: The Man in The High Castle

I just went back over the comments and I must have totally missed it earlier.

I really need to read more of P H Dick. I didn't become aware of him until a few years ago, which seems kind of unbelievable now. He has become incredibly relevant to our times.

Bewert said...

P K Dick...damn dyslexic typing.

Maybe it's the microbrew I opened at five.

Bewert said...

Re: There has to be a godwins law for invoking HHG, bruce-pussy has finally dropped this blog to his level.

I would say HHG is a pretty high level. Far higher than arguing over stupid things like we have lately ;)

tim said...

You were talking about real and fake, which bought Man in the High Castle to mind. What I said was:

timothy said...

>>as Philip K. Dick put it

It's all fun and games until you find out that all the antiques in your store may be merely manufactured counterfeits.
March 23, 2008 8:52 AM

And you guys stop picking on Bruce for being literary or I'll go all Faulkner and Joyce on ya.

Bewert said...

I just didn't know exactly where that came from. So, no comment.

I really want to read both Radio Free Albemuth and The Man in The High Castle. Are there any others that are must reads?

tim said...

Man in the High Castle may be the best. It distills everything he has to say. I'd say if you've read that, you've read them all. You shouldn't go around talking about PKD's philosophy without reading it.

But that's no reason not to read the shorter works as well, just for fun.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Just try to imagine stock prices staying roughly flat over a three-year period while sales volumes sank because investors considered the market overvalued. Bear Stearns is still worth $150 a share, and I’m not selling until someone pays me $150!

That is a damn good piece, and describes 99.5% of all Koo-Aid addled Bend sellers perfectly.

I'm tellin' ya Timmy, there is a major "behaviorial" finance theory thesis behind this.

Maybe titled, "Why Dumbfucks Won't Sell When The Markets Gone To Shit".

tim said...

A good way to stop being foolish is to see your own bad decisions.

I read this a couple years ago and thought it was good...

http://tinyurl.com/3agsnf

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

A good way to stop being foolish is to see your own bad decisions.

I think the seeds of destruction were sown on the way up. I know MANY people who sold at ridiculous asking prices, then went on & bought something even bigger.

Now it's time to sell & they do NOT care what anyone tells them, they have their ludicrous asking price, and they won't lower it a dime. Last time, this strategy paid off, and they believe it will again.

What's tragic is they come closer & closer to financial collapse, but they won't lower price over time because it becomes a financial necessity.

Doesn't bother me really, I'm just a stupid renter. I guess I'll just watch it pile up till Armageddon freezes over.

Bewert said...

In other news, my Press Pass was hand delivered today. Another tool.

'Nite all.

LavaBear said...

>>I guess I'll just watch it pile up till Armageddon freezes over.

Granny got the kids ice skates last x-mas. (I thought she was finally losing it but now I may see the genius behind it.) We'll come over and enjoy a good skate as long as old man Potter does rape my bank.

Anonymous said...

Tim is sounding more like bruce everyday, I guess its time to call him timmy-twat once again, looks like we're reverting to earlier times.

Bruce has been here such a short period time, I forgot that at one time timmy was our main pussy.

Brucey made timmy look like Hercules. I think that press pass has made TT jealous, and now he wants to be like brucey.

tim said...

Problem is we're bored (or at least I am). Seems like everything that's happening now is just a continuation of what we've been talking about for two years. Realtors spinning the same shit (fewer of them, though). Gov't (at every level) walking the same road. People still obsessed about Trader Joes (how long does that last--and yes, I've been to Trader Joes before. It's a good grocery, but it's not the Taj Mahal). City acting like it still has money to spend. Dollar still dropping. People cranking up credit cards.

But I'll take the book talk to other venues. No reason to talk about it here.

Just waiting for some big event, if that's how it happens. The big signal.

Anonymous said...

*

Thoughts for the day, by Mike Hunt...

Here is a low cost way for the city of Bend to refresh its image in the mind of potential tourists. I think this would be a first for any city in America:

http://tinyurl.com/2d5mps



*

Anonymous said...

Just waiting for some big event, if that's how it happens. The big signal.

*

I think last weekend, the weekend that Bear-Stearns imploded was a big week to talk.

Nothing now, its going to be very slow in Bend, as stuff finally grinds to a halt.

We're not likely going to see too many more big weekends, we got to get through the election cycle, and then the government can do the evil shit. Right now, they have to be nice.

Anonymous said...

If you look at the Deschutes County DIAL Page- property ownership information- you will see the bulletin was given the land for their new building, from brooks resource, for free. The estimated value was $2,000,000- I think that may explain a thing or two

Anonymous said...

Bruce-Pussy,

JR is dead.

Kuratek broke even at $2.5M

Les-Schwab is a bandit, getting over $15M in infrastructure for $3M actual cost, and then there's the roads to come valued at $60M.

The city of Bend, taxpayers, are the only losers. Best of all our 'brooks resources' has land all around JR, just waiting to be developed.

Bruce-Pussy how much does Mikey 'slut' Hollern pay you to blog?

Anonymous said...

From comedian Paul Ollinger’s stand-up bit:

Trader Joe’s… Love this place, ‘cuz it’s like hippy Walmart, is what it is. Now old potheads and angry lesbians can all shop in the same store. They’re all happy there. It’s like the land of misfit people, ya know? And if you got your ass kicked in high school, there’s a job waiting for you at Trader Joes….

Try finding a parking spot at Trader Joe’s on a Saturday afternoon. You can’t do it, you know why? ‘Cuz people drive from hundreds of miles around to buy that cheap-ass wine that they sell there… It’s not very good wine, but if you drink enough of it, it gives you these peyote-quality hallucinations that are absolutely to die for. So if you want to see some giant chickens dancing on your lawn, pick up some of this shit.”

I guess when all of those starving realtors out there are tired of drinking the kool-aid, they can head on over to TJ’s and pick up some of that cheap-ass shit. And while they’re there at it, they can pick up a job app.


Ya, I'm bored too, Timmy. Guess I'll go hang out and people-watch at Trader Joe's for awhile.

Anonymous said...

BendBubble2: Please email me at Stop The Housing Bailout -AT- gmail. I would like to contact you about an effort to stop the housing bailout. Thanks.

Bewert said...

Re: JR is dead.

Not if the Council has anything to say about it.

Why don't you do some research on that land Brooks owns around JR and I'll publish it.

Ye, LS has gotten the golden deal. And Kuratek is getting paid off for his efforts, without making too much of a profit. Maybe.

But Kuratek has the dibs on the next 50 acres, and the appraisal is a huge point of contention. Kuratek wants it for less than LS, because it won't be shovel ready. It's "as is". So what is that price? John Russell claims $10/sq. ft. I think he's full of shit.

Bewert said...

Re: If you look at the Deschutes County DIAL Page- property ownership information- you will see the bulletin was given the land for their new building, from brooks resource, for free. The estimated value was $2,000,000- I think that may explain a thing or two

Tell me how to find that.

Bewert said...

Re JR is dead

If you have been to the March Council Working Sessions, you know how hard they are hanging on to the idea of JR land sales to get them out of this mess.

Of course, the latest earmark fuck up doesn't help much. Capell's cousing might not get a big contract next year.

Just sent in a Capell conflict of interest complaint, so he will hate me by the next meeting. It's so blatant it's ridiculous.

Exec Session complaint it almost complete, I'm just trying to get one more Notice from the city that is perhaps a bit made-up.

Bewert said...

cousin...not cousing

You know, it amazes me that someone can be so stupid as to state in a public meeting that his cousin owns a property that he then votes on buying for the city from his cousin.

But then Capell's email trail with me doesn't really show much knowledge or concern about the actual law. He's read it, he says, and he's comfortable with council actions.

That's good, Mark.

Bewert said...

BTW, here's a link to the complaint I sent today: http://www.juniper-ridge.info/GPSC Complaint_Form-Capell.doc

Yes, local media who we know read this, this is for you.

Bend Economy Man said...

For as little as $5,000 (total "out of pocket cash" for the project) in deposit money you can have a new home built with a strategy to get your $5,000 back

Wow! Just $5,000 for a strategy to get my $5000 back!

I'll up the ante - one-time special just for BB2 readers: for $10,000, I'll sell you a strategy to get your $10,000 back.

Anonymous said...

Re: Bruce's JR Complaint

RIGHT ON BRUCE!!

You seem to get a lot of shit on this blog, but from what i can tell you are actually doing something. Great complaint, hope it gets noticed and responded to.

You also seem to be much more grounded in reality than some on here when it comes to the real truth in politics/gov't bs. AND, I would like to say all these tools with their panties in a bunch over some 17 vs 14, 18 vs 15 teen sex stuff are lame and out of touch. I found myself laughing and practically in disbelief when reading their angry comments... like, what are these guys actually serious? WTF? I'm 33 and I was doing everything I could when I was a senior in highschool to nail the hottie freshmen/sophomores... NO BIG DEAL. Sure as FUCK not a prison-worthy activity. These guys obviously didn't get much tang back in their day... lol.

Anonymous said...

Bend Transgender Man Rapes Poodle
Bend Bulletin(c) 2008 March 28, 2008

Today in Bend, Oregon our own bruce-pussy was found raping a poodle. One of his mormon wives a cave dwarf named lucy says "Yes, it was about 3pm and there was bruce and the neighbors poodle, I caught it all on my iPhone, Bruce bought each of us wives an iPhone you know".

We'll it gets even better, lucy then calls the Bend City police, and gives them her iPhone. Now Bruce in the pokey with $50k bail.

County Animal Control Adam's says, 'with the demise of the economy many businessmen such as our own bruce-pussy, who used to solicit prostitutes, are now having to find less expensive inlets'.

The Bruce-Pussy home is planning on having a bake sale this weekend to raise the funds to bail bruce out. Any donations from the Mormon church would be very much desired.

Anonymous said...

Bruce,

Your the man. I mean I thought you a little queer, but with the with new goal of legalizing pu-tang for us old geezers. I'm with ya bruce.

In the day, Bend was always 14 yr old latch-key girls being done by La-Pine, Sisters, and Redmond Dudes, aka 20+ yr-old all hat no cow, cowboys.

Today with the economy in the shit, and everyone in Bend working two jobs hubby & wife, thats a lot of bored pu-Tang.

What's it like being a mormron? I'm mean do you get as much pu-Tang as they say??

You got my vote brucey, when you run for mayor, just remember the campaign slogan, "a bend slut, for every cock".

Bewert said...

Re: The Bruce-Pussy home is planning on having a bake sale this weekend to raise the funds to bail bruce out. Any donations from the Mormon church would be very much desired.

Yes, please donate to bewert@gmail.com via Paypal if you have any desire to support this cause.

But no matter what, I am a bit stubborn about seeing things through. Whether anyone donates or not. Just the way it is, you know.

See you tomorrow.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

These guys obviously didn't get much tang back in their day...

I know I didn't, and I wanted it real bad.

We just couldn't afford Tang.

Anonymous said...

HI

This is my first time reading this blog and I must say that I'm a little shocked. While I expected to read endless comments re: the Bend RE Bubble, I found a lot of "off-topic" discussions on things like "getting laid, as well as much commenter bashing.

I found one poster particularly off the mark -- someone named "Buster." Is he a regular or also a newbie? He sounds particularly clueless about all matters -- including the Bend Bubble. Get with the program, man. Read the blog's mission statement for a change.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

[HELLO]

I AM ALSO NEW TO TO BLORGING, AND FOUND ALL POSTS, COMMENTERS, AND YOUR TOWN A BIG TUBBA SHIT. I CASTIGATE YOU ALL, AND MYSELF AS WELL, FOR READING THIS BLOG & IT'S COMMENTS. I WILL PUT MY OWN NUTBAG IN A VICE FOR WRITING THIS COMMENT.

MAY GOD KILL US ALL AND SEND US STRAIT TO HELL.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Where's marge?

I needs me some March data!

C'mon baby, gimmee a little sum'n sum'n...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I want to post this here from BendBB, as it may be deleted at anytime...

Local broker expects the Bend market to rebound in 12 months
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: March 28. 2008 4:00AM PST

Wendy Adkisson, principal broker with The Garner Group in Bend, believes home prices in Bend will pick up in the next 12 months, rather than 2010, as Frank Nothaft predicted Thursday in remarks to the National Economists Club.

[ http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/03/27/14/Hall-Nothaft-032708.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf ]

Adkisson thinks Central Oregon’s recovery will come quicker, due to less foreclosure activity when compared with other parts of the country, as well as the region’s reputation as a desirable place to live.

“People want to live here,” Adkisson said. “In-migration is pretty high, so eventually we’ll run out of housing if we don’t build, which we aren’t, so in-migration will eat up existing inventory.”

Deschutes County had the fifth-highest rate of population growth in the country in the last seven years, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Wednesday. Additionally, the county’s population grew 3.3 percent between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007.

Adkisson said housing inventory in Bend is now at 11 months. [ ?? ] Less than six months is a seller’s market, six to 10 months is a stable market and anything more than that is a buyer’s market, explained Adkisson. She added that housing activity in the last 30 days has “finally” increased after a slow start to the year.

Bend recorded just 45 sales of single-family homes in February, compared with 132 in February 2007, according to the monthly Bratton Report issued by the Bratton Appraisal Group in Bend. In January, Bend had 72 sales, down from 134 a year earlier, the report showed. The report is based on Multiple Listing Service sales of single-family homes in Bend and does not include condos, townhomes, manufactured homes or acreage.

The median sales price in Bend was $323,000 in February, down from $349,000 in February 2007, and the median in January was $312,000, down from $329,000 a year ago, according to the report.

Earlier this month, RealtyTrac — an online real estate business that tracks foreclosures — ranked Oregon the 25th most active state in terms of monthly foreclosure activity in its February 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The report’s top three states were Nevada, California and Florida, respectively.

RealtyTrac showed 155 listings for bank-owned properties in Deschutes County on Thursday, with 404 homes in the pre-foreclosure stage. Roughly three months ago, on Dec. 20, 2007, the site showed 63 listings for bank-owned properties in Deschutes Coun-ty with 217 homes in the pre-foreclosure stage, according to The Bulletin’s archives.


Here's a comment from "MST" on this thread...

What was she smokin? I look at the same listings number as she does. I count 1951 dwellings on the market in Bend. With March sales of all dwellings at 83 today and add 17 that might close by the end of the month. That looks like 19+ months inventory to me. If you look at just single family and no condo, townhome, manufactured or acreage, the solds are 70 today, add 10 more for the end of the month, that's 80. The active listing are 1351. Still more that 11 months supply. IT'S ALMOST 17 months. So where is the good news?
Hitting 100+ NOD's a month will push the inventory well over 2000 soon. And, there are sellers still waiting for their lawns to green up before putting on the market in April/May.
Head in the stars!! She is usually not a liar. But one does have to call BS sometime.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

“People want to live here,” Adkisson said. “In-migration is pretty high, so eventually we’ll run out of housing if we don’t build, which we aren’t, so in-migration will eat up existing inventory.”

My Lord.

OK Wendy, then start RAISING PRICES. Seriously.

If people really do want to live here, you should have NO TROUBLE burning through your current inventory at far higher prices.

RAISE PRICES. Eat some of your own cooking. Raise the prices on ALL your listings, since it'll all be absorbed by the overwhelming hordes moving to Cent OR.

Everyone KNOWS that higher prices are GOOD for Cent OR real estate. Remember 2004-2006? It was good then, it's good now. That logic is impenetrable, so go ahead & RAISE PRICES if you are so convinced of this scenario.

Good Job Bulletin for printing yet another REAL ESTATE FUELED PR NIGHTMARE... errr, sorry... a fair & balanced RE news piece. Good job.

Anonymous said...

http://bendbubble.blogspot.com/2007/07/this-is-story-about-terrible-mistake.html

BEM,

Regarding your suggestion for a 4 yr university, I wrote about how to do this last July 2007, we're almost to the point where OldMill just might sell for penny's on the dollar.

It would be a great campus, and hell we could send all the outlet stores to JR, and that would make bruce-pussy happy.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

go ahead & RAISE PRICES if you are so convinced of this scenario.

Actually, The Bulletin, and these PR-crazed Realtors are completely blind to the fact that THEY are making the problem WORSE.

Sellers read this shit, and either will NOT reduce price, or actually RAISE it. And when the Realtors come calling for a price reduction, they don't get it and they have POSITIVE pieces like this waved in their face as validation.

Good job RE types. Digging your own graves.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Here is a TUSCANY NIGHTMARES listing that actually RAISED their price this month, from $458K to $475K.

They have thawed out the Kool-Aid vat over at Cushman & Tebbs & started bobbing for stupid.

I think Cushman & Tebbs will ultimately go bust. They have shot their accumulated bubble wad into a bunch of failed RE (Deschutes Landing) deals, and just a ridiculous amount of ridiculously ornate, and overdone office space. They are the prototypical Escalade-driving, McMansion living Cali-spunkers who are surviving on vapors from the Bubble. They'll ultimately go down hard...

It'll all just close one day.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

ridiculous amount of ridiculously ornate...

Never say this blog is redundant...

Bewert said...

Just noticed a big For Lease sign out in front of Meridian Realty on Galveston.

Anonymous said...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...
Where's marge?


I am MST on BEBB.
The figures above are mine.

tim said...

>>ridiculous amount of ridiculously ornate...

Are you looking for "Rococo?"

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Local broker expects the Bend market to rebound in 12 months

What's also ironic about this title, is that the whole "Things Will Be Fine In 6 Weeks" bullshit is even too much for hard-core RE idiots & The Bulletin to print anymore. That sort of crap just saps your credibility, as Dana Bratton has found out....

tim said...

>>Good job RE types. Digging your own graves.

I don't understand it. When I talk with a Realtor in a conversation (meaning they aren't trying to get me into a transaction), they tell me that they have to turn down dumb-ass sellers left and right because their estimation of what their house will fetch is so out of line.

But get a Realtor in front of a Bulletin reporter and their mind goes blank and they channel the NAR.

Or...maybe the Bulletin is looking for a certain kind of Realtor. Why is it always, "Local Realtor thinks we'll come out much sooner than the rest of the country?" Can we NEVER see, "Local Realtor thinks our troubles will last even longer." It just stretches credulity to think that every Realtor in Bend thinks we're doing great, especially given the diminishment of their income.

We hate you, Bulletin, because you think we are so stupid as to not see your bias.

There's definitely a tension. Both sellers and buyers have to be told they are idiots. The sellers are idiots for not lowering prices and the buyers are idiots for not buying today.

You have to tell the sellers, "look out, inventory is piling up! Slash! Slash!" You have to tell buyers, "Man things are great for you if you buy today, but it fyou wait until tomorrow you are royally fucked, because everyone else is buying today."

The Bulletin doesn't seem to have the balance quite right, and I'm not sure why. They filter it out so it's just the buyers who are idiots But that just clogs up the system.

Of course, the real story is, "It's hard as hell to get a loan."

Anonymous said...

Can't wait for April 25th to see 100 homes sold by that date and 2100 on the market.

Duncan McGeary said...

To hell with it. Just give them more rope. It's not our necks in the noose.

Who are they kidding?

Buyer beware. Read more than the headlines. Read the national media.

LavaBear said...

>>Can't wait for April 25th to see 100 homes sold by that date and 2100 on the market.

And let me see here...if I pull out my Wendy Adkisson calculator that computes to...6 months inventory onhand given rounding and standard error rate of 20 +/- months. We will have POSITIVELY hit bottom.

Bewert said...

Just posted this on BEBoard, but will post here, too, so it doesn't disappear:

From the Oregonian:

Chase mortgage memo pushes 'Cheats & Tricks'
The bank says it never backed the strategies, which detail how to get an iffy loan approved

A newly surfaced memo from banking giant JPMorgan Chase provides a rare glimpse into the mentality that fueled the mortgage crisis.

The memo's title says it all: "Zippy Cheats & Tricks."

It is a primer on how to get risky mortgage loans approved by Zippy, Chase's in-house automated loan underwriting system. The secret to approval? Inflate the borrowers' income or otherwise falsify their loan application.

The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Oregonian, bears a Chase corporate logo. But it's unclear how widely it was circulated or used within Chase.

Bank spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed that the "Cheats & Tricks" memo was e-mailed from Chase but added that it does not reflect Chase corporate policy.

"This is not how we do things," he said. "We continue to investigate" the memo, Kelly said. "That kind of document would neither be condoned or tolerated."

The March e-mail was sent by Tammy Lish, a former Chase account representative in Portland. Chase fired her days after discovering she had sent it.

"I did not write it," Lish said. "It was sent to me by another (Chase) rep in another office along with some other documents that were more step-by-step customer training documents."

Even if the memo was penned by a single employee, it illustrates an attitude prevalent in certain corners of the mortgage industry during the boom years. In the face of sustained and significant home price increases, much of the industry veered away from traditional notions of safe and sound lending. Loan volume became as important as loan quality, particularly for the rank and file typically paid on commission.

During the boom, it was common for lenders and brokers to get paid more for risky subprime loans than for 30-year fixed-rate loans because the higher-interest loans fetched a higher price on Wall Street.

Chase, the nation's second-largest bank, originates mortgage loans itself but also operates a wholesale arm that underwrites and funds loans brought to them by a network of mortgage brokers. The "Cheats & Tricks" memo was instructing those brokers how to get difficult loans approved by Zippy.

"Never fear," the memo states. "Zippy can be adjusted (just ever so slightly.)"

The Chase memo deals specifically with so-called stated-income asset loans, one of the most dangerous of the mortgage industry's innovations of recent years. Known as "liar loans" in some circles because lenders made little effort to verify information in the borrowers' loan application, they have defaulted in large number since the housing bust began in 2007.

Chase no longer makes any stated-income loans, part of the bank's efforts to tighten its loan underwriting, Kelly said. It wrote down $1.3 billion in nonperforming mortgages at the end of 2007.

Lish said she sent out the document inadvertently. "The document was irrelevant by the time I sent it out because the company had ceased offering stated-income loans."

The document recommends three "handy steps" to loan approval:

Do not break out a borrower's compensation by income, commissions, bonus and tips, as is typically done in a loan application. Instead, lump all compensation as the applicant's base income.

If your borrower is getting some or all of a down payment from someone else, don't disclose anything about it. "Remove any mention of gift funds," the document states, even though most mortgage applications specifically require borrowers to disclose such gifts.

If all else fails, the document states, simply inflate the applicant's income. "Inch it up $500 to see if you can get the findings you want," the document says. "Do the same for assets."

Chase's Kelly said the bank has never encouraged any of the suggestions in the memo.

"If somebody is putting inaccurate information in their loan application, they're lying and committing fraud," he said.

Still, some local mortgage brokers view the memo as vindication. Brokers have argued they've been unfairly blamed for the lax lending standards that led to a wave of defaults. The large national lenders drove the weakening standards, they argue.

The Chase memo is "a perfect example of one of the big five banks out and out telling mortgage brokers to commit fraud," said Todd Williams, a broker with Evergreen Ohana Group in Portland. "And this has been going on for years."

Williams and other mortgage brokers gave a copy of the memo to Oregon financial regulators.

"It boggles my mind that any federally chartered organization would invite this kind of activity in such a flagrant way," said David Tatman, head of Oregon's Division of Finance and Corporate Securities.

But Tatman confirmed that as a state regulator, he doesn't have jurisdiction over the federally chartered Chase.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has authority over Chase. OCC spokesman Dean DeBuck declined to comment on the document.


Hey, money was free! More is better! Lot's of guilt to spread around, starting right at the top with the Fed and BushCo, all the way down through the chain of financial and RE companies, to those idiots that thought they could always refinance because the boom would never end.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

A funny thread at BendBB:

guest: I've got half a mind to start a blog "the bulletin is full of shit"

Guest: I think Paul Doh has you covered over at BendBubble2

guest: Complete with all the f-bombs and man-twat jokes you can stomach. And then some.

The third remark is funny: They had to use the Politically Tolerable "f-bomb", but then had no problem using the completely vile "man-twat". That there is kick ass.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The sellers are idiots for not lowering prices and the buyers are idiots for not buying today.

Another Perfect Tim-ism.

Our asses are chewed coming & going in this schizo fucking town.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

that computes to...6 months inventory...

That there is funny!

Bewert said...

Search county recordings for BRAD L WILLIAMS, and you see some interesting names on the records involving him, Sterling Savings Bank, and some developers, as the bank appoints Williams the new Trustee, presumably to initiate foreclosure. Some of them, all of which were recorded in March: REINHARDT CONSTRUCTION & DESIGN LLC, REDMOND DEVELOPMENT VENTURES LLC, QUAIL CONSTRUCTION LLC, CITYWIDE BUILDING LLC, TAMARACK HOMES LLC (yes, it's directly related to the 62-property $13M note), BROOKSWOOD MEADOW LLS, FAIRHAVEN ASSOCIATES LLC, PIONEER CROSSING LLC

Lots of builders barely hanging on...

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