From a Realtor list I am a member of:

The discussions is on foreclosures:

Realtor 1: As REALTORS, I believe our number one job is the preservation of PROPERTY VALUES to the public we serve! Great communities are seeing their home values plummet because of these bottom feeding opportunists!

Realtor 2: What ever I can do that is fair, honest, and ethical, I will do and that includes getting a bank to sell a property as low as I possibly can. I don�t think that will curb inflation or appreciation, they will both survive. Where were we when prices were boiling over. No one tried to put out the fire then

Realtor 3: This is a service industry. I service my clients. Preservation of property values is NOT, usually in the best interest of the clients.

Realtor 1 (again): You say, "Preservation of property values is NOT, usually in the best interest of the Clients" Are you kidding me? Ask your past BUYER Clients how they would feel about you saying THAT!

Used Car Salesmen >= Realtors

Intentionally ****ing your customer (the realtor who lists a property has a fiduciary responsibiltiy to get the best price possible for his or her client) is outright fraud.

Not that this seems to bother Realtors - it sure didn't when they were twisting the arms of appraisers during the runup!

Reuters just laid off a boatload of business journalists. Now the population of internet trolls will really begin to take off when you add this to BK mortgage agent and real estate agents. Total **** service economy = troll flame haven.

Thats right Spy...This is going to be the end of the make believe service economy. My guess is that somebody may finally be able to make inroads into the monopoly that realtors have enjoyed for far too long. I know the fees have come down- but still 3-4% for what they do? Come on....It is just another example of a government enabled monopoly the rips people off. If real estate were an open market transactions costs would be much less and liquidity and prices would benefit....

what is so bad about moonshine?

"This is worst case scenario in my eyes. If the Bears are wrong, we truly are in for a A Greater Squickinin'"

Hey, we could be wrong.

I literally can't take this liberal, pussy, passive bull**** **** anymore. I am sick and ****ing tired of trying to explain this **** to leech****s, I am tired of yapping on the phone like a bitch with my mayor and congressman, I am tired of all of it.

Anyone here have the balls to start a ruckus? We have to do this **** now. The longer we wait, the bigger the pockets of the police state become. Anyone?

Regarding shadow listings,

Are you guys sure of this. Around here the realtors have been dead for over two years now. It seems like they would have needed to save large amounts of money durring the good days, to not list the property as low and as fast as possible so they could make a quick sale. When I go into a real estate offices they are eating brown bag lunchs.
Do you think the people that are buying the shadow properties might be advancing them some money to live on?

We do not like to be out done in Michigan. We have Debbie Stebanow for our senator. Her comment years ago was something like, why to we allow the chinese to buy our tresury bonds, after she discovered they owned a lot of them.

Debbie Stab-em-raw

["The U.S. economy will probably exit from a recession by the end of the next quarter as credit markets improve after a year of turmoil, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics."]

We havent entered the official recession by their own calculations. I believe we have, but their math says otherwise.

Good stuff KD - Forwarded to my rep. I askied him where is the SEC and or FBI?

MTGSPY -QUOTE Reuters just laid off a boatload of business journalists. Now the population of internet trolls will really begin to take off when you add this to BK mortgage agent and real estate agents. Total **** service economy = troll flame haven.

Yep. That jackass CEO spoke in Philly last April. No one asked him or the executives how Thomson - Reuters would save $500M in the merger. No one asked him about the memo informing employees that they may need to interview for their current job. No one asked him about the overlap in sales and cannabilization of sales. It was weird to see a CEO address employees and drop the F bomb, say*****ed off, and **** more then once. Don't ask me how I know this - not saying that I used to work there. I wonder how nervous these employees are now about their future?

That Senator should be on, "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". I can buy that the loss would be 50k in SOME states, however in the state of California, that number is well OVER 100k.

My daughter would embarass her beyond words.

LOL...she might embarass ME.

The Landrieu's have been in the ruling political caste for decades in Lousiana, a state known for loving its (not-so) benign dictators. And yes, collectively, the Landrieu clan has a brain the size of a fruit-fly; but then, so does the Louisiana electorate.

The election of Bobby Jindal to governorship shocked the heck out of me. IMO, he's the one for national conservatives to watch in 2012*


*standard disclaimer: if we make it that far ;) Mileage may vary.

Friends in LA tell me that Landrieu has never had a job, run a business, nothing. Just comes from a wealthy, well-connected family. And hey, didn't she do a great job helping the people of New Orleans.....yeah, exactly ****ing nothing, but a lot of talk. She is worthless, so will probably get re-elected.

Here's what I did to her back in 2005

http://musings.denninger.net/2005/09/dis....

heh heh, dog squeeze. She is probably still trying to figure out what that means.

Quote:

When I go into a real estate offices they are eating brown bag lunchs.

You mean home-made. Then That's actually good for the health of the agents. LOL.

From the ticker:

"...Never mind the call this morning that sent Amazon rocketing higher by more than 10%. The call? Goldman put it on its "conviction buy" list with a $98 six month price target.

Ok, then what of the rumor (which I cannot confirm) that Goldman sold 11% of its holdings of AMZN on the 15th of this month - four days ago!

Why would you sell a company's stock that you think is going higher by 20% within the next six months? That makes absolutely no sense.

How about this as a proposed rule for broker/dealer/analysts? If you publish such a call you are required by law to disclose all affiliated positions by any part of your firm for six months on both sides of the publication, on the Internet, updated daily. This way if you are trading against your recommendations then everyone can see what you're up to!"

*****

What a bunch of nonsense.

Why is the answer here always MORE rules, MORE regulation, and MORE government?

Do you really think that the problem is that we don't have enough rules? Not enough regulations? Not enough government?

Look, I've worked at 2 Brokerages, and I can tell you that the traders and the analysts hardly even know each other -- most have not even met. Goldman has so many Employees that they probably don't even work in the same building.

There is NOT a conspiracy here.

An analyst has an opinion on a stock, a thing which changes all the time, and a trader has a different view on some particular day and trades on it -- so what...? Happens all the time. It's not a conspiracy. It's not even a big deal. An analyst happens to like Amazon, while a trader decides to trade out of it, so what...? SO THE HELL WHAT...? Amazon is so heavily traded that Goldman has probably traded into (and out of) the stock dozens of times a day EVERY day for the past year -- Goldman runs dozens of funds, by the way -- and I'm sure that out of the hundreds of analysts working there, some (or all) of them have at one time or another been of the opinion that Amazon was going higher/lower -- while trading felt the opposite, and traded on it.

Big deal.

It is HARDLY any reason to call for more government.

It does NOT mean that we have some shortage of regulation.

We have NO shortage of rules.

I really just don't understand you sometimes, Karl.

When a rumor (which you can not confirm) is enough for you to call for a bunch of new regulations, it's time to ask just who, exactly, is wearing the tin-foil around here (ESPECIALLY when it's something so uneventful and so routine and so mundane as a trading department trading out of a stock, while the firm they trade for happens to still employ an analyst who simply likes the stock and is willing to say so.)

Good Lord....

Yeah, we need more regulations.

Apparently we don't have enough red tape from Uncle Sam as it is.

How dare the analysts at Goldman like a stock, while their trading department has a different view.

Obviously, the problem here is that we don't have enough government regulations.

More red tape, please.

Sorry, man.

Count me out of ANY call for more government.

More red tape is NOT the answer, period.

It never was.

Louisiana. Neat place to have visited, but what if we dammed up the Mississippi and flooded the whole state Three Gorges-style. Net positive or negative for the USA?

Seriously, the part about second mortgages has me doing some homework..... Thanks for the links and insight.

Ayn, you obviously don't remember the .COM era when it was PROVEN that "analysts" ratings were used by broker/dealers to move inventory and game the market.

Sure, I remember the dot-com nonsense fine. What happened as a result of that is that NOBODY will ever again take seriously a recommendation to buy/sell from Frank Quattrone (among others) ever again. If they do, well, a fool and his money....

I don't need the government to tell me that guys like Quattrone are not to listened to -- neither do you.

By the way, the dot-com era wasn't just a few guys "gaming" the market -- every idiot and his brother was in there paying hundreds of times earnings (well, when there was earnings, which there usually wasn't) on "firms" which really were nothing but a checking account and a NASDAQ listing, in many cases.

I would argue to you that anybody stupid enough to pay $83 for AMZN fully deserves whatever they get -- and they WILL get it, too. A full dose. A P/E of 69 (it's actually higher, but leaving that aside) and the stock STILL manages to run up 10% in a day...?!!

That's not the fault of an analyst at Goldman -- that's an awful lot of dumb people playing around with other people's money looking for a greater fool to sell it to down the road.

Simple as that.

I fail to see the problem with mandating disclosure.

These banks make nearly all of their money off fees. These "free" advisory ratings are not being handed out for the benefit of stockholders who have no financial relationship with the firm doing the handing.

Market manipulation is unlawful. If you want to argue that it shouldn't be, then make the playing field level - you and I should be able to start rumors with impunity that this or that firm is going bankrupt (or being acquired) without consequence.

The double standard is a load of ****, and these firms make billions off it. Its time to stop that crap and force disclosure.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant for evil I've been able to find.