PUSHING SOLAR POWER in Knoxville.
Archive for September, 2008
September 30, 2008
AT THE TRUTH ABOUT CARS, a review of the 2009 Mazda RX-8 (R3 Sport Package).
HANDS-ON WITH M.I.T.’s new robotic submarine.
To test Nancy Pelosi’s hypothesis that after eight years of President Bush the economy is in far worse shape than it was under President Clinton at a time of “budget surpluses,†I went to Lending Tree to see what kind of mortgage terms I could get to buy my first home today. . . .
So what kind of offer did I get today in the midst of this horrible financial crisis? I got four offers, the lowest of which was a 15-year fixed-rate VA mortgage of 6.0%, zero points and zero down, yielding a monthly payment of $948.20. Yes, that’s right, as bad as everyone says the economy is today, I can get the same mortgage as I had twelve years ago for about $250 a month less than I was paying 12 years ago in the midst of a “great†economy.
But what about the rise in prices of real estate, you might argue? Good question. So I checked Realtor.com to see what my old house might cost today. While that particular home isn’t currently on the market, another home with the same floorplan and in the same division is listed at $139,000. Plugging that amount into the 6.485% effective annual percentage rate of the mortgage I was offered today and I could buy my old home again today for $1,209.69 a month–about a dollar less than what I was paying for the same home in 1996.
Yeah, but try getting a 120% no-doc interest-only loan now!
UPDATE: Reader Todd McLaren writes: “I’m not all that surprised that this guy could get a good mortgage at a great rate and payments… but I was SHOCKED that he could buy a house for 139,000.” Todd was emailing from California. Houses are a lot cheaper elsewhere.
BRUCE BAWER: Who’s Sleeping More Deeply — Europe, or America?
NOT IMPRESSED WITH “LIBERTARIAN PATERNALISM:” Will Wilkinson reviews Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. We did a podcast interview with Sunstein a while back — it’s here.
PROGRESS IN MAKING CHEAP HYDROGEN FUEL using nanotechnology.
Can you still make it from scratch in America? That’s the question that Adam Shepard asked himself in college. On graduation, he took a train to Charleston, South Carolina and started out with nothing but $25 and a backpack. A year later, he had a car, and apartment, and $2500 in the bank. How he did it — and what he learned along the way — is the story of his new book, Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream.
We talk to Shepard about what it takes to get ahead, how better-off Americans have lost touch with the world of work, and what politicians and pundits ought to be talking about.
You can listen directly — no downloads needed — by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. Or you can download the file and listen at your leisure by clicking right here.
Music is by Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere.
FIVE DISEASES YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT: Where the next pandemic will come from. Er, get back to me later — busy worrying about economic collapse today.
UPDATE: On the other hand, at the moment the market, and the dollar, are both up. Go figure.
OBAMA’S TELEPROMPTER issues its demands. “Hot, kinky young iMacs?”
JOHN TIERNEY ON JET-SETTING ENVIRONMENTALISTS: “I’ve given Brad Pitt and Al Gore grief about their carbon footprints. But it’s clear from a study in England that celebrities aren’t the only greens with a fondness for jet travel. . . . So are the green habits at home doing such a good job of mitigating guilt that they’re interfering with more realistic strategies to cut greenhouse emissions? If so, to me that’s one more argument against recycling.”
ABC NEWS: And What About Those 95 Democrats? “Considering that only a dozen votes needed to switch in order to provide a different outcome, and 95 Democrats in the House voted against it, critics are now wondering why couldn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have assured a different outcome considering how important she said its passage was? Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told me yesterday that he felt no pressure at all to vote for the bill.” That’s decisive Congressional leadership . . . .
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
THE PROS AND CONS OF LETTING BIDEN BE BIDEN. Meanwhile, I think the Republicans should let Palin be Palin. She was doing better before the handlers closed in.
And the Biden-withdrawal rumors now make the L.A. Times. I still don’t believe them, but they sure are persistent.
AT THE CBC, an apology for a column about Sarah Palin.
MICKEY KAUS: “If Nancy Pelosi had wanted to screw Sen. McCain, could she have done a better job? Just asking!”
UPDATE: Reader Greg Shea writes:
Here’s what I don’t understand:
When Republicans have control of Congress, it is Republicans’ fault for not passing legislation to stave off economic trouble.
When Democrats have control of Congress, it is Republicans’ fault for not passing the bailout. Must be nice…
Heh.
THE U.S. NAVY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Fighting Pirates. No, really.
MAKING LIFE EASIER FOR ACORN: Courts Allow Same-Day Registration, Voting in Ohio.
A REMINDER OF Barney Frank’s role in the current mess. “Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.”
NANCY’S DISASTER: “The fact is, 95 Democrats – 40 percent of the party’s House membership – voted against the bill. Pelosi – who allegedly controls the chamber – couldn’t even deliver her own members. How humiliating is that?” Many of those Democrats who voted against, of course, did so with Pelosi’s blessing.
MARK STEYN: “As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing.”
AT OUROBOROS, blogging the Cold Spring Harbor Conference on the Molecular Genetics of Aging. Interesting stuff, just keep scrolling.