Is the Housing Market As Bad as Mainstream Media Would Have You Believe? Distorting the Numbers
Posted on July 10th, 2008
The headlines are bad. In May and in June.
The U.S. housing situation is quite bad, one of the worst markets in history. It’s a complex situation that’s difficult to understand in aggregate. But rather than provide any real data or insight allowing readers can make their own conclusions, mainstream media wraps the most sensational data points they can find in a fear mongering fluff piece that provides no insight whatsoever.
This month, foreclosures were up 53% from a year ago. This means that from June 2007 to June 2008, foreclosures were up 53%. Last month, foreclosures were up by 48% from a year ago. Sadly, as most Americans are competely math illiterate, few understand what that even means.
On a month to month basis, from May to June, that’s actually not as terrible as the headlines would have you believe. If you look deeper into the data, it’s actually siginicantly improved. This month, “One in every 501 U.S. households either lost the home to foreclosure, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction.” Last month, it was one in every 483. That’s a significant improvement.
Even the source for this info, Realty Trac, Inc., agrees that this may be good news. What picture do they paint? “Foreclosure Activity Deflating or Just Deferred?”
“One could argue that this chart shows that the bulk of the properties that were at risk for foreclosure have migrated through the process and are now being repossessed by the foreclosing lenders. There is not a continued massive surge in defaults and auction notices, so once the lenders have disposed of their REO inventory, the real estate market can start to return to normal.”
America’s Insolvency Crisis.
Posted on January 11th, 2008
Generally, I am not a fan of Glen Beck, but this is a topic that desperately needs more attention.
[via TruthNews]
It’s worth noting that prior to Bush’s term we only needed $20 trillion to covery our debts, vs. the currently needed $53 Trillion.
Read More: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712
Video: Evolution of Media
Posted on October 2nd, 2007
This is a very cool video showing the evolution of advertising and media through the the past century. This was put together by some friends at whatisaggressive.com for use in a presentation by Grey Global Group (an ad agency).
Craigslist Having a Hard Time Registering Your Email Privately
Posted on September 18th, 2007
A friend of mine was registering for a craigslist account, but when he clicked to register, noticed there was someone else’s email address already in the registration field.
I looked for myself, hit refresh a few times and found several more email addresses
See for yourself: https://accounts.craigslist.org/login/signup
Ebay: The UI Experts
Posted on June 12th, 2007
What a sad and hopelessly unusable site, Ebay is becoming. I canceled my credit card account, and without any means to bill me, Ebay has now placed my account on hold. After clicking through 3 pages before getting to opportunity to log-in, I read the following message:
This account has been restricted and you will not be able to bid or list on eBay. To avoid further collections please pay your fees today by following these steps:
- Log on to http://www.ebay.com
- Click ‘Site Map’ at the top of the page
- In the ‘My Selling Account’ section, click ‘Make a Single Payment’. Sign in if requested
- Select a method to pay your eBay fees and follow the online instructions on page
Great. You couldn’t just give me a link to the “Make Single Payment” page?
The Most Foolish American: George W. Bush?
Posted on April 4th, 2007
[Via Crooksandliars.com]“Phoenix Fox 10 News runs a poll to see who is “the most foolish American” and the host proclaims—Britney Spears the winner! That wouldn’t be surprising except that the real winner of the poll was…..drum roll please……George Bush….”
This is surprising, given the traditional bent of fox news viewers. At first, I thought it might be a typo, but it looks legit. If you add up all totals, you’ll get 99%.
“No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.”
-University of Maryland Study, 2003
Teaching Evolution In the US
Posted on April 4th, 2007
An interesting, though dated, map from strangemaps on the teaching of evolution. It’s from the March 2002 issue of Scientific American.
And the Simpson’s take…
The Coffee Wars
Posted on February 20th, 2007
In a neat article from the March issue of Consumer Reports, the magazine conducted a little coffee taste testing[$]. Visiting two locations per company, Consumer report’s three testers tried coffees in basic black – no flavors, milk, or sugar. “You know what? McDonald’s beat the rest.”
The Results
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| McDonald’s | Starbucks | Dunkin’ Donuts | Burger King |
| $1.35 | $1.55; | $1.65 | $1.40 |
| Decent and moderately strong. Although it lacked the subtle top notes needed to make it rise and shine, it had no flaws. | Strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open. | Weak, watery, and pricier than Starbucks. It was inoffensive, but it had no oomph. | Looked like coffee but tasted more like hot water. It was a little sour, with an unusual hint of chocolate. |
| CR’s take: Try McDonald’s, which was cheapest and best, or make your own coffee–just call it something special. The other three were all only OK, but for different reasons. | |||
I feel vindicated. While I’m not a huge fan of McDonald’s coffee, I’ve always hated Starbucks in spite of my roommate insistence of it’s awesomeness.
The Digg Mafia Turning Users Away? Digg Failing? Let’s digg a Little Deeper…
Posted on February 18th, 2007
A recently Dugg (and then buried) post by Ajay over at Techtities.com draws attention to a recent fall in traffic to Digg.com. He essentially, declares the sky falling on Digg. Apparently, Kevin Rose must do something “before the Digg Mafia drive away all the normal users.” Eek.
While I have my own concerns about Digg, let’s take a closer look at the data. As Ajay points out, there does appear to be a bit of a drop off.
Now, let’s dig a little deeper…
Oh Look, del.icio.us is experiencing the same trend! Oh look, craigslist.org is experiencing almost exactly the same trend line!
Digg is hardly driving away users. Whatever is going on, it’s broader than Digg.
Plausible Explanations:
- While Digg’s demographics are generally broad and continuing to diversify, I’d argue that Digg’s most active contributors are students (not just undergrads) and others in academia. November, December and January are months particularly packed with exams and vacation days.
- These are holiday months. Every year the web experiences traffic lows during these months, when people are visiting with family, doing their X-mas shopping, tending to end of year closings and attempting to honor their New Years resolutions.
- Alternatively, perhaps Alexa is re-weighting their user base to reflect changing web demographics.
One final consideration: If you look at the very tail end of the graph, at least for now, it looks like Digg and these other sites are prepping to bounce back.
Republican Senators Flip-flop on Escalation
Posted on February 6th, 2007
Last night, Senate conservatives successfully blocked debate on a bipartisan anti-escalation resolution. At least eight senators who claim to oppose sending more U.S. troops to Iraq voted the wrong way, supporting the conservative filibuster. They include Sens. John Warner (R-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE). John Warner (R-VA) actually introduced the anti-escalation resolution in question, voting against his own bill.
read more | digg story