The other thing cuz obviously homer doesn't need to work so fucking hard, is to post questions every sunday, and comment highlights, and then let everyone respond, and then the following week post conclusions, and MOVE ON. ( More of a socratic method )
This will be tough, because I have an absolutely awful memory, and this will require that I actually try to write a lot of stuff down during the course of the week, that I can write about. There's no shortage of material, it's just a shortage of mental goo that keeps it held together until the weekend which is lacking.
I suppose the highlight of the week locally, was the centraloregonrealtors.com quarterly summary was released. There were a few points of interests.
First, dollar sales are below 2004 levels. There was $92MM at this time in 2004, and there is only $85MM so far this year. That is down 47.24% from 2007, and down even more from the peak in 2006.
If you recall, the real signals that Bend was not exempt from the slowdown came in the Fall of 2006. That's back when I was on BEM's board, and we all watched in amazement as inventory went ballistic. If you don't recall, well then click on Clive's inventory counter to the right.
We are, of course, at all-time highs in inventory, this place is awash in it.
It seems like just about every "superlative" has been exhausted describing the depths of Bend's RE problem. And it is clearly getting worse. But call me crazy, but DOWN 47% is starting to sound... OK.
"Down 50%? Eh. I've seen worse."
I don't know about you guys, but I am actually becoming accustomed to The Horror. Down 20%?... I mean, damn that would be reason to celebrate!
And actually, local Bend media did EXACTLY what I said they'd do: They celebrated the 100% PURELY SEASONAL UPTICK in Cent OR RE as The Turning Point. As a reminder, here is what I wrote way back on March 3 of this year:
February in Bend -- The Real Estate Calamity Continues
The Good News? Well, Deschutes County traditionally "bottoms" in February. Things usually get better from here, for about the next 6-8 months. Sales will pick up, things will be declared "OK", and such. But if you really need to sell, realize that this yearly game of musical chairs ends as predictably as it starts, and if you Need Out, this is Your Time.
And so we had Yet Another In A Long Line Of Stories declaring Things Are All Right:
June uptick ‘good news, but barely
June produced a glimmer of hope for a Bend real estate industry that reached its lowest depths in early 2008, according to a report this week from Bratton Appraisal Group.
Ah yes, Bratton Appraisal Group, the RE Genius' who brought us the April 25th Low In Cent OR Real Estate.
What's really great about this, is The Bulletin PRINTS stuff from Dana Bratton AD NAUSEUM, and they PRINTED his "tongue-in-cheek" April 25th Rock Bottom Prediction. This was, of course, RIDICULOUS, so ridiculous that lots of people sort of chuckled an uncomfortable chuckle, and said "Well, maybe... maybe... maybe..."
But you know, LOTS OF PEOPLE, including Dana Bratton were hoping beyond HOPE that he was right. I mean, The Bulletin & just about everyone else in town PRINTED this little "joke". No, it was NOT really a joke. It was what just about every other thing printed in this town regarding RE is: A 100% hope-based puff piece meant TO SELL HOMES.
Don't think Bend media had pinned their hopes on this little "joke"? Here's The Incredible Hulce from her most recent editorial (OK, there is no link, because Hulce keeps her piece of shit website about 2 months behind the print edition. Wake up White Peepul. Geez.):
While we all wanted to believe that Dana Bratton was right and the housing market turned on April 25 -- it didn't happen. It is more likely throughout 2008 that housing prices in Central Oregon will drop more, that gas prices will continue to go up, that the stock market will be tedious and no one will suddenly solve the healthcare crisis or end the war in Iraq.
Yeah. See? It was NOT a joke. You think Bend media remembers a "joke" told back in Feb-Mar, only to reveal the "punchline" on July 2? No. This entire area is founded on the idea that The Perpetual Motion Machine is REAL. And if we can just BELIEVE ENOUGH, that The Perpetual Money machine can be fired up again.
Always Cause, never Effect. "I'm not responsible for the consequences.." Complete disconnect, 100% Selfish. Californicated. People here have become so delusional from the Kool-Aid they don't even realize what they're saying is INSANE. Again, the Incredible Hulce in the SAME EDITORIAL:
So we ask: what would you do? Would you make gas prices go down, the housing market boom again? Of course you would, but how?
My God, this woman is INSANE.
I WOULD NOT make gas go down, and I MOST CERTAINLY WOULD NOT "MAKE" housing boom again. Why? For the love of Christ...
OK, first oil. We need go NO FURTHER than The Incredible Hulce herself to hear the problem; Again, same piece:
We all know America is addicted to oil. This addiction plagues our health, our environment and our society. Given that two-thirds of our oil comes from foreign nations leaves us open to the whims of potentially hostile foreign governments and the combustion of oil in our vehicle chokes our skies with smog and contributes greatly to global warming.
Oh yeah, this "oil" shit sounds great. The Incredible Hulce, earlier in the same fucking piece, advocates DROPPING THE COST OF OIL, such that we might feed this addiction, because it seems to have SO MANY positive side effects, such as turning this planet into an Easy Bake Oven & placing our collective cocks on an Iranian chopping block.
Seriously, is it just me, or is Bend media run by infantile, selfish lunatics?
Hulce actually wants RE to go into another BUBBLE. She wants it to BOOM again, and ASSUMES that EVERYONE with half a brain would obviously want the same thing. Yet, here is a piece that made THE FRONT PAGE of her moronic rag (Oct 3, 2007):
Affordable Housing Expert Adderesses Key Issues Facing Region
The most significant workforce recruitment and retention challenge for local businesses in Central Oregon is predicated on the shortage of housing affordable to workers, according to a survey by the Central Oregon Workforce Investment Board.
That is the first sentence, front page piece.
So the NON-AFFORDABILITY of housing is THE WORST problem for employers in Cent OR, and HULCE wants it to get WORSE. And what's worse, she sees NO CAUSATION between BOOM & BUST. The BUST we are now seeing is in NO WAY connected causally to the BOOM.
And OIL, which causes INTERMINABLE HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS & MAY WELL KILL US ALL, yeah, she says in the same fucking breath that she wants it cheaper so we can consume MORE OF IT.
What a fucking myopic lunatic. Only a complete nut would run a front page piece (Sept 19,2007):
Deer Ridge Welcomes First Inmates.
For the love of Christ. I'm sure it was a joyous time for all involved.
Pamela Hulce Andrews: So Warden, how is opening day?
Deer Ridge Warden: After being confined to prison buses all day for the trip to Deer Ridge , many of the large black inmates convicted rapists celebrated their reunion with deep expressions of love for the smaller White convicted child molesters, by embracing them with the deepest penetrating act of love a man can give another man. It really was a touching sight. And Pamela, the guards were so happy to be reunited with these convicted felons, that they tear-gassed the lot of 'em on Day 1 out in The Yard.
Pamela Hulce Andrews is INSANE.
The point? This place is SEASONAL. My God, it's so fundamental to anyone who's been here for more than 5 minutes, it's not even worth repeating. But Bend media wants you to think WE'RE TURNING A CORNER. No. We are NOT.
Sales up? Of course, but anyone who can fog a mirror knew that back in Feb. Feb 1947, that is. We ALWAYS turn up from a bottom in Feb, and get smacked RIGHT BACK DOWN in Oct. Always have, always will.
YoY is THE ONLY COMPARISON THAT MATTERS.
"Hey Pat, I'm predicting that this December is going to be strong! And I'm going out on a limb here, but I'll predict right now, it'll be stronger than November!"
Oy. If ordinary businesspeople actually RELIED on the media & their CONSTANTLY
INTERVIEWED EXPERTS in this town to run their businesses, they'd all be dead.
Six months ago, in the garage of his west Redmond home, Carl Ylvisaker started tinkering with a tire, a trailer hitch, an alternator, car batteries and a power inverter.
The result: a device with the potential to complement alternative power sources like solar panels and windmills. And if everything falls into place, something that could help resolve the world’s energy crisis, says Ylvisaker, a retired physical therapist.
“We’re in an energy crunch right now,” Ylvisaker says. “This will certainly help defray that.”
My God. You hear that Timmy? We're in a fucking energy CRUNCH here! And this motherfucker has got a gopher wheel, a rubber band, fucking fishing line, and the complete McGyver DVD series that is going to DEFRAY THAT.
Ok, moving on...
Stocks got roiled this week, officially entering Bear Market territory for the first time since the NASDAQ crash.
I still find this one of the strangest things about this Housing/Credit bust: Not that it happened, but that it happened so late. This countries markets are populated by vultures that would hurl their mother under the bus to scalp an eighth. These guys are smart & they are motivated by making money before the next guy & that's it.
And I don't know about you guys, but this thing seemed clear WAY OVER a year ago.
I haven't bought stocks in many moons. Last time I bought was 2002. I thinned my meager holdings in 2005-2006 on housing fears. And subsequently watched IN HORROR as things continued ever upward.
I got that confused feeling that I got in the late 90's; I just did not understand why people were buying. Quagmire-war, gas going up (although it was still in the $2's back then), rising inflation, and a housing crash seemed inevitable to me, at least. Worst of all Worlds.
Not for the S&P. Ever upward.
And my hard-won experience has taught me to stand aside when I don't fundamentally understand pricing on the upside, and to also jump in when I similarly don't understand why things are so cheap on the downside.
And then Bear Stearns when bust in March & I got some measure of vindication. But still, things were very good, and they bounced really strong after that, and The Bottom was declared from every corner.
Every corner but here. I said sell the rallies, cuz the Most Catastrophic Destruction Of Wealth Ever Recorded doesn't end in one day. And I'll say it again: Sell rallies.
But I have started to find bargains. And these are not slimly underpriced, fundamentally strong issues. They are deeply & obviously troubled. Big RV sellers, car dealers, and big pharma with weak pipelines.
Are we at "Fair Value"? Well, for me, we haven't been there almost ever. Why? I am a cheap bastard. I only really like buying individual issues that look underpriced by 80-90%; ie: potential 5-10 baggers. Many times these things are headed from $50 to $.50, and I will pick them up at $2, thinking I am King Of the World.
No. Most of the time the Market is Dead Right, and these things get killed. But occasionally the market is wrong, and these things end up as Huge Winners. My approach very much reminded me of the Taleb interview where he advocated buying small amounts of many extremely speculative issues, and also keeping a big wad of cash in reserve.
To date, it's been my selling discipline, not my buying, that has been my fatal flaw. After sustaining short term, excruciating losses (30-50%), I always swear I'll sell at breakeven & NEVER DO THIS STOCK THING AGAIN. And so I do. Right before the 10 bagger hits.
But I hope to have solved it this time with this bit of knowledge:
KNOW THYSELF
I know I am HORRIBLE at selling, so I simply will not sell. And it's funny, but once I truly accepted that I was going to hold this litany of lottery tickets, I became much calmer & less involved in the daily machinations & price movements. I could actually think much more clearly about the markets than I ever have. I have simply eliminated the option of selling.
And I also understand why Buffett advocates that The Optimal Holding Period Is Forever.
It clarifies, and makes buying a much more thoughtful process. I finally understand that to CAPTURE a 10 bagger REQUIRES that I hold stocks for The Long Haul, Thru Hell & High Water. The last near 20 bagger I bought took 5 years to get there & got almost cut in half 3X on the way there.
It is impossible to hold a 20 bagger when your concerned with selling at breakeven.
Second stock-related question is the Freddie-Fannie collapse.
Now, on Friday, after a heinous drubbing in the morning, both FNM & FRE staged pretty impressive rallies. Freddie actually dropped as low as $3.89, before recovering to almost $8! That's like 4-5 years of appreciation in 1 day.
And consequently, The End Was Declared as having come and gone Friday morning. My Lord, they trotted out Bernanke, Bush and a litany of minor Senators to jawbone this thing higher. And to good effect.
But this changes NOTHING. Fannie & Freddie are some of the most leveraged companies on the planet & the Tsunami of credit contraction & The Great Deleveraging will take them down.
People, the Federal Government is FLOODING our financial intermediaries with money, and it does not matter. It simply delays the inevitable. Bear Stearns was not The End, and neither is this. It is simply a short-term Band Aid that lets the inflation genie out of the bottle. Last time this happened, it took the most severe medicine The Fed had ever dished out, 20% interest rates, to end it. Worst recession since the Great Depression followed, as is expected.
We're digging our own graves, and bailing out Freddie & Fannie should simply tell you that oil, food, and everything else EXCEPT YOUR SALARY, is about to do a quick double.
I am, nevertheless, buying auto dealers & big RV makers & fading this hysteria. The Worst Of All Worlds seems like it's already priced in.
OK, I'll end it this week with the headline! Yeah!
Don't know if you've noticed, but there seems to be a little landscaping problem in Bend.
Cali-bangers brought with them this sort of minimalist idea of small grass patches, surrounded by rocks & these sparsely scattered "plants"; they look like really tall grass and small shrubs, I guess. Sort of a Japanese-ish theme. Seems low-maintenance, I guess. Not a lot to mow, and the scattered stuff sort takes care of itself, mostly
Problem is Bend is hucked-full of empty houses. These things aren't getting minimal maintenance, they're getting none. And you'd think that after a long, cold Winter, things would brighten, and all would be well, and that at the very least, the lanscape here would "stage" itself. After all, many front yards are meant to mirror desert scrub.
But it's not working out that way. Let's take a look at The Eastside first:
Darnel & Moisha Estates, Tumbleweed FieldRight next to the sub $100/sf Darnel & Moisha Estates, where Bends rich, black pimp elite have chosen to "crib out", you see that The Bleeds like ta bust out they ho's more than they like to water the yard.
Sheeeeet Nigger! I want my fuckin money, you Ho bitches! I don't ho you bitches out to water the motherfuckin YARD!
Another Darnel Estates grow operationYeah, yet another vacant STD used as a weed-grow operation. Someone need to call Joshua Grossman to get his ass out there with a weed-whacker. Motherfucking weeds are actually growing out of the garage here.
Paul-doh buys RV makers cuz they slowly being consumed in weed bogsI expected Swamp Thing to come out from under this fucking RV, which is being consumed by weeds.
Now moving on to Desert Skeeze:
Desert Skeeze Field Of DreamsBesides being The Home of $50/sf Abandoned Hulks, Desert Skeeze got the Weed problem. I can only imagine the woman of this house got a motherfucking humungous bush, look like she got Buckwheat in a leg-lock.
Classic Desert Skeeze backyard. Or is it Forum Center?Drive by The Skeeze & Forum Center you'll see an entire block of vacant homes being consumed by weeds. It's a sea of weeds that runs the entire block at Forum, uninterrupted by fences or other impediments to offend the eye.
Hay fields in Bend?Yeah, this Coldwell broker might wanna hire a band of illegal methers to come out and whack down the fucking hay field that sprung up here. What'll happen if they don't?
Notice on yo front door when you don't trim the bushNIGGA PLEEZE! Nigga know you gotta keep that bush trimmed, or you be scarin' away Whitey.
Holy Shit, Buckwheat spotted on The Westsiiiiiiiieede!Yup, they be weeds sproutin on the Westsiiiiieede as well. You drive by Newport Market, and you can see that these Westside macro-shacks be in need of illegal landscaping. White bitches: You just need go to Madras, pick up 'bout 200 illegals (even millionaire methers will cut yo mutha fuckin yard for 5 bucks cuz dem bitches done communicated with Jeebus when they out dying in the AZ desert. He toad 'em "You Mexican bitches will go forth & cut Whitey's yard for 3 bucks plus tip, and you'll like it, or I smite your asses with NO MORE tiara's for graduation and no more humungous pink fake silk square-dancing dresses for bridesmaids. Now Go!"), and get them fuckers to trim your yard.
Eco-Modern WhorehouseYup, guess we should have known the Eco-Modern Soviet-designed whorehouses across the street from Newport market would go to seed. This is where they really get you wondering if this is landscaping or fucking weeds.
Yeah, it's weeds. But they mix it with that 12ft tall grass & the weediness is actually muted some.
Fuckin Cracker be Pimpin'Yeah, here you got a flop house, run by Cracker Ass Cracker. Clearly Cracker don't know that Whitey like a mowed field.
Yup, I got more, but you get the idea. The Vast STD fields have finally been abandoned to the elements. Ain't got the cash for upkeep. Fuck, ain't even making the mortgages anymore.
THIS, my friends, is why Bend is headed to $50/sf.
165 comments:
Default: The view behind the numbers
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: July 13. 2008 4:00AM PST
- The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Breaking down the numbers for Deschutes County The chart below shows information about loans, including year of origination, linked to a notice of default (NOD) filed in Deschutes County through June 30, 2008. For example, 405, or 51.86 percent, of the NODs were for loans originated in 2006. In addition, the average amount of a mortgage for each year is shown, as well as the average amount of a mortgage excluding those loans worth $1 million or more.
Though their number may be skyrocketing in Deschutes County, notices of default represent just a fraction of outstanding loans. Few lead to foreclosures and more of them to sales, but often at reduced rates. Nonetheless, the consequences have proved to be far-reaching for some in the area.
When the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office closed June 30, an ominous milestone was reached. Through the first half of the year, 788 notices of default — a document initiating foreclosure proceedings — were filed with the county.
The number is significant, considering 590 of them were filed in all of 2007, and just 221 in 2006.
The amount is still a small percentage of all loans outstanding. But the numbers behind the notices of default tell a lot about the rise and fall of the housing bubble.
Of those notices of default filed in 2008, more than 75 percent are for mortgages originated in 2006 and 2007, coinciding with the local real estate boom, according to an analysis by The Bulletin.
That doesn’t surprise Tim Duy, an economist with the University of Oregon. Duy said delinquent borrowers caught up in the frenzy either bought too much house or were stuck with unrealistic loan terms that became inescapable as the market declined.
“A lot of people expected they would be able to make quick sales, or a lot of people bought at high rates and with zero down, on the expectation they would build equity and (refinance at a later date) to get a lower mortgage rate,” Duy said.
Also, borrowers who took out loans in 2006-07 with an initial fixed rate that later switches to an adjustable rate are caught in a similar predicament, he said. Unable to refinance and get a lower interest rate, and with fuel and food prices driving higher, “something has to give.”
On a map, the notices of default are spread throughout the county. It’s just as far-reaching in Bend, from the city’s tonier west-side neighborhoods, such as Broken Top and Awbrey Butte, to many of the newer subdivisions on the city’s east and south sides that sprung up during the housing boom.
A notice of default doesn’t always portend foreclosure — Michael Hinton, president of the Central Oregon chapter of the Oregon Association of Mortgage Professionals, estimates only 25 percent of homes in default end up on the courthouse steps for auction — but the implication is clear.
“I don’t know that anyone alive has seen this kind of correction,” said Steve Robertson, president of Abito, a Bend-based homebuilder. Robertson’s company intended to build roughly 200 homes on the old Bend Trap Club property — and spent $5 million on lead removal — but put the property up for sale last year.
“Whenever the good times roll, since everyone participates, and in real estate that means mortgage people, banks, Realtors, builders, developers, all the trades, you even have the person that reaps the biggest reward, the homebuyer, because, my God, the house I bought yesterday for a dollar is now worth two … with all of that good mojo, nobody wants to see that end. So you just turn a blind eye to the good times people are enjoying, and we see the results.”
Everyone’s to blame for the real estate downturn and everyone loses, said Robertson. Lost jobs and lost revenue have a ripple effect throughout the local economy, he added.
Going all in
A notice of default is generally filed by a lender after a borrower defaults on his or her loan obligations, generally after missing two or three payments. A borrower can bring the loan current, pay the loan in full or work with a lender to sell the home for less than the amount owed, with the agreement that the bank agrees to swallow the loss. This process is called a short sale.
If a remedy isn’t reached, the lender will put the home up for auction approximately 90 days after filing the notice of default. If no one bids on the home, it is foreclosed on by the lender, who then assumes ownership.
The percentage of U.S. loans in some stage of delinquency is small. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the seasonally adjusted delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one- to four-unit residential properties stood at 6.35 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the first quarter of 2008, and the percentage of loans in the foreclosure process was 2.47 percent. Those figures are 31.2 percent and 92.9 percent increases, respectively, over first quarter 2007.
Bend resident Brandon Reynolds lives in a small housing development off Brosterhous Road, across from the abandoned trap club. Next to his home is a vacant house whose owner was issued a notice of default this year. Its lawn is dead and a dandelion blooms in the middle of the driveway. A “For Sale” sign lies on the ground in front of the small one-story home. Another home two doors down from Reynolds’ also is vacant, its lawn brown, a notice of default posted with red tape on its door.
“It’s difficult, just to see them sit and depreciate my home,” Reynolds said. “We put lots of time and energy and effort into our yards and to see (the vacant homes) turn ugly is difficult.”
Across town, Bend builder Cary Martinez has been issued nine notices of default this year by various lenders.
It’s a far cry from earlier in the decade, when Martinez formed a construction company, Abacus GC, and went to work building homes, including the modern townhomes on Newport Avenue in Bend. Riding the real estate boom, he said, was “wild” and “amazing.”
But the bubble popped and ever-increasing home valuations ceased. Martinez decided it was smarter to walk away from his projects rather than struggle to keep them afloat because he believes it will be two to three years before they financially make sense again.
Martinez said he’ll likely file for bankruptcy in the near future and has even stopped paying the loan on his primary residence, with the hope it’ll give him some leverage to refinance his loan with his lender. But despite his losses, Martinez says he has no plans to leave real estate. He chalks up the experience to an important lesson.
“(Real estate) started out slow for me as far as my involvement and with the gains we saw we got more committed and really weren’t prepared for any downturn because we hadn’t experienced it before,” he said. “I had an idea in my head that this could continue on and on. Next time around, I’ll be a lot smarter, but I went all in and risked everything I gained and now I’m at risk of losing all my gains from the last 10 years, and now I am starting over.”
Martinez doesn’t blame anyone for his predicament except himself.
Nor does Hinton, who also is president of HSI Mortgage in Bend, blame any one party for the region’s current housing decline. From Hinton’s perspective, everyone from Main Street to Wall Street is at fault.
“I would distance myself from anyone that tries to point the finger at any one area,” Hinton said. “The customers signed the notes, they understood the risk, and people made bad decisions. And then there were people that were supposed to be geniuses of the financial system, the pillars of the nation’s banking system, that made really bad decisions also, so both ends of the spectrum need to take responsibility.”
An analysis of the loans referenced in the notices of defaults filed through June 30 in Deschutes County shows many were underwritten by lenders that have gone out of business or stopped lending, according to the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, an online site that tracks defunct lenders.
Subprime mortgages, or mortgages made to risky, less-than-prime borrowers, and which became a buzzword nationally when the housing decline began last year, do not make up a major part of the lending market in Central Oregon, Hinton said.
However, Hinton said lax underwriting standards, in general, helped fuel the current crisis but so did a number of other factors that fed the market frenzy. One of its sparks, Hinton said, was the 1997 change in the nation’s tax code that allowed homeowners to avoid capital gains tax when they sold their primary residence, as long as they had lived in the home at least two years. Previously, the tax could only be avoided if the profit from the sale of a home was used to buy a more expensive home within two years.
That change helped create a speculative mind-set, Hinton said. Investors could purchase a home, wait two years and sell it at a higher price thanks to steady rates of annual price appreciation. In turn, that price appreciation made it easy for lenders to lend, Hinton said, because rising values meant it was easier for borrowers to sell and get out of their loans. Rising property values cover up a lot of sins, he said.
“I think there’s a lot of speculation in that pile of defaults, that’s my gut feeling, because there was so much of that going on,” Hinton added. “People were looking at real estate as a short-term investment, which is never a good idea.”
Hinton said that as property values decline, foreclosures follow, as it becomes harder for borrowers to get out from under their loans. The opposite is true when property values rise, as it becomes easier for borrowers to sell.
In June, the median sales price and sales price per square foot in Bend both rose, according to the Bratton Report released last week.
And there was more sales activity throughout most of the region, the report showed.
How the area ranks
RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based online marketer of foreclosed properties, reported Thursday that 1.4 million foreclosure filings of all types, including notices of default, were filed in the United States in the first six months of 2008. That represents a 56 percent increase from a year ago, the report said.
Oregon ranked 17th in the nation for most foreclosure activity as of June 2008, according to RealtyTrac. That equates to one foreclosure proceeding for every 775 housing units. In Nevada, the state with the most foreclosure activity, one in every 122 housing units is affected, according to RealtyTrac. The national number is one in every 483 homes.
Deschutes County ranked first in the state for foreclosure activity as of June 2008, with one foreclosure proceeding for every 414 homes, according to RealtyTrac.
RealtyTrac use documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure — default, auction and listings of Real Estate Owned properties, which are properties that have been repossessed by a lender — to compile its reports.
A notice of default or foreclosure doesn’t always mean ill-timed speculative behavior is at fault, as genuine hardships can force families from their homes. Even in the best of times, said the University of Oregon’s Duy, there is a steady series of foreclosures.
Duy said blame for the recent decline of real estate can be equally spread around, from investors “willing to put money anywhere without due diligence,” to mortgage originators capitalizing on the trend, to real estate agents who “have an incentive to convince people that if they don’t buy now they will never be able to afford a house,” to homeowners that took out loans incompatible with their long-term financial abilities.
Duy also said “cheerleading,” or steady praise for the housing market during its boom, also did a disservice to the community.
For Abito’s Robertson, the market’s current condition is the result of one thing: greed. And he’s surprised by what it’s wrought.
“Anyone that tells you that they accurately predicted the depths of this would be misleading,” Robertson said. “No one I’ve talked to in the Bend development community would have told you even a year ago that things would continue to decelerate at this pace. This is a bit of a shock to everybody.”
Help coming?
On Friday, the Senate approved a package that would, among other things, authorize the Federal Housing Administration to write up to $300 billion in new fixed-rate loans for struggling homeowners facing foreclosure. Some in Congress oppose the idea, saying it rewards bad behavior. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill.
Bend resident Brandon Reynolds lives in a small housing development off Brosterhous Road, across from the abandoned trap club. Next to his home is a vacant house whose owner was issued a notice of default this year. Its lawn is dead and a dandelion blooms in the middle of the driveway. A “For Sale” sign lies on the ground in front of the small one-story home. Another home two doors down from Reynolds’ also is vacant, its lawn brown, a notice of default posted with red tape on its door.
Stealing my thunder!
Deschutes County ranked first in the state for foreclosure activity as of June 2008, with one foreclosure proceeding for every 414 homes, according to RealtyTrac.
I thought All Was Well?
to real estate agents who “have an incentive to convince people that if they don’t buy now they will never be able to afford a house,”
That was a biggie. Seems pretty silly now.
Duy also said “cheerleading,” or steady praise for the housing market during its boom, also did a disservice to the community.
Hey now! Just wait 2 minutes here!
You're talking about BEND MEDIA here! Including the one printing this story!
“Anyone that tells you that they accurately predicted the depths of this would be misleading,” Robertson said. “No one I’ve talked to in the Bend development community would have told you even a year ago that things would continue to decelerate at this pace. This is a bit of a shock to everybody.”
Are they trying to drive me fucking bananas?
OK, dumbfucks: IT'S GOING MUCH MUCH LOWER!
This is a bit of a shock to everybody.
You hear that BEM? It's a "bit of a shock to everybody". Yeah. NOBODY saw this coming. Woof. 100% Out of the MOTHERFUCKING BLUE! Damn. What a surprise this bust is.
Sorry everyone, we've failed. We NEVER saw this thing coming. Sure... started a blog with a title that maybe HINTED that it could be coming. But review the posts & comments: there's NO ONE who predicted this thing.
Really, we are all to blame. Had we sounded an alarm of some sort, maybe this thing could have been averted.
Make sure to look at the print version of this story! Additional charts & a cool map:
Default: The view behind the numbers
And I CHASTISED, yes CHASTISE you Pessimistic Pete's who predicted 800 defaults for our fair city!
ONLY 788!
Is it more than 7 fold higher than the first 6 months of 2006? Sure.
But just the same! Unnecessary pessimism will tear us apart!
We need cheerleading! No wait.
We don't need cheerleading!
What is it Bulletin Staff? Cheerleading or no cheerleading? It's awful hard to figure this out when you guys flip-flop...
Notices of default: Breaking down the numbers for Deschutes County
The chart below shows information about loans, including year of origination, linked to a notice of default (NOD) filed in Deschutes County through June 30, 2008. For example, 405, or 51.86 percent, of the NODs were for loans originated in 2006. In addition, the average amount of a mortgage for each year is shown, as well as the average amount of a mortgage excluding those loans worth $1 million or more.
I'm surprised they actually printed this:
On a map, the notices of default are spread throughout the county. It’s just as far-reaching in Bend, from the city’s tonier west-side neighborhoods, such as Broken Top and Awbrey Butte, to many of the newer subdivisions on the city’s east and south sides that sprung up during the housing boom.
Everyone’s to blame for the real estate downturn and everyone loses, said Robertson.
Fuck you. I'm not.
The percentage of U.S. loans in some stage of delinquency is small. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the seasonally adjusted delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one- to four-unit residential properties stood at 6.35 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the first quarter of 2008, and the percentage of loans in the foreclosure process was 2.47 percent. Those figures are 31.2 percent and 92.9 percent increases, respectively, over first quarter 2007.
I guess that depends on your definition of "small". It used to be a lot smaller. STOP CHEERLEADING, you reflexive bastards.
Note that defaults are up nicely, but it's actual foreclosure proceedings that are skyrocketing. That means there are MANY people totally unable to make their payments... once someone stops paying, the changes of foreclosure go WAY UP, far beyond historical norms.
Fannie, Freddie `Insolvent' After Losses, Poole Says
By Dawn Kopecki
Enlarge Image/Details
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Borrowing at Fannie Mae, the U.S. government-sponsored mortgage company, has never been so expensive and it may not get better any time soon.
Fannie Mae paid a record yield relative to Treasuries on the sale of $3 billion in two-year notes yesterday amid concern the biggest provider of financing for U.S. home loans won't have enough capital to weather the worst housing slump since the Great Depression. The company's credit-default swaps show traders are treating the AAA rated debt as if it were five steps lower. Fannie Mae shares tumbled 13 percent yesterday in New York to the lowest level in almost 14 years.
Chances are increasing that the U.S. may need to bail out Fannie Mae and the smaller Freddie Mac, former St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole said in an interview. Freddie Mac owed $5.2 billion more than its assets were worth in the first quarter, making it insolvent under fair value accounting rules, he said. The fair value of Fannie Mae's assets fell 66 percent to $12.2 billion, data provided by the Washington-based company show, and may be negative next quarter, Poole said.
``Congress ought to recognize that these firms are insolvent, that it is allowing these firms to continue to exist as bastions of privilege, financed by the taxpayer,'' Poole, 71, who left the Fed in March, said in the interview yesterday.
Fair value accounting measures a company's net worth if it had to liquidate all of its assets to repay liabilities. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of whom have the implicit backing of the government, make money by borrowing in the bond market and reinvesting the proceeds in higher-yielding mortgages and securities backed by home loans.
`Inflection' Point
Lawmakers in Washington may question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at a 10 a.m. hearing today about the financial health of the companies and whether they jeopardize the financial system.
``At some point we're going to reach that inflection, where the government is going to have to either guarantee explicitly or Fannie and Freddie are going to have be left to fend for themselves,'' Peter Boockvar, an equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ``We're getting to that point where a decision has to be made by Washington.''
The plunge in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday in New York Stock Exchange trading led financial shares to their biggest decline in six years and sent the Standard & Poor's 500 Index into its first bear market since 2002. Fannie Mae, which dropped $2.31 yesterday, rose 41 cents to $15.72 in Frankfurt trading today. Freddie Mac, which declined $3.20 yesterday, rose 24 cents to $10.31 as of 9:25 a.m.
`Well-Capitalized'
The government is counting on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about half the $12 trillion in home loans outstanding, to help revive the housing market. Congress lifted growth restrictions on the companies, eased their capital requirements and allowed them to buy bigger ``jumbo mortgages'' to spur demand for home loans as competitors fled the market.
Paulson said on July 8 he was pleased with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's efforts to raise capital. Bernanke said the same day the firms need to be ``strong, well-regulated, well- capitalized'' to provide credit ``without posing undue risks to the financial system or taxpayer.''
The Treasury has been discussing what to do if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fail for months as part of its contingency planning, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing three people familiar with the matter. The government doesn't expect the companies to fail and it doesn't have a rescue plan in place, the Journal said.
`Long-Time Critic'
``We are managing our business and maintaining a capital position that will allow us to fulfill our congressionally chartered mission now and in the future,'' Brian Faith, a spokesman for Fannie Mae, said.
Poole is ``a long-time critic,'' said Sharon McHale, a spokeswoman for McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac.
``Freddie Mac is doing exactly what Congress intended when it chartered the company and, more recently, when it passed the Economic Stimulus Act,'' McHale said. ``We are well capitalized and positioned to continue to serve our vital housing mission.''
While leading the St. Louis Fed, Poole roiled markets in 2003 when he said the government should consider severing its implied backing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and said the companies lack the capital to weather financial market disruptions. In 2006 and 2007 he called for lawmakers to strip Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of their charters.
Government Ties
Congress created Freddie Mac and expanded Fannie Mae in 1970 to promote home buying in the U.S. The companies' charters give the Treasury the authority to buy as much as $2.25 billion in each of their securities in the event of possible default.
The government will likely be forced to take over the companies because of the mortgage meltdown, Poole said.
``We know in a crisis the Federal Reserve tap would be open,'' said Poole, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
The bailout of Bear Stearns Cos. by JPMorgan Chase & Co., arranged by the Fed, demonstrates the government's unwillingness to allow ``large, systemically important'' financial institutions to fail, he said. Bear Stearns collapsed after customers fled amid speculation the company faced a cash shortage.
``I worry about those institutions,'' retired Richmond Fed President Alfred Broaddus said. ``They are huge. They dwarf the Bear Stearns issue. In the very worst case scenario, I don't know how you do it other than extend money and the public takes the loss.''
$20 Billion Raised
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have raised a combined $20 billion since December to cover losses of more than $11 billion generated since the credit crisis began last year. Freddie Mac has yet to raise a planned $5.5 billion, scheduled for mid-year.
The companies have access to the Fed's so-called Fedwire payments system allowing them to access funding if needed, said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed's chief monetary-policy strategist from 2001 until September 2007.
They can withstand the slump in part because most of their investments are mortgages made before 2006 when lending standards were tighter, making them less likely to default, said Eileen Fahey, a Chicago-based analyst at Fitch Ratings.
``We do not believe they are technically insolvent,'' Fahey said. ``People seem to lose sight of the fact that a majority of the mortgages that they are holding and are guaranteeing were originated pre-2006.''
Default Swaps
Comments by the companies' regulator this week that they are adequately capitalized also eased concern, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors in Washington. The companies have about $80 billion of regulatory capital supporting $5.2 trillion of mortgages.
``Just given the size of the two companies, surely the government would not stand aside'' and let them fail, Yun said.
Fannie Mae sold $3 billion of two-year notes yesterday to yield 74 basis points more than Treasuries. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. That's the widest spread since Fannie Mae first sold two-year notes in 2000 and triple what it paid in June 2006.
The price of credit-default swaps, contracts used to speculate on the creditworthiness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, doubled in the past two months to more than 80 basis points for the senior debt, according to London-based CMA Datavision.
The median credit-default swap on debt rated Aaa by Moody's was 26 basis points as of July 8, data from the credit rating firm's strategy group show. It was 76 basis points for debt rated A2.
Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. They pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a borrower fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A basis point on a contract protecting $10 million of debt from default for five years is equivalent to $1,000 a year.
``I worry about those institutions,'' retired Richmond Fed President Alfred Broaddus said. ``They are huge. They dwarf the Bear Stearns issue. In the very worst case scenario, I don't know how you do it other than extend money and the public takes the loss.''
Yeah!
"Privatize gains & Socialize losses" ROLLS ON!
Lesson: Next time there is a bubble, we ALL SHOULD JUMP IN!
Good call, US GOVERNMENT. That'll learn us.
Shit, why not impose a PUNITIVE TAX on those of us that decided not to jump on this irresponsible train to hell?
Don't just reward the irresponsible... PUNISH THE FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE!
There ya go. THAT is how you run a country.
"Everyone is to blame" means that everyone he knows is to blame, since he seems to know all the crooks and idiots in town.
I'm not to blame and I told everyone I met that it was about to end badly.
But I'm a taxpayer so I'm screwed.
My favorite incredible Hulse remark is this, "...the stock market will be tedious...."
Yes, darlin' this war is just so exasperating, and this depression is downright inconvenient.
David Foster is up, if anyone is interested...
Foster has taken a nip of the Kool-Aid...
Though the Bend market has shown some resistance to national trends in the past, there are simply too many variables to predict at this point. But I think it is safe to say that the Bend market is poised to rebound more quickly than most places in the Country, and has a better long term future.
Sorry David... don't lose your day job. And I don't mean "Realtor"...
He's always had a forest for the trees outlook. Clouded by a blizzard of statistics.
And click on those weed-grow pic's to get a true grasp of how kick-butt the weeds really are....
Bernanke walking on eggshells
On the Hill, Fed chief can't be too complacent or too concerned
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Maybe instead of an economist, we should hire a psychologist to be the next Federal Reserve chairman.
Financial markets are clearly spooked by the abrupt loss of confidence in mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They have also lost confidence in federal officials who keep insisting, against all available evidence, that everything is just fine.
Fed chief Ben Bernanke faces a buzz-saw of criticism, derision and skepticism this week when he delivers his semi-annual testimony to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bernanke will have to tread cautiously when he discusses the state of the economy and its financial markets. He needs to recognize the crisis exists, but he can't show too much concern.
If he denies that Fannie and Freddie are in trouble, he'd look dangerously out-of-touch, just like he and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson did last year, when they kept saying the subprime mortgage meltdown was "contained." But if he rings alarm bells about Fannie and Freddie, the crisis of confidence will only get worse.
If he said the government would never allow systemically important
institutions to fail, would that help or hurt?
Of course, Fannie and Freddie aren't Bernanke's only concerns. He'll also have to talk about economic growth and inflation, neither of which is good.
Since Bernanke's last appearance in February, the markets have been whipsawed by their expectations for the economy, for inflation and for the Federal Open Market Committee's policy. Markets began to expect vigorous tightening from the Fed as soon as August, but Fed officials kept pounding the message that the economy is too fragile just yet for higher interest rates.
"In our view, the committee will not seriously contemplate rate hikes until the economy and the financial environment become more stable," wrote Stephen Stanley, chief economist for RBS Greenwich Capital. "We look for the testimony to further tip the scales of market expectations away from quick rate hikes and toward a significant period of steady policy."
"The Fed will not tighten any time soon," Stanley said.
As if Bernanke's appearances weren't enough, the rest of the calendar is full of some of the most important economic data releases, including June figures on consumer prices, retail sales, housing starts and industrial production.
Inflation
The consumer price index is slate to be released Wednesday, just a few moments before Bernanke walks into the hearing room to face Rep. Barney Frank and his committee.
The CPI will likely be ugly. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting a 0.8% rise, led by another surge in gasoline and other energy prices. It would be the biggest monthly increase since the 0.9% rise in November. The on-year increase in prices would jump to 4.7%, matching the highs hit just after Hurricane Katrina.
The core rate of inflation should be more subdued, rising just 0.2% as plunging home and used-car prices offset gains in healthcare and other items. The core CPI's gain in the past year should be 2.3% again.
In talking about inflation, Bernanke will likely repeat the Fed's commitment to keeping inflationary expectations under control, but will put even more emphasis on the Fed's forecasts that a generalized inflationary outbreak is unlikely as long as wages are stagnant.
"With the jobless rate rising and wage trends easing, the FOMC's own outlook for moderation in inflation (with which we strongly agree) should get at least equal billing" to talk about inflation expectations, wrote Ed McKelvey, an economist for Goldman Sachs.
On the wholesale level, the producer price index probably increased 1.4% in June, while core prices are expected to have gained 0.3%. The PPI will be released Tuesday.
Retail sales
Consumers spent a portion of the stimulus checks they received from the government, enough to push retail sales up by 0.3% in June after a 1% rise in May, MarketWatch's survey says. Higher gasoline prices contributed to the increase, while auto sales are seen as simply terrible. Sales excluding autos are forecast to have risen 1.1%, nearly matching the 1.2% increase in May.
After adjusting for higher prices, however, real spending will "eke out a small gain at best," according to Nigel Gault and Brian Bethune, economists for Global Insight. "The worry for the future is that sales will fall back, in line with increasingly gloomy fundamentals, once the stimulus effect fades."
Housing
Home builders have been slashing their production to try to bring the number of unsold homes down from a backlog representing nearly 11 months' worth of sales. Housing starts probably dropped another 2% or so in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 959,000.
"Builders are unlikely to increase construction until sales recover," wrote economists for Lehman Bros. in their weekly outlook. "We expect housing starts to fall through the end of this year."
Sales aren't likely to bounce back until prices stop falling. Why buy now when you can buy cheaper later? A recovery in home prices is also a necessary condition for financial markets to stabilize because the drop in home values destroys the value of assets on the books of the big banks and other companies which are exposed in some fashion or another to mortgages.
"Bernanke and others have hinted that the Fed will not stop worrying about the economy until home prices bottom," Stanley said.
Industrial production
Industrial output likely rose 0.3% in June as utilities ramped up electricity production to meet demand. Manufacturing output was boosted temporarily by the end of the American Axle strike in late May.
"We look for manufacturing output outside of the auto sector to be weak, consistent with recent declines in employment and hours worked," wrote economists for Barclays Capital.
In talking about inflation, Bernanke will likely repeat the Fed's commitment to keeping inflationary expectations under control, but will put even more emphasis on the Fed's forecasts that a generalized inflationary outbreak is unlikely as long as wages are stagnant.
Think again, dumb butts.
Flood the system with trillions, and you'll get inflation, no matter how you slice it.
What kills me is that there is so little awareness of a process timeline. At what point was the percentage of NOD's the same in Stockton, CA, and where did it go from there? Naples, FL. ?
It seems to me that we'll follow a similar path. As Paul-doh says, it's going to get much worse.
It's like being a mile within a volcanoe's killing zone, and saying we have it better than the guys that are only half a mile from the killing zone.
Sorry, we're within the killing zone, either way, was what I was trying to say.
we have it better than the guys that are only half a mile from the killing zone.
We getta watch how we'll get burned alive!
Go have a look at BendBB & you see that they finally listed the remained of The Plaza condo units. 36 units for sale there...
$730K for 1,669 sf. There you go Timmy... the bargain you've been waiting for...
Put the fam in there. Nice & cozy.
Or $1.3MM for just under 2K sf. That there is a screaming bargain folks. Better pick that up before the HORDES OF INBOUND INTERNATIONAL BILLIONAIRES scoops them all up.
>>$730K for 1,669 sf.
Great. You can buy twice the square feet for half the money and have an actual house.
I'm not buying mine until Cher and Barbra Streisand buy theirs.
Re: weeds
There's a great case of the desert reclaiming bulldozed land over there at the intersection of Powers and Brookswood. Remember the Millstone neighborhood? The builder who said that the housing market wasn't falling it was "level?"
They built one side of one street and then gave up, but it all had been optimistically bulldozed.
Go in there. It's a beautiful (in a desert sense of the word). Flattened plats and giant mounds of construction dirt--all growing and blooming. They have their own little baby buttes there.
Not sure how many of those houses are lived in. Maybe 2 out of 6 or 7?
Forget what Foster says. Look at his numbers.
June 2007
listings 1098
sold 248
June 2008
listings 1570
sold 114
%change
listings 42.99%
sold -54.03%
And I plug in Clive's latest epoch date (1179903601) in, and I get:
Wed May 23 00:00:01 -0700 2007
Although the graph *appears* to be up to date...
Listed Houses/Sold Houses
June 2007: 4.43
June 2008: 13.77
>>Although the graph *appears* to be up to date...
I notice that the raw numbers stopped changing last month.
I'm guessing the horribly high numbers of Bend's disaster overflowed his Perl script.
Hey guys!
My current invention is a solar powered butter grasper.
I'm gonna turn some of these properties into factories in a couple of years.
Bye bitches!
"Make sure to look at the print version of this story! Additional charts & a cool map"
or click on "more photos" in the on-line edition
"advocates DROPPING THE COST OF OIL, such that we might feed this addiction, because it seems to have SO MANY positive side effects, such as turning this planet into an Easy Bake Oven & placing our collective cocks on an Iranian chopping block."
and having terrorist acts against us because we have our troops in holy Saudi Arabia to protect our "vital national security interests."
Quick look on realtor.com shows:
2,975 properties match your search
Looks like we have a "Why 3k?" problem coming....
Folks, we can stop worrying!
The Government is ON IT! They are way ahead of the curve here; They are going to CURB SHADY LENDING PRACTICES!
Woof. That was a close one.
That's "CURB"... not stop. We don't want to totally upset the apple cart of shady lending practices.
Fed poised to curb shady home-lending practices
Sunday July 13, 12:13 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Federal Reserve ready to give home buyers more protection against shady lending practices
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Confronted by record foreclosures, the Federal Reserve is ready to give home buyers more protection from the types of shady lending practices that have contributed to the housing crisis.
Chairman Ben Bernanke and his central bank colleagues were expected to approve a plan Monday that would crack down on dubious lending practices that have hurt many of the riskiest "subprime" borrowers -- people with tarnished credit histories or low incomes.
Proposed rules made public in December would:
--restrict lenders from penalizing risky borrowers who pay loans off early.
--require lenders to ensure those borrowers set aside money to pay for taxes and insurance.
--bar lenders from making loans without proof of a borrower's income.
--prohibit lenders from engaging in a pattern or practice of lending without considering a borrower's ability to repay a home loan from sources other than the homes value.
--curtail misleading ads for many types of mortgages.
--bolster financial disclosures to borrowers.
Consumer groups have complained that the new rules are not strong enough. Lenders worry they are too tough, could limit mortgage options for people and made it harder for some to obtain financing.
Expected approval of the plan comes as the Fed copes with investors' dwindling confidence in the financial health of the nation's two biggest mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, They hold or back $5.3 trillion of mortgage debt, about half the outstanding mortgages in the United States.
The Fed and the Treasury Department, consulting closely over the weekend, are exploring ways to shore up the companies. If one or both were to fail, it would deal a devastating blow to the already crippled housing market. Mortgages would become even harder to get and rates would rise.
The new lending rules may not get a test for some time because there are fewer home buyers these days, given all the problems in the housing and credit markets. Also, some of the shady practices -- along with some lenders -- have not survived, felled by the mortgage meltdown.
"Clearly this is closing the barn door after the fact," said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Yet, she said, "this is a very important move. It absolutely will make a difference going forward."
Ken Wade, chief executive of NeighborWorks America, a network of housing organizations that promotes neighborhood revitalization, hoped the new rules would curb future abuses. "It's not going to do anything (to fix) the problems we're wrestling with right now, but there's still a need to create the rules going forward," he said.
Much will hinge on effective enforcement.
The plan would apply to new loans made by thousands of lenders, including banks and brokers. It would not cover current loans.
Those different lenders fall under a patchwork of regulators at the federal and state levels. So it will be up to each of these authorities to enforce the new provisions. "We have a very fragmented regulatory system. This will be a challenge to enforce. This will be daunting," Wachter said.
The Mortgage Bankers Association had asked the Fed to act carefully. Overly broad rules "could prevent many lenders from making loans to those borrowers most in need of credit and significantly increase the costs of credit for all borrowers," the association said in a filing with the Fed.
Under former Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Fed came under criticism for not acting earlier to address dubious lending. Some critics complained that Greenspan, who ran the Fed for 18 1/2 years, was not a forceful enough regulator, especially during the 2001-2005 housing boom when easy credit spurred subprime home loans and many exotic new types of mortgages.
Bernanke, who took over the Fed in early 2006, also took heat for what critics believe was lax oversight.
"How disappointed I am with all of us," Rep. Maxine Waters told Bernanke during a recent House hearing. "Members of Congress, for what appears to have been weak oversight of our regulatory agencies, and our regulatory agencies for what appears to have been weak oversight of our financial institutions," said Waters, D-Calif.
Bernanke replied: "Admittedly, it would be better if it had been earlier, but we have responded." He believed the rules would be "very effective" in stemming abusive lending practices.
Congress is working on legislation that would put into law some tougher provisions than those envisioned by the Fed. Prospects for final action are uncertain.
Proposed rules made public in December would:
--restrict lenders from penalizing risky borrowers who pay loans off early.
--require lenders to ensure those borrowers set aside money to pay for taxes and insurance.
--bar lenders from making loans without proof of a borrower's income.
--prohibit lenders from engaging in a pattern or practice of lending without considering a borrower's ability to repay a home loan from sources other than the homes value.
--curtail misleading ads for many types of mortgages.
--bolster financial disclosures to borrowers.
OK. So boiled down to One Rule, basically they will no longer lend to Blacks.
"Go have a look at BendBB & you see that they finally listed the remained of The Plaza condo units. . . . $1.3MM for just under 2K sf."
The $1.3M one says "1 level" and the pictures show a staircase. It also says "No age restriction."--I wonder what made that comment necessary . . . ? As long as you're young enough to climb stairs.
http://www.centraloregonrealtors.com/results/dsp_residential.cfm?fuseaction=showdetails&ln=2808011&query=fuseaction%3Dresults%26newsearch%3Dyes
Obama gonna gits me a check.
So, things are continuing to go to hell in a hand held device. My question is...who here is ready for what is coming? Why are you ready? Are you stayin or going? Why on either direction. Housingpanic.com asks questions like this and the answeres are alway interesting.
This is Bend! I want to stay here and I want the people that have ruined our town to leave.
I have been going to one of our lakes for 25 years to fish and listen to the wind blow through the trees. This weekend was the last time I will expect any peace or quiet at that lake. There were more locals than out of towners the camp host said. He has never seen so much craziness and heavy duty partying. He was afraid for his own safety last night after asking one large group to shut the fuck up for the 3rd time after 10PM. Can't call a cop from there as cell phones don't work. Trying to find a place to fish was next to impossible. My quiet weekend getaway is ruined and I blame all the fuckers that moved here in the last 10 years that have no idea how to treat their surroundings with respect.
"I blame all the fuckers that moved here in the last 10 years that have no idea how to treat their surroundings with respect."
yes, plus the ones who have been here for longer and have no idea how to treat their surroundings with respect. and I like the ones who do have respect, no matter how long or short they have been here.
"yes, plus the ones who have been here for longer and have no idea how to treat their surroundings with respect. and I like the ones who do have respect, no matter how long or short they have been here."
Agreed!!!
There were cali-bangers here in 78 that didn't respect anything beyond their pocket books.
Marge what lake were you at? the lakes we go to are half empty. And we go to the free spots to avoid the jerks. crane, wiciup,little cultis
after asking one large group to shut the fuck up for the 3rd time after 10PM.
Get your gun marge...
Since I have known this camp host for near 9 years, if I am up when he goes to shut someone up, I always take the pistol in my pocket if the camp site is near mine. He has no backup. I have gone to campsites over the past 3 years to tell them to shut the fuck up and never say that, exactly, but I always carry. Fortunately, I have been able to have a beer and shut them up.
The only time I have ever shown a weapon is when some meth head trucker got out of his truck while I was watering my horses at the top of the Grapevine and he dropped a 357 mag directly at me. Big mistake! The two of us dropped a bead on him with a Colt 45 and 38Special and he about peed his pants running back to his truck after we politely asked him to put the gun on the ground.. Good news we got a new 357 Mag.:)
Unless somelse showed a weapon..I wouldn't. But I will protect myself. Hope you can too.
Times areen't changin that much. Assholes have always lived.
from the WSJ:
Past Crises
Suggest More
Waves of Pain
By JON HILSENRATH and MARK GONGLOFF
July 14, 2008
Investors could use a good road map right now.
Just when the credit crisis seems to calm down, it roars back with greater ferocity, bringing ever bigger institutions to their knees. Where is the crisis heading? How bad could it get?
There are some broad answers to these questions. The rhythm of the credit meltdown the past few weeks -- the daily drumbeat of falling bank stock prices, the repeated waves of investor relief and revulsion, the multiple rounds of money raising by banks that never seems to be enough -- is reminiscent of financial crises past.
Look back exactly one decade -- to the Asian financial crisis in July 1998 -- for one of many examples of the parallels.
That crisis started in Thailand a year earlier. By July 1998 the Thai stock market had been through several false recoveries. Big banks like Thai Farmers Bank and Bangkok Bank had raised capital from foreign investors but quickly discovered they needed more, making investors more demanding. Thailand was months from seeing the worst of it, and years from fixing its problems.
As professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff lay out in one of two recent papers on crises, the current one follows "a well-trodden path laid down by centuries of financial folly."
Crises are often preceded by a buildup of asset prices and borrowing. The "deleveraging" that follows creates pernicious feedback loops -- firms reduce debt, selling assets and raising equity, which pushes asset prices lower, forcing them to reduce more debt and sell more assets. It's probably one reason these things come in waves. A common psychology of denial and acceptance is another reason for the waves, as is the mystery of price discovery in such uncertain environments.
There are a range of historical routes out of a morass. Korea and Thailand in the 1990s reluctantly brought in foreign investors to take stakes in financial institutions. They suffered nationalist blowback in the process. (One outsider investing in Asia at the time, ironically, was Daniel Mudd, then head of GE Capital's Asian operations. He's now CEO of Fannie Mae, the struggling U.S. mortgage company.)
Another common theme: The inevitable use of taxpayer money to take damaged assets out of bank hands. Thailand and Korea did it, as did the U.S. in the 1990s when it set up the Resolution Trust Corp. to manage assets of failed savings and loan institutions.
Japan kept troubled banks alive as long as possible, delaying the pain of fully assessing their losses. That led to a lost decade for stocks and the economy, and zombie banks that lacked the capital to lend.
If you bail everybody out, says University of Chicago professor Douglas Diamond, "you're going to end up in a prolonged stagnation that will give you more losses than if you allowed the whole system to melt down."
Whatever the policy response, history suggests this won't be finished soon. New waves of market turmoil and economic pain should come as no surprise.
Hey guys , I don't know how to make this a real ...click on link. But check this site out.
http://tinyurl.com/6gewvf
Sorry I don't know the HTML tags to do it.
"The other thing cuz obviously homer doesn't need to work so fucking hard, is to post questions every sunday, and comment highlights, and then let everyone respond"
Or let us pose questions!!
So can you answer the questions I possed earlier?
Ya'all must be asleep by now or floating down the river listening to some really great Bend sounds. Right.hey wait til Sheryl Crow, I'll be in a bright yellow Sevelor and not paying $85 bucks.
P.S.
It was East Lake.
Marge, how to make a link...
http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_links.asp
The GSOs (Fannie and Freddie) exist to help make houses affordable. It's their mandate.
Think about it.
How well have they been doing at that? Consider that anything that props up the market is doing the opposite of making houses affordable.
"Marge, how to make a link...
http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_links.asp"
couldn't you have made that a link?
:)
Fannie Mae, Freddie Rescue a `Disaster,' Rogers Says
By Carol Massar and Eric Martin
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury Department's plan to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is an ``unmitigated disaster'' and the largest U.S. mortgage lenders are ``basically insolvent,'' according to investor Jim Rogers.
Taxpayers will be saddled with debt if Congress approves U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's request for the authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The chairman of Rogers Holdings, who in 2006 correctly predicted oil would reach $100 a barrel and gold $1,000 an ounce, also said the commodities bull market has a ``long way to go.''
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each surged more than 20 percent in pre-market trading today after Paulson moved to stem a collapse in confidence in the two companies that purchase or finance almost half of the $12 trillion in U.S. home loans.
``These companies were going to go bankrupt if they hadn't stepped in to do something, and they should've gone bankrupt,'' Rogers, 65, said from Singapore.
Freddie Mac rose $1.75 to $9.50 as of 8:30 a.m. in New York, while Fannie Mae added $2.30 to $12.55. Paulson's proposal, which the Treasury anticipates will be incorporated into an existing congressional bill and approved this week, signals a shift toward an explicit guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt.
The Federal Reserve separately authorized the firms to borrow directly from the central bank.
Last Week's Slump
Washington-based Fannie Mae slid 45 percent last week, while McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac sank 47 percent on concern they may require a bailout that would wipe out shareholders.
Rogers said he had not covered his so-called short positions in Fannie Mae. Short sellers borrow stock and then sell it in an effort to profit by repurchasing the securities later at a lower price and returning them to the holder.
The U.S. economy is in a recession, possibly the worst since World War II, Rogers said. He advised buying agricultural commodities because the bull market in raw materials has ``a long way to go.''
Rogers, a former partner of hedge fund manager George Soros, predicted the start of the commodities rally in 1999.
They're already fading the FNM & FRE opening hysteria. The morning highs of $13.50 are already replaced by current prices of $10.50, down 22% in less than 30 minutes...
Damn... FRE & FNM briefly went negative while I was typing that.
Folks, Government jawboning ain't gonna save the 2 most leveraged companies on the planet.
They need to stop talking & just jump in and do what they're going to do anyway.
Ratios for possibly looking for Bank Demise Candidates:
Ahead of the Bell: Few other banks appear on brink
Bove said investors now want to look at what other banks may fail as the crisis continues. There are two methods that can be used to examine the possibilities, one involving adding a bank's non-performing assets, meaning bad loans and foreclosed assets, and dividing them by outstanding loans. "A ratio above 5 percent suggests danger," he explained.
The second method involves dividing non-performing assets by the total of its reserves plus common equity. With this calculation, a ratio above 40 percent "is the danger zone," he said.
IndyMac is at $.15, down 48% since Friday.
Question is, Why did anyone hold this thing after the close Friday? It's worth $0.00 right now!
Most recent CACB info I could find:
Cascade Bancorp (Oregon) (Nasdaq: CACB) Released Results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2007, Confirming Earnings Per Share at $0.19 and $1.23, Respectively
LOAN PORTFOLIO AND CREDIT QUALITY:
At December 31, 2007, Cascade's Loan Portfolio had grown to $2.05 billion, up 8.5% compared to a year ago. However, due in part to the seasonal slowing in the pace of construction and real estate activity during the fourth quarter, loan volumes were essentially flat when compared to the linked quarter.
The Company confirmed its credit quality metrics as pre-announced on January 3, 2008 for the quarter ended December 31, 2007. Cascade's provision for credit losses was $7.5 million for the fourth quarter, bringing the full year provision to $11.3 million. Net loan charge-offs were $3.9 million or 0.76% (annualized) of total loans for the quarter compared to 0.31% (annualized) for the linked-quarter. Non-performing assets (NPA's) were modestly higher than pre-announced at $45.7 million as of December 31, 2007, or 2.23% of total loans compared to $21.5 million or 1.05% of total loans for the linked-quarter. Of this NPA balance, assets classified as 'other real estate owned' totaled $7.1 million. Current NPA's are primarily comprised of residential land development and construction related credits in the Boise, Idaho and Southern Oregon markets.
The Reserve for Credit Losses totaled 1.54% of loans at year end, compared to 1.42% a year earlier and 1.37% for the linked-quarter. Of this aggregate amount, the portion classified as a reserve for loan commitments is approximately 0.15% of gross loans. Management believes reserves are at an appropriate level based upon its current evaluation and analysis of portfolio credit quality and prevailing economic conditions. With uncertainty as to the depth and duration of the real estate slowdown and its economic effect on the communities within Cascades' banking markets, no assurance can be given that the reserve will be adequate in future periods. If the real estate economy continues to deteriorate, an elevated level of loan loss provisioning may be required in the future.
never have camped there try some of the spots around crane dead quiet and free, I pack my mountain gun 44 mag with me at all times, We have had to deal with bear a couple times around cultis but they run off. Had couger shrills at us but never saw them. and people just leave you alone.
I'm still watching Lehman. Nothing has changed for them over the weekend and I expect after this mornings hysteria wears off, they will go back to beating the shit out of them.
This piece says there has been a 1,800% increase in CACB NPA's YoY. No Big Deal though folks... this is Bend, we're DIFFERENT:
Cascade Bancorp (Oregon) (Nasdaq: CACB) Increases Its Estimated Fourth Quarter 2007 Provision for Credit Losses By $8.1 Million (Pre-Tax) to Approximately $15.6 Million
Credit Quality Ratios
Reserve for credit losses 37,038 26,798 38.2%
Reserve to ending total loans 1.81% 1.42% 27.8%
Non-performing assets (5) 56,968 3,005 1795.8%
Non-performing assets to total
loans 2.79% 0.16% 1652.6%
Delinquent >30 days to total loans 0.47% 0.18% 164.0%
Net Charge off's 9,110 1,282 610.6%
Net loan charge-offs (annualized) 0.46% 0.08% 473.0%
The U.S. economy is in a recession, possibly the worst since World War II, Rogers said.
Which would make it the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, of course.
Way ta go, Republiscums!
Posted On: Monday, July 14, 2008, 4:26:00 AM EST
FDIC Says No Problem, But For How Long?
Author: Jim Sinclair
Dear CIGAs,
The first comment by the FDIC was that the only funds not insured amounted to one billion dollars, or 5% of the deposits guaranteed. If that was true then the FDIC would have put about 1/3 of its capital in play.
The following article suggests the FDIC put only 10% of its capital into play.
The FDIC says there is no problem because they can raise premiums paid by banks. Sure, but how long would it take to replace their capital if 2 or more significant banks were to fail? That replacement would likely take a decade.
All of these cosmetic insurance schemes on deposits and securities will fail to pay in cash. You will get paid in short term, renewable (but not at your decision), government notes.
Now do you see why removing as many financial agents between you and yours is so important?
Now do you see why taking paper certificates or becoming a book entry at the transfer agent is no waste of your time?
If you have not protected your share investments do it tomorrow and as a byproduct dump the shorts.
Latest victim of mortgage crisis opens new era
IndyMac, seized by U.S. after failure, will test government mettle on takeovers
By Jonathan Burton & John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:38 p.m. EDT July 13, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A new era for the U.S. government's takeover of failed banks is about to begin.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the biggest casualty of the subprime mortgage crisis over the weekend, as federal regulators shut down the troubled Pasadena, Calif.-based savings bank in one of the largest U.S. bank failures ever.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a statement it will take over operations of IndyMac (IMB), which will open for business on Monday as IndyMac Federal Bank. The thrift - the fifth U.S. bank to fail so far this year -- had total assets of $32 billion as of March 31.
In a televised statement Sunday afternoon, FDIC Chief Operating Officer John Bovenzi said that "come Monday morning, it will be business as usual," and urged customers to "view this as a change in ownership."
Bovenzi described the FDIC takeover as "orderly."
Much of IndyMac's business was built on so-called Alt-A single family mortgages, which were often made to borrowers with poor credit. As the secondary market for these loans collapsed, IndyMac's financial condition turned precarious.
"IndyMac has been in trouble for a long time, in part because of the way it funded itself with a large reliance on broker deposits, interest-rate sensitive deposits, and Alt-A mortgage lending," said Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria, Va.
More…
Reuters
U.S. bank shares plummet amid stability fears
Monday July 14, 2:56 pm ET
By Dan Wilchins
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of National City Corp (NYSE:NCC - News) and Washington Mutual Inc (NYSE:WM - News) plummeted, leading U.S. financial stocks lower on Monday amid fears about bank stability and the future of the mortgage market.
ADVERTISEMENT
IndyMac Bancorp Inc (NYSE:IMB - News), once one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders, was seized by banking regulators on Friday, while the U.S. government pledged emergency support to mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM - News) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE - News).
As the credit crunch wears on, companies previously seen as strong are looking increasingly frail, which is weighing on shares in the sector, investors said.
"The fear factor is in play right now," said Michael Nix, portfolio manager Greenwood Capital Associates, whose fund owns shares in Wachovia Corp (NYSE:WB - News) and regional bank BB&T Corp (NYSE:BBT - News).
The rout in banking stocks was widespread, and included both commercial and investment banks. The KBW Bank index (Philadelphia:^BKX - News) fell 7 percent. Brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co's (NYSE:MER - News) shares slid 5.5 percent to $26.09.
The collapse of IndyMac was particularly sobering to investors, analysts said.
"It's the cockroach theory. You don't just have one bank failure -- when you have a big bank go under, there's always more than one," said James Ellman, president of hedge fund Seacliff Capital, who is short some financial stocks.
MORE RUNS?
Shares in Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan, dropped $1.80 or 36 percent to $3.15, hurt in part by concerns about the amount of money it could have to set aside to cover mortgage losses.
Lehman Brothers put out a report saying WaMu could face $26 billion in losses, with $21 billion from mortgages. Expected write-downs on bad loans could force the thrift to set aside another $4 billion in the second quarter, creating a loss for the period of $1.48 per share, Lehman analysts said. A Washington Mutual spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Shares of National City Corp's, a large U.S. Midwest regional bank and one of the nation's 10 largest, were down 82 cents or 18.6 percent to $3.60 in afternoon trading after reaching as low as $2.99 earlier.
"Investors are out there saying, if this happened to IndyMac, why not NatCity?" said Matt McCormick, stock analyst at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel in Cincinnati.
The Cleveland-based bank put out a press statement assuring the public that it was fine.
"Clearly there is a lot of market speculation broadly today. We are experiencing no unusual depositor or creditor activity," said Kristen Baird Adams, a spokeswoman for National City.
Adding to concerns about the banking sector, regional bank M&T Bank Corp (NYSE:MTB - News) said on Monday that rising credit losses from residential real estate pulled second-quarter profit down by 25 percent. The company's shares were down $12.50 or 17.9 percent to $57.20 after falling as low as $53.61 earlier.
(Reporting by Dan Wilchins, Elinor Comlay, and Jonathan Stempel, editing by Mark Porter and Gerald E. McCormick)
"And click on those weed-grow pic's to get a true grasp of how kick-butt the weeds really are...."
Thank you for this photo documentation IHTBYB. While entertaining in a morbid sort of way, it's saddening to see beautiful houses going to waste. What a colossal mis-allocation of resources.
I wish that odd inventor guy who needs industrial land would develop a solar-powered means of fixing this.
*
Headline on The Onion site:
"Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In"
WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.
"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."
A prominent finance expert asks Congress to help Americans rebuild their ficticious dreams.
The current economic woes, brought on by the collapse of the so-called "housing bubble," are considered the worst to hit investors since the equally untenable dot-com bubble burst in 2001.
According to investment experts, now that the option of making millions of dollars in a short time with imaginary profits from bad real-estate deals has disappeared, the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has never been more urgent.
"Perhaps the new bubble could have something to do with watching movies on cell phones," said investment banker Greg Carlisle of the New York firm Carlisle, Shaloe & Graves. "Or, say, medicine, or shipping. Or clouds. The manner of bubble isn't important—just as long as it creates a hugely overvalued market based on nothing more than whimsical fantasy and saddled with the potential for a long-term accrual of debts that will never be paid back, thereby unleashing a ripple effect that will take nearly a decade to correct."
"The U.S. economy cannot survive on sound investments alone," Carlisle added.
Congress is currently considering an emergency economic-stimulus measure, tentatively called the Bubble Act, which would order the Federal Reserve to† begin encouraging massive private investment in some fantastical financial scheme in order to get the nation's false economy back on track.
Current bubbles being considered include the handheld electronics bubble, the undersea-mining-rights bubble, and the decorative office-plant bubble. Additional options include speculative trading in fairy dust—which lobbyists point out has the advantage of being an entirely imaginary commodity to begin with—and a bubble based around a hypothetical, to-be-determined product called "widgets."
The most support thus far has gone toward the so-called paper bubble. In this appealing scenario, various privately issued pieces of paper, backed by government tax incentives but entirely worthless, would temporarily be given grossly inflated artificial values and sold to unsuspecting stockholders by greedy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.
"Little pieces of paper are the next big thing," speculator Joanna Nadir, of Falls Church, VA said. "Just keep telling yourself that. If enough people can be talked into thinking it's legitimate, it will become temporarily true."
Demand for a new investment bubble began months ago, when the subprime mortgage bubble burst and left the business world without a suitable source of pretend income. But as more and more time has passed with no substitute bubble forthcoming, investors have begun to fear that the worst-case scenario—an outcome known among economists as "real-world repercussions"—may be inevitable.
"Every American family deserves a false sense of security," said Chris Reppto, a risk analyst for Citigroup in New York. "Once we have a bubble to provide a fragile foundation, we can begin building pyramid scheme on top of pyramid scheme, and before we know it, the financial situation will return to normal."
Despite the overwhelming support for a new bubble among investors, some in Washington are critical of the idea, calling continued reliance on bubble-based economics a mistake. Regardless of the outcome of this week's congressional hearings, however, one thing will remain certain: The calls for a new bubble are only going to get louder.
"America needs another bubble," said Chicago investor Bob Taiken. "At this point, bubbles are the only thing keeping us afloat."
Has anyone noticed the beating that Columbia River Bank has taken. Last time I looked, they were a couple bucks up on CACB but that was over 120 days ago. I just looked again and damn....
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:CBBO
Time to shop for a new bank.
Peak - Nov 17th, 2006 at $27.35
Today - $4.10
"the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has never been more urgent."
how about a device that attaches to the back of your SUV, with a wheel and a belt that turns an air pump, and the air pump inflates the value of your McMansion. you could sell millions.
The "Texas ratio" is a calculation I puuled from an interview with the guy who helped close a bunch of banks the last time around. the FDIC recently hired him back.
It's:
non-perf loans/(tangible equity capital + loan loss provisions)
If at 100% the bank is likely to fail.
CACB's Texas Ratio:
56,968,000/(160,737,000+15,600,000)
=32%
Which seems all well and good for now.
There is another interesting change in the numbers when comparing the reserve for credit losses and the non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans. Reserve percentage went from 1.37% to 1.81%, while nonperfs went from 1.05% to 2.79% on a qtr-to-qtr basis, and an astounding 1.42% to 1.81% reserve ratio and .16% to 2.79% on year over year basis.
They may want/need to increase their loan loss reserves rather dramatically in the future.
And also note that the dividend to net income ratio is an unsustainable 1082%. They are giving away ten times their earnings in dividends.
"Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In"
This satire is painfully close to the truth. Paul Krugman had a column a while back about how the US has evolved a "bubble economy." There was the tech bubble of the '90s followed by the real estate bubble, followed by ... what? The oil bubble?
What's up with all the losers sporting Obama signs in their yards? I'm even seeing them in the nicer neighborhoods on the Westsiiiiiiiiede. Not to mention the bumper stickers. Are there really that many broke losers in this town that need a bigger welfare check?
What's up with all the losers sporting Obama signs in their yards?
Sheeeeat Bitch! Give a brutha a break!
next time i'm getting a mortgage from the most irresponsible lender out there. excerpt from the WSJ:
IndyMac Reopens, Halts
Foreclosures on Its Loans
By DAMIAN PALETTA, LINGLING WEI and RUTH SIMON
July 15, 2008; Page C1
IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the failed thrift, reopened its doors under federal control Monday and promptly moved to toss ailing homeowners a lifeline by halting all foreclosures on the mortgages it owns.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, who has been one of the most outspoken officials calling for banks to ease up on struggling homeowners, said that the agency is "really focused" on keeping borrowers in their homes for both their sakes and to maximize IndyMac's value for taxpayers. "We will very aggressively pursue loan-modification strategies for unaffordable loans to make them affordable on a long-term, sustainable basis," Ms. Bair said in an interview Monday.
No, dude, I can totally let this genie out of the bottle and EASILY get him back in.... watch.
Wholesale prices soar in June; sales are sluggish
Tuesday July 15, 9:28 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Soaring energy, food push inflation up at fastest in 27 years;weak autos pressure retail sales
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy showed the depth of its twin problems on Tuesday, slow growth and rising inflation, as the nation wrestled with a teetering financial system, a slumping dollar and rising prices for food and fuel.
The Labor Department reported that soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the wholesale level up by a bigger-than-expected 1.8 percent in June, leaving inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.
Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 9.2 percent, the largest year-over-year surge since June 1981, another period when soaring energy costs were giving the country inflation pains.
Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was better behaved in June, rising by just 0.2 percent, slightly lower than expectations.
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that all the economy's problems were weighing on the consumer. Retail sales edged up by a tiny 0.1 percent in June, weaker than had been expected, as consumer spending was held back by a sharp plunge in sales at auto dealerships.
U.S. stocks headed for a sharply lower open as the reports on inflation and retail sales failed to cool concerns about the financial sector. Banking stocks were pounded on Monday despite the government's efforts to calm concerns with a support package fashioned over the weekend for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was scheduled to deliver his midyear report on the economy to Congress on Tuesday, was expected to highlight the threat posed by inflation pressures. The central bank at its June meeting brought an end to an aggressive rate-cutting campaign that had been designed to keep a prolonged housing slump and severe credit crunch from pushing the country into a deep recession.
The central bank is currently caught between the opposing forces of rising inflation and slumping economic growth.
For June, energy prices at the wholesale level shot up by 6 percent; the price of unleaded regular gasoline surged by 9 percent following an even bigger 9.6 percent increase in May.
The 0.1 percent rise in retail sales was even weaker than the 0.4 percent gain that analysts had been expecting.
That small rise reflected a 3.3 percent drop in sales at auto dealerships, offsetting a big 4.6 percent jump in sales at gasoline stations, an increase that largely mirrored last month's huge jump in pump prices.
General Motors said Tuesday that it plans to lay off salaried workers, cut truck production and suspend its stock dividend, showing the depth of the U.S. auto industry's mounting troubles as it adjusts to a declining U.S. market.
GM said it would also borrow $2 billion to $3 billion as part of an effort to raise $15 billion to help turn around its North American operations.
CACB should be coming out with earnings in the next 10 days.
After seeing that Deschutes County NOD chart go geometric, I'm thinking... Not So Good.
If CACB actually reports some sort of positive net... there's hanky panky there... NPA should EXPLODE higher.
Damn.
Columbia Bancorp $3.90 (1yr, down 81%)
CACB $6.30 (down 72%)
Lehman $12.56 (down 83%)
Wachovia $7.98 (down 85%)
Freaking Unbelievable!
And Wash Mu down 93%... $3.32
Turned on the TV & saw something I ain't never seen in my life:
A run on a US bank.
Who said that'd happen?
Nope, not me.
That'd be Buster.
They showed a dude who had LOST $68,000 of his savings also.
He had $236,000 in IndyMac, they gave him all his first $100K, and only half of everything after that.
He saved $236K, and ended up with $168K.
Ahhh yes. Now SAVERS are being punished & Speculators are given HUGE rewards.
Wonderful incentives being set up right now. Country should be broke in no time....
>>A run on a US bank.
Damn...I'm starting to think I'm gonna deposit in the bank of Procter and Gamble or Johnson and Johnson. Someone with shit we gotta have and billions in cash on hand. Then I keep thinking $145 oil has gotta screw their margins as well.
>>He had $236,000 in IndyMac, they gave him all his first $100K, and only half of everything after that.
Yep, he had it all in several different accounts all under $100,000. He didn't realize the bundle it all up and then do the insurance deal. That's gotta hurt.
Interesting headline:
FDIC chair: Deposits in nation's banks are safe
Why do they feel the need to tell us this?
Oh right, because they are liars & thieves, and need to steal more of our money.
Fucking Freddie is under $5.00.....$4.91 down 30.94% TODAY.
Johnson and Johnson
Yeah... seems the best investment out there. Hellishly overpriced for my taste, but huge, liquid & stable. Get what ya pay for I suppose.
Strange that we are seeking safety... IN STOCKS... NOT BONDS OR BANK CD's!
WTF!
Strange that we are seeking safety... IN STOCKS.
I see Buffett deploying his BILLIONS in this selloff. Although it may be at much lower levels...
"No insured depositor has ever lost a penny of insured deposits throughout the FDIC's 75-year history."
And the Red Socks have never won the World Series since 1918. Oh wait...I mean the Cubs.
marge,
imho east-lake has always been a shit-hole, I generally go to west-lake, it more quiet.
folks east-lake is in the paulina caldera, the east-lake has always been where LA-pine ya-hoos take their kids and shit, ... west lake is where people go to fish and is quiet, for me east lake is too hot, cuz there are no trees.
There are lots of quiet lakes, you just got to hike, also if you want to fish, and you want quiet go south of silver-lake into the fremont-forest, there are lots of fish and quiet places in there, and you'll never see a soul.
Yes, generally anytime anywhere in remote Oregon you should always have a gun handy, especially when you see a stranger pull up, walk-up, ... I have add on several occasions have people show guns, and in no occasion did I shoot them. They're generally looking for cowards they can intimidate, generally when a 'fool' shows you his gun at six or so feet its quite easy to rush him.
I did see an event once at the south shore of prineville reservoir, where all night a pack of a few dozen kids in big trucks 'terrorized' the tent-camps in their rigs all night. In the AM, there were 2-3 rigs tire deep in muck, but all night long the rigs were driving around tents just like out of Mad-Max. The kids came in about midnight, my guess is they came from Redmond.
The last time I had a gun pulled was in Owyhee on the south fork. I convinced the guy to leave, but the fucker kept coming back, so we packed the camp at dusk and bailed, and I'm glad I did because I know he would have been fucking with us all night. That's some quiet country in south Owhyee you can do for days and not see another person even in some the campgrounds. A lot of these camps have people living in them, like they own them. It's fairly clear the 'authoritys' don't give a fuck. Remote Oregon is just like Remote Arizona, most cops don't leave the pavement ( asphalt ) the assumption is what goes on off-road will take care of itself with guns and shovels.
I did have friend in desert once with his family, they had stopped for lunch on the tailgate, he had a shotgun on the bed of the truck within reach. The guy walked up from nowhere, and presented a pistol and demanded the rig keys, and that they disrobe, my friend grabbed his shotgun and told the guy to drop his gun and take off his shoes, they left the guy barefoot and drove off. You had to wonder what might have transpired if my friend had not had a shotgun within reach. The thing is the creeps aren't expecting you to fight back, they have a mental picture that you'll drop to your knees. Thus when you respond with a gun barrel in their face, they generally fold or get shot.
Much can be written about survival, in the remote. It comes down to knowing you status,
white - in bed
yellow - aware
orange - you see a suspect
red - you meet the beast
black- burial
Generally most folks are in white all the time, a smart guy is always in yellow, always be looking for orange, and then you can avoid black, cuz black means cops and lawsuits.
"No insured depositor has ever lost a penny of insured deposits throughout the FDIC's 75-year history."
*
I'll say one thing on this issue, and that is they're only obligated to pay the $100k back within 99 years.
I know most of you here are new to oryGUN, but years ago their was Ben-Franklin that went belly back in the last orygun recession. Guys I know only recently got some of their money back, and note they didn't get all of the $100k, only some.
The way it works is FDIC has to return $100k within 99 years, and I'm fairly sure, only if your still alive. Like every other program the government creates, read the fine-print.
Of course a squeaky-wheel gets the grease I'm sure if its your only money, and you hound you electables, you might get some money, but the average guy that waits, can expect his money in no less than 20-40 years, if NO interest.
So, yes, no depositor has lost his money, because the FDIC shows the money on their books, thus its legally correct, that the money has never been lost, because any fool can scribble a balance on paper, the trouble is getting that scribble into hard-cash.
To talk like HOMER, lets talk solvency, if you have CASH, and you want to use it in your lifetime, then make sure you keep you money close, I prefer stable credit unions, they didn't do the crazy shit.
If you have a ton of MONEY in WASHMU, and assume that its under $100k, and you'll get your money back after the FDIC moves in, just remember that it will take years, and years, and years. You'll NOT lose the insured money, you'll just never see it again. Big difference.
"What's up with all the losers sporting Obama signs in their yards? I'm even seeing them in the nicer neighborhoods on the Westsiiiiiiiiede. Not to mention the bumper stickers. Are there really that many broke losers in this town that need a bigger welfare check?"
After eight years of RepubliCON rule we're ALL gonna be broke, you schmuck.
BTW so far I have seen exactly one, count it, one, McCain bumper sticker in town. You Repubes don't seem terribly enthusiastic about your senile candidate.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy showed the depth of its twin problems on Tuesday, slow growth and rising inflation
Hmmm, sounds like stagflation. I thought that was only supposed to happen under Democratic presidents.
If a bank fails, what is the timeframe for payout of the funds that are insured if the bank cannot be acquired by another financial institution?
Federal law requires the FDIC to make payments of insured deposits "as soon as possible" upon the failure of an insured institution. While every bank failure is unique, there are standard policies and procedures that the FDIC follows in making deposit insurance payments. It is the FDIC's goal to make deposit insurance payments within one business day of the failure of the insured institution. Typically, a bank that has failed will be closed on a Friday. The FDIC will then work the weekend to complete deposit insurance determinations for most deposits and be prepared on Monday to either transfer the insured portion of a deposit to another FDIC insured institution or provide deposit insurance payment checks. (Note: Some deposits that require supplemental documentation from the depositors, such as accounts linked to a living trust agreement or funds placed by a deposit broker, may take a little longer. The timing of the completion of the deposit insurance determination is based solely on the depositor providing the documentation needed by the FDIC to determine insurance coverage.)
http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/deposit/faqs/index.html
Re:After eight years of RepubliCON rule we're ALL gonna be broke, you schmuck.
All but the top 1%. They did just fine under W. Especially Wall St. and big oil. You think Cheney is really upset about $4 per gallon gas? Or have you missed the drumbeat of Repugs screaming about how we should drill offshore and in ANWR, when the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of existing oil leases that they are not drilling in.
There's a nice set of charts on this at this link:
http://tinyurl.com/5dgjpk
Please have a look, but some excerpts are as follows:
On average, Democrat presidents have presided over a small increase in inflation, and Republicans over a small decrease.
However, Democrats have a clear edge on GDP growth: 4.4% vs. 2.6%.
Under Democratic administrations, employment has grown an average of 3.0% a year (2.9% if you start in 1949); under Republicans, 1.3%. With only few exceptions, Republican administrations have presided over increases in unemployment, and Democrats over declines.
Democratic administrations have an edge on stock returns, with the S&P 500 rising an average of 4.7% a year in real terms (price only, excluding dividends, deflated by the CPI) under Democratic administrations, compared with 2.9%under Republicans.
Republicans are a lot more bond-friendly. Real total returns—price plus coupon, deflated by the CPI—averaged +4.2% a year under Republicans, vs. –2.1% under Democrats.
Over the long sweep of history, the distribution of income in the U.S. became more equal from the early 1930s through the late 1960s, and has been growing more unequal ever since. But there are some partisan patterns to this story. On average, inequality has risen in Republican administrations, and fallen in Democratic ones.
BY THE WAY, we're not going to have "stagflation" because there's no wage-price spiral -- because there's no unions (outside the public sphere) -- low wage jobs are going to get real wage growth like they may have used to (e.g., in the 1970s).
Democrats have a clear edge on GDP growth: 4.4% vs. 2.6%.
So somebody pliz 'splain to me how come the myth persists that "Republicans are good for the economy."
So somebody pliz 'splain to me how come the myth persists that "Republicans are good for the economy."
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The Republicans do all their considerable spending on the national credit card; people like that, it makes everything seem free . . . at the time.
The Democrats are more pay-as-you-go; people don't like that, it feels like you actually have to pay.
Federal law requires the FDIC to make payments of insured deposits "as soon as possible" upon the failure of an insured institution.
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This is bank to bank, on Federal-Funds-Rate, between two banks, banks via the Federal Reserve can create money out of thin air.
Case in Point some 25+ years ago when Oregon's Ben-Franklin went BK, still folks have NOT got all their money back.
It's one thing for FDIC to kick-start a bank-failure, and shuffle accounts from one bank to another, its another thing for a depositor to get his/her cold real hard cash back in hand.
Bank Holidays are REAL, that is why smart people get in line to get their money out. History shows that the first in line got theres, and the last in line wait until post death.
We'll see lots of bank-holidays, as more banks RUN, the GOVERNMENT will declare a bank holiday. Watch gold closely, and especially silver, as folks will start hording 1-oz silver coins in lieu of cash.
Too many talking heads are now saying everything is OK, and DUMBYA is still saying we have the best economy ever. Smelling more&more like 1933 everyday.
Let me say one thing on this DEM vs REPUG,
HL-MENCKEN said the diff between the two was the diff between a fox(dem) & a wolf(repug), they both are carnivores, and they'll both clean you to the bone.
About the same time 'depression era' folks also said "vote repug, lose your money" ( now ), "vote dem, get in a war".
Iraq is about oil, and we filled the afghan void left by russia, the muslims don't care about Iraq, so they have shifted the war back to Afghan, where they have the terrain advantage, remember after 15+ years they kicked the Russia Butt, and they'll have no problem kicking the US butt. Nobody cares about Iraq.
Now you have OBAMA saying we need to expand the WAR in AFGHAN, so he'll yes, IRAQ will become old news, and the fronts in PAKI&IRAN will expand.
The above says it all, and nothing more needs to be said.
20-30 more years of war, and US wears everyone down, after the oil is gone, the US sits on the #1 coal reserves in the world, the US keeps everyone else fighting and killing each other in someone elses backyard.
We have already established that the Prius drivers of Bend just want to plug it in, and don't give about human life else where.
Life moves on, and nothing ever changes. China is slowly taking over Africa and in 10-20 they'll start moving into Saudi, most likely the US goal of getting control of Afghan is to cut China off for the merge.
If OBAMA wants more troops in AFGHAN he'll have to re-instate the DRAFT, expect anyday for OBAMA to say "What can you do for your country".
Like CLINTON, OBAMA will be the best republican, the republicans ever had. Note, that REPUG's could have never gotten nafta/gatt passed, but clinton got it passed, BUSH couldn't expand the war against muslims, but OBAMA will, ....
Prius drivers in Bend, will sleep could knowing the batterys are charging, and every day 1,000's of muslim children are dying.
Re: BUSH couldn't expand the war against muslims
He started it, he just got sidetracked by the lake of oil underneath Iraq.
We all know what McSame is going to do, the same thing Bush has been doing.
With Obama we at least have a chance at something different.
Plus, we won't have to listen to an old geezer try to string two or three coherent sentences together for the next four years.
So somebody pliz 'splain to me how come the myth persists that "Republicans are good for the economy."
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It depends WHOM you are, if your an exec at Halliburton Repub's can be very good for the economy.
Its all about pigs feeding the trough, both dems & repubs are pigs, just the troughs are in different geo-graphic locations.
The important thing is that repug's steal everything from everyone, and the dem's start wars everywhere to save the world, which in general is just old fashion looting, for instance in Iraq, there is nothing left to steal, so the war is wearing down.
Afghan of course has nothing, but he who controls the opium fields controls the world, the CIA has know that since WWII, and the british knew that in the 1800's.
The US is the worlds policeman, and will continue to be so, until every last US citizen has been used as cannon fodder, we're now too broke to keep using mercenarys ( black-hawk ), with OBAMA there will be a draft. OBAMA must be tough, and prove he is tough, like BUSH, some of the most dangerous leaders of all time, have been men who have never seen combat.
It will be a good ride, the new 10 years.
Bend will be fine by 2025, there will be a new baby-boom, post WWIII, and all the STD crap shacks will make create post war housing, and the RE boom will continue. For the next ten years Bend will be in RE paralysis.
By 2025 when the RENO-CA FWY route I-97 to Madras comes in there will be a BEND RE boom, similar to LAS-VEGAS in recent years. Just be patient.
Biggest US problem is blacks, and OBAMA will be sending them all off to die in AFGHAN, its called NEW-WORLD-ORDER.
The problem was the inability of the black-man post slavery to become a white-man, and thus like the american-indian, he had to be exterminated, there black reservation will be out of the country, The US cities are collapsing into anarchy, and thus it is essential for the ruling elite to destroy the black-family, ship the black men in prison to war, and sterilize the black female.
It's hard to put a nail on why post slavery blacks didn't become white, some say they were never given a chance, but its clear the status-quo made damn sure that black leaders who went against the party-line were exterminated ( malcolm-x, m-luther, ... )
With Obama we at least have a chance at something different.
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Different my ASS bruce-pussy.
If your still here in a year, and OBAMA is prez, you heard it FROM BUSTER, that OBAMA is going to expand the fucking war, and install the fucking draft.
The repug's could have NEVER gotten a DRAFT and O-BOMB-A will, and he'll pack all the niggers ( remember obama ain't black ) to AFGHAN to die, and the prius drivers of BEND will NOT give a fuck, cuz only minority's will get drafted, just like last time, go to college and defer, ... only the POOR ( blacks, ... ) will go to die.
YEH bruce-pussy O-BOMB-A, is going to be really fucking different, like fucking CLITORIS-B, and O-BOMB-A is going to be doing shit CHENEY was afraid to even talk about.
It's all like animal-farm, two legs bad, four legs good.
DEM bombs good, REPuG bombs bad, ... of course its illogical, but it works, the parasites in BEND are all in for the ride. The real war is already on today in America's city's. The NIGGER's ( jesse & sharpton ) know that O-BOMB-A is uncle TOM,
YEH, bruce-pussy real fucking different, like the difference between ANY of BENDS fucking golf-course's.
Remember PUSSY they're all the same, they're all working for the same collective NewWorldOrder police-state.
Great rants, today.
"If OBAMA wants more troops in AFGHAN he'll have to re-instate the DRAFT"
But isn't Obama pledging to get out of Iraq? It's only about a 12 hour car ride from Baghdad to Kabul on the ol' opium trail.
"OBAMA must be tough, and prove he is tough, like BUSH, some of the most dangerous leaders of all time, have been men who have never seen combat."
I agree, but McCain makes an exception in that he HAS seen combat but is also one of the most blood-thirsty guys out there. He has always been very pro-Iraq invasion, seemingly buying into the Neo-Cons theory as opposed to just wanting to enrich the oil companies.
I completely disagree that Obama and McCain are the 'same'. This is what Nader said about Bush and Gore in 2000 "you can't tell them apart". That is 100% bullshit -- the world would look very different if Gore had won in 2000, just as the world will look very different if Obama wins this year.
It's time to have some Democrats (grownups)come in to clean up the mess made by the current administration. Balance the budget, get us off oil, and get us out of Iraq.
BUSH&GORE? NADER was 100% correct.
Had CLINTON not won, there would be NO NAFTA or GATT today, there would have been NO giant sucking sound of all the jobs to Mexico.
Alas all are grownups.
"BUSH&GORE? NADER was 100% correct."
If Gore had won, we would not be spending billions (trillions?) in Iraq right now, the Feds wouldn't have gained powers to tap your phone or computer at will, and we wouldn't be making as gigantic of interest payments on the national debt because we would not have had tax cuts that ultimately help out mainly the richest Americans.
It is a complete myth that "there is no fucking difference b/t the candidates".
Nader's right and he's getting my vote this fall.
Interesting comments about all those fuckers being the same... obama/mccain.
Buster said: Remember PUSSY they're all the same, they're all working for the same collective NewWorldOrder police-state.
I agree... I HOPE Obama is truly ready to make changes, but he is a member of the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS just like the rest of them.
BUSTER, did you support Ron Paul? I did... he was the only one calling the bullshit on what's really going on with the NewWorldOrder agenda and people still pretend it's not happening. Like the fuckin' North American Union/Trans Texas Corridor... people still think that is a myth because cnn/fox/msnbc who-the-fuck-ever tells them so even though they can find the truth all over the net... congressmen/women are shining a light on it, millions of acres in Texas are being taken via Eminent Domain and still people think it's crazy conspiracy talk.
Think big picture folks... wake the fuck up and do some research... illegal federal reserve, inflation/deflation/artificially created economic bubbles, north american union, the attack on our civil rights, 9/11, operation northwoods, bilderberg group, trilateral commission, council on foreign relations, the US war on democracy in south america and elsewhere, iraq, big oil ETC ETC ETC!... it's all the same game and the same group of motherfuckers pulling the strings. Please get interested, get informed and educate yourself. Turn off the fuckin TV.
There are tough times ahead for sure... but the truth will prevail and the citizens of the United States will take back our country. Do your part.
Read the below carefully, from today's la-times, note that ALL of O-Bomb-A's anti-war rhetoric has disappeared from his website, he's over-night become the pro-war candidate.
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Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted
Los Angeles Times - 5 hours ago
A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days. The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared.
But isn't Obama pledging to get out of Iraq? It's only about a 12 hour car ride from Baghdad to Kabul on the ol' opium trail.
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Not anymore, all track record of O-BOMB-A ever wanting to get out of IRAQ is GONE, big-time!
The draft is coming, and quick under O-BOMB-A, remember he's uncle tom, and his mission is to solve the NIGGER problem here in the USA by sending them all to die.
The O-BOMB-A 'pledge' is GONE, never happened, never existed, never. O-BOMB-A captured the LEFT, and don't get me wrong HILLY-POOH-CLITORIS-B would be NO different, all OWNED by AIPAC.
Don't forget OUR HISTORY MOFO's - "DEMS gets US in Wars, and REPugs take our money".
But isn't Obama pledging to get out of Iraq? It's only about a 12 hour car ride from Baghdad to Kabul on the ol' opium trail.
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O-BOMB-A is now flipping by the hour, but lets take his latest analysis. "EXPAND the WAR in Afghan". So its agreed what does it mean to withdraw from Iraq, but to only expand a few hours away by camel?
The fact is the BOYZ have taken the war out of the city to the mtn's where they have an advantage, besides almost ALL afghans hate invaders, so the villages have sympathy, almost ALL IRAQi's can be bought for CASH, thus the 'resistance' has gone where they have support from the people.
The WAR will be fought in rural PAKI/IRAN/AFGHAN, in the high rural mtn areas where the russians got there ass kicked back in 1980's by OSAMA's (bin-laden/bush) CIA funded RAYGUN stinger-missiles in the first place. The CIA taught the AFGHANS how to beat the Russians, and now the AFGHANS are beating the US.
Of course we'll just drop bombs on ALL the afghan villages and turn the whole country into a depleted uranium dump. Then send in a few 100k black guys from US prisons to clean up the mess and they'll be dead in a few years from radiation poisoning, and we'll deny the problem.
Nothing ever changes.
The worm turns on Wall St today...
is Bend not really different after all? can the bulletin not single-handedly suspend the fundamental rules of energy and real estate? letter to the editor:
The Bulletin
Article ignored science
Published: July 16. 2008 4:00AM PST
It was with great disappointment, and much amusement, that we both read — separately — the article “Powered by innovation” in the June 30 edition of The Bulletin. We had to check our calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1.
To refer to the invention as an “alternative energy device” is misleading and inaccurate. In simple terms, the invention is powered by gasoline. It does nothing to “help defray” the energy demands in the world today. When attached to the back of a vehicle, the invention uses a common alternator, attached to a wheel and pulley, to generate electricity and charge batteries. When the invention is in use, the weight of the unit, the wind resistance it creates and friction in the system will require more gasoline to fuel your car’s engine. In other words, your gas mileage will go down.
In fact, the invention as described resembles what is commonly known as a “perpetual motion machine” and is in violation of one of the most fundamental laws of physics: the law of conservation of energy. Check the Wikipedia definition for more details.
The real problem with this article is that The Bulletin chose to run it without checking the facts behind the technology first. The state of science education in this country has many problems, and articles like this make the matter even worse.
Chris Raymond, Ph.D.
Director of Technology Development
Tom Ryan, Ph.D.
General Manager
Nanometrics Inc., Bend
OBAMA is going to expand the fucking war, and install the fucking draft.
It would take a fucking act of Congress to reinstate the fucking draft.
But maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. If we had a draft the fucking war/occupation would be over in six months, tops. The only reason Americans have put up with it is that it's being fought by "volunteers."
BTW I watched the movie "Stop-Loss" on DVD the other night. Excellent.
OBAMA is going to expand the fucking war, and install the fucking draft.
It would take a fucking act of Congress to reinstate the fucking draft.
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Congress already declared war a long time ago, it would only take an executive action to enable the draft.
Repug's could never pass the draft, but LIKE JFK O-BOMB-A will say "It's not what the nation can do for you, its what you can do for da nation",
Niggers pack your bag's your going to Vietnam, and its 1-2-3 what are you fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, whoop-ee we're all going to die. Mom's back the boyz its time to send them off to Vietnam.
Inside of every Muslim is a white-man trying to get out, the only good Muslim-Man is a dead one, ... Deja Vu, Whoop-ee we're all gonna die, and the DEMOCRATS will play the patriot card, something the REPUG's would NEVER get away with,
Fact is the troops are worn out, and the war at this point MUST be expanded or all is for lost, and besides with the economy in the toilet the USA knows no better way, than war.
We have passed peak oil, he who controls AFGHAN controls the SOMA,SPICE, ... call it what you want, but in the future peak-oil, he who controls the worlds opium to placate the masses controls the world. New-World-Order, 1984, Brave-New-World, call it what you want, its all about DRUGS.
Nobody will be able to fly, drive, ... or do anything but bike in the 20+ years, the world demand for drugs will sky-rocket.
Invest in the future, whoop-ee we're all going to die.
"EXPAND the WAR in Afghan". So its agreed what does it mean to withdraw from Iraq, but to only expand a few hours away by camel?
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Case in point, lets talk PERSIA, the place is called PERSIA, and the speak PERSIAN & FARSI.
It was colonial US/UK interests that DREW lines in the sand/desert that created IRAQ/PAKI/IRAN/... it means nothing to PERSIAN where the war against the west is fought.
On the other hand O-BOMB-A will declare the war over in IRAQ, and expand it ten-fold in AFGHAN, that may mean something to MORONS in the USA/WEST, but it means nothing to PERSIANS.
Remember "Al-Queda" which means the 'BASE' is-was created by the CIA, to get the ruskies out of AFGHAN, but that was ONLY in the mind of the west, essentially nomadic people aren't tied to any city waiting to be bombs, they are fluid. There is no 'base', ...
The USA creates Devils like BUSH created ( senior bush, cia director under raygun ) SADAM HUSSEIN, and modern IRAQ ( Baghdad ), remember that IRAQ was operating under PURE national-socialism, Hitlers New-World-Order the USA setup IRAQ to be a NAZI government in the first place post 1950, and put SADDAM in power. Most Perisans HATE saddam, no love loss to see the US destroy their own creation.
The real spirit of the middle-east is nomadic, its easy to control people in city's just like the USA, keep them full of drugs, and limit their movement with public-transportation.
The real war on freedom will be fought in the village, and the rural areas, which is why we will bomb the shit out of AFGHAN and thus hope to take the fight and the love of freedom out of the free.
Congress already declared war a long time ago ...
When did that happen? I musta missed it.
come on, obama your savior? he is bought and paid for, just like bush ron paul is the man but power will put him down we live in a time and times past where the amighty dollar and power will reign but not prevail. look at your history books folks, the roman empire is no more. And the dollar is not that amighty. If Obama wins it was planned If mclain wins it was planned they are puppets controlled by the people who are controlling the world. It is all about power and greed.Oh yes control
Police Brought In On Unruly IndyMac Crowd
Depositors Trying To Pull Out Money
POSTED: 8:27 am PDT July 15, 2008
UPDATED: 10:14 am PDT July 15, 2008
LOS ANGELES -- Police were called in Tuesday to tame an angry throng of IndyMac Bank customers trying to pull money out of the Encino, Calif., branch on Day 2 of a federal bank takeover.
At least three police squad cars showed up as tensions got heated.
Police ordered the angry customers to remain calm or face arrest.
The California bank crumbled under liquidity pressure last week. Federal regulators seized the bank on Friday and it opened Monday under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Deposits to $100,000 are fully insured by the FDIC.
For many of the customers who waited outside what is now IndyMac Federal Bank, the worries were the same: How much money they would get back and when?
Some 10,000 depositors had funds spilling over insured limit, for a total of $1 billion in potentially uninsured funds. On Monday, they waited as long as seven hours at some branches to talk to bank officials and find out the fate of their savings. One woman won a round of applause when she walked out of the bank with a check in hand.
When it was clear some wouldn't get in before closing on Monday, FDIC employees apparently took down names and told them to return Tuesday.
Customers began lining up at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, and by dawn, tensions escalated because people on the list were getting priority.
By 8 a.m., about 50 people on the list waited in one line and many more waited in another. Five people were allowed in at a time.
Customers became infuriated, and police told them they could be arrested if they didn't remain calm.
Police stood by at some other branches around Southern California but there were no other reports of problems.
The FDIC is asking customers who have uninsured funds to file claims, but says it could be years before it fully addresses all of them.
The failure of IndyMac "was inevitable" because the bank was weighted down by low-quality mortgages, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
"All banks are being challenged by credit conditions now," he said, adding that the Fed is keeping close tabs on the nation's banking sector.
President George W. Bush sought Tuesday to calm fears about the nation's banks.
In his first full-blown meeting with reporters at the White House since April 29, Bush said, "the system basically is sound."
"I understand there's a lot of nervousness. The economy is growing. Productivity is high. Trade's up. People are working -- it's not as good as we'd like. And to the extent that we'll find weakness, we'll move."
Addressing turmoil in the financial markets where the government has been forced to throw a lifeline to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bush called on Congress to move quickly to put into force legislation designed to help prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Bush said the two troubled mortgage companies play a central role in the nation's housing-finance system and that government action to help them was not a bailout, since the two would remain shareholder-owned companies.
"I don't think the government ought to be involved in bailing out companies," Bush said.
Previous Stories:
July 15, 2008: Bush Asserts U.S. Banking System Sound
July 14, 2008: Nervous IndyMac Customers Wait For Cash
July 12, 2008: Officials: IndyMac To Reopen Monday
July 12, 2008: Federal Regulators Close IndyMac
Other Economic News:
Excuse me but what does this remind you of? Things are not going to get better. prepare as best as you can. My grandad used to talk about these kind of things. and they were more self sufficent in those days.
Fine fucking rants since the last time I checked in. I will still vote for Obama so I can at least here someone that can talk in complete sentences.
In other news, the Juniper Ridge Conceptual Master Plan is officially in force on a 7-0 vote as of about 2 hours ago. I received a very public tongue lashing from the Mayor due to my questions about only a 100 acres being set aside for major employers. According to he Mayor, they are very aware of this and private land adjacent to JR will be adequate for large employers.
Yep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76svWOj8B04&NR=1
hear, not here
I've got to get to bed, 4 AM alarm for the ride out to Widgi. Best part of the day--riding while it's getting light out.
BTW Did anyone hear anything about the JR vote tonight? You know, an actual public notice?
Sometimes you win.
Sometimes you lose.
Sometimes it rains.
The Cubs have no fucking chance.
complete sentences Bruce I can get that in the city councel? Where the fuck are you from ? Man?Ron paul is the man any diff is you are fucking brainwashed but that is what they want change change ok we will arm middle age men and ship them off to afganistan with bolt action m-91? the rifle that won WW2 oR BETER YET THE M-1-GRANDE oR WHAT i HAVE MODLE 700 7MM MAG EFECTIVE TO 800 YARDS
CONGRESS NEVER DECLARED WAR ON IRAQ...
And not a word about it in the BULL this morning. Odd, as you would think that such a large project, at $14M and counting to Bend taxpayers, would at least get a sentence mentioning the final vote about the plan being approved.
Now you know why there have been THOUSANDS of incorporations in Cent OR. NOT new businesses, just shells.
Bend bank files lawsuit against firm linked to Pahlisch Homes
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: July 17. 2008 4:00AM PST
Bank of the Cascades filed suit June 30 in Deschutes County Circuit Court against a holding company linked to Pahlisch Homes, saying it is owed more than $9.5 million.
The suit names Mayberry Mountain LLC as a defendant along with Tucker and Jan Mayberry of Multnomah County and Dennis and Beverly Pahlisch of Deschutes County. Dennis Pahlisch is the president of Bend-based Pahlisch Homes. Mayberry Mountain has the same Bend business address as Pahlisch Homes, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office.
According to the suit, Mayberry Mountain has defaulted on a promissory note, dated Oct. 23, 2006, with the bank for $9,529,000 that was due with interest on April 1. In addition, the suit says the two couples are in default with respect to commercial guarantees signed by them to guarantee payment of the note.
The promissory note was secured by a deed of trust for two lots in Redmond off of Northwest Way purchased by Mayberry Mountain on Oct. 27, 2006, according to county tax records. The lots comprise roughly 75 acres.
Dennis Pahlisch, in a phone message left for The Bulletin, said the lawsuit came as a surprise. He said his company was current on the interest payments required by the loan and that the company expected to renew the loan when it matured April 1. The suit states the maturity date had been extended three times.
A bank official said the bank wants to reduce its exposure to some real estate loans. Other banks have taken similar actions against several area builders in the past few months as the homebuilding industry soured.
Tucker Mayberry referred to Pahlisch Homes to comment. The company did not want to comment Tuesday directly on the suit but sent a prepared statement to The Bulletin, credited to Mayberry Mountain’s finance manager, Nancy Kowalski.
“From our understanding, this is a decision by Bank of the Cascades that is based solely on the current percentage of real estate within the bank’s portfolio, which it is trying to lessen,” Kowalski wrote. “The property, which is located in Redmond’s Northwest Area Plan, has retained its value since our original purchase, and we remain current on our payments for this loan, so this is not a negative reflection on the property or our company.”
Mike Delvin, the president of the Bank of the Cascades, said the bank generally does not comment on its clients’ actions but did say the loan in question matured and can only be considered current when it’s paid in full. Delvin said the bank extends maturity dates for a variety of reasons but also said the bank has more exposure in raw-land agreements — such as the Mayberry agreement — than is preferable given current market conditions.
Delvin would not comment as to whether the bank’s decision to file suit was related to the bank’s concerns about its loan portfolio but said “when economic cycles change, a number (that was) good in your portfolio two years ago can come under stress at a later point in time.”
Delvin added that Bank of the Cascades partnered with another bank to provide the loan and is only exposed to half the loan amount. Delvin declined to name the partner bank.
Kowalski also wrote that the company understands Bank of the Cascades’ need to file a suit was a business decision and that it’s confident it will be able to obtain an alternate lender for the property, “since our current loan to value is still at 65 percent and the property value will be increasing when our land use approvals for it are obtained later this year.”
Loan to value is the ratio between a borrower’s down payment and the loan amount needed to cover the purchase price. A 20 percent loan to value means a 20 percent down payment relative to the loan amount.
Kowalski also wrote that the company understands Bank of the Cascades’ need to file a suit was a business decision and that it’s confident it will be able to obtain an alternate lender for the property, “since our current loan to value is still at 65 percent and the property value will be increasing when our land use approvals for it are obtained later this year.”
Mmmmm... that there is Good PR.
My 'retirement' fund (ie lottery ticket stocks) was up over 10% yesterday.
Made up most, but not quite all, the losses I experienced from premature purchasing.
It sort of feels like another S/T bottom was reached, but I fully expect another beating to the downside....
How's your stuff doing Tim?
Everyone here knows my penchant for Cutting Edge Technologies in my stock buys, so I bought a newspaper stock! Oh yes.
Journal Communications (JRN) publishes the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. $500-600MM in sales, $80-100MM net, selling for $265MM. Yields 7%, but hopefully that'll be eliminated. Good current ratio, $460MM in equity.
Looks worth closer to $400-500MM, maybe more in a buyout. This one is positively conservative compared to some of the other stuff I have. Except for Pfizer, I guess.
This may be close to the end of my buying on this cycle. Hopefully another leg down, and I can fire up the buying again.
CONGRESS NEVER DECLARED WAR ON IRAQ...
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Congress 'blessed' DUMBYA's war on IRAQ.
In all honesty a legally declared war hasn't happened since WWII. That said Congress voted back in 2003 that gave DUMBYA all tools available to do as he wished to O-BOMB-A Iraq back into the stone age.
Now had Congress VOTED NOT to allow DUMBYA to bomb IRAQ, that would be another matter. Given our current history of over 50 years of continual and permanent state of WAR. Congress only now approves a 'green light' for war, recall also that CONGRESS approves the spending for WAR, and in effect when it approves BUSH to spend +2TRILLION dollars that is in effect a declaration-of-war like no other.
The founding-fathers knew that money was how wars were RUN, 'declaring war' isn't what makes a war, funding a war is what makes a war and the IRAQ war has been fully funded by congress all along.
The failure of IndyMac "was inevitable" because the bank was weighted down by low-quality mortgages, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
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Could be talking about CACB or any regional.
All regionals are going to tank, well at least 90% across the country.
>>How's your stuff doing Tim?
Crappy, year-to-date. I always do bad during bear markets.
President George W. Bush sought Tuesday to calm fears about the nation's banks.
How come every time I hear the Monkey Boy is trying to "calm fears" I break out in a cold sweat?
How come every time I hear the Monkey Boy is trying to "calm fears" I break out in a cold sweat?
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You haven't seen nothing yet, wait until o-bomb-a is in and starts asking everyone to 'share' the pain.
DUMBYA still deny's there is even a recession on the horizon. Soon as Nov-08, when the REPUG's are out, everyone is going to be talking about the Pug depression likes it a foregone conclusion.
I still say, expect O-BOMB-a to say, "Ask what you can do for your country".
This is all you need to know:
"In Bend the housing market remains skewed by a key factor - the city is running out of buildable land."
How do I know this?
"Pahlisch to build 360 homes"
Published: March 02. 2006 4:00AM
It's easy to forget the city in the flat plains around 15th Street in southeast Bend.
Ancient junipers and ponderosa pines jut from the cinder-ash soil. The bitterbrush shares space in a few places with dog tracks and junked furniture, but for the most part the sound of city traffic is nothing but a distant buzz in the country quiet.
That's about to change.
One of the last big tracts of vacant land left inside the city limits has been bought by one of Central Oregon's busiest builders.
Pahlisch Homes plans to start work later this year on a 75-acre tract that Dennis Pahlisch and his Rocky Mountain Land Co. bought in December from J.L. Ward Co. and Josele F. Ward for $15 million.
The land is empty now - no streets, no water lines, no sewer. Pahlisch is working on plans for a planned unit development, which means the future of the land will be entirely mapped out before work starts on the first house.
By the time it's done, 360 homes will rise from the ground in the Shadow Glen subdivision, spread among 18 acres of trails and open space, with a clubhouse and a swimming pool to tie it all together, Pahlisch Homes Marketing Director Brian Bergler said.
If they were built today, the homes would likely cost from $300,000 into the mid-$600,000 range, Bergler said. But he's reluctant to guess what the price will be by the time the first house is built next year.
With good reason.
Nationwide, housing markets continued to show signs of cooling through January. The nation's inventory of unsold new homes jumped 20 percent from a year ago, to 528,000, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and monthly sales fell 5 percent to the lowest level in a year.
In Bend, though, the housing market remains skewed by a key factor - the city is running out of buildable land.
The city's last update of its Buildable Lands Survey in January counted only 995 acres left inside city limits that are vacant, with no land use requests or subdivision applications pending.
Pahlisch's 75-acre purchase accounts for a little more than 7.5 percent of that. Beyond that, two more Ward-owned parcels - a 142-acre tract west of Southeast 15th Street, and another 79-acre tract just south of Pahlisch's purchase - are the two largest lots left that have not been sold to active developers, said Damian Syrnyk, senior planner with the city.
Jan Ward declined to discuss his family's plans for those lots.
The remainder of the city's empty acres are scattered here and there in smaller chunks. Some may be developed as the years go by. Others may never enter the marketplace because their owners prefer to keep the space open, or because building on them is otherwise impractical.
Tim Knopp, executive vice president of the Central Oregon Builders Association, estimates that the city is effectively down to a two-year supply of buildable land, or less.
"The builders who are building new communities and subdivisions are really short on subdividable land," Knopp said. "They are subsisting on what they bought last year and the year before. Some are going to run out if land isn't annexed."
The result: rising prices for land and, with that, rising prices of new housing.
The purchase price on Pahlisch's land worked out to a little more than $199,000 an acre.
That's about double the average price of a developable acre only four years ago, according to figures that Bratton Appraisal Group President Dana Bratton gave to a Bend Chamber of Commerce meeting last month, and it's far from the top rate. Prices in parts of the city have soared into the $500,000-per-acre range.
Under Oregon's anti-sprawl land use laws, residential-scale development is difficult to do outside of city limits.
In order to expand their boundaries, cities have to establish population growth estimates, then draw maps around new land that could be annexed to accommodate the growth. Plans for sewer and water lines, roads and other infrastructure have to be sketched out, along with plans to pay for them, before an expansion can gain state approval.
City planners hope to have an expansion proposal ready for public hearings by July or August, Syrnyk said. The proposal is likely to call for adding 3,000 to 4,000 acres to the city's urban growth boundary.
The city expects to need more than 23,000 new housing units by 2030 to accommodate a population of more than 110,000, according to the Community Development Department's 2005 Housing Needs Analysis.
But even with an expansion of the growth boundary, the pace of future annexations has yet to be decided, Syrnyk said.
What seems assured is that homeowners like Sandy Stock are in for some changes as the city grows.
Stock bought a house on Ridgewater Loop, just across the canal from Pahlisch's future subdivision, two years ago after he decided to "trade the tall buildings" of Las Vegas for the tall trees of southeast Bend.
He said he bought the house partly because of the expanse of more than 150 acres of undeveloped land that stretched from his backyard to Knott Road nearly a mile away. But he's not upset by the coming changes.
Pahlisch's developers have held a neighborhood meeting to explain what they plan to do. As far as Stock understands it, they plan to leave trees on the far shore of the canal to shield him from the view of new houses
"I think they're good people," Stock said. "And you know, we can't stop progress. We really can't. I mean, you know, that's what's wrong with people. It's OK for me to move here, but no one else?
"The way we feel is, we're lucky to be here."
David Fisher can be reached at 541-617-7862 or at dfisher@bendbulletin.com.
"In Bend the housing market remains skewed by a key factor - the city is running out of buildable land."
That is SUCH a fucking load of bullshit. We've got empty land from here to Burns. And more ALREADY BUILT crapshacks than we can find suckers to unload them on.
"That is SUCH a fucking load of bullshit. We've got empty land from here to Burns."
Notice the article is from late 2006. The point is that builders' top priority in 2006 was securing more land -- no matter how insane the price was. $200,000 an acre? That's just nuts. There really was this feeling "we're running out of land."
Can't imagine how smug the sellers must be feeling right now (unless they stupidly took their earnings and doubled their bets on a new real estate venture).
I don't know anything about "Sahdow Glen." How much of it got built?
"I don't know anything about Shadow Glen. How much of it got built?"
I don't know. But I do see a pattern emerging. The homebuilders getting really hurt are the ones who over built on land -- even if they were careful not to do too many spec homes.
This is at least the second long-time Oregon homebuilder with a sterling reputation and longetivity that has hurt itself NOT by building too many houses, but by acquiring too much land for long term development -- paying TOP dollar for land that is no longer needed (at least for the next 10 years).
First is was Legend Homes (June, based in the valley), and now Pahlisch (July). Both are excellent companies that I hope can survive in one form or another.
I'm not sympathetic to the Schumpeter types who will dismiss this as healthy "creative destructive". On the other hand, they're all LLCs, right (as an earlier poster mentioned), so why should we care?
Home prices are in free fall. Unemployment is rising. Consumer confidence is plumbing depths not seen since 1980. When will it all end?
The answer is, probably not until 2010 or later. Barack Obama, take notice.
It’s true that some prognosticators still expect a “V-shaped” recovery in which the economy springs back rapidly from its slump. On this view, any day now it will be morning in America.
But if the experience of the last 20 years is any guide, the prospect for the economy isn’t V-shaped, it’s L-ish: rather than springing back, we’ll have a prolonged period of flat or at best slowly improving performance.
Let’s start with housing.
According to the widely used Case-Shiller index, average U.S. home prices fell 17 percent over the past year. Yet we’re in the process of deflating a huge housing bubble, and housing prices probably still have a long way to fall.
Specifically, real home prices, that is, prices adjusted for inflation in the rest of the economy, went up more than 70 percent from 2000 to 2006. Since then they’ve come way down — but they’re still more than 30 percent above the 2000 level.
Should we expect prices to fall all the way back? Well, in the late 1980s, Los Angeles experienced a large localized housing bubble: real home prices rose about 50 percent before the bubble popped. Home prices then proceeded to fall by a quarter, which combined with ongoing inflation brought real housing prices right back to their prebubble level.
And here’s the thing: this process took more than five years — L.A. home prices didn’t bottom out until the mid-1990s. If the current housing slump runs on the same schedule, we won’t be seeing a recovery until 2011 or later.
What about the broader economy? You might be tempted to take comfort from the fact that the last two recessions, in 1990-1991 and 2001, were both quite short. But in each case, the official end of the recession was followed by a long period of sluggish economic growth and rising unemployment that felt to most Americans like a continued recession.
Thus, the 1990 recession officially ended in March 1991, but unemployment kept rising through much of 1992, allowing Bill Clinton to win the election on the basis of the economy, stupid. The next recession officially began in March 2001 and ended in November, but unemployment kept rising until June 2003.
These prolonged recession-like episodes probably reflect the changing nature of the business cycle. Earlier recessions were more or less deliberately engineered by the Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates to control inflation. Modern slumps, by contrast, have been hangovers from bouts of irrational exuberance — the savings and loan free-for-all of the 1980s, the technology bubble of the 1990s and now the housing bubble.
Ending those old-fashioned recessions was easy because all the Fed had to do was relent. Ending modern slumps is much more difficult because the economy needs to find something to replace the burst bubble.
The Fed, in particular, has a hard time getting traction in modern recessions. In 2002, there was a strong sense that the Fed was “pushing on a string”: it kept cutting interest rates, but nobody wanted to borrow until the housing bubble took off. And now it’s happening again. The Onion, as usual, hit the nail on the head with its recent headline: “Recession-plagued nation demands new bubble to invest in.”
But we probably won’t find another bubble — at least not one big enough to fuel a quick recovery. And this has, among other things, important political implications.
Given the state of the economy, it’s hard to see how Barack Obama can lose the 2008 election. An anecdote: This week a passing motorist shouted at a crowd waiting outside a branch of IndyMac, the failed bank, “Bush economics didn’t work! They are right-wing Republican thieves!” The crowd cheered.
But what the economy gives, it can also take away. If the current slump follows the typical modern pattern, the economy will stay depressed well into 2010, if not beyond — plenty of time for the public to start blaming the new incumbent, and punish him in the midterm elections.
To avoid that fate, Mr. Obama — if he is indeed the next president — will have to move quickly and forcefully to address America’s economic discontent. That means another stimulus plan, bigger, better, and more sustained than the one Congress passed earlier this year. It also means passing longer-term measures to reduce economic anxiety — above all, universal health care.
If you ask me, there isn’t much suspense in this year’s election: barring some extraordinary mistakes, Mr. Obama will win. Assuming he wins, the real question is what he’ll make of his victory. -- Paul Krugman
I don't know. But I do see a pattern emerging. The homebuilders getting really hurt are the ones who over built on land -- even if they were careful not to do too many spec homes.
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First of all you have boss-hogg-hollern, who inherited ten's of thousands of acres, that cost virtually nothing a century ago.
Then you have the other 30% who had land around town, that cost nothing, think Bill Smith.
Then you have the outsiders who came to Bend, and bought the lots for $300k, to build the $1M flipper. Those are the people who lost their ass.
Think Juniper-Ridge, 1500 acres so fucking worthless, that the county sold it to the city for 0.06 cents/acre. Last so worthless, that it cost $800k/acre to 'improve'. It's an Island of rock.
Boss-Hogg-Hollern controls say 50% of the Bend area, most of the land on the circumference of JR is owned by HOLLERN, thus if the JR plan expands then HOLLERN can respond with supply for housing and shopping.
Most of the other boss-hoggs are cashed-out by now. Then there were the tons of 10+ year newbies that bought up on their projects on the double-your-bet plan. Think Breeze.
Most of the Pahlish, Sebastian, ... story's are about valley ( willamette ) developers that moved over post 2000 and bought large blocks of expensive desert land from the old boss-hoggs, who had been around pre 1983, and knew all about Bend cycles.
Lastly, yes LLC's, on my last count HOLLERN had over a 100 LLC's in the three county area. No LLC having over 50 employees, thus nobody effected by federal-laws, no doubt in my mind HOLLERN is the largest employer in central-oregon.
Who got hurt the worse? It was the cali builder that came up in 2002, and bought 1/2 dozen $300k lots, and then got bank loans, and now the RE goes to seed, think of all the SHIT around Newport Market. Then there are the RE-CLUBS popular in the 1970's where Bend Investors pooled money to buy large tracts to build STD's. These pool-investors will loose their ass, again I think Breeze, and other large property's many of these are tied to realtors, and most projects historically in Bend were pooled projects.
In my 40+ years in Bend, I have seen many people lose all their wealth in these pools. It always ends the same. A few years ago a GUY name floyd now dead setup a pool of Bend money to develop SE-OREGON (THINK Fields&French-Glen), all the money is gone. All the development is back to seed.
About every 20 or years in Bend or the area new pools, are created and hyped by realtors, and new super projects are created, and its human (monkey) see, human do, and soon their is a toxic over-supply.
Who lost? The folks that came in the last ten years, the folks that invested,... Who won? The good old boss-hoggs whose holdings go back pre 1970's.
Nothing ever has, or ever will change in Bend.
A fool and his money are always separated.
Hey Buster, look on the bright side. They're laxing the dog leash laws. Guess they'll now into courting Rednecks buyers again since the Horizon morning LA flight got scrubbed.
Leash Rules Slacken a Bit
PS-That photo is just fucking wrong....what were they thinking? Anyone who knew what the Nazis did with German Shepards will be mortified.
"Who lost? The folks that came in the last ten years, the folks that invested,... Who won? The good old boss-hoggs whose holdings go back pre 1970's."
Good to see somebody putting the blame on CO's good old boys, where it truly belongs, instead of on the "Calis." It's always been the good old boys who pushed growth at any cost. Most of the "Calis" ended up being victims because they believed the "Bend is PARADISE and our real estate values will INCREASE FOREVER because PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE HERE" bullshit.
"Who lost? The folks that came in the last ten years, the folks that invested,... Who won? The good old boss-hoggs whose holdings go back pre 1970's."
Yes, I remember reading somewhere that building is basically land speculation. The builders that survive are likely the ones that make $15 million+ purchases circa 2006. Of course, I guess that kind of begs the question of whether any builder will survive. Maybe only a few custom builders for those who refuse to live in someone else's design. Otherwise, if you're not rich enough to be picky, there's enough supply for 10 years.
CORRECTION:
The builders that survive are likely the ones that DID NOT make $15 million+ purchases circa 2006.
Yes, I remember reading somewhere that building is basically land speculation.
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Exactly, and this is the WHOLE fucking story of BEND-OREGON, which is why they defer the SDC for the BOSS-HOGG himself.
Take worthless land, pass the cost of 'improvement' 100% to taxpayer-base, get banks to loan for STD crap-shack. Then find suckers, by using the MEDIA that you own ( BULL&SORE ).
NO FUCKING WORRY whatsoever.
Ditto for JR, KNIFE-RIVER ( Hap-Taylor ) gets $800k/acre for turning rock into shovel-ready, for your favorite anchor, all at tax-payer expense. Then it just so happens that all land surrounded per is owned by the HOGG himself.
This is BEND.
What of STD's?? This is where CACB and the regional banks come in, fucking completely fucking lost, cuz they own the fucking seedy crap-shack meth-shack. Dirt underneath, still owned by the HOGG.
It will be twenty long years, long after amnesia, but the HOGG TRIBE will do it again, they OWN the politicians today, and they'll own the politicans tomorrow. They own the SORE&BULL today, and they'll own the media tomorrow.
In bend anything is possible.
What about the shortage of land? If Bend is in shortage, then that means priny is a deal, and so is Millican, and Brothers, and Burns, and French-Glen. Talk about a shortage of land, and all the land in Eastern Oregon all of a sudden isn't worth 0.06 cents/acre ( JR ), but is worth $2.4M/acre ( average 2006 turnkey STD lot areage cost ).
We're talking real money here.
Just be patient CUNTS, and in 20 years, you too can fuck the next bunch of TOURISTS coming through Bend.
Good to see somebody putting the blame on CO's good old boys, where it truly belongs, instead of on the "Calis." It's always been the good old boys who pushed growth at any cost.
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Let's NEVER forget here, that you can't even get close to city/county office in CENTRAL oregon, unless you suck BOSS-HOGG cock.
Thus the SDC's are now deferred, and the chant of a shortage of land continues.
Hey Buster, look on the bright side. They're laxing the dog leash laws. Guess they'll now into courting Rednecks buyers again since the Horizon morning LA flight got scrubbed.
Leash Rules Slacken a Bit
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NOT FUCKING TRUE CUNTS. READ THE FINE PRINT. RIGHT NOW ITS a $500/ticket for dog-at-large, e.g. not on leash.
UNDER NEW RULES its six months in jail, and $5,000 fine. ONLY a mother could love the definition of the BULLS slack-ness.
This is obviously ONLY a small fucking example of the FUTURE of BEND. OF course nobody is going to get six-months, but you can BE DAMN sure they'll be passing out $5,000 fines.
Last year, there was some $60k revenue during the summer for the $400 tickets, all written by one cop, name T-Brown.
I can guarantee that under the new 'slack' they'll be hiring cops to ride-bikes, and hide in bushes and play with their dicks until a dog without a leash passes by, ...
Only the BULL could call this 'slack'.
The BOSS-HOGG hates dogs, cuz he hates red-necks, that is what keeps this place safe for the ASPEN Crowd.
Ban dogs, guns, dirtbikes, trucks, anything a red-neck loves, and they'll leave, which increases the property values, so the man-twat himself thinks. NEVER forget that the BULL&SORE are controlled by people who hate domestic animals. Think Black-Butte or SunRiver, the BUTT was a HOGG-HOLLERN creation, and Sunriver done by his boyfriend J-GRAY, aka OMARK, the inventor of the modern chain-saw.
You have seen NO end to the slack until every fucking red-neck is gone from Bend.
Look how the HOGG controls ALL his developments like AWBREY, you can't even have your garage door open. Broken-Top tells you how to use your blinds, and lights.
It's about CONTROL, the HOGG has his own vision of NEW-WORLD-ORDER. BEND is a NAZI UTOPIA, absent of dogs, except the kinds the NAZIS used to fuck JEWS, but that is another story, read "Rise&Fall of Third Reich for that story.
Correction, only a BOSS-HOGG mother, could love the BULL definition of 'slack'.
Funny thing about pets -- there are some striking inconsistencies between the off-leash policies and the Bend visitor materials.
The marketing types seem to have this profile of the ideal of the ideal Bend visitor:
Late 30s
Well educated
Living with his girlfriend
Has an Audi station wagon
Loves pets (especially huge friendly dogs)
Has a dog (maybe two) to ride in back of said wagon
Example: Look at the following web page from the visitbend.com site:
http://tinyurl.com/5ndmh2
Under the headline "Discover Bend Oregon" it shows a dog running along a trail with this caption:
"Gitsy Runs Along the River Trail at the Fall River"
(taxpayer dollars at work - yeah!)
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They failed to show that Gitsy is likely RUNNING AWAY FROM a cop trying to ticket her owners.
Marketing type mental calculation:
WE LIKE AFFLUENT OUTDOORSY TOURISTS
+ AFFLUENT OUTDOORSY TOURISTS LIKE DOGS
+ PUT LOTS OF RUNNING DOG PICTURES IN GLOSSY BROCHURES
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Now if I was Buster I'd go on and speculate that this is one grand conspirancy to get tourists to bring dogs so that police can write tickets and make $$ for the city.
All I know is: If ANYONE gets a ticket for an offleash dog, use this website photo as your defense!!!
OMG! Did he just call me the C-Word?????
Speaking of CUNTS: Outside Magazine
Isn't this the most self-absorbed crap magazine you've ever seen? In reality, all magazines are guilty of that charge.
http://outside.away.com/outside/toc/200805.html
I saw a cover-story yesterday with the title "Where To Move To Next"? Didn't have a chance to thumb through it but damn.....it's like asking, what place can we "deluded-Intermountain-West-studs-with-city-jobs" FUCK UP NEXT??
They have their market targeted and I don't like 'em one bit, dadgummit!
OMG! Did he just call me the C-Word?????
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Quim, in this forum 'cunt' is flattery.
I'm not sure there are any bad words. Perhaps 'cali' is one mother-fucking low fucking term that I cannot think of calling anyone here, right? Homer says slimey-cunt, but hell.
I guess given that all of us here in Bend, that have been powerless in seeing this place being turned into a nazi-shit-eating MBA-HOLLERN uptopia since the 1960's are CUNTS for not having opposed the fact, certainly all your inter-mtn boyz with city jobs are cunts.
The whole point of Bend is 90% man-twat, which is the Bend Republican metro-sexual golfer.
We have met the enemy and he is US, we are all the cunts of Bend.
Yesterday the discussion evolved to who lost/gained in the collapse of this BEND-RE cycle. Note, certainly I have NO crocodile tears for the stupid fucking cali's that got their glory-hole reamed by TRIBE-HOLLERN. Remember the cali's all came here to double-their bet, and like all urban card games, you always let the sucker win the first hand.
Tribe Hollern has been economically cleansing tourists since the 1960's nothing is new. The tourists own greed is what makes the hustle work.
Bend is a company town, and has been so since 1905. Shevlin-Hixson, Brooks-Scanlon, to todays Brooks Resources and Tribe-Hollern ( heir ) 100's of LLC's in the area, its a company town, nothing else needs to be said. One tribe controls everything from the turn of the faucet, to the flush of the toilet.
Now if I was Buster I'd go on and speculate that this is one grand conspirancy to get tourists to bring dogs so that police can write tickets and make $$ for the city.
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I had talk with the city judge, a while back. Basically the gist is these folks OWN this town, they OWN the river-corridor, think old-mill, as most of the new political machine owned by TEAM-HOLLERN lives near the old-mill. They hate domestic-animals. They hate red-necks in the artificial river corridor.
The $$$ money, these are only tools, sure Bend needs money, but as you all know the $100k they got last year wouldn't even pay for 1/8 acre of 'shovel-ready' LesSchwab excavation on taxpayer-nickel.
1.) The man-twats, Male-She's that run BEND on the behalf of HOLLERN hate dogs & cats.
2.) As long as HOLLERN gets first right of refusal to ALL RE in Bend, his troops who run city-hall can do as they wish.
Total fucking anarchy, as HOLLERN himself said last summer. A city of non-real people, with non-real children, and non-real jobs. A city that only a HOLLERN-TRIBE mother could love.
I think a better way of describing the end result of HOLLERN-VILLE(BEND), would be the classic mushroom-society: A shit-fed city, kept in the dark, welcome to Bend.
WRT to the pic's off leash, that is all DVA/VCB/COBA marketing. THE BULL&SORE has NOTHING to do with the REAL-BEND, as anyone who hangs at this site knows, we write about the REAL-BEND, the BULL publishes story's about the make-believe BEND, in order to hype worthless desert land for the HOLLERN-TRIBE.
MARKETING/PR is a major taxpayer expense in BEND, but nobody should think of it as any kind of reality, or mission. The people who run this town don't care about the marketing so long as it brings new suckers to BEND.
The reality of BEND, is quite different than tag-lines or pic's you'll see in the BULL&SORE.
I remember some 25+ years ago, a mention of anything in 'outside magazine' was the kiss of death.
They killed the secret places on Kauhi, they killed the secret places in Tulum(MX).
Virtually every single secret place has been written up, and promoted so the locust descend.
'Outside Magazine' has two halves, one for the consumers, and the other for the retailer, the brother mag, which is a controlled sub is called 'outside business', it way better because it deals with the strategy behind 'OM'.
Remember last year, the city of Bend paid OM, to declare Bend as the best mtn-biking in the USA! Turns out a major OM writer lives here, its quite odd that a writer would want the kiss of death on his own town, which makes me think that these writers that live in Bend, are all short term inter-mtn man-twats ( metro-sexual locust ).
Great rants Buster. The 'OMG Did he Just call me?' was a joke of course.
I have to watch my use of pejoratives like "Cali" as my Cali-dar is ALL_FUCKED_UP! Bend is NOW cali. Indistinguishable.
Bend is NOW cali. Indistinguishable.
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I made that realization about 1986, that was when Bend became Cali, since then its been downhill.
What about this new man-twat running MT-B?? Wasn't the last jerk supposed to solve the problems? Note in todays (or yesterdays ) BULL, that the last guy has identified the problems, and now more PR will be done to work with the community, note also no more money for toys, holy shit the problem is nothing works. Everything is broken, there has been in maintenance for years.
MT-B is now going to be SOLD, POWDRZ has brought in a CLOSER, no more mr.nice-guy running the MT-B, its going to be an ugly winter.
Yes, Bend is cali, but what the heck, calis bring in the money, calis bring in the city-jobs, the old mill-town is long gone, but its still a company town, just now instead of selling timber, they sell 'lifestyle' to equity-locust.
Now rather than giving a working a mill-shack, the locust go $500k into debt to live in the mill-shack. PT-BARNUM would have given HOLLERN the high-five.
"I saw a cover-story yesterday with the title "Where To Move To Next"? Didn't have a chance to thumb through it but damn.....it's like asking, what place can we "deluded-Intermountain-West-studs-with-city-jobs" FUCK UP NEXT?? They have their market targeted and I don't like 'em one bit, dadgummit!"
Megadittoes to that, Quimby.
My sense of the whole phenomenon is that people who move from place to place in search of the ideal "lifestyle" are profoundly unhappy with their lives and have talked themselves (or been talked) into thinking that moving somewhere else will fix what's wrong with them. It doesn't, of course, because "wherever you go, there you are." So they keep moving. They're either too shallow or too lazy to discover the real reasons for their chronic dissatisfaction. Maybe if they stopped obsessing about their goddamn LIFESTYLE so much and just got on with LIFE they'd be happier.
Maybe if they stopped obsessing about their goddamn LIFESTYLE so much and just got on with LIFE they'd be happier.
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Ahh contraire, this is the secret to wealth in desert shit-holes like Bend, just market 'paradise' to the cali in sits in his fucking car 4-6 hrs/day in a CALI FWY.
Highly mobile, lots of desert land, and easy money. Toss in a little easy-winnings on their initial arrival, and you can hire pimps&sluts ( RE PRO's ), and make a billion dollars!
Bend is more than just dissatisfaction. My guess is the mobility to have left your family back-east, and come west in the first place broke the tie, then they find that cali is a living hell, and they're bait ripe for the pickin'.
Ten's of millions of people on the locust-move, post WWII, all looking for paradise. Only very expensive fuel will end the insanity.
There will always be millions searching for a better life, and there will always be PT-BARNUM/HOLLERN's more than will to offer the circus fantasy whether it be florida swampland or oregon high desert.
Paradise, the myth of easy-wealth ( something for nothing ), ... gets them every time.
Whose fault? Most places its just too expensive to have so many people on the move, cheap fuel is what makes the USA what it is. Bend is just a micro-climate where a one company town boss has a total monopoly on the racket.
Taking money from fools is as American as apple pie.
It's interesting to watch the bust played out person-by-person.
Just yesterday, I saw someone who said she was never going to lower the price on the houses she was trying to sell finally take $60k off.
The anger and misery are palpable.
RE: WRT to the pic's off leash, that is all DVA/VCB/COBA marketing. THE BULL&SORE has NOTHING to do with the REAL-BEND, as anyone who hangs at this site knows, we write about the REAL-BEND, the BULL publishes story's about the make-believe BEND, in order to hype worthless desert land for the HOLLERN-TRIBE.
So true. I was claening my desk off and came across a BULL editorial I set aside: "Growing the UGB the right way"
Gist of it is that we need a lot more land to build on to bring prices down because then supply will keep up with demand.
And this crap is being published in July, 2008, when we have so much RE oversupply it's fucking ridiculous. What's the current supply being listed, something like 30 months? Yeah, lack of supply is really affecting pricing, Costa. What crap.
What would make housing affordable for many would be a job that paid more than $12 an hour. And the Mayor assured me they were aware of that the other night, right after I pointed out that they were pissing away their last chance to preserve large undivided parcels of land for real employers.
IHTBYB-
You saved my ass. I'm forever grateful. I moved back to Bend in January 2006 making $58000 with a down payment in my pocket. $300000 for a Mill Shack seem out of whack to me. I was tempted though. I started reading your blog and you reconfirmed all my suspicions about Bend and the economy in general. I rented, paid off all my bills and built a nest egg that will last me a while. I was laid off this past summer and I moved away from Bend. Thanks to you I'm ahead of the game. I would have been ruined. Blaming you for Bend's problems would be like blaming a man carrying an umbrella for the rain. Keep on bloggin.
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