Friday, January 30, 2009
If the governments around the world don't stop intervening in the "free" market there
will only be government jobs left.
Date Company Total Laid Off Industry
1/30/2009 Caterpillar 2,110 Capital Goods
1/29/2009 Textron 2,000 Conglomerates
1/29/2009 Ford 1,200 Durables
1/29/2009 Eastman Kodak 4,500 Household
1/29/2009 Black and Decker 1,200 Household
1/29/2009 Walt Disney 400 Media
1/28/2009 Walt Disney 200 Media
1/28/2009 Starbucks 6,700 Restaurants
1/28/2009 Boeing 10,000 Aerospace
1/28/2009 Time Warner 1,500 Media
1/27/2009 Target 1,000 Retailing
1/27/2009 Masco 600 Construction
1/26/2009 IBM 2,800 Software
1/26/2009 Texas Instruments 3,400 Semiconductors
1/26/2009 Lincoln National 540 Insurance
1/26/2009 Caterpillar 20,814 Capital Goods
1/26/2009 General Motors 9,758 Durables
1/26/2009 Home Depot 7,000 Retailing
1/26/2009 Pfizer 19,800 Pharmaceuticals
1/26/2009 Sprint Nextel 8,000 Telecommunications
1/23/2009 Abercrombie & Fitch 50 Retailing
1/23/2009 Deere & Company 662 Capital Goods
1/23/2009 Harley-Davidson 1,100 Consumer Durables
1/22/2009 Microsoft 5,000 Software
1/22/2009 Huntsman 1,665 Chemicals
1/21/2009 Burlington Santa Fe 2,500 Transportation
1/21/2009 UAL 1,000 Transportation
1/21/2009 SPX 400 Conglomerates
1/21/2009 Intel 5,000 Semiconductors
1/21/2009 Walt Disney 600 Media
1/21/2009 Wynn Resorts 53 Leisure
1/21/2009 Eaton 5,609 Capital Goods
1/20/2009 Clear Channel 1,850 Media
1/20/2009 Deere & Co. 160 Capital Goods
1/16/2009 ConocoPhillips 1,300 Oil & Gas
1/16/2009 Hertz Global Holdings 4,000 Business Services
1/16/2009 WellPoint 600 Health Care
1/16/2009 Advanced Micro Devices 1,700 Semiconductors
1/15/2009 Xerox 275 Business Services
1/15/2009 MeadWestvaco 2,000 Materials
1/15/2009 Autodesk 750 Software
1/15/2009 Marshall & Ilsley 830 Banking
1/15/2009 General Electric 1,000 Conglomerates
1/14/2009 Ecolab 1,000 Chemicals
1/14/2009 Delta Air Lines 2,000 Transportation
1/14/2009 Motorola 4,000 Technology
1/14/2009 Google 100 Software
1/13/2009 KeyCorp 200 Banking
1/13/2009 Newell Rubbermaid 75 Household
1/13/2009 Cummins 1,300 Capital Goods
1/12/2009 Textron 2,665 Conglomerates
1/12/2009 Mosaic 1,000 Chemicals
1/12/2009 Best Buy 500 Retailing
1/12/2009 Precision Castparts 40 Defense
1/9/2009 Oracle 500 Software
1/9/2009 Smithfield Foods 75 Food
1/9/2009 Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold 2,750 Materials
1/8/2009 Union Pacific 230 Transportation
1/8/2009 General Dynamics 179 Defense
1/7/2009 Walgreen 1,000 Retailing
1/7/2009 EMC 2,400 Technology
1/6/2009 Alcoa 13,500 Materials
1/5/2009 Cigna 1,100 Health Care
1/5/2009 United States Steel 4,225 Materials
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Passed real estate exam
Now that I don't have to attend a class everyday, I will have more time available to post.
I will post the Disneyland pics this weekend.
Riots in France
1 million people
LINK
Who would have thought that common people were smart enough to realize that bailouts are bad morality and bad economics.
Riots in the USA: 0 people
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Everything what Ron Paul says here is 100% correct economics
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
"When governments spend money, they spend it in a non-productive manner. And every penny the government spends, they have to take it out of a productive source of money. The money has to come from somewhere."
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Mastercard
She doesn't have the intention to pay it all back, that's why she doesn't and won't feel.... soooo bad.
No bailout for him
BAY CITY, Mich. - A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.
Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.
Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time.
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.
A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, said Belleman. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.
The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.
The body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.
"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the Bay City News.
Quote of the day
"Who needs the government to create a new “bad bank” when it has Bank of America?"
-New York Times Breaking Views column, mocking BofA's incompetent CEO Ken Lewis and calling for his ouster, January 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Is it me or is this thing really getting out of control
MASS Layoffs
Microsoft: 5000
Intel: 6000
Home Depot: 7000
Caterpillar 20000
General Motors: 2000
Sprint Nextel: 8000
Texas Instruments: 3500
Halliburton: 5000
United Airlines: 1000
At this rate, we will have riots in the US like the ones in Iceland within 6 months.
Our car buying strategy
1. Never give them a number/price. We would never give the car salesperson a number. He then would say "But I need a number to work with, what is your price range". We would tell them "It is lower than that number. YOU are the carsalesman, you want to sell us this car, you have to come up with numbers and we will tell you when it is a good number. Give us your best deal on this car and we will tell you if we will take it."
2. We would act like we didn't care. They asked us, what color do you like best, we would answer them "We don't care, about the color, we want to best deal". Emotionally attached to a car = sucker!
3. We would give our salesperson exactly 30 minutes to give us his best deal. The first weekend we spend 2 hours per cardealer. This 30 minute rule solved that problem. After 30 minutes we would say, we have to go, time is up. They would come up with a better deal, the closer we got to the exit. The even stopped us when we were in our car.
4. Tell them you want to buy a car today or tomorrow and that you are visiting them first. But that you want to compare their offer with the future offers from other dealerships.
5. We would never discuss/negotiate the monthly car payment. First question when you want to buy a car " what carpayment would you like per month". Our answer would be something like this: "we won't negotiate on the monthly carpayment, we negotiate on the total price".
Most important thing to remember when buying a car:
Car dealers (can) make a profit on 3 things:
1. selling you the car
2. financing of the car
3. trade-in of your old car
Most of the money is made on item number 2 and 3. If you know this in advance, it can help you negotiate a better deal.
We were happy to get a car loan, this will boost our credit score. We are paying 6.7% without any extra costs for taking the loan.
We drove a lot of cars and negotiated a lot of prices (lol), we paid about 3k less than the 2nd best deal we got on the same vehicle.
Car buying process
We "shopped" for cars about 4 weekends and a full week during our holiday.
The car buying experience in the USA is totally different than in Europe.( I generalize for better understanding)
Car buying in Europe
You have read some reviews so you go to the dealership of that car, take it for a test drive. You don't take any salesperson with you. After a while (minutes/hours) you come back. You pick your options, add them all up, and you deduct the 8%-10% (unwritten discount)from the dealer's price and sign the contract. 3 months later you pick up the car that was custom made for you.
Car buying in the US
In the US you pick a certain car from the lot, that you like. You take it for a 15 minute test drive with an annoying salesperson next to you who wants to distract you from paying attention to the car/engine/transmission. When you arrive at the dealership, negotiations start. This process can take hours because the salespeople want to wear you out. Once in a while you hear a bell ... someone has bought a car. You can feel the selling pressure in your little toe.
At first this was very weird for us but we adopted very fast...
I went on the internet to look for salestechniques they used so we were aware of them (and were able to counter them). I found this incredible article from an undercover journalist who became a car sales person. It took me 2 hours to read the whole thing but oh my, that saved us thousands.
some shocking excerpts:
The process begins by asking the customer how much they want for a monthly payment. Usually, they say, about $300. "Then, you just say, '$300... up to?' And they'll say, 'Well, $350.' Now they've just bumped themselves $50 a month. That's huge." You then fill in $350 under the monthly payment box.
I later found out this little phrase "Up to?" was a joke around the dealership. When salesmen or women passed each other in the hallways, they would say, "Up to?" and break out laughing.
The final box on the 4-square was for the trade-in. This was where the most profit could be made. Buyers are so eager to get out of their old car and into a new one, they overlook the true value of the trade-in. The dealership is well aware of this weakness and exploits it.
I later found out that the first pencil is arrived at by the dealership in a very unscientific way. For every $10,000 that is financed, the down payment they try to get is $3,000 and the monthly payment they try for is $250. In this way, a $20,000 family sedan would require about $6,000 down and a $500 a month payment. (These payments are based on very high interest rates calculated on five-year loans. These numbers are so inflated that a manager I later worked with laughingly called them, "stupid high numbers.")
"But here's the beauty of this system," Michael said, "these numbers aren't coming from you — you're still the good guy. They're coming from someone on the other end of the phone. The enemy."
This reminded Michael of something and he laughed. "Here's another thing. Never give the customer even numbers. Then it looks like you just made them up. So don't say their monthly payment is going to be $400. Say it will be $427. Or, if you want to have some fun, say it will be $427.33."
In another post I will explain our strategy when visiting car dealers.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
You know the depression is for real when
Microsoft lays off 5000 people for the first time in their history. They didn't have mass lay-offs during the dot.com crash (2000-2001), but now they are reducing their staff by 10%.
There is nothing the government can do to stop this mess. The more they intervene the worse it will get. The DOW was 10800 before the 700 billion gift to the banks... everybody, except the morons in Washington, knows that intervening in the free market by the government always has horrendous consequences. It's called negative externalities. The market works best without government intervention.
Worst thing they can do now: throw some more money in the bottomless moneyhole of the banks. If they do, there will only be government (created) jobs left in 5 years.
Meanwhile 9 ounces of gold are enough to buy one share of the DOW, the countdown has begun.
Extremely funny, must see(BBC)
part 1
part 2
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Please, sit down before reading
Almost Half of Americans Believe Humans Did Not Evolve.
Religion is major predictor of attitudes toward human origin.
A recent Gallup Poll shows that almost half of Americans believe that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.
LINK to article
LINK to bigger chart
I am starting to understand how Bush got re-elected...
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Passed part 3 and 4 of the r-e exams but ...
barely.
89% first part, 83% on the second part.
What have we learned?
Never take an exam after a full day of work, because after a while the letters on your paper start to dance around...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
IF Bank of America would pay EACH of their
4000 employees that they are going to lay off (as a thank you) a 10 million dollars bonus for selling mortgages that people couldn't afford.
Bank of America would still have 100 billion in tax dollars left to squander. Home of the Brave.
Passed the first real estate exams
The exam consisted of 2 parts: National and Arizona. I had to pass with 80% and passed with 94% and 92%. Tomorrow at 5 pm, I have to do the same thing and then I will get my certificate which will allow me to do the real deal at the State.
People were only allowed to start the 2nd part of the test if they passed the first part with 80%, 2 out of 5 were allowed to do the second part.
And now they are even talking about "social unrest" on MSNBC
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Monday, January 19, 2009
No "conditional status" anymore
When we moved here, I received a "conditional status" on my permanent resident card (green card) because I was able to get into the country (lol) because of my marriage.
I had to submit a lot of documents to justify that we were still married and last week I received a document that states that my conditional status has been withdrawn.
I am now a 100% US permanent resident!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Civil unrest update: Greece, Latvia, Bulgaria, ... Lithuania
Why would you throw eggs at the police? No seriously, it is not their fault that people have lost their jobs/houses/bank accounts/purchasing power. Better buy a plane ticket to punish the real culprits.
Civil unrest, riots in Greece and Latvia ... latest update: Bulgaria
Those Us bankers must really feel good, knowing they screwed up the whole world and still got their bonusses. Must feel quite good!
Tomorrow we have a day off
due to the Martin Luther King celebration day, Tuesday it's Obama's inauguration.
Free at last
Free at last
Thank God Almighty
WE are free at last!
Friday, January 16, 2009
ALL US banks will go bankrupt
One example will make it clear.
This home sold for $506 657 on 24th of July 2006. (county assessor's website)
30 months later that home is on the market for $174 900. The bank who holds the mortgage has a loss (best case scenario, buyer pays full list price) of $340 000 ($330 000 + $10 000 costs to sell)
That is the loss on only 1 home, there were 2.8 million foreclosures in 2008, they are expected to reach 5 million in 2009.
US Buzzword for 2009: LOAN MODIFICATION
Time to get the term "zombie banks" (see Japan 1980-now) back into the mainstream.
The Bush Administration has done its last good deed for the country
They piss away another 138 billion dollars of taxpayer's money in the bottomless pit/moneyhole: Bank of America. (at least one of my 2009 predictions has come true)
U.S. Gives Bank of America a $138 Billion Lifeline
Bank of America may be too big to fail, but not too big to be a cry baby: video
Taking over the worst mortgage company in the world "Countrywide Financial" and the worst broker in the world "Merril Lynch" was not a good idea.
U.S. Gives Bank of America a $138 Billion Lifeline
Bank of America may be too big to fail, but not too big to be a cry baby: video
Taking over the worst mortgage company in the world "Countrywide Financial" and the worst broker in the world "Merril Lynch" was not a good idea.
The Dominos Start to fall
After the big riots and civil unrest in Greece because it's basically bankrupt, we now have the same thing going on in Latvia. Other countries on the brink of collapse: Italy, UK, Russia, Belarus, ...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Most reliable cars
The reliability information is based on data CR collected about 1.4 million vehicles. Their owners reported any serious problems with their cars and CR used the data to predict the model's reliability.
The perceptions are based on a survey that asked people to rate car brands based on safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It's perception vs repair bills. LINK 
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Those people on the marketplace that were killed by an Israeli attack
certainly looked like soldiers...
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Time to use the oil weapon to bring the US and Israel to its senses/knees
If Israel keeps on slaughtering innocent Palestinians, this will have a sequel:
The ARAB OIL EMBARGO, which lasted until March 18, 1974. To support the Arab cause in the October War, the Arab oil states (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, scaled back production and refused to export oil to the U.S.
The boycott was highly disruptive to the industrial economies. By the end of 1973, oil prices had risen from $3.00 to $11.65 per barrel, peaking in the mid-1970s at around $40 per barrel. The greatest political effect of the boycott was to make European countries more sympathetic to the Arab side of the Arab-Israeli dispute.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
The devaluation game has just started
Oops, people in Belarus just lost 20% of their money-assets overnight.
"I feel deceived by the government," said Galina Bychkevich, a 53-year-old history teacher at a currency-exchange point Friday. Her monthly salary of 800,000 rubles, which the day before was worth $360, had dropped to $300.
Russia has devaluated its currency 5 times in the last 5 weeks, more to come.
Disneyland
What have we learned?
1. Never go unprepared
If you go unprepared, buy tickets in disneyland, get a little map there, you are in for a horrendous day of stress and waiting. Even at 3:00pm there was a line of at least 400 people getting tickets. Buy tickets online, check rides online, check parade times online, use ridemax, see number 2.
2. Use Ridemax
For the first time in 5 years we actually paid for software. This program, ridemax, was extremely valuable to us and saved us hours a day. It "knows" the busy rides and it also "knows" the waiting lines. It also takes into account the "fastpasses" , which is basically the only way to attend a ride without waiting 90 minutes for it. (in statistics it is called shortest path theory, see nokiagame: tunnels)
Ridemax is made and updated by some addicted Disneyland visitors. It received extremely good reviews: example 1 ; example 2, other numerous reviews can be found on the inet.
It gave very useful tips and it printed out a list of attractions to do on that particular day within the timeframe you had chosen. Our family will never visit Disneyland or Disneyworld without it. Tickets were $500, so this 15 dollars was very well spend.
The maximum time we waited was about 30 minutes! (and we stayed there Dec 31st and Jan 1st...)
3. Take a day off after your Disneyland visit
We went 3 days in a row and that is extremely tough. Next time we would go 3 days to the parks but spend a day in between resting.
Disneyland day - rest day - Disneyland day - rest day - Disneyland day
4. Use the "Hopper advantage"
With a hopper pass you can access both parks on the same day. That helps you exit Disneyland at around noon, when it gets extremely busy and visit the other Disney park, California Adventures.
8:00-12:00 Disneyland
12:00-3:00 California Adventures
3:00-7:00 Break/hotel/nap
7:00-12:00 Disneyland
5. Hotel location, location, location
If possible try to stay as close to the park as possible. We were staying in the Crowne Plaze which was a very nice hotel, but located 1 mile from the park. They had free shuttles to the park every 30 minutes. The problem however is that is takes at least 30 minutes to get back to your hotel.
Most hotels close to the park are cheapo motels and the hotels in Disneyland are extremely expensive. It's a difficult trade-off. We took the priceline roulette so the location determination was out of our hands:-)
6. We were the only ones in the park without an iPhone or Blackberry
The people in the US are in for a rude awakening when their standard of living will implode, with the collapse of the dollar. 13-years old kids having such a phone, is not normal and it will end as more people lose their homes, jobs and cars. You can't eat an iPhone or Blackberry.
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