Toll Brothers: lying doesn't win customers

I just received an email from Toll this morning advertising their Magic Moment campaign - buy a house by the 7th and get a special low rate. Never mind that today is the 5th. I'm thinking that 2 days isn't enough time to deliberate and select a region & home to move your family in to - this is a half-million-dollar purchase, not an impulse item.

They go one to quote an $18,000 tax credit in bold red letters. Never mind that the California state rebate plan is out of funds, and the federal plan will expire faster than Toll can build you a house and close escrow.

The California state program is disappointing - the credit is supposed to last a full year (until Mar 2010), but in under 2 months of availability, they've received applications covering 75% of the available budget.

American traders: Obama to blame for economy?

I like to watch the djia at google finance at least once a week, but one thing keeps confusing me: the 'discussions' section seems to be completely filled with people bitterly attacking the current president for every job loss, DOW slide, or other negative economic condition.

I'm confused because these people often know their stuff: if you corner them and ask what caused the economic collapse, they can tell you the story of bad lending, low-rated mortgages combined into larger packages and sold with high security ratings, they might talk about big swings in the giant pool of money by China & India, but all of these things will cover the last 6 years of the housing market.

I can't figure out how they reconcile years of factors leading to a problem with the last 5 weeks of Obama's tenure as President. Shouldn't they be mad at banks for doing terrible risk management, or previous presidential administrations for lack of oversight & regulation of banks?

Time to buy a house

I like to watch the Case/Schiller Housing Index updated regularly by Standard & Poor. The last published index value is 145, a number as low as it was in summer of 2003 (The peak is ~220). I haven't looked at buying a home since summer 2001, when the index was 130, but it may be headed back there shortly. Maybe it's time to look at property.

Republicans want it both ways

I don't understand why the conservatives are so wishy-washy about oversight. When it comes to our schools, they want teachers on a short leash: No Child Left Behind has huge oversight, rigorous testing, and a centralized curriculum, leaving educators little room to use their judgement & expertise to teach their own students the things they are ready for in a method that's best for them.

However, when it comes to business, we get bills like the first 700 billion dollar bailout bill, we get language that grants spending power to an appointed individual with no oversight, restrictions, or reports.

Why does our congress trust CFOs and businessmen with $700bil of our money, but they don't trust our schoolteachers with their paltry portion of the $56bil spent annually on education? [citation] Maybe our schoolteachers aren't contributing to politicians campaign funds the way wall street can.

Buy Low, Sell High

Warren Buffet gets it. He says:

"I’ve been buying American stocks. ... Why? A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

It's like what I've been telling friends - that anyone with any cash available to do so should jump on this weak market now, before confidence returns and prices are restored to previous levels. Warren says this too:

"Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. ... What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Morning fun: watch the DJIA fall

Every morning lately, I take a look at the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, and have noticed that sustained impressive daily losses over a work week have created this cartoonish graph of the market:



I remember a year ago I was given the option of connecting my health savings account with the market, I decided it was too risky to gamble with the money I need to pay for medication and doctor bills. That was a lucky decision - the DJIA has dropped 42% since then.

Another interesting view: the market is now 3% lower than it was 10 years ago, eliminating all gains made in a decade. I don't even want to check the status of my 401k.