"Stimulate"? "Jump-start"? Why not just call it "dump" or "liquidate"?

Calculated Risk Blog -NY Times:

In Jersey City Saffron, a nearly complete 76-unit condominium complex in the thick of this city’s downtown, the Fields Development Group is trying something new ... The first units — a minimum of 9, a maximum of 15 — will be auctioned off before the grand opening and the start of conventional marketing.
...
Ending sales with an auction — after fair-market values for a building have already been well established — is a tried-and true-technique, of course. But the auctioneers for the Saffron, at Sheldon Good & Company, say they have never conducted a “jump-start” auction before.
"Stimulate"? "Jump-start"? Why not just call it "dump" or "liquidate"?

But this is a reminder that new high rise condos are not included in the new home inventory report from the Census Bureau, and are also not included in the existing home sales report from the NAR (unless they are listed). These uncounted units are concentrated in Miami, Las Vegas, San Diego and other large cities - but as these articles show, there are new condos almost everywhere.

tulip

Willful Omissions From Paul Krugman

From politicalmath

You may have seen the Paul Krugman post “How Big is $9 Trillion” in which he attempts to defend the Obama administration’s recent announcement that they expect that their policies will increase the national debt by $9 trillion. His tack is to “explain” that $9 trillion isn’t really all that much when you understand it in context.
------------------
(Krugman's explanation)

Right now, federal debt is about 50% of GDP. So even if we do run these deficits, federal debt as a share of GDP will be substantially less than it was at the end of World War II.

--------------------

First of all, the national debt in WWII was initiated by an existential threat to the very continuation of our country. Mr. Krugman does not make even attempt to make the case that we have a similar crisis that justifies this kind of debt.

Second, implicit in his observation is the concept that since we did fine after WWII, we’ll do fine now. But the years after WWII saw drastic reductions in the inflation-adjusted debt driven by drastic reductions in spending. Mr. Krugman points to no similar possibility in the post-Obama world.

Third, we have something now that we didn’t have in the 1940’s. Back in the 1945, at the height of the spending that saw our national debt rise so dramatically, entitlement spending and interest on the national debt made up a meager 5% of our total budget.

WTF 5

Clay and Kathie Kime- now.:)

http://www.plantomove.com/

           

"If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulty
making the mortgage payment, please let us know. 

Powered by ScribeFire.

Clay & Kathie Kime - February 05, 2007

http://seekingalpha.com/article/25947-why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-housing-bubble

The concept that there is or was a “housing bubble” is simply the nonsensical and fancifully imaginative story of Wall Street Stock Analysts, who have been chanting this exact same “mantra” since the late 1990’s in an effort to divert investment activity back into the stock market.

the “normal” annual rates of appreciation will slowly return, although in the 7% to 10% range

Clay & Kathie Kime

RE/MAX Preferred Properties

Brisbane

I am satisfied with my auto insurance.

How about assigned risk for heath care?

What is assigned risk?

If your state requires you to have auto insurance in order to drive, you may be faced with a dilemma if insurance companies won’t accept you. Most states, therefore, have some sort of assigned risk plan to assure that you can get coverage. The cost of insurance under the assigned risk plan may be high, but the plan must accept you.

I'm in the mood for a car wreck.

WTF 4

Five Bad Questions

Things that women should never, ever ask a guy:

1 - 'What are you thinking?'
2 - 'Do you love me?'
3 - 'Do I look fat?'
4 - 'Do you think she is prettier than me?'
5 - 'What would you do if I died?'"

Ball versus Car

Sigmund Freud: Diablo Saw Blade

Freud D1060X Diablo 10-Inch 60 Tooth ATB Fine Finish Saw Blade with 5/8-Inch Arbor and PermaShield Coating

Hard Times? How to get out of a car lease.

Two companies offer services for auto lease transfers, lease assumptions and short term auto leases. With the poor economy, people have leases on cars with payments they can no longer afford.   Swapalease and Leasetrader match those individuals with people who are looking for short to medium term leases.


Warning: please investigate the companies carefully before using them. Remember the phrase "buyer beware."

Story

Several men, three as a matter of fact, were out
walking one day, and as they were walking along and
talking one of them noticed another man standing on
a hill ahead of them. He turned to his friends and
said, “Why do you think that man is standing up
there on that hill?” One said, “He must be up there
because it’s cooler there and he’s enjoying the
breeze.” He turned to another and repeated his
question, “Why do you think that man’s standing up
there on that hill?” The second said, “Since the
hill is elevated above the rest of the land, he must
be up there in order to see something in the
distance.” And the third said, “He must have lost
his friend and that is why he is standing there
alone on that hill.” After some time walking along,
the men came up the hill and the one who had been
standing there was still there: standing there. They
asked him to say which one was right concerning his
reason for standing where he was standing. ¶ “What
reasons do you have for my standing here?” he asked.
“We have three,” they answered. “First, you are
standing up here because it’s cooler here and you
are enjoying the breeze. Second, since the hill is
elevated above the rest of the land, you are up here
in order to see something in the distance. Third,
you have lost your friend and that is why you are
standing here alone on this hill. We have walked
this way; we never meant to climb this hill; now we
want an answer: Which one of us is right?” ¶ The man
answered, “I just stand.”

Why Is Capitalism So Unpopular Among Intellectuals ?

From  http://mises.org/story/3529

To a "man of system," to borrow Adam Smith's terminology, capitalism just isn't that exciting. Participants in the market economy are wholly beholden to consumer wants. The academics envision a grand world, where Great Men fight Great Wars, periodically inventing Great Things or developing Great Ideas. Instead, the market provides us with incremental processes, which expend enormous piles of resources, in a quest to make better Triscuits. It is hardly the stuff of high drama, to say nothing of Great History.

Under capitalism, the common man does not need an intellectual vanguard or a group of virtuous surrogates to make his decisions for him or to defend him against the rapacity of his fellows. He can do just fine without our help, thank you very much, and would be much obliged if we would go back to our ivory towers and leave him alone

WTF 9

From John Cage-

Schoenberg always complained that
his American pupils didn’t do
enough work.

There was one girl in
the class in particular who,
it is true,
did almost
no work at all.
He asked her
one day why she
didn’t accomplish more.
She said,
“I don’t have
any time.” He said,
“How many
hours are there in the
day?” She said,
“Twenty-four.”
He said,
“Nonsense:
there are as many
hours in a day
as you put into it.”

Vietnam

My kind of tree

Art

All the Best Men are Taken

New Scientist reports that a new study provides evidence that single women are much more interested in pursuing a man who's already taken than a man who is not in a relationship. "The single women really, really liked the guy when he was taken," says Melissa Burkley of Oklahoma State University who conducted the "mate-poaching" study with her colleague Jessica Parker.

They asked 184 heterosexual students at the university to participate in a study on sexual attraction and told the volunteers that a computer program would match them with an ideal partner. The photograph of "Mr Right" was the same for all women participants, as was that of the ideal women presented to the men. Half the participants were told their ideal mate was single, and the other half that he or she was already in a romantic relationship. Offered a single man, 59 per cent of the single women were interested in pursuing a relationship but when he was attached, 90 per cent said they were up for the chase.

Burkley and Parker speculate that single women may be more drawn to attached men because they've already been "pre-screened" by other women and found to be satisfactory as a mate, whereas single men are more of an unknown quantity. Another possibility is that in US society, women are socialised to be competitive, so they derive self-esteem by mate poaching from rival women. According to one study, up to 20 percent of long-term relationships begin when one or both partners are involved with others. "It tells us something about the role of social desirability in mate preference," says Fhionna Moore of the University of Abertay Dundee.

WTF 3