Archive for Let the Good Times Roll
Maybe Them Shoots Look Green On MSNBC: Keyser Just Ain’t Seein’ It Edition
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So, here’s a report on delinquency rates in mortgages from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision (who knew there was such a thing?), as reported on Calculated Risk:
The mortgage data reported for the second quarter of 2009 continued to reflect negative trends influenced by weakness in economic conditions including high unemployment and declining home prices in weak housing markets. As a result, the number of seriously delinquent mortgages and foreclosures in process continued to increase. However, a lull in newly initiated foreclosures occurred as servicers worked to implement the “Making Home Affordable” program during the second quarter.
The graph up there (click for bigger image) shows that the shit just keeps on getting shittier. Think only the subprime mortgages are the problem? No, the primes are even worse. And are the numbers going down? Yes. But only because some stupid program is encouraging the banks not to foreclose.
And the stock market is up 50% since the low point last winter, while all this is going on? Why? Because Bennie and Timmy have bought up shit securities from the banks, and the freed up liquidity isn’t being used for productive lending but is going into stock speculation. Are the banks any better? No. Is there any real sign of turn around? No, not that Keyser can see.
As the guy says at the end of Bridge over the River Kwai: Madness.
Keyser’s Delinquency Has an Excuse
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Hi, all! Today marks another step in filling out the fifth decade of Keyser’s life. Long-suffering readers may recall that last year, Keyser and Mrs. S. had a (kind of) close encounter with death, who seems to have had other things on his mind. Today, Keyser got a cool macro lens (though for reasons known best to themselves Nikon perversely calls it a “micro” lens), and Mrs. S. and Keyser went off with the smallest Keyserling to a nearby national park. Saw not much in the way of wildlife (the buffalo were apparently hiding, but eventually Keyser will regale you with all sorts of cool small stuff. Also, the sun god wasn’t too merciless, but Mrs. S. is pretty wiped out nonetheless.
So the lack of posting isn’t the result of indolence. All Keyser’s got to say is that life is good, and everyone should go enjoy it!
And You Thought Keyser Was Kidding!: US to Destroy US to Save It Edition
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Keyser had a post a little while ago about how Detroit was proposing to tear down a historic monument as part of the big “stimulus” package, and Keyser joked that “God knows there’s a lot of demolition that needs doing there,” if that was how Joe “He Dah Man” Biden was planning on spending all that geld. Well, seems that in another part of Michigan that’s exactly what they’d like to do, and the Obama Brain Trust is onto this idea like dust on a construction worker standing around doing as little as possible in the August sun, as we learn from the Telegraph:
The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.
Most are former industrial cities in the “rust belt” of America’s Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.
In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.
“The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we’re all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way,” said Mr Kildee. “Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity.”
Brings a whole new meaning to Schumpeter’s “creative destruction,” eh? We’ve always known that leftards basically hate humanity and want to get rid of people if at all possible. But who knew you could do this as a form of “stimulating” the economy? Genius!
But Keyser’s new question is this: If this is such a great idea, how come we have to find out about it from a British newspaper?
Anyway, that’s an image from East St. Loius IL up there, and when asked to comment on plans to napalm the entire city, an anonymous administration source said, “Hey, who’s going to miss that?” and went on to quote the famous Swahili proverb “it takes a village to destroy a village.” Updates as warranted.
The Economy on the Ground: Las Vegas Edition
Posted by: | CommentsA few days ago, Keyser saw a television show in which someone claimed to be a millionaire, and he said he was into real estate development. He mentioned in particular his involvement in Manhattan West. Turns out this was a big development in Las Vegas, but even though it’s 80% complete, its outlook is now said to be “grim.”
Things look rather different just a few years ago. Here’s a blurb from some realtor that Keyser came across from July 25 2006:
Las Vegas is heading skywards. With the cost of land and the dwindling supply, when you take away the BLM land there is no where to go but UP. In five years you will not be able to recognize the skyline of Las Vegas. There is every imaginable project going, condos, lofts, towers, and an Urban village which will be like brownstones. The Strip is not the only place that is seeing the towers, the Harmon Corridor is becoming the hippest place just off srtip as seen by the article below from the local paper.
Seems there actually was someplace to go but UP, which was PRECIPITOUSLY DOWN. Far as Keyser can figure, the big boom in LV was a spin-off from the housing bubble in neighboring California, with lots of people investing their home equity in LV and/or spending time and money gambling and doing other foolish things there. Once the housing market in California tanked, the secondary bubble in Nevada lost all its oxygen and if anything tanked much worse than elsewhere, since it’s fundamentally based on frivolousness that people can cut out of their lives without much trouble.
Except, of course, for the people actually stuck in a town suffering from a very sudden and severe downturn. Here’s a video about the effects of this local collapse on real people. The overall picture is in fact pretty grim, and some it’s pretty sad.
Truly a Field of (Bad) Dreams Come to a Bad End.
Pimp My Prime: Inaugural Edition
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Or should that be Prime my Pump?
Anyway, seems that Pres. Barry is already spreading the economic joy just with his inauguration:
A brief phone survey yesterday of D.C.-area hookers found on Craigslist revealed that Barack Obama’s inauguration is inspiring great hopes — for their business. A pair who work together expect 30 clients before Wednesday, all paying $200 a pop. Meeka, 21, a “sexy southern belle, new to town,” has come into the city specially for the festivities. “I’m busy over the weekend,” she told us. “I could make time for you, though.” Karina, 26, traveled five hours to get here, and was already “pretty booked up.”All of the women, who charge between $100 and $300 per hour, voted for Obama. Charlie, who implores clients to “come start my engine, bad boy,” said she would even provide her services to Barack Obama, despite potential costs to his nascent presidency. Lei, a male prostitute, spoke to us at his plush apartment in an upscale neighborhood. “I actually just finished with a client who was from out of town, the South, I think,” the youthful-looking 38-year-old — who is from an Islamic country, and was in an arranged marriage for eight years before coming out of the closet — told us. “I hope the inauguration will bring more business. If it’s guys here by themselves on business, then it will.”
Obama’s inauguration might also make history for D.C. cocaine dealers — although there is no basis to the rumor that some are dyeing their product black. Over five days, one 29-year-old expects to earn cash in the high five figures from out-of-towners, not least because bars are open until 5 a.m. and there are a few hundred parties. The dealer, who grew up moshing to D.C. punk, laid out $3,000 to stock up because he plans on moving “serious weight.” On Saturday, lounging in the back room of the Rock N Roll Hotel nightclub, he slipped a bag of coke into the hands of a venerable fortysomething European reporter. “I’ve had people calling me about this for weeks,” the dealer says, as the reporter hands him $60. “I just sold out. I gotta re-up.”
With a good start like this (just imagine how the whores and dealers will be making out once the Happy Days start rolling off the printing press in big numbers), Pres. Barry’s bound to have the economy humming (or is that “giving hummers”?) again in no time.
Hope and change, people. Hope. And. Change.
