[ The soundtrack to this post is available here: http://underheard.org/~toxic/sp/srs.m3u I highly suggest that you start listening to it now, because I'm going to start this post with the standard disclaimer. ]
But first, a hello to all those new followers. Apparently SocialPicks rejiggered the way they do their ratings, and I've found myself pretty consistently up on the leader board. This apparently has attracted a few new people (since it's certainly not my writing that keeps you coming back). I suspect after this message, some of you will probably immediately unsubscribe. My apologies.
Disclaimer: I use filthy language on the Internet (sorry, Mom). I write terrible things that no decent human being has any business reading. I may have an interest in stocks I write about, but that shouldn't matter, because nobody should be reading this crap at all, much less paying attention to me when making investment decisions -- especially involving a nondiverse derivitives-based index fund. Just look at the picture in my profile.
Ok. Got the music going? Yep, that's The Grateful Dead, live on 9/11/88 in the Philly Spectrum. Thirteen revolutions around the sun before that 9/11. Shall we roll up a big joint as we go back to a simpler time...
I remind you that numb-nutted mean spirited fuckwit Ronald Reagan was in the White House, but thanks to the Iran Contra scandal, the reality of the AIDS epidemic (and his unforgivable reaction to it), psychic visitors, and the 1986 midterm elections, his power and popularity were finally starting to wane (later we learned that Alzheimers had taken away his lucidity -- not that that could possibly explain or excuse his choice for Attorney General .)
Eight years of DooDoo economics and the rampant inflation and unemployment inherent in it had taken their toll across the land. Jesse Helms had the power to declare what was and was not art. Allentown, PA became a ghost town. Everyone was still a little nervous about 10/19/87 . Cocaine became dangerous (but not any harder to find -- Just Say No my ass). The national debt? Bigger than ever. But, at least it was clear that the Republicans were completely inept, and completely fucking up the country, and it was time for them to go. Then Gary Hart got his salad tossed by a stripper (on the S.S. Monkey Business, no less)... no wait, she's a "beauty pagent queen". Meanwhile Micheal Dukakis decided it'd be a good idea to take a joy ride on a fucking tank.
And so, we were blessed with the first George Bush, the first Gulf war, and the recession of 1990-92.
"If the thunder don't getcha, then the lightning will".
OK, so what else were we blessed with during those joyous times? The suburbs grew, even faster than they had in the 50s (though thankfully, the lawn jockeys were a little less common, even while the suburban demographics stayed the same). See, the CIA was selling crack cocaine in the ghettos, and using the spectre of drug turf wars to scare all the white people out of the cities. Throw in Federal Mandatory Minimums, the SWAT team, N.W.A., and the rise of the televised LAPD high speed chase, and suddenly nobody wanted to live in the urban centers anymore. Property Values plummeted. Tax bases left town. Urban schools started graduating people who were functionally illiterate, and who grew up eating ketchup, because it was a vegetable.
Oooh... good times, those.
Open up the nearest window and shout it with me: " Fuck the suburbs !!". Fuck the GI-Bill that created them. Fuck the white fear that expanded them. Fuck the cold-war bunkers underneath them. Fuck the Me generation that perpetuated the myth that the suburban community full of cookie-cutter 4800 square foot homes was a place to raise well-adjusted children, and was willing to go further and further away to find it.
What's that, you say? $4.00... nay $5.00 gas is making it hard to keep driving the Escalade over the bridge every morning? Your 21x20' rec-room costs a fortune to heat? Half the houses in your neighborhood are on the verge of foreclosure? The neighborhood association is raising your fees to cover all the vacancies/deliquencies? Welcome to the American exurb -- where the houses are either vacant or underwater, the strip malls are quickly emptying, the transportation costs are higher than the mortgage, and sellers outnumber buyers 10:1.
"Ashes to ashes. All fall down."
Allow me to introduce you to the ProShares UltraShort Real Estate fund. This fund mostly uses derivatives to attempt to return a gain of 2% for every 1% the DJ Real Estate index goes down . Yes, this is another ETF, and this is a bet for the continued decline of the US housing market. I'm behind the bandwagon on this, but it's better to be late to the party than not to show up at all, right?
And if some douchebag who destroyed some open space to make room for another McMansion is going to lose his house regardless... what's wrong if you make some coin off his misfortune? Heck, I won't hold it against you if you even savor it a little more, like you would've had you shorted Enron.
The reality of the American housing market is just starting to sink in. If you've taken a drive in the distant suburbs recently you've seen a lot of "Bank owned" signs pounded into dead lawns. Just wait until all those 5 year ARMs start re-adjusting. Are you nervous about Fannie/Freddie now? Just wait.
[Soundtrack includes two songs, The Wheel and Throwing Stones (those are links to the Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics Pages). It is legal to distribute most live Grateful Dead recordings, including these. The Internet Archive has the entire concert available for streaming.]
And apparently, inline links don't work here... so here's a list of things you could've clicked on:
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/5982/meeseposterwashington...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm10.html
http://www.proshares.com/funds/srs.html
http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/wheel.html
http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/throwing.html
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1988-09-11.sbd-mtx.wiley.870...
$112.95 (07/10/08)
