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I'm no fan of endlessly printing oodles and oodles of money as I do understand there are consequences to that down the line. I'm also NO fan of Bernake but the truth remains that drastic measures needed to have been taken as the events that took place during the Financial Crises were so severe that interaction by the Fed WAS needed.
I DO look forward to the days when interest rates are higher. Retired folks and other savers like me are relentlessly punished with low/no interest rates. But I don't imagine we'll see any especially high interest rates for a while. The Fed will do what it has to do. No use fighting the tape, so to speak.
You still didn't explain what YOUR game plan is during this mess is? I don't think all of us are living a "fantasy". I think it's more of a "the system is what it is and until it changes, we will do what is in our best interest and wise to make the best decisions we can".
Spouting about how the sky is going to eventually fall isn't really going to help your portfolio much. So what's your play? Going all commodities and being a gold bug? That doesn't really make sense as gold doesn't provide any cash flow. You don't have to preach about the economy or the Federal Reserve to me, or inflation or deflation, etc.
The biggest problem I see with the "sky is falling" types is they never seen to have a good game plan as it pertains to investing and cash flow. So since you seem to think you know the "sky is eventually going to fall", what is "your play"?
I'd rather several non-leveraged real estate that is producing cash flow. Or a paid off house to live in for now and the future vs. a vault full of gold if you know what I mean.
We're not out of the woods yet. In fact, we haven't even entered the woods yet. This was Bernanke's plan: to try to go around the woods. But it isn't working. It's just stalling.
Several more things have to happen.
1) Gold needs to reverse and climb relentlessly through 201?or 201?
2) the Fed needs to respond by jacking up rates. Volcker jacked them up to 23%. This time rates may go even higher.
Watch out for higher interest rates. Housing won't roar if interest rates soar.
Today we have a huge disconnect between the economy and the markets BECAUSE OF interest rate manipulation. What does the economy NEED? Lower prices, destroyed debt. What does the market NEED? More free money from the Fed. The Fed is stealing money from taxpayers for a continuation of the Robber Baron II Ponzi Scheme that enriches corporations in the name of 'saving the economy'.
What you see in Greece will also come to America. But Americans all have guns, right?
I don't understand how my life is materially different than previous generations. I have a job where I trade my services for money. I use some of that money to live. I invest some of it in a variety of ways and I save some as well. Short of loading up on ammo and beef jerky and waiting for the zombie apocalypes, WTF do you suggest I do differently?
Your money is worth less and less thanks to Ben Bernanake and the Banks. Your purchasing power is eroding but I don't see anyone making more money at work. It's opposite actually and more people are making less money as before and everything around them is going up, food cost, rents, utility bills, and etc. Americans are having hard time keeping up with this madness. Powerty is very high, food stamps recipients at all time high. Americans are suffering and paying with their blood for this continues bailout of the Wall Street Bankers.
Our leadership is morally bankrupt. Bernanke is pumping adrenaline into a bedridden patient, very expensive adrenline, hoping to keep the staus quo intact. It won't happen. Chaos comes next; and chaos means a new government, and a lot of punishment for those who drove the bus into the sea.
And to go back on topic; when will we see a real housing bottom? A real housing bottom will happen when no one is talking about housing and the Fed is not squatting on interest rates to keep them at zero. Wait until the Fed lets rates rise, watch housing prices come rocketing down. The idea that zero interest rates make housing affordable is one way of looking at it. Wait until interest rates rise and housing prices are cut in half: that will be another way to look at housing as being 'affordable'.
Americans can't afford 4% mortgage interest rates today.....wait until interest rates rise to 6%, 8%, 10%, 14%, 18%, 20%, 24%. Housing prices will be cut in half.
The problem with people believing what they want to believe clearly doesnt exclude you.
MSFT is and always has been about enterprise solutions and being a blue chip monster. To even compare or put it in the ranks of todays top dogs is a bit naive.
Apple and Google were NEVER their competitor, IBM was. Only now we are seeing they fell way behind the 8 ball in mobile and the mass consumer segment.
He is definitely not the guy to win any mass consumers over moving forward. But you are far more likely to see business using their enterprise solutions than Google Docs.
I could care less if he walked with $1 or $800 million. The guy helped build the company over the past 30 years to what it is today, he just didnt walk in there last year and then walk with that kind of dough.
So again, back to the OP, your rant and speculation about who is buying houses, where and when remains to be seen.
If he buys up 3 blocks of Del Mar, then so be it.
This isn't because they created incredible products, it's because they were like the robber barrens who bullied people around. Once other companies like Google, like Apple, like yahoo, like Facebook, and so on became important and wealthy, they couldn't bully them around. So yeah enterprises use MS products, but they were forced into it, kind of like the Netscape vs IE conversation.
And it about the BS philosophy. MS has the stack & rank employee philosophy. AKA you don't live up to expectations of your fellow co-workers, you get dumped or canned. They are a company who has outsourced and offshored half their work for years. You walk into many departments and there is 1 MS FT employee and 5 contractors/offshore members.
But besides all that, a company that dumps employees like they do with stack & rank and dump didn't follow their own rules for management. Because if they did, Balmer would have been fired years ago.
And the reality is, give it 5-10 years and if the new CEO doesn't change the way they do business, most people aren't going to be using Word or Excel or Powerpoint at all. They live in a world where Windows and Office are king, except people aren't buying Desktops anymore.
Years ago, they could have jumped on the Mobile bandwagon and created their own incredible mobile phone with word, with windows, with whatever else. Except Balmer and MS figured "mobile is just a fad" the same way many companies in the 90's thought the Internet was just a fad.
So just because you're a bully and forced everybody to use Office & Windows and IE, doesn't mean that lasts forever. Remember at one point Internet Explorer held like 90 percent of the market. Now how many people use it? Something like 30 percent. Maybe people aren't using OpenOffice or NeoOffice or Google Docs, but give it time, just like IE, if you can't bully people and don't innovate, you kind of lose market share. And lets be real. Office and Windows is popular because like anything, lots of older people don't like change. There are still companies and people who refuse to leave the Mainframe COBOL worlds.
And you mention IBM. Years ago, IBM was the big old brother. MS never wanted to be like them. Funny how they became just like them. And IBM pivoted and became an entirely different company. They make billions on PS & Consulting now compared to just products. The Next CEO of MS needs to figure a way to innovate, a way to create a culture thats not just about 'keeping your job' and 'making a few more bucks for the CEO.'
And honestly, you seem to have no clue who Google really is or any of these 'new companies.' Google wants to take over 90 percent of the enterprise space. Will they? Who knows. But to assume they are different than MS kind of means you don't really know much about them at all.
Once again miles off the actual subject and argument. For some reason you associate bullying and adoption as some kind of bad thing when it comes to actual productivity for businesses and people. What I dont think you realize is scalability. There is NO other company that was able to produce combine scalability and enterprise the way they did, when they did it.
TO say that IBM was not thier target either shows you are too young or too naive to understand what MSFT was all about. Bill Gates even said it himselfin 2006. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/c...google?lang=en
There are TONS of things that are 'better' than what MSFT does in software. I never said it didnt.
I cant tell you one thing you are right about. For every 1 MSFT employee there are 5 contractors. I should know, we sold our company to one of those offshore partners that works with MSFT. Best decision I ever made.
Your comments off as disgruntled and misguided. Dont think for a second that other massive companies dont practice business like this either with contractors and such. There are several massive companies here that I consult for in this space and they are not stranger to using H1B visas and the like.
Based on the personal nature of your comments, did you work for MSFT? What in the world does your rant have anything to do with who is buying houses?!
In any case, if SD RE is so amazing that it can withstand total system collapses, then everyone of you should buy as much as possible. Borrow money from anyone and everyone and in 10 years retire. But, it could be that SD RE isn't quite that spectacular.
Why the disdain for SD RE? Honestly, where is this coming from? Of course there are areas of SD where the RE is not spectacular, which is precisely why the areas that ARE spectacular are so expensive! This is the way RE works. Nationwide. SD is no exception in this regard.
And for the record, we did have a "total system collapse." Banks closed xkskw! Entire industries changed. New laws were enacted because of this "total system collapse." People lost their money AND the value in their homes. But guess what? While their money vanished, their home was still there. How you can believe that after witnessing the last financial crisis where institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., and Washington Mutual bank all but vanished, yet another "collapse" will somehow do SD in, is beyond my present comprehension of what a financial meltdown is. Can you please explain to me why you feel another collapse is destined to happen soon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sassberto
I wouldn't go overboard, but assuming you can get in without overextending yourself, you're at least guaranteed the rental income if not the appreciation. As long as people still keep wanting to come here and find their dream, the demand seems to be pretty deep.
I know. It's not like SD is Blythe! We are a coastal county in a coastal state after all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macro Trader 55
We're not out of the woods yet. In fact, we haven't even entered the woods yet. This was Bernanke's plan: to try to go around the woods. But it isn't working. It's just stalling.
Several more things have to happen.
1) Gold needs to reverse and climb relentlessly through 201?or 201?
2) the Fed needs to respond by jacking up rates. Volcker jacked them up to 23%. This time rates may go even higher. Watch out for higher interest rates. Housing won't roar if interest rates soar.
Today we have a huge disconnect between the economy and the markets BECAUSE OF interest rate manipulation. What does the economy NEED? Lower prices, destroyed debt. What does the market NEED? More free money from the Fed. The Fed is stealing money from taxpayers for a continuation of the Robber Baron II Ponzi Scheme that enriches corporations in the name of 'saving the economy'.
What you see in Greece will also come to America. But Americans all have guns, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macro Trader 55
And to go back on topic; when will we see a real housing bottom? A real housing bottom will happen when no one is talking about housing and the Fed is not squatting on interest rates to keep them at zero. Wait until the Fed lets rates rise, watch housing prices come rocketing down. The idea that zero interest rates make housing affordable is one way of looking at it. Wait until interest rates rise and housing prices are cut in half: that will be another way to look at housing as being 'affordable'. >>Note to Marco: This already happened!!<<
Americans can't afford 4% mortgage interest rates today.....wait until interest rates rise to 6%, 8%, 10%, 14%, 18%, 20%, 24%. Housing prices will be cut in half.
Oh lord! Seriously?? We've not only been in the woods, we've gotten used to them! Now that there is a glimpse of light there appears to be an unreasonable fear of going towards it....GO TO THE LIGHT MARCO. THE LIGHT IS YOUR FRIEND!
Glips of light???? I guess you have been drinking Ben Bernanke Kool Aide.
QE DOES NOT grow the economy. Japan has tried QE 5 times sinc 1989; and it has NEVER worked. There will be no growth unless rates are raised and bad debts are destroyed. This is true everywhere, not just Japan.
The financial crisis is over for banks as long as the FED spoonfeeds them $95 billion a month. Wait until the FED stops the spoonfeeding, starts unwinding its balance sheet -- which is being and will be devastated by rising interest rates -- and rates on the 10-year keep rising, threatening the derivatives market (trillions in mostly interest rate insurance policies hidden by the big banks).
Why are big banks NOT lending????? Because they need all the money they can find for losses set to come when interest rates rise....and businesses and home-owners default and the 30-1 or 100-1 derivatives market starts an earthquake.
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes fell for the second straight month in July, a sign that rising mortgage rates are taking the steam out of America's housing market recovery.
The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday its Pending Homes Sales Index, based on contracts signed last month, decreased 1.3 percent to 109.5.
That was a steeper decline than most analysts had expected."
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There you go. Housing is so overpriced today that Americans can't even afford mortgage rates @4%.
We turned housing into a casino game. That's the kind of leadership we have. Fast money. Everything fast. No vision of what we need for the future. Make fast money and then get out.
We have leadership which doesn't care a fig for America -- just how to satisfy their desires for more money, more status, more power.
....because EVERYONE knows, what the Fed does ONLY affects Americans.
Take your pick Kool Aid or iTinfoil hats. There is never a middle ground with anything in life of course. Everyone knows that!
Another sign of the slow down in sales of homes could be what's called the school season. Its very unique and typically comes around once a year. I think the Fed has something to with this 'school season' thing and its a conspiracy and cover up for what's really happening.
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Can you please explain to me why you feel another collapse is destined to happen soon? 
We are a coastal county in a coastal state after all.
