[Rich Toscano]

[quote=paramount][quote=Rich Toscano]No, they are laughing because they think the shark just swam near the guy and scared him. When they realize he’s been bitten, the laughter comes to an abrupt halt.

Not even going to waste my time on the “native Californians are evil” nonsense.[/quote]

You’re right, a great white shark near a swimmer in the ocean is hilarious, just hilarious.

I can’t stop laughing…..![/quote]

I doubt you fooled anyone with this flailing attempt at misdirection.

I didn’t say I thought it was funny, as your comment would imply. I just pointed out the fact that the people on the video were laughing when they thought the guy was just scared, and stopped when they realized he’d actually been attacked.

I did this not to defend their sense of humor, or lack thereof, but because your original post incorrectly implied that they were knowingly laughing at someone being bitten by a shark.

[Rich Toscano]

No, they are laughing because they think the shark just swam near the guy and scared him. When they realize he’s been bitten, the laughter comes to an abrupt halt.

Not even going to waste my time on the “native Californians are evil” nonsense.

[Rich Toscano]

Great article…

[Rich Toscano]

FWIW, if home valuations (per http://piggington.com/shambling_towards_affordability_housing_valuations_surpass ) were to fall to their historical median over the course of a year, this would entail roughly a 10-15% decline in nominal prices (depending on what’s going on with incomes/rents at the time). That’s not a prediction; just putting it in perspective of current valuations.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=werdna]
Does this mean if last month’s trend continues absolute prices will level off or perhaps decline modestly? [/quote]

I think it’s reasonable to conclude that, yes. Prices are not that far from having leveled off as it is (by which I mean, they’ve been rising, but slowly). A flattening out is just not that different from what we are seeing now, and a modest decline (especially in the weak season) isn’t either, really.

But that’s IF last month’s trend continues… I don’t pretend to know whether that will happen or not.

[quote=werdna]
What would cause a significant decline in absolute prices (10% or more)? Is a major slow down in the larger economy a pre-requisite?[/quote]

An abrupt rise in rates could do it, for sure. We already have a real-world example of this happening. Prices were skyrocketing in the first half of 2013, then a 1% rate increase absolutely stopped that rise in its tracks. Prices flattened and even went a bit negative into the end of the year (see the redfin graph to the right for reference).

During the strong season this year, they’ve risen a bit (as rates have declined, no coincidence in my view) but nothing like last year.

Clearly, a sufficient rate rise could have a negative effect on pricing, as happened already.

Of course, a serious economic downturn could also push prices down. But I see the rate thing as the bigger risk. I think people are greatly underestimating how much artificially low rates have supported various aspects of the economy, including housing… which is all well and good until rates get back to normal. And as we saw last spring, despite widespread belief to the contrary, the Fed is not entirely in control of this process.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there I guess… to directly answer the question, no, I don’t think an economic downturn is a prerequisite. I believe that an abrupt normalization of rates could be sufficient to push down prices on its own.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=scaredyclassic]

http://io9.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276

google wine tasting is bullshit generally and this link to get to the study that blind tase testing experts cant even tell red from white with no visual cue.

i think i can tell abysmally spoiled wine from ok wine, and someotimes something tastes particularly good, but…probably i cant even tell that…[/quote]

I read that article a while back, the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The studies he cites suggest that a lot of the stuff wine reviewers say is nonsense, and that the palate can be influenced by a lot of things besides the taste of the wine — I totally agree with both. But he make this giant logical leap to draw sweeping conclusions, eg that it’s impossible to distinguish good from bad wine, which is just stupid. It’s not a good article, I’m sorry.

I will agree that for some people (maybe most people?), most wine tastes more or less the same. But your article assumes that’s the case for everyone, which is just isn’t. (BTW the article is clearly written by such a person). I don’t know what accounts for this difference. I have a really good sense of smell, I can always smell things other people can’t, so I’ve wondered if that’s it. But whatever the reason… the difference between what I perceive as a good wine and a non-good wine is just night and day.

[Rich Toscano]

Thanks for the tip, Cube… no I haven’t tried it but I will keep an eye out for it. I like Deschutes, generally speaking.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=scaredyclassic]im willing to agree that all wine tastes about the same[/quote]

That’s the nuttiest thing I’ve read on this blog since paramount’s NAMBLA comment…

For myself, I’ve grown tired of IPA… it’s like a hops arms race now. My favorite is “regular” pale ale, with some hops but not overpowered by them. Unfortunately (for me), IPA is all the rage right now and pale ale has become a lot less common in recent years.

[Rich Toscano]

Thanks Jazzman. I certainly with your concerns about “unhealthiness” in a lot of aspects of this economy.

[Rich Toscano]

Owning a home has no influence whatsoever on how I view things. The data is the data, and my home ownership status is completely irrelevant — it was when I was renting, and it is now that I’m an owner.

I’m sorry to be prickly about this. But I’ve put a ton of work into trying to objectively figure out the housing market and trying to help people understand what’s going on. I haven’t always been right but my efforts have always been honest and my mistakes were honest ones.

I know you didn’t mean anything by it Jazzman, so no worries — but since you mentioned it, I am just explaining why I push back so hard on the idea that whether I personally own or rent has anything to do with my analysis of the data.

Anyway, onto your question. There was definitely a point where any time I posted anything positive, I would get all kinds of pushback. It was more obvious when I posted about the economy. I used to do a monthly update on jobs for Voice of SD, and at one point, any time I posted on positive job growth, people would give me all kinds of crap. One time, someone actually posted a comment stating with complete certainty that someone had bribed me to write something positive about the economy. (Who would do such a thing — bribe someone to write a positive article about the job market in a small local nonprofit news site? Nice business model). This was probably 2009, maybe 2010. You couldn’t point out a single positive data point without getting jumped all over by the peanut gallery (even though it was not opinion, but actual data that anyone could look up).

As far as housing I don’t remember it being as obvious a shift, but it definitely got ridiculous. For instance, when I posted about how I bought my house, one commenter pointed out the flaw in my math as he saw it: I had failed to factor in a permanent 6% per year DECLINE in home prices for the foreseeable future! But generally, the over-bearishness on housing wasn’t as bad as with the economy in general.

[Rich Toscano]

Thanks, EconProf. Though I should admit, I’ve gotten plenty wrong too, for the record. 😉

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=zk]
Huh. That was just like when my wife’s family is over, and I’m listening but they’re speaking Chinese, and suddenly they all laugh.[/quote]

The difference being that Hatfield and I weren’t pointing and laughing at you in specific… 😉

[Rich Toscano]

Glad someone finally found a use for recursion…

[Rich Toscano]

afx, I didn’t know you were cog sci… are you running any LISP code on my server? 😉

Hatfield, I started out as Mechanical Engineering but I eventually realized that I found it boring. For an elective I took the Cog Sci intro class and I was totally fascinated by the topic. So, I changed my major to Cog Sci.

BTW for any youths reading this, I wouldn’t recommend doing that… switching to a major just bc you think it’s interesting. Unless you are going to go into academia in that topic. But otherwise, I’d recommend optimizing for career/job getting preparation vs. interestingness.

In my case it worked out ok. As you former cog sciers know, you can focus on any of 3 areas: psych, neuroscience, or AI/computer science. I focused on the latter, and took some Comp Sci dept courses (including the hated compilers!) to buff it up.

It definitely would have been easier to get a job with a proper CS degree, especially since I graduated into a weak job mkt in 1994. But I ended up getting something, and in the computer field, once you’ve gotten that first job it becomes all about competence, and not what piece of paper you have. So it worked out fine, but if I had a kid who wanted to get into programming, I would definitely recommend the straight CS program.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=scaredyclassic]2,000 unique visitors a day at one time. seems like a lot.[/quote]

I’ve helped a lot of people procrastinate over the years, that’s for sure.

[Author]

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