Here Comes The Double Dip Pt. 4 (merged) Archived

[Daniel_Plainview]

German shipping facing wave of bankruptcies

Germany’s shipping industry faces a wave of bankruptcies over coming months as funding dries up and deepening economic woes across the world cause a sharp contraction in container trade.

Over 100 German ship funds have already shut down as the long-simmering crisis in global container shipping finally comes to a head. A further 800 funds are threatened with insolvency, according to consultants TPW in Hamburg.

They are not alone. Britain’s oldest shipowner, Stephenson Clark, dating back to 1730, went into liquidation last week, closing the final chapter of Britain’s coal trade and the industrial revolution.

It cited “incredibly depressed” vessel rates. The firm over-invested in the boom four years ago, betting too much on the China syndrome.

Germany is the superpower of container shipping, controlling almost 40pc of the world market. The Germans also misread the cycle and have been struggling to cope ever since with a legacy of debt and a glut of ships. Now everything is going wrong at once. Container volumes arriving at European ports plunged in June, dashing expectations of a summer rebound. Imports fell 7.5pc from North America and 9pc from Asia. Flows into the Mediterranean region crashed by 16pc, reflecting the violence of the recession in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Buckling trade is the coup de grace for countless shippers still clinging on by their finger tips. “The market is barely paying above operating cost. If you are loaded with debt, you are in trouble,” said Martin Smith from ship operators Norddeutsche Vermögen in Hamburg.

It is much same story in the Pacific region where Danish shipper Maersk said that it is losing over $200 for every container on the Qingdao-Melbourne route. But what the Germans face is the double-whammy of a funding squeeze.

“If you don’t have a line of credit already, nobody is going to give you one. We’re suffering a liquidity crisis, and its almost impossible for single vessel owners,” said Mr Smith.

Commerzbank – the world’s second-biggest provider of ship finance, and reluctant owner of a flotilla of foreclosed ships – said it is shutting down its €20bn (£15.7bn) ship funding operations entirely to “minimise risk and capital lock-up” under tougher EU banking rules.

“The essential reasons are the high capital and rising liquidity requirements under Basel III,” it said. Commerzbank’s move is the latest evidence that forcing banks to raise capital ratios too fast – and too soon – can choke lending to the real economy. Most of the 20 top banks for the shipping industry have stopped all funding.

“Shipping is the biggest casualty of the new regulations. All the banks are reducing their portfolios, using any breach of covenant to get out of contracts. The second-hand ship market has broken down,” said Mr Smith. Both bulk ships and tankers are trading at lower levels today than during the worst moments of the 2008-09 crisis.

Clarkson’s ClarkSea Index for maritime freight rates has halved since mid-2010, and fallen by 80pc since 2008. This includes the wildly volatile Baltic Dry Index for bulk freight, which has crashed by 90pc to post-Lehman depths. Container rates have held up better but small “feeder” ships are mostly losing money. High oil costs are eating up margins.

“It’s familiar territory,” said Clarkson’s Shipping Intelligence Weekly. “As pressure builds, owners are forced to lay up ships and, with no cash flow, they can’t pay their bankers. As their ships are forced on to the market, prices spiral down. Well-heeled companies snap up the good ones and the rest go for scrap.”

... German shipping experts say that two-thirds of the country’s marine fleet is in financial distress. If the crisis drags on much longer, the Greeks may leapfrog ahead to become world leaders in container shipping. The irony of prudent Greeks cleaning up after a reckless debt spree by the Germans is lost on nobody.

[Daniel_Plainview]

The only reason this is called a "Great Recession" rather than a "Great Depression" is due to massive central bank bubble-blowing ... but now that the marginal return on such intervention is approaching zero, the music is about to stop, and the remaining bubbles are about to pop.

Five years on, the Great Recession is turning into a life sentence

Five years into the Long Slump it almost seems as if we are back to square one.

China is sufficiently alarmed by the flint hardness of its "soft-landing" to talk up trillions of fresh stimulus. The European Central Bank is preparing to print “whatever it takes” to save Spain and Italy. Markets are pricing in an 80pc chance of yet more printing by the US Federal Reserve in September or soon after.

There is no doubt that the three superpowers acting in concert can launch a mini-cycle of growth early next year - assuming they deliver on their rhetoric - but the twin headwinds of debt-leveraging and excess manufacturing plant across the globe cannot easily be conjured away.

The world remains in barely contained slump. Industrial output is still below earlier peaks in Germany (-2), US (-3), Canada (-8) France (-9), Sweden (-10), Britain (-11), Belgium (-12), Japan (-15), Hungary (-15) Italy (-17), Spain (-22), Greece (-27), according to St Louis Fed data. By that gauge this is proving more intractable than the Great Depression.

Some date the crisis to August 9 2007, the day it became clear that Europe’s banks were up to their necks in US housing debt. The ECB flooded markets with €95bn of liquidity. It seemed a lot of money then. The term “trillion” was still banned by the Telegraph style book in those innocent days. We have since learned to swing with the modern dance music from central banks.

For me, the defining moment was twelve days later when yields on 3-month US Treasury bills to crashed from 3.76pc to 2.55pc in just two hours. At first we thought it was a mistake, a screen glitch. Nothing like this had happened before, not during the crashes of 1929 or 1987, or after the Twin Towers attack on 9/11.

Investors were pulling money out of America’s $2.5 trillion money market industry in panic. This was the long-feared heart attack in the credit system, even if the economic malaise behind it did not become clear for another year.

The original trigger for the Great Recession has since faded into insignificance. America’s house price bubble -- modest by European or Chinese standards -- has by now entirely deflated. Warren Buffett is betting on a rebound. Fannie and Freddie are making money again.

Five years on it is clear that subprime was merely the first bubble to pop, a symptom not a cause. Europe had its own parallel follies. Britons were extracting almost 5pc of GDP each year in home equity by the end. Spain built 800,00 homes in 2007 for a market of 250,000. Iceland ran amok, so did Latvia and Hungary. The credit debacle was global. If there was an epicentre, it was Europe’s €35 trillion banking nexus.

Monetarists blame the ECB and the Fed for keeping money too tight in early to mid 2008, pushing a fragile credit system over the edge. They blame “pro-cyclical” regulators for aborting recovery ever since by forcing banks to raise asset ratios too fast. They are right on both counts.

Yet the `Austrian School’ is surely right as well to argue that a rise in debt ratios across the rich world from 167pc of GDP to 314pc in just thirty years was bound to end badly. There comes a point when extra debt draws down prosperity from the future. The future arrived in 2008.

A study by Stephen Cecchetti at the Bank for International Settlements concludes that debt turns “bad” at roughly 85pc of GDP for public debt, 85pc for household debt, and 90pc corporate debt. If all three break the limit together, the system loses its shock absorbers.

“Debt is a two-edged sword. Used wisely and in moderation, it clearly improves welfare. Used imprudently and in excess, the result can be disaster,” he said.

Creditors and debtors may in theory offset each other, but what actually happens in a crunch is that borrowers cut back feverishly. Creditors do not offset the effect. The whole system spins downwards. It is debt’s fatal “asymmetry”, long overlooked by New Keynesian orthodoxy.

It is how people behave, and how countries behave. Creditor Germany did not offset the squeeze in Club Med. Creditor China did not offset the squeeze in the US. The world contracted.

But why did the credit bubble happen in the first place? You could argue that it is merely the flip-side of too much saving. The world savings rate has crept up to a modern-era high of 24pc of GDP. That is the most important single piece of information you need to know to understand the great economic drama we are living through.

There is nowhere for this money to go. The funds flood into investment -- now a world record 49pc of GDP in China -- or into asset bubbles.

So my candidate for chief cause is Asia’s `Savings Glut’, and indeed whole the structure of East-West trade under globalisation.

The emerging powers built up $10 trillion of foreign reserves -- ie bonds -- in a decade. They flooded the global bond market. That is why spreads on 10-year Greek debt fell to a wafer-thin 26 basis points over Bunds in the bubble.

They also flooded Western markets with cheap goods, driving down goods inflation. Western central banks -- in thrall to inflation-targeting -- cut short-term interest rates ever lower. They set the price of credit too low, forcing pension funds and insurers to hunt frantically for yield to match their books. The central banks compounded the effect.

Western multinationals played their part in this saga. They drove up the profit share of GDP to historic highs, playing off wage rates in the US and Europe against cheaper labour in China, Latin America, or Eastern Europe. That too concentrated wealth among those who tend to buy shares, land, and Impressionist paintings, rather than goods. The GINI coefficient of income inequality went through the roof, as it did in the late 1920s. It is a formula for asset bubbles.

The credit bubble disguised the exorbitant imbalances in trade, capital flows, and incomes. The game could continue only as long as the West in general -- and the Anglosphere and Club Med in particular -- were willing to run ruinous current account deficits, borrowing themselves into dire trouble.

As soon as the debtors hit the brakes and slashed spending, the underlying reality was exposed. There is too much saving and too little consumption in the world to keep growth, and people in jobs. It is the 1930s disease. On this the Keynesians are right.

None of this would have been any different if banks had been saints. The forces at work are tidal in power.

So this is where we are in the summer of 2012. The imbalances are slowly correcting. Wage inflation has eroded Asia’s competitiveness. China’s current account surplus has dropped from 10pc of GDP in 2007 to around 2.5pc this year.

Yet Europe refused to adjust. Germany is still running a surplus of 5.2pc, down from 7.4pc in 2007. The North has refused to offset the demand squeeze in Club Med. Indeed, Germany legislated its own internal squeeze through a balanced budget law and imposed this curse on the rest of Euroland. The effect is to trap Euroland in chronic slump, at least until the victims rebel and take matters into their own hands.

As for our debt mountain, we have barely begun the great purge. Michala Marcussen from Societe Generale says the healthy level is around 200pc of GDP for advanced economies. If so, we have 100 points to cut.

This cannot be achieved by austerity alone because economic contraction would tip us all into a Grecian vortex. Such a cure is self-defeating.

Much of the debt will have to be written off. Whether this done by inflation (1945-1952) or default (1930-1934) will be the great political battle of this decade. Pick your side. Pick your history.

COMMENT: Government intervention has delayed the inevitable and as we fall into the worst depression ever, it will be shown that government intervention will have made it worse.

COMMENT:

I have enormous respect for Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. However, 20-40 years from now, economic historians will look back on this period and describe it as the "Great Depression II," or by using similar terms. It is not the "Great Recession." This is "sugar-coating" what is happening now and in the future.

The worst is yet to come during the balance of this decade, and the human suffering will be unfathomable. Yes, there will be "green shoots" from time to time, or signs that things are improving, but this was true during the Great Depression of the last century as well, which did not end until the onset of World War II, at the earliest.

Evans-Pritchard is mistaken that America’s housing price bubble "has by now entirely deflated." U.S. housing prices will fall by at least another 20-50 percent in the next five years or so, before the "bottom" is reached finally.

Politicians, other government officials, and economists will prove utterly impotent to stem the economic tsunami. Hold on tight. Things will get very ugly!

See naegeleblog (see also the article itself, as well as the footnotes and other comments beneath it)

COMMENT: We are not back to square one!

We are worse off now than we were in 2007, when we could have quickly recovered with the right policies.

We could have let the offending banks go whistle and set about reducing the growth in unsustainable debt.

Instead we have bailed out the banks, and created more debt, and we are still doing so.

We have reinforced defeat, and victory is even further from our grasp. The recession is not just turning into a life sentence, it is turning into a depression for generations to come.

We have to get rid of the crooks and fools who run things before it is too late, and get rid of the credit bubble before it collapses.

COMMENT: Ambrose - you must know that the FIAT monetary system is beyond rescue - it is finished - it is dead. It has done full cycle.

You also know, after 200+ years of strong growth in the West, there is very little real growth left. You have to stop growing at some point.

Consequently, there will be NO recovery. We will bumble along for years and years where we are now.

It's like a massive hangover. Years of greed and living beyond our means. We are now paying for it.

13 years of an irresponsible labour government borrowing and spending like mad and encouraging the people to do the same hasn't helped the problem - just exacerbated it.

COMMENT: We're just not getting it are we? The age of growth is over...there's nowhere else to grow into, nothing left to consume that we don't already have, not without taking the planet down with us and leaving an empty cupboard for the generations to come. If politicians and business leaders are reduced to encouraging us to shop and consume more, just to keep the system afloat, then the moral and material bankruptcy of the system is laid bare. Yet if we believe the media and the economic and political establishment, the answer is still, apparently, even more of the very same thing that got us here in the first place. This from apparently trained, educated economists. There's more to life than a system that concentrates wealth in the hands of an elite minority and leaves half the worlds population in poverty picking up the crumbs. Move to a fairer distribution of resources and steady state economy now. Manage the change by choosing to do it now, or ignore it and have it forced on us in a much less predictable way later.

COMMENT: At last, perhaps, we will come to learn that 'sustainable growth' is a persistent capitalist myth that has been swallowed by the 'proles' for decades.

How can you have sustainable growth with finite resources (oil based products to name just one)? You can't!

This article has some problems, but it shows that the MSM is FINALLY beginning to see beyond the smoke and mirrors. It's a good first step.

[OilFinder2]

After weak readings 3 months in a row, we get a nice pickup in July. Still awaiting that double-dip!



U.S. retail sales jump 0.8% in July

After three straight monthly declines, sales at U.S. retailers increased 0.8% in July to a seasonally adjusted $403.9 billion, the Commerce Department estimated Tuesday.

Details of the report were strong, with monthly sales rising across the board. This was the biggest gain in sales since February.

Compared with July 2011, sales are up 4.1%.

Sales fell a downwardly revised 0.7% in June, compared with a 0.5% decrease originally reported.

The sales are seasonally adjusted, but they aren’t adjusted for price changes.

The pickup in July’s sales easily beat expectations. Ahead of the report, economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been on watch for modest sales growth of 0.2%. See MarketWatch economic calendar.

Retail sales account for about half of total consumer spending and about a third of final sales in the U.S. economy.

In the second quarter, consumer spending decelerated to a 1.5% annual growth rate from a 2.4% pace in the first quarter.

Details

Excluding a 0.8% increase in motor-vehicle sales, retails sales for last month rose 0.8% to $330.2 billion, stronger than the 0.3% gain expected.

Sales at gasoline stations rose on the month, up 0.5% as prices at the pump increased. Excluding gasoline, sales rose 0.8%.

Excluding autos and gasoline, sales rose 0.9% in July.

Motor-vehicle sales rose 0.8% in July, a welcome reversal after having fallen 0.5% in June.

Furniture-store sales rose 1.1% on the month. Sales at electronics and appliances stores rose 0.9%.

Building materials and hardware store sales rose 1.0% after falling 2.3% in June.

Sales at the nation’s malls were higher in July. Sales at general merchandise stores rose 0.7%, including a 0.6% increase at department stores. Sales at clothing stores also rose, up 0.8%.

Sales at stores catering to leisure-time pursuits, such as hobbies, sports and reading, rose 1.6%.

July’s sales at health and personal-care stores expanded 1.1%.

Sales at food and beverage stores rose 0.3%. Sales at restaurants and bars rose 0.8%.

Sales at non-store outlets, such as catalogs and online stores, rose 1.5%.

[Armageddon]

Mystery Of July Retail Sales "Beat" Solved: It Is All In The "Seasonal Adjustment"

with the July seasonal adjustment factor routinely subtracting a substantial amount from the NSA number, averaging at -$5.2 billion, in 2012, for the first time this decade, the seasonal adjustment not only did not subtract, but in fact added "value" to the NSA number, resulting in a seasonally adjusted number that was $1.9 billion higher than the NSA number at $403.9 billion.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mystery-j ... adjustment

[OilFinder2]

I just KNEW someone would post that article from Zerohedge! So predictable! And they're making the same stupid, idiotic mistake about seasonal adjustments as they did with the payrolls report a week ago last Friday. You can be sure Zerohedge WILL NOT tell you when the Commerce Department's seasonal adjustments for retail sales make an adjusted number LESS than in recent years, which is mathematically required due to the nature of seasonal adjustments (see parts in blue).

More pathetic lies from Zerohedge.

3. In July, this seasonable adjustment has a massive, dispositive effect on the final print number (from the NYT):

And guess what Einstein? FEBRUARY AND MARCH SUBTRACTED THE LARGEST NUMBER OF JOBS FROM THE UNADJUSTED NUMBER FOR ANY FEBRUARY AND MARCH SINCE 2002! Here are the numbers, you can calculate them yourself using data from the BLS link I provided above!

Feb
Feb 2002: -613
Feb 2003: -571
Feb 2004: -567
Feb 2005: -586
Feb 2006: -609
Feb 2007: -596
Feb 2008: -600
Feb 2009: -483
Feb 2010: -472
Feb 2011: -601
Feb 2012: -654
--------------------------
In other words, this past February, 654K jobs were subtracted from the unadjusted number, the most since 2002.

Ditto March:
March 2002: -628
March 2003: -701
March 2004: -706
March 2005: -702
March 2006: -698
March 2007: -702
March 2008: -683
March 2009: -660
March 2010: -649
March 2011: -667
March 2012: -728
--------------------------
In other words, this past March, 728K jobs were subtracted from the unadjusted number, the most since 2002.

See what happens when you actually care to check the data for yourself? You're completely incapable of doing this it seems, all you do is regurgitate articles from Zerohedge without checking the facts for yourself. I have yet to see you crunch a single number yourself on this board.

So, what does this tell you? THE OVER-COMPENSATION IN THE SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT FOR JULY IS MERELY MAKING UP FOR THE UNDER-COMPENSATION IN THE SEASONAL ADJUSTMENTS IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH. Big f-ing deal. Little secret about seasonal adjustments for your educational value: By their nature, seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted numbers will negate each other over the course of an entire year. If something is getting increasingly bumped up in one part of the year, that means it's going to get increasingly bumped down in another part of the year. I'd recommend you educate yourself more on the nature of seasonal adjustment.

[Armageddon]

Denninger's take

Retail Sales: All Seasonal


Now this is an amusing report...

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for July, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $403.9 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month and 4.1 percent (±0.7%) above July 2011. Total sales for the May through July 2012 period were up 4.3 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The May to June 2012 percent change was revised from -0.5 percent (±0.5%)* to -0.7% (±0.2%).

And what an adjustment that is.

The raw figures are that July posted up $401,988 (millions) compared with $405,820 last month, for a raw decrease of about $3.8 billion.

There were a number of actual winners, but there were also notable losers. Among the latter were clothing, sporting goods, general merchandise and miscellaneous store retailers along with food and beverage establishments (restaurants.) Building materials were also down (by $2 billion), quite significant on a percentage basis (~7.5%)

Now you may trust in seasonal adjustments, but I as a rule do not.

I also find it interesting that compared to a year ago electronics sales were down as were general merchandise stores.

[dissident]

These adjustments don't make any sense. You have a set of monthly data points and they are what they are. Every year has a different seasonal cycle since the system is not clockwork. Why would you "correct" the data based on some average seasonal cycle obtained from other years?

Now if there were huge data gaps then they could be filled in with some artificial data based on the behaviour or previous years (sort of like with singular spectral analysis gap filling). But there is no need for estimation and gap filling.

[OilFinder2]

Seasonal adjustments tell you what is going on in an economic statistic while filtering out regular and predictable (or reasonably predictable) variations which happen in that month every year.

For example, in September 2008, the number of unadjusted non-farm payrolls rose from 136,635,000 to 136,685,000, a rise of 50,000.

Sounds at least halfway decent, right? I mean, at least it rose!

But wait a second - September 2008 was the month the whole economy really started crashing! Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the stock market was crashing, etc.

So why did the number of jobs rise that month? Because the unadjusted number of jobs rises in September every year (mostly due to teachers getting back to work from summer vacation). Regardless of economic conditions.

If the BLS reported just the unadjusted number of jobs, when they reported the monthly jobs number for September in early October, they would have said, "Hey wait a minute folks, the number of jobs actually rose last month! We added 50,000 jobs!"

Given what was going on in the economy at the time, nobody would have believed them - and rightly so.

So what they do is filter the unadjusted numbers into a seasonally adjusted number (they actually use a computer program to do this), which basically tells you what the underlying trend is taking into account usual seasonality.

Instead of telling the world that the US economy added 50,000 jobs in September 2008, instead they told us the number of jobs fell from 136,764,000 in August to 136,332,000 - a decline of 432,000. Which is a lot more believable than an addition of 50K, given that the economy was obviously crashing at the time.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Troubled Eurozone Tipping Into Recession

The eurozone is teetering on the edge of recession even as the dominant German economy continues to expand, official figures showed yesterday.

Output across the 17-member currency bloc fell by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2012, having registered zero growth in the first quarter. Another quarter of negative growth will put the eurozone back into a technical recession and mean that the single currency area has registered no growth for a full year.

The latest flash GDP estimate from the Eurostat agency shows that output continued to sink in Italy, falling by 0.8 per cent in the second quarter. The Spanish economy contracted by 0.4 per cent. The worst performer was the Portuguese economy, where output plunged by 1.2 per cent over three months. Separately, Greece reported on Monday that its GDP was a full 6.2 per cent smaller than the second quarter of 2011.

City analysts expect another fall in eurozone GDP in the third quarter, despite a new commitment this month from the European Central Bank (ECB) to buy up bonds of struggling member states. "It is clear that eurozone GDP will register a larger contraction in Q3," Janet Henry of HSBC said. "This will raise even more questions about whether eurozone member states can realistically expect to meet their fiscal targets." ....

[OilFinder2]

U.S. NOT TIPPING INTO RECESSION AS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION SURGES 0.6% IN JULY

Industrial production picked up in July after two months of slight growth, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday in the latest reading that shows the economy in the third quarter got off to a decent start.

Industrial production rose 0.6% in July after slender 0.1% monthly gains in May and June, the Fed said. The Fed had previously reported a 0.4% gain in June and a 0.2% drop in May.

The 0.6% gain was as expected in a MarketWatch-compiled poll of economists.

Compared to the same period of 2011, industrial output was 4.4% stronger.

Capacity utilization rose to 79.3% in July from 78.9% in May — the highest level since April 2008. Even so, it’s still 1% below its average from 1972 to 2011.

[...]

In July, U.S. manufacturing output gained 0.5%, while mining output rose 1.2% and utilities output rose 1.3%. Economists generally look past the utilities number since it’s heavily influenced by heater or air-conditioner use.

The motor vehicles and parts component of manufacturing continued to do well, gaining 3.3% on the month and surging 26.5% from the same period of 2011, as Americans continued to snap up cars built both here and by Japanese automakers that were hurt by last year’s tsunami.

[...]

[Lore]

So now all we have to worry about for the rest of the year is the looming fiscal cliff, higher gas prices and food costs this winter inflating 10% across the board.

[vision-master]

GERALD CELENTE - The Gap Between RICH & POOR Is Widening. (Education, Society, Poverty)

[OilFinder2]

U.S. HOME BUILDER SENTIMENT HITS 5-YEAR HIGH

U.S. homebuilder sentiment rose in August to its highest level in more than five years, a fresh sign that the battered housing market is turning the corner, data from the National Association of Home Builders showed on Wednesday.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index gained to 37 this month from 35 in July, the group said in a statement, topping economists' expectations for it to hold steady with last month.

It was the highest level since February 2007 and the fourth month in a row sentiment has improved. The index has surged by more than 20 points since last summer, though it is still far from the 50 mark that shows more builders view market conditions as favorable than poor.

[...]

[vision-master]

Why do you look from a-far as if you are removed from this planet?

[pstarr]

Why do you look from a-far as if you are removed from this planet?

Maybe because he doesn't want to be any closer. This is the worst of industrial man, living in square boxes, built without regard for solar orientation, view, neighorhood, community, town, and a larger vision. The houses are built for the convenience of the developer, the money-lender, and bureaucrats in the local building department, easy to inspect/permit and a convenient source of graft and corruption. A real boom for the local economy. The structures are oriented to the street where the water/gas/electric lines run allowing a minimal "savings" in materials---shorter ditch, less pvc/romex, shorter driveway and a clear view into the heart and soul of Automan--empty but for convenience.

[OilFinder2]

Why do you look from a-far as if you are removed from this planet?

Because I like to look at the big picture.

But if it makes you happy, here's a close-up shot.

[OilFinder2]

Why do you look from a-far as if you are removed from this planet?

Maybe because he doesn't want to be any closer. This is the worst of industrial man, living in square boxes, built without regard for solar orientation, view, neighorhood, community, town, and a larger vision. The houses are built for the convenience of the developer, the money-lender, and bureaucrats in the local building department, easy to inspect/permit and a convenient source of graft and corruption. A real boom for the local economy. The structures are oriented to the street where the water/gas/electric lines run allowing a minimal "savings" in materials---shorter ditch, less pvc/romex, shorter driveway and a clear view into the heart and soul of Automan--empty but for convenience.

Here's some new houses in Orange County, CA that would make pstarr happy. Relatively speaking.

[careinke]

Well I'd certainly work for 30+ years as a wage slave to live in one of those eco-monstrosity chemically saturated cookie cutter under-performing overtaxed dwellings.....NOT. Those things are for people who want to appear rich, but really are up to their eyeballs in debt. The real rich have land and don't live within spitting distance of their neighbors.

Those things are just post WWII track homes on steroids.

[Armageddon]

really good article on the looming economic collapse

Economic collapse is inevitable, here’s why…

http://www.hangthebankers.com/economic- ... heres-why/

[pstarr]

Here's some new houses in Orange County, CA that would make pstarr happy. Relatively speaking.

I assume I am looking at open-space/bike-walking-paths/vegetation? Or did the developers run out of money to bury the sewer lines. I'd be willing to bet those paths go nowhere except around in circles. Can't walk to a museum, cafe, a shop, river, even city hall to pay a bill. Gotta get stuck in a traffic jam for that. It's great that the construction industry is throwing us humans a bone every now and then, and making our new developments appear comfortable, but what I see in that pictures is nothing but window dressing. Where is the retail, agriculture land, art and culture? Nowhere. But then we wouldn't want to distract the wage slaves with beauty and grace. Got to go to the cineplex and watch CGI reality for that.