Manhattan Bridge to Caymans Hedge Funds

Yes, I’m up to my old tricks by the Manhattan Bridge, taking pictures from a moving vehicle while driving. I just can’t get enough real crash, I mean realcrash.com!
Speaking of real crash, it seems the former head of the NY Federal reserve has let the proverbial cat out of the bag. William McDonough, who led the bailout of LTCM in 1998, said that the “unregulated hedge funds and derivatives may cause a crisis that is truly a mess…: (Bloomberg 9/26/06) LTCM remember was the Long Term Capital Management, that’s the operation of this psycho, I can’t remember the name, who won a Noble prize for his equation on how to model the derivative markets. Then to show how brilliant he was, he put a $4 billion hole in the financial system, which through leverage could have blown up about $1-trillion, which is why the NY Fed organized a bail out…
Meanwhile, Condi Rice is caught in her lies against Pres. Clinton and NSC’s Richard Clarke, for the Bushies idiocy, that was an invitation to Osama to do 9/11…this is nasty. As in Nasty rice. But, she needs the war so bad to secure her and Bushies investments, Condi, is giving uncle Kofi (Annan) a little more time in the matter of Iran….
Meanwhile, in the “cover your Ass” category, the investigations are blooming of crooked hedge funds. As Amaranth blows out, the Pirates at the Pirate Capital are in trouble with the SEC for not disclosing 5% share ownership in various companies.
Also in trouble are the “activist” type of hedge fund, like Kirk Kekorian, for running their usual inside/outside op, trying to take over companies by thuggery of various sorts, ,,, even GM.
So they’re telling me to drive more carefully?

Big Bad Blogger on New York Real Estate

The bubble is ready to blow-up. Oh and by the way, here's another link>
Technorati Profile

Now we see real estate ready to crash. The insane monetarist think the solution is to crash the dollar, at least against the Chinese Yuan. But that would just collapse the whole system.

and now, something from the London Financial Times, Sept 15-
Hedge Funds are Controlling Ever Larger Portions of Bond and Derivative Markets
"Hedge funds now account for more than half of all trading in some important areas of the U.S. fixed (bond) income market...So let's have a bankruptcy reorganization.

My new blog is http://realcrash.com

My new blog is http://realcrash.com. I will try to write here too occasionally. That blog is part of the orble.com family of blogs, out of Sydney Australia. It's pretty cool and people at least notice me a bit.

Up above is my son, who was born last Tuesday...


The other picture is the Dakota apartments at 72 and Bway, where beatle icon, John Lennon was shot to death in Dec. 1980, regrettably. Part of my participating in the frenzy around "The U.S. vs. John Lennon.

Benjamin born, want to see a better world

My child Benjamin was born yesterday. By cesaerian section. Baby and mother are fine.

The globalizers would have slave labor and no health care, so we must bash them more. More on real estate disaster:
Housing Bubble Trouble in Massachusetts

Fannie Mae, etc. repackaged the mortgages as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBSs) and sold them all over the world. Homeowners were able to refinance their home at a lower mortgage rate and get extra cash. They could even refinance with cash back, turning their home into a giant ATM machine. With the decline in real estate prices, this will no longer be possible, since this is based in huge increases in home equity. This will affect consumer spending, driving it downward. Establishment commentators at Forbes Magazine, Business Week, Barons, etc. have been looking for a replacement bubble, but haven’t been able to find it.
Declines in homes sales and home prices have especially hit hard metropolitan areas on the West Coast and the East Coast. In the Worcester, Mass. Telegram, it is noted that foreclosures in Mass. have increased by 58% comparing this July, to July last year. This is from foreclosuresMass.com . Foreclosures are accelerating, because if you compare the last 12 months to the previous 12 months, they are only up 43.5%. Worcester is about 60 miles from Boston, a major center of the housing boom. There housing starts have also been falling.
There is some insinuation of padding of statistics on the sudden collapse of real estate sales in Massachusetts. According to Scott Van Voorhis, a reporter for the Boston Herald, while the official realtor group has been crowing about great sales, the MAR, Mass. Association of Realtors, another group saw the collapse coming. The Warren Group, which publishes “Banker & Tradesman”, was showing declines in homes sales going back to April 2005.

Before the Mass Turnpike Disintegrates..

Meanwhile, developers who have been planning a huge condominiums project over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston, are complaining that high costs have hit them, and that they need more government financial help, to complete the project. Inflationary price increases of 15 percent or more have hit steel, sheetrock and other building materials. Other condo builders are considering shifting their projects to rental apartments, in order to avoid canceling them altogether. Several condo projects including retail districts have not broken ground in Downtown Crossing, the Back Bay and the Eastie section of Boston. Government subsidies to large projects considered essential to the development of Boston may have to be increased, both to create more jobs and to deal with bankruptcy threats in the construction industry. There are solutions at least in the short-term.

Blogging till I drop

I'm really into the blog of it. I've been writing more and more stuff, and I like it. now I got http://soulcast/bubblepopper.com and sooon more and more stuff.

The ice age is coming

this is going to be deleted.

Getting my links with Afroarticles

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Adjustable Rate Mortgages and other Exotic Mortgages-

You may have noticed that some interest rates advertised are surprisingly low. These are usually Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs). The payments may be low for a period a short as a year and then go up. This is what is called the initial rate, or the teaser rate. ARM payments go up when market interest rates go up, and go down when they go down. Also some loans put a ceiling on payments during one period, which may be different later. You need to know about other problems like negative amortization. This means that because you defer paying off the principal, and only pay off the interest on the mortgage, the amount of your principal actually goes up. Interest rates on ARMs are generally initially lower, but the lender may be betting that the index interest rate will go up, meaning your ARM interest rate will go up.
So ARMs have the advantage of making it easier to get initial financing to buy a home or condominium. In some cases, you may be intending to stay there for only two to five years, before the monthly payments increase. However, in a period of rising interest rates, ARMs are a bad option for buying a home you intend to stay in for five years or more. It also may make it impossible for you to build any equity, the portion you own clear of financing, in the home.
If your income is rising, then even if you have an ARM at first, you can later convert to a fixed 30-year mortgage, where the payments are the same throughout the life of the mortgage. It’s difficult to predict if interest rates will continue to rise, but it is a real possibility. Common indexes for the interest rate on an ARM include US Treasury Notes, the National Average mortgage rate, and the interest rate for jumbo CDs. Then a margin is added to that, to make your interest higher, in order to pay the mortgage broker’s cost.
Many economists have been concerned by the widespread use of ARM mortgages, IO mortgages and other exotic mortgages. The problem is that in many cases, such as under a high interest rate regime, these mortgages would never be paid off, even if the household managed to make the payments and avoid foreclosure on the mortgage. This is especially true with IO Mortgages. A family could manage to acquire a home, make the payments for the initial three to five year period. Then they would be forced to refinance the home with another IO Mortgage to keep up payments. And even to due this would be based on the housing market prices, their appraisal constantly going up. So for many people who barely were able to afford a home, this creates an inherently unstable situation, which could lead to a huge wave of foreclosures. So such a mortgage is ultimately only good for certain types of speculators and investors. If you want to buy a home to live in, as the permanent family home, it is not worth the risks.
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real estate florida turd now

This is something I produced for "the machine", but it's true the bubble is finished. Check out politics now




Not Everything Has Crashed- New Construction in Florida

Not every condo project has bitten the dust. In Miami, 21-story condominium project known as “Mei” has begun construction. All the 134-units, ranging in price from about $1 million to over $2 million, have been sold. The project has an Asian theme styling, and is located between South Beach and Bar Harbour. It is being built by the Property Markets Group and Bruce M. Goldstein.
Another 9-acre beachfront project is being constructed at Hollywood Beach, Florida, which is the Sian Ocean Residences and Resort. The project involves building a beach club and converting the 16-story apartment building on the property into a condo-hotel. Oh, the joys of having a “time share”. A 20-story Beach Club Tower is also scheduled to be constructed on the property. The site is being developed by MCZ Developers and Centrum Properties. Of course, in many ways Miami is a special city with its reputation as a resorts and its well known neighborhoods. There’s even the South Beach diet.


Trouble for Trump in Tampa

The planned Trump Tower in Tampa, Florida, has not gone up on schedule. It turns out that Donald Trump only sold the franchise on his name, and has had little to do with the project. What’s planned is a 52-story condominium in downtown Tampa, expected to cost $220 million. The Trump name was licensed out to the developer SimDag LLC, who now has two firms bidding to do the financing. Trump said that of 25 projects worldwide bearing his name, 40 percent of them have been franchised out in this manner. He agrees to put his name on the project, if the developer agrees to the best design, materials, kitchen appliances and other amenities.
The project had been announced early in 2005, but since then the contractors were fired and delays and additional fees have accrued. Trump said in an interview in the Tampa Tribune that he wanted the project to be built. He said he would buy the project out if necessary, and build it. Since the project was first proposed, the housing slump has set in, and also lenders wonder if towns like Tampa are being overbuilt with luxury condos. More than 30 towers have been proposed for the downtown.
Other projects scheduled to be completed in the next couple of years include the New Port development project on South Tampa bay, on 52-acres of waterfront property. The plan is to build 1200 townhouses and waterfront condos. Two 16-story towers are to be built, Marina I and Marina II, which will include 218 condominiums. These are the first of nine towers to be built by the ECO group. Payment is 10 percent at contract and 10 percent at construction.
Another project, the Signature, has just gotten a $140 million loan for the high-rise project that will contain 224 luxury condos, in St. Petersburg, across the bay from Tampa. The downtown Skypoint, a 32-story hi-rise is now being constructed after obtaining investment loans from Fremont Investing, which partnered with Lehman Brothers Inc.
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