The truth hurts and he won't be invited back next year (2006)

Cheapest home(s) in Maricopa

These are the 3 cheapest homes for sale in Maricopa:
$75000: home = 1440 sq ft, 3 bed + 2 bath

$75000: home = 1670 sq ft, 4 bed + 2 bath
$79000: home = 1600 sq ft, 4 bed + 2 bath + pool
My next article will focus on the most expensive ones.

Time traveller Peter Schiff does a speech in 2006 to a bunch of "soon-to-be-out-of-a-job-mortgage-brokers"

There are 8 parts, but the first two are incredible. A must see if you want to learn about the world economy.

A lesson from the smartest man in the US bar none

Where are the terrorists in Iraq? There are no terrorists, there are no weapons of mass destruction. There was only a very bad dictator and he "has left the building".
Who is winning what?
Isn't there chaos right NOW?
Isn't there a genocide right NOW?
McSame pull the occupying army out of Iraq. You can use the money to bail out your friends in Wall or Sesame Street.

It doesn't get any better than this

"It's not the government's job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford"

- George Bush, August 2007, but he has changed his "mind" and is gonna sign it anyway...

Some people just don't get it

Before
After
'Extreme Home Makeover' House Threatened With Foreclosure

Beazer Homes gave them $100,000 cash, paid their mortgage off and they still can't make it.

Ping Pong Playa trailer!

Randy Pausch has died

Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

"The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful," Pausch wrote on his Web site. "But rest assured; I'm hardly unique."



His truely last lecture

Lisa has arrived safely

but exhausted.

Lisa's flight schedule

She was able to get her connecting flight 251 because it was also delayed. (2 hours)

We'll be expecting her in Phoenix around 10:10 PM.

I was "kidding" back then, I am not kidding now

Back then

Next line in front of Washington Mutual Bank

Washington Mutual 1 year chart

Lisa is coming back home

but her flight from Brussels is delayed 3 and a half hours!

Hope she is able to get her connecting flight in Phily.

Best of the West OPEN

I played a table tennis tournament this weekend. Got eliminated in the Quarter Finals by the winner of the tournament Xiaozhou Hu.

Round Robin:

Krishnamoorthy (1754) - won 4-0

Harrington (1727) - won 4-2

Dok (2016) - lost 2-4


1/8 finals:

Chernobelski (1856) - won 4-1



1/4 finals:

Xiaozhou Hu (2211) 8-11 / 15-17 / 9-11 / 11-8 / 9-11 - lost 1-4

I played the best match of my life. I hardly made any mistakes. I was very glad with my performance this match.

My record is now 26 - 6 ( lost against 2216 - 2213 - 2211 - 2079 - 2016 - 1807) and my new rating is 2057.(number 6 in Arizona)

Picture of the final: Bhoo (2249) - Hu (2211). Hu won.

In the old days

a bank kept a mortgage until that mortgage matured. That bank had a nice profit, but now those mortgages are packaged and sold to Wallstreet. It is not the bank, but Wallstreet that determines the standards for mortgage buyers. A bank can not issue a mortgage if they can't find a buyer on Wallstreet...

Inflation causes interest rates to rise. Is there anyone in the world that believes the government manipulated figures of a 2% inflation rate?

Never underestimate the power of denial AND the power of inflation.

Nough'said.

Our little girl is 9 years old now

Saw my first BLU - RAY movie

Gone Baby Gone


I was not impressed by the image quality but I saw it on my Samsung 22 inch computer screen and a computer screen has a better resolution than a regular tv. The difference in quality between on a DVD and a Blu Ray disc will be more pronounced when you watch it on a 40 inch TV. I will try that in the next few days.

What an incredible movie. A must see. 5 stars in my book.

How is your "ARM" doing?

ARM = adjustable rate mortgage = your mortgage starts with a low (teaser) rate (1-4%)and then readjusts to the real world situation. So when will they reset?

Inflation caused interest rates to go up and those ARM's will be adjusting upward, many people will see their mortgage payment +30%, + 50%, +70%.

6 month graph 30 year fixed rate

6 month graph 30 y fixed (jumbo loans, loans above $417 000)

6 month 3/1 ARM (a fixed rate for 3 years, an adjustable rate for the next 27 years)

NOT a good time to buy.

Number 2 war criminal of the last few decades has been caught

Radovan Karadzic

The number one on that list George W Bush is still on the run.

We have a long way to go before we hit the inflation level of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe introduces 100-billion-dollar note

100 000 000 000 dollar note

Compared to Zimbabwe, the US is doing fine.

Inflation in Zimbabwe is now a whopping 2.2 million %. (that is not a typo: 2 200 000%)

NEWS FLASH: We decided not to buy the homes at the lakes

It's a long story lol, but we cancelled the homes at the lakes.

This is an overview of the most important reasons:

--> At the time we purchased the home (Feb 08) the housing market was in despair and that was a "good time to buy". However 5 months later, the economic situation has changed dramatically. It is very clear that the US economic system as we know it (spending, credit, borrowing, not producing) will cease to exist. The price of a home should have that negative downturn already factored into the price. For the home on the lakes that was not the case.

--> While the home prices of all other homes in Maricopa imploded, the price on the homes at the lakes stayed the same. While the lowest priced homes were selling for 130 000 5 months ago, you can buy your Maricopa home from 80 000 and up now. There at least 38 homes for sale under 100 000. And that number is increasing on a daily basis. Most homes are in the 1400-2200 sq ft range. The cheapest home (on a per sq/ft basis) was a 2450 sq ft home for 98900. We don't feel we are getting a good deal at the lakes now.(price wise)

--> The perfect financial storm of wealth destruction. All assets are losing value due to inflation and the low dollar: stocks, cars, homes, ... Americans are becoming poorer, not richer. That will affect their sentiment and their consuming frenzy. When they all decide to stop consuming... at the same time, the economic disaster will be UNIMAGINABLE.

--> The difficulty to access credit. It was very hard for us to get a loan because of the tighter lending standards. We were able to get a loan but the cost of that loan has gone up at least $4000. This does not take into account rising interest rates. If you want to understand what the US economy is going through and want to understand why it will get worse, read this interesting article.

--> There are many lake lots left and the builder has bought 470 extra lots on an auction from their partner builder that went bankrupt. It is very probable they paid peanuts for those lots, so they can sell the houses they are going to build at lower prices.

--> This can happen too:


--> Interest rates have gone up from 5.5 to 6.5% and are now breaking out to multi year highs. This made our loan 60 000 dollars more expensive over the time of the loan. This will have a destructive effect on home prices in the future.

--> Our builder worked with lousy contractors. I can give you 10 examples of that but I will show only this one, which in fact makes me real mad. And I don't get mad too often. Low bids, shouldn't be lower level results.

Example: On the left handside you can see how the home should be painted. On the right handside you can see how they painted the house. They made a mistake, the third front wall whould be dark brown instead of lightbrown. No problem everybody makes mistakes.

So they repainted the home... this is the new result:

Incorrect again, they painted the 2nd front wall dark brown. Can you believe that? This is even easier than the painting I did when I was 5 when you had to color numbers that corresponded with colors. They only have 2 colors, how can you f*ck that up.. TWICE???

We "lost" our earnest money, but the builder told us if we could use that money on a future purchase with them. For Europeans it is unimaginable that you can have a company build your house and then say "I don't want it". Unbelievable but true. They also told us they would call us when they were going to lower the price on the home.
We'll be renting our home with pool for the near future.

Misc Pics

Next Bank Run(s) in the US?

My bets are on Washington Mutual and National City Corp. Get your money "outtathere"!

The 1976 prophet (btw 1976 was an excellent year)

I want to believe

Probably another weather balloon :-)

The speaker of the House of Representatives

Does anyone think she is wrong on that subject?

The Dark Knight

The latest BATMAN movie broke all reords this weekend, IMAX showed the movie at 3 AM because all other showings were sold out. This is the first Hollywood movie that was shot for 3D, with IMAX cameras.

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

I won't spoil the result.

Lisa's comp has arrived

This computer is soo quiet!!! Our laptop makes much more noise than this one.
front
front panel

back

Processor

Inside

You know the economy is in trouble when the Brothels offer GAS CARDS

Nevada Brothels Hurt by Fuel Prices Offer 'Gas Cards'

When you are in a recession/depression, GAMBLING is exactly what everyone should be doing...

Search for revenue may yield slots at airport

excerpt(Gordon = mayor of Phoenix):

The group's goal: Without raising taxes or fees, find new ways of making money for Phoenix.
The reason? Given the slow economy and plunging sales -tax revenue, Phoenix is - how to put this nicely?
"We're broke," Gordon said.

Angry utility(electricity) customer

pays his 931 euro electric bill in coins of 1 euro cent (93 100 coins = 500 pounds)

And then ... the economy came crashing down

What causes this economic collapse... the difficulty for Americans to get money/credit. The consumption between 2000 and now was mostly paid by Home Equity Loans and Home Equity Lines of Credits. With such loans you can extract the "accumulated" wealth out of your real estate. When real estate goes up that works fine, but even though God doesn't make anymore land, real estate can also go down. So here is a story to understand the housing bubble and the crash of the US economy:
Example:
John Doe buys a home in Phoenix for $250 000 in 2003.

Because John is not the "saver" type, he has no downpayment and receives a teaser rate of 3%(thank you Ben Bernanke), that will be adjusted after 3 years.

Two years later in 2005 that same house is "worth" $350 000.

John Doe decides to take a home equity loan. He will extract $100 000, which he uses to buy a pool in the backyard, a boat for recreation, a vacation to Europe and a nice car, preferrably a Hummer.
John Doe now has a total loan amount of $250 000 + $100 000 = $350 000
John Doe learns the hard way that real estate can go down as well and the house is worth $175 000 in 2008. John is now paying of a $350 000 loan and the collateral is worth $175 000. John is a smart man and he let his home go into foreclosure. His credit score is negatively affected but that doesn't make a difference because he can't get a loan anyway because the lending standards have tightened. He has no money to spend and there are no jobs for him because nobody is buying anything. People can't get their hands on the "easy" money. They will have to save now...imagine that!
2008 will be a nice transition, the USA will start the transition from a spending/importer/printing economy to a saving/producer economy.

God works in mysterious ways. May we all live in interesting times...

I'll have to vote Republican after all...

I have a new CHEF

Hexapong

Our table tennis club has now an hexapong table and we are going to start playing the exciting hexapong sport.

Best Dance song

A few days ago Michael Jackson's Billie Jean was chosen as the best dance song ever.
Here is the original and some alternative versions:

Live

Sometimes ... the copy is better than the original

WoW style

Hi-la-ri-ous economy lessons

If you are too lazy (lol) to watch the whole clip, just watch the question that starts at 3:46.


This was 8 months ago. Some people think that a low currency is a good thing... How wrong can you be. A low dollar = high inflation and high inflation is an economy killer!


Time traveller Peter Schiff answers questions about the economy 18 months ago.


Time traveller Peter Schiff is made fun of by the hosts of a CNBC show40 months ago.

It's IGNORANT people like the one at 0:58 that ARE destroying this country

Hopefully his retirement will be gone when the war is over...maybe he can look for a job in the war industry during the new geat depression?

Nothing to worry about, everything is ok

We touched 10830 yesterday, very close to the 10700 I mentioned before.

Very nice rally today. This rally will probably continue to where we broke support (11700). We were very oversold and a lot of shorts have made nice profits, so they will be covering the next few days.

(charts without the rise from today, prepared them yesterday)

Bank of America 1 year

Citigroup 1 year

Fannie May 1 year
Bush: Troubled financial system is basically sound

Maybe he could send some more troups to Iraq, THAT will help the domestic economy...but he already asked Congress to withdraw the troups from Iraq ... to Afghanistan.

If they would send those 130 000 occupying soldiers back home, maybe they can boost the economy.

Helping his oil-buddies seems more important than saving lives and the domestic economy. Bush has now officially become the LORD OF WAR. Who can be so stubborn that one would not want to bring that occupying army back to the homeland. It has costs the US economy 4 trillion dollar, most of that money fell into the pockets of the Bush/Cheney Axis of Evil related companies Exxon, Schlumberger, Halliburton,...

Halliburton 1 year chart

Socialism for the wealthy

The Drama continues

Customers wait at IndyMac to withdraw money

Who in their right mind still had money at the Indymac bank?

Withdraw money from Citigroup, Bank of America, National City Coroporation, Washington Mutual, ... before it's gone. I kid you not.

Socialism

The Freddie Mac - Fannie May savings plan

Are taxpayers gonna save Lehman brothers - Washington Mutual - Bank of America - General Motors - Ford - and a thousand others?