July 10, 2007

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day


During what situation did the mainstream media (MSM) exhibit the most incompetence, collusion and corruption, perform the most miserably and embarrassingly, do the most damage to America and the American people, and now justifiably deserve the most blame?

A) Iraq
B) Housing Bubble


PS: HP Memo to Time Magazine and Time Warner - it's been two years since this pathetic and laughable cover. The housing crash is the biggest story in the land. It effects every man, woman and child in the country. You might want to consider an article or cover story again - and an apology. Don't worry - REIC advertisers are toast anyway.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sure you are going to get a lot of the answer is BOTH

Anonymous said...

Of course the MSM is worthless which is why most of us are here. . .love your Fat Lady picture. . .Perhaps a "Twilight Zone" moment today - I went up the Balboa Park History museum today (had relatives in town) and right in the Wells Fargo History Room among historic pictures of San Diego was "THE REAL ESTATE CRASH OF 1887"!!!. . .a picture of about 20 "for sale" signs in a neighborhood circa 1887. . .Does history repeat itself?? You bet - in 1991-1995 SD had a 20% decline in housing prices - you couldn't give a house away around here. . .

Anonymous said...

More Deaths: Iraq

More Destruction: Iraq

More $: Housing Bubble

More Direct Impact on Americans: Housing Bubble

More Advertising-Related Corruption: Housing Bubble

More Predictable: Housing Bubble

Anonymous said...

I say Iraq. To this date, no member of the media has made an effort to chastise Bush for the utter ruin he has brought to Iraq. Someone in the media needs to confront Bush in a prime time presser and ask him how it feels to be responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi citizens, as well as forcing 2 million Iraqis to flee their own country.

It will take this country decades to recover from the SHAME of the Iraq debacle and let's never forget that the media led the charge to get us into this war (I'm talking to you, Judy Miller).

Anonymous said...

I think you're on Ron Paul's payroll :D

Anonymous said...

Iraq!

They didn't even bother to fact check or ask Hans blix what he thought.

Housing is slower and more complex issue with multiple causes and tends to be localised in its early run ups.

My personal opinion is that Iraq caused the Housing bubble to get even bubblier, without Iraq it would have ended earlier.

Andy in NZ

Anonymous said...

Keith, with all do respect, you've missed those who have tried & are trying to sell out of the hedge funds they're in and are told they can't. CAN'T. That's not freedom. That's the mob!

Anonymous said...

The election of W.

Anonymous said...

Here's another good cover!

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,1101390102,00.html

Hitler Man of the Year!

The best magazine to wipe your a$$ with.

Anonymous said...

Double trouble.

The only person I know that has any balls in the media right now is Cindy Sheehan. She's going all the way to stop this BS! To stop the bush gang once and for all. To stop their ambush on America, Iraq and Afgahnistan. To stop their pilfering, rape, illegal war profiteering, torture, lies, murders, cover-up's AND INABILITIES TO MANAGE THIS COUNTRY AND IT'S CITIZENS AND THEIR CITIZEN'S FUTURE.

I can see the handcuffs being placed on bush, cheney and several others right at this moment!!!

This is gonna be GREAT!!!!!

TB77

Anonymous said...

Several seniors in Florida just learned their high yield retirement investments just vaporized. It's likely there are far more but their both very mad right now and embarrassed.

Just think about where they'll be at by Halloween? They'll rob every kid that rings their doorbell. And when the cops show up they'll say "Go ahead and arrest me! I'm broke anyways. At least I'll get a free meal."

Anonymous said...

Andy in NZ,

100% Right on!

And on top of that, the secret department of bush regime network was the planners of the "fake 9/11 attack"

It's all been a bad, bad show folks.

Expect the bush regime to launch another fake attack to keep the sheeple in order, as the world's biggest scam and mass-murder cover-up in world history unfolds to it's final days.

Many thanks keith for keeping us in check with real-world housing reality! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Anonymous said...

B) Housing Bubble

Anonymous said...

Iraq.

We can always print more dollars.

The dead will be dead, and the bitterness never replacable.

The housing bubble will screw us for 5 years.

The Iraq fiasco will screw us for 50.

It will have precisely the opposite effect of the US after world war II, when the US was generally seen worldwide as powerful, practical, and more or less just. The US cruised for 50 years on that goodwill, though it was severely damaged by a similar fiasco in Vietnam.

That time though, the US at least had a treaty obligation to protect the South---it wasn't a pure invasion of Vietnam in entirety.

The US lost in Vietnam, but at least it put a man on the moon at the same time.

Can you see the US doing anything similar now? It can't even fix a predictable, and predicted, disaster in New Orleans. This is because the ideology of the people in power ACTIVELY want to sabotage US capability for government to do anything at all except to kill and oppress, and let their buddies loot the Treasury. It's as if they're al-Qaeda moles.

To this date, no member of the media has made an effort to chastise Bush for the utter ruin he has brought to Iraq.

Keith Olbermann has. But he is just another "loony liberal sports reporter" according to the chattering classes.

By the way, in 50 years, there's no oil left and civilization will be screwed.

Anonymous said...

If I started into that one.........
Let me be blunt,Time Warner,Popular Mechanics,CBSNBCABCFOX,Clear Channel,Nova,and on,and on should all have every one of their employess hung by the neck until dead.

Anonymous said...

The corporate media are still denying that there's even a problem, but Bill Moyers did an excellent story on the bubble recently.

Youtube links below.

Part 1

Part 2

Anonymous said...

The election of Clinton.

Anonymous said...

The election of Carter.

Anonymous said...

Iraq! Most definitely.
Does anyone remember David Bloom and the bloom mobile? This stupid invention was praised as being a grand new break through that put reporter safely alongside soldiers during heavy battle. Unfortunately, David had to be crampped inside the mobile unit and as a result he developed a blood clot from which he did not recover. Symbolically, the media itself never acknowledged the failure of this machine just like they have never acknowledged the failure of the Iraq war and the housing crash! Its all a fu$%ing failure! Nice Job, you Paris Hilton worshipers, aka news reporters!

Anonymous said...

The MSM is responsible for turning the American public against our own administration which is akin to aiding the enemy.

The MSM supports cut and run tactics on the war, increased taxes and all kinds of left wing whack job positions.

You would have to expect their irresponsibility about housing to follow the same path.

When you can turn the public into supporting out enemies positions it is that much easier to give them false information about buying the American dream house with ARMs and IO loans.

We are at war, we should unite to win it. We are in a housing bubble and crash, we should prepare the public for the worst instead of blaming the government for problems we all helped to create.

When was the last terrorist attack on our soil? How many of Iraq’s citizens did Saddam murder with WMDs? How many UN resolutions did he flaunt? How many suicide bombers families did he pay off to kill Israelis? You can all cut and run, but you can’t hide from the consequences. We either confront them now or wait to confront them on our own doorstep.

The MSM will keep you in the dark long enough to suffer a popped bubble or complacent enough to open Pandora’s box of home based terror.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Keith, with all do respect, you've missed those who have tried & are trying to sell out of the hedge funds they're in and are told they can't. CAN'T. That's not freedom. That's the mob!

This is why it's called risk. With all due respect, the Hedge Funds will blow up, and Redemptions are toast. If you haven't pulled out of a Hedge Fund yet, you are as dumb as a brick [not you personally...you are out right?]. Greed does strange things which is why we get the saying, "pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered".

One other thing, if you think Helicopter Ben is gonna save the day with rate cuts, you are insane crazy.

Anonymous said...

Housing woes hammer Wall Street
By Adam Shell, USA TODAY


NEW YORK — The foundation of the Wall Street bull market showed some cracks Tuesday amid fresh signals that real estate woes on Main Street are inflicting a bigger-than-expected toll on consumers and lenders.
Mimicking the weak state of the real estate market, Wall Street saw its inventory of stocks "for sale" swell and its prices contract. The weakness was sparked by a stream of bad news that cast a spotlight on the mushrooming economic and financial fallout caused by rising foreclosures, loans gone sour and a growing glut of unsold homes.

Home Depot (HD), the world's biggest home-improvement retailer, lowered its profit forecast for 2007 and warned of "continued headwinds" next year. Sears Holdings (SHLD), citing a sharp drop in sales of home appliances, said it would fall short of profit projections. Home builder D.R. Horton (DHI) said second-quarter orders dropped 40%, and nearly four in 10 orders were canceled.

Perhaps the biggest scare came from Standard & Poor's. The bond-rating firm said it expects to cut, or lower, the investment rating on $12.1 billion in mortgage-related debt — 2.1% of the $565.3 billion subprime loan market. Subprime lenders cater to people with poor credit ratings. S&P fears that more people will have trouble making their mortgage payments amid the double-whammy of falling home prices and rising borrowing costs.

Moody's Investors Service also lowered its rating Tuesday on 399 residential mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006.


The ratings downgrades follow the recent implosion of two hedge funds managed by Bear Stearns that got in trouble investing in risky mortgage-related bonds.

All the gloomy news crushed the Dow Jones industrials, which fell 148 points, or 1.1%, to 13,502.

The ripple effect should not come as a surprise, says Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

"It amazes me how oblivious people are to how important the housing market was to keeping the economy going," Schiff says.

He says the force behind consumers' spending binge in recent years — the use of homes as ATMs and mortgages with low "teaser" rates that put more money in people's pockets temporarily — are now reversing.

The ratings downgrades are worrisome because they could force Wall Street firms that own the debt to write down the value of the investments, says Henry Herrmann, CEO at Waddell & Reed. "The issue of credit exposure is a murky one and could touch off a whole new level of anxiety," he says. That's why shares of banks and brokerages fell sharply Tuesday.

Chris Johnson, CEO of Johnson Research Group, offers this warning: No investor is "insulated from the subprime mess."

Anonymous said...

I'm calling the bubble, if for no other reason than because they are STILL printing a lot of NAR and other REIC spin, often without question (let alone critical analysis), and are only just starting to discuss what is really happening, long, long after it has been widespread in the blogosphere and in other alternative media.

With Iraq, they may have failed to investigate adequately, but on the bubble, they have been active, knowing participants - living on ad dollars flowing a ponzi scheme that will wreak untold havoc on the lives of millions of Americans.

Anonymous said...

My bad about failing to credit Keith Olbermann for standing up to Bush.

I would so love to see Olbermann attend a Bush presser.

Anonymous said...

Why only those two options?

How about

c) Sandy Burglar stealing classified documents ignored by the MSM

d) Whitewater ignored by the MSM

e) the directive from the Clinton administration to put up THE WALL between the FBI and CIA, hence making sure the CIA and FBI could not share info on terror suspects, completely ignored by the MSM

f) the fact that the Al Gore concert in South Africa was almost cancelled because of snow. Yes that's right, the concert to provide awareness for global warming was almost cancelled because for the first time in 25 years it snowed in Johannesburgh, again completely ignored by the media

and the list goes on and on and on

Anonymous said...

To this date, no member of the media has made an effort to chastise Bush for the utter ruin he has brought to Iraq.

------------------------------

Wait a minute, FDR and Truman brought utter ruin to Germany and Japan. Should we chastise them too?

Anonymous said...

You were saying something about nobody buying houses because interest rates are too high? When will you guys give it up already. There is no crash. There was no crash. There will be no crash. Oh what's the use, having a rational conversation with you people is like trying to explain to my dog why drinking from the toilet is a no-no.

July 11 2007: 7:29 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Mortgage applications rose last week, fueled by increased demand for home purchase loans even as interest rates hit their highest level in nearly a year, an industry group's data showed Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchasing and refinancing loans, for the week ended July 6 increased 1.1 percent to 626.2.

Anonymous said...

B) Check this out from TMFBENT'S Blog over at fool.

Great Real Estate Clerk Rant.


Just got the following, hearfelt rant in my email box from this guy. I think it speaks to the hubris, bad faith, and frustration we're seeing from real estate clerks out there as they begin to reap what they've sown. With Q1 sales down 24%, and May sales looking even worse, it's easy to see what's got Ethan's knickers in a knot. One wonders if his sales pitch will continue to fall on deaf ears.

Seth Jayson, I just read your article "Housing Slumps, who's surprised?
I have to say, in my opinion, you are a total jerk. You actually sound gleeful that the market has tanked. Why, because you predicted it X number of months ago? So did 10,000 other talking heads, along with most of us in the real estate business. No extreme cycle goes on forever, and we all knew it would end. But we don't get giddy about it, and we don't brag to other people about how long ago we knew. Even those of us who sold a half dozen homes right before the bubble burst, and made more money than you will make in the next 10 years. Stick that in your fool's cap.You see, Seth, many people are losing their homes, and other people whose livelihoods are connected to real estate (inspectors, appraisers, repair people, roofers, carpet layers, tile setters, etc) are losing their jobs. So maybe you better think about that before you congratulate yourself on being so f_____'n smart.E. Roberts
My fave quote from his web page: "I'm not one of those pushy Realtors!"

Anonymous said...

Iraq or Housing Bubble, Apples or Oranges. The MSM did a wonderful job of selling both, but Iraq gets the gold star and smiley face.

By the way, The War ended 4 years ago.
Now WE are an occupying power that is incapable of anything other than sitting on our collective thumb. While dozens die violently and needlessly every day.

Anonymous said...

Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder Newspapers (now McClatchy) had the Iraq story right:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-06.htm

Do you see them on the Sunday morning talk shows?

They got the story by asking the right questions of people who actually had knowledge of the facts. If they had the story, why couldn't individual members of Congress have it? I am aghast that any Senator who voted to authorize the war would have the temerity to ask the American public to elevate him (or her) to the presidency. I am further aghast that anyone would consider voting for someone who was so easily manipulated by the Bush war machine.

Anonymous said...

Whitewater ignored by the MSM

Ignored? We heard about nothing else for over eight years. Were you out of the country then?

Mammoth said...

Anon 11:46 AM pointed out:
“for the first time in 25 years it snowed in Johannesburg,”
------------------------
Meanwhile, look at what the melting Siberian permafrost just spit out...

http://tinyurl.com/2cmuae

Nope, no signs of global warming here, folks. Now go back to sleep!
-Mammoth

Anonymous said...

Sen. David Vitter(R).

ABC News new he was on the madam's list, but felt it was not worth the public to know that a bible belt, southern, church going, gawd fearing, family values man is phoney who spends his gov't salary, tax payer paid, on whores in whore houses.

It takes Hustler to print the facts today about charletons. My god, we are doomed.

Anonymous said...

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

This is why it's called risk. With all due respect, the Hedge Funds will blow up, and Redemptions are toast. If you haven't pulled out of a Hedge Fund yet, you are as dumb as a brick

Actually I think its worse than that. The report I read seemed to indicate that the investors in the hedgefund were liable for the leveraged losses of the fund.

In other words if you put 1 dollar in, the fund might borrow $9 using your dollar as margin cover. If the fund then looses $5 (past the margin call) you are out your dollar and also personally owe the $4.

I haven't heard much about this. Are hedge funds "limited" liability like stocks or are the investors on the hook personally as if it were a partnership. If they are liable - is it joint and several liability?

Any thoughts on this.... could make and ugly situation much worse.

Anon101

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute, FDR and Truman brought utter ruin to Germany and Japan. Should we chastise them too?

You're right. Forgot about Iraq attacking our naval base at Pearl Harbour then declaring war on us.

Anonymous said...

Definitely Iraq. The ramifications will be with us a LOT longer.

tizzle said...

2008 Presidential Candidates