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Showing posts with label January. Show all posts
Showing posts with label January. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims January 31 2013
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
Bits Bucket for January 29, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. And check out Chomp, Chomp, Chomp by a regular poster!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims January 03 2013
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Friday, January 4, 2013
Bits Bucket for January 2, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. And check out Chomp, Chomp, Chomp by a regular poster!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
[Special Report] RBI Pending Home Sales Index – January 2011 [Washington, DC Metro]
Posted by Jonathan Miller -Sunday, February 13, 2011, 10:15 PM
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This podcast is an overview of the RBI Pending Home Sales Index – January 2011 covering the Washington, DC Metro area just released for RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), the data, research and analytics arm of MRIS.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
On The Stamp: Food Stamp Participation January 2012
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Friday, March 9, 2012
Fannie Mae Delinquencies: January 2011
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Sunday, March 4, 2012
[Manhattan Absorption] January 2012 Y-O-Y Pace Generally Accelerating
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, February 27, 2012, 8:50 AM
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Absorption defined for the purposes of this chart is: Number of months to sell all listing inventory at the annual pace of sales activity. (The definition of absorption in my market report series reflects the quarterly pace – nearly the same)
I started this analysis in August 2009 so I am able to show side-by side year-over-year comparisons. The blue line showing the 10-year quarterly average travels up and down because of the change in scale caused by some of the significant volatility seen at the upper end of the market.
Side by Side Manhattan regional comparison:
[click images to expand]
Thoughts
Manhattan All price segments below $3M were faster than the 10 year absorption rate. Segments above $3M showed signs of cooling, specifically in the $3M-$5M and $10M+ range.East Side Co-op absorption showed an across-the-board slow down with all segments remaining higher than the 10-year overall average rate. Conversely, the rate for condos accelerated for all segments but the $2M and $10M+.West Side All absorption price segments generally accelerated with the exception of $10M+ that slowed sharply.Downtown The rates by segment generally accelerated below $5M and $10M+. The $5 to $10M segment slowed.Note: This chart series does not include shadow inventory (properties ready for market but not yet listed for sale) so this anlaysis understates the rate of condo absorption. The Uptown (Northern Manhattan) data set is too thin for a reliable presentation.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Production Pullback: Industrial Production January 2012
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Friday, February 24, 2012
Conspicuous Correlation: Retail Sales January 2012
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
On The Margin: Total Unemployment January 2012
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Thursday, February 9, 2012
ADP National Employment Report: January 2012
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Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Bits Bucket for January 26, 2012
Money isn’t apples.
Money is a promise to pay back.
Teacher, “Johny, you have 5 apples. You loan 2 to Alice and Alice gives you 2 IOUs. The IOUs pay 100% per day interest. What is your net worth?”
Johny, “5 apples.”
Teacher, “The next day, Alice brings you 4 apples and asks for the IOUs back. How many apples do you have?”
Johny, “3. I also have 4 IOUs. I have no interest in buying her apples. I have all the apples I need, and only want IOUs.
She said that she could not pay the interest unless I bought the apples. So, I agreed to loan her 2 more apples, then accept those 2 apples as interest.
Now she is my debt slave.”
Teacher, “But, what if she gives up trying to pay back the loan and your IOUs become worthless?”
Johny, “Then she is a no good deadbeat that never planned on paying me back. The economic collapse is all her fault. She is the scum of the earth, no good Welcher. We should create jails to lock up people like her.”
Teacher, “Well, didn’t you have some obligation, when accepting her IOUs, to then accept the apples in return for the IOUs? Isn’t the economic collapse from debt default and IOUs becoming worthless because the people with the IOUs would not spend them, at least partially the fault of the people with IOUs?”
Johny, “I am under no social or legal obligation to spend my IOUs”.
Teacher, “Then debt default is inevitable.”
Johny, “Only because people like Alice are stupid idiots and didn’t accumulate IOUs like me.”
Teacher, “ummmmm Hello!!! All IOUs are just other peoples’ debts, and if no one went into debt, then there wouldn’t be any IOUs.”
Johny, “Well that isn’t the way it worked back in 1849 when everyone traded real IOUs backed by real apples instead of these silly IOUs we have today”.
Teacher, “Sorry to tell you Johnny, but even in 1849 there were never enough apples for everyone to trade all their IOUs into apples all at the same time. It has been 500+ years since there was an apple in the warehouse for every IOU in existence.”
In our modern economy, people want other peoples’ IOUs, not their stuff. The PotUS can ask nicely for the people with money to spend it, buying stuff and employing people. The people with money have politely declined.
Bits Bucket for January 29, 2012
AP Interview: Roubini warns of tough times ahead
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – 1 day ago
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Economist Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed “Dr. Doom” for his gloomy predictions in the run-up to the financial meltdown four years ago, says the fallout from that crisis could last the rest of this decade.
Roubini, widely acknowledged to have predicted the crash of 2008, sees tough times ahead for the global economy and is warning that without major policy changes things can still get much worse.
Until Europe radically reforms itself and the U.S. gets serious about its own debt mountain, he said, the world economy will continue to stumble along to the detriment of large chunks of the world’s population who will continue to see their living standards under pressure, even if they have a job.
Roubini, a professor of economics and international business at New York University, spoke in an interview this week with The Associated Press at a dinner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, where he is one of the hotly pursued stars.
Looking at economic prospects this year, he agreed with the International Monetary Fund’s latest forecast that the global economy is weakening and said he might be “even slightly more bearish” on its prediction of 3.3 percent growth in 2012.
He painted a grim picture of the eurozone in recession and key emerging markets in China, India, Brazil and South Africa slowing down, partly related to weakness in the eurozone. He predicted that the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, will grow by just 1.7-1.8 percent this year, with unemployment remaining high. The government, he added, was “kicking the can down the road” and not taking measures to increase productivity and competitiveness.
“We live in a world where there is still a huge amount of economic and financial fragility,” he said. “There is a huge amount of uncertainty — macro, financial, fiscal, sovereign, banking, regulatory, taxation — and there is also geopolitical and political and policy uncertainty.”
“There are lots of sources of uncertainty from the eurozone, from the Middle East, from the fact that the U.S. is not tackling its own fiscal problem, from the fact that Chinese growth is unbalanced and unsustainable, relying too much on exports and fixed investments and high savings, and not enough on consumption. So it’s a very delicate global economy,” Roubini said.
He said the biggest uncertainty is the possibility of a conflict with Iran over its nuclear program that involves Israel, the United States, or both. That could lead oil prices now hovering around $100 a barrel to spike to $150 per barrel, he said, and lead to a global recession.
Unemployment and economic insecurity have become big issues from the Mideast to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S., and protests from Israel and India to Chile and Russia — and at the same time there is rising inequality between rich and poor.
“All these things lead to political and social instability,” he said. “So we have to reduce inequality. We have to give growth to jobs, skills, education, and increase human capital so workers can compete.”
Roubini called for a major change in policy priorities.
“We have to shift our investment from things that are less productive like the financial sector and housing and real estate to things that are more productive like our people, our human capital, our structure, our technology, our innovation,” he said.
Roubini said slow growth in advanced economies will likely lead to “a U-shaped recovery rather than a typical V,” and it may last for another three to five years because of high debt.
…
Friday, February 3, 2012
Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims January 26 2012
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Bits Bucket for January 18, 2012
Just saw a politically charged segment on CNBC where the Republicans are trying to frame the 2012 election as Envy vs. Aspiration.
People that say “Wall Street is a bunch of crooks that are rigging the political system for their own gain while screwing the majority.” are simply evil, envious losers.
The good people are those that aspire to climb the rungs of society to become rich and powerful, so they can rig the system for their own gain while screwing the majority.
Really?
That is how the rich and powerful want to frame the arguement?
How about this?
Since total goods and services bought must always exactly equal all sold, it is not possible for one person to sell more than they buy, accumulating money, unless someone else is buying more than they sell by first borrowing the money into existance.
To fund international trade imbalances and widening domestic wealth disparity, we’ve been increasing debt at 3x the sustainable rate. In the United States, each household’s share of total debt has increased from 2.8x medina income in 1980 to 6.5x median income today.
Our trade imbalance plagued economy did not boom despite the debt, it boomed because of it.
Once the debt has been created via a trade imbalance, it becomes impossible for the person with debt to repay the debt unless the people with money are willing to spend the money.
Our imbalance plagued economy (international and domestic widening wealth disparoty) does not only need debt, it needs debt to constantly increase at an unsustainable rate.
Private sector debt can not increase at an unsustainable rate forever. You grow the private sector’s ability to carry debt by lowering interest rates, loosening lending standards and lengthening loan terms. Eventually you reach the point of sub-inflation interest rates that can’t go lower, lending standards so loose that fraud becomes the norm rather than the exception, and you reach interest only, infinate length loans.
The private sector maxxed out by 2007 when Fed Rates were at or near 0%, lending standards were so loose that fraud was common and the standards had to be tightened, and people could not pay on their debt even in the interest only terms.
With the private sector maxxed out on debt, the federal govrnment has stepped up with massive deficits to create the $1.3T per year new debt our economy needs to function. But, in 5 years we added more real government debt (publically held) that we had in the previous 230 years. At most we have 5 more years before the debt reaches a breaking point for the federal government.
People speak of an economic recovery that would make the federal deficits unnecessary, but that would require the private sector be able to support the new debt needed to fund the trade imbalances or for the trade imbalances to go away. We are taking no action to shrink nor reverse the widening wealth disparity, $2 per hour global labor wage is preventing us from closing international trade imbalances.
For all the talk of household deleveraging, the Federal Reserve Z.1 tells another story with household debt having increased from $7T in 2000 to $13.8T in 2007 and 2008. In the 3 years since 2008 household debt has only drifted down to $13.2T. Millions of bankruptcies and foreclosures alone should have reduced the debt by more than $600B, meaning net other debt is still increasing. Net non-mortgage household debt is flat for the last 2 years.
Business debt is actually back above the 2008 peak.
This is not a private sector that is regrouping and about to go into another orgy of debt creation. It is a private sector that is holding on by its finger nails, sucking up every penny of federal government money printing.
The only end-game for the road we are on is for the federal government to max out on debt. When that happnes, they can either print massive amounts of nre money, triggering commodity inflation in the face of falling wages and crash the economy or default on the debt causing the global economy to collapse. There is now end of this road that does not involve economic collapse.
Now, tell me where in that disertation I seemed envious of those that hold $ trillions of other peoples’ unrepayable debts, or why I should want to aspire to scrimp and save to accumulate $ trillions of other peoples’ unrepayable debts?
The only “non collapse” outcome is if we change course and directly attack the trade imbalances with tariffs and a steep income tax with an insanely high top rate. I see no hope of that happening soon.
I am not envious. They can not fill me with aspiration to win the doomed game.
I am left with dispair.
Bits Bucket for January 23, 2012
It is worse than I’ve said.
Between my wife and I, we have 3 divorces, a custody battle…
I was married for 15 years to a lady that did not work. When we divorced, the initial alimony numbers floated about were in the $1500-1600 a month for 7 years range. By giving her the house, what little was left in my 401(k) after the tech wreck (whole other story of MCI/Worldcom there) and all the stuff, and taking on about $10K marital debt plus about $7K lawyer fees (mine and hers) I was able to get this reduced to “only” $800 alimony for 5 years + $900 child support for 7 years. I also had to cover medical insurance and 2/3rds of the kids medical expenses.
All-in-all, I sent her over $125K in 7 years.
Unfortunately, the divorce was in 2002 in the wake of the tech wreck. My alimony and child support were based on peak earnings, but I took a 10% pay cut just to get work in the aftermath of the crash.
I had money for basic expenses, but any extraordinary expenses went on credit cards.
While paying on that first ex, I had a 15-month rebound marriage disaster. It cost me about $5K to make her go away.
My current wife also had a messy divorce in the early 2K0s that included a pretty ugly custody battle a couple years after the initial divorce. She was a non-traditional student earning her bachelors at 33 and her masters at 35.
Then, soon after we met 6.5 years ago, she had about $30K in medical expenses that were not covered by insurance.
So, when we got married 4.5 years ago, combined we had about $40K credit card debt ($30k me, $10K her), $50K student loans (her), $140K mortgage, $40K second mortgage (used to pay medical bills and lawyer for custody fight), and owed about $5K on a vehicle.
Before the housing crash, we refied the house to $186K for 15 years at 5%-ish.
4 years later, the mortgage is down to $150K. 11 years to go and will be paid off when we are 55/53. CC debt is about $30K. Student loans have not budged much since we are making minimal payments (lowest interest rates and tax deductible). Unfortunately, we now owe more on vehicles. Bought a used car 1.5 years ago when son turned 16, and another used car last summer after he wrapped my pickup around a power pole.
Our mid-late-30s were a very, very bad time with multiple divorces, heavily alimony and child support, and some very expensive extra-ordinary expenses. Our 40s is a time of trying to dig out.
You can say I’m in bad shape, but I think I’m well above average. Our total debt is less than 2x our income of $150K a year. We’re only $40K upside down on the house, coming down at $11K a year. $150K in 401(k) is about 3x the average for our age group.
We’ve managed to not have any unemployment during this recession.
Were the divorces good financially? Of course not. Yeah, I’ve made some really bad mistakes in the spouse selection department. My bad.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bits Bucket for January 19, 2012
Michael Olenick: Is Shadow Housing Inventory Vastly Larger Than Widely Believed?
Monday, January 2, 2012
Let’s repeat that. In the spring or summer of 2010, before the robosigning scandal caused a massive slowdown in the number of foreclosures filed, Fannie Mae apparently had 600,000 loans they expected to foreclose upon. Not Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VHA, and private label mortgages, Fannie Mae alone.
FHFA reports that Fannie Mae’s share of total US mortgage debt, at the end of 2010, is 27.7%. If Fannie Mae really does have 600,000 homes they expect to foreclose upon we’d expect to see about 2,165,000 shadow inventory homes total .. in Florida.
It’s impossible to believe this figure is accurate. Let’s look at some data. First, the Census Bureau reports there are just under nine million housing units in the entire state at the end of 2010, 8,989,580, to be exact. According to court records between July, 2010 through December, 2011, inclusive, there were 1,044 foreclosure filings per month in Stern’s home county, Broward County, FL; 22,144 filings total. However, from January, 2009, through June, 2010, inclusive, there 2,544 monthly filings in the same county; 48,144 filings total.
If the number Stern relayed is accurate, that would put a theoretical backlog of filings, for that one county, at 26,000. If we extrapolate to the rest of this high foreclosure state it’s safe to say shadow inventory estimates for the US have been dramatically underestimated, in much the same way that existing home sales were overestimated, albeit to a much more severe degree.
One thing is certain. Either a) Stern lied during his deposition, or b) Fannie Mae lied to Stern, or c) government and non-government organizations that project shadow volume have massively blown it. On Wednesday, Dec. 21st, 2011, HousingWire reports that CoreLogic projected shadow inventory to be 1.6 million homes throughout the entire United States. If Stern relayed the information correctly, and Fannie relayed it to him correctly, that figure looks more like it could be the shadow inventory of South Florida alone. Except that would mean they expect to foreclose on about half the houses in this state, which seems … impossible.
All this calls for far more disclosure on the part of the GSE’s, regulators, and courthouses. There is no legitimate reason to keep these figures locked away behind password-protected websites. Everything from the MERS database, to the Fannie/Freddie loan-level information, to the pile of mortgages the Federal Reserve has purchased should be open. This issue rivals a pressing matter of national security: there is no reason to force investors, home buyers, and others to speculate; to search for information.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Bits Bucket for January 24, 2012
Let’s say you are correct and the continued growth in total debt/money must end.
What is the solution?
Allow the house of cards to come crashing down as was happening in 2008?
Banks and brokerages popping left and right, cascade defaults. Return to 600K job losses a month. Falling tax revenue.
Sure, in 2008, FDIC could make the “little guys” hole and we could pump in $700B TARP, plus unemployment, food stamps, stimulus checks…. But we now have double the real national debt that we did just 5 years ago.
The scenario you describe we would have to be slashing UI, Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, and pretty much everything else. FDIC would not be able to cover losses.
People unable to sell what they want to sell would be forced to sell what they could sell, meaning crashing commodity (gold, oil, industrial metals, food, etc) prices along with everything else.
With the crashing economy and falling tax receipts, every attempt to cut deficits would cause further falling receipts. At some point, even the $10T in publicly held US Treasuries will be forced to take a big hair cut as is happening with holders of Greek debt.
The government would be forced to raise any tax it could. Property tax, sales tax, income tax, banking tax, tax tax.
Is that what we really want. Complete and total washout, no where to hide, end of the 20th economic model in one, very ugly crash?
Or, is there another way to go about this?
What has caused the need for exploding debt? Trade imbalances, both international and domestic.
What has to change before we can stop living on debt and maybe start repaying some of the debt? We need to attack and reverse the trade imbalances. We need to end free trade and return to a confiscatory tax code that prevents too much money from ending in the hands of too few, funded by unsustainable debt growth for everyone else.
But, we’re SOOOOO far from even beginning to talk about undoing all the financial innovation of the last 50 years. Yeah, you are right. Probably not going to happen.
On another site, someone was talking about the polar bears and how they will be extinct in the wild if we are not off fossil fuels in the next 10 years. My response was, then they will be extinct in the wild because there is simply no way possible for us to get off fossil fuels in less than a decade.
I guess I should apply the same deductive proof to our economy. The house of cards will collapse unless we get off “unsustainable debt growth” in the next few years. To get off “unsustainable debt growth” we need to directly attack and reverse the trade imbalances, both internal and internationally. We can’t even begin to have the conversation about this in our current economic and political environment. Even if we could have the conversation, it would take years to reverse the trend. We do not have years to reverse the trend.
Yeah, we’re doomed.
So, how do you protect yourself from total wipe out where stocks, bonds, commodities all collapse, FDIC insurance isn’t there, US Treasuries take a massive haircut, housing and real estate all crash, civil unrest covers the globe….
Guns, lots of ammo, and a bunker in the mountains? Not going to do any good if a Napoleonic style dictator comes to power, as frequently happens post economic collapse.
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