What is funnier than this, I cannot imagine. My sides ache from reading it. (Dear Lord, please make it stop!)
To wit:
"The lobbying group representing homebuilders is cutting
off contributions to federal congressional campaigns, saying lawmakers
and the Bush administration have not done enough to stabilize the
housing market.The National Association of Home Builders said
Tuesday its political action committee has decided to stop making
contributions to candidates for Congress "until further notice."Since
1990, the trade group has given nearly $20 million to federal
candidates, with 35 percent going to Democrats and 65 percent to
Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.Lawmakers
and the Bush administration, "have not adequately addressed the
underlying economic issues that would help to stabilize the housing
sector and keep the economy moving forward," the trade group’s
president, Brian Catalde said in a statement. "More needs to be done to
jump-start housing and ensure the economy does not fall into a
recession."
Gee, weren’t these the same folks who were begging for rate cuts in 2001/02? Didn’t they keep cheering when Greenie took rates down to 1%?
The builders group must be saying to themselves: How could you have made us build all those homes! What were you thinking?
I guess the concept of personal responsibility has little meaning to lobbyists. . .
Source:
Builders: No More Campaign Contributions
Tuesday February 12, 5:58 pm ET
Homebuilders Lobbying Group Cuts Off Contributions to Federal Congressional Campaigns
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080212/homebuilders_campaign.html?.v=2
God that was funny!
Grumps from Chumps! Letum eat dirt.
All we need now is a press release from the National Association of Realtors saying that recovery of the housing market will now begin by mid-2008, because the hard-nosed stance of the NAHB will prod Congress to take action.
Maybe its really because they are broke.
what do they expect the politicos to do???
I saw that last night and laughed so hard…..the pundit reporting it also said that the N.A.R. “might” follow the lead.
Ciao
MS
Barry,
Seems to me “the concept of personal responsibility has little meaning” to Americans in general.
Why is the Lesley Gore song
“It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To”
suddenly reverberating through my noggin ?
Maybe they can just rehire all those Mexicans as lobbyists. Save some coin.
Dataquick has posted numbers for 6 counties in California today. It’s so shocking that you should be sitting down. The gist of it is:
9,983 homes were sold in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties in January, a drop of nearly 50 percent from the same month last year.
Home sales in the region were down nearly 25 percent from December’s 13,240, the real estate research firm said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/23147568/for/cnbc/
What we should do, in the interest of “we the people”, is station troops with miniguns in front of the capital building so when the morning horde of “special interest” lobbyists assault our congressmen…..mow ’em down.
A nice “arc light” run down K Street would help some too.
This is called the John Kruk move – taking your ball and going home.
I guess the concept of personal responsibility has little meaning to lobbyists. . .
I think Tanta put it best:
[T]hat’s all just fine and dandy until it blows up, then the free marketers scurry to the government looking for help getting out from under a pile of exploding loans. That’s hardly surprising, given that anyone who willingly put borrowers into loans like this is, objectively speaking, a sociopath. If you expected them to take their licks like grownups, you don’t understand much about the essential dynamics of sociopathology.
@ E
“Screw you guys….I’m going home.” – Eric Cartman
Since I am now functionally insolvent, I will stand on principle and not donate to any politician. What backbone!
“Personal responsibility” is for the poor.
Here’s another guy that wishes Congress would re-inflate the housing market. This guy is going to lose 1 million dollars when he sells his house!
Terrell Owens lowered the asking price of his Moorestown mansion, to $2.96 million from $3.4 million. He paid $3.9 million in 2004 for the spread.
I bet the locals and states are going to start screaming too. Once this house, (and others) are revalued at a 25% loss. The tax base shrinks, they will have to make it up with a higher tax rate.
http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/columnists/20080210_Inqlings__Did_shady_faux_Bono_fool_U2_.html
All of the primary graft-takers are leaving office at the end of this term to, “spend more time with their families.” NAHB is trying to sever ties so that they can claim clean hands before investigations begin and indictments are handed down. NAHBs statement is a tacit admission that they paid their money on the expectation of Federal legislation being drafted in their favor. Wait until the State and County zoning and permit investigations begin.
You think that’s funny, go over to Jalopnik.com and check out the story – with accompanying video – about the idiot in CA who leased a $100k + BMW M6 convertible that she couldn’t afford. What’s so funny about that? Well, the purchaser is on disability, so her gross income is all of $2300/month, of which $1300 per month alone is now accounted for by the lease payments. In addition, she put $30k down, in the form of credit card advances and “her life savings”. But now she’s claiming it wasn’t her fault, since the dealer falsified her income on the paperwork (which she still signed, even knowing that her income was overstated).
As if the dealer held a gun to her head and made her buy the car!
Face it, ladies and gents, in this country, the whole notion of personal responsibility is dead. D.E.A.D.
Glengarry Glenross:
“I’m going back to Wisconsin.”
— Dave Moss
I think I heard a reference on Bubblevision that Dennis Kneale used to work for Steve Forbes. I thought he would be more buff after years of loading trucks with bundles of heavy magazines.
Michael Donnelly:
T.O. still hasn’t sold that house? Damn!! That house has been on the market for 2+ yaers now. Ever since that mess in his second year with the Eagles.
The reason T.O. can’t sell his house is because disgruntled Eagles fans have literally camped out in front of it, and harrass anyone who comes to look at it. These are the same fans who cheered when Michael Irvin broke his neck.
Although I must admit, in both cases I sympathized with the fans.
Personal responsibility is for the little people.
I’m hoping to double down on the youwalkaway IPO.
Oh ye of little faith – just wait until the NRF gets into the game.
But just for the record the highest performing ETF funds over the last 4 weeks are real estate related. See you cynics are going to miss the housing recovery and the opportunity to buy the builders at great prices.
What was that Dirk Bentley song (if anybody here listens to C&W)…oh yeah, “What WAS I Thinking ?”
AND it’s not about to get any better any time soon either..
U.S. credit crisis escalates as mortgage defaults spread
Submitted by cpowell on 11:49AM ET Wednesday, February 13, 2008. Section: Daily Dispatches
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph, London
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/02/13/cnusa113.xml
LOL!
God, do I wish all lobbyists would do the same.
One can only dream…
@dblwyo
Cinefoz, is that you?
Good comment from Andrew F:
“That’s all just fine and dandy until it blows up, then the free marketers scurry to the government looking for help getting out from under a pile of exploding loans.”
Too true. As a longtime observer of business and finance, I’ve always been amused by the way swashbucking capitalist free-marketeers are transformed into bad Keynesians every time things start to get just a little dicey.
According to Schumpeter, this is how capitalism dies.
Oh, please. Cry us a river.
Can you imagine it… flash back to 2004. Pretend that the administration DID have a clue and the feds started cracking down on fraudulent lending, raised rates to cut back on credit… basically all the things they should have done. Can you imagine how this guy would have squawked?! It would have been loud and along the lines of … the government has to keep its hands out of capitalism. Boo hoo, that big party you threw trashed your crib? Next time keep keep a lid on your exuberance.
Please, mr. builder, keep your money out of washington, forever–it’s a huge part of the problem. What a child.
It’s not just T.O., but plenty of homeowners just aren’t willing to admit that their house is only worth 75% of what they paid for it.
T.O.’s case is over the top, for starters the house wasn’t for sale. He literally walked up to the homeowner and said I’ll give you 4 million if you leave. Now.
The house of course became famous as TO did situps in the driveway with the helicopters filming him, but from the look of it the house was never remotely worth 4 million. He obviously paid a massive premium to get the previous owners to bolt.
Hmm.. they ought to repurchase it from him and keep the 1 million. Oh, the irony.
Also, don’t forget the town of Moorestown will take a $43,780 hit in local property taxes. Repeat nationwide as house values drop. Expect rates to rise to make up the difference.
We really do have alot of very stupid people walking this Earth…
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/HomeFinancingDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=6228393
I would urge all of you to go the website run by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (economicindicators.gov) and read their announcement regarding shutting down the site on March 1st, 2008, due to budgetary constraints.
To all you Bush voters, I offer you my utter contempt. Have as much as you want.
Just did a zillow search on T.O.’s house. Yes he is on the river in a cul-de-sac, but the house to the left and to the right of his house are valued at 1.0 and 1.2 million. No wonder he hasn’t been able to sell it. That 2.96 million list price will still have to come WAY down.
“Pretend that the administration DID have a clue and the feds started cracking down on fraudulent lending, raised rates to cut back on credit…”
My sense is that if the administration (rather than the Fed) raised interest rates in 2004, it would have caused quite a stir.
The builders are a bunch of pussies. Real men don’t contribute to political action committees, they buy their politicians outright, in back alleys and dimly-lit restaurants. Serves the namby-pamby wusses right that they didn’t get what they wanted.
“The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday its political action committee has decided to stop making contributions to candidates for Congress “until further notice.”
And the down side is??
>My sense is that if the administration (rather than the Fed) raised interest rates in 2004, it would have caused quite a stir.
You think if the president had taken a leadership position on this issue, he couldn’t have gotten some action out of Greenspan and the board?
Michael,
“I would urge all of you to go the website run by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (economicindicators.gov) and read their announcement regarding shutting down the site on March 1st, 2008, due to budgetary constraints.”
And ANOTHER door on the bunker slams shut.
.