Mortgage Rates 8/26/2010 – Yet Another All Time Low
… mortgage rates for the conventional 30 year mortgage have continued their decline to now 4.36%, a historical all time low.
Actually there is also an update for this week from Friddie Mac, according to which rates have already dropped to 4.32%:
Mortgage rates fell to the lowest level in decades for the tenth time in 11 weeks, as investors worried about the economy.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was 4.32 percent this week, down from 4.36 percent last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. That’s the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.
The average rate on 15-year fixed loan dropped to 3.83 percent from 3.86 percent the previous week. That’s the lowest on records starting in 1991.
Annual Drug Related Deaths in the US – Marijuana Ranks Last … With ZERO
An interesting study on DrugWarFacts.org:
Tobacco 435,0001 Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,0001 Alcohol 85,000 1 Microbial Agents 75,0001 Toxic Agents 55,0001 Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,3471 Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,0002 Suicide 30,6223 Incidents Involving Firearms 29,0001 Homicide 20,3084 Sexual Behaviors 20,0001 All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,0001, 5 Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,6006 Marijuana 07
(2000) “The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of drugs (17,000).”
Correction: According to a correction published by the Journal on January 19, 2005, “On page 1240, in Table 2, ‘400,000 (16.6)’ deaths for ‘poor diet and physical inactivity’ in 2000 should be ‘365,000 (15.2).’ A dagger symbol should be added to ‘alcohol consumption’ in the body of the table and a dagger footnote should be added with ‘in 1990 data, deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in alcohol consumption deaths, but not in motor vehicle deaths. In 2000 data, 16,653 deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in both alcohol consumption and motor vehicle death categories.”
Source:Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, “Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000,” Journal of the American Medical Association, (March 10, 2004), G225 Vol. 291, No. 10, p. 1238, 1240.
http://proxy.baremetal.com/csdp.org/research/1238.pdf
Source for Correction: Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan. 19, 2005, Vol. 293, No. 3, p. 298.
(2009 – heroin) “More than 60 per cent of drug treatment demand in Asia and Europe relate to opiates that are, especially heroin, the most deadly drugs. Deaths due to overdose are, in any single year, as high as 5,000-8,000 in Europe, and several times this amount in the Russian Federation alone.”
Source:United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium” (Vienna, Austria: October 2009, p. 7.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu…
(2009 – drug violence in Mexico) “The cross-border flow of money and guns into Mexico from the United States has enabled well-armed and well-funded cartels to engage in violent activities. They employ advanced military tactics and utilize sophisticated weaponry such as sniper rifles, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and even mortars in attacks on security personnel. DTOs have openly challenged the GOM through conflict and intimidation and have fought amongst themselves to control drug distribution routes. The results led to unprecedented violence and a general sense of insecurity in certain areas of the country, particularly near the U.S. border. Between January and September 2009, there were 5,874 drug-related murders in Mexico, an almost 5 percent increase over 2008 (5,600).”
Source:United States Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Volume I, Drug and Chemical Control,” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State: March 2010)p. 432.
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/137411.pdf
(2008 – drug violence in Mexico) “More than 5,600 people died in drug trafficking violence in Mexico in 2008, more than double the prior year. This escalation in the level of violence was matched by a growing ferocity. Beginning in early 2008, there was an increase in assassinations of high-level law enforcement officials, gruesome murders including beheadings, violent kidnappings, use of a growing and varied arsenal of high-powered weapons, and one incidence of indiscriminate killing of civilians.6 The battle for control of the multi-billion dollar drug trade has been—and continues to be—brutal. While the U.S. and Mexican media began to shift their attention away from the sensational crimes allegedly committed by the Mexican DTOs in late spring, the high numbers of killings have continued, exceeding an estimated 2,000 thus far in 2009.”
Source:Beittel, June S., “Mexico’s Drug-Related Violence,” Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, May 27, 2009), pp. 7-8.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40582.pdf
(2006 – alcohol) “In 2006, a total of 22,073 persons died of alcohol-induced causes in the United States (Tables 23 and 24). This category includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of alcohol, but also accidental poisoning by alcohol. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use as well as deaths due to fetal alcohol syndrome.”
Source:Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, p, 11.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
(2006 – suicide) The US Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2006, there were a total of 33,300 deaths from suicide in the US.
Source:Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, Table B.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
(2006 – drug induced causes) “In 2006, a total of 38,396 persons died of drug-induced causes in the United States (Tables 21 and 22). This category includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of legal or illegal drugs, but also poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use, as well as newborn deaths due to the mother’s drug use.”
Source:Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, p, 11.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
(2006 – homicide) “The US Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2006, there were a total of 18,573 deaths from homicide in the US.
Source:Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, Table B.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
(2003 – HIV and race) The Centers for Disease Control reported that in 2003, HIV disease was the 22nd leading cause of death in the US for whites, the 9th leading cause of death for blacks, and the 13th leading cause of death for Hispanics.
Source:Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Smith, Betty L., BsED, Division of Vital Statistics, “Deaths: Leading Causes for 2003,” National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 10 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, March 15, 2007), p. 10, Table E, and p. 12, Table F.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_10.pdf
(2000 – illicit drug use) “Illicit drug use is associated with suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. An estimated 3 million individuals in the United States have serious drug problems. Several studies have reported an undercount of the number of deaths attributed to drugs by vital statistics; however, improved medical treatments have reduced mortality from many diseases associated with illicit drug use. In keeping with the report by McGinnis and Foege, we included deaths caused indirectly by illicit drug use in this category. We used attributable fractions to compute the number of deaths due to illicit drug use. Overall, we estimate that illicit drug use resulted in approximately 17000 deaths in 2000, a reduction of 3000 deaths from the 1990 report.”
Source:Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, “Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000,” Journal of the American Medical Association, (March 10, 2004), G225 Vol. 291, No. 10, 1242.
http://proxy.baremetal.com/csdp.org/research/1238.pdf
(1999 – marijuana) “Indeed, epidemiological data indicate that in the general population marijuana use is not associated with increased mortality.”
Source:Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base,” Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), p. 109.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309071550&page=109
(1998 – hospitalization) “Our study revealed that experiencing an ADR [Adverse Drug Reaction] while hospitalized substantially increased the risk of death (1971 excess deaths, OR 1.208, 95% CI 1.184-1.234). This finding reflects about a 20% increase in mortality associated with an ADR in hospitalized patients. Extrapolating this finding to all patients suggests that 2976 Medicare patients/year and 8336 total patients/year die in U.S. hospitals as a direct result of ADRs; this translates to approximately 1.5 patients/hospital/year.”
Source:C. A. Bond, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP and Cynthia L. Raehl, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, “Adverse Drug Reactions in United States Hospitals,” Pharmacotherapy, 2006;26(5):601-608.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531809
(1998 – marijuana)
“3. The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?“4. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.
“5. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.
“6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
“7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana’s LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
“8. At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
“9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.”
Source:US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, “In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition” (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 56-57.
http://druglibrary.net/olsen/MEDICAL/YOUNG/young4.html
(1998 – adverse drug reactions) “Adverse drug reactions are a significant public health problem in our health care system. For the 12,261,737 Medicare patients admitted to U.S. hospitals, ADRs were projected to cause the following increases: 2976 deaths, 118,200 patient-days, $516,034,829 in total charges, $37,611,868 in drug charges, and $9,456,698 in laboratory charges. If all Medicare patients were considered, these figures would be 3 times greater.”
Source:C. A. Bond, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, and Cynthia L. Raehl, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, Department of Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Amarillo, Texas, “Adverse Drug Reactions in United States Hospitals” Pharmacotherapy, 2006;26(5):601-608.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531809
(1996 – NSAIDS) “Each year, use of NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) accounts for an estimated 7,600 deaths and 76,000 hospitalizations in the United States.” (NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, ketoprofen, and tiaprofenic acid.)
Source:Robyn Tamblyn, PhD; Laeora Berkson, MD, MHPE, FRCPC; W. Dale Jauphinee, MD, FRCPC; David Gayton, MD, PhD, FRCPC; Roland Grad, MD, MSc; Allen Huang, MD, FRCPC; Lisa Isaac, PhD; Peter McLeod, MD, FRCPC; and Linda Snell, MD, MHPE, FRCPC, “Unnecessary Prescribing of NSAIDs and the Management of NSAID-Related Gastropathy in Medical Practice,” Annals of Internal Medicine (Washington, DC: American College of Physicians, 1997), September 15, 1997, 127:429-438.
http://www.annals.org/content/127/6/429.full.pdf
Citing: Fries, JF, “Assessing and understanding patient risk,” Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology Supplement, 1992;92:21-4.»
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… just in case people were wondering if there was any point in the US government’s war on drugs :)
Graduating in the UK- A Record 70 Applications Per Job on Average
The guardian writes Graduates warned of record 70 applicants for every job:
Graduates are facing the most intense scramble in a decade to get a job this summer, as a poll of employers reveals the number of applications for each vacancy has surged to nearly 70 while the number of available positions is predicted to fall by nearly 7%.
The class of 2010 have been told to consider flipping burgers or stacking shelves when they leave university as leading firms in investment banking, law and IT are due to cut graduate jobs this year.
Competition in the jobs market is fiercer now than for the first “post-crunch” generation of students, last year, when there were 48 applications for each vacancy.
And so the global depression continues … To those folks who were looking for a job in investment banking or similar opportunities and are now presented the option to take a job flipping burgers or stocking shelves … take it rather sooner than later! It’s not a bad thing to do something that’s actually useful for a change.
Iraq – Mission Accomplished
Seven years of US led genocide have truly wrecked yet another nation. As a premonition of what’s to come, Iraqi insurgents launched a broad series of attacks on August 25th.
Let’s not forget to thank president Bush and the US Congress for this hideous accomplishment. Let’s also not forget to thank President Obama for keeping US forces stationed in this hell hole …
From JustForeignPolicy.org:
Sign the petition telling Congress that about a million Iraqis have likely been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Help us expose to Congress the true costs of war.
A study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The death counter provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)
The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US-led invasion.
This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it. You can use the simple HTML code above to post the counter to your website to help spread the word.
Add your name to the petition telling Congress that about a million Iraqis have likely been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Help us continue this important work with a tax-deductible contribution.
See the list of some folks we know have posted the counter.
I will say it again as I have many times … War is a Racket – Made by Government.
Our Children are too Smart for Public Schooling
July 2010 – New One Family Home Sales at All Time Low; ZERO Units Over 750K Sold!!
Two days ago the data on new home sales was published for July. What caught my (and probably everybody else’s) eye was the all time low in new one family home sales, at 276,000:
And how’s the high end market doing? See Breakfast with Dave:
The high-end market, in particular, is under tremendous pressure. In fact, it is becoming non-existent. Guess how many homes prices above $750k managed to sell in July. Answer — zero, nada, rien; and for the second month in a row. Only 1,000 units priced above 500,000 moved last month. That’s it!
This is really as bad as it gets. Mish sums it up succinctly:
Inventory is up, sales are down, sentiment has soured, and tax credits have gone poof.
Prices will follow.
Krugman vs Krugman – Take 2
Alright, time for some more wisdom:
November 2008 – Krugman in “Stimulus Math – Wonkish”:
When I put all this together, I conclude that the stimulus package should be at least 4% of GDP, or $600 billion.
That’s twice what the unreliable rumor says. So if there’s any truth to the rumor, my advice to the powers that be (or more accurately will be in a couple of months) is to think hard – you really, really don’t want to lowball this.
July 2010 – Krugman in How Did We Know the Stimulus Was too Small:
Those of us who say that the stimulus was too small are often accused of after-the-fact rationalization: you said this would work, but now that it hasn’t, you’re just saying it wasn’t big enough. The quick answer to that accusation is that people like me said that the stimulus was too small in advance.
(…)
To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.
This stuff is just too hysterical for words …
July Home Sales Likely Worst Month in a Decade
The AP Writes July home sales likely plunged:
The housing market is taking a turn for the worse.
Tuesday’s report from the National Association of Realtors about sales of previously occupied homes is expected to show sales plunged in July. Economists are predicting as much as a 26 percent drop from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.95 million. That would be the worst month for sales in more than a decade.
Many say the market is hurting because buyers and sellers are in a standoff over home prices. Sellers have unrealistic expectations about their home values and are listing properties on the high end.
Buyers are afraid home prices will start falling after being flat nationally for about a year and even rising in some parts of the country.
These are the inevitable workings of a slip back into recession, a double dip recession if you consider the phony reflation efforts of the past year to have been a break from the recession (which I would have my doubts about … but these are minor details in the grand scheme).
In short … The Great Depression 2.0:
Once existing stimulus programs and credit expansion attempts subside, there won’t be much left to pick up the slack. The consumer won’t be able to go back to business as usual unless he goes through a long period of reduced consumption, deleveraging, and savings, a period during which the majority of production and spending inside the US will have to be focused on capital goods, so as to restore a balanced ratio between the production of consumer goods and the production of capital goods.
At the point when these government stimuli wind down, Keynesian clowns will be jumping out of the bushes left and right, and demand that the government take on more debt and spend more money. But at some point their mindless tirades will no longer appeal to an overtaxed and overleveraged populace. Their ivory tower nonsense will be way too far detached from simple realities.
Any temporary recovery we witness now, is likely to be remembered as just that, a temporary phenomenon. All actions taken so far have set the perfect stage for a double dip recession of enormous proportions, the worst possible prolongation of the necessary correction.
If it was our dear government’s objective to repeat the playbook from the Great Depression one by one, then they have indeed succeeded phenomenally.
It should be clear by now to the most adamant believers … there was, is, and will be no recovery anytime soon.
Mortgage Rates at All Time Low
The 30 year mortgage rate has dropped to an average of 4.44% on August 12th 2010:
This is a historical all time low:
Treasury rates are also headed south again, to now 2.61%:
These are classical phenomenons of deflation.
This is why I wrote about a year and a half ago:
Treasury yields have developed as expected over the past few months. I expect the same direction for mortgage rates: They will continue to drop much much lower than where they are now. As Treasury yields move toward zero, mortgage rates will drop to between 2% and 3%. Whoever thinks of getting in now to get a “great bargain” should think again and wait.
I said in that post that I expect 30 yr mortgage rates to drop to such low levels because I am drawing from examples from the Japanese deflation.
Interesting Facts on US the US Health Care system
Community Activity- Kent Neal became a registered member September 3, 2010
- Cory Shelton wrote a new blog post: Welcome to my new blog! September 3, 2010
- Frederick Lawson wrote a new blog post: Whelan eager to make up for World Cup misery September 2, 2010
- Frederick Lawson wrote a new blog post: Cunningham fitness boost for Saints September 2, 2010
- Frederick Lawson wrote a new blog post: News Roundup: 'Glee' Promo Teases Relationship Drama, 'Buffy' Star ... September 2, 2010
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