More on Case-Shiller: For the 3rd consecutive month, all 20 tracked cities posted monthly price...

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Amadon Comments (163)
 
How wonderful. Almost a 4% gain in two months from May to July. That works out to be a 24% yearly increase. If this continues I will be a millionaire soon. And they said printing money wouldn’t work.
25 Sep 2012, 11:45 AM Reply Like

jhooper Comments (4673)
 
It all depends on what you mean by "work". If work is intended to help everyone that lost their job due to the popping of a gov created asset bubble, then, no it doesn't work. If you mean that it will transfer even more wealth from your impoverished neighbors to you to improve your assets values, then yes, it does work. It has been working this way for hundreds of years.
25 Sep 2012, 11:50 AM Reply Like

Amadon Comments (163)
 
This imaginary money stuff is great. I don't know why they don't just print up about a trillion more and pay China off. It would save us a ton of interest payments. Might be a good idea to give them an extra trillion or so as pre-payment for more of their wonderful widgets while we are about it. Then we could print up a few trillion more to repair and replace our ageing infrastructure and jump-start our economy. I would also like to see them fund a colony on the moon like Newt was talking about. We really need to get on with our search for intelligent life in the universe so that we can educate others about our discovery of unlimited imaginary money.
25 Sep 2012, 12:05 PM Reply Like

jhooper Comments (4673)
 
This was the mistake Tom Hanks made in the movie Castaway. When he first washed up on the island, the first things he did was to look for food, fire, and shelter. He wasted his time producing things. What he need to do was start his own central bank, and issue himself CB bank notes, which he could have just recorded as an accounting entry on the back side of a rock. Then he could have used all those notes to provide himself with free healthcare, infrastructure, food, and shelter.

To top it all off he was fully employed, there were no immigrants to take his job, he had the ultimate in trade barriers, and he owned all the wealth. Throw in his new central bank, and there would be no reason to risk his life to leave such a paradise. He would show to the world that production and physics don't matter. All that matters is having CB notes to stimulate his demand.
25 Sep 2012, 12:16 PM Reply Like

Amadon Comments (163)
 
Bingo! You are so right sir; No need to worry. All the central banks need to do is repeal the Law of Diminishing Returns and they are on track to do just that. The problem has been slowing world economy growth due to declining EROEI which causes the price of any limited commodity to increase as consumption of that commodity grows. Fortunately this can be overcome because the central banks have a devise which can produce money in unlimited, infinite quantities. Therefore the price of commodities no longer matter. As we all know cheap and easy money also stimulates business and economic growth. All of the major economies are in the right direction as they approach 0% interest rate. What we really need is negative interest rates to spur growth and prime the pump. In other words the more you borrow the more you make. We can solve the worlds poverty problems by allowing poor people to go to the front of the line to borrow money at negative interest rates and thereby increase the consumer base for the products we will be producing now that the Law of Diminishing Returns has been repealed. Please notice that the increased consumption will also solve the employment problem. We are entering into a wonderful new world now that the Law of Diminishing returns has been repealed.

I think it may be time for us to look into genetic engineering to see if we can grow wings. It would solve many problems associated with transportation, like gas prices.
25 Sep 2012, 12:25 PM Reply Like

jhooper Comments (4673)
 
"for the products we will be producing now that the Law of Diminishing Returns has been repealed."

Not to mention the new paradigm that the people working to produce this products will also now be willing to do it for no compensation, and they will even know what to produce even though nature's pricing mechanisms have been eliminated since they no longer receive any compensation.

Heck, we may as well just declare that everyone now has a genie in a bottle, and the genie will provide everything they need. Anyone that doesn't use the genie or complains that their genie isn't working will first be demagogued, and if that doesn't work, they will be shot.
25 Sep 2012, 12:40 PM Reply Like

American in Paris Comments (4698)
 
You're wrong. A healthy housing market is crucial to spur construction and raise household net worth. In turn higher net work will spur consumer spending.
25 Sep 2012, 06:23 PM Reply Like

designshoe Comments (358)
 
agreed. the middleclass has most of it's wealth in their home equity ( or lack thereof) only the ELITE is enjoy the stock market gains
26 Sep 2012, 12:38 AM Reply Like

Poor Texan Comments (3490)
 
Yes but we don't have inflation. All these price increases are imaginary. :-(
25 Sep 2012, 12:25 PM Reply Like

Amadon Comments (163)
 
I am so thankful to be alive during these historic times. I was born in 1937 so I was too young to fully appreciate the great depression. To make matters worse my whole family and community were dirt poor farmers and because we had no electricity, tv, radio, indoor plumbing and such, so we never found out there was a great depression going on until many years after it was over. I have always looked with envy on those who lived through the exciting times of the French Revolution and the hyper-inflation of Germany. I know that there have been many episodes of financial collapse throughout history but I feel sure that the central bankers have learned from the mistakes of the past. Dr. B. is after all a student of these kind of calamities.
http://bit.ly/NturHC
25 Sep 2012, 01:07 PM Reply Like

jhooper Comments (4673)
 
Apparently not, as the idea of a central bank is based on a false premise. It truly is a genie in a bottle. The only way to grow an economy, and provide lights, electricity, etc is with new production knowledge. New production knowledge comes via learning, and learning comes from paying for mistakes (nature's pricing mechanism). A central bank draws its creation from gov force. Access to force means you don't have to learn from mistakes. This is why a thief uses a gun. The thief doesn't want to learn about production. Its hard work.

Central bankers will continually keep making the same mistakes, not because they are evil, but because they are structurally flawed. Central bankers draw their foundation from gov force, thus they are blind to prices. They have no choice but to keep making mistakes. All they can do is transfer wealth. They can't create it. They only way they could create and thus make the society have a higher standard of living is to have production knowledge that the society does not currently have. If they had such knowledge, and were indeed withholding that knowledge, then that would make them villians of the highest order (not to mention entirely stupid).

Now really, what has changed in the basic premise in 300 hundred years. If they can't learn anything in 300 hundred years, what makes you think they are ever going to learn.

http://bit.ly/uRnDRv
25 Sep 2012, 02:07 PM Reply Like

sportsguy Comments (129)
 
The house pricing data is most likely influenced by investors, who either have the money or who have access to the money, to buy rental properties, versus home owners. So, what I don't understand is if the Case Schiller index discriminates between institutional buyers and home buyers. Otherwise, with zero equity upon sale, unless there is alot of savings, there is no post sale downpayment to upsize or move laterally for a new job, so curiosity, how many home buyers are downsizing versus upsizing versus new buyers. .

upsizing and new buyers would be encouraging, downsizing and lots of institutional money would be not as rosy.

sportsguy
25 Sep 2012, 05:24 PM Reply Like

Poor Texan Comments (3490)
 
In speaking to a friend of mine in real estate, she noted that the majority of sales at her firm were investors, paying cash removed from the stock market, and turning these into rental properties. Apocryphal, but now you've heard it from another source.
25 Sep 2012, 05:31 PM Reply Like

designshoe Comments (358)
 
sportsguy, I agree w/ you.
it seems like traditional income investors are buying local REO's with all cash offers in order to become landlords. this only moves money out of bonds and into housing, while only modestly improves the local economy, since at the very least the trashed foreclosure needs improvement and the investor need to hire repairmen thereby creat'g a few jobs this way.
26 Sep 2012, 06:58 AM Reply Like

designshoe Comments (358)
 
personally I still think owning a portfolio of stocks of well run companies is much better than owning rental properties, in todays markets. much higher returns with less headaches
26 Sep 2012, 07:00 AM Reply Like

brachiosaurus Comments (232)
 
Fake data invented by cronies of obummer
26 Sep 2012, 05:17 AM Reply Like