Waterfall Garden Park Pioneer Square Seattle

In a city filled with unique architectural gems and distinctive examples of land use, the Waterfall Garden Park in the Pioneer Square section of downtown Seattle is one of my favorites.

Most of the area, unfortunately, is a wasteland, dangerous at night and just marginal during the day.  But this tiny one-third of a block garden was built in 1977 to celebrate the birthplace of the United Parcel Service.

Most people do not know that "Brown" was founded in Seattle.  UPS originally served as a delivery service for downtown clothing stores and, curiously enough, for women who needed laudanum, a potent form of opium, to relieve the pain of menstrual cramps.

UPS was formed in Seattle in 1907 by two 19-year old kids with $100 and two bicycles.  The company today is ranked #61 on the Fortune 500 list and has 803,000 employees worldwide.

And it all started on this spot, now beautifully marked by an amazing garden in the heart of an urban jungle.  The Waterfall Garden Park is more than an oasis, it is a striking example of what can be done with a tiny footprint of land, a brilliant piece of land use that should not be missed.

I shot this video myself on a beautiful afternoon, September 30, 2010.  I started outside the park and walked through it and circled around to where I started.  My impressions are always the same when going to the Waterfall Garden.  What a compelling place to meet a friend, drink a coffee, or just enjoy the sound of the running water and the inspiration it can provide.

For more about the Waterfall Garden, here is an official history of United Parcel Service and a description of the park with more photographs from a Seattle blogger.

One Quarter of All Real Estate Sales are Foreclosures

Foreclosures now make up 25% of all real estate sales.

The mainstream media likes to talk about how real estate sales are "up."  Well, that's half true.  What they don't say is that ONE OUT OF EVERY FOUR of those sales are FORCED sales and that the average price on those homes sold is 28% lower than non-foreclosure sales.

This does nothing but further depress prices across the board, and forces even more homeowners underwater.

The fact that 25% of all real estate sales are foreclosure sales is not evidence of a real estate turnaround.  It's further evidence of a real estate disaster that is not getting better.

Nor is there any evidence of any relief for the foreclosure problem coming soon.  For example, the Obama Administration's foreclosure relief plan is an unmitigated disaster.

The Administration expected four million homeowners to sign up for the program.

Less than 1.3 million actually did.

Of this number, HALF have already fallen out of the program because they are unable to meet even modified loan terms.  Even advocates of the program say it has not worked.

None of this will improve until 2013 or beyond.  There are too many homes in inventory, too few buyers, too little mortgage money available, and the list goes on and on.

Be careful when the mainstream press cheerleads markets.  Study what they actually say, not what they want you to hear.

China Restricts Land Banking by Developers to Reduce Speculation

In an effort to curtail land speculation and the bubble which many (like me) see forming, China is restricting many types of land banking and other real estate development.

There are loopholes to the new rules, mostly if developers use their land and assets to build low and moderate income housing.

In other words, speculate on the low end of the market and not on the high end.

I am curious if limits on land banking really put a brake on the capitalist fever which has been sweeping the real estate market in China.  My intuition says no even though there is no real agreement on whether there is a bubble in China at all.

Read this article from Forbes on why the Chinese real estate "bubble" is not a bubble.

But, if there is no real estate bubble in China, why is the government taking steps to cool what is a rapidly growing sector?

Treasury Bubble Troublesome; Gold Bubble Not

Two investment alternatives have been on a tear the last two years.

Gold and U.S. Treasuries.

The only difference between the two is that the bubble in U.S. Treasuries is VERY likely to pop soon leaving investors with substantial losses while the gold "bubble", if one can really call it that, looks like a long-term confirmed trend.

Today, the U.S. Treasury auction drew a record response at all-time low yields.  In other words, massive amounts of buying bid down yields to unprecedented levels.

On the same day, gold hit another record high, closing above $1,300 per ounce.

The difference between these two markets is that gold is a reasonable response to the deteriorating value of the U.S. dollar and other international currencies.  Why hold dollars which is falling in relative value when you can buy gold which is rising at double digit rates per year?

Treasuries, on the other hand, will lose MAJOR value when interest rates rise---AND THEY WILL VERY SOON and VERY RAPIDLY.

Think about it.  Would you buy an existing Treasury with a coupon yield of 2% when you can buy a brand new note yielding 6%, 10%, or more?

Warren Buffett has been warning investors for six months that the Treasury bubble is "one for the ages" and he's right but few investors are paying attention.

People want safe places to park their money.  Or as Will Rogers once put it:

"I'm not so concerned with return on my money.  I'm worried about return of my money."


With real estate a dead money investment and stocks iffy, investors are looking for places to put their cash.  The simple answer RIGHT NOW is:

Gold, yes.
Treasuries, no.

Gold Continues to Rise in Response to Currency Devaluation Fears

Gold rises again today in response to increasing fears regarding the devaluation of not only the U.S. dollar but multiple currencies across the world.

Other than buying gold, something I recommended to my readers in 2005 when it was trading at under $400 per ounce, should you be investing those soon to be depreciated dollars in real estate?

Good question.

I'll have my first video answer for you in a few days.  I recently gave a lecture on the interrelationship between gold, real estate, and inflation and the video is being edited now.  I'll be posting it online when it's ready.

In the meantime, think 1976.

Home Sale Price Bottom in 2013 and Not Sooner

The pundits in the mainstream media have been calling for a rebound in home prices in the United States for two years now.

Sorry.  They are great cheerleaders but terrible forecasters.  The mainstream press is great at reporting what they hope, not what actually is.

I've been saying the rebound in home prices will not start until 2012 at the earliest.  Here's a blog post I wrote about this subject on June 10, 2009.

Now, finally, nearly a year and a half later here's an article that finally agrees with me.

In fact, my forecasting models are looking worse now than when I evaluated this subject in 2009.  The normal economic bounce from a recession this deep has not occurred and we are in double dip territory, if the recession ever even ended at all.

Warren Buffett says the recession is still ongoing and I have to agree with his analysis, at least in part.  Double dip or single dip, it doesn't matter.  Too many people are still out of work, the governments on every level are broke, and there is just too much real estate available for sale that people do not want and cannot finance even when they do for home prices to rise anytime soon.  Many further market losses are predicted across the nation, greatest in the areas which have become the usual suspects, Las Vegas, Miami, etc.

I really want to report good news but I just can't find any.

Gold Breaks $1,300 Per Ounce and Silver at a 30-Year High: Mr. Bernanke Are You Listening?

Gold breaks $1,300 per ounce today.

Silver is now at a 30-year high.  (Do you remember 1980 and what the economy looked like then?)

The world financial markets are repudiating Mr. Bernanke's actions at the Fed.  EVERYONE including me, the kitchen sink, and Mickey Mouse are seeing massive inflation and a deteriorating dollar on the horizon and NO ONE wants to be holding dollars or dollar denominated assets.

You say "Who cares?" about commodity prices like gold and silver?

Well, I will give you one example of many why you should care.

Oil prices are denominated in dollars.  Watch the price of gasoline rise in the months ahead EVEN IF DEMAND FOR OIL IS CONSTANT.

Most of Mr. Obama's original economic team is gone.  Only Treasury Geithner remains, and he needs to start packing his bags.

The world financial markets are sending the U.S. dollar a message.  A clear, LOUD, and overwhelming message.

"WE DO NOT TRUST YOU."  We would rather hold a rather useless commodity (gold) instead of a liquid currency with a crumbling underlying value.

Will someone in Washington please tell Helicopter Ben this simple message?  Does gold need to hit $2,000 per ounce before someone does?  I believe what Lindsay Lohan says about her drug use more than I believe Bernanke on the dollar.

Major Development for Condo Developers and Buyers: Does the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act Control Sales?

A Federal judge in Manhattan rules yesterday that condo sales at buildings of more than 100 units are regulated by the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act.

He's wrong.

I know the act very well and had a very long and extensive review of the Act on my investinginland.com website.  The Act (Chapter 42 of Title 15 of the U.S. Code) has numerous exemptions (Section 1702) and condo sales are one of them.  In addition, since buyers are prohibited from recording their contracts under most condo sales agreements the Act once again does not apply.

This is a truly dumb decision by Judge P. Kevin Castel.  Even the extremely liberal Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo, had rejected this reasoning in the very same case for the very same buyers.

If I was a condo developer or a buyer looking to get out of a condo sales contract I'd follow this ruling very closely.

This decision, if affirmed by an equally dumb appeals court, could literally put hundreds of developers out of business for good.

Federal Trade Commission to Ban "Deceptive" Mortgage Ads: What Exactly Does This Really Mean?

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comment about its new plan to ban "deceptive" advertising in mortgage lending.  The program expands civil penalties and allows for additional state enforcement of its new rules beyond the current legal framework which the FTC in its own release does not claim is inadequate.


BE WARNED.


If you are in the real estate business in virtually any capacity you can be easily sucked into these new penalties.


From the FTC's own press release on the subject:


The proposed rule would apply to real estate, brokers, and servicers; real estate agents and brokers; advertising agencies; home builders; lead generators; rate aggregators; and other entities under the FTC’s jurisdiction.


In other words, pretty much the entire real estate industry except banks and credit unions which are regulated elsewhere and not by the FTC.


The implications here are enormous.  Given the fact there is no concrete, white-line, objective test of "deceptive" under FTC or any other Federal legal standard, this new rule will be applied subjectively to the entire industry.


Case in point:  The subprime mortgage crisis.


Many borrowers who lost their home to foreclosure or are underwater on their loans now claim they were "deceived" into buying a home using an ARM or some other hybrid loan.


No, most knew precisely what they were doing and what their monthly payments would be in the future.  Claiming "deception" or "duress" are merely ways of attempting to void or alter the original mortgage contract.


This new FTC rule is dangerous for an industry still reeling from years of excess, mismanagement, and government abuse.  And you could easily be trapped by it.  For example, you are a real estate agent who closes a sale where the buyer applies for a loan they, in retrospect, determine to be "deceptive."


I urge all real estate professionals to contact the FTC during the comment period to make sure this new rule is either clarified or abandoned.

Man Walking His Dog is Stabbed in Downtown Seattle: When Will the City Learn?

On Saturday a man walking his dog in downtown Seattle about five blocks from the Convention Center was stabbed in the chest by another man who approached him for money.

When will the City of Seattle learn that when you let vagrants, drug addicts, unmedicated psychotics, unregistered sex offenders, homeless alcoholics, teenage runaways, and other assorted street criminals and malfunctioning human beings roam the streets at will using public parks as bedrooms and alleyways as toilets you are putting the LIVES of normal, hard working, and decent people at risk?

How many more shootings, stabbings, assaults, rapes, property crimes, murders, and other assaults on decency are necessary?

When the quality of life in an area deteriorates, people do not want to live there and, more importantly, buy property in that area to serve as a home.

Commercial vacancies in downtown Seattle are on the rise.

So are residential vacancies.  The inventory of unsold condos downtown is high.  Many planned and started condo projects have been abandoned.

Starting to understand why?

There is news on the shooting I reported to you on Saturday in this blog.  The man shot in the face has died.  And his killers have been linked to not just a gun battle at a suburban park but yet another murder which took place outside a nightclub five blocks from Seattle's famous Pike Place Market this past June.

WAKE UP CITY HALL!

Meet Elizabeth Warren and the Reason You Won't Get a Mortgage Anytime Soon

Last week Mr. Obama appointed Michael Moore's favorite lawyer Elizabeth Warren to a nebulous post within or near or whatever the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB").

The reason I'm unclear what position Mrs. Warren will be filling is because no one really knows for sure.

Mr. Obama knew this ultra-left wing radical without ONE DAY of real world banking or finance experience would have never been confirmed by his DEMOCRAT controlled Senate.

REPEAT:

His own party would not confirm this woman in the Senate to the new post at the CFPB as required by the U.S. Constitution and the new financial reform law.

So he created some sort of new advisory position that has no previous name or title and really answers to no one but Mr. Obama.  If you think I'm being cynical, read what the Wall Street Journal wrote about this choice.  If Dick Cheney had attempted what Mr. Obama just pulled with this appointment they would have accused him of launching a coup.

Mrs. Warren's job will be to assess credit risk in the banking and financial system.  Um, I thought it was the role of bankers, loan officers, and most of all, borrowers to do this.

EVERYONE, including Mrs. Warren's supporters, acknowledge that there will be less mortgage lending under the new CFPB regime.  Money will be more expensive.  There will be more paperwork to get a loan and actually write them.  Fewer lenders will qualify to issue mortgages under CFPB rules.  More importantly, fewer lenders will want to enter this line of business.

Why comply with CFPB paperwork, reserve requirements, and the like to write 30-year mortgages at 3%?

As Clara Peller would say, "Where's the Beef?"

Think I'm exaggerating about this new threat to mortgage money?  Read Elizabeth Warren's own words here on the subject.

The evidence that the elites in Washington and elsewhere have lost touch not only with the electorate but REALITY is the appointment of a woman without a single hour of banking or finance experience to run the U.S. credit system.

Think I'm exaggerating again?  Here is her biography.  Law professors at Harvard do not have real world experience managing credit risk.  Bankers at major Wall Street firms and loan officers at community banks do this every day.  College professors write papers on credit risks, not manage them.

Each day brings new madness from Washington.  Last week we received a bushel.

Another Seattle Shooting: Suspects Linked to Double Murder and Gun Battle at Popular Seattle Area Park

Another day in Seattle brings residents another shooting, only this time the gunmen are linked to a double murder and gun battle that recently took place at a public park well known to Seattle residents.

Do you see why Seattle residents are a bit upset, to put it mildly, over the growing crime wave in our city?  And the complete lack of government responses to it?

Early Friday morning a South Seattle man was shot in the face while in his own home.  His injuries are life threatening but at least the good news is he is still alive.

The gunmen in this crime are linked to a double murder that took place on July 17, 2010.  Here a group of gang members got into a gun battle at a very popular and extremely beautiful public park outside Seattle.  This shootout left two men dead and four wounded, all taking place in full view of suburban residents at the park on a hot night with their kids.  The gunfire was so intense and the crossfire so dangerous that people had to hide in the public restrooms of the park to avoid being hit by bullets.


Firefights and peaceful lakeside parks do not mix.

It's Saturday morning here in Seattle and people are already making their homicide predictions for the weekend.  It's not funny.  But people placed under stress often use black humor to defuse tension and there is much of that here these days.  Given the fact that government officials quote crime statistics residents know not to be true just adds to the grim atmosphere.  Here is a prime example of this deception from London.

If it is any wonder why real estate sales are a bit slow in Seattle, now you know part of the reason why.

Homeless Man Strangles Friend to Death in Downtown Seattle: King County Sheriff's Office to be Cut by 10%

Yesterday in this blog when I was discussing all the shootings, stabbings, and violence in downtown Seattle I forgot to mention this story.

Five days ago a homeless man was found strangled to death just three blocks from the Convention Center in downtown Seattle.  It turns out that he was suicidal and asked a friend to put him out of his misery.  So his associate, also a homeless man, murdered his companion and has been arrested for the crime.

Are you starting to sense the atmosphere of decay and malevolence in downtown Seattle that I have been describing in this blog for months?  Desperation and despair.  You can smell the anxiety in the air.  A veil of melancholy shrouds the city like a thick fog.  Danger appears to be everywhere.

So yesterday, in response to these shootings, stabbings, open air drug markets, prostitution, murders, assaults, rapes, and assorted felonies, King County (where Seattle is located) announced that its sheriff's office will be cut by nearly 10%.  This action does little to trim the bureaucratic fat at the King County Sheriff's Office but instead falls heaviest on those deputies and detectives who actually investigate crime.

It is clear that the political elite have lost all touch with the electorate.  At the very same time voters and residents are BEGGING the city of Seattle and King County for MORE police action to combat a crime epidemic in downtown Seattle, both the city and the county are shrinking the size of local law enforcement.

Real estate values are a reflection of public desires to live or work in a certain place.  The large inventory of downtown Seattle condos and growing commercial vacancies, which are extensive in areas like Pioneer Square and the International District, are proof positive of this axiom.

The city of Seattle and King County are losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue by failing to address what are basic concerns over livability and safety.  Residents (prospective ones too) vote with their feet and pocketbooks, as well as at the ballot box in November.

Bureaucrats please take note.

By the way, the photograph above is of a drug addict named Shanna who lives under the I-5 overpass on Pike Street in downtown Seattle.  According to the reporter who wrote an article on her, she has been living under the highway for more than a year shooting up drugs with other homeless men and often turning tricks as a prostitute to do it.  The buildings in the background of the photo are some of Seattle's finest hotels.  The location in the picture is four blocks from the Washington State Convention Center which welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

Triple Stabbing at Pike Place Market in Seattle: Do You Understand Why Condos Aren't Selling Near There?

Pike Place Market is Seattle's #1 tourist attraction.  You would think the City of Seattle would keep it safe for all the visitors who are, after all, trying to spend their hard earned money in the city.

Wrong.

Seattle's Pike Place Market and the surrounding blocks have the HIGHEST VIOLENT CRIME RATE in the entire city, due mostly to the presence of an amazing number of homeless shelters, halfway houses for paroled felons, public service agencies tending to the needs of drug addicts, and other magnets for vagrants in the area.

I have been warning about the growing violence in downtown Seattle in this blog for months.  Here are just two posts in the last two months.  #1 and #2 which include a Seattle Police officer shooting and killing a drunk homeless man who walked around the streets near our Convention Center openly wielding a carving knife.

Last night about 8:00PM in the evening there was a TRIPLE stabbing at Pike Place Market, in fact, at the beautiful city park that overlooks Elliott Bay and provides a stunning view of the Seattle waterfront.

Tourists flock to Victor Steinbrueck Park to take their obligatory photographs.  Locals avoid the place because it is nothing more than a public toilet and bedroom for dozens of vagrants, drug dealers, and other assorted criminal types.  It is DANGEROUS to even sit in the place most hours of the day.

Let's be clear.  This isn't some isolated city park in the middle of nowhere.  It is WITHIN the Number #1 tourist destination of Seattle.  The park was named for the man who saved Pike Place Market from the wrecking ball.  Read what tourists who visit the park are saying about his legacy.

Even Wikipedia warns tourists about the park, and I quote:

"The park is a popular gathering place for tourists, but also for the mentally ill, vagrants, alcoholics, and drug addicts."

Nice reputation for your city parks, eh?  The photo above was taken in Steinbrueck Park and is typical of what you see there.

People are not stupid.  Condo buyers do not want to spend $500,000 or more on a 1,200 square foot apartment that overlooks such violent nonsense.  Tourists are getting fed up with travel to Seattle and telling their friends back home what to expect from a visit to the Emerald City.  The city's inaction on what is a growing and especially violent problem is costing Seattle HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS each year in lost property taxes, convention business, tourist dollars, and more, all at a time the city is out of cash and having to make tough fiscal choices.

People want a livable city.  Residents of Seattle like me are demanding action.  New Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn in response to this vocal call has decided not to hire new police officers even though Seattle crime is costing residents $200 million per year in losses.

As I have repeatedly said in this blog, this situation is spiraling out of control.  Many residents of Seattle are afraid to travel downtown.  ONE IN FOUR are reporting fear at the idea of going downtown these days.  Read what Seattle's own residents are saying about crime downtown.

More violence, more shootings, more stabbings, and more murders are on the way unless the City of Seattle wakes up and stops the appeasing criminal elements within it that cause this crime.  The Seattle Police are the most outnumbered in the United States but they are also the most professional police force I have ever seen.  They can do their job if the Mayor and the City Council would just let them.

Five Essential Books for Investors

I read a great deal.  I have found these books to be essential reading for investors of all types.

#5.  THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR by Benjamin Graham

It makes lots of best ever lists and there is a reason why.  This book inspired Warren Buffett to success.  Great explanations are everywhere in this book, on market psychology, margin of safety, intrinsic value, and much more.  A bit dated here and there, but for a book first published in 1949 it's pure genius.  ESSENTIAL.

#4.  MELLON by David Cannadine

One of the best business biographies ever written, this book explores the life of investor and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who built one of the largest personal fortunes in world history.  The biography of Andrew's father, Thomas Mellon, was both a welcome and overwhelming surprise.  Judge Thomas Mellon himself wrote one of the great autobiographies of all-time, THOMAS MELLON AND HIS TIMES, but himself built a huge family fortune starting from abject poverty.  Not intended as a "how-to" book on money making, this magnificent biography is filled with lessons for investors.  The Mellons were some of the best ever.

#3.  BUFFETTOLOGY by Mary Buffett and David Clark

Many books attempt to explain how Warren Buffett invests his own money.  This one does it perfectly, breaking down many complex topics into simple easy-to-understand bits of information.  This book is the perfect teaching tool for anyone trying to explain the complex and make it sound simple.

#2  CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM by Milton Friedman

Learning about how markets work make you a better player in them.  Capitalism does not just have economic dimensions.  There are political ones as well.  No one could explain this subject better than Milton Friedman.

#1.  EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS & THE MADNESS OF CROWDS by Charles Mackay

If you want to know the difference between investment and speculation read this book.

Where Have All The Late Night Real Estate Gurus Gone? (With Apologies to Pete Seeger)

Late night television used to be the realm of the get-rich-quick real estate guru.


Infomercials on every channel all night long.  Remember Dave Del Dotto, Tom Vu, and a long list of others?


But take a look today, actually tonight, and what do you find?  Nothing but ads for physical fitness equipment and kitchen products.


So where have all the late night infomercial gurus gone?  The same guys who told you for $495 they could teach you how to buy all the real estate in the world without cash, credit, or even a job?


The Godfather of real estate infomercials, Carleton Sheets, is off the air.  His NO MONEY DOWN home study course was a staple of late night TV for at least two decades.  Today, Mr. Sheets lives in Stuart, Florida and has suffered so many financial losses through questionable real estate partnerships he founded he can no longer afford TV air time.  His website is still on the Internet but he is gone from TV.  Here is an article from The New York Times on Sheets from 2009 that explains some of his troubles.


John Beck, the tax lien expert who sold PENNIES ON A DOLLAR teaching how you can buy single family houses for as little as $600 is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for $90 million for making false claims through his infomercials.  He is still selling his course online.


Fellow late night real estate guru TV pitchman John Alexander is a defendant in this same suit.


The sole survivor these days is real estate guru Dean Graziosi who appears occasionally on my TV in the Seattle area pitching his books for $19.95.  I have read both his books, BE A REAL ESTATE MILLIONAIRE and PROFIT FROM REAL ESTATE RIGHT NOW, and can recommend both as basic primers on real estate investment.  There is nothing new I haven't read 10,000 times before in either book and neither one will make you rich.  Despite the hype, there are no get-rich-quick secrets in either book.


So why is Graziosi spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce TV infomercials and buy air time to sell $20 books?


Graziosi is attempting to run a continuity program on people who buy these books through his infomercials.  Once he has your name and phone number (and credit card) his sales staff will attempt to get you to buy $3,500 home study courses and other offerings.

Here is the official FTC warning on continuity programs and what I wrote about them months ago.  And here is an article from real estate author Eric Tyson on Graziosi and how he operates.


By the way, I got both of Graziosi's books at my local public library for free and I do remember his "Make a Million Brokering Used Cars" home study course which was as dumb an idea as it sounds.


I have said for years that the days of the get-rich-quick creative real estate guru are over.


The fact they are off late night television is just more evidence that the public and the truth are catching up with them.


More of these gurus are about to fall.  They are dinosaurs and most do not even know it yet.


Stay tuned.

Please Support Classical Music in Your Community: Take Your Kids to a Concert and Make It a Night

I love music and of all its forms classical music now inspires me the most.


Things did not start off that way.  Like most kids of my generation I was raised on rock, The Who and The Stones, Led Zeppelin and the like.  Classical music was taught to us in school, and quite frankly the wrong way.  It was "classical" music, you needed to appreciate it, much like you needed to read The Federalist Papers or The Merchant of Venice, learn the periodic table and that 3.1416 is pi.


Only much later did I appreciate the tailored beauty of a symphony or the raw power of a church organ.  Today, the elemental genius of Shostakovich or Rachmanivov or five hundred plus others gives me the most amazing pause that rock or jazz or whatever just cannot..  Music is a lot like ice cream, lots of flavors means everyone gets satisfied by their favorite flavor and variety means lots of free sampling for us all.  But facts, for me, are facts.  No jam by Eric Clapton or The Grateful Dead ever had the power to overwhelm like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.


Today, on this very sad anniversary for a native New Yorker like me, I listened to Dvorak's Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70.  Did this make me feel better?  No, but it allowed me to be pleasantly distracted,  my mind focused on beauty and majesty for a short while instead of chaos and horror.  What more can be asked of a piece of music?


Conservatives on the right like me castigate Federal spending for the arts, like the NEA of course.  So it's important for all music lovers to step up and support your local musicians.  Your local orchestra or symphony needs your help.  Buying tickets and seeing shows is what you can do to put your money where your mouth is.


But it's easy to support your local arts.  SEE SHOWS!  IT'S FUN!


What I normally tell my friends when they quibble there is nothing to do on weekends I say this:


"Buy some concert tickets and take your wife and kids to a concert.  Make a night of it.  Dinner, some music, and then coffee and ice cream.  Your family will love you for the experience.  The kids may say they are bored but they'll understand years later."


My public school had it half right.  Teaching classical music as essential knowing is not a bad idea.  Would it be right to go through high school and never hear Brahms or Beethoven?  You and your kids should know who Tchaikovsky was.  But classical music is alive, it is a community of artists who live all around you, and they certainly need your financial support, especially in these tough times.


But it's fun to support them.  You get to hear some of the greatest pieces of music ever written, many hundreds of years old, performed by some of the geniuses of our day.  And patronize today's modern composers and musicians who are putting their own unique take on history.

Congressional Budget Office Official Warning on U.S. Debt Crisis: Don't Believe Me, Read What the Feds Say

Looking for a healthy real estate market anytime soon?


Forget it.


Read the official Congressional Budget Office report on the impending U.S. debt crisis.  This isn't some tea party activist writing hyperbole underneath a portrait of Sarah Palin.  This is the OFFICIAL U.S. government report on the subject and it is SHOCKING.


Also notice how the mainstream media did not cover its release.


To access the report, go to this article and click on the first link labeled "warning" in the first sentence of the article.  You will receive a PDF of the official report released by the CBO on July 27, 2010.


Capital flows towards the safest and highest yield, like to real estate investments which historically have met that precise criteria, EXCEPT when local, state, and the Federal government start demanding it all to fuel fiscal spending and debt service.  Read the report and see how much capital they are going to suck out of the U.S. economy and from where they are going to borrow the rest.


If you don't see the imminent financial catastrophe coming after reading this CBO report, you are blind and should not be investing money at all.

Major Get-Rich-Quick Creative Real Estate Guru to File for Bankruptcy

I have learned through two independent sources that a MAJOR get-rich-quick creative real estate guru will likely be filing for bankruptcy in the days ahead.


This flipping property and now short sale genius has been around for at least two decades, claiming he can make even broke, unemployed, and uneducated buyers of his home study courses millionaires.


But notice he can't pay his own bills.


I'm not going to name the guru right now because he may choose not to file for bankruptcy and instead deal with the long list of creditors that someone told me was "yards long."  But if he does file I will be posting the links to the Federal bankruptcy petition in this blog.  I have long considered this guru a complete degenerate for the WORTHLESS products he has sold for years and I welcome his fall from grace with much pleasure.  Everyone who knows him thinks he's an arrogant super prick and I agree.  He is.


Times are tough in the creative real estate guru world.  The super millionaire genius investors who pitch their $495 home study courses are not getting the sales they once did.  In fact, the pond of dumb little fishes who want to this buy these ridiculous products has dried up like a Death Valley mud hole in the summertime.


But more importantly, get this.


Not one of these phonies is publicly admitting the mistakes they made, the personal financial losses they have suffered, or how they misjudged virtually everything they have said over the last ten years.


From 2001-2007 it was the best time in a century to buy real estate, or so they said.


Now what do they say?  TODAY is the best time to buy real estate in a century.


Um, which is it?  Let me guess.  No, let the $13 TRILLION in U.S. real estate market losses suffered since 2007 give me a hint as to who was right and who was wrong here.


People will still buy their products.  A sucker is born every minute.  Only these days the suckers are unemployed with no cash and even less taste for making real estate investments which they can see are failures all around.


More of the get-rich-quick creative real estate gurus are going to fall.  I'll let you know what happens next.

Seattle Pays Alcoholics to Drink and Wants to Build a Monument to the Homeless

I have received such overwhelming feedback to my series of articles on the declining quality of life in downtown Seattle and how this impacts the local economy that I would put some of the problem in perspective for you.


Drug addicts and their dealers, prostitutes, alcoholics, vagrants, runaways, untreated mental patients, and other assorted street criminals fill Seattle's streets.  When these individuals are not high on whatever they choose to ingest they are committing low level crimes like breaking into cars (epidemic downtown), dealing drugs, having public sex, and urinating and defecating at will anywhere they choose.


You cannot go two blocks in downtown Seattle without seeing people passed out on the street.  Many often look dead, blue and cold.  The sight of near corpses on the sidewalks is so common that people do not even pay attention anymore.  Why bother?


You can't go half a block without being intercepted by a panhandler begging for money.  The photo above says it all.  On an average day you will literally see HUNDREDS of people begging for money.  HUNDREDS OF THEM, at every street corner, intersection, everywhere.


Open air drug markets are everywhere.  They look like farmer's markets at night.  People post videos of the activity on YouTube.  The dealers even put up signs advertising their products.  Think I'm kidding?  Click here.


Instead of enforcing the existing vagrancy laws on the books, Seattle cannot agree on a new anti-panhandling ordinance.  This at the same time business is falling in many formerly popular tourist areas of the city, like Pioneer Square and the International District, and business leaders are BEGGING the city to take action but these pleas fall on deaf ears.


Instead, Seattle provides FREE housing to alcoholics so they can safely drink off the street.  The cost?  A measly $13,000 a year per person for people who refuse to stop drinking.  The city claims this approach saves money in reasoning that stretches all logic and credulity.  By the way, condos on the same block as the "drunk bunk" building go for $500,000 and up.  Nice to have such neighbors.  You get up every morning and go to work, save your money for a down payment, then sacrifice to pay your mortgage---so you can have hopeless alcoholics who live and drink for free for neighbors.


The vagrancy situation in Seattle is so absurd it has become unbelievable.  Seattle is now building a monument to the homeless at Pike Place Market, the ultimate tourist destination of the city.  Of course there is no monument to the hard working men and women who pay taxes and actually built the city.  Instead our city fathers feel it is necessary to honor those men and women who do not work, do not pay taxes, and instead turn the streets of Seattle into public toilets.


So what is the solution to this problem?  There are many, but here is one simple one.


Most of the homeless on the streets of Seattle are not from Seattle.  They flock to Seattle because of the city's liberal policies and the lack of police harassment. 


So what if the city just decided to enforce the CURRENT vagrancy and trespassing laws?


Can anyone spell R-E-L-I-E-F?