tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5634429052279857991..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: California vs. TexasUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32081498571898467952008-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:002008-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:00It's fashionable for Californians and others to bl...It's fashionable for Californians and others to blame geography more than regulation, but the research of <A HREF="http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/glaeser/papers_glaeser" REL="nofollow">Ed Glaeser</A> provides several interesting ways of showing that, while indeed geography does limit the usable land in California, it is nowhere near as strong as the effects of regulation and zoning.John Thackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15269867695937765049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87368657101213114042008-10-01T07:10:00.000-07:002008-10-01T07:10:00.000-07:00Compliance Tech's website announces a timely meeti...Compliance Tech's website announces a timely meeting next week: the 4th Annual Mortgage Lending Industry Strategic Markets and Diversity Conference. Any journalists going?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82388147751770766522008-10-01T04:20:00.000-07:002008-10-01T04:20:00.000-07:00Your Texas example shows what housing should cost ...Your Texas example shows what housing should cost almost everywhere if it were not for regulation. It is the regulations which prevent land being used & often prevent the use of mas production methods. Look at the costs of midular housing or the costs of housing 100 years ago compared to other goods.<BR/><BR/>Thus the housing bubble is what happens to any good when supply is restricted irrespective of price (eg the art market regularly has bubbles).<BR/><BR/>This is the real reason for panic. That in a free market most housing would be a fraction of even its current value. Of course without high house prices & thus mortgages most banks would be a lot leaner. Poor things.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47740807957733921652008-10-01T01:22:00.000-07:002008-10-01T01:22:00.000-07:00I recommend these trifling cosmetic alterations in...<I>I recommend these trifling cosmetic alterations in the friendliest of spirits.<BR/><BR/>I remain, as ever, your most obedient servant,<BR/><BR/>- Stephen Maturin</I><BR/><BR/>Ha. As soon as I get done w/ the Flashman papers, I might re-read some of the Paddy O'Brian stuff. Damn fine literature, that. Anyone know any other good historical fiction along these lines?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-923075469203282442008-09-30T17:59:00.000-07:002008-09-30T17:59:00.000-07:00I used to watch "Flip This House" shows and there ...I used to watch "Flip This House" shows and there was one guy who was featured on a number of episodes. I've never forgotten one show.<BR/><BR/>This guy bought a trashed, garbage strewn concrete block building the size of a one car garage with a patch of dirt and chain link fence, in South Central LA.<BR/><BR/>He painted the walls, replaced the plumbing fixtures, the wall to wall carpeting, the kitchen cabinets, and cleaned up the yard.<BR/><BR/>At the end of the show he claimed that he'd sold it for $300,000.<BR/><BR/>I guess it's possible that someone from ACORN convinced some Section Eight renter that they could move into this garage for no credit, no money down, interest only loan. And the guy who sold it made money. My guess is that when it turned out that Section Eight wasn't paying the mortgage, the so-called home owner went into foreclosure.<BR/><BR/>In situations like this, the so-called buyer isn't a home owner. They're renting the house from the bank and will be evicted if the rent isn't paid.<BR/><BR/>But that guy who flipped that house made out like a bandit. Or maybe not.<BR/><BR/>I wonder how many of his flips didn't flip.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23248665633563361032008-09-30T15:31:00.000-07:002008-09-30T15:31:00.000-07:00California needs to divided into two states so tha...California needs to divided into two states so that the Governator and co. have a more manageable problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67635590598327136032008-09-30T14:47:00.000-07:002008-09-30T14:47:00.000-07:00@Captain Jack AubreyDear Jack,You wrote:"(Though I...@Captain Jack Aubrey<BR/><BR/>Dear Jack,<BR/><BR/>You wrote:<BR/><BR/>"(Though I'm sure that with a little education they'll all turn into fledgling Linus Torvalds's and Albert Einstein's overnight.)"<BR/><BR/>The last two apostrophes in the above are indefensible. If you are unwilling to recast the sentence to obviate the pluralization of these surnames, then Torvaldses and Einsteins must be made to serve.<BR/><BR/>Enclosing the entirety of ultimate sentence in parentheses is also unwarranted given the jocular, first-person tone of the paragraph as a whole.<BR/><BR/>I recommend these trifling cosmetic alterations in the friendliest of spirits.<BR/><BR/>I remain, as ever, your most obedient servant,<BR/><BR/>- Stephen MaturinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-65111979539569678842008-09-30T12:59:00.000-07:002008-09-30T12:59:00.000-07:00You know, it’s interesting how, taking the long hi...You know, it’s interesting how, taking the long historical view, St. Franklin is the gift that keep on giving and giving and giving, until one day there is a snap-back, and St. Franklin comes to take it all back.<BR/><BR/>The New Deal established an austere program for supporting widows and orphans until Democrats and lefty Supreme Court justices turned it into swag for unmarried welfare mothers for 30 years, until we finally ended that game in the mid-1990s.<BR/><BR/>Social Security was similarly a limited program for ensuring a decent old age for several decades until it became a perpetual motion, headed-for-bankruptcy machine in the 1970s.<BR/><BR/>And the original New Deal programs for enabling hard-working and regular–saving married couples to buy their own homes became in the late 1990s another Affirmative Action swag machine, driving up housing prices and practically soliciting massive defaults, with its current consequences.<BR/><BR/>Thank you, St. Franklin.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32111962012241436012008-09-30T12:22:00.000-07:002008-09-30T12:22:00.000-07:00Bubbles can be fun!I was intimately involved with ...Bubbles can be fun!<BR/><BR/>I was intimately involved with the Internet Bubble and more recently with the California Housing Bubble. Its true that after they burst there were casualties all over the field but realize that after Pickett's Charge there were three new openings for Brigadier General. Three former Colonels benefited greatly.<BR/><BR/>In three years of the Internet Bubble I was promoted six times. I worked for four different companies - three of which went bankrupt. It was like having your horse shot out from underneath you in battle.<BR/><BR/>I always got out with a severance package. Others weren't so lucky and ended up suing the bankrupt companies. But that's how battle works. Some are casualties others are lucky.<BR/><BR/>I also did OK in the Housing Bubble. A year or two ago I looked on the Web and discovered that I was a millionaire. My $200,000 house was worth about a million. My house had appreciated that year for much more money than I had earned in the job market. I was able to capture a good deal of that equity inflation. <BR/><BR/>I wasn't clever just lucky. Survivors in the crazy worlds of battle and bubbles are like that.albertosaurushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13209465319904999278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58695445108308487632008-09-30T11:05:00.000-07:002008-09-30T11:05:00.000-07:00To go off on a complete tangent, Somali pirates to...To go off on a complete tangent, Somali pirates took control of a Ukrainian vessel carrying weapons several days ago. Today three of them were killed. By the Ukrainians? No. By the Russian or US Navies? Nope.<BR/><BR/>Who killed them, then? <A HREF="http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE48T14Y20080930" REL="nofollow">Other Somali pirates.</A> You just can't make this stuff up. And these are the people, I'd add, coming to this country as refugees by the boatloads. (Though I'm sure that with a little education they'll all turn into fledgling Linus Torvalds's and Albert Einstein's overnight.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63747163464511163162008-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:002008-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00I would add that immigration is one more reason we...I would add that immigration is one more reason we should NOT want the government owning hundreds of billions of dollars in real estate. We already hear (constantly) about the need for mass immigration to shore up Social Security. We don't also want to be hearing the argument that we need immigrants to buy all these homes the government's trying to sell.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88271023894028929732008-09-30T10:33:00.000-07:002008-09-30T10:33:00.000-07:00From Bush & Rove's Texas-centric point of ...<I>From Bush & Rove's Texas-centric point of view, if some guy named Juan with no assets besides a 1979 Datsun pickup truck gets a liar loan for a house in Texas, his mortgage is, what, $100,000? He might be able to scratch together enough money to meet his payments. If he can't, well, Juan is gone, but that's just $100,000 down the drain.</I><BR/><BR/>From the Bush/Rove perspective it's not $100k down the drain, because there's still a $100k house backing up the paper. Mexifornians, Nevadans, Floridians and others were getting $500k loans at the top of the bubble for houses that, post-crash, were only worth maybe $400k (or less). That's an automatic $100k loss for the owner of the mortgage, not even counting their other costs.<BR/><BR/>This whole mess, and that Bush video in particular, show how multiculturalism and belief in the "blank slate" hypothesis of human nature was at the source of so many failures during the Bush years: mass immigrations, the mortgage crisis, education and NCLB, the Iraq War. No matter the president, no matter the party, we're going to keep seeing mistakes like this in the coming decades so long as we keep electing TBMs (True Believing Multiculturalists).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com