Today is

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Rip Rap

Big 3 Crisis Just a Small Glitch in Bush Legacy
Excerpt:
Speaking at the White House, he also said he didn't want to "leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office."
Bush certainly doesn’t want to wreck his eight years of fine presidential workmanship and pristine legacy with something like the American auto industry teetering on the brink of failure by the hands of his wild west deregulation of a phony capital system.

Shoe Toss Game




Will Property Assessors Anticipate Falling Values?
More Home Owners appeal property assessment:
Nationwide, home values are falling because of deeply discounted foreclosures, harder-to-get mortgages, and an economy in shambles. Faced with property tax bills that still reflect heady prices of the boom years, more homeowners are learning about the appeals process. The obscure and once rare process of appealing property taxes usually involves no fees and no need to hire an attorney or an appraiser.
Property tax assessors may have to throw out all of the real estate sales history from the past eight years and only keep new sales records beginning around June of 2008. Any sales history before that was part of the housing bubble and simply no longer valid – we are dealing with a whole new reality.

For the first time in recent memory, the anticipatory outlook calls for a depreciating housing market and prices declining for as long as the next 6 to 10 years. If you bought a house anytime between 2000 and 2006, chances are extremely high your house is worth less now than what you paid for it, and probably overpaid by at least 15% and as high as 30%. With that said, if you are lucky enough to afford the loan and bought a house after June of this year, you probably paid market value for it. But by the time you read this, you might have lost 5%.

Things are changing rapidly on the local and national level with no bottom yet in sight. Contrary to what some local realtors have said and despite an inflation inducing monetary policy by the Fed - sellers of Janesville area housing appear to be extremely motivated.
Sean Hannity – Misinformer Of the Year
Media Matters:
Along the way, he uncritically adopted and promoted countless Republican talking points and played host to numerous credibility-challenged smear artists who painted Obama as a dangerous radical. When he was not going after Obama, Hannity attacked members of Obama's family, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton and other progressives, and denied all the while that he had unfairly attacked anyone.

Rezone My Property Or I’ll Sue:
LAKE GENEVA — Illinois developer Robert Hummel has filed a notice of injury accusing Lake Geneva of "singling out" the developer by placing a "unique moratorium" on development of the 718 acres he owns on the city's south side.
That’s a new one. The "unique moratorium" in this case is "democracy." As far as I'm concerned, all annexations and rezoning of anything greater than one acre should be a referendum.

Mark Mortgages To Market
Chicago Tribune Excerpt:
The goal of lower borrowing costs is to entice people and businesses to spend more, which would revive the economy. So far, though, the Fed's aggressive rate reductions have failed to turn the economy around.
The Fed, still trying to tempt people to buy homes they can't afford at any interest rate. Great economic policy. Homeowners are defaulting on their mortgages regardless of interest rates simply because the mortgage note is worth 20-50% more than what the housing market says its worth. Wall Street defaulted on the mortgage bundles for the same reason. When homeowners default, they bought beyond their means and deserve the consequences - but when Wall Street defaults, they get their butt kissed with a $750 billion bail-out and demands from certain Congressmen to modify the value of the toxic mortgage securities with a "mark-to-market" write-down.

And it doesn't help that buyers are wary that the job or pension they've worked their lives for will be legislated away from them by Congressional Republicans.
Paul Ryan A Freemason?

A graphic posted in the Wisconsin State Journal depicts Obey as 'The Money Man', Feingold as a sheriff and Rep. Paul Ryan as an architect?? wearing a square and compass symbol on his shirt medallion. Strange if not confusing.
Why So Upset About Madoff?
Did Madoff Act alone? Excerpt:
Madoff was subjected to electronic monitoring and a nighttime curfew earlier this week as angry investors who lost billions seek information about what happened to money they thought was safely invested with someone who was widely respected on Wall Street for nearly half a century.
Madoff did to investors what Republicans want the Big 3 to do to their assembly line workers. Screw them out of their wages, pension and negotiated benefits………legally.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's going a little too far don't ya' think - a referendum on rezoning for anything larger than an acre?

Lou Kaye said...

It is. But have you ever tried getting a variance on a set-back or some other minor change on a tiny lot? Some jurisdictions hold hearings and act like the applicant is trying to steal something.

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