The Great Housing Depression

It’s official: The housing crisis that began in 2006 and has recently entered a double dip is now worse than the Great Depression.

Prices have fallen some 33 percent since the market began its collapse, greater than the 31 percent fall that began in the late 1920s and culminated in the early 1930s, according to Case-Shiller data.

The news comes as the Federal Reserve considers whether the economy has regained enough strength to stand on its own and as unemployment remains at a still-elevated 9.1 percent, throwing into question whether the recovery is real.

“The sharp fall in house prices in the first quarter provided further confirmation that this housing crash has been larger and faster than the one during the Great Depression,” Paul Dales, senior economist at Capital Economics in Toronto, wrote in research for clients.

According to Case-Shiller, which provides the most closely followed housing industry data, prices dropped 1.9 percent in the first quarter, a move that the firm interpreted as a clear double dip in prices.

Moreover, Dales said prices likely have not completed their downturn.

“The only comfort is that the latest monthly data show that towards the end of the first quarter prices started to fall at a more modest rate,” he said. “Nonetheless, prices are likely to fall by a further 3 percent this year, resulting in a 5 percent drop over the year as a whole.”

Prices continue to tumble despite affordability, which by most conventional metrics is near historic highs.

204 Responses to The Great Housing Depression

New Jersey’s economy lost 400 jobs in May, and its unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent from 9.3 percent, the state reported Thursday, putting the brakes on momentum that had been building for three months.

The report was another sign that the economic recovery is so fragile that even a temporary spike in gasoline prices can derail it, observers said.

“What (some companies) are seeing is sales declining because pressure is put on their clients,” said Cristina Amyot, president of Enform HR, a human resources consultant based in Middletown.

The monthly unemployment report is made up of a survey of New Jersey employers to calculate the number of jobs and a survey of New Jersey residents to calculate the jobless rate.

After losing 247,600 private-sector jobs from January 2008 until February 2010, New Jersey’s labor market offered hope this year with relatively strong job growth in February, March and April. But the state hit a snag in May, virtually mirroring the nation. The U.S. economy added 54,000 jobs last month, which wasn’t enough to keep up with workers entering the labor force. The national unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent from 9 percent.

“The optimism earlier in the year has been tempered,” said Rutgers University economist James W. Hughes.

“I DON’T think you need homeowners to have a strong community,” said Wynona Ancrum, who has lived in public housing, as a renter, for most of her life.

“The way your neighborhood is designed and put together, that’s what is important,” said Ms. Ancrum, 55, who heads the board of the Elizabeth Housing Authority. “Not whether you own, or you are a renter.”

With suggestions from her and her neighbors, a new section of her neighborhood in Elizabethport, on the far east side of Elizabeth, has just been completed: 81 town-house apartments. All are set aside for individuals and families earning 30 to 60 percent of the median income. Only 10 of the units are condominiums, although all were originally intended to be.

“We had already built and sold the first condos when the bottom fell out of the home-buying market, back in 2008,” said Christiana Foglio, the project’s developer and a former director of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.
…
Meanwhile, the crisis had a galvanizing effect on Ms. Foglio. “We transitioned to rental as quickly as we could,” she said. “In an inner-city urban environment, most people buying condos had to take mortgages, in that quick-and-dirty mortgage game operating at the time, where you didn’t have to document income. When new rules were instituted, that just ate our market up.”

The switch to rentals was easy from a construction standpoint, she added, because the town homes had been designed as attached two-family units with separate entrances and utility lines — as Ms. Ancrum and other longtime residents of the public housing development had insisted.

Last year Community Investment Strategies completed construction of 71 one-, two- and three-bedroom units, each with a private attached garage — and quickly leased them all.

“Leasing demand was so strong, the units were occupied months earlier than projected,” said Theresa Reed, the vice president of the development company, which is run entirely by women. “The result showed how our ‘repurposing’ of this project was on target as we achieved higher-than-expected demand for newly constructed, high-quality affordable rental housing.”

Chi I don’t have a gold write up but I did hear from some institutional guys that this greece/ireland thing could create liquidity crunch, sparking mass selling of gold. Aparently banks are big holders right now.

A gold coin dealer who gets paid to speak on the subject told me that 97% of the worlds gold is in american households as jewelry. That doesn’t sound right at all. Can anyone confirm/refute this rediculousness? What about india where gold is more popular as jewelry? And what about central bank vaults, where they hold billions worth in one location?

and if you don’t like that song, try The Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime and fast forward to the part where they lyrics are “Same as it ever was”.

Economy too shaky, jobs (if you have, it is not secure, and if you don’t, tough to get one at decent comp) plus all the foreclosures. Still a few years away (at least) to cycle through this mess, if ever. In the new economy, 7% unemployment will be deemed as “good”.

“TIGTA: IRS Did Not Follow Law in 38% of Seizures of Taxpayer Property
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Fiscal Year 2011 Review of Compliance With Legal Guidelines When Conducting Seizures of Taxpayers’ Property (2011-30-049): ..
However, … TIGTA identified 25 instances in which the IRS did not comply with a particular I.R.C. requirement, involving 19 of the 50 seizures reviewed.”http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/06/tigta.html

comrade: When you meet our overlords next time, feel free to use my proposal to cut IRS budget by 38%. My proposal can be used many times, no need to limit it to this year only.

Neanderthal I don’t normally agree with you but I do wholeheartedly on this point. Even without Greece there’s enough downward economic pressure that you are likely to see a serious bout of deflation in the next six months. I said it about a month ago that this Summer is going to be a sh*tstorm – too many plates for these clowns to juggle.

I’ve been sitting half short via a particular mutual fund and half cash waiting to dip back in to the next wave of the commodity run up- which likely won’t begin until the Fall. There’ll be QE3 and a fiscal response by then but they’ll need to have the political backing in place and the only way to do that is to give the people who haven’t been effected drastically by this depression a peak behind the curtain to see how things are in reality.

NE,
Your coin dealer is wrong. Jastram’s “The Golden Constant” has long been a much cited scholarly text. Price of the book seems inflated now, though. I have Salsman’s “Gold and Liberty” from the 90s.
My view is that gold is only a money substitute, not a growing investment. Only good when other things are worse.

“Prices have fallen some 33 percent since the market began its collapse, greater than the 31 percent fall that began in the late 1920s and culminated in the early 1930s, according to Case-Shiller data.”

This may well be but, what percentage of people lived in non-rental properties back then as opposed to now? I do not know the answer, it is just a question. I seem to recall that there was a big shift from renting to owning/borrowing right after WWII.

Coin dealers are like used car salesmen or house tour guides… believe me when I tell you. They work on a 30% margin and your inventory, whether it’s coin or rare currency is seriously flawed no matter what you do or say. If you do not enjoy numismatics strictly from a collectors point of view, then forget it!

North Jersey is bleeding wealth… a realtor told me. I know this is true because I had to swerve to miss a unicorn on Kinderkamack Road the other night. And we all know that unicorns only live in areas where money flows. In fact, unicorns can smell prestigious areas from miles away and will migrate through any conditions to settle there.

A WEST in the current paradim it is credit that is the money substitue.Just ask anyone who works at the Fed, they will tell you we have less than 1% of all money loaned into existence in physical form such as the printed dollar while the FED HOARDS THE GOLD.

By RICHARD ESPOSITO, PIERRE THOMAS (@PierreTABC) and HUMA KHAN
June 17, 2011
Police detained a man near the Sept. 11 memorial at the Pentagon this morning after he was reportedly found carrying a suspicious device and pro-al Qaeda literature, officials said.

The man appears to be a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian ethnicity. He would not make any admissions to the police.

#26 gary: Just to clarify for you. Yes Unicorns are attracted to affluent areas, and so of course many settled in River Edge over they years. However, since the news was released that prices are up 26% in River Edge from last year, all Unicorns have now relocated there.

#42 Or but my neighbor sold his house in 06 for XXX, and mine is better, so mine should sell for more, and so I am no. giving it away. I always say well than you should have sold it in 2006, and then I get the eye blink.

Or another favorite of mine, someone I know who has reluctantly admitted that perhaps the housing market is not what it once was, but it makes no difference because the 120K kitchen/fam room remodel that was spent, is an investment, and they will get that money back when they sell in 20 years. And this person is considered by some to be a go to person for financial advice, as they have an accounting degree.

The budget suggestion is well outside of my mandate. However, recommendations to IRS to improve their processes to prevent improper seizures IS within my mandate. Any serious suggestion on that point is something I can run with.

“One thing that may help money-market funds weather the Greece storm better than the Lehman hurricane is that they now have an implicit US government backing. While no longer directly insured by the FDIC, many believe that in a crisis the government would once again step in to insure the accounts, just as it did in 2008. ”

While .223/.556 has superior tumbling properties once it penetrates the target, EFMJ .308 is reported to penetrate standard civilian ( i.e no rifle plates) body armor on a regular basis in some testing. The nice thing about it is that since it rapidly expands after penetrating the target, over penetration is greatly reduced and internal damage increased.

My favorite listing near me is a home that was first listed in 2008 and owner said it was newly renovated in 2004. It is still for sale in 2011 and still newly renovated. By 2014 his fridge, oven, dishwasher will be ten years old and he still will be saying newly renovated. Has not cut his price once. Said I fell in love with it and overpaid someone else will fall in love with it and overpay too so I am not giving it away. Funny guy is a car dealer yet does not understand that things just sell for what they are worth. Can’t sell a pink pinto for 40K just cause you love it, the pink pinto is only worth what someone will pay for it.

Someone else is worried about Greek Credit Default Swaps hitting US banks. Greenspan making the rounds now pushing for US to Bail Out Greece, interviews with Bloomberg and Charlie Rose.

A default by Greece could drive the US back into recession, according to the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

In an interview with Bloomberg Mr Greenspan said the “chances of Greece not defaulting are very small”.

His comments came as Greece’s prime minister George Papandreou’s failed to win support for more austerity measures to help address its debt problems.

Mr Greenspan told Bloomberg the chances of Greece defaulting are now “so high that you almost have to say there’s no way out,” which could put pressure on some US banks.

He argued Greece’s debt crisis had the potential to push the US into another recession, as without it the probability of a recession “is quite low”.

“There’s no momentum in the system that suggests to me that we are about to go into a double-dip,” he said. Mr Greenspan said the US’s debt issue is becoming “horrendously dangerous” and said that he doubts lawmakers have another year or two to solve it.

He added that the US recovery is being hindered by apprehension among businesses over the long term outlook, and claimed there is nothing more for the Fed policymakers to do.

His comments come as traders feared Greece could become Europe’s “Lehman’s moment”.

Neil Mackinnon, an economist at VTB Capital in London and a former Treasury official, told the Daily Telegraph: “The probability of a eurozone Lehman moment is increasing. The markets have moved from simply pricing in a high probability of a Greek debt default to looking at a scenario of it becoming disorderly and of contagion spreading to other economies like Portugal, like Ireland, and maybe Spain, Italy and Belgium.”

Surprised you didn’t post on this, from today’s Taxprofblog. I am not an expert on NOLs or how a not-for-profit can in fact profit from the Notices’ effect, but it sounds as if the job-bing the taxpayer got from the TARP and UAW bailouts was worse than we thought (and something you won’t ever hear about on MSNBC).

Here’s the abstract:

“To discourage firms from trying to buy and sell deductions, § 382 of the tax code limits the ability of a firm that acquires another company to use the target’s “net operating losses” (NOLs). Under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Treasury lent a large amount of money to GM. In bank-ruptcy, it then transformed the debt into stock.

GM did not make many cars anyone wanted to buy, but it did have $45 billion in NOLs. Unfortunately for the firm, if the Treasury now sold the stock it acquired in bankruptcy it would trigger those § 382 NOL limitations. Suppose the newly reorganized GM did start making cars that consumers wanted. It would be able to use only a modest portion of its old NOL’s — if any.

Treasury solved this problem by issuing a series of “Notices” in which it announced that the law did not apply. On its terms, § 382 states that the NOL limits apply when a firm’s ownership changed. That rule, the Treasury declared, did not apply to itself. Notwithstanding the straightforward and all-inclusive statutory language, GM would be able to continue to use its NOLs in full after the Treasury sold its stock.

The Treasury had no legal or economic justification for these Notices, which applied to Citigroup and AIG as well as to GM. Nonetheless, the Notices largely escaped public attention, though they had the potential to transfer significant wealth to loyal supporters (the UAW). That it could do so illustrates the risk involved in this manip-ulation. We suggest that Congress give its members standing to challenge such manip-ulation in court. . . . ”

I was in Greece in 2008. Spoke to some locals and looked in amazement at the thousands of empty vacation homes built there empty and for sale, many dotting small islands that really are not meant for so many vacation homes. At the time 30 percent of Greek GDP was from housing and mortgages while tourism was only 20 percent of GDP. There still is massive overhang of 250,000 empty homes and all of the associated debt. With Greek unemployment now at 16% I figure the youth are all going to have to become fishermen again there is no work for them anywhere.

As Greenspan said “chances of Greece not defaulting are very small”
Suffice it to say there will be more defaults as all of the PIIGS were addicted to the housing bubble.

How much should I expect to pay to remove textured ceilings throughout a house? Its not quite popcorn ceiling, more like slightly textured stipple style. It may be possible to smooth it over vs. scrape it off and repaint but want to know the worst case scenario. Average size living room, dining room and foyer plus 4 bedrooms. Is this a $5k job or could it be more or less? I hear its mainly a labor intensive (and messy) job and want it all done at once vs. trying to do one room at a time on my own and it taking a year. Thoughts?

I read a quote from Ron Kuby on his right to choose his clients, somthin to the effect of “I am not a public utility, forced to serve whoever comes through my door willing an able pays the fare.” The listing agent knows better than anyone what the place is worth, and how (un)reasonable his client’s expectations are. Listings aren’t assigned at random and compulsory, the listing agent goes out and solicits the contract.

At some level, the a seller’s agent must think very little of their time to spend so much of it in futile efforts. There’s a Realtor’s marketing campaign there for the taking “List it with them, or sell it with us”.

Or, perhaps, the listing agent thinks too highly of their own prowess at their craft. Classic Dunning-Kruger Effect.

A Senior Banker Was Just Gunned Down In Puerto Rico In A Suspected Professional Hit Job

”
A banker was gunned down in Puerto Rico on Wednesday and at least one Puetro Rican news agency suspects that it might have had something to do with an audit he had recently launched.

The banker, 56-year old Maurice J. Spagnoletti, was Doral Financial corporation’s executive vice president of Mortgage and Banking Operations. He had only been working at Doral for 6 moths when he was killed.”

GALLOWAY, N.J. — After Donna Cushlanis’s son kept bursting into tears midway through his second-grade math problems, which one night took over an hour, she told him not to do all of his homework.

snip

It turned out that the district, which serves 3,500 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, was already re-evaluating its homework practices. The school board will vote this summer on a proposal to limit weeknight homework to 10 minutes for each year of school — 20 minutes for second graders, and so forth — and ban assignments on weekends, holidays and school vacations.

Wall Street plans to get smaller this summer. Faced with weak markets and uncertainty over regulations, many of the biggest firms are preparing for deep cuts in jobs and other costs.

The cutback plans are emerging even as Wall Street firms have mostly recovered from the financial crisis and are reporting substantial profits again. But those profits are not as big as they were before the crisis, and it is expected that in the coming months it will be even more difficult for firms to make money. Worries about debt in Europe and the shape that the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul rules will ultimately take, combined with the usual summer doldrums, are prompting banks to act.

“It’s a tense environment right now,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst with the investment bank Nomura.

Even Goldman Sachs, Wall Street’s most profitable firm, is retrenching. Senior executives at Goldman have concluded they need to cut 10 percent, or $1 billion, of noncompensation expenses over the next 12 months, according to a person close to the matter who was not authorized to speak on the record. The big pullback will cause Goldman employees, who have already been ordered to cut costs, to re-examine every aspect of their business

I’ve been told more than once that we live in very competitive and prestigious area and if one can’t afford to live here then one should consider looking out of state. The proof can be found by the steady influx of unicorn herd.

Stippled ceilings are a pain in the rear. I have worked on a couple in my time and none of them are fun. If you have strong arms and a lot of time on your hands you can take a power sander and try to remove that crap from the ceilings but it is a never ending job. I did a 4×8 bathroom once and it took me nearly the whole day to remove about the top half of the stipple.

The problem is that the stipple is usually painted with latex paint, sand paper gets really hot and just melts the latex when you are sanding it turning it into something akin to glue. The latex paint sticks to your standpaper and the sandpaper becomes not good at removing stipple. That means you need miles of sandpaper and lots of time to change the sand paper.

I gave up on the process because the level of sweat trying to remove the stuff was just too great. I called one of my brothers (a professional) who laughed at me and said that if it had been painted that I should have just taken the whole ceiling down instead. Since I was already too far comitted in that direction he just brought over some marine grade sand paper and we power sanded for a few more hours knocking off the peaks of the stipple. He then proceeded to float a new ceiling with a 12 inch drywall blade across the whole ceiling. I painted the ceiling and it looked fine. Floating a ceiling takes a tremendous amount of skill, something only very old painters would know how to do as that skill went away with the advent of manufactured drywall.

The marine grade sand paper is meant for sanding the outside of boats that of course are painted. It releases the paint rather than letting it gum up on the surface and reduces the amount of time spent changing sand paper.

So, the moral of the story: popcorn ceilings are not that big of a deal to sand. On the other hand, you will never be able to smooth out the stipple properly on a stippled ceiling, it is just best to take the ceiling down and put up a new one. It will always look like crap if you don’t.

The only reason why you would stipple a ceiling is to cover defects in the workmanship, water stains, or settling in the house. When I see a stippled ceiling I wonder, “what defect caused them to decide that was a good idea”.

Biden. What a guy. With a friend like this, Obama may not want to be side-by-side with him in ’12. If I were he, assuming Panetta does not scr-ew up at DoD between now and then, I would be inclined to dump biden for Panetta. Leon is a top-notch mind, he is quick on his feet, and he does not make verbal gaffes.

The move would get lots of attention, tha’s for sure. The only downside, for me at least, it makes it more likely that the empty suit in chief wins a second term.

Title Insurance is a competative market. I would call around asking for prices. Once you find the lowest price then go back and call all the rest of them.

I was about to buy a house in 2008 and the deal fell through. I spent time contacting title search companies asking for prices, the first guy said 1500$ the second guy said 1300$ and the third said 1100$. I called the first again and said, “I have a quote from a title search company that is greater than xx% below yours and I’m trying to figure out why. Can you please explain your cost estimate?” The response? “Sorry, I must have quoted you last years prices, our price is 900$”

The market was so soft that they just caved with one sentence. I was dissapointed because I thought I would have to put my negotiation skills to the test but it was just too soft.

My recommendation is to use a bit of negotiation tactics and see if you can get their price down. The title search is done by clerks anyway and signed by the one lawyer in the buisness. See if you can get them to make the lawyers signature a bit cheaper.

#42 and #43 We have been experiencing this very argument from a fairly dug in seller. House was listed about 200k too high in the first place last October (which don’t even get me started about that agent; he’s got all the listings locked up in this one area and consistently over prices them and admits he’s doing it; who does that help?) They never got an offer. In June, we offered very much in line with the most recent comps and the guy refuses to budge. Insists that we “aren’t valuing his property correctly” and has no real data to support his price point. His counter to our offer was silly and he keeps pointing to being located in a neighborhood with houses worth 250k more than his (which none have sold in that range in the last 3 yrs) as a reason for him not to lower. huh? His wife wants to get out, but I figure he expected to get way more than 100k equity out and thinks an all cash buyer will come along. It’s gonna be a LONG wait, I suspect. So, off to rent we go. Whatever.

That seller is a dead man walking… hemorrhaging due to inherited stupidity. Keep an eye on that house and send a letter of congratulations to the f*cking genius in two years from now for decreasing his net worth by $220,000.

From Vecsey:
Way to go, Nate Robinson. Last Friday morning, right there on a downtown White Plains sidewalk, the former Knicks’ freak show, who witnessed a whopping dozen minutes of daylight in the Thunder’s 17 postseason games, redefined the phrase “D-N-Pee.” Just call him UriNate. A trade to the Washington Whiz-ards sounds natural. Or the Detroit Piss-tons? Of course, if he becomes a Net we’ll have to change his name to YURINATE.

“I guess this proves Robinson is a true #1 guard,” adds Richie Kalikow. “Robinson’s defense is he saw a sign that said ‘Wet Sidewalk’ so he did.”

1:34 PM, June 14, 2011ι V.A. Musetto
The horror film “The Human Centipede (Full Sequence)” has been banned outright by the non-governmental British Board of Film Classification, which means Brits cannot legally see it in theaters, on DVD or via download. The film is the sequel to “The Human Centipede (First Sequence),” in which a mad scientist sews three kidnaped people together, mouth to butt, thus creating a human centipede. The sequel ups the number of victims to 12. I gave the original a positive three stars when it opened in NYC last year, although most other critics were not so kind. (I have not seen the sequel.) In Britain, the original was clearing by the censors.

Not so the sequel, which was supposed to go directly to DVD. The BBFC said “the principal focus [of part two] is the sexual arousal of the central character at both the idea of the total degradation, humilation, mutilation, torture and murder of his naked victims.” In return, Tom Six, Dutch director of both movies, said: “:Apparently I made an horrific horror film, but shouldn’t a good horror film be horrific?” An online teaser promotes the new film as “the sickest movie of all time.”

The British ban raises the question of what will happen to the sequel in the US. Reportedly, the film has yet to be seen by the Motion Picture Association of America, which rated the original R for “disturbing sadistic horror violence, nudity and language.” IFC, which owns distribution rights in the US, did not immediately return my request for comment. Stay tuned.

I’m from Maryland so things may be different in NJ. I would ask them directly if the fees are state commissioned and uniform. I have also bought a house in Ohio and it was variable based on whom you had do your title search.

I’m doing a google search right now to determine if things are different in NJ.

Ability to pay out if it turns out they are wrong is important too so I would do some background work on them to determine if they are not a house of cards.

Thinking about buying a house in Oradell, the town above the most popular town on this site. http://www.weichert.com/33953705/
Can you almost always get 10% off asking in this market? Wondering if I should offer 13% off asking, to in negotiation wind up at 10% off asking, if possible in your opinion. House has been on the market since September.
tia!

#09 That House has been on the market at least since September> i belive it started at 479K. It is west of Kinderkamack Rd, which is considered by some to be more desirable. The biggest draw back with that property appears to be the sloped back yard. Also the layout of the interior of the house looks very jumbled. The taxes are reasonable in comparison to Unicornia (River Edge), and the taxes in general in Oradell are more reasonable than Unicornia (River Edge).

#04 Th whole RE thing started when some poor delusional soul who apparently lives there came on the site a couple of months back, and said that prices had risen 26% in town from 2010 to 2011!!!! That is where it all started.

Actually the town IMO opinion used to be excellent. But out of control spending ( no small part of that by resident approved spending referendums),and poor decisions by elected officials, now make the town one of the highest taxed towns in Bergen County. The fact that an apparent resident came on this blog and made that ludicrous 26% comment may also be indicative of many other residents and their utter cluelessness, which in turn has led the town to where it is now.

35-07 28th avenue rules!!!!!! I think I drove by braile on the taxi lane of the 59 street bridge from Astoria more times than I can ever remember. Only part that cracked me up was attempting to get a girl to come home with you from NYC, I could be at a bar at 59sth and 1st ave two miles from my place and gettting them to astoria was like climbing mount everest. Once I recall a girl was dumb enough to come back on a 90 degree night, I had no ac, I had middle bedroom of a railroad apt and my only window faced a wall. It was so insanely hot I go take a shower, she take shower back to bed start doing it, we were both insanely hot, back to shower, finally I was like get out. Then in winter landlord was cheap with heat so we would leave oven on with door open. One night had over on 500 degrees with a pizza in it and we woke up an hour later in smoke and sweat. You could not win either way. Our move in party was best around 100 people in apartment with landlord downstairs having a heart attack. Since when is dancing on the couch and coffee tables frowned upon? Surely you can see the floor is too crowded to dance.

Best is buddy across the street did not pay last months rent and wrecked the place. The landlord was a greek wife beater so they were trying to get out quick. He was coming up steps and buddy started dumping the last crap in apartment out rear window when landlord ran to backyard to see what was crashing he took off through front door and chased him with a knife. But buddy had a one block lead on him. The greeks are soo funny. Other neighbor had a benzi box in his car when you took out radio it blew the circuit, thief realized he broke into car to steal useless radio, so thief backed up twenty feet and threw radio threw his BMWs window. We were laughing you know BMW stands for break my windows. But the Greek Foods is great, where do you eat?

I was expecting to hear her say that she was a resident of Brigadoon-on-Hackensack and that the value of her house had just increased 26% year-over-year, so she should be treated with the respect she clearly deserves.

I am sure that she had a blessing of unicorns waiting at the next station to hitch to her carriage and carry her the rest of the way back home to the tranquil shores of the Hackensack River …

That seller is a dead man walking… hemorrhaging due to inherited stupidity. Keep an eye on that house and send a letter of congratulations to the f*cking genius in two years from now for decreasing his net worth by $220,000.

There’s a saying that “A society in which there is no penalty for failure will have an abundance of failures.” The flip side is too true in real estate – there’s no reward for a buyer who is right.

The one thing I did not want to be is the reasonable offer that the seller regrets not taking when he sells a year late for less money. Yet this is where I am. My reward for being right is to go into another f*ing rental while Donald Chump imagines the money he’s made by holding out for last year’s price.

Classic jj but very funny stuff….
“Then in winter landlord was cheap with heat so we would leave oven on with door open. One night had over on 500 degrees with a pizza in it and we woke up an hour later in smoke and sweat. You could not win either way. Our move in party was best around 100 people in apartment with landlord downstairs having a heart attack. Since when is dancing on the couch and coffee tables frowned upon?”

WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.
snip

“Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch. “

No way. GWB would have more chance of winning than Thatcher. Those wounds go too deep. There is a large part of a generation that are patiently waiting to celebrate when she finally shuffles off to hel1.
Cameron had to swing the party to the center to win the election after 15 years of opposition and even then he needed the liberals to form a government. I think the GOP will finally learn that lesson in time for the 2020 race. Cameron treated Thatcher as the elder stateswoman that he had acknowlege to hold the right wing of the party, but in reality disowns her. He is in a funny way working to reverse a lot of the damage she inflicted on the country.

On a side note, its funny that bands like The Specials took up the mantle after Joe Strummer put the final nail in the punk coffin when they signed for CBS.

Margaret Thatcher is as much of a farce as Reagan. Reagan implemented the genius concept of borrow and spend. Thatcher was lucky enough to be PM when the North Sea oil fields were discovered and put online. As Jim Rogers put it, “You show me a billion barrels of oil and I’ll show you a good time too!”.

That isn’t to say that the socialistic malaise that was put on both countries by the morons on the left wasn’t sucking the life out of either country; just the entire bs legacy of Reagan/Thatcher as “free market titans” is a joke.

Reagan/Thatcher would both be doing the same sh*t O’man and GWB have done because they too were both pawns for the Banks, Defense Industry, Oil Companies etc.

You want a real vibrant economy in this country then get the $ out of politics. Implement real anti-trust laws to break up these monster multinationals. Then reduce regulations on small business so there’s not such a ceiling on their growth. Of course end the Fed. All of that will never happen but a kid can dream.

As a president, Reagan wasn’t as big a free marketeer as widely thought, to his discredit. Mostly because consultants and political reality convinced him that he shouldn’t worry about spending/borrowing. As a campaigner, early on, he was much better than the current batch, but he didn’t have the guts to live up to his rhetoric. I think that’s because he had a life before politics that brought him some genuine first hand experiences. Most of the current Republican “free marketeers” in politics sound like me when I was about 20. Lots of memorized lines without much comprehension of what they really mean.

Few people seem to respect Thatcher much anymore, but England was a lot like Greece today when she took charge, and she made many tough decisions that helped her country cease to be totally disfunctional. Its ridiculous to think oil finds were more important than structural changes there. She had more guts and principles than 99% of politicians you’ll see anywhere, and put her neck on the block numerous times.

Shore 158 I am all for the little guy in most cases, big corporations have been increasing salaries at the top while workers wages have remained flat. That being said in this case I side with Boeing, protecting workers has run a muck on this one. Where in the Constitution is this power granted to the Federal Government.

Just stopped by after a while and a bit of stuff that had to be fixed.

Anyway, first thing I see is a damn trench around a house and am I ever thinking, “Thank G-d I’m a renter, or what?” What guy around here did not have enough Lincoln Logs as a kid. Or maybe somebody kept swiping his Legos. What????

Geez, JB, way to scare away the potential homeowner in folks. Did you ever stop and wonder why no investor or realtor ever posts pictures like that?

O.K., I’ll calm down and continue on my pathetically frightened way.

btw, has anyone ever heard of duckpinbowling? I was at a lunch the other day and someone mentioned it. So I say, WTF is drunken bowling? I’m in!

All the polite folks not up home looked at me and wondered why I was at the table.

I’ve gone duckpin bowling before. Candlepin too. Both use a small bowling ball with no finger holes and allow three rolls per frame to knock down the ten pins. Duckpins are short and wide and candlepins are tall and narrow. I played both in New England.

I heard Bruce once say that his American fans have not responded well to the music he has written when he has been very happy. I suspect that we are about to see some very good tunes emerge from what has to be a very sad man at the moment.

It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th.

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

“May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back.May the sun shine warm upon your face.May the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, May the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand.”

“When the change was made uptown
And the big man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
Im gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When scooter and the big man bust this city in half
With a tenth avenue freeze-out, tenth avenue freeze-out
Tenth avenue freeze-out…”

Big Man- I will always remeber our night in Montreal. You told me to f-it and bust it out. Thank you for the advice. You will always be remembered. RIP.

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

10:29 p.m. CDT, June 18, 2011
Even if he hadn’t played a note, saxophonist Clarence Clemons would own an exalted place in rock history for the way he was depicted on an iconic album cover.

Clemons, 69, died Saturday in a Palm Beach, Fla., hospital after suffering a stroke several days ago

In a stark black-and-white fold-out image on the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 breakthrough album, “Born to Run,” the imposing saxophonist hunched over his instrument while a bearded, leather-jacketed Springsteen leaned on his shoulder. The image suggested a brotherly bond between the two and in this case it wasn’t just record-industry hokum. Clemons was an integral part of Springsteen’s E Street Band for four decades.

“Who are these guys? Where did they come from? What is the joke they are sharing?” Springsteen once wrote of the cover photograph’s enduring allure.

In a statement issued Saturday, Springsteen said of his longtime friend and bandmate: “Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.”

Clemons’ solos on the “Born to Run” title track, “Jungleland” and “Badlands” were nearly as famous as the songs themselves, and he was a larger-than-life presence during the epic 4-hour concerts that forged Springsteen’s reputation in the ’70s and ’80s.

Clemons occupied a revered place in the constellation of talented musicians and characters that Springsteen assembled as part of his inner circle. “In this corner, king of the world, master of the universe, weighing in at 260 pounds ,” Springsteen would often say by way of introduction at concerts. The saxophonist was “The Big Man,” and an entire mythology was built on how he met Springsteen and became part of the band, often related in comical stage monologues and in the song “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Springsteen was playing a New Jersey bar in 1971 while a storm was blowing outside; as Clemons entered, the door blew off its hinges and soon after he and Springsteen were jamming on stage, their mutual fate sealed.

Clemons was born in Virginia in 1942 and began studying saxophone at age 9. He played gospel, R&B and jazz, besides knocking heads in football at Maryland State College. Afterward he moved to New Jersey and worked as a counselor for emotionally disturbed children. Springsteen was still a New Jersey bar-band striver when Clemons met him in 1971. The saxophonist played on two key songs on the singer’s 1972 debut album, “Blinded by the Light” and “Spirit in the Night,” and then joined him on his first national tour.

His imposing physique and brawny sound — derived from the King Curtis and Junior Walker school of bruising, blues-based soul — made him a fixture at concerts, even as his role on Springsteen albums diminished. He was recruited by other artists to play on their records, including Aretha Franklin, whose 1985 hit “Freeway of Love” featured a Clemons solo. The saxophonist was most recently heard on Lady Gaga’s latest album, “Born This Way,” which sold more than 1 million copies in its first week of release.

Clemons also recorded three solo albums, scoring a 1985 hit, “You’re a Friend of Mine,” a duet with Jackson Browne. He also racked up a number of acting credits, ranging from Martin Scorsese’s 1977 movie, “New York, New York,” to the HBO drama “The Wire.”

But his most famous role was as Springsteen’s sidekick. In recent years he was in considerable pain from knee and hip ailments, and stayed seated through portions of Springsteen’s physically taxing concerts; he resided on a throne during one tour, emblematic of his first-among-equals status in the E Street hierarchy. As each concert concluded, Clemons and Springsteen shared an embrace, a nightly renewal of the bond immortalized on the “Born to Run” album cover.

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