And the survey says...

There are such a myriad of purveyors of surveys and opinion polls (Gallop, Harris, Nielsen, Roper, Pew Research) that it’s difficult to know if one provides a better pulse of consumer, constituent or citizen attitudes than others. Another source of gathering people’s viewpoints are conducted by colleges and universities, of which the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research has a 60-year history of being “one of the largest and oldest academic survey and social research organizations in the world”.

Then there are polls that are less than scientific on social websites, including MySpace, Facebook and Sodahead. Some of these surveys are well intentioned and thought provoking while others are nothing other than childish inquiries on such topics as the Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears and other teenybopper interests.

Others website networks give people and businesses an opportunity to design and post online surveys to suit their specific needs, some of which are free, such as polldaddy, micropoll, twiigs, proprofs, and surveypopups.

There are industry-specific questionnaires – medical, education, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, student opinions, plus surveys that measure how the electorate views the performance of international, national, state and county governments.

The wording and placement of survey questions can produce different results. Survey results can be slighted with the intent to direct questions that may result in respondents to give answers that serve their cause. To avoid this tactic, it’s necessary to consider two important factors in validating the worthiness of a survey – demographics and methodology.

Demographics include household income, gender, education, race, age and marital status, all of which are basic considerations. Understandably, political opinion polls require party affiliation. The more information given by a targeted segment of the population, the results hold a greater level of accuracy than if the cross-section of respondents has its limitations.

Methodology identifies how the poll was administered. For instance, the accuracy of a random sampling of 1,000 respondents is typically +/- 3% while a larger sampling of 10,000 reduces the margin to a 1% error rate, which also takes into consideration that some participants may not be entirely honest in that they try to second guess mainstream opinions.

To make the sampling as random as possible, surveys conducted by large pollsters may take a computer-generated list of, say 50,000, active home telephone nationwide numbers. From there, a computer may then be programmed to randomly select perhaps 1,000 residential numbers. A random selection of exchanges and digits takes the process one step further.

Another measure to be taken into consideration: generally speaking there’s a 95% accuracy rate of the +/- accuracy rate! Figure that one out!

‘No opinion/Prefer not to answer’ on a multiple-choice question restricts information for analysis of information, yet they’re appropriate for answers concerning household income, race and religious affiliation. It’s like saying, “It’s none of your business.” But without providing age and sex, results of many surveys invalidate the intended focus of the subject at hand.

Strongly agree, somewhat agree, agree, slightly disagree, disagree, strongly disagree. Take your pick. This format provides a more specific opinion than all other question-answer polls. It may also be more affective in giving respondents an easier task of making a choice if they should have a borderline opinion on a given subject. It helps to avoid the guesswork out of the actual mood of the respondent. Depending on the question, I appreciate the option to ‘strongly’ disagree rather than be restricted to ‘disagree’.

Some opinion polls are sought on a regular basis, say weekly and called a “tracking poll”, when there is deemed a frequent change of attitude, such as health care legislation, the economy, foreign policy, abortion or, coming soon to everyone’s contention, the debate on immigration reform, which is sure to be another round of partisan alignment.

A bandwagon effect occurs when the poll prompts voters to back the candidate shown to be winning in the poll, which may have been the case during the 2008 Presidential primaries, which not to meant to put in doubt the popularity of Obama.

In the 2008 General Election, Barack Obama garnered 52.9% of the vote, which happens to be extremely close to the 52% overall national approval ratings in July and August, so it should be of little surprise that, after the 100-day honeymoon, it should level off from the 60% in February when he was given the benefit of the doubt for his anticipated efforts to tackle the leftover debris from the Bush years, and the 61% approval rate in May, which may have been largely influenced by taxpayer rebates.

My favorite surveys are those sought from businesses that are requested for marketing purposes. Wal-Mart’s an excellent example where I could actually win $1,000 of in-store purchases. The odds aren’t likely to be any better than those for the Lottery.

For relaxation I watch Family Feud. Whether be the original host Richard Dawson or followers Ray Combs, Richard Carr or today’s John O’Hurley some are repetitive whereby I tend to coach them on the answers. It’s obvious some have watched previous broadcasts as they sweep the answers toward victory.

Although unscientific, the results on questions can be very telling of people’s attitudes. There a few ‘Fast money round’ responses asked of “one hundred people” that were very surprising.

The #1 answer as to what age people start to lose their memory: 50 years old! I beg to question the validity on that one. The #1 answer to “On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your job?” was “5” – not surprising by any means.

The one that got shocked me a bit was “On a scale of 1-10, how prepared is the USA for a crisis?” I would have given it a “7” but the #1 answer was “5”! from a hundred people more astute to reality than myself.

Move and the Economy Moves Too

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, between January 1 and November 30, 2009, qualified first-time home buyers are eligible for tax credits of 10% of the home’s purchase price, with an $8,000 limit, through the filing of an income tax return.

According to the Treasury Department, through August approximately 314,000 buyers had bought into the program at an estimated $154-million in credits. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) anticipate final figures will show over 1.5 millions homes sold, at a total cost of about $15 billion. The NAR estimates that only 350,000 homes, or 23%, will be directly attributed to the program incentives, claiming others would have made the purchase regardless.

With time running out, on June 12, Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) introduced legislation to not only extend the tax credits but up the ante to $15,000 to any homebuyer, plus eliminate income caps of $75,000 for individuals/$150,000 for couples. It has bipartisan support, including Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee).

From the words of Sen. Isakson, “In the mid-1970’s when America faced a similar housing crisis following a period of easy credit and loose underwriting that flooded the market with new construction and a three-year supply of vacant homes, Congress responded by passing a $2,000 ($8,000 in 2009 dollars) tax credit for anyone purchasing a new home for their principal residence. The results from that tax credit were clear and swift as home values stabilized, housing inventory dropped and the market recovered.”

The projected cost, adding to national debt, would be $50 to $100 billion. It’s a relatively small price to pay considering the hundreds of billion of dollars that were chucked out to stave off the failings of large scale banking institutions. The little guy deserves a good slice of the stimulus pie. Unlike the big, bad banks, consumers would be less likely to hoard their moneys.

I’m all for it. This could be the deciding factor in following through on an anticipated move to where there are “42,145 square miles of scenic beauty” in the Smoky Mountains. Think of me as a future right-wing, gun-totin’ Second Amendment Patriot of The Volunteer State. Seriously.

As reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 18.7 million unsold homes in the U.S. at the end of the second quarter, a slight increase from the 18.6 million homes a year earlier. Representing a full 14% of the total 130.8 million homes in the U.S., at the current sales rate it would take 9.4 months to sell those homes and get them off the market.

With Alt-A and Option ARM mortgages due to balloon over the next three years, this recession is set to inch ever closer to something worse than a recession. It’s too late to cushion the blowout from these toxic loans that, at over $2.75-trillion, are more than double the mess caused from sub-prime loans.

Steps must be taken to keep people in their homes and move others into vacant homes. Going forward, lax lending practices must be avoided through strong regulatory oversight. The slight of information from applicants must be tamped by prohibiting further use of an automated loan process that avoided the review of income and assets.

Since the glut of unsold homes puts in doubt a surge of new-home construction anytime in the foreseeable future, incentives would give realtors, our masters of property investments, something to cheer about in the meantime, snuggly sandwiched between buyers and sellers and giving everyone that warm, fuzzy feeling of home sweet home.

Hopefully a temporary setback to a growing population, America has largely lost its means of being a mobile society. People are stuck in the humdrums of doing too much of nothing, driven to levels of complacency that may have long-lasting affects on its place in the cutting edges of the new world order.

There are plenty of positive prospects for the redistribution of the population and the limited wealth that some have managed to cling on to. Many realize they must downsize, thus having extra cash that will bolster local businesses as they make the best of their home investments with remodeling, upgrades and purchases of new home furnishings.

A number of little sparks across the nation would light a brighter future for small and mid-size businesses; a stimulating lifeline toward a prosperous tomorrow – job creation. As people begin to once again earn wages, the momentum will help grow the economy sooner than any other government program imaginable.

A move from one region to another necessitates a wardrobe change; southerners going north will need seasonal apparel, northerners heading south would shed layers of winter cloths for shorts, swim suits, year-round tank tops, sandals, beach towels and suntan lotions as they lounge beneath their hammocks and large beach umbrellas.

What would this hold for Florida? Between the springs of 2008 and 2009 the state population declined by 58,294 – no doubt, bad news. But, as some leave, others would see this as an opportunity to head south, especially retirees who have tired weeks upon weeks of cold and freezing temperatures under gloomy, overcast skies.

According to a report issued by a 2008 CDC report, in 2005 the life expectancy for those over the age of 65 suggests retirees could spend another 18 years (16 male, 19 female) in the Sunshine State making new friends in the vast number of retirement communities.

The best of all bets is that first-time home buyers who already have the funds for a down payment will finally own a piece of the American dream and take hundreds of thousands of unoccupied homes off the housing market. To affectively move large numbers of people into new homes, giving incentives to all prospective homebuyers, new and existing alike, is a necessity. As a compromise new homebuyers could be offered the full $15,000 incentive package while existing homeowners given the offering of $8,000.

I’m all for it. This could be the deciding factor in following through on an anticipated move to where there are “42,145 square miles of scenic beauty” in the Smoky Mountains. Think of me as a future right-wing, gun-totin’ Second Amendment Patriot of The Volunteer State. Seriously.

Bankrupties: The Worst Is Yet To Come

Sub-prime mortgage defaults and bankruptcies have peaked. But in all likelihood our twisted economy still has a long way to go before the recession fully unwinds and slightly happier days are here again.

The next big economic smack-down will be from millions of Alternate-A and Option ARM loans. Dubbed “toxic” mortgages, they portend to be justly named. We’re talking a whole lot more bankruptcies.

Alt-A mortgages are offered to borrowers who pose less risk than sub-prime loans but don’t qualify for an A-paper, or "prime" loan, which requires a FICO credit score greater than 680, verifiable income and, among other criteria, a debt-to-income ratio less than 35%.

Just as a large number of subprime mortgages (40%) were approved through an automated loan process whereby the customary review and documentation of assets and income bred applicant falsification of information and lender fraud, so too went these toxic mortgages.

With a low, introductory interest rate, many buyers were enticed (coerced?) to purchase homes beyond their means. When the introductory rate ends, monthly payments balloon by 50% or more.

The amount of outstanding Alt-A mortgages is over $2-trillion. Add another $750-billion in Option ARM loans that will reset between now and 2013. Keep in mind that sub-prime loans totaled approximately $1.3-trillion. We’re set up for double the trouble.

Now, close your eyes, take the deepest of breaths, and hold it for forty (the number of months until the majority of toxic mortgages have defaulted) seconds. Red-faced and woozy, you’ll be floored. However long it takes before you can stand up straight – no grabbing a-hold of something for stability – that’s a pretty good estimate of how many years before the economy has begun to get back on its feet. Let’s say five minutes/five years.

Option ARM loans give the borrower the flexibility of a repayment schedule that starts with a “teaser” interest rate as low as 1%. The worst of all options are interest-only payments. Intended as an investment vehicle for people whose income can vary (commission jobs or those with regular bonuses), the borrower has the “option” to pay down the principal of the loan. Otherwise, the loan balance increases, resulting in negative amortization. You end up owing more on the house than the value. The value has already plummeted due to the number of foreclosures over the past two years.

Although there’s an Annual Payment Change cap of 7.5%, on the fifth year a built-in recalculation can increase the monthly payment well over 100%. Option ARM loans were popular with property investors when home values were expected to follow an upward climb.

Fitch Ratings, a global agency that analyzes credit markets in more than 80 countries, estimates 80% of all Option ARM holders make the minimum monthly payment. With more than 55% of these borrowers owing more than the value of their properties, with payments about to go sky high, expect many to simply walk away from their investments.

More alarming than what I imagined, in response to my July 1st column “Setting aside common sense for feel-good consumerism”, reader Alex Charles e-mailed what had first appeared to give me a scolding for suggesting everybody who took out a home loan during the boom years made foolish decisions.

Instead, Alex told a frightening tale of what is happening to responsible mortgage holders. Alex has 30 years in Information Technology with Project Management Certification (BA degree plus 4,500 hours experience required – two years). With a FICO score of 820+, he relocated from the north and took out a fixed-rate conventional loan in 2000, never having been late on mortgage and other credit obligations.

That was before he became unemployed on September 17 – a year ago (his job vanished somewhere off-shore). He remains unemployed, over three months behind on mortgage payments and amazed “that Governor Crist has not made any regular press appearances to even ‘sugar coat’ the dire situation of unemployment and small businesses tanking”.

What could possibly be more devastating than an ever-growing number of Americans losing their homes through bankruptcy?

A National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) survey shows that 3.7-million small businesses (10 employees and less) have toxic mortgages that will come due in the next three years, of which more than a third are already delinquent by one to three months.

With the looming number of small business bankruptcies, the ranks of the unemployed will multiply. Owners don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. Workers have limited benefits that are but a fraction of their previous earnings. With few prospects of rejoining the workforce anytime soon, even at lower pay, their savings become depleted as has already happened to millions of Americans. More bankruptcies.

The toxicity of home and small business ARMs will lead to more bank closings, more foreclosures, more taxpayer funding of bailouts to keep big banks – still too many for the good of taxpayers – from failing.

Of the 8,195 banks and savings associations FDIC insured, 414 were on the “problem list” at the end of June, up from 305 in March and approaching the record 434 institutions in June 1994

Instead, hundreds of small and medium-size banks will fail. Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the FDIC, acknowledges the “looming problem” of commercial real estate loans that saw a doubling of defaults from 2Q of 2008 (1.18%) to 2Q of 2009 (2.88%) with a projected rate of 4.1% by year-end then level off at about 5% through 2012 before a modest decline to 4.5% in 2013.

Bair is hopeful (fingers crossed?) the FDIC will be able to avoid opening an interest-accruing line of credit with the Treasury Department, which has pre-approved a $500-billion loan. The FDIC receives no federal tax dollars – insured financial institutions fund its operations. But, one way or another, don’t taxpayers always gets stuck with the bill?

Taxpayer Alex says, “We certainly don't want a hand-out, just a chance to earn a decent paycheck with health insurance.” Washington is working on it. Or is it?

Blue Blazes! Southern California Is Burning!

Blue blazes, Southern California is on fire! It burns my heart to think that thousands of acres of forests are going up in cinders. It’s spread from covering an area of 20,00 to nearly 150,000 acres of wilderness since August 29.

Historical data shows, since 1966, the majority of the top 20 fires in California were caused by lightning (7), humans (5), and power lines (3). The most devastating was the Cedar Fire in San Diego County in October 2003 when 273,246 acres were burned. To date, the current fires rank 11 on the list.

While the Cedar Fire took 15 lives, the greatest toll was in the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm, also called the Tunnel Fire, in Northern California when 1,600 acres burned, claiming 25 lives, 2,843 homes and 443 apartments.

Of the recently named fires, the Morris, Cottonwood Hemet and Palos Verdes Peninsular blazes have been contained. The ongoing Station Fire, approaching LA, has destroyed over 53 homes and taken the lives of two people, both firefighters.

As the Station Fire rages ever closer toward the northern suburbs of LA, it’s of personal concern. From 1982-1989 I lived in Santa Monica on the poor side of Wilshire Boulevard in a rent-controlled apartment on 16th Street. A mile-long path of sidewalks led to the beaches on Santa Monica Bay, including the entertaining characters along the Venice Beach boardwalk. Standing on my tip-toes on the balcony, on a clear day I might see a tiny patch of blue water but, unless the Santa Ana winds swept through the area, a huge brown ball of smog hung over the water.

The smog was bad throughout the LA basin. This, the high cost of living, traffic congestion and the occasional earthquake would eventually find me commandeering a U-Haul along the full length of I-10 from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

But while I lived in Southern California my times with nature overwhelmed my senses beyond what I could have imagined. Although travel time to escape the negatives of living in LA proper was in excess of an hour, the rewards were many.

One of the locations I frequently visited was Griffith Park, the location of the Mount Wilson Observatory. It was one of the must-see-and-do experiences to share with out-of-state visitors. The towering pine trees provided a solid canopy of shade while the aroma, mixed with clean, fresh air soothed the mind and cleared the nasal passages.

It brings back vivid memories of walking along an open path of solid rock and hardened earth in a rather steep incline from the parking area. Friends couldn’t resist the temptation to make souvenirs of the huge pinecones that, along with a bed of needles, blanketed the entire area.

More often than not, a day at Vasquez Rocks County Park got preferential consideration. The rock formations were awesome. Created over millions of years from earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault, they’re easily recognizable in dozens of past and present TV shows, commercials and movies. A no-frills park, it was a paradise for hikers of any experience. You could stroll along a well-traveled path or take a hefty trek to the cave where Tiburcio Vasquez and his band of bandits were holed up in the wild west days of the mid-1800s. A backpack with water and fruit made for the healthiest of all other recreation options. You could actually get lost.

So many other memories. On Avenues I, J and K, in the Antelope Valley, the rolling hills actually came alive with the breathtaking poppy fields. From miles away, the faint tinge of color became an eventual blaze of orange. You had to watch your step, though – don’t step on the coiled rattlers. A zoom lens kept me a safe distance from one such sidewinder. Still, when it sprang up, my heart raced faster than my footsteps!

Fires are also raging through Tujunga Canyon where the Malibu Creek State Park shows a rusted Jeep and mess tent from the set of the MASH TV show. An interesting tidbit but the main attractions were the web of hiking trails.

As fires continue to engulf the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains north of LA, it saddens me to realize so many thousands of acres of wilderness are being destroyed. Homes can be rebuilt. Nature has a way of bringing vegetation back to life. Sadly, the loss of wildlife can’t be avoided.

Human lives can’t be resurrected. It is no less a tragedy when people die in a wildfire than it is for those who succumb to the devastation caused by a hurricane. Few lives have been lost in the fires surrounding Los Angeles. People heeded the calls to evacuate. So should we if the forces of nature threaten the lives of we Floridians.