mallarde

Housing: Skip the Spin, Read the Data

Rents in the best parts of L.A. are dropping fast, too. We are seeing some capitulation, but apartments still do not rent. I expected rents to eventually stabilize and go up as more people looked to rent. It is not happening. Instead, renters are losing jobs/income and fewer can afford to pay premiums for fancy apartments.

Sorry Arnold, TARP Can't Be Used to Bail Out the Golden State

Cutting services to illegal aliens would save billions of dollars. Let's start talking about that in California.

Joel Kotkin: How California Can Prosper Again

As a taxpayer of this State who uses about zero government services -- apart from the most basic -- I can say that I have little interest spending my money to build schools and infrastructure for the children of illegal aliens and, to be honest, foreigners. If they go hungry, yes, but I am willing to sacrifice only so much to help those who have invaded my country.

Pensions might be a big chunk of the deficit, but illegal aliens and their progeny are an enormous piece. The cost of building schools, roads, etc. to keep up with the standards we are used to is not even up for discussion. That is all due to illegals and even impoverished legal immigrants.

Joel Kotkin: How California Can Prosper Again

Citizens of the U.S. are not "immigrants" when they move from one state to another.

The California Employment Lesson

Anyone talking about CA's problems without talking about immigration is either missing the boat or being disingenuous.

Outside my window now is the sound of Mexican-inflected Spanish -- from "workers" doing construction, gardening, cable repair, you name it. Jobs that used to support families. Union jobs. And there are untold millions of illegal workers here. I would bet that 1/5 of the state's population was illegal aliens and their offspring. The illegal aliens disproportionately are males of working age, and they will work for far less than U.S. workers.

When will people wake up to something right in front of their face?

Pending Home Sales Up: Does That Mean Anything?

The bifurcation between the low end and the high end holds true in SoCal. High end properties continue to sit on the market because asking prices have not come down enough. (I would estimate 5% to 10% in my area.)

One condo came on the market down the street listed for $50K more than the same property in late-2006. They are still reaching for the stars, and I suppose there are still real estate agents willing to try to sell this B.S. to potential buyers.

I will be a renter for much longer.

California Foreclosures Are About to Soar

I'm here in L.A., and people just now are learning that they cannot keep spending more than they earn. Others have lost their jobs or are having trouble getting work.

I just moved to a luxury condo on the beach I am renting that would have cost 50% more per month only 6 months ago. But no one has the cash to pay that much in rent anymore, so they are renting it to me for much less.

For someone who has no debt and is earning a decent living, this return to reality is invigorating. I felt like a pauper and now I'm royalty.

The Average Home Price in Detroit Falls to $13,638

It might be fair to consider that the city limits of Detroit exclude -- I believe -- virtually all of the leafy suburbs where the rich and middle class live. Detroit proper might be almost all ghetto-land. Just saying...

Stewart vs. Cramer: A Cheap Shot

You have to look at Cramer's show like sports talk radio -- or Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. It's about gabbing about stocks and sharing opinions in an entertaining way.

Stewart's prosecution did seem misdirected at Cramer, whose show is like an open forum for ideas (albeit mainly his own). The people watching the show and investing should be able to form their own opinions. In Stewart's defense, he did say it was not all about Cramer.

The only thing that surprised me were clips of Cramer off-air in which he seemed to be describing how he could move the stock price of Apple and how they could not openly talk about shorting the market.

Where Is That Mythical Housing Bottom?

xmplary, the housing industry may have been a large business. But it also represented a huge misallocation of capital. This occurred due to a market bubble. We should not try to keep pumping air into the bubble merely to perpetuate this misallocation of resources.

Building homes people do not want or need is economic waste.

Markets Are Working: CA Home Sales Increase +100% as Home Prices Fall

Prices in the higher end of the California market may be off 10% to 20% off the peak, but check out prices as recently as 2002. At least for condos, prices are STILL over 200% of prices in 2002! It's really amazing.

Even presuming that demand has gone up with population and there are more two income families, etc... some of these prices have far more to fall.

Smart people are renting. Homeowners trying to sell in this area seem like they just sent out agents looking for fools that fell off the back of the apple cart. The market might clear faster if there were not so many agents fighting to be the "listing agent" for homes in nicer areas.

Mortgage Refinancing Is Not the Solution

Why don't government officials talk about how consumer spending will benefit when people are not forced to spend 50% of their income on housing? Seems like the government focuses on keeping the market inflated to keep the unhealthy "high" going for speculators and home builders that really created no real wealth or misallocated capital.

Is Robert Reich the New Dr. Doom?

Until we talk about the importation of poverty -- illegal AND legal -- we are wasting our breath. It's like scooping buckets of water out of a sinking ship before plugging the holes to stop the leaks.

Is Robert Reich the New Dr. Doom?

If you consider what I am saying as "whining," I suggest you are wrong. I might be a "fool on the hill," but I am happy to be that.

I consider your approach -- keep your head down and don't say nothin' -- as the cowardice approach. Everyone is afraid to say out loud what is happening. Until people do, our policy makers will not change things. What is happening in California will spread to the rest of the country.


On Feb 24 05:58 PM If U Say So wrote:

> On Feb 24 01:37 PM mallarde wrote:

Is Robert Reich the New Dr. Doom?

I get tired of hearing people saying how Californians think they can have it all, etc.

We Californians have absorbed millions upon millions of peasants from Latin America. We now have to care for them and there children. It is a tax burden no other state must face. 20% of people living in L.A. County receive public assistance.

Mr. Rafat, do you ever open your eyes and look around you up in San Jose? See all those little men hanging outside of lumber yards, milling around convenience stores, carrying leaf-blowers on their backs or stealing recyclables out of garbage containers? Do you think they pay taxes to offset their child's education? Or their health care bills when they get diabetes or break a limb?