This is shocking. The NYT's negligence is bad enough, but that much we're used to. What I'm not used to is seeing Clark Hoyt deliver such pathetic excuses for such egregious negligence.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently estimated that about 45% of foreclosures in 2007 were on private, near-prime or government-backed mortgages. And that means plenty of people who thought they were fine are facing catastrophe, never expecting that their homes would be worth less than the purchase price.
The median first-time buyer put down less than 2% to buy a house in 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors. Many put down nothing, even borrowing to cover closing costs.
Keep in mind that's 2007. The subprime industry collapse happened in February and March of 2007. The first major moment of "credit crunch" happened in August of 2007. And still, in 2007, the median downpayment on a house was under 2%, which tells us that 50% of borrowers basically had no money down.
Wow.
So if you're curious to know if housing prices are done falling, or if the financial crisis is over, the answer is, uh, no.
...adding, on second read I realize I missed the phrase "first-time buyer," so it isn't quite as bad. But still bad.
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A roadside bomb killed an American soldier in Baghdad on Saturday, capping the bloodiest week for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. Clashes persisted in Shiite areas, even as the biggest Shiite militia sought to rein in its fighters.
At least 13 Shiite militants were killed in the latest clashes in Baghdad's militia stronghold of Sadr City, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said seven civilians also died in fighting, which erupted Friday night and tapered off Saturday.
Lee Siegel belongs to that miserable genus of people who defecate upon any pleasure, tear up any moment of beauty, and who cannot locate the capacity to understand another person’s thoughts or feelings. You’ve probably met a few in your time. And like them, Siegel’s a lesson on how not to live. During the Q&A session, the good Levi Asher tried to engage Siegel in a gracious manner, pointing out that the New Republic hostilities might have been troubling because they at long last revealed what his readers really thought of him. A woman attempted to respond to his points in a fair-minded manner. But Siegel would have none of this. Unable to argue competently, he proceeded to dismiss specific terms and thoughtful angles that others presented. Siegel seemed unaware that such an attitude often causes setbacks.
Spiegel spewed out more straw men than a scarecrow population on a three hundred acre pumpkin patch. At one point, Baker suggested that Siegel once had a fascination with the Internet, pointing out that he had written many articles for Slate.
“That’s a fine conceit,” responded Siegel. “That’s one of the things that makes you a great novelist. Your negative capability.”
“Negative capability? What does that mean?” asked a baffled Holdengraber.
Where Baker hinted at the fun of all of us becoming filterers because of the Internet, Siegel snapped, “I don’t need more filtering.” Ever the hypocrite, Siegel said that the Internet was laden with false personas, but bristled when asked about the sprezzatura incident. He bemoaned being called “asshole,” “douchebag,” “fucktard,” and “shithole” on the New Republic. Being called a pedophile was the last straw. (Never mind that Siegel once called James Kincaid a pedophile.) “They all had it in for me,” cried Siegel. He wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine.
An interesting thing when house hunting was the pretty stark differences between older homes and newer construction/rehabs (remembering that a lot of Philly rehabs are basically new construction, as the places are almost completely gutted). Aside from the fact that America seems to have fallen out of love with carpet, the proliferation of outlets/phone jacks/cable connections in new places is pretty fascinating. They're everywhere!
You know, it always puzzles me why they can't funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to their corrupt pals to have them do something necessary.
cross the New York region, as 100-year rain events seem to arrive every other year or so, residents have grown accustomed to street and basement flooding. But here in Wawarsing, an Ulster County hamlet of crystalline streams and forests on the southern edge of the Catskill Mountains 80 miles northwest of New York City, yards are soggy even in fair weather. And homeowners like Mrs. Smith are wondering whether an aqueduct a fourth of a mile from their neighborhood is to blame.
It is the Delaware Aqueduct, a water tunnel that runs deep underground and delivers about half of New York City’s drinking water. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection has acknowledged that two sections — one in Wawarsing and the other near the Hudson River in Orange County — of a 45-mile-long stretch of the aqueduct known as the Rondout-West Branch Tunnel have been leaking for two decades.
Using dye tests, a robotic submarine and, most recently, divers, city officials have long studied the two leaks, which are estimated at 14 million to 36 million gallons a day. The department says it is committed to repairing the cracks in the aqueduct, but concedes that it will be tricky. Removing the water from the tunnel to make repairs could jeopardize its structural integrity — not to mention stress the city’s water supply.
Sadly, as in most cities, most of Philadelphia's once omnipresent trolley system was torn down. But some routes lasted longer than others and it wouldn't be impossible to restart them, with track and wires largely still in place. Here's a map. The green ones are running, the red and blue ones lasted into the 80s or longer.
Even aside from my unrepresentative friends, Philadelphia is generally pretty acyclical so a national downturn might not touch here much. My housing inspector said that his business dropped off a little bit for awhile but then bounced right back, so real estate isn't dead here. In center city there's a bit of a glut as I think a lot of developers simultaneously saw those dollar signs and there are a lot of properties which came on the market at about the same time. It's all priced way to high; when the prices drop they sell.
April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. consumers sank to a 26-year low in April as the labor market continued to deteriorate and gasoline prices rose.
The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment decreased to 63.2 from 69.5 in March. The reading was below the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and the weakest since March 1982.
Most of my friends are academics and therefore not as affected by economic fluctuations. What about people you know? Is it getting bad out there, or are people just being brainwashed by the George Bush-hating liberal media into thinking it's bad?
Glad to hear that the Headhouse Market will be running both Sat. and Sun. this year. There were and are other farmers' markets in town, as well as the Italian and Reading Terminal Markets, but the newly started Headhouse Market really managed to create a nice community vibe.
I guess we'll just make this Philadelphia day on the blog and drive down traffic a bit.
On one hand its nice that Obama has apparently built up a volunteer team so that it can ignore (or thinks it can) the typical Philadelphia machine process, on the other hand there's merit to the complaints that spending money on media rather than people is problematic.
Street money is a weird thing in elections. I think all of our first instincts are to react negatively to it, but what's really going on is that you're paying campaign workers for a day of work. In practice it's a bit messier than that of course.
I wrote that sidewalk quality and access were relatively low on the list of urban ills. And they are. But it's also the case that very minor quality of life tweaks in the city are a bigger deal than they may seem. Trash collection, street cleaning, and sidewalks aren't quite up there with improving schools and not being murdered, but they're important too.
While relatively low on the list of urban ills, it's quite true that Philly needs to take back its sidewalks. I appreciate that construction projects will, at times, need to appropriate them, but as it currently stands they have no incentive to either minimize their footprint on them or to give the space back in a timely fashion.
A couple of months ago I chatted with someone who was fairly high up in a subprime lending business. Unsurprisingly he had been laying a lot of people off. He told me something that I hadn't quite realized, that mortgage brokers had been making a hell of a lot of money. $500K annual salary kind of money. And he told me a story woman who worked for him, and not even one he'd laid off, who had been making that kind of money, bought a house for 7 figures or so, and after business went a bit sour had lost it and had moved back in with her parents. I joked that at least she hadn't bought a bunch of properties to flip. He laughed and said that, well, she had and had lost those too. The story was pretty much like this one on NPR.
Amber Barbosa didn't graduate college. But she did get an education — by working for the now infamous subprime lender New Century Mortgage Corp.
Barbosa was a quick study: A few years later, she struck out on her own as a mortgage broker.
"In 2006, I made close to $500,000," she says. Not bad for a 28-year-old with no college degree.
By then Barbosa, who was living outside of San Francisco, had a nice boat, a 27-foot Bayliner. She had several houses, a Mercedes and a Cadillac.
Trying to break free of my "anything more than a comic book is too much" mode of late, I actually tried to read a book or two. Started reading Pullman's His Dark Materials series thanks to a generous reader. About 1/3 way through the second one. Pretty good so far.
Since being put on the publicity lists for various publishers I've felt oppressed by the giant number of unread nonfiction books which sit on my shelves. I appreciate receiving the ones I do as they occasionally are useful and timely references, but the fact is I'd be much more likely to actually read and review fiction. I read too much nonfiction, or at least purported nonfiction, as it is.
Joking aside, if Obama is the nominee by November a substantial portion of wingnuttia will assert that Obama is, actually, a terrorist. Not just a terrorist sympathizer, a supporter of terrorists, or looks like a terrorist, but is an actual capital 'T' terrorist.
And those of us in the saner zones of reality will scratch our heads and ponder that perennial question in American politics: are they stupid or are they lying?
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