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Hi Hari, Take a look at what's popular on Pinterest this week! See more top Pins       This week's top Pins   Chicken and avocado burritos Tobias Fichtel Food   Redbook's Strong Sexy You 21-Day Challenge - do it! Fetii Fa'atau workout and trai...   Exercise smarter not harder with this intense 5-Minute Pilates for ... Miss Fabulous Fitness   These are the best cookies in the world!!!! We shall ... Donella Muse Sugar High Roxanne Valencia Exercise   S'mores Bars - these are so delicious! Like a cookie ... Gina B Dessert Recipes   Southwest Pepper Jack Salad with Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing will ... CL LC Salad   Gluten Free Grilled Shrimp with Roasted Garlic-Cilantro Sauce. Easy and ... Maria Giron cuisine   Happy Pinning!     Get the Pinterest App Check recipes at the store, browse Pinterest on the bus and more. Available on the App Store Available on Google Play   Pinterest Facebook Twitter Google Blog   This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com. Don't want to receive this type of email? Unsubscribe. Have a question? Visit our Help Center. © Pinterest, Inc. 572 7th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103 Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions

Seth's Blog : High resolution is not the same as accurate

High resolution is not the same as accurate

Should you visit a college before you decide to go there?

Well, a one-hour personal visit is certainly visceral and emotional and it feels real. But it's also based on the weather, on the route you took to school, on the few people you met or the one class you visited.

None of this is correlated to what the four-year experience is actually like, or what the degree or experience is worth over the lifetime of a career.

By analogy, everything from how angry that last customer was on the phone to precisely how many degrees it is outside right now are not nearly as accurate indicators as we make them out to be.

You don't need an electron microscope to figure out if a ball is round. (In fact, it will almost certainly tell you something less than useful.)*

Too much resolution stops giving you information and becomes merely noise, which actually gets in the way of the accuracy you seek.

*[If you were able to shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball, it would be the roundest sphere ever created. Hard to believe this if you live near the edge of the Grand Canyon.]

       

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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New Housing Crisis in the Making? If So, What's the Solution? Posted: 07 Jun 2015 12:59 PM PDT Home ownership rates are sinking and demographics are part of the reason. But does that constitute a new housing crisis? The Wall Street Journal writer Nick Timiraos makes the case in New Housing Crisis Looms as Fewer Renters Can Afford to Own. Last decade's housing crisis has given way to a new one in which many families lack the incomes or savings needed to buy homes, creating a surge of renters and a shortage of affordable housing. The latest crisis looks very different from the subprime mania of the early 2000s, but it does share one trait: Policy makers in Washington appear either unaware or unwilling to do much about it. The U.S. homeownership rate is now below where it stood 20 years ago when President Bill Clinton launched a national campaign to encourage more Americans to buy homes. Conventional wisdom says the rate, now at 63.7%, is leveling off to where it was for decades before the housing-market peak. But this is probably wrong, according to research from the Urban Institute, which predicts homeownership will continue to slip for at least the next 15 years. Demographics tell the story. The Urban Institute researchers predict that more than 3 in 4 new households this decade, and 7 of 8 in the next, will be formed by minorities. These new households—nearly half of which will be Hispanic—have lower incomes, less wealth and lower homeownership rates than the U.S. average. The declines reflect a surge of new renter households, which is boosting rents. Together with tougher mortgage-qualification rules, this will leave households stuck between homes they can't qualify to purchase and rentals they can't afford, says Ron Terwilliger, who spent two decades running Trammell Crow Residential, one of the nation's largest apartment developers. As rental households devote a greater share of their income to rent, families could face greater challenges in saving for a down payment. This could restrain a housing market that has failed to provide any real lift to the economy in the current expansion. What's to be done? Given budget pressures, it may not be realistic to expect the government to spend any more money on housing than it already does. Thus, the focus now should be on reallocating what is already committed, says Mr. Terwilliger, a Republican, who this month will formally launch a foundation designed to start these conversations. His goal is legislation after the 2016 election that realigns housing policy with the shifting dynamics. Breaks for Apartment Builders Given that Terwilliger spent two decades as one of the nation's largest apartment developers the answer should be easy to figure out. He wants to end tax breaks for home ownership to subsidize new home owners and "free up funds for the rental side". His complaint: 75% of the housing tax breaks go to the top 20% of individuals. That is hardly shocking given the top 20% buy the most expensive homes and therefore pay the most in interest. Timiraos, buys all Terwilliger's nonsense hook line and sinker, finishing the WSJ article with "Politically, none of this will be easy . Some will say it's a zero-sum game—helping renters at the expense of owners. Not so, says Mr. Terwilliger. If renters can't ever become homeowners, who will buy those homes when today's homeowners need to sell?" Housing Crisis Past and Present The 2015 housing crisis was caused the same way as the one in 2007: Interference by the Fed, by Congress, by local officials wanting to create affordable housing. Terwilliger wants a combination of affordable housing and affordable renting. Lovely. Driving up home ownership rates is guaranteed to do one thing: drive up prices. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and hundreds of other government programs culminating with president Bush's "Ownership Society" all contributed to make housing unaffordable. The government has no business promoting one form of living over another. Self-Correcting Problem Terwilliger ends with the question "If renters can't ever become homeowners, who will buy those homes when today's homeowners need to sell?" The answer should be obvious: Prices will fall until there is a pool of buyers! In the wake of the great financial crisis, home prices actually fell to the point of being affordable. Few seemed happy with the result. The Fed wanted to prevent deflation and in the greatest financial experiment in history unleashed round after round of QE. Asset prices recovered, but wages didn't. As a result, homes are once again unaffordable. Does Terwilliger want affordable housing or not? If government and the Fed got out of the way, there would be no problem. Instead, Terwilliger wants the government to "do something". I suggest the government and the Fed have done far too much already. Solution is Undoing Instead of promoting something, a process that has failed every time, how about undoing everything that contributed to the mess. My proposal Eliminate Fannie Mae Eliminate Freddie Mac Eliminate the FHA Eliminate rent controls Eliminate itemized deductions and replace with a flat tax That's the real solution to the problem, not more self-serving affordable housing nonsense from people with a vested interest in promoting something for their own benefit. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Seth's Blog : Holding the umbrella

Holding the umbrella

Harry Truman talked about where the buck stops.

For every project, for every organization that lasts, someone is holding the umbrella.

She's the one on the hook if things don't go well. She's the one who doesn't walk away from a problem, even if the office is closed. Most important, the person holding the umbrella decides what to do next.

It's fun to work on a successful project, and thrilling to invent, create and connect. But the real work comes when it's your turn to hold the umbrella.

It's entirely possible that you've let other people seduce you into believing that it's not yet your turn. Ignore them. There are lots of umbrellas just waiting for someone to hold them.

       

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Request Denied: Juncker Spurns Tsipras Request for Meeting; Exterminated from Within Posted: 06 Jun 2015 11:57 AM PDT Recap of Recent Greek Events On Friday, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras cancelled a with eurozone officials in Brussels. He returned to Athens to address outrage from within his own party. Tsipras then blasted the latest deal offer made by Jean-Claude Juncker in a rant to the Greek parliament. Tsipras said he was "unpleasantly surprised" by the proposal put forward by the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission during his visit to Brussels for talks with commission head Jean-Claude Juncker. "I would like to believe that this proposal was an unfortunate moment for Europe, or at least a bad negotiating trick, and will very soon be withdrawn by the same people who thought it up," he said. After blasting Juncker's deal, Tsipras picked up the phone and made a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin. They agree to meet in two weeks at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Greece also missed a debt payment to the IMF on Friday. That did not constitute default because IMF rules allow multiple payments within a month to be bundled on the last due date. That trick was last used by Zambia in the 1980s. Exterminated from Within Greek energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, ruled out a deal stating "I do not think that Syriza will accept for the country and its people to be exterminated inside the eurozone. A third consecutive austerity loan programme will be the most destructive option possible for Greece." For a more detailed recap of Friday's events, please see Tsipras Talks With Putin; Energy Minister Rules Out Deal; Wordsmithing Extraordinaire; 16 Tons. Juncker Spurns Tsipras Meeting Given all the above, it's no wonder that today Juncker Spurns Tsipras Meeting. Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, asked to meet Jean-Claude Juncker on Saturday but was spurned by the European Commission president rankled by the Greek leader's denunciation of his efforts to broker a bailout deal. According to a senior official with a Group of Seven delegation, which began gathering in southern Germany on Saturday ahead of a two-day summit of the leaders of the seven leading industrialised powers that begins Sunday, Mr Juncker believed Mr Tsipras' speech in parliament left little to discuss. "Unless he seriously addresses the issues, there's no reason to meet," said the G7 official. The G7 official said Greece's creditors were taken by surprise both by Mr Tsipras' outright dismissal of their offer in his parliamentary address as well as a decision to delay a €300m loan repayment owed to the IMF last Friday. Mr Juncker's rejection of a meeting with Mr Tsipras returns the bailout talks to a point of stalemate just a week after creditors believed the talks were making progress for the first time in nearly four months. Many officials believe a deal to release €7.2bn in desperately-needed bailout aid needs to be reached ahead of a June 18 meeting of eurozone finance ministers so that Athens has enough time to implement an agreed set of economic reforms in order to get the rescue funds before the bailout expires at the end of the month. Best Friend and Advocate? The European Commission, and particularly Mr Juncker, have long seen themselves as Greece's strongest advocate at the creditors' table, frequently clashing with the more hardline views of the IMF and the German finance ministry. Mr Tsipras' speech Friday was the second time his government has publicly spurned Commission efforts, however. In February, Yanis Varoufakis, the charismatic Greek finance minister, publicly revealed Pierre Moscovici, Mr Juncker's economic commissioner, had been quietly attempting to broker a compromise deal to extend Greece's bailout without Mr Dijsselbloem's knowledge. With "advocates" like Juncker, who needs enemies? Curiously, Greek officials deny Tsipras asked for a meeting today with Juncker, stating Greece's differences now lie with Berlin, not Mr Juncker in Brussels. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com   Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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