The Goat Pen

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 1:30 pm "Wait for the new home construction to take a hit. Probably 20-30k extra to build an average home if the fucking genius actually follows through."

Of course builders are not just going to tack on their extra costs, they're going to tack on their standard percentage profit to the new total cost (and why shouldn't they?), so if it's costing them and extra $30K in labor, it's going to cost the customer and extra $40K...

At the moment the new home construction is largely mall and office building conversion into condos and apartments. It is whatever it is. Talk to any of these people who are doing all the building and they all say the same thing, costs are way up no matter how things are going, no matter what decisions are made by the fed.

let interest rates drop below 5% (if the FED allows it) tariffs on housing costs won't slow down a boom

eCat wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:14 pm let interest rates drop below 5% (if the FED allows it) tariffs on housing costs won't slow down a boom

Not sure there is a huge market demand for houses at the moment. Seems everyone I talk to wants to rent things or buy a condo. Not for sure why that is but that is the way things are shaking out in Arizona. Maybe lowering interest rates changes all that.

How will lowering interest rates change all of that? Oh, by incentivizing lots of people to go out and BORROW money so they can buy a house? No fucking duh. But you're against that, you think people should only buy a house when they saved enough to pay for the whole thing up front. So why do you care if interest rates are low? That only encourages more borrowing (not just for houses, but for everything) and you hate that. Good god, the US economy would be a small fraction of what it is today if nobody could buy anything until they had saved enough money to do so. Hell, you probably think very high interest rates are a good thing, so hoarders of cash like you can sit in your little burrow like a fidgety mole and collect higher interest on it.

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 3:27 pm How will lowering interest rates change all of that? Oh, by incentivizing lots of people to go out and BORROW money so they can buy a house? No fucking duh. But you're against that, you think people should only buy a house when they saved enough to pay for the whole thing up front. So why do you care if interest rates are low? That only encourages more borrowing (not just for houses, but for everything) and you hate that. Good god, the US economy would be a small fraction of what it is today if nobody could buy anything until they had saved enough money to do so. Hell, you probably think very high interest rates are a good thing, so hoarders of cash like you can sit in your little burrow like a fidgety mole and collect higher interest on it.

I never said this. But we do borrow too much. There is no 2008 financial crisis without all that mortgage debt, we all know that.

Forget housing hedge. People are putting their damn door dash on credit now, these people are nuts. This is not good for capitalism or society in general.

It's good for the restaurants that provide the food and the drivers who bring it to the people who ordered it and for all the industries that benefit from the related expenditures that facilitate these transactions (big oil, the creditors who pay for the meals up front, etc, etc). Why do you hate commerce?

American Soybean Association takes aim at U.S. health secretary Kennedy | The Western Producer
America’s soybean industry has fired a loud warning shot at seed oil skeptics.
www.producer.com www.producer.com

On Tuesday, the American Soybean Association said that a ban on seed oils in the U.S. food supply would inflict billions in economic damage to farmers and force American consumers to spend an additional USD$7.7 billion annually on replacement products like palm oil, olive oil and animal fat.

The data comes from a study commissioned by the United Soybean Board, which hired the World Agricultural Economic and Environmental Services, a consultancy, to evaluate the impacts of a U.S. ban on seed oils like soybean, canola, corn, sunflower and cottonseed oil.

The ban would force the U.S. to import large volumes of palm and olive oil, thus driving up the price of palm oil, the study found.

“Since significant quantities of olive and palm oil are not produced domestically, the US becomes more reliant on imports of vegetable oils,” the report says.

“Under the flat veg oil consumption scenario, the shift in US food consumption to palm oil results in higher palm oil prices with palm selling at a 78 per cent average premium to soybean oil prices over the 2025/26-2035/36 period.”

Plus, Americans consume about 58 lbs of soybean, canola and corn oil annually, per capita. Replacing that with other oils and fats would be complicated and costly, the report noted.

FEMA slashes $300 million in flooding, hurricane relief projects in Florida
The cancellation of the program comes as the Trump administration says it may scrap FEMA altogether.
www.tampabay.com www.tampabay.com

Nearly $300 million in federal aid meant to help protect Florida communities from flooding, hurricanes and other natural disasters has been frozen since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Now the state will never get the money, leaving dozens of projects in limbo, from a plan to raise roads in St. Augustine to a $150 million effort to strengthen canals in South Florida.

Calling it a “wasteful, politicized grant program,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Cameron Hamilton last week ended the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program.

BRIC is only a portion — but a significant one — of all FEMA funds received by Florida. The cancellation of the program comes as the Trump administration says it may scrap FEMA altogether and give funds directly to the states to deal with disaster response as they see fit.

Hamilton canceled all BRIC grants from 2020 to 2023, so any approved but not-yet-used money cannot be spent and must be returned to the federal government.

Florida will lose $293 million of the $312 million Congress okayed for hurricane relief and flood mitigation efforts. It had so far spent only $19 million, or 6%, of its BRIC grants.

MAGA Suddenly Alarmed That Christians Might Be Subject To Trump's Deportation Program
Evangelical Trump supporters are suddenly concerned about the Trump administration's deportation policy because Latino Christians might become victims.
www.peoplefor.org www.peoplefor.org

When a group of religious-right activists and Christian nationalists were invited to the White House to pray over President Donald Trump at in the Oval Office last month, they also sat down for a meeting with faith adviser Paula White and members of the White House Faith Office.

Among the topics discussed at the meeting, according to former Trump administration official and an ardent Christian nationalist William Wolfe, was conservative Christians' desire to see Trump carry out mass deportations.

Trump-loving right-wing pastor Jim Garlow was among those, along with Wolfe, who were invited to meet Trump and attend the meeting with Trump's faith advisers, but he does not seem to share Wolfe's desire to see mass deportations, at least if they involve Christians.

On Sunday's episode of his "World Prayer Network" podcast, Garlow brought on immigration attorney Esther Valdes Clayton to sound the alarm over the prospect that tens of thousands of Latino Christians could be forcibly deported from the United States because of the Trump administration's policies.

Valdes Clayton opened her remarks by working to reassure Garlow's conservative audience that these Latinos share their values.

"I just want to reassure everybody ... that Latinos love God," she said. "We have the same God. We have a monotheistic religion. Our tradition, our values; 97% of Latinos go to church. We believe in a male and female. No transgender. Our language is gendered. Everything ends in an O and an A, meaning that everything is masculine and feminine, and we go to church regularly."

I don’t hate commerce. I hate that far too many grown adults can’t pass a marshmallow test. When states were shutting down for Covid the restaurants remained open because far too many of our poor people did not know how to cook for themselves. That’s fucked up. I suppose great for commerce but shitty for society and poor people. Living on debt for everything and not just housing and we have a beggar class of US citizens instead of a thrifty working class.

True. Hell, half the country thinks Trump's tariffs are the worst thing ever b/c the lib media and propaganda apparatus tells them that. Meanwhile Obama and Biden literally kicked 5 million ppl out of their homes after bailing out the big banks that committed the treachery. That's a dealbreaker for anyone paying attention. And that's only 1 example, brahs.

Shut it, welfare boy..

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 1:30 pm "Wait for the new home construction to take a hit. Probably 20-30k extra to build an average home if the fucking genius actually follows through."

Of course builders are not just going to tack on their extra costs, they're going to tack on their standard percentage profit to the new total cost (and why shouldn't they?), so if it's costing them and extra $30K in labor, it's going to cost the customer and extra $40K...

Labor is only one concern. A ton of materials to build come from China.

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:11 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 1:30 pm "Wait for the new home construction to take a hit. Probably 20-30k extra to build an average home if the fucking genius actually follows through."

Of course builders are not just going to tack on their extra costs, they're going to tack on their standard percentage profit to the new total cost (and why shouldn't they?), so if it's costing them and extra $30K in labor, it's going to cost the customer and extra $40K...

At the moment the new home construction is largely mall and office building conversion into condos and apartments. It is whatever it is. Talk to any of these people who are doing all the building and they all say the same thing, costs are way up no matter how things are going, no matter what decisions are made by the fed.

You are one dumb motherfucker.

Jungle Rat wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 7:36 pm

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:11 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 1:30 pm "Wait for the new home construction to take a hit. Probably 20-30k extra to build an average home if the fucking genius actually follows through."

Of course builders are not just going to tack on their extra costs, they're going to tack on their standard percentage profit to the new total cost (and why shouldn't they?), so if it's costing them and extra $30K in labor, it's going to cost the customer and extra $40K...

At the moment the new home construction is largely mall and office building conversion into condos and apartments. It is whatever it is. Talk to any of these people who are doing all the building and they all say the same thing, costs are way up no matter how things are going, no matter what decisions are made by the fed.

You are one dumb motherfucker.

Perhaps.

Anytime you want to take an IQ test, I'm down with it. I'll score at least 20 points higher than you.

I've already taken 2. I scored 3 points better stoned.

Maybe you can score 6 points higher dead?

A

the irony of Letitia James being investigated for lying on mortgage applications to get government backed lending rates.

they all bet that Trump wouldn't get elected and the money train would just continue

they are all losing big on that bet now.

hedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 4:16 pm American Soybean Association takes aim at U.S. health secretary Kennedy | The Western Producer
America’s soybean industry has fired a loud warning shot at seed oil skeptics.
www.producer.com www.producer.com

On Tuesday, the American Soybean Association said that a ban on seed oils in the U.S. food supply would inflict billions in economic damage to farmers and force American consumers to spend an additional USD$7.7 billion annually on replacement products like palm oil, olive oil and animal fat.

The data comes from a study commissioned by the United Soybean Board, which hired the World Agricultural Economic and Environmental Services, a consultancy, to evaluate the impacts of a U.S. ban on seed oils like soybean, canola, corn, sunflower and cottonseed oil.

The ban would force the U.S. to import large volumes of palm and olive oil, thus driving up the price of palm oil, the study found.

“Since significant quantities of olive and palm oil are not produced domestically, the US becomes more reliant on imports of vegetable oils,” the report says.

“Under the flat veg oil consumption scenario, the shift in US food consumption to palm oil results in higher palm oil prices with palm selling at a 78 per cent average premium to soybean oil prices over the 2025/26-2035/36 period.”

Plus, Americans consume about 58 lbs of soybean, canola and corn oil annually, per capita. Replacing that with other oils and fats would be complicated and costly, the report noted.

just so we're clear, you're supporting economic well being over the health of Americans, correct?