Obama keeps fucking up, Part III

[Sonny Limatina]

Now he's spraying shit on the housing market. This guy sucks at sucking.

New home sales in March rocket past expectations

New homes sales in March shot up 27 percent from their record lows in the previous month, as home buyers rushed to take advantage of the government's purchase credit before it expires at the end of this month.

Sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 411,000, the biggest monthly jump in 47 years and the strongest month since July, the Commerce Department said this morning.

The sales figure blew past forecasters' estimates, which expected an annual sales rate of 330,000.

The other good news is that the median sales price of a new home rose slightly compared with last year, up 4 percent to $214,000.

The downside to this good news is that the housing market remains in distortion, thanks to the continued government incentives. We won't get a clean number on home sales until June, because May will be the first month when homes are sold without any sort of government incentives (assuming that Congress does not extend the credit again).

The markets have responded favorably to the news.

In the first 45 minutes of trading, the Dow is up nearly four-tenths of 1 percent.

The broader S&P 500 is up three-tenths of 1 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up one-quarter of 1 percent.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2010/04/image_by_getty_images_via.html

 

[Sonny Limatina]

"But he hasn't fixed EVERYTHING! He sucks!"

 

[notbert]

Who's Obama?

 

[Powertone]

"But he hasn't fixed EVERYTHING! He sucks!"

I see the beginnings of a LEFT WING circle jerk forming...good luck with that flat5five

 

[Sonny Limatina]

I see the beginnings of a LEFT WING circle jerk forming...good luck with that flat5five

So you thought there might be a circle jerk somewhere, and you came running. Interesting.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

"But he hasn't fixed EVERYTHING! He sucks!"

Where's Firespin? Where's MeeMie?

All the usual web info orgasm suspects didn't pounce on this one with their rebuttal C&P's, charts, graphs & stats, or the spin-deflections. What's going on out there?

Did Obama's Stasi/KGB/Cultural Revolution...*ghulp*...get them?

 

[Luk]

I see the beginnings of a LEFT WING circle jerk forming...good luck with that flat5five

You realize that this thread was made yesterday, right?

So you thought there might be a circle jerk somewhere, and you came running. Interesting.

Interesting but not surprising.

 

[notbert]

Is it generally acceptable to bump one's own lame threads?

Seems counter-productive to the general good.

 

[Pookie]

Not to throw water on the fire, but the $6500/$8000 tax credit expiring this month probably has a lot to do with the big jump. Don't be surprised if this turns completely around for May and June.

 

[trysail]

Climate Detective Gets His Mann
March, 2010
A book review by: Brett Swanson

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/Hockey%20Stick%20Jacket3.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1262268808322​

If you really want to understand the climate debate, you simply must read this book, by A.W. Montford, about a Canadian scientific detective named Steve McIntyre, who humbly but doggedly pursued the truth about the 1,000-year temperature reconstructions that generated the famed “hockey stick.”

The November 2009 email “hack” of Britain’s Climatic Research Unit that has generated so much recent news is only a brief epilogue. The real story happened day by day over the last decade as McIntyre, a retired mining engineer, and a his fellow Canadian Ross McKitrick, an economist, searched for, and then through, shabbily constructed data sets and magical algorithms, with surprising finds on almost every page.

As my friend George Gilder wrote:

The reader should know that the supposed email “scandal,” as described in the book, is in fact a rather trivial and even defensible part of the story. Few people are at their best in emails. What is shocking — and I use the word advisedly as a confirmed sceptic not easily shocked — is the so-called science. I never imagined that it was quite this bad. It is shoddy beyond easy belief.

The hockey stick chart mostly reflects a defective algorithm that extends and inflates a few deceptive signals from as few as 20 cherry-picked trees in Colorado and Russia into a hockey stick chart that is replicated repeatedly through reshuffles of the same or similar defective and factitious data to capture and define two thousand years of climate history. These people simply had no plausible case and were pressed by their political sponsors to contrive a series of Potemkin charts.​

Almost, but not quite, as surprising, was Montford’s narrative itself. Somehow he turned an esoteric battle over statistical methodology into a captivating “what happens next” mystery. British science writer Matt Ridley agreed:

Montford’s book is written with grace and flair. Like all the best science writers, he knows that the secret is not to leave out the details (because this just results in platitudes and leaps of faith), but rather to make the details delicious, even to the most unmathematical reader. I never thought I would find myself unable to put a book down because — sad, but true — I wanted to know what happened next in an r-squared calculation. This book deserves to win prizes.​

Engrossing. Astonishing. Devastating.

 

[Luk]

Climate Detective Gets His Mann
March, 2010
A book review by: Brett Swanson

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/Hockey%20Stick%20Jacket3.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1262268808322​

Did you even read the OP?

 

[Pookie]

Did you even read the OP?

Or for that matter, the c&p.

 

[firespin]

Where's Firespin? Where's MeeMie?

All the usual web info orgasm suspects didn't pounce on this one with their rebuttal C&P's, charts, graphs & stats, or the spin-deflections. What's going on out there?

Did Obama's Stasi/KGB/Cultural Revolution...*ghulp*...get them?

Sowwy, had to walk the dog. And that's not a euphemism even.

Check out where 400,000 is on this colorful chart. "Woohoo! Now that's some good news!"

http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/sites/briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/files/3-24-10-Feb-New-Home-Sales1-1024x637.jpg

Of course it seems that way if you're uninformed, but that's a good argument for ignorance, I suppose...leads to bliss!

When the tax credit expires, we'll have a better pictues

 

[islandman]

Things President Obama did not do this week:

1) Implement the bailout and subsequent nationalization of the airline industry following the volcanic eruption in Iceland;

2) Refuse GM's return of bailout funds;

3) Congratulate the good people of Arizona for taking a proactive stance on the issue of illegal immigration.


Things President Obama did do this week:

1) Play golf;

2) Tie up traffic in midtown Manhattan;

3) Watch reruns of The West Wing for tips on how to lead a nation.

 

[Sonny Limatina]

Sowwy, had to walk the dog. And that's not a euphemism even.

Check out where 400,000 is on this colorful chart. "Woohoo! Now that's some good news!"

http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/sites/briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/files/3-24-10-Feb-New-Home-Sales1-1024x637.jpg

Of course it seems that way if you're uninformed, but that's a good argument for ignorance, I suppose...leads to bliss!

When the tax credit expires, we'll have a better pictues

So now the right is proud of the number of houses sold during the sub-prime mess that fucked us up in the first place?

Hold on.

Hahahahaha!!!!111

OK, I'm sorry. You were saying something.

 

[Sean]

Things President Obama did not do this week:

1) Implement the bailout and subsequent nationalization of the airline industry following the volcanic eruption in Iceland;

2) Refuse GM's return of bailout funds;

3) Congratulate the good people of Arizona for taking a proactive stance on the issue of illegal immigration.


Things President Obama did do this week:

1) Play golf;

2) Tie up traffic in midtown Manhattan;

3) Watch reruns of The West Wing for tips on how to lead a nation.

Jed Bartlett would never get elected in the US. Far too elitist.

 

[Luk]

Or for that matter, the c&p.

Spanish doctors conduct full face transplant
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 24, 2010 5:55 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Doctors in Spain say they have carried out the world's first full face transplant on a man who severely damaged his face in an accident.

Doctors at Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron University Hospital say they were able to give the man a new nose, lips, teeth and cheekbones during 24 hours of surgery.

Thirty doctors were part of the surgery that occurred in late March.

The patient had undergone nine failed operations before being considered for the transplant.

The medical team's leader, Joan Pere Barret, told reporters that the patient was satisfied when he saw his new appearance. He has scars on his forehead and neck, but they will be concealed in the future, Barret said.

"'The patient asked to see himself one week after the surgery, and he reacted very calmly and with satisfaction, and when we asked him -- in writing, because we communicate with writing and gestures -- he said he was very grateful and satisfied," Barret said.

Although this is the first total face transplant, there have been partial face transplants in France, the United States, China and Spain.

The first was when doctors operated on Isabelle Dinoire in Amiens, France, in 2005. She had been mauled by her dog.

In 2008, the United States had its first-ever near-total face transplant.

Connie Culp, injured by a bullet in 2004, received the nose, upper lip and cheekbones of a donor in a 22-hour operation at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

 

[Sonny Limatina]

Spanish doctors conduct full face transplant
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 24, 2010 5:55 a.m. EDT

I hadn't looked at it that way.

 

[Ham Murabi]

Now he's spraying shit on the housing market. This guy sucks at sucking.




http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2010/04/image_by_getty_images_via.html

I'm sure you've looked at the studies that show about 80 percent of these home-buyers would have purchased without the government handout and did not need the handout to get into the home.
That being the case, what's the point? Why give people thousands of dollars to buy a home they were going to buy anyway?
Same way with cash for clunkers. People would have bought anyway, and when the program was over auto sales briefly tanked.
The absolute winner, though, was the no-limit $4,500 tax credit for electric cars. You can buy a new electric golf cart for about $4,500, and a bunch of guys I know did just that.

 

[Powertone]

You realize that this thread was made yesterday, right?

Lit's 2009 Troll of the Year arrives on the scene like a mutt from Pavlov's research center

 

[Sean]

People would have bought anyway, and when the program was over auto sales briefly tanked.

You don't see what's wrong with this sentence?

 

[Powertone]

Things President Obama did do this week:



3) Watch reruns of The West Wing for tips on how to lead a nation.

rimshot / cymbal crash

 

[Luk]

Lit's 2009 Troll of the Year arrives on the scene like a mutt from Pavlov's research center

Sorry about pointing out your lack of reading comprehension, but I'm sure it will happen again.

 

[Sonny Limatina]

I'm sure you've looked at the studies that show about 80 percent of these home-buyers would have purchased without the government handout and did not need the handout to get into the home.
That being the case, what's the point? Why give people thousands of dollars to buy a home they were going to buy anyway?
Same way with cash for clunkers. People would have bought anyway, and when the program was over auto sales briefly tanked.
The absolute winner, though, was the no-limit $4,500 tax credit for electric cars. You can buy a new electric golf cart for about $4,500, and a bunch of guys I know did just that.

A) There's a difference between what people say they're going to do when a pollster asks, and what they actually do--and even between what they intend to do, and what they eventually do. Even if they were eventually going to buy, the handouts were designed to get them buying now. They worked.

(As for whether that was the right strategy, that's a different discussion. And of course sales briefly tanked right afterward--everyone had just bought cars. Most of what I've read says the auto industry loved Cash for Clunkers, by the way.)

B) Fucking love the golf cart story.

 

[islandman]

Jed Bartlett would never get elected in the US. Far too elitist.

Heaven forbid we actually have a smart guy in the WH.

Heaven forbid we have smart people in government.