Today I can think of several local lenders that will offer sub-prime mortgages to people with no income. They still advertise.
You have to send links, I'd love to see who is still offering >80% loan-to-value loans. The originator has to sell it to someone, who the heck is going to buy anything like that today?
The problem with the sub-prime crisis was that lenders were able to obfuscate the risk of loans using various tricks and loopholes.
That certainly was a problem, but in times of rising house prices few people default on their loans since they are gaining equity, and even if they do you can foreclose on the house and sell it for a profit.
In times of lowering house prices, underwater people are more likely to default as they don't have any equity to lose, and when you foreclose and sell you take a loss on the principal.
I think that all the people who purchased mortgages from the originators did not ask for much documentation because they "couldn't lose" and concepts like stress-testing loans for a 20% decrease in home prices were forgotten by folks (including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who used to do those kinds of stress tests, but stopped).
There was $79.6 billion of syndicated bank loans in the last quarter. That is down significantly from before the most recent troubles, but there is still some bank credit available to credit-worthy corporations.
But you don't need banks to raise debt. The volume of US investment-grade bond debt issuance hit a record $298.4 billion in the first quarter of 2009. There was even $6.47 billion of junk bonds issued in the quarter.
Capitalism is selling homes to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
Yes, but the difference is that participants in a free market, when they are allowed to fail, learn. Try to get a sub-prime loan today, it isn't illegal, but it is no longer possible!
Government, on the other hand, doesn't learn, because it has the power to tax. Note the continuation of the War on Drugs, Cuban embargo, auto maker bailouts, etc.
Capitalism has a lot of wonderful qualities. But it needs to be regulated.
Yes, and part of that regulation should be that when you run out of money, to you to bankruptcy court rather than getting tax dollars.
Mind you, government didn't seem to say "stop selling houses to people who can't afford it" or even until 2008, so in truth it is rare that the regulators are more knowledgeable than the market participants. In fact I don't think the Federal Reserve Board has yet said that AAA-rated mortgage backed securities should not be used for bank capital requirements.
If people want a real economic recovery, then the government should reduce the risk of investing in new businesses, which create and sustain economic growth.
Now if only we can get the GOP and the Democrats to buy into this....
It's a LOAN, not a bailout. You have to pay back loans. College students get them all the time, but you don't see people complaining about them.
If a corporation gets a loan, when it goes bankrupt the firm's remaining assets, if any, will be divided among its lenders, and they will often see only a small part of their total principal repaid.
On the other hand, guaranteed students loans survive personal bankruptcy under current law....
It is a bailout because if all they needed was a loan, and they had a real chance of repayment, they could get a loan from a private bank. Since obviously they are screwed, only the government is dumb enough to loan them the money, since if the government loses money it just needs to raise taxes.
The above is actually true (read it here in section "Results of Operations"), although TW Cable did end up with a $8.6 billion loss for 2008 because of a $14.8 billion write-down on assets.
Bluewater Wind has a deal to sell energy from a proposed wind farm off the Delaware cost, but it needs $800 million investment to move forward. Bluewater's project will "nameplate" at ~600 MW with average delivery of ~200 MW.
Meanwhile Delsea Energy has filed initial permit applications with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a utility scale wind farm project offshore New Jersey. Delsea will nameplate at 300 to 400 MWe with average delivery of ~100 MW.
Both of these projects are looking at 3 MW to 3.6 MW turbines (~200 for Bluewater Delaware, ~100 for Delsea New Jersey) that have 300 foot towers.
do you really believe that opposition is based on poor aesthetics?
I'm sure oil spills are the big concern, yet here is a picture of a beautiful, Californian-syle oil rig off of Long Beach that is producing today...evidently if you make them look nicer, they are more allowable.
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
IQ accounts for somewhere between 16% and 25% of income variance. Thus low IQ is correlated with low income, and both be correlated with vinyl flooring....
I took a Southwest flight from LAX to Sacramento recently that had the WiFi.
As soon as they said they had it, I took an iPhone picture and uploaded it to Flickr, then I turned on my MacBook, went on GMail and looked through my contact list, then proceeded to Google Video Chat with a friend in Washington, DC. I pointed my MacBook camera out the window to prove I was in a flying plane! Interestingly my friend was on a new WiMax service in DC. The quality of service was pretty phenomenal!
All I can say is that WiFi in a plane is awesome, but I suspect not too many people were really using it on my flight, and as it becomes more typical I suspect there will be bandwidth contention.
Whoever has the rights in your country won't let Hulu run the shows in it because it cuts into their advertising.
As Hulu says:
"Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience."
It should be kept in mind that all distribution deals between producers and distributors include regions, and sometimes exclusive distribution deals preclude streaming in a region at all. Hulu has to compete with all other distributors to obtain content rights from producers. There are also political issues (such as the troubles with the UK Competition Commission). The US is one of the few countries in the world that does not regulate content based on country of origin (we prefer "adult content" regulation evidently).
1) Research shows an MBA is probably useless, unless you are someone who is excellent at hob-knobbing and you go to one of the top schools and effectively hob-knob with all your classmates and make good connections. Otherwise, read the 10 Day MBA.
2) Project management skills, especially for someone who can combine a good technical knowledge with them, are in high demand. Consider one a Master's degree in Project Management. Increasingly, Americans are going to be coding less and doing more analysis - requirements, planning, testing, etc. Foreigners will be increasingly handed requirements and doing the coding.
3) Or if you feel you've got to specialize in something (like user interface design, etc.) just go get a CS Ph.D. looking at that particular field. The Ph.D. is definitely worth it, but be careful that you get through it fast enough.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), French minister of finance under King Louis XIV Claudette Colbert (1903-1996), American actress Robert Colbert (b. 1931), American television actor and star of "The Time Tunnel" Edwin Harris Colbert (1905-2001), American vertebrate paleontologist Holmes Colbert, developer of the Chickasaw Nation's constitution in the 1850s
Lest you laugh, six ships of the French Navy have borne the name Colbert in honour of Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
Personally, I think they should have sold the naming rights. "Microsoft ISS Node 3" has a great ring to it!
And after the recent crash, sorry "hiccup", in the modern financial systems, I wonder who will be popular in the next twenty years...
The IMF forecasts 2009 world GDP down 0.5-1.5 pct, with a gradual recovery to 1-2 pct growth in 2010.
If there isn't a recovery in world GDP by 2011, where do you go from there? We know planned economies really don't work (North Korea, Cuba, former USSR), even the slightly more socialist countries of Western Europe are hurting badly, so where do you go from there?
Keynes has made a recent comeback (although as a distortion of his actual writings), but I suspect as in Japan's Lost Decade that "Keynesian stimulus" will be shown ineffective.
Will bailout of banks, car makers, and other zombie companies too big to fail work? I suspect the people who don't believe that government should own the "Commanding Heights" of the economy such as Friedman will be shown to be correct.
In a substantial number of cases, human therapies do become available for animals.
It is easier and cheaper for these therapies to become available for animals because of less regulation. For example, you can clone animals today, but cloning people is illegal...
Back in 1976 I took an economics class that had three professors, all of whom were about as smart as a house cat. These bozos were trying to say that the US was going to have to lower its standard of living, too, just like you are now.
That's odd, because most economists predict continual upward global economic growth (with the occasional brief hiccup). You must have had some socialist economics professors. After the fall of the USSR, the ideas of Freidman, Hayek, and Mises became more popular.
I can't recommend becoming a "coder" given the current business conditions.
What is in desperate need is process-oriented software project managers. The good news is that you can come at this with a bit of coding background if you combine it with rigorous project management training on the PMP track. I'll admit that half of employers won't look at you as a project manager if you don't have "10 years coding experience," but the other half will be willing to overlook a depth of coding experience if you have a solid process-oriented project management training and attitude. And once you've landed a job as a software project manager and get a project or two under your belt, you will have the cred to work anywhere.
Even if you do move forward with a "coder" career, I suggest you bone up on your software project management processes, and point out in resumes and interviews that you are serious about project process.
There are 100 million potential coders on the planet, but if you are the kind of coder who can also gather requirements (in English, on site in the US;), create work breakdown structures, generate project plans and test plans, track the project, and demonstrate successful testing, you will shine a bit above folks who can't, even if you have not ever written a compiler in class.
Slashdot Mirror
Today I can think of several local lenders that will offer sub-prime mortgages to people with no income. They still advertise.
You have to send links, I'd love to see who is still offering >80% loan-to-value loans. The originator has to sell it to someone, who the heck is going to buy anything like that today?
The problem with the sub-prime crisis was that lenders were able to obfuscate the risk of loans using various tricks and loopholes.
That certainly was a problem, but in times of rising house prices few people default on their loans since they are gaining equity, and even if they do you can foreclose on the house and sell it for a profit.
In times of lowering house prices, underwater people are more likely to default as they don't have any equity to lose, and when you foreclose and sell you take a loss on the principal.
I think that all the people who purchased mortgages from the originators did not ask for much documentation because they "couldn't lose" and concepts like stress-testing loans for a 20% decrease in home prices were forgotten by folks (including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who used to do those kinds of stress tests, but stopped).
There was $79.6 billion of syndicated bank loans in the last quarter. That is down significantly from before the most recent troubles, but there is still some bank credit available to credit-worthy corporations.
But you don't need banks to raise debt. The volume of US investment-grade bond debt issuance hit a record $298.4 billion in the first quarter of 2009. There was even $6.47 billion of junk bonds issued in the quarter.
How many banks do you know of that are giving out $350M loans to anyone these days?
I can tell you that on April 6, ConAgra Foods floated $1 billion of five-year and 10-year bonds.
So yes, you can raise debt if you aren't a bad credit risk (ConAgra bonds were S&P & Fitch BBB).
Tesla actually has a chance of paying it back
Wow, if it is such a great investment, how much have you loaned them?
Capitalism is selling homes to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
Yes, but the difference is that participants in a free market, when they are allowed to fail, learn. Try to get a sub-prime loan today, it isn't illegal, but it is no longer possible!
Government, on the other hand, doesn't learn, because it has the power to tax. Note the continuation of the War on Drugs, Cuban embargo, auto maker bailouts, etc.
Capitalism has a lot of wonderful qualities. But it needs to be regulated.
Yes, and part of that regulation should be that when you run out of money, to you to bankruptcy court rather than getting tax dollars.
Mind you, government didn't seem to say "stop selling houses to people who can't afford it" or even until 2008, so in truth it is rare that the regulators are more knowledgeable than the market participants. In fact I don't think the Federal Reserve Board has yet said that AAA-rated mortgage backed securities should not be used for bank capital requirements.
If people want a real economic recovery, then the government should reduce the risk of investing in new businesses, which create and sustain economic growth.
Now if only we can get the GOP and the Democrats to buy into this....
It's a LOAN, not a bailout. You have to pay back loans. College students get them all the time, but you don't see people complaining about them.
If a corporation gets a loan, when it goes bankrupt the firm's remaining assets, if any, will be divided among its lenders, and they will often see only a small part of their total principal repaid.
On the other hand, guaranteed students loans survive personal bankruptcy under current law....
It is a bailout because if all they needed was a loan, and they had a real chance of repayment, they could get a loan from a private bank. Since obviously they are screwed, only the government is dumb enough to loan them the money, since if the government loses money it just needs to raise taxes.
The above is actually true (read it here in section "Results of Operations"), although TW Cable did end up with a $8.6 billion loss for 2008 because of a $14.8 billion write-down on assets.
Here in Vancouver, Canada, one of the most drug-crime infested neighbourhoods
But in Vancouver, doesn't "drug-crime infested" mean "someone got high, parked their car in the wrong place, and got a parking ticket"?
Bluewater Wind has a deal to sell energy from a proposed wind farm off the Delaware cost, but it needs $800 million investment to move forward. Bluewater's project will "nameplate" at ~600 MW with average delivery of ~200 MW.
Meanwhile Delsea Energy has filed initial permit applications with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a utility scale wind farm project offshore New Jersey. Delsea will nameplate at 300 to 400 MWe with average delivery of ~100 MW.
Both of these projects are looking at 3 MW to 3.6 MW turbines (~200 for Bluewater Delaware, ~100 for Delsea New Jersey) that have 300 foot towers.
But an ounce of Uranium, or a barrel of oil will contain the same amount of energy in ten years as they do today.
BTW, 1 oz of U235 (about 1 .5 cubic centimeters) fissioned releases 680 MW hours of energy.
do you really believe that opposition is based on poor aesthetics?
I'm sure oil spills are the big concern, yet here is a picture of a beautiful, Californian-syle oil rig off of Long Beach that is producing today...evidently if you make them look nicer, they are more allowable.
knew it... lolcats is a grassroots movement started by the Libertarians to... uhh... get... cheezeburgers?
There is no such thing as HAZing a free CHEEZEBURGER.
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
IQ accounts for somewhere between 16% and 25% of income variance. Thus low IQ is correlated with low income, and both be correlated with vinyl flooring....
I took a Southwest flight from LAX to Sacramento recently that had the WiFi.
As soon as they said they had it, I took an iPhone picture and uploaded it to Flickr, then I turned on my MacBook, went on GMail and looked through my contact list, then proceeded to Google Video Chat with a friend in Washington, DC. I pointed my MacBook camera out the window to prove I was in a flying plane! Interestingly my friend was on a new WiMax service in DC. The quality of service was pretty phenomenal!
All I can say is that WiFi in a plane is awesome, but I suspect not too many people were really using it on my flight, and as it becomes more typical I suspect there will be bandwidth contention.
What, haven't you people heard of Access??
Have you heard of FileMaker Pro??
Whoever has the rights in your country won't let Hulu run the shows in it because it cuts into their advertising.
As Hulu says:
It should be kept in mind that all distribution deals between producers and distributors include regions, and sometimes exclusive distribution deals preclude streaming in a region at all. Hulu has to compete with all other distributors to obtain content rights from producers. There are also political issues (such as the troubles with the UK Competition Commission). The US is one of the few countries in the world that does not regulate content based on country of origin (we prefer "adult content" regulation evidently).
It was recently announced that Johannes Larcher will be Hulu's new SVP in charge of procuring international rights.
1) Research shows an MBA is probably useless, unless you are someone who is excellent at hob-knobbing and you go to one of the top schools and effectively hob-knob with all your classmates and make good connections. Otherwise, read the 10 Day MBA.
2) Project management skills, especially for someone who can combine a good technical knowledge with them, are in high demand. Consider one a Master's degree in Project Management. Increasingly, Americans are going to be coding less and doing more analysis - requirements, planning, testing, etc. Foreigners will be increasingly handed requirements and doing the coding.
3) Or if you feel you've got to specialize in something (like user interface design, etc.) just go get a CS Ph.D. looking at that particular field. The Ph.D. is definitely worth it, but be careful that you get through it fast enough.
Here is a video of fish clearly feeling pain.
"Colbert" could also refer to:
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), French minister of finance under King Louis XIV
Claudette Colbert (1903-1996), American actress
Robert Colbert (b. 1931), American television actor and star of "The Time Tunnel"
Edwin Harris Colbert (1905-2001), American vertebrate paleontologist
Holmes Colbert, developer of the Chickasaw Nation's constitution in the 1850s
Lest you laugh, six ships of the French Navy have borne the name Colbert in honour of Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
Personally, I think they should have sold the naming rights. "Microsoft ISS Node 3" has a great ring to it!
It would have been "Ron Paul" if it wasn't a socialist space project!
And after the recent crash, sorry "hiccup", in the modern financial systems, I wonder who will be popular in the next twenty years...
The IMF forecasts 2009 world GDP down 0.5-1.5 pct, with a gradual recovery to 1-2 pct growth in 2010.
If there isn't a recovery in world GDP by 2011, where do you go from there? We know planned economies really don't work (North Korea, Cuba, former USSR), even the slightly more socialist countries of Western Europe are hurting badly, so where do you go from there?
Keynes has made a recent comeback (although as a distortion of his actual writings), but I suspect as in Japan's Lost Decade that "Keynesian stimulus" will be shown ineffective.
Will bailout of banks, car makers, and other zombie companies too big to fail work? I suspect the people who don't believe that government should own the "Commanding Heights" of the economy such as Friedman will be shown to be correct.
We'll just have to see...
In a substantial number of cases, human therapies do become available for animals.
It is easier and cheaper for these therapies to become available for animals because of less regulation. For example, you can clone animals today, but cloning people is illegal...
Back in 1976 I took an economics class that had three professors, all of whom were about as smart as a house cat. These bozos were trying to say that the US was going to have to lower its standard of living, too, just like you are now.
That's odd, because most economists predict continual upward global economic growth (with the occasional brief hiccup). You must have had some socialist economics professors. After the fall of the USSR, the ideas of Freidman, Hayek, and Mises became more popular.
I can't recommend becoming a "coder" given the current business conditions.
What is in desperate need is process-oriented software project managers. The good news is that you can come at this with a bit of coding background if you combine it with rigorous project management training on the PMP track. I'll admit that half of employers won't look at you as a project manager if you don't have "10 years coding experience," but the other half will be willing to overlook a depth of coding experience if you have a solid process-oriented project management training and attitude. And once you've landed a job as a software project manager and get a project or two under your belt, you will have the cred to work anywhere.
Even if you do move forward with a "coder" career, I suggest you bone up on your software project management processes, and point out in resumes and interviews that you are serious about project process.
There are 100 million potential coders on the planet, but if you are the kind of coder who can also gather requirements (in English, on site in the US ;), create work breakdown structures, generate project plans and test plans, track the project, and demonstrate successful testing, you will shine a bit above folks who can't, even if you have not ever written a compiler in class.