Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Central Florida Real Estate

Description: Construction and service economy. No manufacturing. No natural resources. No strategic location. We went to a timeshare presentation. More on that later. Maybe. The location a few miles from the Disney complexes. The first of supposedly seven resort towers got built and then 2006 happened. There's an eight lane bridge that never opened. A weathered sign selling 150 acres. A single entrance that passes two traffic circles that go nowhere but to the one structure. There are two sources of revenue. Selling services to tourists and fees. Toll roads. Resort surcharges. Handling fees. If aviation fuel and gasoline ever get too expensive this place will implode again. Despite this I suspect the area is getting ready to overheat again.

35 comments:

Rob Dawg said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-24/portugal-posts-wider-deficit-as-spending-rises-revenue-falls.html

Surely you are all shocked at the missed targets and lowered projections.

TJandTheBear said...

Excuse me if I thoroughly enjoy when all the real estate "investors" get reamed the next go-round.

Rob Dawg said...

It's the municipalities that catch it this time. Low but some equity homeowners will be taxed into serfdom but it won't be enough to keep Whitney from being hailed as a genius for reading this blog and a very few others several years ago and connecting the dots.

Munis think all those recent purchasers with low interest rate mortgages are captive donors. No. The investors that rushed in can rush out as soon as the numbers stop working.

Cinco-X said...

At 11:25 PM, Blogger TJandTheBear said...

Excuse me if I thoroughly enjoy when all the real estate "investors" get reamed the next go-round.


Everyone loves a good donkey show...

Cinco-X said...

...the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.
Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives.

Cinco-X said...

revenue growth is running far below the first stages of the Great Recession. What should be very worrisome is simply ignored because nobody believes it is possible. The context of the current period is lost in both seasonal adjustments (on the economic accounts) and perceptions of “recovery” driven by narrowly-focused and often mistaken assessments of how all this data fits together. Since everybody seems to believe, quite implausibly given the four full years distance to the last recession, that the US economy will suddenly shift to full recovery any day now there cannot possibly be anything but growth.

Cinco-X said...

Without a free press there is nothing but the government’s lies. In order to protect its lies from exposure, Washington intends to exterminate all truth tellers.

Cinco-X said...

Support for Weiner has gone flaccid

New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner has entered a free-fall amid new revelations of new online activity that came after his resignation from Congress in 2011, according to a new NBC New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll released Thursday.

Cinco-X said...

As the Court Justice Brandeis said, “In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously…. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.”

Cinco-X said...

UK 'fares badly in European health league table'
The UK is lagging behind progress by similar countries on many indicators for ill-health, research suggests.
Health data over 20 years was compared with figures from 18 other countries in the research published in the Lancet.

Cinco-X said...

The Daily Show flogs Weiner

Cinco-X said...

War on Whistleblowers: Has Obama Scrapped the First Amendment?
By Marc Pitzke

The New York Times published James Risen's most recent article last Wednesday. It focused on the bipartisan backlash President Barack Obama's administration faces in the wake of revelations about the domestic surveillance operations of America's National Security Agency (NSA). "Lawmakers from both parties called for the vast collection of private data on millions of Americans to be scaled back," it read.
ANZEIGE
The comprehensive article, written by arguably one of the most distinguished investigative journalists in the United States, fails to mention the fact that Risen himself has become the subject of surveillance. For a number of years now, his telephone conversations and emails have come under scrutiny by the US government. Adding insult to injury, Risen learned last week that he could face jail time for contempt of court if he fails to give evidence at the criminal trial of a former CIA agent -- one of his most trusted sources.

Cinco-X said...

For the record, let’s note that we’re not condoning genuine wrong-doing, such as rigging markets or stealing depositors’ money. But the vague term “reckless” invites Big Government abuse of the first order.
One point cannot be emphasized enough: If the Federal Reserve, with the connivance of the U.S. Treasury Department, had not debased the dollar, the “reckless” and egregious excesses could not have happened.
Jail bankers? Let’s start with the real villains–central bankers and their political masters.

Rob Dawg said...

Good stuff Cinco. I'll read tonight at the pool. If Mrs Dawg catches me blogging while at Univrsal Studios I'm a dead dawg.

Cinco-X said...

Why surrender control over electronic communications?
...many Europeans are finally grasping, to their great dismay, that the word “cloud” in “cloud computing” is just a euphemism for “some dark bunker in Idaho or Utah.” Borges, had he lived long enough, would certainly choose a server rack – not a library – as the primary site for his surreal stories. A database larger than the world it is meant to represent: a Borges short story or a slide from an NSA PowerPoint? One can’t say for sure.
...ideas that once looked silly suddenly look wise. Just a few months ago, it was customary to make fun of Iranians, Russians and Chinese who, with their automatic distrust of all things American, spoke the bizarre language of “information sovereignty.” What, the Iranians want to build their own national email system to lessen their dependence on Silicon Valley?

Cinco-X said...

Rob Dawg said...If Mrs Dawg catches me blogging while at Univrsal Studios I'm a dead dawg.

LOL

Rob Dawg said...

The home builder stocks (FD I own one) c
Got crushed yesterday. Starts and orders down. But remember, interests rates don't matter to home prices.

This will be great for the bulk buyers who were complaining about price and are immune from rates.

Cinco-X said...

Weiner in the New Yorker...

Cinco-X said...

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords
Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form.

Cinco-X said...

A group of college republicans say they were denied entry into President Obama’s speech at the University of Central Missouri on Wednesday for security reasons. Missouri College Republicans State Treasurer Courtney Scott told Campus Reform on Thursday that an unidentified police officer told the group they were barred from the event for “security reasons and for the president’s protection.”

College Republicans dangerous?

Cinco-X said...

Dow
15,558.83
+3.22 %


Nice Bear trap today...short sellers takin' it in the shorts...

Cinco-X said...

The rise of the mooching millennial
By Nin-Hai Tseng

The U.S. has more than 2 million missing households, thanks largely to 18 to 34-year-olds stuck living with the parentals.
It could take years before young adults build enough savings to get their own place, Kolko notes. Indeed, those with jobs are more likely to leave the nest than their jobless peers. But even the share of those with jobs living with their parents is higher in 2013 at 24.6% than before the recession at 22.8%. It's uncertain why, but the trend might say a lot about stagnant wages and escalating college debt.
Given their living situation today, it's worth asking how investors could possibly rent all the homes they bought. It's a similar question Fusion IQ CEO Barry Ritholtz raised recently as firms big and small pour billions into Phoenix real estate: "How the hell can they be making money when there are so many empty houses cooking in the desert sun?"
Perhaps it would be wise to take a closer look at the plight of mooching millennials.

Cinco-X said...

Here's the most dishonest place in the US
That turns out to be the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., where only 80% of people honored the test's system of putting a dollar in a box to pay for a bottle of the iced tea. In fact, the town was so dishonest that the CEO's bike was stolen during the test.
Overall, Americans are 92% honest, but some states and cities are more so than others. The most honest locations are Hawaii and Alabama, where 100% of participants paid for their beverages...

Cinco-X said...

Some good stuff at of all places USA Today...
Bush and Obama exemplify a political culture where presidents routinely push the limits of federal power with little regard for constitutional restrictions. Too often, executives act as if their role is not to protect constitutional rights but rather to see how far they can bend them before courts step in.

sm_landlord said...

From the Public Agencies Gone Wild file:

DWP's unlimited sick pay policy costs millions

Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power has paid thousands of employees a total of $35.5 million since 2010 in extra sick days under an unusual program that the utility's top executive acknowledges has been vulnerable to abuse.

DWP employees benefit from a 32-year-old policy that allows them to take paid days off well beyond the agency's 10-day-a-year cap on sick days. Last year, 10% of the department's roughly 10,000 employees took at least 10 extra days off, the data show. More than 220 took an extra 20 working days off, or about a month, according to a Times examination of data obtained under the California Public Records Act.


And now that the news is on the front page of the LATimes:
Mayor, council members call for probe of DWP sick-pay policy

In a motion submitted at Friday's City Council meeting, Councilman Paul Koretz said the policy should be investigated "promptly and publicly."

"Clearly, this policy permits abuse and lack of accountability, with the city and the city's ratepayers all at risk," said the motion, which was seconded by council members Paul Krekorian and Mitch O'Farrell. It calls for DWP managers and the utility's ratepayer advocate to report back to the council regarding the policy "and any possible abuses and reforms" within 30 days.


In response to The Times' investigation, DWP officials said they were not around when the sick-pay policy was adopted in 1981, and that they could not find a written rationale for the unlimited extra days. Since 2010, workers have taken 103,802 extra sick days, the equivalent of 415 years.

Let's see if they get away with waiting this one out and hoping it goes away.

Cinco-X said...

sm_landlord said...
...Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power has paid thousands of employees a total of $35.5 million since 2010 in extra sick days under an unusual program that the utility's top executive acknowledges has been vulnerable to abuse.


Savvy...I wouldn't hold my breath in Kali...wouldn' hold it very long here in MA...

Cinco-X said...

WEINER STICKS IT OUT...

Cinco-X said...

The end of Moore's Law...
The clock rates of commercial microprocessors peaked at about 3 gigahertz back in 2006, and haven’t advanced at all since then.
Obviously, there have been other kinds of advances since 2006. Engineers have figured out how to put more processing cores on each chip, while tweaking them to run at lower power. The dual-core A5X system-on-a-chip, designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung in Austin, TX, is the epitome of this kind of clever engineering, giving the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPad Touch the power to run mind-blowing games and graphics while still providing all-day battery life, all at roughly 1 gigahertz.
But the uncomfortable truth weighing on the minds of innovators is that Moore’s Law has expired, or will very soon.

Cinco-X said...

chart shows how much total credit market debt has grown over the previous year compared to annual wage and salary disbursements. This graph really highlights the impact of the Crash of '87 and the results of the subsequent actions by the Fed...

Cinco-X said...

Which would all be fine and dandy, except most people think Araguainha is too small to be the culprit. It is a mere 40km (25 miles) across. The Chicxulub crater in Mexico, which did for the dinosaurs, is 180km in diameter, and it may have been paired with an even bigger impact in the Indian Ocean...
After an extensive geological survey, he and his team discovered that a sizeable amount of this rock is oil shale. Any hydrocarbons in the crater would certainly have been vaporised. More intriguingly, the researchers calculate that the impact would have generated thousands of earthquakes of up to magnitude 9.9 (significantly more powerful than the largest recorded by modern seismologists) for hundreds of kilometres around. In effect, it would have been the biggest fracking operation in history, releasing oil and gas from the shattered rock in prodigious quantities.
The upshot, Dr Tohver believes, would have been a huge burp of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, that burp would have resulted in instant global warming, making things too hot for much of the planet’s animal life. Presto! The Permian mass extinction is explained.


now THAT'S what I call global warming!

Cinco-X said...

Should Uncle Sam Chase a Scandinavian Model?

In truth, Scandinavian countries have performed better than the dismal continental norm in large part because, with the exception of recession-wracked Finland, they have stayed out of Euro currency.

But even those outside the Euro-destruct zone are not doing as well as widely asserted. Overall unemployment in Sweden, at 8.4 percent, is also higher than that of the U.S.

Even Norway is underperforming. ...

In addition, not all the reasons for Scandinavia's relative health are those that would warm the heart of U.S. progressives. These countries, led by Sweden, have reformed many aspects of their welfare state, including such things as labor laws, and reduced taxes in ways that make them more competitive – and far less egalitarian than in the past.

Another positive factor for Scandinavia lies in their exploitation of resources, something many progressives, notably green policy aficionados, tend to view with disdain.

Cinco-X said...

Regionalism: Obama’s Quiet Anti-Suburban Revolution
The new HUD rule is really about changing the way Americans live. It is part of a broader suite of initiatives designed to block suburban development, press Americans into hyper-dense cities, and force us out of our cars. Government-mandated ethnic and racial diversification plays a role in this scheme, yet the broader goal is forced “economic integration.” The ultimate vision is to make all neighborhoods more or less alike, turning traditional cities into ultra-dense Manhattans, while making suburbs look more like cities do now. In this centrally-planned utopia, steadily increasing numbers will live cheek-by-jowl in “stack and pack” high-rises close to public transportation, while automobiles fall into relative disuse

This will make for a very ugly America...Coast-to-coast Cabrini Greens....

Cinco-X said...

the 1899 words of Gustave Le Bon in The Psychology of Socialism when he says, "As soon as he has a family, a house, and few savings, the workman becomes immediately a stubborn Conservative. The Socialist, above all, the Anarchist-Socialist, is usually a bachelor, without home, means or family; that is to say a nomad…and barbarian."

Cinco-X said...

Obama's Creeping Authoritarianism
The political left, historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama's expansion of authority. The rest of us should not.
The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American tradition.
To create public support for so much unilateral authority, Mr. Obama needs to lessen support for the other two branches of government—Congress and the judiciary.

Unknown said...

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