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PeakTrader:

With the recent steep rise in mortgage rates, from very low levels, the refinancing boom is likely over, which may slow economic activity, as the crippled economy limps along in this deep depression:

Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy falls short of true recovery
June 05, 2013

“The U.S. is not in recovery, as growth falls far short of the levels needed to bring the economy back to trend.

U.S. real GDP is now 15.4 percent below the normal 3 percent trend. To get back to that 3 percent trend, we would need 4 percent growth for 15 years, or 5 percent growth for eight years, or 6 percent growth for five years, not the disappointing twos and threes we have been racking up recently, which are moving us farther from trend, not closer to it. It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.

…2015 is expected to be better than 2014, with real GDP edging up to 3 percent. Fed funds…will remain near zero as a continuing dose of monetary medicine. The unemployment rate will fall to 6.6 percent by 2015, due in part to a growing base of discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force.

…genuinely good news is that we are in the early stages of a real recovery in housing. Housing starts, which fell to a historic low of 550,000 in 2009, will climb back to the normal 1.5 million by 2015…Multi-family housing starts will continue to rise, with an excess of 400,000 units a year being started in both 2014 and 2015.”

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PeakTrader:

“Jose Muniz…choking to death on a bag of cocaine.”

Also, the article says:

“…Muniz’ arrest record, which included 23 arrests, mostly for drugs, but also for burglary and grand larceny. He also had nine sealed arrests, mostly for drugs.”

Maybe, he was on drugs too long to understand swallowing a big bag of cocaine may result in choking to death.

Of course, according to libertarians, he has the right to put anything in his body. However, doesn’t the police have the right to gather evidence too?

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“…San Francisco is a terrible place to be a landlord…”

Yes, because tenants have too many rights. Reducing those rights will improve housing.

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To evict one tenant, a landlord has to go through an expensive and time consuming eviction process. It may cost him over $10,000 in lawyer fees and lost rent.

For example, after six months to a year and after exhausting all the paperwork to stay in the apartment for free, the court will normally tell the landlord and tenant to come to an agreement, resulting in the tenant staying in his apartment and paying rent again without having to pay the six months to a year rent he owes the landlord.

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I know from personal experience. When I moved to California, from Colorado, I had lots of money in the bank and knew a girl here, for several years. She “snapped me up” and we moved into an apartment. However, I learned she didn’t believe in paying rent, although our friends told her paying rent should be the top priority.

Eventually, we went through an eviction. She spent just a few hundred dollars and was able to postpone the court date for about a year. When we went to court, the landlord took a picture of my car and showed it to his lawyer. He looked up at me with wide open eyes and said “You’re doing pretty good, aren’t you?”

The lawyers and court agreed we should settle the case in the hallway. We were able to stay in the apartment and pay the same amount of rent each month without paying about a year’s worth of rent we owed.

In Colorado, if you don’t pay rent, you can get evicted much more quickly. That’s why you can rent a very nice apartment in a nice neighborhood without even a credit check for less than $500 a month (a comparable apartment in San Francisco would be over $2,000 a month).

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You can be more productive driving 100 MPH, and when the police pull you over, you can say “I didn’t kill anyone or kill myself. So, what’s the problem?”

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/sunday-morning-links-6/#comments

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