Treasury yield 30 year

[moneymaker]

Although 3.37% seems really low for the 30 year, the record low is 2.54%. Both are below my 3.5% mortgage.The charts do suggest it is a downward trend.

[paramount]

So the 30 year hits a 10 month low, but gold is not making any major moves (although possibly manipulated via paper market).

288k jobs in April (but participation way down).

But then 1Q gdp was anemic at 0.1% – blamed on weather.

Does this mean war on the horizon?

[moneymaker]

I hope not. Glad my son didn’t join the military right now, because it would really piss me off if we went to war with Russia over the Ukraine. Not saying they don’t deserve their independence, just saying maybe we should ask them first if they want to be Russians, maybe a majority of them do.

[spdrun]

Just to be clear — the situation is very regional. Some parts of Ukraine likely have a majority that wants to be part of Russia, others very certainly want to stay independent.

BTW – the Russian-run referendum in the Crimea was f’ed in multiple ways — for one, it didn’t even give remaining part of Ukraine as a choice.

I doubt that even the current clown in the White House is stupid enough to go to war with (nuclear-armed) Russia. If he’s that crazy, then G-d help us all.

Unless paramount means war in the sense of “taper the taper” … unlikely in the near term. They have their “good” jobs report, can blame GDP on weather for at least another three months, by which point we’ll be down to $25 billion/mo.

I also think that Yellen and the new voting members are more conservative than people expected them to be.

[moneymaker]

30 year at 3.1%, Wow! Is it time to borrow? Already refi’d, should I do it again? Got 3.5% on 15 year right now. https://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5ETYX+Interactive#symbol=%5Etyx;range=20050407,20140827;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=; I guess it’s not as low as it seems.

[FlyerInHi]

I believe we can expect low rates for a while still. The Euro zone is in stagnation so the ECB might have to resort to more stimulative measures to revive the economy. When they do, the money will partly flow to the USA.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I believe we can expect low rates for a while still. The Euro zone is in stagnation so the ECB might have to resort to more stimulative measures to revive the economy. When they do, the money will partly flow to the USA.[/quote]

The Fed has also shown they collectively don’t have an itchy trigger finger to raise rates and are more worried about unemployment. There does seem to be some disagreement within the Fed.

[spdrun]

Lots of talk and not much action from ECB. Hope QE3 will be long over before they do anything, and that we’ll have a blip of rates well above 4.5% to kick property markets back to the curb where they belong. ARF-ARF! OCTOBER, BABY, *YEAH!* BRING IT!

Love that everyone is whining about stagnation in Phoenix right now and that overpriced crap in SD is sitting rather than selling (as it did last year) 🙂 Smells like … opportunity.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/real-estate/catherine-reagor/2014/08/23/ariz-homebuying-slide-forces-builders-deal/14484841/
http://www.sgvtribune.com/business/20140814/southern-california-home-sales-fall-median-price-drops

[FlyerInHi]

Unlike you spd, I can separate my own desire to buy cheap from the needs of the economy.

The US economy needs more growth and the EU desperately needs growth.

The EU opted for austerity and reform but they killed growth. As you know, growth compounds over the years. EU standard of living are falling behind and they will have a hard time catching.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=poorgradstudent][quote=FlyerInHi]I believe we can expect low rates for a while still. The Euro zone is in stagnation so the ECB might have to resort to more stimulative measures to revive the economy. When they do, the money will partly flow to the USA.[/quote]

The Fed has also shown they collectively don’t have an itchy trigger finger to raise rates and are more worried about unemployment. There does seem to be some disagreement within the Fed.[/quote]

Yes, the Fed doesn’t seem eager to raise rates… but even when they do, more monetary stimulus in the Eurozone might keep our mortgage rates low because, as we know, European banks are active in the American market.

[an]

[quote=moneymaker]30 year at 3.1%, Wow! Is it time to borrow? Already refi’d, should I do it again? Got 3.5% on 15 year right now. https://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5ETYX+Interactive#symbol=%5Etyx;range=20050407,20140827;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=; I guess it’s not as low as it seems.[/quote]
Yep, it was a lot lower a couple years ago. I got a 3.5% 30 years fixed with no cost. If I went with no point, I would have been able to get it down to 3.25%. Right now, a no cost 30 year conforming loan is ~4.25% and a no point 30 year conforming loan is ~4%. So, there’s still a good 75 basis points to go to get back to where it was a couple of years ago.

[spdrun]

Unlike you spd, I can separate my own desire to buy cheap from the needs of the economy.

The US economy needs more growth and the EU desperately needs growth.

The EU opted for austerity and reform but they killed growth. As you know, growth compounds over the years. EU standard of living are falling behind and they will have a hard time catching.

Unlike you, I don’t give a flying tinker’s damn about an sham economy whose only goal seems to be to keep people on a treadmill.

Most “growth” is fucking bullshit anyway. Unless it’s an electric car, are we really better off driving cars that are new vs 5-6 years old? Are we really better off having the latest and greatest iToy vs keeping our phones 3-4 years? Are we really better off with 2000 square foot houses vs 1000 square foot apartments and wasting energy with power dryers vs hanging laundry on a balcony?

Why is innovation for the sake of innovation needed? Does it really make people happier? Life expectancy in most EU countries is very similar to ours. Yet people work less and have more free time. If anything, their standard of living (as far as having more time to themselves vs owing it to the company store) is higher than in the US, since free time is the one commodity you can’t easily make more of. Level of paranoia is also less since non-Anglo countries aren’t as poisoned by the American media. Imagine kids in San Diego walking to school without parents starting at age seven or eight.

Let prices deflate to the point where people can survive on a 30-35 hr per week average work week, with civilized amount of vacation REQUIRED for ALL workers, not just those who “earn” it. Nationalize health insurance to reduce fixed costs of hiring. And have a happy society vs one that’s obsessed with things built in 3rd-world shitholes at 50 cents per hour.

Isn’t the idea that everyone of working age should participate in the economy at forty or fifty hours per week really arbitrary? And a means of social control! If you’re slogging nine or ten hours a day, answering email after hours, commuting two hours a day, come home dog-tired to take care of your family, where’s the time to protest or even read much? And if you go to a protest, you might end up with a criminal record that effectively bans you from working … and there are the student loans and mortgage to pay.

Basically, the average American doesn’t know how much he/she is being held by the short hairs, and the bankster swine at the Fed are just perpetuating that. It’s the same thing as artificial shortages in the former USSR, except that instead of waiting in bread lines, we’re waiting at the office or in traffic on the freeway. MURKAH! YEAH! RAH-RAH!

[spdrun]

Interesting article about young Americans on the “treadmill”:

http://www.alternet.org/story/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_don%27t_fight_back%3A_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance

[FlyerInHi]

Basically if you compare the USA to Europe, we, in America, had economic stimulus and expansion without inflation, and historically low rates all the same.

Europe chose the path of austerity, belt-tightening, near zero growth and now a threat of deflation.

Our policies to exit the financial crisis have proven much better, period.

spd, growth means real per-capita GPD, money in people’s pockets. How people choose to spend their money is a totally different debate. In America, thoughtful people can choose to work less for less money but more time.

I don’t think Europeans would be too happy to find themselves, a couple decades down the road, with GDP per capita, a smaller fraction of ours.

GPD is also power in the world, the ability to influence the world to your own liking.

[flyer]

We know quite a few people who are waiting for the next real estate “crash.” We’re pretty much at our max with real estate investments, but there are still lots of individuals who are in prime financial positions and poised to take advantage of another event like this–not the ones who need it most.

IMO, sadly, the ones who would benefit most from a crash or downturn may be the ones who are hurt most by the “side effects” (job losses, etc.) of another downturn–as they have been in the past.

Hoping for a “normalized” market without catastrophic events from which to create it, might produce a better standard of living for more people, but, since we’ve never trod these particular economic waters before, it’s hard to say exactly how it would/will all play out.

[Author]

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