Archive for the 'Business' Category
The Mayor
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
Great shot from Valle Crucis, North Carolina, courtesy of the BlueRidgeBlog.
GM
Sunday, April 25th, 2010
“In short, GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money. And at a 2% lower interest rate at that.”
Housing bottom?
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
In short, if you believe that the economic growth since 1996 was robust enough to justify the doubling of home prices during that time, then perhaps home prices are now at the ‘correct’ levels. But if you believe that most of the economic growth since 1996 was built on bubbles and debt, then it’s hard to find a reason why homes should be twice as expensive.
Inflation may play a role in the second leg down in housing - prices would remain flat while the buying power of the almightly dollar falls. Also of note, the FED recently completed it’s 1.25 trillion buying spree of mortgage backed securites. It’ll be interesting to see where rates and the stock market head from here. Long term, it’ll be interesting to see if the FED gets back what it put in. If it doesn’t excess liquidity will be left floating around in the money supply. The next few years should be interesting.
Blue Ridge Mountains
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
I’ve been a little bummed about the properties I’ve been finding while searching around Central Florida for a place with a little more space. Generally the prices are still way too high and the types of homes are not to my liking. I’m also feeling a little tired of living on flat land year round. That probably has something to do with my having grown up near the mountains of Colorado. So now I’m wondering if slightly cooler weather and scenic views for part of the year might be a nice addition to my lifestyle. The Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina are peaking my interest. (Hat tip to my big sis for turning me on to this area of the country.) The Boone area in particular, looks really really nice.
To see more excellent photography of the area visit the Blue Ridge Blog. (The images above were taken by the author.)
Hovde
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Eric Hovde - commercial real estate, business loans, muni’s, residential loans, autos, a poorly designed stimulus, disfunctional government… it all adds up to a major economic depression.
Tea Party
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Policy-makers better listen up and do so soon. This, along with Rick Santelli (and by the way, CNBC ran a poll on the “TeaParty”, and over eighty thousand people said they would show up!) is tapping into what America feels about all this nonsense.
Let’s face the facts - 92% of Americans are either paying their mortgage or don’t have one. We didn’t use our homes as ATM machines. We didn’t lie about our incomes. We played by the rules and do not have bone-crushing debt loads.
The rest of America is a different story.
I was watching this video today of Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, Suzy Welch and George Will. It’s interesting that the proponents keep making the point that this solution targets the “social problem” of people who lost their jobs and now can’t pay their loans. But this program doesn’t target people who lost their jobs, it targets people who qualify for the new lowered rate / principal loans. (i.e. people who still have a job.) The only folks I can think of who obviously wouldn’t qualify for their current mortgage, but do qualify for a reduced mortgage at taxpayers expense are the speculators who took out risky loans with balloon payments or interest only periods.
Also, in the interest of fairness, why is there no claw back in these subsidies so that when these owners sell their property down the road for a profit (assuming they don’t default anyway) the taxpayer gets paid back?
NRA Version 2.0
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
H.R. 4040 - Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008
I find it ironic that this country, and specifically it’s leadership, are as oblivious to the parallels of the Great Depression as is obvious. This bill was passed by Bush late last year. FDR’s Ghost channeled through Hoover?
‘Pop’
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
A big problem was the increasingly rickety business model of Iceland’s two largest banks, Landsbanki and Kaupthing Bank. Because Iceland is so small, the banks could attract only paltry sums in domestic deposits, which made them overly reliant on international capital markets. But in 2006, in what one of their chief executives describes as a stroke of genius, they hit upon the idea of creating internet accounts to attract foreign deposits, using the cost savings from online banking to offer higher interest rates to savers. Their strategy was so successful that soon they were sucking deposits away from bricks-and-mortar banks across Europe.
Financial officials in several countries say it became clear early this year that these online banks might pose a systemic threat across the region. Landsbanki, for example, had used Iceland’s membership of the European Economic Area (which gives countries access to the European single market without having to join the European Union) to develop its online banking presence. Under the EEA’s “passport” system, it could set up bank branches abroad that were supervised from Reykjavik, notably its internet operations in Britain and the Netherlands, called Icesave.
But as Icesave grew, European authorities realised that Iceland’s coffers were far too small to provide deposit insurance to savers, and that its central bank lacked reserves to act as a credible lender of last resort in the case of a run. The British authorities pressed Landsbanki to create a subsidiary in London that would be supervised by British banking authorities, as its compatriot, Kaupthing, had done. It never did. When Landsbanki collapsed in October, the country ended up owing $8.2 billion to foreign internet depositors of its banks, an amount almost half the size of Iceland’s entire economy.
Fascinating stuff from the Economist.
Finding a nice place to live is tough
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
Finding a nice place to live isn’t easy. So far I’ve researched a number of areas, including New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Key factors include - nice weather, mild winters, lots of open space, solar incentives, lots of greenery, reasonably priced property, and a low cost of living. Most of the above states have something to offer, but all also have downsides. Most of the western states suffer from cold winters, or excessive heat, high cost of living, or a lack of green space. A couple areas that received serious consideration - the Flagstaff area and the areas around Sante Fe, New Mexico. Unfortunately both are basically high planes deserts, so you’re stuck with very cold winters. Sante Fe is also fairly expensive. North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia suffer from a high cost of living. While Tennessee has a very low cost of living, it’s too hot and humid. With Florida, the northern area I currently live in, space is too limited - most of the property north of here is owned by the government, so property values tend to be elevated. Too far north and you run into trailer parks. Also, most of the forested areas around here were logged years ago and were susequently replanted with non-native pine. It’s also pretty flat country, so a good view is hard to come by. If you move down toward the beach you won’t find open space and property costs skyrocket. All in all, my year long search for the perfect place to live has been rough.
Recently I turned back to Florida again, and started looking for the first time in Central Florida, specifically in and around Ocala Florida. I like what I’m finding. It’s very scenic, there’s a lot of open space, property is cheap - a small 10 acre farm can sell for less than 250K. It’s also horse country, with over 1400 thoroughbred horse farms (think the ranch fencing of Dallas, with rolling green hills and 200 year old oaks and grand southern plantation style homes up on hills.) The weather is perfect, the cost of living low, and for solar geeks there’s tons of sunshine and of course Florida’s great solar incentive programs. (Florida probably has the best solar incentives of any state, even beating out California and New Mexico.)
So who knows, maybe I’ve found my future spot. I’ll post back with more as I dig into the area and real estate.
Heard Recently…
Monday, September 29th, 2008
On a local real estate message board -
“So the Fed is paying for some top dollar real estate at 2005 prices? I wonder if they’ll be working with local realtors?”
No, but they’ll be using your money to buy it.
