My BubbleBoys are mostly gone for the moment, no doubt off like a cloud of gnats desperate to enshroud someone else’s head. The truth is, I do have a particular kind of fun at their expense, not the least of which are their pitch-perfect echoes of the charges I make against them. They were so aghast they I called them flying monkeys that they swooped in by the hundreds to express their outrage. Surely none dare call them Brownshirts, when most of what they did was rage, swear and threaten with all their minimal mental might. A certain few of them were brighter than I expected, but not one seems to have caught on that the Heckler’s Veto doesn’t work on the internet. And for all their complaints, none of them seems to have noticed that I also compared them to the Communists.
Even so, I ended up feeling sorry for them. It’s not the specious arguments repeated over and over, not the garbled grammar, not the atrocious spelling. Those are secondary consequences. What grabbed at my heart, despite myself, was the lack of internal resources that would lead a man — and they seem to be almost exclusively men — to join a gang of thugs. Surely this is not true of each one of them, but it is true in the main, in the same way that their belief in the efficacy of browbeating is an attribute of the browbeaten and their conviction in the ubiquity of corruption betrays only too completely the contents of their own souls. This is the stuff of the Brownshirts, of the Bolsheviks, of the Khmer Rouge and the Klan. This is the stuff from which the ugliest episodes in human history are sprung.
And yet it is still a sorrowful spectacle. I’m not absolving them. If you dig deeply enough into any sort of human squalor, at the bottom of everything you’ll find some combination of laziness, deceit and envy — usually about 112% of each. But every one of these boys would be a better man if he had more to do. The curse of America’s economy — and the world’s — is not that we have too much commerce, but too little. If these men saw more value in pursuing their own affirmative values, and less in campaigning for and rejoicing in the suffering of others, each one of them — and everyone else — would be better off.
But: They are who they are, and change comes only from within. All day, I’ve had a song for them in my head, On the Nickel by Tom Waits. It’s not directly apposite, it’s just a sad song about men who waste their lives in preference to living them.
Rage on, BubbleBoys. It ain’t much, but it’s what you’ve got…
On the Nickel
by Tom Waits
sticks and stones will break my bones,
but i always will be true, and when
your mama is dead and gone,
i’ll sing this lullabye just for you,
and what becomes of all the little boys,
who never comb their hair,
well they’re lined up all around the block,
on the nickel over thereso you better bring a bucket,
there is a hole in the pail,
and if you don’t get my letter,
then you’ll know that i’m in jail,
and what becomes of all the little boys,
who never say their prayers,
well they’re sleepin’ like a baby,
on the nickel over thereand if you chew tobacco, and wish upon a star,
well you’ll find out where the scarecrows sit,
just like punchlines between the cars,
and i know a place where a royal flush,
can never beat a pair, and even thomas jefferson,
is on the nickel over thereso ring around the rosie, you’re sleepin’ in the rain,
and you’re always late for supper,
and man you let me down again,
i thought i heard a mockingbird, roosevelt knows where,
you can skip the light, with grady tuck,
on the nickel over thereso what becomes of all the little boys,
who run away from home,
well the world just keeps gettin’ bigger,
once you get out on your own,
so here’s to all the little boys,
the sandman takes you where,
you’ll be sleepin’ with a pillowman,
on the nickel over thereso let’s climb up through that button hole,
and we’ll fall right up the stairs,
and i’ll show you where the short dogs grow,
on the nickel over there
Technorati Tags: real estate
carefulwithnumbers says:
i’m not offended by the namecalling, but am curious what makes you so certain you’re on the “right” side of things (and others, therefore, not).
i can’t speak for everyone who might be worried about a true housing market bubble, but for me it is a true worry even though, in theory, i stand to increase my home buying power if real reductions in home prices occur.
i worry because i don’t know what that means for the rest of the economy and even though i’d like to get more house for my money, i don’t want people to suffer through an economic downturn (especially since i would include myself in the group i call “people”).
in short, if ecomonic downturn (and a burst of a housing bubble) is coming (or perhaps already starting), is that what i really want?
i am decidely unsure.
does that make me a bad person?
August 3, 2006 — 2:27 am
David in JAX says:
Interesting. Many of the posts actually contained hard facts or were backed up with links to actual economic news about the housing bubble. I understand that you want to keep your website as more of an advertisement for your business instead of a news site about housing in the area (trust me, it’s the same thing I would do), but you shouldn’t attack the people the way you did without evidence proving the contrary. All I saw on your site was a list of 21 rediculous reasons why Phoenix won’t pop and sales propaganda.
August 3, 2006 — 3:56 am
fatcats says:
Don’t you think all that florid wordsmithing is a little overdone? That perhaps you’ve been reading a little too much Churchill, mate. Difference is, he was fighting real Nazis.
Why don’t you just present your view in a concise manner and let your facts speak for themselves?
August 3, 2006 — 4:14 am
Copyright Enforcer says:
You got permission to publish those copyrighted Tom Waits lyrics in full on your site there, Swann?
August 3, 2006 — 4:52 am
another writer says:
you’re a strange man, Swann. Clever, resentful, thoughtful, frustrated, well-educated, unhappy, obstinate, anxious, guilty, idealistic, and very, very angry.
I won’t argue with you anymore. Time will tell who’s thinking more clearly about the future of housing, our economy, etc.
In the meantime, I’ve no doubt that you and I were meant for better things, but we all have to play the cards we were dealt. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to what I do for a living.
August 3, 2006 — 6:03 am
amazed says:
i was in phoenix on vacation last summer and was blown away by the massive home construction going on. i couldnt believe the numbers in their paper! i couldnt believe 50k people a year are moving to phoenix! completely changed my attitude about relocating there. as it turns out 50k may be the number of new homes but it isnt the number of people moving there as far as i can tell so i am back to thinking of relocating there…………….
August 3, 2006 — 10:50 am
Jim Cronin says:
You must just sell real estate as a hobby. You are just so much fun to read.
August 3, 2006 — 12:13 pm
Garth Farkley says:
You still don’t get it? It’s more than just absurd, it’s truly offensive to compare those who talk trash about real estate to totalitarian dictatorships that murdered millions. Your analogy is not clever, original or creative. As someone once said, in the future everyone will be Hitler for 15 minutes.
No one forced you to go read Housing Panic. But it obviously struck some kind of spark in you. Methinks, the lady doth protest too much. Still, the housing debate is not the point. You can talk trash about housing bears and flying monkeys all day. All’s fair in the marketplace of ideas.
What you’re missing is that you make a joke of the Holocaust, and Stalin’s mass murders, when you bring these analogies to bear on the issue of housing. I don’t know any other way to say this but it makes you sound like a crude buffoon.
August 3, 2006 — 5:47 pm
Robert Cot says:
You seem to think that your opponents on these two issues are immature, soulless pathetic subhumans when in fact all they are is dissenting on the subjects of Phoenix real estate values going forward and the future of the real estate business. The fact that you post under the subject of disintermediation reveals that deep down you know some of what’s coming. Your constant search for innovative sales techniques equally reveals in your actions what you won’t say out loud; change is coming to the industry. If a difference of opinion over pricing evokes such vile comments from you I shudder to imagine your reaction should you be proven wrong over the next few months or year. Odious, unethical and now copyright infringer. Stones, glass houses and all that. Or perhaps more fitting; “People who sell bubbles shouldn’t have a side business throwing pins.”
August 4, 2006 — 6:29 am
Garth Farkley says:
We tried to tell you this was coming and you called us flying monkeys and nazi’s. Cassandra’s curse.
The correct headline, of course, is “Steepest Home Price Drop in Recorded History.”
AP
Home Prices: Steepest Drop in 20 Years
Tuesday August 28, 9:58 am ET
By Vinnee Tong, AP Business Writer
S&P Says Housing Prices Fell in 2Q by Steepest Rate Since Its Index Was Started in 1987
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor’s began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the research group said Tuesday.
The decline in home prices around the nation shows no evidence of a market recovery anytime soon, one of the architects of the index said.
MacroMarkets LLC Chief Economist Robert Shiller said the declining residential real estate market “shows no signs of slowing down.”
August 28, 2007 — 7:19 am
Greg Swann says:
> We tried to tell you this was coming and you called us flying monkeys and nazi’s.
False. I compared the commenters at Housing Panic to flying monkeys, Brownshirts and Communists because their behavior was and is so atrocious.
Thanks for bringing me back to this, though. This is good writing. I’ve added a YouTube video of On The Nickel in commemoration.
August 28, 2007 — 7:54 am
Garth Farkley says:
You call people nazis and communists and their behavior is atrocious? You really don’t give an inch.
I never blamed you for any sharp words except those. We’re all big boys. But in my book the first person to say “Hitler” in any argument has officially admitted defeat.
Many of us were trying to raise the alarm in ’05 that it was a bad time to buy residential real estate. Thousands of families who ignored Cassandra have been wiped out. It was clear to us what was happening so we tried to warn them. Median residential real estate prices were and still are insanely excessive on traditional income qualification multipliers. The only thing that kept fuel in the mania rocket was rampant mortgage fraud. It was the rule not the exception. That’s over now. The rocket motor has burned out. It’s getting hard to find a traditional old fashioned mortgage. Prepare for reentry. The great bulk of reset/foreclosure waves haven’t hit yet.
Mixing metaphors, the tsunami is still moving out away from the beach. It’s coming back.
I’ll go on record today. We haven’t even started to revert to the mean. It’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better. But hey I’m just a flying monkey-nazi-communist, what do I know? Let’s chat next year.
And do you still maintain that you were helping people when you said it was a good time to buy in 2006?
August 29, 2007 — 7:50 am
Greg Swann says:
> You call people nazis and communists and their behavior is atrocious?
I was teasing very stupid people, who, as if on cue, reacted stupidly. It was cruel of me to tease them, but it was also funny, both the original jokes and the inane response.
> But in my book the first person to say “Hitler” in any argument has officially admitted defeat.
Which is a logical fallacy, of course, an attempt to evade debate. This silly stunt is all over the internet, an artifact of Usenet. By contrast, attempting to dominate debate by force of amassed sneering is Hitlerian and Marxian (“You can’t refute a sneer”) and ought to be called by its right names. It’s not my fault you keep bad company.
> Many of us were trying to raise the alarm in ‘05
Well before then. The alarms will continue long after the downturn is over. None of this proves anything.
> Thousands of families who ignored Cassandra have been wiped out.
Hyperbole. Thousands of others were much enriched, though, which again proves nothing.
> It’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better.
What will you do if it doesn’t?
> And do you still maintain that you were helping people when you said it was a good time to buy in 2006?
You’ll have to produce a quote of me saying that. I don’t recall doing it, and it would be very unlike me to make short-term predictions. I work in real estate, a long-term investment.
For what it’s worth, it’s starting to look to me like a good time to buy in Phoenix now, especially for underpriced fix-and-flip candidates in high-demand neighborhoods. Real estate is not just local, it’s hyper-local.
And: I had another look at 21 reasons to bank on the Phoenix real estate market, which is what brought the very stupid brownshirts here in the first place (and please do me the favor of not inviting them back). I wouldn’t change a word of that post. The flying monkeys read it as a short-term prediction, but this is because they can’t read.
For what it’s worth, I do believe there are some smart bubbleheads — you might be among them — but my experience of them is colored by the company they keep.
August 29, 2007 — 9:08 am
Garth Farkley says:
I’m licensed as a broker though I work in another field. I’m also the son of two brokers. I’ve been bullish on home ownership all my life…until about Spring ’05 when it became clear that a mania was in full swing. My own personal Realtor and listing agent laughed at me when I said I want to hurry and get my home sold fast in Central Coast CA in the fall of ’05 before the crash. So I’m not one who is always predicting a crash. Just then.
Oh, yeah. And now.
What’s long term? It took Japan 20 years to drop 50% right?
No one knows anything of course. But it’s hard to argue that median price compared to median income is not still way out of whack. Cf PMI’s risk index.
Unlike the traditional sequence, a severe residential RE recession during a healthy job market has led us to the impending general recession, which will now cause job losses and snowball back into a more traditional and more severe accelerating RE depression. We’re augering in, as a pilot might say.
See you in ’08. Let’s check in on your long term prediction circa summer ’06.
“Been a long time comin’. Gonna be a long, long time gone.”
August 29, 2007 — 9:33 am