Monday, July 21, 2008

msb-0329 Housing Is About to Change (Back!)

msb-0329 Housing Is bout To Change (Back!)

McCain, Obama Differ on Housing Crisis
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intro

Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

MSBPodcast is "not" any kind of a medical podcast.

It is by and for MSers.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disease.

The path to illness is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

----

I have a quick and easy, painless and not too figgin' nosy customer survey that I really, really, really need you to go and fill out.

You can go to my podcast "page" [ http://msbpodcast.pbwiki.com/TheShows ], click on the button on the left hand side of the page and anonymously answer a few simple questions.

I really need this.

----

Feedback comes first, so...

"This" [ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/business/18econ.html?ref=business ] article in the "New York Times" points out that people can't see what's going on with the housing market.

They're looking in the wrong direction...

Its not in front of them but behind them, as the calendar goes.

---- "Songs from The Bilston House" by: "Manning" http://www.myspace.com/guymanning

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop us an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Square With The House" by: "The Soupbone Throne" http://www.myspace.com/thesoupbonethrone

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send us an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Ghost In My House" by: "Mean Gene Kelton and The Die Hards" http://www.genekelton.com/

"Thesis:"

Something has struck me as this housing crisis becomes, uh, a crisis.

The term "real estate" is being shown up for the fiction that it is.

It is not, and never was, "real".

Some of you might have parents who were born "pre-Boomer" and some of those might me able to tell you what it was like "pre-W.W.II".

Yup, listen to your 'rents and gran-'rents. But really "listen". Listen for what you need to hear...


---- "Slaughterhouse Blues" by: "Maria Daines" http://www.maria-daines.com/

"Synthesis:"

The real estate crisis is a crisis of imagination and self-esteem.

Its born of ignorance and steeped in refined oil.

The cause of the crisis is the lack of predictive ability to see what could/should/would happen when it all went "pear shaped" and you were stuck somewhere you "didn't" wanna be..

If you live in the 'burbs, make that, if you live more than a thirty minute private commute between where you sleep and where you live/work/play/meet 'n greet, you're just waking up to a new reality.

Now that you're looking at your house more like a millstone than a touch stone, every body else is too.

Ergo, your desirable house is not so desirable anymore and lack of desirability means plunging prices.

There is no "real" in real-estate. It all boils down to "comparative advantage" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage ] or, more to the point, comparative "dis"-advantage.

Our house valuations are subject to enormous changes. (Witness the simultaneous "Fanny Mae" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_may ] and "Freddie Mac" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Home_Loan_Mortgage_Corporation ] debacles.)

One of the things that affects those changes is transportation (In the United States the "Department of Transportation" [ http://www.dot.gov/ { hey, I just noticed the site is called dub, dub, dub, dot, dot, dot, guv. :-}] has annual budget US$58Billion. Okay, its still only about one ninth of the estimated US$490+Billion Defense "budget", [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States ] but our bridges "are" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge ] crumbling)

And instability but, trending inexorably onward and upward, the "cost" of transportation is putting the structure of the "American Way Of Life" under severly distorting stress and strain.

Now its not so bad if you live somewhere in the Boston to Washington DC "North East Corridor", the West Coast pockets of Seattle and Greater L.A. but if you don't live in the two narrow areas, you're home values are about to "take it in the shorts".

Remember what the AmerIndians said about the value of land: "You don't own the land, it own you."

Not having vested interests in real-estate, they meant it in a nice holistic way. But as you watch your supposed equity vanish in the current and deepening shift, you'll find out that the statement also can have a nasty side.

---- "The House Is Burnin" by: "Calvin Owens" http://topcatrecords.com/

"Conclusion:"

We have a great deal to listen to i we can just shut up long enough to hear it.

This has all happened before; but not to people who lived centuries ago and/or who you couldn't possibly have met.

Sit down and talk to your 'rents or grand-'rents about "what" went down and "how" it went down.

They survived pre-oil boom.

Now you have to learn how they managed it.

Since you'll be using the latest in technology so you don't have to fight the energy wars, and rape the planet to the extent that they did.

And that's a good thing because there isn't enough affordable oil left.

---- "House of Cards" by: "Citizens Of Contrary Knowledge" http://www.arielpublicity.net/clients/2437

Outro

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a note of sincere thanks for playing our music on your podcast. We really do appreciate what you and others like you are doing to spread the word about new music that's out there in the world. P.S. I have a family member with MS so your work is most appreciated.

Thanks again.

Peace,

Mark / Citizens Of Contrary knowledge

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Hello Mark,

you're welcome.

And thanks for your own words of encouragement too.

Hope your family member can got onto the disease modifying therapies out there now and that the progression is halted.

(And I hope they start listening to the podcast. :-)