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powayseller
ParticipantPD, logic doesn’t mean much when emotions run high. Whether the emotion is about housing never going down, the importance of our military, or the insured stratospheric growth of China, you cannot convince people otherwise.I am trying my hardest to make the point that China is not a place to put your money for guaranteed appreciation. But the China bull reading this, will not be swayed.
The China bulls would say that as we buy less, the Chinese consumer is going to buy more.
I know our imports the last 2 months were less than expected, and I can’t wait to see a report about recent Chinese export activity and economic activity. I know they keep this all secret,but they’ve got to be concerned about the slower pace of orders.
For example, Ethan Allen, car dealers, Home Depot, are experiencing slowing sales. Their June orders from China are going to be down. What the heck is China going to do? Their factories are cranking at full capacity. Are they going to lay off people? Cut prices? They are already facing slower orders.
Within a couple months, China’s orders from Korea, Taiwan, and the other export-dependent countries from which China buys, will slow down.
On an unrelated note, look for the 30-year bond yield to go up, as demand for them decreases. China will buy fewer Treasury notes at our future auctions.
The reason: as the US consumer loses its equity-withdrawal power, we cut back on spending on Asian goods, sending fewer dollars to China. China has fewer dollars to offload in purchasing US assets. You will see the long-term yields rise. But don’t look for this in any media reports or economics texts. You get this exclusive only from an economics-obsessed housewife who gets her thrills exposing economists whose heads are stuck in the sand . Oops – better be careful with the imagery, in case some future employer reads this.
(Do you know that employers, before hiring, google your name and find out everything about you on the Web?)ParticipantChris, if gold went down during some of the largest stock declines in history, then that is a correlation.
Gold doesn’t have to move with the stock market every time, but it does so at least sometimes.
This shows that gold is not the save haven that people like to say. I can’t tell you how sick I am of reading that gold when up because investors sought the safe haven of gold in response to this or that. Usually the story is the market is fearful of inflation or falling stocks, so they hide in gold.
For this relationship to hold true, it must always be counted on. Well, last week it wasn’t.
Investors/speculators dumped stocks AND gold.
Even though inflation is up, and Bennie said it was too high for comfort, gold went down.
All this tell me that nobody really knows what makes short term moves in gold.
ParticipantI’m glad the units are so cheap. He and his investing partner could lose about half, so I’d say $70K each if they go through with the deal, or $5K each if they bail out. So nothing to put them into bankruptcy at least. That’s very good news, thanks so much for the info.
ParticipantPD, now I understand why you are attacking me. Your husband is in the military. Therefore, nothing I say can influence your thinking.
However, while I asked a lot of questions, you attacked my intelligence. You say I am a denialist, that I did not read your posts, I glossed over regrettable fact, I denigrate this country, the blindness of my post.
The problem comes when people are so emotionally invested in supporting the military that they attack anyone who disagrees with them. Free speech? Perhaps, but at the cost of being labeled blind and denigrating?
I said I love this country, but not the foreign policy. Our foreign policy is despised all over the world. Have you any idea why? It’s the war mongering mentality, the constant meddling. Have you read Overthrow? Then you will realize the negative consequences of US meddling in foreign affairs.
Because of my disapproval of the military actions, you want me to return to Berlin. I’ve never even been to Berlin. Why should I go there now?
Should everyone who disagrees with you go back to their home country? Should all blacks who don’t like war go back to Africa? Isn’t it called free speech to say your mind?
Should all protesters return to their countries, too? My husband hates the Iraq war also, and his ancestors are from Norway. Perhaps he should go to Norway after he drops me off in Berlin?
You say I ignore the atrocities of the German people. Huh??? You lost me there.
I find that pro-war people attack anti-war people as being unpatriotic. Why is war patriotic? Can someone be patriotic and despise war and the military cause?
I can understand that your husband did not want to go to Iraq. Does he have the freedom to resist? Or would he be court martialed? How much freedom does a military member have to question, or is blind adherence required? I don’t think it’s worth it for him to risk his life for Iraq. I hope you will not call me any more names, but he has a duty to ensure his safety so he can raise his kids. Iraq is not worth dying for. Bush would never send his own daughters there, I can guarantee that. At some point, the military personnel must stand up and say, “I love my country and I will defend it, but I refuse to engage in offensive hostile war for your misguided mission, Mr. Bush”.
I wish for your husband’s safety. I’m sorry if I agitate you. I just don’t see the point of all this weapon stuff. It’s all hostile offense, the way I see it.
Look, if Iraq and Iran are such a threat, why aren’t the allies concerned? Why doesn’t Russia care about Iran’s nuclear project? Why is China negotiating with them? It must be because Iran is speaking the truth: they are working on peaceful nuclear projects. If they weren’t, wouldn’t Germany, England, and their neighboring countries be in arms? Why is the US usually the first one to want a war? Why not a war in Nigeria? Don’t we have atrocities there?
PD, if you really want to make the world better, go and improve the economies of these oppressed nations. Their terrorists are a result of a lack of hope and opportunity. The US could divert the bomb-making money to economic opportunities. Build a coalition with them, teach them to farm, educate their kids, bring healthcare technologies. This is what I mean with love. I don’t mean you go and hug them all, although you could 🙂 I mean you go and help them, so they don’t want to come and hurt you. No nation goes to hunt down its allies! You figure out how to make every country your allly, either by needing you for trade, or for support (food, medicine, education). I know this is a different way to think, but the military could take this approach.
Please don’t think that you must support Bush’s ideas to love your country. It’s okay to not blindly follow him. Bush is evil. So is war. Just because Afghanis kill each other, doesn’t mean we must do it also. Aren’t we above that?
ParticipantMy drycleaner in Poway said he’s as busy as usual,but his uncles in Florida said business is WAY DOWN at all his stores. They say people start laundering their silk, and ironing their shirts themselves. He said in the last recession, his business was not affected. He must have meant the 2000 recession, bec. the guy is too young to have been in business in the 1980’s recession. Again, the 2000 recession was a capital spending recession. I knew several families whose breadwinner in the software industry was laid off for at least one year, but overall, consumer spending held up.
If Fl drycleaning business is down, we can expect the same here starting later this year.
ParticipantYes, I was referring to the past few years. Every time a foreclosure report comes out, we set a new record for this housing cycle.
ParticipantI have read everything you say about China, but just because they want their citizens to be as rich as us Westerners, won’t make them so. We are at the brink, if not already in, a major recession, and China is not in a position to ride out the effects, yet. In 5 years they will be, but today they have an export-dependent economy.
Becoming rich/industrialized requires trading with other countries, and having a population which can afford to buy these goods it trades. China cannot. Its citizens are too poor to trade or buy the products they make.
If becoming wealthy is as easy as producing things that your own people can buy, with money you print/provide, then every nation on earth would be rich. Becoming wealthy means that your citizens are paid enough to consume the things they make. China is a long way from that.
They also suffer from fraud, inflation, money supply growth that is unsustainable. Their M2 grows at 18% per year, the US at only 2%. Their inflation is about 8%, their GDP growth is 12%. They are out of control. Their banks hold mainly bad loans, and corruption is rampant. Their real estate bubble is as bad as ours. The government is trying to reign in the speculative excesses, but in my opinion, they make it worse by printing so much money.
Here is something nobody ever talks about. China is increasing its money supply at the rate of our trade deficit with them, because they print yuan to buy all those dollars we send, to prevent the renminbi from appreciating. They have a huge liquidity glut.
We are going to see another group of people lose money: those betting on China as the savior of the world economy. Don’t hold your breath, and stick away your checkbook. China is not ready to unleash from the US quite yet, and their fortune is tied to ours.
How will I know that China can sustain itself without the US? When I see China buy few Treasury notes, and when they let their currency float freely, they will have achieved true freedom.
Our next recession will take them along for the ride. And the commodities boom will go down, too.
Precious metals willbe the only safe haven, and I believe gold will jump to new heights. I am going to load up on gold next week, and euros. I think the euro has the chance as the world’s next reserve currency. Mainly because of the petroeuro bourse, and the economic strength of Europe. It has the bank stability.
China’s banking system is a mess, and the world economy will not allow China to provide a world currency until they get some stability. China is going great places, but it is still in baby stages. Not a mature adult yet.
The FED has no more games to play. They must choose between busting the dollar or busting housing. The dollar will lose either way.
ParticipantIs the owner waiting to relist? The 2 homes that were my competition in winter 05-06 are withdrawn from the market. One was listed 3 times, I think. It’s the house on Crestline in Poway.
Is the house vacant because the owner left town, part of the population exodus I keep mentioning, or is it owned by an investor whose renter moved out or was asked to leave so the home could be sold?
The one thing that isn’t talked about enough is the exodus of people leaving SD. Not leaving CA, but SD. With 44,000 people leaving the year ending June 05, would that be around 15,000 households vacated every year? Remember when people were coming here at the rate of 50,0000 per year? Now they are leaving at 50,000 per year. This creates rental and house vacancies.
ParticipantPD, what I see from history is that war kills people. I see that Switzerland is a prosperous country, with leading medical technologies, and high education, and they have no military at all.
I think we should have a military for defense, but everything we are doing these days is offense.
The US has not learned from its mistakes at all. I find this the saddest thing, and the one reason I have not obtained my US citizenship. I am still a German citizen, only because I disagree with the war-mongering and military emphasis of this country. The American people are too supportive of the military.
The military drains our economy, for it doesn’t produce anything. It wastes GDP, as does buying and selling homes to each other.
The courageous and bright men and women of the military could be more produtive making alternative fuels, than learning combat missions.
As far as defending our border to the South, you’ve got to be making a joke That border is a sieve. Osama bin Laden, when he comes back, will come through the Otay Mesa border.
I think it is good to go after Osama, but why invade an entire country? Rumsfeld is not as smart as people think – he miscalculated the insurgency, and did not send enough troops in the beginning. I’m not for the war, but he promoted it, and he executed poorly. He just checkerboarded the troops all over Iraq to respond to each insurgency outbreak, all the while strenghtening their resolve.
So you believe that others have a small military because they rely on the US when they need? Then please prove your point. When did the US defend the borders of Italy, Germany, Switzerland in response to an invasion on those countries? In recent history, when did anyone try to invade any of those countries? They learned from the world wars, and mind their own business. They do not want to repeat history by meddling in other countries’ foreign affairs.
Just remember that billions are made off war, by US corporations. They are eager for the war to continue.
But the military does not improve the standard of living. It siphons off resources from education social programs, research and development. Without the military, our taxes would be cut in half.
With a smaller and smarter military, I would feel safer. I think that we make enemies by our foreign policy. People like Osama are angry at our meddling in the Middle East, and their attacks are revenge on what we did before.
It’s best to just remain at peace with all nations. We need more negotiators, and fewer fighters, more R&D engineers and less combatants.
I find it ironic that Bush is kiling in the name of God, which is supposed to represent Love. He believes God wants him to fight the war.
PD, again I ask you if you are a military family, or from where comes your strong conviction of the military?
My beliefs just come from being against fighting and war, and a distrust of the reasons that our country goes to war. I constantly feel they lie to me. Iraq is another example. Our President said we need to find WMD, and that was the reason we went to Iraq. But after realizing they were not there, Bush did not apologize or withdraw. He kept on. So what was the real reason for Iraq war?
Bush’s tough-guy stance is primitive. Last month, Bush was still telling Iran that all options are on the table, hinting at nuclear options that could bust underground bunkers. Iran countered with threatening to cut off oil supplies. Fearful that oil disruptions would completely decimate our economy, the US promised that if Iran would stop nuclear production, they would eliminate a decades-old embargo, and would again sell airplanes to Iran. Iran has spent several days considering this proposal, and it shows promise.
So you see, you don’t need primitive cave man brute force, such as weapons and militaries to make deals. You can use your higher functions, your intellect, your productivity (airplanes) and resources (oil) to entice other nations to make deals. This is the way I think we should move toward.
A real foreign relations department will reduce military reliance, and be in the position that other countries want to stay on our good side because they desire our trade, our intelligent designs and products, patents, creativity, etc. This is the high road, and will guarantee prosperity and world peace through our intelligence, not our brute strength.
ParticipantPD, are you a military family, or why do you think we should spend 50% of our budget on defense?
Defending what?
Doesn’t Switzerland have anything to defend? Why don’t they even need a military?
Do we have foreign military in the US, as the US has in almost every other country? Do we have Japanese military, German military, Italian military on bases in the US, in California anywhere? Why not?
ParticipantPerryChase, it’s great to have your here, even more so because you are right on!! I’ve got the same saying: people need a license to cut hair, but anyone is allowed to have a child. I used to get so mad when I saw someone bottlefeeding, but I’m getting less judgmental.
I agree that our huge defense budget is stealing money from education. Unfortunately, my fellow Americans love their military. I’m puzzled why we don’t have marches every weekend against the war in Iraq and the military budget. Why do we need to be in almost every country in the world? What other nation has a military that big? What other nation even needs it? Why do we need to have such a big military, if we really are so nice? Shouldn’t everybody LOVE us?
Instead of thinking of paying for other people’s kids’ education, switch to realize you are paying to educate those whose paychecks will be taxed for your Medicare and social security. When they are working, they will pay you back, and the more educated the are, the more they can pay you in entitlements. They will discover the drugs that will heal you, improve cars to run on non-polluting fuels, etc.
My friend with horses said she didn’t think it was fair that the government provides a child tax credit, and not a horse tax credit, because her horses cost as much to feed as a child. I agree. I don’t know why the government subsidizes children. Or houses. Or any of the other things that it decides are useful.
Participantsdr – I find it in poor taste to display the names of a realtor’s clients on a blog. It also shows a lack of research skills and sexism to assume that a female putting down 20% on a home got the money from her rich dad. What if she got it from the sale of a prior home? Shouldn’t the realtor have access to that information?
The 80% figure comes from the NAR, I think. They found that when someone buys a home, 80% of the time, they saw it first on the internet. The rise of realtor.com and RE portals and their rise in traffic is proof.
equalizer – When I listed my home, I got a weekly e-mail from HelpUSell with the number of people who viewed my home on the web, along with the referring website, and some nice charts. I had about 200-300 hits/week. Pretty cool. I know of at least 2 people who came to see my house because they found it on the web. I didn’t ask the others. Your knowledge of RE is limited by your most recent experience. I speak regularly with several realtors and a loan officer, and I feel each conversation enlarges my understanding of what is happening. I disagree with your assessment completely, and stand by my story.
As I wrote before, Bob generates his leads completely off his website, where he gets potential buyers that sign up for his monthly newsletter. He attracts buyers who like his consulting style. I don’t know how they get to this website. Maybe the same way I found him?? Maybe the same way the housing industry analyst at Credit Suiss First Boston found him? (They call him for their San Diego updates.) Bob is a savvy businessman. He’s turned around divisions in companies in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. His savvy have led him to approach RE in this way, and he figured this out on his own.
I’m pretty sure that sdr is not jim the realtor. Jim has a love of data and analysis, and sdr is a schmoozer who acts off-the-cuff and skims the threads he responds to. Completely different personalities/skills.
ParticipantIn Arizona, school funding was always deemed unfair, because property taxes went to that school district, instead of being distributed by the state as in CA.
Still, the inequities persist. As sdrealtor pointed out, only the school districts with parents who can afford supplies and fundraisers, have the materials the kids really need.
Funding is still unfair, because it is INSUFFICIENT. For too long, our voters, most of whom have no kids, thought they don’t want to pay for the education of other people’s kids and voted down new taxes and other education reform. What these people fail to realize is that they need to educate the very people who social security contributions will support them in old age. With 20% of CAs not finishing high school, who will support them in old age? Who will make our economy? It is short sighted to covet money from kids’ education, just because of some resentment of other people’s kids. Even Thornberg scolds this view, and here I agree with him.
ParticipantThe MoneyCNN article?
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