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"The conventional view is that housing appreciation is good because it reduces (default) risk. Not according to my theory, which is housing appreciation is bad. It encourages junior-lien borrowing. When appreciation stops, somebody is going to be left in a bad position."
-- Michael LaCour-Little, finance professor at Cal State Fullerton.
Some good arguing on healthcare.
Luntz also wrote: "Healthcare quality = 'getting the treatment you need, when you need it.' That is how Americans define quality, and so should you. The key opportunity here is that this commitment goes beyond what the Democrats can offer. Their plan will deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they can actually receive. This is more than just rationing. To most Americans, rationing suggests limits or shortages -- for others. But personalizing it -- 'delaying your tests and denying your treatment' -- is the concept most likely to change the most minds in your favor" [emphasis in original].
On its "Talking Points" page, congressional Republicans similarly stated that Democrats would deny access to medical care and treatments, claiming, "The Democrats' government-takeover of health care will deny access to medical care and life-saving treatments."
YALE ECONOMIST ROBERT SHILLER delivers his forecast for U.S. housing with a scholarly diffidence that only slightly mutes his stark message: The market is in the throes of a bubble of unprecedented proportions that probably will end ugly.
Such unsettling talk is cheap, of course, especially from a tenured academic, and many sources, including Barron's, have wrongly predicted housing's downfall several times in the past few years. But the Ivy League professor's forecasts of coming trouble have been right before. His best seller Irrational Exuberance, predicting a bear market in U.S. stocks, hit the bookstores in March 2000, less than a week before the Nasdaq began a dizzying descent from above 5000 that would destroy 75% of its value in a little over 2½ years.
In the real-estate market, Shiller contends, a price slide could begin at any time with the crescendo of what he describes simply as "talk" -- a word that he uses to cover everything from the recent Time magazine cover story on the vertiginous rise in home prices and the popularity of cable-television shows about rehabilitating and investing in real estate to the breathless newspaper stories of Miami condos being "flipped" for profit a half-dozen times before construction even begins.
MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005
FEATURE
The Bubble's New Home
By JONATHAN R. LAING | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
Despite what Alan Greenspan says, there's a huge housing bubble, argues Yale economist Robert Shiller, that gradually could push real prices down 50% after it bursts. Why he's worth listening to.
Urban-style development may be the brightest spot in a generally gloomy market. A recent survey of developers and investors by the Urban Land Institute for its annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report found that urban redevelopment had the best prospects among all types of housing, while urban mixed-use properties and town centers scored high among niche property types. "These are the places that will be creating and holding value," Ms. Poticha said. She said proximity to public transit could raise property values significantly.
"It's moved from being an interesting idea to a core investment," said Jonathan F. P. Rose, the president of the Jonathan Rose Companies, a New York-based developer and investor.
The most successful projects do more than build housing near transit stations. They take pains to create livable neighborhoods, with parks, paths, retail stores and places for people to gather. "Place-making is key," Ms. Poticha said.
Lifestyle Communities, based in Columbus, is one of those developers. It is building a $25 million rental and condo project, the Annex at RiverSouth. Without the public investment in area roads and infrastructure, "it would have been difficult," said Michael DeAscentis Jr., the company's chief executive.
In Los Angeles, the Downtown Center Business Improvement District arranged weekly bus tours for people interested in living downtown, according to Rhonda Slavik, sales and marketing director for the South Group, a company that has built residential buildings in the emerging South Park neighborhood.
Of course, many municipalities are feeling pinched these days. Increased costs have forced Denver to look for additional funding for its ambitious plans, while in Charlotte, city officials may delay construction of one of two planned rail lines.
SPOTLIGHT
New Rail Lines Spur Urban Revival
By AMY CORTESE
Published: June 14, 2009
In a time of tight credit, housing developments built around new or existing transit lines are often able to secure financing.
Mrs Obama looks strong and healthy.
A number of search start-ups have appeared recently that differentiate their offerings from older search engines' by playing up their specialized focus on the real-time Web. For example, OneRiot, based in Boulder, Colo., covers Twitter among other social media, but it has an intriguing means of reducing Twitter spam: it does not index the text in tweets -- it plucks only the links, reasoning that the videos, news stories and blog posts that are being shared are what others will be most interested in.
OneRiot follows the link, checks for spam by comparing the content of the page with the content of the tweet, and then uses its own algorithms to figure out where the link should go in its always-changing index of "hot" items.
Strictly speaking, this is not real-time processing. But checking links before adding them to the index seems to be time well spent.
Tobias Peggs, general manager at OneRiot, said his company could process, check and index a link within 37 seconds. When asked why he bothered to measure the seconds if it took 20 or more minutes just to receive searchable tweets from Twitter, he explained that the delays at Twitter's search site did not affect his company's search service, which receives the data stream at the same time Twitter's own search engine does. Because one venture capital firm, Spark Capital, has invested in both OneRiot and Twitter, OneRiot has "access to Twitter data that other third parties don't," Mr. Peggs said.
DIGITAL DOMAIN
Hey, Just a Minute (or Why Google Isn't Twitter)
By RANDALL STROSS
Published: June 14, 2009
Real-time results sound great, but can't a search engine take a moment to chew its food?
So tells Alyssa Katz' Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us in an engaging economic history.
How and when did home mortgages become Wall Street's playthings?
Who invented subprime loans - and how did they remain legal?
Who won the presidency promising to help as many Americans as possible buy a home?
What did Fannie Mae really do?
How did renters become second-class citizens?
Could your house be a target for mortgage fraud?
Why do new homes generate more greenhouse gases than all the nation's cars, trucks and buses combined?
Through stories about ordinary Americans who did their part to make the United States a nation of homeowners, Our Lot reveals how real estate turned into a fatal national obsession.
Do new-car buyers even drive clunkers ?
Am I driving a clunker because I cannot afford a 4 year old car ?
Will an extra $1000 trade in afford me a new car (or 14 month olf d car) ?
Update 2009 June 30:
"It has to be worth not very much and it also has to get very poor E.P.A. fuel economy," said Jack R. Nerad, the executive editorial director and market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "It's a fairly narrow profile. You're talking about people who are probably economically challenged to begin with and they have to be able to qualify for a new car purchase in the midst of a deep recession. Those are some difficult parameters."
The case of the sad SAAB, junked with a work badge.
See also at Freakonomics.
BUSINESS
Rules May Limit Cash for Clunkers Program
By NICK BUNKLEY and SARA PETERS
Published: June 27, 2009
While the U.S. law may help raise demand for new cars, it is more restrictive than a similar law that proved popular in Germany.
Interesting smartphone product segmentation from Blackberry / RIM:
Bold: 3G and WiFi
Curve 8900: WiFI
Tour 9630: 3G
Atlas: WiFi + ?
Sprint users are catching up with the 9630 Blackberry Tour.
Finding Alpha: The Search for Alpha When Risk and Return Break Down (Wiley Finance) by Eric Falkenstein (Hardcover - Jun 29, 2009) is anticipated and now available.
The typical Amazon new vs used arbitrage occurs. New $56, vs used $103.
See previously Big Picture Barry Bailout Nation arbitrage.
These two new books both tell versions of that story. In "Dumb Money" (originally published as an e-book several months ago), Mr. Gross gives the lay reader a succinct, breezy and sometimes snarky account of how "the Ownership Society" so quickly devolved "into Bailout Nation," how the Alan Greenspan era of low interest rates and "Cheap Money" (from late 2001 through 2004) begat the "Era of Dumb Money" (mid-2004 through mid-2006) of growing leverage and debt, and, eventually, the "Era of Dumber Money" (late 2006 to the calamities of 2008), in which "large, old-line investment banks waded chest-deep into the subprime" mortgage swamp, processing the debt (bundling it, selling its pieces and helping others trade them) in compulsive pursuit of lucrative fees, even as the housing bubble had started to burst.
-- Michiko Kakutani
Blackberry Tour 9630 comes to Sprint. 2009 July 20 according to SprintGurus ? 2009 July 12 ?
Specsheet/Userguide on Scribd.
Announced for Summer of 2009.
The Facebook phone ?
The BlackBerry Tour smartphone is a powerful mobility tool that operates on Sprint's nationwide 3G (EV-DO Rev. A) network domestically. It also roams on other high-speed wireless networks around the world for reliable voice and email communication without missing a beat.The BlackBerry Tour is a sophisticated smartphone that enables customers to be more productive and better equipped to manage both their busy personal and business lives. It is ideally suited for those who want to stay socially connected, and lets you share moments through pictures and videos via MMS and instant message on popular IM services or BlackBerry® Messenger. It also offers easy access to your favorite social networking sites like Flickr®, MySpace and Facebook®, and you get smooth integration between the BlackBerry Tour smartphone and your Facebook events and friends giving you a great view of what's happening both personally and professionally. This is the most powerful business smartphone in Sprint's line-up with instant access to emails, calendar, contacts, robust business applications and location-based services, leveraging the best performing networks both domestically and abroad.
Reviewed by Bonnie Cha (CNET): video and text.
Compare to BlackBerry 8703e from 2006.
Previously: Sprint Bold Niagara Tour 9630 BlackBerry introduced.
Blackberry Tour 9630 specs.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With the new BlackBerry® Tour™ smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) available from Sprint (NYSE: S) on America's most dependable 3G network1, staying connected won't be a worry domestically, or when you travel around the world.
The BlackBerry Tour smartphone is a powerful mobility tool that operates on Sprint's nationwide 3G (EV-DO Rev. A) network domestically. It also roams on other high-speed wireless networks around the world for reliable voice and email communication without missing a beat.
The BlackBerry Tour is a sophisticated smartphone that enables customers to be more productive and better equipped to manage both their busy personal and business lives. It is ideally suited for those who want to stay socially connected, and lets you share moments through pictures and videos via MMS and instant message on popular IM services or BlackBerry® Messenger. It also offers easy access to your favorite social networking sites like Flickr®, MySpace and Facebook®, and you get smooth integration between the BlackBerry Tour smartphone and your Facebook events and friends giving you a great view of what's happening both personally and professionally. This is the most powerful business smartphone in Sprint's line-up with instant access to emails, calendar, contacts, robust business applications and location-based services, leveraging the best performing networks both domestically and abroad.
"The BlackBerry Tour is a sophisticated and powerful smartphone that will enable customers to be more productive and better equipped to manage their busy business and personal lives; and global travelers can rest easy knowing Sprint has a solution to keep people connected wherever their travels may take them," said Kevin Packingham, senior vice president - Product Development, Sprint. "Particularly compelling for world travelers will be the performance enabled by combining the new feature-rich BlackBerry Tour with Sprint's 3G network and some of the world's other most robust voice and data networks."
No one has a larger voice calling area than Sprint. The Nationwide Sprint Network (inclusive of roaming) reaches more than 304 million people in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with a Sprint calling plan that includes roaming. Additionally, the Sprint 3G Network, the nation's most dependable 3G network, is faster in more places than AT&T's 3G network2, and Sprint has more than 20 times the coverage of T-Mobile's current 3G network, based on square miles.
The BlackBerry Tour smartphone comes with a vibrant high-resolution display (480 x 360 at 245 ppi) plus intuitive trackball navigation, a large, full-QWERTY keyboard, corporate and personal email with attachment viewing, calendar, integrated address book and up to 16 GB of expandable memory with a microSD/SDHC card.
It also includes a 3.2 MP camera with variable zoom, auto focus, flash and image stabilization able to capture crisp pictures and video. It comes pre-loaded with the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV®, Sprint NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile, and features an advanced media player for playing video and music files, plus a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for the Bluetooth® stereo headsets (A2DP/AVCRP). The BlackBerry Tour smartphone also has built-in GPS and supports location-based services.
Study found that homeowners who lived within 300 feet of a foreclosed residential property experienced a drop of 1.3 percent in home value; those living 300 to 500 feet of the foreclosed home typically see a drop in value of 0.6 percent.
John P. Harding, a professor at the University of Connecticut's Center for Real Estate and Urban Economic Studies, and an author of the study, said the properties that are most affected by a foreclosure are the ones close enough to see the peeling paint, broken windows and overgrown lawns that often accompany such situations.
The worst time for immediate neighbors to sell their homes, refinance or cash out some of their home equity, Mr. Harding said, is just before the bank takes title to the property, because that is the point of greatest neglect.
MORTGAGES
Beware of Neighbor's Home Foreclosure
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: June 14, 2009
A report from the Center for Responsible Lending says that homeowners who are concerned about their home's value should watch for signs of trouble among their neighbors.
Mr. Liu calculated that his score leaped by more than 100 points over last year's dismal performance. But he was still downcast, uncertain whether he would make the cutoff to apply to top-tier universities. The cutoff mark can vary by an applicant's place of residence and ethnicity.
Ms. Li, on the other hand, was exhilarated by her estimate of 482.5, figuring it was probably high enough for admittance to a college of the second rank.
By Wednesday evening, both were buoyed by news of the cutoff scores for their district. His estimated mark was well above the one needed to apply to first-tier schools, and hers was a solid five points above the notch for the second tier.
Before the test, Ms. Li's aunt warned her that this was her last chance for a college degree. Even if she knelt before her mother and begged, her aunt said, her mother would refuse to let her take the test again.
But Ms. Li, a hardened veteran of not one but two gao kao ordeals, had a ready retort: "Come on. Even if my mother kneels down before me, I will refuse to take this test again."
INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC
China's College Entry Test Is an Obsession
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: June 13, 2009
Families pull out all the stops so children can pass the annual gao kao, or high test, the sole determinant for admission to Chinese colleges and universities.
Looking somehow clinical in her pajamas, Kristen instructed me to answer the questions honestly. No problem, since I'm honest to a fault when I choose to speak to people. For the next two hours, she led me through questions that at times had us both laughing with recognition:
¶Do you often talk about your special interests whether or not others seem interested? Who's not interested in cleaning-product slogans?
¶Do you rock back and forth or side to side for comfort, to calm yourself, when excited or overstimulated? Where's the hidden camera?
¶Do you get frustrated if you can't sit in your favorite seat? Friendships have ended over this.
See also: autism.
MODERN LOVE
Somewhere Inside, a Path to Empathy
By DAVID FINCH
Published: May 17, 2009
A man learns to deal with Asperger's syndrome, with the help of his wife.
n academic writings, Mr. Sunstein has advocated requiring agencies to demonstrate that new regulations' benefits clearly outweigh their costs, a policy long advocated by conservatives but viewed with suspicion by liberals who have seen it as a way to kill or weaken rules.
Mr. Sunstein said that relative to the Bush administration's heavy reliance on cost-benefit analysis, his approach would be "inclusive and humanized" and give more weight to moral concerns and other "soft variables."
But Mr. Sunstein also said he favors requiring agencies to explain why they are imposing rules that aren't justified by a cost-benefit analysis. And he said he would seek to maintain OIRA's central position in reviewing new regulations.
Created by Congress in 1980 as a central clearinghouse for new agency rules, OIRA has been criticized by consumer advocates for delaying or watering down regulations, particularly under Republican administrations. Some left-leaning groups, including OMB Watch and the Center for Progressive Reform, have raised concerns that OIRA might maintain that role under Mr. Sunstein.
MAY 13, 2009
Businesses Encouraged by Regulatory Nominee
By JOHN D. MCKINNON
Latest and best from RIM:
Updated: BlackBerry Tour 9630 comes to Sprint.
Previously: Sprint Bold Niagara Tour 9630 BlackBerry.
[ via BGR ]
But for the profoundly autistic, graduation is perhaps the saddest day in their lives. For those who cannot enter the work force, continue on to more education or find some sheltered workshop environment with adequate staffing, there are few options. Far too few programs and resources are allocated for adults with autism.
...
For purposes of fund-raising and awareness-raising, autism has been portrayed as a childhood disease. The federal Department of Health and Human Services has characterized it as a "disorder of childhood." There are practical reasons for this: early intervention has been shown to be the most effective therapy. The trend in autism treatment has been to steadily lower the age at which intensive intervention commences -- as early as five months, according to some experts. Yet autism is not a degenerative condition; the vast majority of those 1 in 150 children who are afflicted will survive to adulthood.
During the campaign, Obama talked about the need to control medical costs and mentioned a few ideas for doing so, but he rarely lingered on the topic. He spent more time talking about expanding health-insurance coverage, which would raise the government's bill. After the election, however, when time came to name a budget director, Obama sent a different message. He appointed Peter Orszag, who over the last two years has become one of the country's leading experts on the looming budget mess that is health care.
Their argument happens to be supported by a rich body of economic literature that didn't even make it into the book. More-educated people are healthier, live longer and, of course, make more money. Countries that educate more of their citizens tend to grow faster than similar countries that do not. The same is true of states and regions within this country. Crucially, the income gains tend to come after the education gains. What distinguishes thriving Boston from the other struggling cities of New England? Part of the answer is the relative share of children who graduate from college. The two most affluent immigrant groups in modern America -- Asian-Americans and Jews -- are also the most educated. In recent decades, as the educational attainment of men has stagnated, so have their wages. The median male worker is roughly as educated as he was 30 years ago and makes roughly the same in hourly pay. The median female worker is far more educated than she was 30 years ago and makes 30 percent more than she did then.
MAGAZINE
The Big Fix
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: February 1, 2009
The challenge for the Obama administration is transforming the economy when Wall Street and Silicon Valley aren't able to.
Dynamic warm-up series:
2 x 20 reps Kettlebell pass around the waist / lower legs
1 x 10 reps Wall Slides (arms against wall)
1 x 30 second hold Wrist flexion / extension stretch
1 x 20 reps each side Standing trunk rotation
1 x 15 reps each side Hip swings
2 x 15 reps Body Weight Squats
2 x 15 reps Kneeling push-ups
Kettlebell Exercises:
(repeat entire routine 2 to 4 times with a 2 to 3 minute rest interval in between each cycle)
1 x 20 reps Double Arm Swing --> 1 x 20 reps Alternating hands
1 x 16 reps Double Arm Swing with 180 degree Spin
1 x 30 reps Stationary Flip Swing and Catch
1 x 20 reps Double Arm Swing with Lateral Squatting Movement
See also: Kettlebell Workshop with Steve Cotter.
If an abstract model is supposed to be a model of the real world (and not just a mathematical construct), then we should test its assumptions and predictions against the real world. But the real world, in all its boisterous glory, is far from the serene desert landscape of an abstract model. So we must cleverly search out "natural experiments"--real-world circumstances that happen to conform to enough assumptions of a model to provide a relatively direct test of its predictions--and then apply advanced statistical techniques to isolate the effect of the variables we want to study. The result of such tests can lead to tweaks in abstract theories that improve their predictive power and utility.
The abstract models of economic theory are intended to represent things like the labour supply under various tax regimes, for example. But abstract models, by their very nature, require idealization and simplification in order to be manageable and useful. Every good map must leave off many features of the terrain. But this raises the possibility that one has left off the wrong features, mistaking the essential for the inessential. A "general theory" will not make headway against real economic problems if we have overgeneralized by leaving out complexities that really do matter.
So what to do? If an abstract model is supposed to be a model of the real world (and not just a mathematical construct), then we should test its assumptions and predictions against the real world. But the real world, in all its boisterous glory, is far from the serene desert landscape of an abstract model. So we must cleverly search out "natural experiments"--real-world circumstances that happen to conform to enough assumptions of a model to provide a relatively direct test of its predictions--and then apply advanced statistical techniques to isolate the effect of the variables we want to study. The result of such tests can lead to tweaks in abstract theories that improve their predictive power and utility.
Especially "cute" or "freaky" analyses, such as many of Levitt's, may not directly challenge or confirm aspects of general economic theories. But they may usefully advance the techniques of testing, which will eventually help improve general theories. If different economists specialize in different but complementary jobs along the assembly line of economic knowledge, we are more likely to get more, and better, economic knowledge. We are also likely to get better pop economics books.
An earlier generation of these books, like Steven Landsburg's The Armchair Economist and David Friedman's Hidden Order, tackle the economic puzzles of everyday life by applying good old-fashioned price theory to novel situations. Many of the new spate of pop-econ page-turners reflect the maturation of economics as an increasingly empirical science.
Freakonomics is the bellwether of this shift. But Cowen's new book, which may seem superficially similar to old-style pop-econ, in fact is something different. It integrates a great many of the insights of Levitt-style work, as well as insights from behavioral and experimental economics (which Lozado, confusingly, opposes to Freakonomics-style work at the conclusion of his review). Cowen's synthesis of these new insights adds up to a level of psychological realism heretofore unseen in the pop-econ genre. If Cowen succeeds in offering excellent cute-o-nomic advice, and I think he often does, it's because economics as a whole is now generating a more empirically adequate picture of the world. For those of us weird enough to love economics, that's better than cute: that's beautiful.