Posted on 05/30/2011 9:29:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The U.S. housing market is going through an adjustment of historic proportions. Before 2006, when the housing slump commenced, American home builders regularly built as many as 2 million new houses annually, rarely less than a million. This amount was needed to keep up with new household formation, immigration, homeowners moving up, and replacement due to obsolescence. Since then the number of new houses built has dropped drastically—the seasonally adjusted annual figure announced by the federal government in February 2011 was about 400,000! What's going on?
The recession, obviously. High unemployment and unease about the economy have made potential first-time homebuyers leery of entering the market, and many have decided to wait on the side lines. Although house prices have fallen, few are convinced that they have bottomed, and no one wants to buy a house and see its price decline. The large number of foreclosed (or about to be foreclosed) houses on the market, which account for no less than four out of 10 sales of existing homes, likewise dampens demand for new houses. And those willing to take the plunge discover that, despite low interest rates, lenders who were burned by the subprime mess now require large down payments. The other chief cause for weak demand is a slowdown in household formation—the U.S. Census reports that the rate of household formation is currently lower than at any time since 1947, as people put off getting married and starting a family. According to my colleague, real estate economist Peter Linneman, the marginal household size, which has historically hovered around two or three, shot up to more than six in 2009 and 2010, the result of doubling-up and moving in with relatives.
Common wisdom is that eventually the housing market will stabilize.....
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Most of their nastiness and hate comes from nothing more than envy, and there's no primordial envy more intense than size envy. The left goes bonkers over the size of other people's houses, cars, families, pets, food portions, and anything else visible. The best way to handle their size envy issues is to laugh out loud at them, call out their envy, and mock them at every opportunity. Our future freedom depends on it.
Just a reminder...I said that it should include both the employee and the employer contribution, because both come out of my cost to the employer for me as an employee. That would halve the interest rate for forty years of employee-only contributions: 15.67% (your figures) and that is reasonable for most of those years. So that require an interest rate of 7.84% to net a return of $900,000. I earned at or exceeded the max for 40 years, btw.
Troll zotted by admin mod.
Thanks. Saved me from trying to look at the profile page to determine the outcome.
However, to be more accurate I broke out the OASI portion of FICA and used that to yield the following results (again, using the S&P actual returns for the yearly portfolio return):
| Employee portfolio balance: | $652,549.36 |
| Self-employed portfolio balance: | $1,090,476.22 |
| Employee OASI X 2 portfolio balance: | $1,305,098.71 |
And the year-in, year-out return required for the "employee OASI X 2" contribution rate portfolio to yield a balance of $2,000,000 is: 13.4%. Not a consistent return that's likely to be achieved each and every year for forty years.
If you think that the entire FICA tax should be doubled and included as your contribution, then you'd need to earn a year-in, year-out rate of return of 11.98% every year for forty years. Again, not a realistic consistent rate of return.
We could banter this back and forth unendingly. Consider that I did have an investment portfolio worth $1 million. Even today this could easily earn 5%. That is $50,000 a year income, vs $19,000 today from Soc Sec. And when I pass, the $1 million would still be there for my heirs. And yes, there might be some income taxes to pay on that, but there are income taxes to pay on Soc Sec income too.
The bottom line of my argument is that the Soc Sec check I get now is not welfare, in any way, shape or form. If the sharks in Government mismanaged the money they took from me, that is their problem, and they should be held accountable.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Viking Kitty/ZOT ping list!. . . don't be shy.
PROTIP: Keep hammering button A on your controlller, maybe you’ll respawn!
You’re retarded.
Is / was that you Willie Green?
Hilarious. You Leftist hacks can't help calling people terribly insulting and dangerous things when your flimsy arguments fall apart. ZOT you later dude. Enjoy intercity living.
Got Zot?
BYE
And don’t be panning our Pan Yan!
That dude must have broke free from his straight jacket.
Weird.
Ahhhh...love the smell of ozone in the evening. G’bye troll! :)
...could be...
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