The federal government invested 700 billion dollars in the housing industry during it’s past fiscal year. Gulp.
That is 700,000,000,000 dollars folks. Into our industry. By any measure we are not any better than we were last year. Of course, it can and probably should be said without thegovernments intervention we could be in a much worse place.
But this is the cost of not letting the market fall to it’s natural bottom but instead of trying to manage it down.
700,000,000,000 dollars.
My 8 year old cousin came home from (public) school one day and asked his dad, “Is President Obama a great president?” His dad gave him a great simple answer that I thought I’d share right here.
He said, “Son, let’s say you do your chores and earn your allowance. Then, you do some extra chores to make a little more money so you can buy that lego set you’ve been looking at. Your brother, though, doesn’t do his chores, and doesn’t earn any money.”
My cousins dad continued, “That weekend, we go to Toys R Us and look at the legos you want. Your brother comes with us and sees a lego he likes and says, Dad, I want that lego! So I tell you – who have done chores and earned your own money – to pay for your brothers lego, even though he didn’t work for his money.”
My little cousin, eyes wide, looked at his dad and said, “Dad, that is NOT happening!”
Put simply, even an 8 year old can understand the negativity of Obama’s policy. Yet they are leaving the public school system with these ideas that President Obama is great without anything to back it up. Children should at least be able to make their own decision. There are some honorable things Obama has done, and some things I disagree with – but the nations public school system should not be a brainwashing system to indoctrinate children with a liberal agenda. If an 8 year old can understand the concept of wealth redistribution from a Lego analogy, imagine what the older students would understand if the policy our government is enacting is explained to them in an age appropriate way.
Parents and politicians, businesses and professionals use Facebook and Twitter as platforms to socialize and mobilize the masses. These platforms are no longer reliant on tech geeks and earlyvangelists (Earlyvangelists = Early Adopter + Internal Evangelist) to provide them with traffic. Yet there is a distinct divide between how college students and the rest of social media users are participating on these platforms. I have yet to see a friend of mine create a Facebook page (Search Engine Optimized) for a career, say Investment banking, or accounting, law, real estate, even for a business they are trying to startup.
So I ask myself, if we (Gen y) are supposed to be the “plugged in” generation, how come we are not keeping up with the more sophisticated uses of these networks? A study done at the University of South Florida uncovered some of these trends well before I thought of them on my own. Check this:
Of the 250 Florida college students surveyed, 99 percent use social networking sites. However, only 15 percent have an account with Twitter and 34 percent have never even heard of the site. Some 58 percent of the students who have Twitter accounts never use the service or rarely log-on.
It’s 7:00AM July 19th 2010. I just finished my 1st day of the Insanity 60 day challenge. To keep myself honest I’ll be posting updates every 15 days with pictures and statistics. Every 15 days I will perform a “Fit Test” and if I stick to it properly my numbers will go up. Here are the categories and statistics I have so far:
Height: 70 Inches
Weight: 186 pounds
Body Mass Index: 25.2
Excercises:
Switch Kicks: 90
Power Jacks: 49
Power Knees: 70
Power Jumps: 30
Globe Jumps: 7
Suicide Jumps: 12
Push-Up Jacks: 25
Low Plank Oblique: 40
The exercises were surprisingly difficult. After the first 3 routines I had to take breaks mid set and by the end I was almost collapsing – out of breath, legs were beat, tunnel vision. Now I am sitting here trying to eat my breakfast of non fat yogurt and egg whites but it seems like my stomach shrank up on me even though I know I need the food.
Anyways, today is also my first day of work at Radius Group Commercial Real Estate Inc. in Santa Barbara. Wish me luck 
.
Oh, and check out this article – it made me happy. Cities are finally getting it. What a good day.
From the WSJ - Cities Rent Police, Janitors to Save Cash
Finally, here are my day 1 pictures.
Over at Cafe Hayek they compare the bank bailouts to paying a ransom. I like to compare this to the situation in Israel. If Israel gave into all the hostage situations and all of the medias demands we would see the situation flare up 1,000X what it currently is. Every terrorist or activist with an agenda would take advantage of a government policy to “bail out” or pay ransom for hostages.
A big problem when the financial crisis hit was that regulators did not have the authority to force financial institutions in the shadow banking system into the type of resolution process the FDIC uses for banks in the traditional banking system. This solves that problem, and this is an important change.
On the most important issue of “too big to fail,” the legislation does exactly the wrong thing. It gives regulators discretion to use resolution authority to break up at-risk institutions. But the regulators already had that. What they need are hard and fast rules that require them to use resolution authority under well-specified conditions. On a case-by-case basis, it is always is safer to do a bailout, just as on a case-by-case basis it always seems easier to just pay ransom to the kidnapper. Resolution authority that is discretionary is resolution authority that will never be used. And the big banks know it.
They both can’t be right. When I read Thoma I think of the Shel Silverstein poem,Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda:
All the woulda-coulda-shouldas
Layin’ in the sun,
Talkin’ ‘bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shouldas done …
But those woulda-coulda-shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.
Heads or A Tale