Taking a break until November

picking up the tab

 From http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_150/190_dating_advice.html

"I don't mind picking up the tab tonight; you always pay anyway."

Not true. Although this lie doesn't apply to all women, most still do expect men to pay for things, especially if the man asked them out in the first place. They will secretly think that the guy is cheap if he wriggles out of the bill on a regular basis. Men should always at least offer to pay for dinner if they have asked the woman out. If she protests vigorously , then go Dutch; if she just protests casually, she's only doing it out of politeness -- so pay for it.

Lie radar: If she says: "Oh, I'll cover this," but doesn't even make the motion of rooting around in her purse for her wallet, it means that she has no real intention of paying.

What you should do: Dude, just go to the date fully prepared to pay for the whole shebang. In later stages of the relationship, you can work out a fair way to determine who treats who when, but in the early, critical dating stages, don't risk looking cheap.

June 6, 2003 - Fannie Mae Chief Executive - No Housing Bubble

Fannie Mae's Raines Sees No Housing Bubble, Low Interest Rates

June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines, who runs the biggest mortgage portfolio in the world, said the continuing rise in housing prices won't end in a bust like the stock market of three years ago.
``We do not see any sign of housing price decline nationwide, let alone the bursting of a bubble,'' Raines said in an interview with Bloomberg News in New York.

http://tinyurl.com/ltysuw

Powered by ScribeFire.

There is no housing bubble in the USA - April, 2005

There is no housing bubble in the USA: housing activity will remain at high levels in 2005 and beyond

Business Economics, April, 2005 by James F. Smith

There is no evidence of a housing "bubble" in the United States and housing demand should stay strong for years to come. Three major factors lead to this conclusion. First, the 77 million baby boomers are approaching the peak home ownership ages of 65-75 (over 83.0 percent versus a national average in 2004 of 69.0 percent). Second, immigrants, a growing share of the U.S. population, tend to buy houses ten years later than people born in the United States of the same income group and family size. Third, mortgage rates are not likely to go high enough (8.0 percent or more for 30-year fixed rate mortgages) to put a crimp in demand. Despite some areas of concern, overall homeowners' equity is at record levels above $9 trillion. Delinquencies are still less than one percent of mortgages outstanding.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1094/is_2_40/ai_n13798086/

Powered by ScribeFire.

April 2006 There is no housing bubble. Right.

April 2006
Bubble, Bubble, Where's the Housing Bubble?
Professors of economics, Gary Smith and Margaret H. Smith, say:

They found bubble conditions in only one of the 10 metropolitan U.S. housing markets evaluated.The professors dismiss talk of a housing bubble questioning the assumption that home prices have exceeded their fundamental value. "Perhaps housing prices were too low in the past and recent prices have brought market prices more in line with fundamental". They claim that existing methods, using indirect measures or values predicted by regression models, cannot show if housing prices are justified by the anticipated cash flow. They feel their model, using unique rent and price data for matched single-family homes, is a more accurate measure of fundamental home values.


... homes in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were still somewhat undervalued by11 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Outside California, homes also were undervalued in Boston (12 percent under) and Chicago(17 percent under). Under valuation was dramatic in Dallas (40 percent), Atlanta(53 percent), Indianapolis (65 percent) and pre-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans(46 percent).

Powered by ScribeFire.

October 27, 2005 Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust

By Nell Henderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 27, 2005

Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals," such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/26/AR2005102602255.html

From The Children of the Zodiac By Kipling

THOUSANDS of years ago, when men were greater than they are to-day, the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children of the Zodiac—the Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and the Girl; and they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion, the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac listened and could not understand. A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the Bull, crying: ‘My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer shot him and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer. Help me!’ The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: ‘What is that to me?’ Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they could not understand why the water ran out of people’s eyes. At other times a man and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: ‘We two are newly married and we are very happy. Take these flowers.’ As they threw the flowers they would make mysterious sounds to show that they were happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why people shouted ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ for no cause.

Unintended Consequences - Cash for Clunkers

Summarized from article

First "a likely bubble in used-car values, which
could deflate as the Cash for Clunkers program comes to a close." This
means that with the overall reduction in used car availability, up to
750,000 when all is said and done, Kelley Blue Book expects the price
of used cars to go up once C.A.R.S. ends later this fall. Ironically, this will then lead to deep discounts, says KBB's senior analyst of vehicle valuation Alec Gutierrez:

If this bubble comes to pass, dealerships will end up with
excess inventory of both new and used vehicles and be forced to offer
deep discounts to remove surplus inventory, driving values down.
Ultimately, there will be the possibility of a severe contraction in
auto sales as soon as the Cash for Clunkers program runs out of
funding.

Another negative, money used to fund C4C is coming from a program in the stimulus bill that was used to guarantee the Department of Energy's loans. Sam Jaffe writes over at Green Tech Media this is exactly "the wrong place to pinch from."
Instead of spending $2 billion on C.A.R.S. to get $2 billion of
stimulus, leaving the money in the loan guarantee program would result
in "at least $20 billion worth of economic activity, all of which will
have to take place on U.S. soil," he says.

Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) which has been fighting Cash For Clunkers for months. The AAIA recently released a statement saying that simple vehicle
maintenance "would save consumers $30 billion in gasoline a year vs.
spending $3 billion in taxpayer dollars to buy new cars."

There is no housing bubble April 2006

April 2006
Bubble, Bubble, Where's the Housing Bubble?
Professors of economics, Gary Smith and Margaret H. Smith, say ....  They found bubble conditions in only one of the 10 metropolitan U.S.
housing markets evaluated.
The professors dismiss talk of a housing bubble questioning the assumption
that home prices have exceeded their fundamental value. "Perhaps housing
prices were too low in the past and recent prices have brought market prices
more in line with fundamental". They claim that existing methods, using
indirect measures or values predicted by regression models, cannot show if
housing prices are justified by the anticipated cash flow. They feel their
model, using unique rent and price data for matched single-family homes, is
a more accurate measure of fundamental home values.

Aug 2008 - Housing Collapse Ahead? Not According to the Professor

We conclude that declines in house prices are highly likely to remain small. Our analysis reveals, unsurprisingly, that foreclosures and home prices have negative effects on each other over time, but this does not imply a vicious cycle of collapsing prices. Our models predict that as foreclosures continue to climb in many states, house prices will remain flat or decline in those states -- but will not collapse.
-----------------------
But fears of a huge loss in home values for most homeowners -- and especially for middle-income homeowners -- across the United States, and fears of the devastating losses by financial institutions that would accompany them, are greatly overblown.
Charles W. Calomiris is Henry Kaufman professor of financial institutions at Columbia University and a visiting research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Stanley D. Longhofer directs the Center for Real Estate at Wichita State University's business school. William Miles is an associate professor of economics and Barton fellow at Wichita State.

June 6, 2003 - Fannie Mae Chief Executive - No Housing Bubble

Fannie Mae's Raines Sees No Housing Bubble, Low Interest Rates
June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines, who runs the biggest mortgage portfolio in the world, said the continuing rise in housing prices won't end in a bust like the stock market of three years ago.
"We do not see any sign of housing price decline nationwide, let alone the bursting of a bubble," Raines said in an interview with Bloomberg News in New York.