Thursday, April 17, 2008

Darwin on Line

Darwin's first draft goes online

The first draft of a book which changed the world's attitude to evolution is available for the first time online.
Papers which led to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were previously only available to scholars at Cambridge University's library.
The draft notes are among 20,000 archive items created by the 19th Century naturalist during his lifetime.
Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, said: "He changed our understanding of nature."
World-changing ideas
The online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.
"His papers reveal how immensely detailed his researches were. The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts to be available to anyone who wants to read them," said Dr van Wyhe.
"The fact that everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic.
"Charles Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history. The collection of his papers now online is extremely important and therefore very exciting.
"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free."
Story from BBC NEWS:

Thursday, April 3, 2008

California Housing Market Collapse....& Comments


L.A. Land: Peter Viles on the rapidly changing landscape of the real estate market in Los Angeles and beyond
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California freefall: Home prices down 26% in February

Signs of distress are piling up in the California housing market, where prices are falling at three times the national rate of decline.

--Statewide, median sales prices fell by a stunning 26% from year-ago levels in February, with home prices dropping at a rate of nearly $3,000 a week, the California Association of Realtors reports. Further, the CAR says the Fed's interest rate-cutting campaign "will have little near-term direct effect on the housing market."


--In the San Fernando Valley, losing a home to foreclosure is now almost as common for families as buying a home. The L.A. Daily News: "During January and February, there were 1,084 foreclosures and 1,335 sales of houses and condos in Valley communities from Glendale to Calabasas, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge.""It's bad. It's really bad," market analyst Nima Nattagh told the Daily News.
The California Association of Realtors reports median prices fell 27.2% from year-ago levels in the hard-hit Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, 30.9% in Sacramento, and 39.1% in Santa Barbara County.
On a percentage basis, the California price meltdown is more than three times as severe as the national decline of 8.2% in median prices reported this week by the National Association of Realtors. On an absolute basis, the California meltdown is even more severe: Nationally, prices fell over the past year at a rate of $338 per week; in California, prices fell at a rate of $2,788 per week.According to the CAR, "The median sales price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during February 2008 was $409,240, a 26.2 percent decrease from the revised $554,280 median for February 2007." The February 2008 median price fell 4.8 percent compared with January’s revised $429,790 median price."The Federal Reserve Bank’s recent action to reduce the federal funds rate will have little near-term direct effect on the housing market," said CAR Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. "However, Fed rate cuts should result in more favorable real estate finance rates as we move through the year."
Median home sales prices sometimes exaggerate swings in market activity. A year ago, median home sales prices in California continued to show price gains, even though the market downturn had begun. At the time, the collapse of sub-prime lending had the effect of freezing the lower end of the market. With fewer sales of less expensive homes, the market was dominated by sales at higher price points, and median sales prices showed gains.
The opposite appears to be happening now, as lower-priced foreclosed homes come onto the market, increasing sales at lower price points, while the market for more expensive homes has slowed dramatically. Thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.comPhoto Credit: Associated Press
Posted by Peter Viles on March 26, 2008 in Foreclosure Permalink

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Comments

Peter,
Thanks for the post. I just read a few articles about this in the last few days. Here in the Santa Barbara area we are seeing huge reductions in prices in certain areas while others are remaining fairly stable (having reached a bottom seemingly). The problem for us with a lot of these statistics is that they include Lompoc and Santa Maria for Santa Barbara and these markets are very different.
With that said, we are seeing a fair amount of activity in the last 7-8 weeks with a lot of pending sales. No price increases to speak of but a lot of activity. Condos though are still up in the air.
Posted by: Santa Barbara Real Estate Voice March 26, 2008 at 10:40 AM
I am ecstatic to see the collapse of home prices in California...I do feel sorry thought for middle class families that were duped into bad loans.....Yet, it is great to see this collapse in the real estate market happening....
Posted by: John March 26, 2008 at 10:51 AM
More hysterical nonsense.
The drop is related to foreclosures being dumped on the market........skewing the numbers.
Ignore this nonsense
Posted by: Joe smith March 26, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Let's see some more on the positives to come from the CA housing correction.
Greedy idiots will be punished.
What's left of the intelligent and rational middle class will have a higher likelihood of being able to afford a decent home without moving out of state. (A few months ago, you needed a 6-figure household income to afford a home in L.A.'s worst neighborhoods.)
Our politicians will actually have to show leadership and think and make difficult decisions, since they can't just ride along taking credit for the sunshine and ongoing prosperity. (Business punishing laws and taxes, combined with terrible public schools and a high cost of living IS NOT a recipe for sustainable community and economic development.)
Posted by: John March 26, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Median prices were half a million..hahha..What a joke. People don't have that kind of rea money. Living way above their means. I hope they are all homeless for years. They have cost people who do it the rigfht way much now in taxes and stoack market collapse.
Posted by: Mark March 26, 2008 at 10:55 AM
The California prices were inflated and overpriced to begin with. Who wants to live in a liberal state where you are taxed to death, gas prices are inflated due to everyone bowing to the extreme environmentalists?
Sell those houses to graduating students from Berkley....oh wait, you have to be productive human being with a job to get a house.
Posted by: Darrell March 26, 2008 at 10:56 AM
To say that median prices are down 26% does not necessarily mean that every million dollar home is now worth 740K. It could mean that million dollar homes are sitting on the market while 500K homes are selling at a brisk pace. It could mean that there are no more million dollar homes ON the market and all the 500K homes are selling slowly.
The headline alone does not really tell a complete story.
Posted by: Jim Roof March 26, 2008 at 10:58 AM
Who could be surprised by the California real estate price meltdown? Many parts of that market have been grossly over priced for years!
Posted by: Tony March 26, 2008 at 11:01 AM
"the median sales price of median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during February 2008 was $409,240..."
That's still very high, something like three times the national average. CA prices are falling far because they had climbed to such ridiculous levels.
It's bad, but it was an inevitable correction.
Posted by: Dan March 26, 2008 at 11:02 AM
This isn't a big surprise. Home prices were 3 times higher in CA than the national average, it makes sense that they would fall at 3 times the rate. The CA median home price is still double the national average. I think it still has a ways to fall before normal people will be able to buy a house.
Posted by: Etosamoe March 26, 2008 at 11:02 AM
The first stage of a real estate recovery has to be price capitulation, which we are now entering. While painful for the people who bought at inflated prices, the price adjustment to more realistic levels will help people who are now able to buy or will soon. CA home prices got disconnected from reality. Reality is back in Vogue.
How long will it take for the excess unsold homes to get to "normal" levels in So. CA?
Posted by: George March 26, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Sales volume is up dramatically at the low end of the market. The banks are putting their inventory of foreclosures on the market at well below market prices and it has spurred sales. It's not uncommon to see 5 to 10 offers on properties.
All the action is on properties under $500,000 that are priced 25% to 40% lower that two years ago. While sales numbers will be up, the median price is going to plummet when it get's reported for March and April sales.
Posted by: We Help-U-Buy Guy March 26, 2008 at 11:07 AM

Canada ~ Shock & Horror

American Refugees are flooding into Canada: Tens of thousands of Americans are now economic refugees

Posted on March 21, 2008 by Sopan Greene
Source: Cycho.com

In September of 2007, the city of Windsor, which borders the United States, officially asked for financial assistance from Ottawa to deal with American refugees flooding into Canada. This is proving to be the tip of the iceberg, and only the first wave of economic refugees that have been created in the United States.

There are now tent cities being built outside most large metropolitan areas, one of the largest of which is in Los Angeles. The following report from the BBC highlights the consequence of the US subprime meltdown and the fears that the crisis is growing.

The homelessness situation has grown so rapidly in the United States that certain cities are issuing color-coded wristbands – blue for those who can stay, “orange for people who need to provide more documentation, and white for those who must leave.” Refugees will no longer be able to stay in one area, meaning that many towns and cities will now have to be prepared to receive migrant refugees displaced by local governments from other districts and States.
click to enlarge - source


Canadians will also need to be prepared for this influx, especially considering that the average processing time for a refugee claim in Canada is currently 14.2 months, “a period during which the applicant is eligible for financial and other support. A failed claimant then also has the right to seek leave to appeal his or her rejection to federal court.” If the American refugee crisis continues to grow as analysts predict, then the cost to Canadians will be astronomical.
Aside from tens of thousands of Americans becoming refugees in their own country, there is another problem. As The Atlantic is reporting, “the subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.” Over 60% of the homes in certain communities “were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in.”
“The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments… much of the future decline is likely to occur on the fringes, in towns far away from the central city, not served by rail transit, and lacking any real core.
In other words, some of the worst problems are likely to be seen in some of the country’s more recently developed areas—and not only those inhabited by subprime-mortgage borrowers. Many of these areas will become magnets for poverty, crime, and social dysfunction.”


All of this is occurring while: the US government bails out Wall Street; credit card companies raise record amounts of money by issuing shares; the economic crisis draws comparison to the 1929 stock market crash; investigation of predatory banks gets killed; The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prepares for bank failures; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta releases a crisis peparedness video.


And some thought that Stocking the Root Cellar was only for conspiracy theorists.

NOTE: Some Americans are discovering that they are able to keep their homes and save themselves from becoming refugees by challenging the banks. All they are doing is asking the courts for proof that the banks own the mortgage notes that they claim to own.
“Judges in at least five states have stopped foreclosure proceedings because the banks that pool mortgages into securities and the companies that collect monthly payments haven’t been able to prove they own the mortgages.” More on this at “Banks Lose to Deadbeat Homeowners as Loans Sold in Bonds Vanish.”


I personally know what I would be doing if I owned a mortgage in the United States. Good luck, and remember, according to the ex-Comptroller General of the United States, the top accountant for the United States of America, “deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000”. In essence, the United States is bankrupt.
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