Do day Numbers

Just bought a Civic. Paid cash. Stupid? Maybe. Let's do da math:

Price $20,000 In a 1 yr CD that would earn 5%: $85/month.

Old car; 17mpg. Civic 38 mpg.
$3.25/gallon 1100 miles per month. Old, $210. New, $94.
Difference $116/month.

There's more to owning a car including depreciation but 4 year old Honda Civics are selling used at 90%+ of retail new. I fully expect the price of a Civic to soar and used prices follow new prices up and down.

Update July 11th 2006

6 weeks and 3600 miles. We've been driving more than we thought and we've tried to put the miles on the Civic as well. So, repeating the calcualtion:

Price $20,000 In a 1 yr CD that would earn 5.4%: $92/month.

Old car; 17mpg. Civic 37 mpg.
$3.25/gallon 2400 miles per month. Old, $459. New, $210.
Difference $248/month.

Looks like a worthwhile deal.

That's Per Second Louie, Per Second...

Equity evaporation from US housing assets:

$115,740.74

Inflation erosion of US housing values:

$31,392.69

Does anyone recognize the picture?

"Flipper" is Our Friend

No, really. Stop laughing. Flippers really are our bestest friends in the whole wooooorld. Think about it. Who has houses they don't want? Flippers. Who have no or soon won't have emotional attachment to cloud a sale? Flippers. Who is going to drag comps to stygian depths? Flippers. Who is going to leave the mortgage markets starved for customers? Flippers.

Flipper/floppers are our friends.

Flat Money

I wasn't looking for this but when I saw it I wondered. Say you woke up today after five years in a coma. Which would have performed better , The NASDAQ, DOW or S&P? All exactly the same. Up 2%.

UPDATE Jun 13 '06 5 years flat money and a stock market as nervous as a long tailed cat.

Props 1A-1D

1a-1d bonds; insanity. The neighborhood bully has stolen your lunch money and is offering to loan it back to you at high rates as long as you buy what he “suggests.”

The HOV CTX Line

The Homebuilders did learn their lessons. They have engraved in their collective conciousness the disaster of last time. Of last time. Like generals, they are fighting the last war. They built more on contract, they covered exposure with commitments, they optioned land instead of purchasing/contracting land, they raised margins rather than pursue share, they sub-contracted construction duties, they bought into the revenue stream. Just the things to protect against the last downturn. The homebuilders have done everything necessary and Wall street agrees. The French once did the exact same thing, they called theirs the Maginot Line.

Real Time Migration Patterns

High Gas Prices = Good

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5378487

Environmentalists having been saying exactly the same thing for 10 years as an infamous Sierra Club webpage so embarrassingly shows: http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/articles/subsidies.asp

The externalities they cost out are vague and unsupportable while at the same time they ignore every single positive externality no matter how well documented.

The true agenda is one of irrational and unreasoned hatered of the private moror vehicle. It is that simple and therefore that intractable. You see even the progess in the last few decades failed to sway the anti-auto crowd as there's is a conclusion based belief system.

To further reveal the true agenda, one need only examine what these self proclaimed environmentalists would do with the tax money. Invest in more efficient roads to reduce pollution? No. Invest in advanced technology to reduce the negative externalties? No. Institute by back programs for the worst polluters to purchase low emissions vehicles? No. Instead they want to spend money on public transit despite no evidence whatsoever that transit either saves energy or reduces externalites. Why then transit? Because transit allows a degree of control over individual lifestyles unattainable by any other means in a Western Democracy. Again, an agenda so hardheaded it resists rational discussion.