(From anchor, 5-miles offshore from Belize City, Belize) Just out this morning is the S&P, Case-Shiller monthly housing report and it looked pretty good from the headline numbers:
New York, February 24, 2015 – S&P Dow Jones Indices today released the latest results for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Data released today for December 2014 shows a slight uptick in home prices across the country. Nine cities reported monthly increases in prices.
More than 27 years of history for these data series is available, and can be accessed in full by going to www.homeprice.spdji.com. Additional content on the housing market can also be found on S&P Dow Jones Indices’ housing blog: www.housingviews.com.
Year-over-YearBoth the 10-City and 20-City Composites saw year-over-year increases in December compared to November. The 10-City Composite gained 4.3% year-over-year, up from 4.2% in November. The 20-City Composite gained 4.5% year-over-year, compared to a 4.3% increase in November. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 4.6% annual gain in December 2014 versus 4.7% in November.
The fastest year-over-year gains were in San Francisco and Miami, where prices rose 9.3% and 8.4% over the last 12 months. Twelve cities, including Cleveland, Denver, and Seattle, saw prices rise faster in the year to December than a month earlier. Las Vegas led the declining annual returns with 6.9%, down from 7.7% annually.
Month-over-Month
The National index was slightly negative in December, while both composite Indices were positive. Both the 10- and 20-City Composites reported slight increases of 0.1%, while the National Index posted a -0.1% change for the month. Miami and Denver led all cities in December with increases of 0.7% and 0.5% respectively. Chicago and Cleveland offset those gains by reporting decreases of -0.9% and -0.5% respectively.
The two charts that matter are here (click to enlarge):
and
We’ll go through some discussion and analysis of where we are in the Long Wave economic cycle in tomorrow’s Peoplenomics report.
The market was about flat when we got a first snipe at it this morning, but oil was down under $50 (however briefly) and that may color how Janet Yellen holds forth on Capitol Hill today. No double, people will be hanging on her every word…
For the moment, with 20-minutes before the opening, Dow was up 25 and the price of oil peeked above $50…
Major Gold Probe Claimed
There’s a report (Daily Sabah) that the Justice Department and CFTC have begun a major investigation into 10-banks for precious metals price fixing. I’m sure this will gain some traction with the metal community as it spreads, but it doesn’t mean gold is going to the moon; at least not yet.
The problem globally is that since the 1981/82 peak in bond rates, the falling rates have a problem over the next year, or two. What happens to the economy when the bottom is in basis the 10-year?
As I’ve explained before, the case is generally bullish for stocks. We seem to be rerunning the market’s climb from 1921 until September of 1929, and while this looks like a major 5th wave (in Elliott terms) remember, these in commodities are often where the largest gains are made.
Also worth noting is that the Fed bumped rates a tad in (going from memory) 1927 and it didn’t defuse the bubble. As one of the guests on CNBC properly noted Monday, a ‘one and done” is not going to end the strongest job market in 17-years.
Still, as historical rhymes go, a one percent increase ought to be about “it” because we’re now at the place where GDP (more figures later in the week) is going up slower than compounding interest on the federal debt. Worse: When the Fed raises rates it will up the federal government’s borrowing costs, which will then speed up the compounding problem, which is the same kind of dilemma that presented to the Fed in 1928.
In some ways it’s graceful. In others, scary.
The problem with longwave deflationary bottoms in markets is there really isn’t much of anywhere to park “smart money.” Energy is a problem, but when the worm turns, as oil shows lately, down come prices. Scratch that oil and gas deal.
Housing, thanks to Obamacare, is not likely to offer much opportunity (other than refi’ing to lock ultra-low rates. Most young people don’t have 3-nickels to rub together, so no downstroke on a new home for them.
That leaves rentals are a promising avenue, but it’s far from ideal, too, since people need jobs and income in order to be able to pay rents. Another dead end.
Despite the reports of a metals price-fixing probe, the real bang in gold and silver may be a couple of more years off, simply because the government hasn’t come to terms with deflation, so until they do that, hyperinflation (the only road out, and it leads to war at long wave economic bottoms) is coming, for sure.
Just a matter of timing.
“So What War, Ure?”
Glad you asked.
Grady reports some oddities regarding military build-up language in the daily www.nostracodeus.com data runs. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if the Canadian government hadn’t started doing military recruiting on television lately.
Then look at what’s going on in background: Mitre Corp, a federally funded research and development outfit) has outlined plans to test wideband HF radio technology in the HF radio spectrum which may interfere with ham radio communications.
I’ve got mixed feelings on their development work. I’ve worked with some of their engineers when FS-1045-FS-1051 automatic link establishment was being rolled out. That’s essentially a low-speed global store-and-forward system to ensure military survivability of a communications platform. Think of it as 60 WPM email.
I expect that where Mitre would be going would be a spread-spectrum bigger brother to ALE, but that would increase the noise level on the ham bands…and that’s where ham radio types (like AC7X) get angry.
The problem that no one talks about (with ANY) HF technology is what happens in the blackout period that can be a week to 10-days after a HEMP event, or was I the only guy to read the Eniwetok data or did everyone miss the H-bomb tests blowing out street lights 700-miles away?
In lay terms: Bouncing data around ideas have been popping up since the ONRL/University of Alaska HAARP project. And now, with lots of data, you could (just saying) model the behavior of the ionosphere and develop an adaptive spread-spectrum approach to a high speed orderwire that could be more resilient.
Resilient for what? Oh, I dunno. Nuclear winter gets cold, I suppose, so after GTW (global thermonuclear war) you’d want to be able to chat with the survivors I suppose.
Not that anyone would be inclined to pay (expletive deleted) in the way of taxes and what have you, if “winning” gets to be ownership of a 25,000 mile diameter nuclear waste dump. But thinking the unthinkable is what FFRDL’s (federal funded research and development labs) do when they aren’t looking at things like “email cookies” and such..
With the money being spent…do you know how many people could be taught Morse Code which is still faster than texting? Co-located with an biological computer capable of adaptive performance without screwing up the ham bands. DX pile ups excluded.
Yes, Russia is eyeing what move to make next around Ukraine and north overs the Dnieper-Donets petroleum basin. But who was it (with firestorm raids) that moved the world into a mindset where mass casualties of civilian populations was made acceptable behavior in war? Who invented MAD? Same things as blowback from Afghanistan.
American inventiveness comes at a price.
Speaking of Geniuses
So let me see if I have this right: We have 9/11., let’s the Saudis (where the Wahhabi sect is HQ’ed) fly home unimpeded, go into the sandbox wars again, and then all the anti-terrorism surveillance state crap including live cameras everywhere but up your sitter-onner (and we’re not sure about these) at airports that have facial recognition.
Oh, I should mention that the UK has more cameras per person than any other police state lite in the world.
And now (drum roll please) they are actually thinking about using their tech to halt the invasion.
I mean, did they figure this out all by themselves?
(I won’t rub additional salt in this by mentioning we had to bail them out of two world wars and Lord Chamberpot was the original appeaser…so let’s not go there.)
Terrorist Revenue
Meantime, ISIS has kidnapped some 90-Assyrian Christians in Syria.
Revenue, revenue, revenue and everything is a business model, especially war.
Sidebar: Multiple drones have been spotted flying over Paris landmarks, but authorities aren’t sure who’s behind it. My money is on kids, hackers, wannabes and a side order of real estate outfits. And three wannabe terrorists, probably in the mix, too.
Lying to Ourselves
I’m no fan of the Obamanista’s rewriting of history. Historical Revisionism is popular with socialists and liberalists alike.
But the head of the V.A. saying he “misstated” a few things, and sorry about that, doesn’t wash with straight-talking Texans.
Back home, we call that lying and get the soap out. Probably more SF and Ranger vets in Texas than anywhere else…but only a guess.
Soap isn’t particularly popular in Washington, though, which is why so few come clean. None too popular in NY Network halls, either, I hear.
When you do it, it’s a lie. When a department head does it, it’s a misstatement. When Obama does it, it’s a Royal Decree Executive Order.
Attention Arkansas
Global Warming should arrive tonight. Ice storms and power outages in the forecast.
Serious Health Notes
A 1,000 year old mummy has been found in a Budda figure. Apparently this is thanks to CATSCAN technology.
I’ve thought about having a catscan of my brain, but expect I’d be disappointed in the results, should they find one.
Marijuana meantime, is now legal in Alaska. Roast a bowl and let’s see if blubber would be any more appealing with the munchies, shall we? All in the name of science, mind you.
And a new study finds that peanut allergies can be cut by early exposure. I suspect this would be true as long as only survivors are counted.
www.peanutsurvival.com is daughter Denise’s site. I need to have her so more research on where peanut oil extractives were used as vaccines adjuvants. That keeps circling around the net.
And our final health note of the morning: We sort of knew it all along, but here comes hard science saying fluoride in water makes people gain weight and is a depressant. Which is why government insists on “helping us” eh?
I don’t if you have enough bandwidth to watch youtube while cruising. This guy makes some good observations about the ‘flat earth’ and I would appreciate hearing your opinion since you are a pilot and being out at sea right now you could test some of his hypothesis .
Fluoride dumbs down the population. Hitler was the first to make widespread use of it. Prozac is about 92% fluoride, you can’t get much dumber than that.
Wait – how about voting machines?
25,000 mile diameter nuclear waste dump? You must need more coffee George!
25,000 mile CIRCUMFERENCE/3.1415926 = 7958 mile diameter.
Hell Mike, didn’t I mention that serve decaf?
Hmmm…maybe normal male fear of being circumfrencesized. roflol
From the Case-Shiller report. “The housing recovery is faltering.” While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak. Before the current business cycle, any time housing starts were at their current level of about one million at annual rates, the economy was in a recession.
My point was that anything that’s performing at twice prevailing inflation isn’t a bad thing to think about for ones portfolio. If you’;re gonna pay rent, might as well be to yourself.
1 1/2 years ago, I found out my thyroid was under active, it shocked me…never had issues before, but I was having some very strange symptoms terrible fatigue, a lot of weight gain, puffy face, brain and memory not as sharp, depression, etc., which I looked up and I was classic for low thyroid. I went and got tested, yes, it proved it. SO…I did some research online and hours and hours later, I found out, that for the last 2 years before my thyroid test, I had been drinking green tea made with fluoridated tap water…about 4 to 6 glasses a day, trying to lose weight…but guess what…green tea and fluoridated water ACCELERATES AND INCREASES the fluoride in the tea…and so I had been hurting myself by mixing the two…so I immediately stopped the green tea with fluoridated water and started on some iodine drops and within a week I started feeling better (fluoride stops the thyroid from using iodine and leaches it out of the body, the thyroid needs iodine)…but a lot of damage had been done as I had gained a lot of weight and the fatigue was terrible….but I waited over 8 months and got my thyroid tested again and now it is in normal range. I no longer drink any fluoridated water or products made with fluoride…
To me, this is the TRUTH finally coming out. This website has a lot of good info: http://fluoridealert.org/issues/health/thyroid/
Here is a quote:
“The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States. Major areas of investigation include . . . thyroid disease (especially in light of decreasing iodine intake by the U.S. population).” (National Research Council 2006).
Also, this and there is more, go to the website:
Thyroid
The thyroid gland, which regulates the body’s metabolic rate, plays an exquisitely important role in human health. Because all metabolically active cells require thyroid hormone for proper functioning, thyroid disruption can have a wide range of effects on virtually every system of the body. Chemicals that interfere with thyroid function must be treated with great caution. According to the U.S. National Research Council, and as discussed below, there is substantial evidence that fluoride exposure can impact thyroid function in some individuals. (NRC 2006).
Fluoride Was Once Prescribed as an Anti-Thyroid Drug
When people think of fluoride being prescribed for medicinal purposes, they generally think of fluoride supplementation to reduce tooth decay. Fluoride, however, has also been prescribed as a drug to reduce the activity of the thyroid gland. Up through the 1950s, doctors in Europe and South America prescribed fluoride to reduce thyroid function in patients with over-active thyroids (hyperthyroidism). (Merck Index 1968). Doctors selected fluoride as a thyroid suppressant based on findings linking fluoride to goitre, and, as predicted, fluoride therapy did reduce thyroid activity in the treated patients. (McClaren 1969; Galletti 1958; May 1937). Moreover, according to clinical research, the fluoride dose capable of reducing thyroid function was notably low – just 2 to 5 mg per day over several months. (Galletti & Joyet 1958). This dose is well within the range (1.6 to 6.6 mg/day) of what individuals living in fluoridated communities are now estimated to receive on a regular basis. (DHHS 1991).
Fluoride & Hypothyroidism
Based on fluoride’s anti-thyroid effects in hyperthyroid patients, concerns have arisen about whether current fluoride exposures could be contributing to the increased prevalence of under-active thyroid (clinical and/or subclinical hypothyroidism) in the United States and other nations. Supporting this possibility are a number of studies from China, India, and Russia that have found alterations in thyroid hormones, including reduced T3 and increased TSH, in populations exposed to elevated levels of fluoride in the workplace or in the water. (NRC 2006; Susheela 2005; Mikhailets 1996; Yao 1996; Bachinskii 1985; Yu 1985).
In clinical hypothyroidism, the thyroid gland fails to produce sufficient quantities of the hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4). These hormones are required by all metabolically active cells, and their reduced presence can thus produce a range of ill effects, including fatigue, muscle/joint pain, depression, weight gain, menstrual disturbances, impaired fertility, impaired memory, and inability to concentrate. When T3 and T4 levels begin to fall, the pituitary gland responds by increasing production of “Thyroid Stimulating Hormone” (TSH) as a means of getting the thyroid to produce more T3 and T4.
In subclinical hypothyroidism, the TSH level is elevated, but the T3 and T4 hormones are still within the normal range. Although subclinical hypothyroidism used to be regarded as largely inconsequential, it is increasingly considered a “clinically important disorder.” (Gencer 2012). Some studies have found, for example, that subclinical hypothyroidism in pregnant women results in reduced IQ in offspring, (Klein 2001; Haddow 1999), and a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that adults with subclinical hypothyroidism had a significantly higher rate of coronary heart disease. (Rodondi 2010).
The net/net is: using critical thinking skills and investigating my health, I was able to solve what I was drinking that had ill health effects for ME….without even having to wait for some study to PROVE this to me. This is what is critically missing in our society. Governments KNOW of this research and they KNOW the NEGATIVE impacts of fluoride on some of the population and yet they do NOT give anyone a choice in the matter. Dallas took fluoride OUT of the water system last year…AUSTIN refuses to…paid their tidy MILLION dollars to the fluoride industry and signed a multi-year contract to dump that toxix waste in our water supply.
Doesn’t any one wonder why there is so much obesity and depression in our society?
George, thank you for posting this important information.
Most of the housing markets that are reported up today are the ones that went down big time such as LA, Vegas and FL. These homes were mostly purchased by investors after the big fall of the market. For the investor A 5% reported gain today with a roughly 4% a year cost-of-money with 1 to 2% inflation makes the current price about a dead heat for those investors who are just trying to flip them or perhaps renting them out until they see a better housing market (if ever).