[sdduuuude]

“Ultimately, our response says everything about our intelligence and character.”

Well said.

[sdduuuude]

“unprovoked criticism”

I think you asked the wrong question of your life coach. In a way, it is provoked. You are posting to a public forum and dishing out advice. If you get it wrong, I consider it a provocation because alot of people look to you for advice.

It isn’t like you are walking down the street and some moron is lauging at your hair or telling you to get a boob job. That is the kid of unprovoked criticism your life coach is talking about.

I know you feel our criticism is as such, but it really isn’t.

Second, the people criticising you are very intelligent, all around. If I were a life coach, I would suggest that when so many smart people criticize your public comments in unison over and over again, listen and consider that they may be right.

On a more personal level, powayseller, I really think you shoot yourself in the foot when you spin these articles incorrectly. If you want to be respected, you will stop it, and more importantly stop defending it. The people here pointing out issues like this could be helping you, if only you would stop and listen and absorb the criticism.

Before dismissing it as meanness from unintelligent people, stop and think. Learn. Some of these people are smarter than you and I suspect a couple of them could have lunch with Robini and teach him a thing or two.

Lastly, I don’t necessarily criticize you to convince you to change your ways. I criticize you for two other reasons also 1) To let new readers and lurkers know this is not a “yell bubble without thinking” forum and 2) to help ensure that others reading your posts don’t believe it blindly.

People have a tendency to perceive those who talk alot as being more intelligent than those who talk less, and on this forum you talk alot. I just want to make sure the average reader out there sees the other side of your post and realize when you jumped to a conclusions.

I want others to see the housing bubble in reality, not in the (slightly) over-blown sense with which you portray it. If you can’t handle people picking apart your every word, this is the wrong place for you.

I think Cagan’s paper is not clear and thus not very useful. If you have an outdoor party coming up and you are concerned about the rain, and someone comes to you and says “you are at risk of getting rained on”. You would say “give me the CHANCE of rain, using a number” to make it more clear what they meant by “at risk.”

I think you sensed this problem so you tried to put a number to it and made a bad assumption – but I think Cagan should have put that number in, not you.

To bring it back to the topic of this thread:

Be careful saying “peace” then implying I am less intelligent in a back-handed sort of way. That is exactly the kind of personal slam that you were trying to avoid in the title of this thread, isn’t it?

Your life coach probably would have suggested you leave that bit out of the post because it wasn’t “being nice”. I mean – the life coach says “be nice” and you do exactly what she told you not to do and say we lack the intelligence to debate. Amazing.

In summary – when we hammer on powayseller, lets stick to the analysis and avoid the snide remarks. But by all means – hammer away.

[sdduuuude]

sdr – Fair enough.

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sdrealtor said:
“How many of you out there would be happy buying a home at 20% off current prices at the bottom of the market? ”

sdrealtor – I don’t care how much it has fallen off. If it is truly the bottom of the market, I’d like to buy because I look to the future when making investments, not the past.

sdrealtor said:
“If we asssume prices are already down 10% off the peak”

I’d just like to point out I think my Clairemont neighborhood has been pretty flat for the last year. I did looked at Zillow and ran some comps on the house I sold last year and it hasn’t really budged more than a couple percent.

I hear alot of the North County folk talk about 10% decreases so far, which I can’t dispute, but it is interesting that I don’t see that in my neighborhood – yet.

[sdduuuude]

I’m trying to find a state in the upper left hand corner that I’d want to live in and can’t seem to find one.

[sdduuuude]

Expected and at risk are completely different. Sadly, the term “at risk” is pretty vauge. “At risk” means there is some chance of success and some chance of failure. In this article that chance is never stated.

My issue with Powayseller is the way she turned a vauge statement into a very specific number. We don’t know how “at risk” those loans are yet Powayseller assumed they were at 100% risk.

Why assume %100 risk, then state it as fact, when the level of risk is simply not stated anywhere? That is the kind of bothersome powayseller conclusion jump that is so common in her posts.

sdrebear – you quote the definition, which uses the word “certain”. Then you claimed it doesn’t really mean certain. Not sure I follow you there.

Expect can also be an expected value, in probablilistic terms, which is different from those items at risk.

For example, one might consider 10% of the loans at 50-50 risk of defaulting, which results in an an expected value of 5% defaults. Powayseller is applying the expected value to the items at risk, which is incorrect, unless the risk is 100%.

[sdduuuude]

“Just to clarify, are you holding me to a higher standard than Nouriel Roubini or Barry Ritholtz? ”

No. They are professionals, who use massive amounts of data, and undoubtedly create large spreadsheet and/or database models to perform complicated analyses and reach insightful conclusions. You don’t even open Excel.

Problem is – I hold you to the same standards as them, and other world-class analysts (not economists) that I know personally, and you don’t stack up. Not even on the same planet as stacking up.

Just because you read Robini doesn’t mean you are Robini.

I appreciate it when you post interesting articles, I really do. But when you spin them improperly, it is very bothersome and erodes your value to this forum.

And I agree with woodrow’s evaluation of your inappropriate use of the word “expected”.

[sdduuuude]

I must admit, I’m pretty annoyed at the off-topic religious discussion in this thread.

[sdduuuude]

I edited a post (changed “qualitative” to “quantitative”) and it moved it from its original location to the end. How annoying.

[sdduuuude]

Powayseller kinda sorta does have a point here, but she also needs to realize that people regularly present very good arguments against her points and she chooses to not listen quite often.

This choice – on her part – tends to bring in more personal comments than are acceptable.

But – to her point, when people are presenting such points, there are often little personal barbs attached to them.

The issue is exacerbated by the fact that powayseller doesn’t take the time to listen and learn from the points against her arguments, she only sees the personal barbs and reacts to those, with the assumption that any argument with personal attacks cannot possibly be a valid analytical argument.

Then, we just have a mess. We have some people pointing out how closed-minded she is, some people pointing out a problem with her analysis and some people pointing out how she is reacting to the personal comments.

Take This thread for example. The complaint was simple – that she spun the article into a title which was very mirepresentative of a) reality and b) the quanitative (corrected) intent of the article.

Powayseller’s best response would have been:
“Yes – I understand what you mean. I took the words ‘at risk’ to mean ‘100% chance of foreclosure’ when in fact ‘at risk’ means some chance of foreclosure, maybe around 10% so my title is a little too aggressive.”

Wow. That would have been impressive, but she couldn’t pull it off. Instead she defended the major blunder of her title. Why? I have no idea. Was it the personal comment by Daniel? Perhaps.

Fact of the matter is – woodrow did a great job of pointing out that powayseller’s title misrepresented the article, and didn’t attack powayseller personally. Powayseller did a crappy job of defending herself against woodrow, and instead started this post, complaining about personal attacks

Personally, I think she now has a bad reputation for jumping to conclusions, and spinning articles inappropriately, and defending the wrong argument. She only continues to dig herself deeper into this reputation and I will glady help her dig by pointing out the error of her ways. I’m glad woodrow is helping.

Every once in a while she makes a good point, but those are now lost because, in what appears to be a personal crusade to show everyone she is the most brilliant person on the forum, she regularly discloses that she does not present clear, organized arguments.

I’m sure she is very nice and I try to stick to the topic, but like it or not, her reputation is going to start becoming more and more a part of the arguments against powayseller because of her personality.

I must say – I take issue with her analysis and conclusions on a regular basis. She can complain about personal comments after she appropriately defends the analytical ones.

[sdduuuude]

I have no issues with it either – it is usually very useful research.

[sdduuuude]

Perry Chase wrote:
“I think that powayseller has super analytical skills and a great feel of where the market is heading. ”

You, Perry Chase, have been fooled, my friend. She has great research skills. She finds things others have done and presents them. She is best when she presents them without comment, and worst when she tries to add her own insight.

Her blunt delivery would not pose a problems to me if only she were a better analyst.

[sdduuuude]

Just to clarify – if you say someone is a consistently bad analyst, is that criticizing the person or the analysis?

[sdduuuude]

My advice:

Date 35 year olds when you are 18. Date people the same age as you in your late 20s and, if you aren’t married or interested in getting married, date 18 year olds when you are 35.

It all works out financially and otherwise.

[sdduuuude]

Thanks.

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