Thursday, September 23, 2010

Unbelievable Gap Closure



Bloomberg:California last sold general-fund backed bonds in June, when it offered about $120 million of debt for veteran’s homes. The state sold $450 million of public-works bonds in May and $5.9 billion of debt in March.

The standoff drove the extra yield investors demand on 10- year California bonds to 119 basis points above AAA rated municipal securities today from as low as 109 basis points in August, Bloomberg Fair Value Index data show. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders will hammer out the details of the agreement when they meet again in Sacramento on Sept. 27th.


Bullshit. This is all about bond rollovers.

20 comments:

Northern Renter said...

If you want to see some great bond rollovers, just rent "Casino Royale". Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

NR

PS Murst

NHSteph said...

uh, there's no monkey icon...

NHSteph said...

Ah, problem solved! Just don't be murst!

TJandTheBear said...

Wow, those look like they would certainly float!

Bob said...

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!?


Anyway, this should cheer you up:

How the Gov saved CA

Ed S. said...

OK Dawg a serious (and seriously OT question) brought on by your CR comment, "....2x4s with only 6 growth rings are not IMO structural material". I've spent enought time digging thru bundles of wet 2x4's that a beaver wouldn't use looking for a few good ones and shudder to think about what goes into framing any house built in the last 15 years.

Any idea why there hasn't been a serious move to framing residential buildings with steel (aside from the fact that carpenters like wood)? It's cheaper, easier to handle, no bows/twists, etc. I can see the lack of insulating properties in steel 2x4's as a problem in, say, Dryflyland, but not in Dawgifornia.

It's a serious question -- I even own about the only "steel residential framing" book out there and can't for the life of me understand why people don't use steel.

Any thoughts?

wagga said...

A group of us had a 20 minute wait for pizza at the local microbrewery, so we thought we could fix California's budget problem while we waited.

We only needed to find a billion dollars a minute. No politicians here, just people with a firm grasp on reality. We thought turning negatives into positives might be a good thing...

Bee ventured:
Reinstate the car tax (about 4 billion a year). Mandate that the proceeds are spent on infrastructure. Drivers will feel positive about it if they know they will have better roads and safer bridges to drive on and over. And perhaps some additional public transportation. Add in Federal matching funds and we have nearly half the shortfall covered.

Don said:
Set the state gas tax back to where it was in terms of inflation. Again, mandate that the money goes directly to our transportation infrastructure. Raising the price of fuel also gently prods people towards buying more efficient vehicles.

Jennifer said:
Stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars fighting a certain recreational plant product. Treat it the same as alcohol & tobacco, educate the public as to the dangers and tax it. It should be good for at least a 2 billion dollar swing. A great side effect is that it would make illegal cultivation and the ensuing damage in our parks and forests moot.

Michelle chimed in with:
A nasty prison occupies the most valuable real estate package in the state. Build a modest facility inland, where the local city welcomes the jobs, then raze and sell San Quentin. Death row inhabitants don't really need million-dollar bay views. Two, perhaps as much as a 4 billion dollar contribution.

Steve said:
Charge the Delta cities for making our major source of drinking water into a toilet. Drinking out of the toilet is not so good. A dollar a gallon sewage spill fee (much cheaper than a BP oil spill fee!) will bring in billions. If anything could turn California into a third-world country, it would be the collapse of the Delta. Spend that money on repairing the Delta.

Jennifer (the other Jennifer) said:
Stop spending money to supply irrigation water (which unleashes Selenium and other salts into the environment) to the West Side of the Valley. Instead, subsidize the creation of solar power farms. Net gain - probably not so much in the near future, but the value of not burning fossil fuels is priceless.

And Dave chimed in with:
Bring LFTR* technology development into the state. Perhaps a 10 billion dollar investment over 5 years could yield an overwhelming energy cost advantage which would make the Golden State golden again. Perhaps the Google boys could finance this out of pocket money. *Liquid Flouride salt Thorium Reactor.

And then the pizza arrived early, and we were 5 billion dollars short. Oh well.

So there we have it. Just a little statesmanship on the part of our "leadership" and California could once again be the Golden State. So sorry to raise your hopes, only to have them dashed by Business As Usual.

Lost Cause said...

Try this for steel frame construction:

http://blueskyhomes.net/wp/press/dwell-rock-reach-house/

Also, nice ideas to save the state, but be aware that the problems with selenium have more to do with an incomplete drainage system, which was only half built. Read more about it.

H Simpson said...

Been so long, I thought Dawg had gone underground and was subletting Casey's basement (or should I say his parent's basement?).

Anyways, lets get back to Casey Serin bashing. Want to know how to squeeze that little turd?

Get some judges like we have in the Granite State.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/864230-196/judge-writes-of-falsehoods-by-betty-tamposi.html

His answers to such pointed questions would be better then his radio meltdowns when the wife left him.

H Simpson said...

Arnold cut some kind of a deal.

Will let the cat out of the bag Wednesday.

This ought to be a beauty.

The way governments are cutting lolly columns out of the foundation to make furiture, it is only a matter of time before the house of cards caves in.


Will they make it to election day?

Dave said...

The world is full of Caseys now: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704029304575526182962738098.html

Rob -- weren't you talking about moral hazard a wee bit ago?

w said...

Woohoo! The state of CA is going to roll back pensions!

Oh, wait. It only affects future hires. How exactly does that help for the next 20 years?

Property Flopper said...

Wow... just wow. This one is going to get interesting. A family had the home repossessed and got evicted. They are claiming fraud in the repo process and broke in to the house and re-repossessed it.

All this with a laywer's OK... Now, they don't claim to have made the payments, just that the bank did not properly review the documents and have the right signatures.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=74531&tsp=1

Might be worth a top post... or it could stay with the quarterly posts.

Bill in NC said...

Yeah, I don't think the mortgage holders understand that when they rubber stamp foreclosure documents without reviewing them, it is not a simply an administrative mistake, but instead constitutes criminal fraud.

In addition to any charges state AGs choose to bring add the certainty of multi-million dollar lawsuits from those defrauded.

Monica said...

That family who broke into their own house after it was foreclosed and allegedly even sold did the right thing. Why do most homeowners simply allow the bank to steal their homes through foreclosure?

Son of Brock Landers said...

monica - do you automatically take the side of real estate shysters? Casey first, now the Earls.

Monica said...

I take the side of the ordinary people who are kicked out of their own home by the greedy banks or their lackeys. Down with the greedy capitalists who are stealing peoples' homes!

Property Flopper said...

"Monica" is a troll, don't take anything it says as truth. Actually, just block out anything it says... it adds nothing to the conversation.

Property Flopper said...

More fun - different home, but same lawyer. This time, they were arrested after breaking in. The attorney states he will continue to advise clients to retake the homes, no matter if they will get arrested or not - sounds like someone Casey needs to meet.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=74870&tsp=1

Monica said...

Finally a lawyer who has the courage to stand up for what's right and defend ordinary people. I fully support this lawyer and his clients. Down with the banks! Too bad the police arrested the legitimate owners and their lawyer this time. If many people did the same thing, despite some arrests, things would eventually get better. Maybe the banks would think twice before dispossessing so many people through their foreclosure scams.