Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Aug 17, 2004 Posts: 3541 Location: 39° 39' N 77° 77' W or thereabouts
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:27 am Post subject: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Quote:
Housing Leaks a Little More Steam (link)
BUSINESS WEEK - NEWS ANALYSIS By Michael Englund and Rick MacDonald OCTOBER 28, 2005
September saw new home sales once again fall below economists' expectations, and the number of unsold homes is rising
Quote:
Suddenly, area's housing market favors the buyers (link)
Cooling of sales to crimp pseudoconomy By Robert Gavin, Globe Staff October 28, 2005
Greater Boston's once-sizzling home sales have cooled so much this fall that realtors are reverting to a description not heard in a decade: ''Buyer's market."
Quote:
Weak US housing data affirms slowdown expectations (link) By Julie Haviv
NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - A deluge of U.S. data showing an excessive supply of houses, declining demand and falling prices have many economists acknowledging a slowdown in housing has arrived.
Quote:
US jobless claims top 500,000 (link) By MARTIN CRUTSINGER Oct 27, 2005 Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The number of people who lost their jobs because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita has now climbed above the half-million mark with further increases expected in coming weeks from Hurricane Wilma.
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Yes, that rule of thumb is probably applicable to the governments reported inflation rate also. So if they say inflation is under control at 3%, just remember its actually 9%...
-G _________________ I Have and will continue to vote against ANY politician who supports the various bailouts. Curse you for selling out our future for status quo now!
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:06 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
The housing market may soften, but the price of woodland and good farmland isn't going down. Neither is the cost of a small, well insulated home outside of overheated markets. You have to live somewhere. The small house with features like a woodstove, solar panels, earth berm is like the hybrid of houses. The Mc Mansion, with cathedral ceilings in the far exurbs is the SUV. We're way overstocked with Mc Mansions. It's like the GMC dealership. Nobody's buying. Check out the toyota dealership. It's hopping. The broader housing market may be going, but the green market is just getting started.
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:11 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
I think you just described my house... Well minus the earth berm anyways...
-G _________________ I Have and will continue to vote against ANY politician who supports the various bailouts. Curse you for selling out our future for status quo now!
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:17 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Revi wrote:
The housing market may soften, but the price of woodland and good farmland isn't going down. Neither is the cost of a small, well insulated home outside of overheated markets. You have to live somewhere. The small house with features like a woodstove, solar panels, earth berm is like the hybrid of houses. The Mc Mansion, with cathedral ceilings in the far exurbs is the SUV. We're way overstocked with Mc Mansions. It's like the GMC dealership. Nobody's buying. Check out the toyota dealership. It's hopping. The broader housing market may be going, but the green market is just getting started.
My friend. This is such a great post. Very well said.
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:23 pm Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Two comments:
1. People often fail to realize that earth bermed (or earth rammed such as Earthship design) homes using their own physical mass as part of passive solar driven heating and cooling are often cheaper or no more expensive to heat/cool in larger sizes than in small sizes. If you want a big home that's cheap to heat or which even costs nothing? Go earth bermed or even fully underground with just an exposed south face maximizing solar gain.
2. The unemployment numbers are deceptive. Those are claims per week. Nowhere in that article did they dare mention total claims active. That number would be in the millions, probably near 5-6 million if we are still around 5% unemployment, which I doubt.
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:06 pm Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
I sure hope this means they stop bulldozing farmland NOW!!!
They don't appreciate the value of New England farmland -- good rainfall, good climate, the soil may be rocky and clayish but that can be fixed. THere is this idea that we don't need farms in New England -- how wrong they are!
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:59 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
New England farmland is mostly forestland. The good stuff has either been turned into house lots or is still being farmed. It grows great hay and great wood. I was thinking that the best investment you could make is in a few acres of woods, and an acre of good garden spot. You could live off of the food you grow, heat the house and live simply.
Joined: Oct 16, 2005 Posts: 47 Location: Far and away.
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:54 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Sadly, such is the case in Toronto and the golden horseshoe around the lake. It is proven to be some of the best farmland in Canada and it is nearly all paved over. My mother-in-law's subdivision used to be farmland until about 6 years ago, the rate of subdivision growth in her area is approximately 500 acres a year in development. Absolutely astonishing. I'm in the building industry and in 15 years have never seen anything quite like it. Except in the late 90s when they developed the farmland in Kelowna BC.
Wonder what we'll do with all the asphalt and building materials when we dig them up looking for arable land? _________________ "Hm hmmm, uh yeah, hm hmmm, sure, well, good luck with all that!"
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:14 pm Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Chunks of concrete coulb be used to build walls. I don't know what we'll do with all that asphalt. It chips up pretty easily. Maybe it'll become the new version of the old stone wall. There will be asphalt walls all around the former parking lots. They will be nice, flat farmland with huge barnlike dead malls to keep the livestock in.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3913 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 1:57 pm Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Revi wrote:
Chunks of concrete coulb be used to build walls. I don't know what we'll do with all that asphalt. It chips up pretty easily. Maybe it'll become the new version of the old stone wall. There will be asphalt walls all around the former parking lots. They will be nice, flat farmland with huge barnlike dead malls to keep the livestock in.
Problem, asphault lacks strength when it gets hot from summer sunlight, it tends to sag and puddle instead of maintaining a wall shape. Second problem, when making parking lots the normal practice is to scrape off the topsoil and sell it, then replace it with a solidly compressed gravle base. You might grow Alfalfa or some kinds of grass in it, but most crops will be out of the question. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:08 pm Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
Tanada wrote:
Second problem, when making parking lots the normal practice is to scrape off the topsoil and sell it, then replace it with a solidly compressed gravle base. You might grow Alfalfa or some kinds of grass in it, but most crops will be out of the question.
Fond of cactus? _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 11:31 am Post subject: Re: Nothing Pops A Housing Bubble Like Unemployment
All that work we put into building the suburban world is for naught, isn't it. There will be trees growing up through the asphalt pretty quickly. We have some Japanese Knotweed, bamboolike stuff, that chips up the asphalt and grows right up through it. The ailanthus, or tree of heaven, will grow anywhere it can get a foothold. All that unused sunlight will be harvested somehow. 1000 watts per square meter won't be wasted.
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