tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post8947590979665438916..comments2024-03-08T11:20:30.095-07:00Comments on Credit Bubble Stocks: "Granola Shotgun" and the Eventual U.S. Sovereign Debt CrisisUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-30336576015531646352017-09-18T13:07:40.340-07:002017-09-18T13:07:40.340-07:00Social security:
https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/...Social security: <br />https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2017/09/18/social-security-is-bankrupt-or-vital-depending-on-whom-you-ask/<br /><br />Also important to read:<br />http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/2017/04/the-coming-bond-bear-market-will.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-1062314589046295142017-03-07T10:53:56.309-07:002017-03-07T10:53:56.309-07:00Forty percent of Quincy’s 330 full-time government...<i>Forty percent of Quincy’s 330 full-time government employees cost taxpayers more than $100,000 a year in salary, health care and pension costs, according to the city’s total compensation report.<br /><br />The city’s police and fire salaries have grown at twice the rate of household incomes over the past five years. Those salaries are now an astonishing 60 percent higher than the median household income in Quincy.</i><br />https://www.illinoispolicy.org/the-truth-about-your-property-tax-bill/?linkId=35089739Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-19703517922513758442017-03-07T10:43:30.561-07:002017-03-07T10:43:30.561-07:00Illinois real estate equity expropriation:
Illino...Illinois real estate equity expropriation:<br /><br /><i>Illinois’ property taxes are higher than the property taxes in every state that has no income tax at all. Clearly, these states and many others are able to keep their property taxes low even without income tax revenues. Illinois property taxes are nearly triple those in neighboring Indiana, which also has a low, flat income tax rate.</i><br />https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-has-higher-property-taxes-than-every-state-with-no-income-tax/<br /><br />Illinois Property Tax Increase Cap Introduced In State Senate <br />http://patch.com/illinois/deerfield/property-tax-increase-cap-introduced-illinois-senate<br /><br /><i>Illinois has been without a budget since summer 2015. A connected package of budget bills known as the “Grand Bargain,” which currently is being worked on in the Illinois Senate, proposes a 33 percent increase in income and corporate taxes, an expansion of the state sales tax to include a number of different services, and minor reforms to public pensions and workers’ compensation laws, among other things.</i><br />https://ilnews.org/12439/poll-majority-illinoisans-want-state-cut-spending-not-raise-taxes/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-36691421830138782942017-03-07T10:39:38.192-07:002017-03-07T10:39:38.192-07:00Another important Granola Shotgun post:
So last w...Another important Granola Shotgun post:<br /><br /><i>So last week I was amazed as he described all the great things he was doing to his house with the borrowed money. I noticed he pulled up in a new truck that was even bigger and shinier than his old one. Times are flush again and he’s enjoying the buffet exactly like he did in the boom years that preceded the 2008 crash. I told him we’re in another bubble and this was not a good time to be taking on debt. Bubbles tend to pop. His house is already beautiful. There isn’t a damned thing wrong with his kitchen. And he could have gotten a few more years out of his old truck. He’s north of sixty. Does he really want to be paying off a second mortgage until he’s eighty?</i><br /><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2016/12/18/the-goldfish-economy/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-31538683444162422172016-12-31T16:26:37.944-07:002016-12-31T16:26:37.944-07:00You don't get it.
But you are in very good co...You don't get it.<br /><br />But you are in very good company.<br /><br />Kunstler doesn't get it.<br /><br />Greer doesn't get it.<br /><br />Dimitri doesn't get it.<br /><br />NONE of you post-apocolyptics pseudo-journalists get it.<br /><br />The fed can print zeros and ones on hard drives for relative infinity.<br /><br />And print, and print, and print, and print.<br /><br />And, there's nothing in the world that will stop this.<br /><br />N O T H I N G.<br /><br />Oh well, there is the . . . Bond Market ! ! !<br /><br />Bullshit, the bond market means nothing.<br /><br /><br />Oh well, there is this massive deficit.<br />So?<br />What?<br /><br />The ONLY thing that will be a TRUE game changer is when . . . <br /><br />The US dollar is not accepted ANYWHERE by ANYONE.<br /><br />Until then, they can print as much of this $hit as they want,<br />and the stupid masses WILL ACCEPT it for payment.<br /><br />And until they don't, you are full of BULLSHIT.<br /><br />Read it and weep.<br />Ventriloquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17710882943614273994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-30241804469794675112016-12-06T08:55:26.378-07:002016-12-06T08:55:26.378-07:00The story about buying the Cincinnati house for $1...The story about buying the Cincinnati house for $15,000, wanting to invest lots of money, and then getting blocked, that was eye-opening. Why would Cincy not want more investment and better housing stock? That seems like such an obvious no-brainer. Not only should the city approve it, they should be giving tax breaks and begging people to do stuff like that. But no way, it didn't conform to a 100 year old code. Insanity. I guess it serves the interests of big developers, who don't have to compete with new supply? But they would benefit in long term. Hard to understand what is going on. bjdubbsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-80146730536966199522016-12-02T20:46:12.558-07:002016-12-02T20:46:12.558-07:00" What gets built, bought, and inhabited has ..." What gets built, bought, and inhabited has a lot to do with what larger institutions demand. The market is seriously stacked in one direction. Three bedroom ranch houses, strip malls, garden apartments, and suburban office parks are approved without hesitation all day long. Everything else is intentionally excluded."<br /><br />Of course, because replacing a rowhouse, brownstone with shared walls in urban environs requires a very expensive tear-down and removal. Once the neighborhood becomes dangerous and tear-down cheap, there is no viable market for rebuilds.<br /><br />In contrast, open field suburban developments scale easily so there is enough "product" to front the costs of the permitting process (with vig for the local politicos) and to demonstrate that the upfront cost of roads, sewers and public utilities will be repaid out of the new tax base and utility fees.<br /><br />Urban row house neighborhoods were inhabited with members of the local parish church or synagogue. It was a community of families who knew each other. When uprooted and looking for a new home they are not going to want to buy another row house and share a wall with total strangers. They are going to want some distance and privacy.<br /><br />Clear field row house development won't sell so it doesn't get built.<br /><br />The social engineers who long for the cohesive feel of the jewish sthetl and imagine that its cohesiveness can be recreated in clear field developments are kidding themselves. Crowding cheek to jowl with nosy neighbors is something that moderns wish for others but not for themselves. High Plateau Drifternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-29506972268775684282016-12-01T22:17:26.498-07:002016-12-01T22:17:26.498-07:00Very interesting, very plausible (and the Granola ...Very interesting, very plausible (and the Granola seems like a great read so far). But...prognostication of any kind is perilous when it extrapolates from current trends and sees any kind of hard end. People get creative. Of course, the same can be said of those who extrapolate future comfort from current comfort. People can get too creative. ADLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11578314123744054067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-90703737018309622292016-12-01T17:22:31.888-07:002016-12-01T17:22:31.888-07:00This is just like the book Why Most Things Fail:
...This is just like the book Why Most Things Fail:<br /><br /><i>Back in the 1960’s and all through the 70’s and 80’s the old industrial cities emptied out. The Rust Belt was hit especially hard. Looking back, what could Buffalo, Cleveland, Youngstown, Altoona, or Rochester have done differently to save themselves from depopulation and insolvency?<br /><br />Go back to an earlier era when small farm towns emptied out as all the young people poured in to big industrial cities grabbing at good paying factory jobs with both hands. What could any of those rural towns have done differently to prevent the exodus? A few lucky places had a university or a medical center or were especially beautiful and reinvented themselves as tourist or retirement destinations. Everyone else… toast.<br /><br />Many of our suburban communities served their populations very well for fifty or sixty years. Now these places are aging poorly and the economy is leaving them behind. Some will be fortunate. Right place. Right time. Others? Not so much. So let the local authorities do whatever they can to hold things together. <b>Some will be successful – more or less by accident. Other places will do exactly the same things and they’ll fail. That’s life.</b></i><br /><br />http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/2015/05/review-why-most-things-fail-evolution.htmlCPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-50101524141063841902016-12-01T17:21:14.572-07:002016-12-01T17:21:14.572-07:00Unlike previous generations who placed themselves ...<i>Unlike previous generations who placed themselves in great personal debt in order to acquire a large prestigious home to demonstrate wealth and status, Todd sees his home as a productive object to generate revenue. <b>It’s precisely the opposite philosophy from the McMansion in a gated community. The value isn’t loaded on to the eventual speculative value of the home come sale time, but in the month-to-month productive capacity of the property.</b> Status for him doesn’t come from a two story entry foyer or an extravagant master bedroom suite. Instead, he rejoices in the economic freedom of having a home that pays him each month rather than the other way around.</i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2015/05/27/strong-towns-and-strong-households/<br /><br /><i>No one in 1940 could have imagined how far down the old Brooklyn neighborhood would sink by 1970. And no one in 1970 could have predicted the spectacular gentrification of 2015. For those people who purchased property in the area in 1940 it must have seemed like a smart move compared to buying a fallow potato field way out on Long Island or New Jersey. But it was all downhill for decades and they probably never lived to see Boerum Hill recover. For those who bought property in Boerum Hill in the early 1990’s it must have felt like a huge risk. But all those cheap run down old buildings proved to be a massive gravy train that just kept rolling in. That’s the cycle of history at work.</i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2015/07/11/the-real-estate-pendulum-of-history/CPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-51824274201850414342016-12-01T17:20:24.710-07:002016-12-01T17:20:24.710-07:00Honestly, every time I see someone drive out to th...<i>Honestly, every time I see someone drive out to the far edge and buy a big house off the side of the highway (Mason, Beavercreek, etc.) I think… well, if that’s what you really want fine by me. But I could never live in a place like that myself. And while such places are prosperous at the moment I don’t think they’ll hold up well over time. We’ll all see as events unfold in the future. Remember, the burned out ruins in Cincinnati used to be filled with the richest people in the region until the economic and social pendulum swung away. I’m taking a chance that things are swinging back again.</i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2015/06/21/some-kindly-advice-from-an-old-white-guy/<br /><br /><i>One of the ways newer suburbs have attempted to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening is to mandate minimum home and lot sizes. A 4,000 square foot house comes in at a certain price point that lower income people simply can’t afford. Problem solved, right? Well… I witnessed numerous subdivisions in Southern California collapse in value after the 2008 financial crisis. No buyers appeared and the foreclosed properties sat empty until they were bought by investors for pennies on the dollar. The absentee landlords then rented to whoever made the homes cash flow.[...]<br /><br />The other thing to keep in mind is that <b>production home builders and material suppliers have gotten very creative when it comes to supplying the demand for large homes by making them out of compressed dust and plastic film</b>. Some of these places look like they were manufactured from cake frosting. They don’t hold up very well without continual care and feeding. [...]<br /><br />There are larger economic forces at work here that can’t be addressed by local regulations. The American middle class has been shrinking for at least thirty years. Wealth and opportunity have been concentrating in fewer and fewer geographic locations. And across-the-board saturation debt levels are choking off more and more options for the larger population. <b>Maintaining the suburbs in the ways they were designed to be maintained is extraordinarily expensive. And we’re broke. You can’t legislate prosperity.</b> </i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2016/11/30/morality-plays/CPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-19213810435170432682016-12-01T17:20:00.050-07:002016-12-01T17:20:00.050-07:00But it bothers me that each level of bureaucracy i...<i>But it bothers me that each level of bureaucracy inevitably drags in other bureaucracies and institutions that all have their own demands and costs that raise the bar of entry without actually adding value to the finished building or business. In essence <b>an entire class of unproductive middlemen have to be fed in order for neighbors to buy and sell onions and bread to one another.</b></i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2014/05/22/the-100000-roadside-produce-stand/<br /><br /><i>I travel across the country often. I make comments about the financial insolvency that’s already baked in to the cake and local officials are incapable of using that information in any meaningful way. The suburbs have been built. They’re occupied by voters who expect certain things. This isn’t a conversation that anyone with a position in government can pursue and expect to stay employed for very long. The problem will fix itself as failure and abandonment set in.</i> <br />https://granolashotgun.com/2015/04/21/municipal-solvency-how-to-not-go-broke/CPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-32734705163966383262016-12-01T17:19:38.354-07:002016-12-01T17:19:38.354-07:00All the individual rules, procedures, costs, and r...<i>All the individual rules, procedures, costs, and restrictions that have built up over the years like an alluvial delta of red tape are perfectly reasonable when viewed in isolation. But collectively they make it impossible for ordinary people to meet their own basic needs, particularly at the bottom of the income pyramid. [...]<br /><br />“Ohio is the solution to California’s affordable housing crisis.” Yeah, I know… it snows there. But with the $500,000 you save on a house you can buy a second home in the Caribbean. And the Ohio countryside is every bit as gorgeous as Sonoma.</i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2015/06/15/affordable-housing-minus-the-housing-and-affordable-parts/CPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527840491496268397.post-89942981001840212922016-12-01T17:19:08.854-07:002016-12-01T17:19:08.854-07:00Again… there were willing buyers and sellers in th...<i>Again… there were willing buyers and sellers in the “free market” yet the banks and regulators rejected the sale. <b>What gets built, bought, and inhabited has a lot to do with what larger institutions demand.</b> The market is seriously stacked in one direction. Three bedroom ranch houses, strip malls, garden apartments, and suburban office parks are approved without hesitation all day long. Everything else is intentionally excluded.</i><br />https://granolashotgun.com/2016/03/03/who-really-controls-which-house-you-buy/CPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12701174164478027499noreply@blogger.com