Housing prices picking up in U.S...but not so much here

      I noticed the Wisconsin Association of Realtors did some  crowing about the rebound in Wisconsin home sale prices, given that they were up 10% in December 2012 vs. 12 months ago, and that there were more than 20% more homes sold than in 2011.

  Good on the surface, but as you'll see, Wisconsin's housing market had been in a slump until the last couple of months, and the end of 2012 isn't necessarily an indication of future growth. A chart of the last 6 years bears this out. The numbers are understandably bumpy, with higher prices of the median home sale in June vs. December (a typical pattern because bigger, higher-priced homes are more likely to sell in the Summer months, as children are out of school and families find it easier to move).
However, the general trend has certainly been downward.

    Wisconsin median home sales price, 2007-2012

     

Narrowing it down to the age of Obama, let's now see how this trend compares to the rest of the U.S., and our Midwestern neighbors. Yes, there were large decreases in home prices much of the country from 2006-2008, and Wisconsin's drop wasn't as far as in other parts of the country like California, Nevada and Florida. But you'll see that much of the rest of the country has started to see home values go up, Wisconsin took quite a while to catch up. Throwing a 4-quarter moving average will help show the overall trend, and smooth out the seasonal ups and downs for prices. The U.S. is in red, Midwest in green, and Wisconsin in blue. Notice that Wisconsin largely tracked the drop in home values for the U.S. and the Midwest from 2009-2011. But look at how the gap starts to open up between the U.S. and (especially) the Midwest in early 2011, and the prices in the rest of the country were turning up ahead of Wisconsin.

   Median sales prices 2008-2012

 
 So Wisconsin's recent increase in home prices has little to do conditions unique to us, but instead it's the improving economy in the rest of the country that's dragging us off of the bottom. It is no coincidence that Wisconsin took several months to be part of the current housing price recovery that started in late 2011, because Act 10 and the school-cutting Walker/WisGOP budget was introduced in 2011, and the effects of these acts were still kicking in. Gee, you cut family's salaries and screw up a community's public schools, and property values start to lag. Amazing how that works, doesn't it?

And this is where the last chart comes in. Much like the other one, Wisconsin's drop in prices largely matched the one in the Midwest from September 2008 through the end of 2010, and neither part of the country had price drops as bad as we were seeing in the rest of the country. But starting with the passage of Act 10 in March 2011, you see how Wisconsin's home values went down, and the median home value drop in the last 4+ years is now more than the drop that's happened in the U.S. as a whole.
  

   The chart shows that the median home sales price in Wisconsin is still more than 10% below the levels it was at in September 2008, and it's just influenced by the typically lower prices of the winter season. The $132,000 median price the Wisconsin Realtors reported in December 2012 is still lower than the $134,900 we had in December 2010- the month before Scott Walker took office. And that's in clear contrast to the other parts in the country have seen their home sales prices go up over the same time period.

   Change in median home sales price, Dec 2010 vs. Dec 2012 
   U.S. +6.88%
   Midwest +4.44%
   Wisconsin -2.15%

    And it also explains why even if you've had a limited increase in property taxes over the last 2 years, it still isn't that helpful to you, because your TAX RATES have gone up due to the drop in home values. Even the president of the Realtors admits, “The slight upward movement in median home prices in 2012 will likely get some potential buyers off the fence in 2013, but the key to ongoing growth in housing is sustained employment growth in the state, which has been anemic at best this past year." Ruh roh.

  So despite the big talk from the pro-Walker Wisconsin Realtors, it still ain't working when it comes to the Wisconsin housing market, and don't let the spinsters from the Right-Wing Wisconsin tell you otherwise.

  P.S. My significant other reminds me that the taxes on her home sure as hell didn't go down- they went up by more than 10% this past year. That's the double-whammy of living in one of the few areas of the state that is seeing home prices going up- you get the higher tax rates AND the higher assessment.

This week in WisGOP idiocy- unparalelled?

I understand that there's a certain baseline of Wisconsin Republican foolishness. Sometimes it's worthy of a minor laugh or annoyance, but often it's only at the beningn level. But this week was truly a special one, as not 1, not 2, but 3 Wisconsin Republican toolboxes found a way to make our great state look like a bunch of backwards, myopic fuckheads that belong in the Confederacy instead of the Upper Midwest.

1. Let's start at the top, with Governor Scott Walker. His miserable jobs record and long-term debt isn't good enough anymore, oh no. This time, Gov. Dropout repeated his common mistake of running smack when he really has no right to (a good example of which is here).

This time, it was in trying to ridicule the budget of our neighbors to the west, as Walker ripped on  Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's plan to raise income taxes on the rich and in restructuring the Minnesota tax code on sales taxes and other items. Well, Minnesota Public Radio took a look at our two states, and it pretty much shows Minnesota has kicked our economic ass since Walker and Dayton both took office in 2011. Here's but one of those charts, which shows Minnesota has continued to gain jobs since 2011, while Wisconsin has treaded water at best over the last 2 years.

Look at that cross in early 2011 between the red (Wisconsin) and blue (Minnesota) lines. Right around the time of Act 10, and no it's not a coincidence. Oh, and need I mention that Minnesota has now passed us for total jobs, despite having 384,000 fewer people than Wisconsin only 2 years ago? Any leader who gave a fuck about results might look at why we're getting passed and learn something, but not Scotty. No sir. He's got that Dubya-style "cocksuredness in the face of absolute failure" down pat.

2. Speaking of cocksure bigmouths, how about the week Paul Ryan had? First, he gets ridiculed by Jon Stewart for his typical ass-clownery- this time about his whole "makers vs. takers" bullshit.



Of course, Ryan's act is doubly rich when it comes from a guy like Purty Mouth Paulie who's never had a real job outside of D.C.

But that didn't stop Ryan. Oh hell no. He then showed up at some D.C. event where he promptly got humiliated by Ezra Klein and others in the Washington press corp who have finally decided this guy's 15 minutes are now up. Here's a typical passage.

“What is the evidence,” [Klein] asked, “be it historical or academic, underneath the idea that bringing another $600 billion or $700 billion out of tax expenditures — which some Republicans, like Alan Greenspan, think is properly classified as spending anyway — what is the evidence that makes you convinced that would have such a deleterious effect on the economy that it wouldn’t be worth taking it to get the debt deal?”

“I think rates matter,” Ryan replied. “I think the statutory rate matters at the end of the day.”

“But you could have the same or lower rate there,” [Klein] said. After all, if you’re closing loopholes, the top marginal tax rate doesn’t change.

“I don’t know about that,” said Ryan. “Remember, we have to write these things statically. We don’t use macroeconomic feedback on the Joint Tax Committee.”

“But if you capped deductions at $15,000,” I pressed, “that wouldn’t change rates.” (to anyone with a clue about taxes, you know these are 2 different things)

Ryan didn’t budge. “You have to decide where you want to cap deduction or which deductions stay or go, what will pass, and what the resulting rates will be. The other problem I’ve noticed — and this is just experience from my 15 years in Congress — every time you give a little revenue, it just goes to spending. The spending cuts are always later and the revenue gets pocketed. It’s one of those fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

He's avoiding the point and talking out of his ass. As a former high school teacher, you can spot someone trying to spew bullshit with terms and jargon while not having a clue what they're saying, and Pau-LIE defines it throughout this Klein article. What a fool.

3. But he isn't the biggest embarrassment from Wisconsin on Capitol Hill this week. Oh no, that clearly goes to Senator Ron Johnson, who earned his nickname of (mo)Ron this week in spectacular fashion.

Part 1 involves an amateur like Johnson being eviscerated by a true pro- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who exposed (mo)Ron as the inherited-wealth loudmouth no-talent that he is.



The Chief has more on just how ignorant (mo)Ron was in this exchange. It's truly staggering that this guy would ignore answers that he was already given in order to give Faux News talking points.

But (mo)Ron wasn't done for the week! He followed up that humiliation with another, where Clinton's probable successor, Senator John Kerry, showed Johnson was totally talking out of his clueless ass, revealing that Johnson ditched a meeting where he could have actually learned something about Benghazi (the good stuff starts around 1:26 here- "Were you at the briefing with the tapes?" (mo)Ron- "No.").



No, you don't know what happened in Benghazi you (mo)Ron, because YOU PASSED UP THE CHANCE TO SEE THE TAPES. As I said to others this week, Kerry had to be thinking "Dear God, Wisconsinites chose this ignorant fuckup over Russ Feingold? Are you kidding?"

So that's 3 pretty good candidates for "political Wisconsin embarrassment of the week." I'm even going to be charitable and leave out David (Get Yer Guns!) Clarke, as he's a small time loser, and not on the level of Gov. Dropout, Purty Mouth Pau-LIE or (mo)Ron. My choice in this category is for Johnson, for catapulting from nationwide obscurity to Allen West/ Michelle Bachmann levels of "Who could have voted for this dipshit?" But you are more than welcome to state your case in the comments.

  All I know is that I'm tired of having to apologize for having these guys represent my state. NO  MORE.

Enjoy that surplus...for the next 5 months

You can bet the right-wing media in this state will spend the next few days crowing about the Legislative Fiscal Bureau report which estimates Wisconsin will end Scott Walker's first 2-year budget with a $484 million surplus. And on the surface, this is true- the report estimates that Wisconsin will take in more in revenues than expenses for the two-year period, and by an even higher amount than the $348 million Walker's Department of Administration estimated late last year.

So how'd this $136 million increase in the surplus happen? Let's let the LFB tell you.

First, the estimated tax collections of this memorandum are $37.1 million above the administration's projections.

Second, net departmental revenues are projected to be $35.0 million above the amounts shown in the November 20 report.

Third, it is estimated that net appropriations will be $64.5 million below the amount reflected in the administration's report. Among the reasons for the difference are a reduction in estimated debt service payments ($25.5 million) (done by borrowing on the state's credit card and adding more debt and expense for later years) , a projected lapse in the SeniorCare program ($18.0 million) (cutting Senior Care, nice) , and an estimated reduction in the cost of various refundable tax credits ($19.0 million).

Oh, and the LFB also includes $584 million in lapses, which I haven't seen a lot of in reports as of yet, but that's how they get a "surplus". So not really much there for economic growth, and I'd rather be a lot higher than 42nd in the country for jobs and I'd like $3,600 a year in take-home pay back. But if these guys had a top goal of balancing the budget for 2011-2013, I suppose they succeeded, so give them the golf clap.

However, take a gander to the next budget and you'll see the picture isn't quite so rosy.

Compared to the November 20 [DOA] report, our analysis indicates that for the three-year period, aggregate general fund tax collections will be $259.1 million less than those reflected in the report ($37.1 million higher in 2012-13, $152.7 million lower in 2013 14, and $143.5 million lower in 2014-15).

The primary reason for the $259.1 million reduction is due to the enactment of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. At the time of the November 20 report, under state and federal law, Wisconsin's estate tax would have been restored for deaths occurring in 2013 and after (I touched on that in this article). It was estimated that this restoration would have increased tax collections for the state by $219.0 million ($94.0 million in 2013-14 and $125.0 million in 2014-15). The $219.0 million was included in the November report. However, Congress modified federal law so that this will not occur.

There are also lower estimates vs. the DOA for sales taxes along with cigarette and other tobacco taxes, and higher estimates for income taxes (because the LFB anticipates the Obama recovery to pick up). So let's add up the revenue estimates and put them together with the expenses estimated by the DOA, and see what kind of baseline we're in for the next budget, for 2013-2015.

Cash surplus, end of FY 2013 $484.7 million
Reduction in FY2014 revenues vs. DOA -$152.7 million
Estimated DOA revenues vs. expenses FY2014 -$91.4 million
Reduction in FY2015 revenues vs. DOA -$159.6 million
Estimated DOA revenues vs. expenses FY2015 -$80.0 million
Required "rainy day fund" balance, end of FY2015 -$65.0 million

New projected budget balance, 2013-2015 budget -64.0 million

That's right, we already need to make cuts or find new revenues for this next budget. And now let's throw in some adjustments that very well could happen.

1. Logisticare rebid- this is estimated at an extra $80 million for the next 2 years, which wasn't included in the budget estimates.

2. Sequestration/ fiscal cliff concerns. Sure, Congress has voted to extend the debt ceiling for the next 3 months, but that still doesn't change the fact that there are huge budget cuts lurking for late March, and Walker's own DOA estimated

The fiscal tightening – also known as the fiscal cliff – compels a sequestration of funding streams that Wisconsin receives from the federal government, absent some other agreement. Medicaid and many other programs were exempted from thes equestration order. Initial reports indicate that Wisconsin has about $94 million at stake in fiscal year 2013-14 with the sequestration agreement. About one-half of this reduction would affect federal education transfers to Wisconsin and, therefore, would not be felt until next fall's school year and after passage of the [2013-2015] Biennial Budget.

So that's another $188 million that could go away over 2 years.

So now we're up to $332 million that has to be dealt with. Oh, and Walker and Assembly Speaker Vos are promising $300 to $350 million in income tax cuts as well when Walker's budget is released next month. Even if we don't have the money, and even if a former UW professor of mine points out

“The result is that the income tax cut will do almost nothing to spur economic growth in Wisconsin,” [Prof. Andy] Reschovsky said in an email to The Badger Herald. “The $300 to $350 million cost of the income tax cut will also mean that there are $300 to $350 million [in] fewer resources available to invest in education, health care, transportation and other state functions.”

Then again, that is the goal of Scott Walker and the Bradley/ Koch money men he fronts for (easier to FUBAR government services and sell them off if you do that).

So you can bet the Fitzwalkwerstanis will try to claim the 2011-2013 surplus somehow allows us enough cushion to cut taxes in 2013-2015. The LFB's report shows that is simply not true, and in fact, we're probably facing a budgetary deficit well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, what Scott Walker needs in order for his failing schemes to end up producing a balanced budget is for Obama's America to have its economy take off, without hinderance from Tea Bagger budget cuts. How's that for irony!

Two big numbers from the long weekend

It's been a long weekend for me, going to Vegas and having Monday off and such. But I did keep my eyes on things, and noted this remarkable stat from Friday's state-by-state unemployment numbers. And the news is not that Wisconsin remains with the state with the lowest amount of jobs created in the Midwest over the last 12 months (a pathetic 9,100 in a country that created 1.8 million, as I broke down last week). No, the big news is shown in these numbers, which begin with the end of last year.

Total jobs, December 2011
Wisconsin 2,719,800 jobs
Minnesota 2,683,300 jobs

Private sector jobs, December 2011
Wisconsin 2,313,900 jobs
Minnesota 2,276,000 jobs

Now compare it to where we are now.

Total jobs, December 2012
Minnesota 2,735,200 jobs
Wisconsin 2,728,900 jobs

Private sector jobs, December 2012
Minnesota 2,324,100 jobs
Wisconsin 2,323,600 jobs

That's right, Minnesota now has passed Wisconsin for total jobs, despite having 384,000 fewer people in the 2010 Census. Needless to say, the Mud Ducks are kicking our asses all over the place, and you can't help but notice the clear contrast in state governments. Minnesota replaced GOP Tim Pawlenty with Mark Dayton in the Governor's chair, which allowed the state to avoid being subjected to the worst of its fluke-election TeaBagger legislature. And unlike too many Wisconsinites, the 'Sotans learned from their screw-up in 2010, and defeated a proposed ban on gay marriage at the polls and gave control of both houses of the State Legislature back to the Dems.

It sets up quite a contrast in states and governance for the next 2 years between Wisconsin and Minnesota. We've certainly been losing it so far in the age of Fitzwalkerstan, and I have a hard time believing we're going to do anything to attract young, intelligent, high-value-adeed workers to much of our anti-gay marriage, anti-education state to win them out over going to progressive, advancing areas like the Twin Cities. And even if these needed workers do come or stay here, it's only a few places they'll choose to live. You think it's coincidence that Madison continues to boom while much of the rest of the state retracts? It's not.

But enough of the depressing stuff, let's get to a positive number.

Sometimes, things fall your way in Vegas. Last weekend was one of those times. And it's probably the best chance I have of getting a big payday in Fitzwalkerstan.

There are no coincidences in WisGOP

Just gave a gander on the Tim Russell sentencing memo from the Milwaukee County DA's office. It's quite obvious other shoes are waiting to drop.

First, on Page 8, the complaint shows how Scott Walker unilaterally gave away control of Operation Freedom funds from a local American Legion Post in October 2009, with Walker claiming that "this new structure should allow the community to take ownership of it." And by "community", Walker meant his long-time buddy and political appointee Tim Russell.

Within months, Russell was using those funds to pay for trips to Jamaica and Hawaii, and as the sentencing memo brings up

...Russell set about the steal the charity's money wellbefore he did any significant work on Operation Freedom...Moreover, Michelle Gore of the Veterans Service Office (who served as the 2009 event coordinator) told investigators that alarmingly little had been done to prepare for Operation Freedom 2010 in the First Quarter of 2010, after contol of the event had been given over to Tim Russell.

It seems like the only work Russell did in this job was to name now-convicted Walkergate criminals Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch to serve as officers and fund-raisers for Operation Freedom. Oh, and he also was doing other Walker-campaign related work in 2010, coordinating strategy with a quite familiar name.

[Protecting America's Future] worked through a Limited Liability Corporation styled as Runner Media, which was organized by Tim Russell...Runner Media conducted "ad buys" in the media markets for the Kagen-Ribble congressional race and Lassa-Duffy congressional race. Bank records show that Russell wrote checks from PAF to Runner Media in a total amount of $39,000. Runner Media also did work with the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW), paying RPW $4,000 in September 2010.

With Russell's corporation, Strategic Outsourcing and Research Center, Inc. (Source), Russell actively engaged in opposition research. Source was a non-stock company formed by Tim Russell in October 2009. Keith Gilkes, the campaign manager for the Friends of Scott Walker, was a client. Source was used to hire and pay Brian Pierick and two legislative aides, Cameron Sholty and Dean Cady, for opposition research benefitting the friends of Scott Walker.

And now we know why Keith ("there better not be a scrap of paper") Gilkes formally left his post with Republican campaigns and merely serves as an "unpaid advisor", don't we?

C'mon folks. If you think Scott Walker knew nothing about all of these things happening out of his office with people he chose to hire and constantly worked with during the 2010 campaign, you probably also believe Manti Te'o wasn't in on the "dead girlfriend" hoax that made him a household name (and here's 11 contradictions and lies by omission from Te'o to show how full of shit he is.)

Yep, this thing's going up the chain. Should be fun to see how far over the next few months.

And with that, it's time to go to Vegas. Hopefully I'm more ice-cold at the sports book than the weather I'll come back to on Monday. (and yes, that's self-satire)

December jobs still shows Wisconsin stuck and lagging

Well, I just had a whole list of writing about the December Wisconsin jobs report and it got erased. So let me give a condensed version.

On a top-line basis, it looks like a good jobs report, with 4,500 private sector jobs added for the month. It's the 4th time in the last 5 months that Wisconsin has added jobs in this report, which is the first time the state has done that since the passage of Act 10 in March 2011.

However, that is damning with faint praise, as the U.S. has gained jobs each month for nearly 3 years, and the "gain" in Wisconsin is from a lower number than previously thought, as shown in the DWD's own jobs report.

Place of work data: Downward revision to seasonally adjusted private-sector job number in November by 4,000 to show an estimated gain of 6,300 jobs. Downward revision to seasonally adjusted total job number in November by 4,100 to show an estimated gain of 6,500 jobs.

So if you include those downward revisions for November, the private sector job gains in December are all of 500 jobs, and 2,800 JOBS WERE LOST comapred to November's original figures.

What this means is that Governor Walker's jobs gap has expanded again- now back to 99,000 jobs overall. And we have fewer jobs than we did before the recall elections, which Walker claimed would "open the floodgates" with jobs.

The same holds in the private sector stats. It's an especially bad record when you realize that if Wisconsin had only kept up with the growth in the rest of the country, the state would have added 51,000 private sector jobs last year. Instead, Fitzwalkerstan added a paltry 9,000 jobs in private sector for 2012.

And even worse, the December job "gains" aren't even a sign of job creation. Remember how Governor Walker said we should look at the "raw numbers" when he tried to get away with saying the state had added 100,000 jobs by this Summer, and was later exposed as a pants-on-fire liar for saying so? Well, the raw numbers also show that there were fewer actual jobs than there were in November, and even the sector with the largest job gains for December only did so because of fewer-than-normal seasonal layoffs.

Job change, Wisconsin, December 2012
Overall jobs -19,200 Non-seasonal adjusted, +1,300 seasonal adjusted

Private sector- -13,100 n.s.a, +4,500 s.a
Construction- -6,900 n.s.a., +4,900 s.a.

So don't be fooled by the Journal-Sentinel headline or spin from the AM620's and other WisGOP mouthpieces. December's Wisconsin job figures are mediocre at best, continue to lag the growing U.S. economy as a whole, and there is no indication that we are turning any kind of corner that'll have job creation take off. In fact, this report, and the expansion of the Walker jobs gap, is further proof that no, it ain't working.

Last night shows nothing different

Yep, same routine we've seen in the last several years from those guys.

UW 64, Number 2 Indiana 59. Hells to the fucking yeah!

In addition to the fact that it's an upset on the home floor of the Number 2 team in the nation, and that it puts Bucky all alone in first place in the best conference in America, beating IU has extra relevance to me, as I explained back here in 2008.

And oh yeah, Bucky hasn't lost to the Hoosiers since I wrote that 5 years ago. It also extends Bo Ryan's record vs. Tom Crean to 15-2, and if you check Marquette vs. UW history, it shows that Buzz Williams has more career wins over Bo than Tan Tommy does.

But then again, TAN TOMMY IS JUST LIKE SCOTT WALKER, a fraud who talks a big game, but delivers a small one. Even though both got a reprieve from losing their jobs in 2012, and the media is still fooled into thinking these guys are on the way up, people with a clue know better, and both will be crashing to earth soon enough.

Oh, and both are constantly abused and exposed by them crazy libruls from Madtown. Both beatings will continue until both Tan Tommy and Gov. Dropout are inevitably removed from power.