Talking to myself again in the thread below.
They are mostly keeping on building the derned things in South Florida.
PNW people must have more sense.
I was saying why are they keeping on building these things nearly 2 years ago.
Well, CR, are some places--like S. Fla, say--ahead of the curve, or are they due to continue going down just as much as the supposedly immune places?
I think we are nearing bottom.
Except for the towers, always except for the towers.
Total US Debt so far: $301 Trillion dollars. $1.5M per person
all with the latest data
9.8T in bailouts
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok
11T in government debts
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
17T in corporate debts
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/business/economy/04charts.html?em
1T in credit card debts
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-americans-1-trillion-in-cr...
11T in mortgages
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok
52T in social security/medicare obligations
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Medicare--Social-Security-Ow...
Like other government trust funds (highway, unemployment insurance and so forth), the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds exist purely for accounting purposes: to keep track of surpluses and deficits in the inflow and outflow of money. The accumulated Social Security surplus actually consists of paper certificates (non-negotiable bonds) kept in a filing cabinet in a government office in West Virginia. These bonds cannot be sold on Wall Street or to foreign investors. They can only be returned to the Treasury. In essence, they are little more than IOUs the government writes to itself.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba616
200T in derivatives in banks
http://www.occ.treas.gov/deriv/deriv.htm
Not including derivatives; 101T. including it, 301T
Can't really pay it off anytime soon....
2.3T budget deficit this year. 10T in the next 10 years.
http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45528
"This building was already half leased!"
Somewhere a collective sigh of relief is heard...
Bottom is meaningless because even after we "bottom" we will continue to move lower in real prices, Demographics, economics and other "mics" all working against RE. 20 years one way 20 years the other way.
Yesterday: visibility unlimited.
Today: we don't wanna see what is visible.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1890560,00.html
what are they smocking?
by the way, I got a spam phone call providing info that there will be a "tax revolt" demonstration. Welcome to S. Cali 
That Portland would even dream of a 32-story hirise is beyond comprehension. They need to get back to basics: Fred Meyer stores, picking berries, etc.
O/T, but heard a couple of credit unions went TU...I thought they were more or less "immune"....dang..there's that word again...
[Vanessa Sturgeon, president of TMT Development]
She sounds com plaice ent to me.
Pavel Chichikov
Pavel,
Of course she does, 'cause Ms. Sturgeon has her ducks in a roe...
Maybe we should all just slow down our pace of growth. Letting CRE dev's lever 80-90% of a project, only allows them to develop out of control.
Cut down high leverage loans altogether.
Report from the road. I was driving down the coast road in Aruba and much to my suprise I came across an AIG office.
Here's a photo - not mine - though if there is sufficient demand I will return and take some - if you like I can offer the building facade the appropriate respect perhaps a salute of the one finger kind and I will endeavor to frame it within the shot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lickyoats/3355430614/in/photostream/
Do you think they'll let a shareholder -albeit unwilling - inside to use the facilities?
PS Anyone care to tell me WTF happened to SRS - been gone since Wed and just logging on now. I guess if I liked it at 44 I'll love it at 33...
"Of course she does, 'cause Ms. Sturgeon has her ducks in a roe..."
Are you sure she's not a house flipper?
Pavel Chichikov
I dunno...do sturgeons live in "roe" houses?
"" http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1890560,00.html
what are they smocking? ""
This is such an insane article. Ya think anyone will remember what this MSM rag disgraced its pages with in a few months? Anyway, whatever they are smocking, it must be some real good shirt.
Well, to anyone who put a downpayment on one of those highrise luxury condos, caviar emptor.
Mike Stay away from leveraged ETFs
Down town Denver last week and there are high rises going up. In the SE part malls large and small still going while recent built ones have many closed stores already. Doesn't make much sense. I figured they learned after the 80's in Denver but guess not.
"Well, CR, are some places--like S. Fla, say--ahead of the curve, or are they due to continue going down just as much as the supposedly immune places?
I think we are nearing bottom."
Liz,
Pricewise the delusion is still strong...I will say I have heard two adds
on the radio out of Tampa with companies looking for employees.
Also I have noticed a couple of help wanted signs...
@Scrooge McDuck -- you have to net many of those debts against each other. Also, the unfunded social security & medicare liabilities are (a) very hard to estimate well and (b) subject to Congressional revision at any time... Not to say the picture isn't grim, but you do the "good guys" in this a disservice when you don't do all the math and end up with easily-discredited scare numbers.
My site: http://ic4mg.com
No shit...got stopped out of my SDS on Thursday. Am torn between getting back in, or just sitting back with the cash and waiting for the dust to settle. (thinking of the old saw about the market staying irrational longer than one can stay solvent...)
Short Bucky
The person who wrote the article has no understanding of finance. At least sight some numbers.
sorry "cite"
Just read that the major mall renovation near me (Sunnyvale) is on hiatus due to lack of funding. The plan was to take out the dead 70s-style Logan's Run mall and put in a Santana Row mixed-use space, but so far all they've managed to do remove most of the mall and put up the basic shells.
They need financing to finish the project, but if the South Bay goes through another 1988-1993 recession then it's going to be a long wait.
shouldn't this developer have gotten a commitment from his lender prior to building halfway with his equity.
this guy is supposed to be smart?
Just had to repost this link. Thanks reptilian. That Mike Morgan's got some kahunas to go toe to toe with big bad GS.
Facts About Goldman Sachs
http://www.goldmansachs666.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn the 7TH Amendment maggot!
Red Beckman - Fully Informed Jury
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7385583011526915030&hl=en
These bonds cannot be sold on Wall Street or to foreign investors. They can only be returned to the Treasury. In essence, they are little more than IOUs the government writes to itself.
Bullshit. The represent the overcontributions of FICA payers over the past 20-odd years. Since FICA payers and income tax payers are NOT identical populations (given the income skew toward the top 5%) when it is time to redeem the SSTF-held treasuries bonds the Treasury will have to fund them, hopefully by reversing the Reagan tax cuts that got us into this mess in the first place.
Of all the lying the Republicans do online and in the media, their lying about the SSTF is the most obnoxious. At least we stopped them from looting it in 2005.
Were the help wanted signs scrawled on cardboard, next to the freeway offramp? Cause I've seen lots of those too!
Or were they for the FDIC? FBI? Private security? Cash for gold?
They're not smocking anything. That's LSD, that one.
Troy so is that Sunnyvale project on hold as far as you know?
OT but interesting
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/27/how_would_the_romans_han...
There are a couple of big incompetent foreclose mill law firms in Tampa.
Hope it wasn't them that was hiring.
Don't worry, they already have an alternate plan for the building site:
http://bojack.org/2009/04/the_curse_of_the_virginia_cafe.html
Interesting ot on the Romans, which referred to the Venetians, who screwed everybody but themselves up in the early 1340s. Prolly caused a lot of hunger and poverty. Weakened people more.
The Black Death arrived in 1347-8. It did not spare Venice.
Comments(many)
Good comments(few)
Keep up the good work and positive vibes.
Why does it say 13 users, but only 10 are listed?
Because 3 have not posted anything interesting.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
I laughed out load when I read the title of this post. Hello, here in Boise, Idaho we've have had a "hole in the ground " in the center of towntown for ten years, yes 10 years. (that's since 1999). The lien holder just got title through bankruptcy and the lien holder doesn't plan on doing anything with it; and they probably won't.
Any new doomish insights nova?
nova (member) wrote on Sat, 04/11/2009 - 5:45pm.
Because 3 have not posted anything interesting.
I resemble that remark. I was waiting for somebody to say something nice about Portland so I could pounce.
Portland is nice.
I guess.
I've never been there.
Speak, dawg, I'm bored.
My daughters best friend lives out there in the rain--not sure it's Portland,
gets depressed a lot.
Portland has one of the worst cases of "World Class City Syndrome" I've ever seen. [N.B. in California "WCCS" is known as Fresnophobia.]
They've got the greatest commitment to light rail in the nation. It is an abject failure based upon the stated goals but if you ask a "Helenite" they'll tell you it is an unqualified success.
Drove by the DestiNY USA mall development in moribund Syracuse today (huge addition to existing mall). They are gonna build that by hook or by crook. Project was proposed 10 years ago and it will take another 20 years to build, at which time there might actually be an economy again, who the hell knows? I think they are banking on an apocalypse that takes out the rest of the United States, leaving Syracuse the sole center of Northeastern commerce. Sounds like a plan to me.
Portland also reeks of fresh brewed coffee early in the morning. No Liz, just that we are all doomed. People in Florida may be the Doomest. Ca and Nevada also are Doomest.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
That's like Chicago and the 2nd city thing?
Miami glories in its weirdness.
Well, if we have a nice fat juicy hurricane which punches holes in all the towers?
And insurance companies which pay off? (hahahahaha)
I agree with your analysis. Of course, most of these debts are subject to quick revisions/writedowns these days. Question is, who will lend anybody anything after that....
Rob Dawg mentioned a $62 million plot of land up in Oxnard to me going to trustee sale this last week. I researched it and it looks like a local builder who bought the land before the boom and then leveraged it up in 2006 and then defaulting this year. The trustee sale was for 31.5 million and it reverted to the beneficiary.
The local bank who financed the deal is going to take a large hit however it plays out.
At the risk of outing myself,...I like Portland! Portland is going to host the American Killifish Convention on Memorial Day. I'm planning on visiting a friend in Vancouver, WA then and visiting that big bookstore in Portland, Powell's.
Hmmm, made me think of Tanta.
Red Alert! Red Alert! Red Alert!
Just noticed a Pauls TV ad. First Time in years that I have noticed that they are not offering "special" financing! No, "No Payments Till 2111". No "No Interest Till 2111" etc...
Is this the end of credit?
From the Cape Fear post:
Methinks Dr. Bierderman needs to self-prescribe the anti-psychotic.
What is Paul's?
Powells is good. Very good. Not many bookstores like that left. Not many used bookstores left at all actually.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
Boston has a lot of them; part of the charm.
Sorry,
Meant 2011. Not 2111!
WOW! Pauls TV will finance a big screen for 100 years?
Ahh the maps at the Brattle Book Shop and the posters at The Coop and the obscure technical tomes at MIT and of course Fabulous Furry Freak Bros at Newbury Comics.
Please don't correct yourself doofis.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn the 7TH Amendment maggot!
Red Beckman - Fully Informed Jury
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7385583011526915030&hl=en
Slow news day, I know, so just for the fun of it - speaking of glimmers of hope:
From the WSJ Economists Survey (pls do not shoot the messenger) - the average forecast of the U3 unemployment rate for Dec-2009 as a function of the month the forecast was made
Jan - 8.6%
Feb - 8.8%
March - 9.3%
Apr - 9.5%
I could start a religous controversy.
Pavel, you out there?
Please don't correct me, correcting myself.
What's a hunnert years, between friends?
Or a trillyon dollars?
Geesh.
Nitey nite.
LOL Always leave religion out of the picture, unless you're fireproof!
Green Branch forum - Secular homesteading and much more...
Seven Trees farm blog
Geesh.
Nitey nite.
You just don't want to admit you remember the Fabulous Furry Freak Bros. 
Apologies if this has been posted/discussed already, there was an interesting post on Zero Hedge
Some interesting quotes:
"Anyone who is doing anything sensible right now is either losing money or is out of the market entirely." These are the words of a quant trader, who is seeing something scary in the capital markets. Scary enough to merit a warning that we could be on the verge of another October 87, August 2007, or January 2008.
...
Following on the circumstantial evidence track, as Zero Hedge pointed out previously, over the past month, the Volume Weighted Average Price of the SPY index indicates that the bulk of the upswing has been done through low volume buying on the margin and from overnight gaps in afterhours market trading. The VWAP of the SPY through yesterday indicated that the real price of the S&P 500 would be roughly 60 points lower, or about 782, if the low volume marginal transactions had been netted out. And yet the market keeps on rising. This is an additional data point demonstrating that the equity market has reached a point where the transactions on the margin are all that matter as the core volume/liquidity providers slowly disappear one by one through ongoing deleveraging.
...
One thing is for certain: the longer the divergence between real volume trading/liquidity and absolute market changes persists, the more memorable the ensuing market liquidity event will be. At the end of the day, despite the pronouncements by the administration and more and more sell-side analysts that the market is merely chasing the rebound in fundamentals in what has all of a sudden become a V-shaped recovery, the "rally" could simply be explained by technical factor driven capital-liquidity aberrations, which will continue at most for mere weeks if not days.
We still have crap like that in NW WA. In fact, we're thinking of buying some lovely solid oak Amish bedroom furniture tomorrow on 36 months same-as-cash financing.....
But then again, we get Canadians flocking down here because the bargains are plentiful and the natives are *so friendly*
Green Branch forum - Secular homesteading and much more...
Seven Trees farm blog
45% presold?
Is that considered semi-spec?
Hey King..........would that be Glendora between Azusa and SD?
- - - - -
Black 
Ranch
That's nothing. There was a hole in the ground in our downtown from 1963-1983. Redevelopment gone awry.
Blast from the Past
Bellevue, WA pictorial of massive overbuilding -
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=a_taste_of_madness_in
"Behold The Madness!"
Man, I'm going through my taxes and accumulated paperwork and I realize just how badly my ex-wife destroyed my life over the past three years. Multiple motions in two States, filing false charges, redirecting my bank statements, blocking my car registration which led to tickets and court appearances, etc, etc, etc.
I can't imagine any circumstances under which I'd ever get married again.
None.
My lawyer wants to file criminal charges now and I'm sorely tempted to support it.
I still say we need more pyramids to bury politicians in.
you will enjoy this $100 billion omelet
http://thebarricadeblog.com/2009/04/11/the-top-10-signs-you-are-living-i...
A few of those kinds of project here in the Twin Cities. Some have just been completed recently and are largely empty, others are still under construction, and still others are a hole in the ground, like the one a few blocks from my house. This is not over by a long shot.
yeah that Zerohedge post was fascinating. i plan on buying the sh*t out of SRS.
Hey Folks,
I went to the 'anewwayforward.org ' street protest' at the A.I.G building in Dallas,tx,
nice weather , nice folks , lots of ' networking''
lower turnout than i wanted (@50) . goood signs , people honked ,waved ,'thumbs-up"
was '200- to one' " positive !!!!! (1 kid yelled "I hate you all " i did say he was young !!!
I THOUGHT A.I.G. was not the appropriate site , it should have been the
"F.R.B." SOME AGREED . (AT LEAST I WAS ' ONE MORE WARM BODY)
FUTURE DALLAS, TX PROTEST SITES :
4/152009 DALLAS CITY HALL "NEW TEA BAG PARTY' 6-9 P.M.
(GO EARLY , SO LOCAL T.V. CAN GET VIDEO FOR 6:00 P.M. BROADCAST !!!
/////
//
ATTN: 4/25/2009 PROTEST AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK DALLAS ,TEXAS
YESSSS , THE F.RB. BWAHAHAHAAA I AM SO THERE !!!!!!!!!!!
STAND UP FOR YOR RIGHTS;
OR YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS !!!!
S.O.F.
Portland, OR "anewwayforward.org" drew about 150 to Portland's living room (Pioneer Square) and then a walk around downtown.
My brood joined in for a bit, then peeled off for Powell's Bookstore. I picked up Hyman Minsky's "Stabilizing an Unstable Economy". Seemed appropriate.
Happy Easter everyone.
I'm between the Glendora Country Club (not a member) and the high school if you know the area.
:: ::
Mannwich wrote on Sat, 04/11/2009 - 9:22pm.
A few of those kinds of project here in the Twin Cities. Some have just been completed recently and are largely empty, others are still under construction, and still others are a hole in the ground, like the one a few blocks from my house. This is not over by a long shot.
:: ::
I think they should fill the holes in the ground with water and stock them with trout - like they did with the abandoned iron mines up on the range... then build a theme park near by called 'Banker World' and reenact the lifestyle of bankers back when there was credit before it was all mined out. It would be a great tourist draw... where is Rudy Perpich when you need him?
Great post over at Zero Hedge today: http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/imminent-disinformation-schism.html
The first paragraph is priceless.
Man, I'm going through my taxes and accumulated paperwork and I realize just how badly my ex-wife destroyed my life over the past three years.
......................
My 2nd ex did that to me. Insane how much damage someone who supposedly loves you can do....
Green Branch forum - Secular homesteading and much more...
Seven Trees farm blog
I was in Oakland earlier this week and there were a LOT of ex condo's "For Lease" Downtown.I f they offered a free pit bull as well as one month's free rent they might get a few takers.Some holes in the ground too,but not like the '70's.
Tom Stone
Portland has one of the worst cases of "World Class City Syndrome" I've ever seen.
It can't hold a candle to Vancouver, BC at the end of the I-5. Similar population and economy to Portland (i.e. no national-class let alone world-class employers) but RE prices are twice as high (higher even than metro NYC), People consider the city a peer to London and NYC. The RE bust is only 10 months old and people are pretending the bottom is in - the local radio stations are even running "public service" ads telling people to buy now. Seriously,
Ironically the original Vancouver is across the river from Portland in Washington State.
BTW the license plates in BC say "The Best Place on Earth". Not even Oregon would try to pull that one off.
MrM,
I read the article at zerohedge a few days ago and I am still pondering the significance. It sounds ominous and I wonder if it is accurate. If it is then this could have a huge impact. What do you think?
Amazing how many of these stories are coming from the Pacific NW, which supposedly immune. PDX and Seattle are in plenty of trouble. First?