[powayseller]

PD, steel does not bend or weaken at 800 degrees C. The fires were low temp, as evidenced by survivors, firefighter reports, and the black smoke. Hot fires burn yellow or orange, not black. I just gave you one quote from a UAL employee who was later fired. UAL did not give their offical version.

This seismograph shows seismic activity right before the WTC collapsed, and the activity prior to impact was much higher than the activity at impact, which was dispersed at the ground level. Witnesses report hearing several loud explosions just prior to the collapse, and that the ground shook.

The only molten steel was at the underground level, due to the high heat of the explosives used to detonate the building.

As far as taking weeks and weeks to set up the explosives, I have no idea how long it takes. The main explosives were underground. These explosives were recorded on the seismograph and heard by witnesses and firefighters.

PD, you still haven’t debunked the pancake theory and you can’t, because the explanation violates the laws of physics. I also just read that in a pancaking, debris is thrown outward. When the mass from above collapes, then the debris underneath is forced sideways, out. But this entire building collapsed neatly into a pile.

The only question I have, if indeed this is a demolition, why did it start from the top floors? Don’t demolitions start from the bottom and go up?

Why hasn’t the government released the report on the WTC7 collapse?

[powayseller]

jg, it seems like median lags by 1.5 years. Prices started softening in the low end the in the late spring/summer of 2004, as inventory doubled over just 6 months, at the same time that sales were falling. To me, that is the offical peak. Lower end properties were taking longer to sell, and prices were starting to drop. That worked its way up to SFR which peaked in summer 05. The median price peaked in November 05, 6 months after the SFR home prices peaked and 18 months after the slowdown started.

While some home prices are down 15-20%, and others are flat I guess (from what some on this board are writing), the median is down only 5%.

So does anyone think in aggregate, the homes in San Diego are down only 5%?

Supposedly Case-Shiller is even more accurate, because it compares sales of the SAME SFR over time. His data shows San Diego prices are down only .98%.

The median is down more than Case-Shiller probably because more lower end homes are selling. Neither tells us what is going on. They lag by 1-2 years.

[powayseller]

Bill Manning, Fire Engineering’s Editor in Chief is calling for a full and unbiased investigation into the cause of the WTC collapse.

He writes, “The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers.”

[powayseller]

Thanks for the interesting comments,pd, bgates and salo_t. I look forward to you responding further. I can’t believe I had never heard of this theory before this week. I also don’t have any idea who would have planned this. Maybe the terrorists put the bombs in the building as a backup plan, in case the plane didn’t make them go down. And the politicians just allowed it to happen.

Kevin Ryan of Underwriters Laboratories, the company that certified the steel used in the WTCs, wrote this letter to NIST.

He writes “the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of “experts” making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). ….

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all. ”

Kevin Ryan was fired.

Hot fires are aglow, like the Windsor fire in the photo above. They are bright yellow. Cool fires are black, because combustion is incomplete. The WTC fires were under 500 degrees Celsius. I am most troubled by the fire theory because it does not add up. Where is the fireball burning for days on end? A low temp fire burning for one hour can not destroy such a strong building as the WTC.

Remember that the WTC was very strong. It swayed in the wind, and the people on the top floor often got motion sick. If any impact could topple it, the thing would have fallen over, not straight down.

Further problems with the theory that the fire melted steel enough to cause a structural failure is:

1) kerose burns at 140 degrees, not hot enough to melt steel. Keep in mind the difference between temperature and heat. Putting 4 logs in a fire raises the amount of heat, but not the temperature. Likewise, the kerosene fuel from the airplane did not raise the temperature of the fire but spread the heat to a larger area. Still, the temperature was not nearly hot enough to compromise the steel.

“No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel. In point of fact, most of the fuel in the jets was contained in their wing tanks. The thin aluminum of the tanks was pierced or stripped as the airplanes penetrated the walls of the towers, and the result was the huge fireball which was seen on national TV, where most of this fuel was burned.”

2) the 2nd tower was hit by a plane which lost half its fuel, so there was only half the jet fuel as in the first tower. Yet it was the first tower to fall (“The Wrong Tower Fell First”)

3) other stell towers in the world burned for several days and did not fall, yet this one fell in less than one hour; the heat generated from kerosene and burning office equipment is not hot enough to melt steel in one hour; the Windsor building fire was 800 degrees C, so you can see the amount of flames that are generated by a fire of such a high temperature. The WTC fire was just a baby fire compared to that, much shorter, not as hot according to firefighter accounts and also the photos.

4) firefighters report only small isolated fires

5) I saw only soot (evidence of low heat fires) and lots of smoke, but nothing like the inferno of the Windsor fire in the photo above

6) there are too many survivors at the level of the plane impact. No way could all those people have survived if the plane hit at the alleged 800 degree Celsius. 20 minutes after impact, employees on floors 93-93 were evacuating. This was possible because the kerose burnt off quickly, some was dropped outside upon impact to the building, and the fires in the building were small, isolated, and of low temperature.

Physics laws are violated in the offical pancaking explanation, because the building collapsed at the speed of gravity, of free fall. Pancaking is not possible at the speed of gravity, because the resistance of the lower floors, where fire had not done any damage, would have slowed the fall. So it is against the laws of physics that pancaking can occur at the speed of gravity. So either the building did not pancake, or it took longer to fall than the data and eyewitness and video accounts.

Although the WTC was designed to withstand the impact of a smaller jet, this larger jet could have shook the foundation of the building, causing it to sway and crash. Yet that is not how the building came down. The fire story is just too far fetched, especially when the firefighters who were in the building tell us that the fires were small and isolated. One photo of a woman standing near the opening of the WTC shows only black smoke. Where is the large fireball that supposedly melted steel?

Then there’s the 9/11 ABC 20/20 interview with Rudi Giuliani, where he says he was told to get out of the towers because they would collapse. No tower had ever collapsed before due to heat, so why would anyone even say that?

It’s possible that the terrorists also placed bombs inside the building, so the impact of planes started the demolition process.

[powayseller]

My husband was just telling me that there is no conspiracy, that even Bin Laden came out and admitted he had done it. I read him your post, but he said I should keep looking for more information until I find the admission.

He also said why would the government do this? What do they have to gain? He doesn’t want to believe anyone could do such a thing. Frankly, neither do I.

[powayseller]

In the last downturn, Riverside’s median dropped over twice as much as San Diego’s. I think Riverside is going to be seriously crushed for those exact reasons you mention.

When I asked tenant attorney Steven Kellman in San Diego about foreclosure/eviction of a tenant, he said that if a bank takes over the house, they can kick me out. Unless the owner refinanced after the lease was signed so that the lease predates the refinance and the bank’s rights are secondary.

[powayseller]

bgates, I got the idea for this thread from this real estate website . Scroll down, and look at the left column. That’s where the WTC stuff is posted.

To be honest, I was hoping some of the smart people here could explain away all the problems with the offical story.

[powayseller]

Head in the sand refers to anyone dismissing an idea without studying it first. PD did not address any of the questions; she simply said it could never have happened. Head in the sand.

Explain how the center columns could collapse, and why the fire in the photo above, which was much stronger and longer lasting than the WTC fires, did not destroy that building.

It worries me that patriotism is being replaced by idolatry of elected officials.

[powayseller]

bgates, you raise an excellent point. Do you really think the government is behind every single crime? That’s taking it a little far, is it not? Still, I’m not convinced the government did this. And if they did, then *who*, and what would be a patriotic action? Perhaps educating others is a first step.

PD, this quote from President Roosevelt is for you, defining patriotism. I think many Americans have confused loyalty to elected officials as patriotism. It is like the church goer who thinks that being godly means being passive and a doormat, never making waves. Jesus made lots of waves, and our founding fathers were courageous and rebellious. They would never had defended an unjust war, never.

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else” –

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

[powayseller]

My friend, who told me about this theory, easily refuts the NIST report as total bullshit. PD, get your head out of the sand and at least watch a video about 9/11 and then decide what you think happened. Total compliance to the government is unpatriotic. True patriots protect their country, think independently, and march against wrongs. Remember the Boston Tea Party? Does anyone in this country even have the guts anymore that the founders had, or are we turning into compliant followers? Our founders rebelled against their government. If they had not, we’d still be ruled by England. It’s sad that this courage has been dismissed as unpatriotic. Is it so hard to believe that the people who gave us the housing bubble and Iraq war are capable of cover-ups? Greenspan telling people in 2004 to get ARMs? That doesn’t sound like a benevolent government to me. So it’s natural, as I’m peeling back the layers of housing bubbles, to question what else they are up to.

Copied below is his e-mail response

The biggest weakness of the “buckling” theory is why the center column collapsed.

The center column was EXTREMELY strong – it was the main support structure of the buildings. You can read lots about this if you search Google. It was actually a very unique design – these center columns were STRONG.

If it is true that the trusses weakened due to heating, and buckled, OK, so the floor would detach from the center column and collapse down to the floor below it.

But why would the floors about it collapse????? They are still connected to the center support columns.

And even if they did somehow magically collapse AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT as the floors below – WHY DID THE CENTER COLUMN COLLAPSE? I can see the floors collapsing around the center column, and the center column remaining standing at the end – which it easily could, it was extremely strong, basically all dense steel and concrete, holding up almost the entire weight of the buildings – but if you look at the final pictures, and those videos, there is NOTHING left of the center column at the end. Not even 10 feet sticking up above the ground.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CENTER COLUMN, NIST LIARS???

The NIST report does adequately refute some of the less sanguine “conspiracy theories”, but it doesn’t at all dispell the fundamental argument that it was a controlled demolition which the government – in this case, NIST – is covering up.

Just one example – FAQ 6. Of course the above floors were heavy enough to cause the lower floors to collapse – but they say the lower floors were so weak that they did not even slow down the upper floors (as if they were in free fall).

This ignores two fundamental principles of physics – the law of inertia and the law of energy conservation. When the buildings were collapsing, all of the concrete – of which there were endless tons, you can research if you like – was pulverized and turned into dust. This required a tremendous amount of energy. This energy had to come from the force of the building collapsing. Hence, some (a great deal) of that force was exhausted in crushing the cement and spewing it hundreds of years off to the side. Obviously this is not enough to stop the collapse – but independent investigators have confirmed it *is* enough to *slow* the collapse.

Second is the law of inertia. Each floor below (each of which was quite heavy) was at rest. The combined weight of the floors below, in fact, greatly exceeded the combined weight of the top floors. Each of these lower floors had to be started from a state of non-motion – i.e. the upper floors had to overcome the laws of inertia.

Again, this would not be enough force to stop the top floors from collapsing – but it would definitely *slow them down”.

As the report itself admits, both towers fell at the rate of free fall – if you dropped a bowling ball from the top of the building at the time the collapse started, it would have hit the ground at the exact same time as the top of the building.

Think about it. Would the bowling ball not have been slowed down, if at each step along the way, there was a suspended bowling ball it had to bring down with it (imagine the other balls were *barely* suspended, so that any amount of energy would break them.

Number 7. They say the steel trusses buckled due to insulation being blown off by the impact. This also is total bullshit.

Yes, steel softens when it reaches 1000 degrees. But in their own simulations, the buildings did not collapse under this scenario, until they “fudged” their simulation enough to force the collapse.

Second, there is no evidence the insulation was blown off, apart from their assertion, that I can find.

Third, it is true that hydrocarbons can burn at 1000 degrees but that is under optimal simulations – when there is enough oxygen (e.g., a blue flame on a stove, or a blast furnace, called blast b/c air is blasted onto the fire to keep the oxygen supply high). When there is a lot of smoke, it is obvious that the fire is oxygen starved and not burning nearly as hot.

In the WTCs, the fuel would have burned away in a few minutes. The second building impacted (which collapsed first) is the best example – almost all the fuel was burned off outside the building right after impact. Aside from that Kerosene evaporates quickly at room temperature. You can do your own experiment – spill a gallon of kerosene on the ground, light it, and see how long it burns. Maybe a few minutes, that’s it.

But the buildings collapsed over an hour after impact. If the steel beams somehow (impossibly) did get really hot from the kerosene, they would have cooled by then.

If you look at pictures of the buildings, there was hardly any fires – small, isolated ones. Compare these fire pictures of the WTC w/ the Spanish Windsor building fire that burned several years later, but did not collapse:

WTC fires: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/fires/severity.html
Other buildings: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

Look at these pictures and tell me, which fire was high and hot enough, to heat steel to 1000 degrees.

Finally, steel has a remarkable ability to transfer heat. E.g., if you heat one part of steel, the heat travels down the steel quickly. That is why when people forge (unhardened) steel, they use tongs to grab the steel. The WTCs had countless tons of steel, all connected. Any heat being applied to the steel beams, would have been transferred through the building quickly.

In terms of all those scientists – keep in mind the problem of “group think”. They are all told this is how the building collapsed, now substantiate it. Everyone knows that to question it, is to accuse their government of complicity in the crime. Who will do that? How do we know they didn’t try, and were threatened one way or another? How were these scientists selected – b/c they tend to “go with the flow” or for their renowned critical analysis and whistleblowing? Did they have to sign confidentiality papers? Why have none of these scientists publish independent reports?

Why did the lead demolition expert in the US, when he saw the buildings collapse, exclaim it was a controlled demolition, only to retract his story days later after the CIA visited him? Was he told this is a question of national security?

BTW – here is a thesis of how the gov’t managed to shut these scientists up. (And this is the backup story if the demolition theory is finally validated in the public arena, which it eventually will be.) They will claim: they were afraid the building would collapse. If it did, it would not collapse straight down, and knock nearby buildings over. These buildings were still filled with people. Therefor, they had to bring the WTCs down to save the neighboring buildings. They cannot say this publicly b/c people would not understand, people are emotional – but we are the gov’t, we were acting to protect people. That is the backup lie.

BTW, one of these links has a nice picture of the Windsor building burning (it burned for almost 2 days) in Spain in 2005 or so – the building did not collapse despite the obviously much greater fire (in contrast the WTC fires were minor, you can see people standing in the hole where the airplane entered, firefighters were saying there were only “isolated pockets” of fire, and there was only thick black smoke coming from the building, up until it collapsed):
[img_assist|nid=2262|title=Windsor building, Spain, Building did not collapse|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=345|height=500]

This building has a similar design to the WTC, but despite the much greater fire, did not collapse.

So there are so many unanswered questions, that I am really unsure what happened.

4plexowner really nailed it: why were the remains of the building not studied, and so quickly hustled off to recyclers? Why was Osama bin Laden immediately named as a suspect, without any investigation? Those 2 questions make me suspect of the official government version. Why no whistleblowers? Well, why didn’t the cigarette companies or Enron have whistleblowers? For decades, we were told cigarettes are safe, even though hundreds or thousands of insiders knew otherwise.

[powayseller]

surveyor, I have gained immsense respect for your logical, professional, and respectful way of communicating. I don’t have any experience in real estate investing, so I wouldn’t know the first thing about buying properties during a national downturn. However, if you do, all the best wishes for you.

[powayseller]

My logic is sequential. Feedback loops exist only as bubbles build and pop, but not at turning points.

First we had a positive feedback loop as rising prices led to higher sales, as people were afraid of being priced out or anxious to ride the wave to the top.

After prices got too high for first time buyers, the cycle stalled, inventory built up, and prices came down.

This downward price movement is scaring more people off, and the negative feedback loop has begun.

So we’ve got feedback loops that work to a climax on the upside, and to a complete devastation on the downside.

[powayseller]

qwerty, I disagree with each of your points, but don’t feel the need to repeat myself. Got a 2 year lease, got earthquake insurance…

[powayseller]

I believe real estate is a risky investment right now. I put more credence in John Talbott than that money article. Their past surveys/projections were absolute jokes.

I hope your commercial properties continue to cash flow when the vacancy rate increases in the next downturn. I hope that your tenants have businesses that sustain them well.

Commercial lags residential so from my perspective you are heavily exposed to a declining market with those commercial properties. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take, anywhere in the US, heading into a recession.

[powayseller]

So that’s what they meant with eliminating the carry trade? Wow, thanks for the graph.

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