Daily Show on the housing crisis: Why can't Geithner sell his house?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Home Crisis Investigation

www.thedailyshow.com

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Barry Ritholtz sez, "An utterly brilliant takedown of the Housing Crisis, illustrated by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's inability to sell his own NY home. The faux auction is too too funny -- Sold to Sir-Coughs-a-lot!" Home Crisis Investigation (Thanks, Barry!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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RyanH

I have to agree. If content is not going to be available to a large portion of viewers then it’s not worth posting. There is more than enough good stuff out there that sites lie this do not have to support region locked content.
ironix

Maybe in future you could make a practice of noting the show’s air date and time index (or part 1/4) in order to aid us Canadians and international readers in finding the specific clip in question.

90% of the time I don’t bother watching the video unless someone linked it in the comments. I really don’t want to go through the entire episode online in order to find the clip in question. =(
Anonymous

I can watch it in the UK.
Mojave

If you’re not listening to John and Andy’s show “The Bugle”, you’re missing one of the BEST podcasts out there. Consistently hilarious.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/the_bugle/
The Unusual Suspect

“I can watch it in the UK.”

Your reward for being one of Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing”.
redpiller

I’m not impressed with you guys. First time I tried googling it, I got a direct link to the episode as my first result.

Errr, that is still a video that isn’t watchable by us Canadians.

If I have to google something BB posts to be able to watch it, it’s probably getting skipped. Who has the time? Why not just embed another vid for viewers outside the US? Be a good host, don’t just tell your readers to find the video themselves.
The Unusual Suspect

“I’m not impressed with you guys. First time I tried googling it, I got a direct link to the episode as my first result.”

Or we could save the effort of doing that and just connect to BB through a proxy with a U.S. URL.

Or we could save the effort of doing that and just not bother with what Cory posted.
Pam Rosengren

Cory isn’t breaking teh intarwebs, the copyright dorks are. We should be taking our frustrations out on them, not him.

This shows how the copyright dorks are clearly getting in their own way – we can see the video (free) if we persist, but they put obstacles in people’s way with the result that some just don’t bother. This not only results in missed opportunities to promote their show (or whatever is being blocked), it makes potential viewers angry. Dumb.

Anyway I enjoyed the segment, and could see it from Australia no problems. Hulu is a different story, I can never see that.
Anonymous

My bad — I usually post both the Embed and the link, but it was early this AM before I had my first cup of coffee . . .

-Barry Ritholtz
mdh

Or we could save the effort of doing that and just not bother with what Cory posted.

I wish you would, but here you are, bothering us.
The Unusual Suspect

“I wish you would, but here you are, bothering us. ”

I forbid you to read my comments because they originate from outside the U.S.

There, fixed your problem for you.
mdh

I forbid you to read my comments because they originate from outside the U.S.

is this your blog?

There, fixed your problem for you.

why are you being a douche?
zuzu

Most of the “housing crisis” is predicated on willfully ignoring that there was an asset bubble in housing prices.

That was the whole “easy money” scheme, when the Federal Reserve didn’t contract the money supply after the dot-com bust. That excess money was funneled into housing, which drove up prices, which then people turned around into leverage for still more cheap money.

Falling housing prices are just the market correcting the prices back down to sane levels.

As for people who have mortgages for more than the assets that backed them are worth, frankly that’s a problem banks should be forced to deal with — just like their other “toxic assets”.

Bankers: You need to work with your borrowers to extend the loan period (thus lowering the monthly payments), and likely even lower the principle (and take the difference as a loss). Otherwise you’ll get more of what you have now: foreclosures on properties with plummeting asset prices, made even lower by more foreclosures. The houses you’re taking are worth less than the discounted cash flow that people paying their mortgages would provide.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I’m not impressed with you guys. First time I tried googling it, I got a direct link to the episode as my first result.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-29-2009/home-crisis-investigation
pentomino

This isn’t necessarily a failure on Geithner’s part unless he really does need to sell the house quickly at a fair price.

It’s possible that he doesn’t really care how quickly the house sells, and is therefore setting a high asking price just on the off-chance some sucker will pay more than it’s worth.

I think of this because Penn Jillette did this when he moved out of New York. He sold his place for twice what it was worth, because he left it on the market at that price for long enough. Except, Penn didn’t do that in 2009′s housing market.

Also consider that the contractor always has the worst-looking house on the block.
mdh

If content is not going to be available to a large portion of viewers then it’s not worth posting.

and that is exactly how you should run your blog. This isn’t that.
Anonymous

Funny bit, except for the hostile takeover of the auction by a wannabe Sacha Baron Cohen-type.
Anonymous

Canadians can watch it here
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/#clip197803

Or watch the entire show here:
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/#clip197803
Roach

Brilliant!
Darryl Moore

Embedded videos really suck when all I see is:

“In Canada, Comedy Central
Video’s are available on
The Comedy Network”

Who cares! it is embedded so no one is visiting their website anyway. Guess I wont watch. I wish companies would stop trying to do everything in their power to break the Internet.