Links and Minifeatures 2008 04 30 Wednesday

"Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Do Figure" Department

I'm not going to name names, but most people can probably figure out which company I'm talking about. A few days ago, a well known commission rebate buyer's brokerage started bragging about a its clients procuring a 1% advantage over general market in the amount they negotiate off asking price.

Boys and girls, I'd say they were palming a card, but it's really more like an entire hand. Roughly 1/3 of buyers are either completely unrepresented, or allow the listing agent to represent them. At least another quarter work with rebater brokerages where the only service really provided is opening a door and the use of a fax machine. Another very large percentage are victims of exclusive buyer's agency contracts put in front of them by friends, family members, and random agents they met at open houses, who didn't know any better than to sign it?

And you're bragging about a 1% mean advantage in negotiations over that? In the best negotiating environment for buyers since the early nineties at least?

That doesn't rise to the level of pathetic. Ladies and gentlemen, that's like cheering and making a press release bragging that you make $1 per hour, when minimum wage is considerably higher.

In this environment, I believe that a good buyer's agent should make at least 10% of a difference to the value of the property the client buys. I just closed one where the lowest appraisal I could get said I made a 35% difference, CMA of recent sales yielded a similar number, and that didn't consider the intangibles of the property and what it meant for the clients in terms of not having a reason to they're going to need to move five or ten years down the line. Considerably above average even for me, but over the last two years, my average has been right around twenty percent, and these clowns are bragging about one? Even when things were going gangbusters and all the power was in the hands of the sellers, I was averaging five to ten percent, and they're bragging about one lousy percent in an environment where buyers have all the power? That they "earn" by shoving all the work off to the listing agent?

I feel like I'm stuck in 1984, when Winston Smith reads the article thanking Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to 15 grams, when it fact it had been cut from 20. Things like this completely disgust me. The company concerned is basically counting on information overload to keep people from evaluating the facts rationally and in context, especially when that analysis shows them to be pathetic losers whose clients are barely better off than people who actively sabotage themselves?

Shame is officially dead.

Researching Raoul Wallenberg and his fate

Whatever any of this reveals, a 1979 State Department memo put the questions into perspective: "Whether or not Wallenberg was involved in espionage during World War II is a moot point at this stage in history. His obvious humanitarian acts certainly outweigh any conceivable 'spy' mission he may have been on."

Too little, too late: Obama says he's outraged by former pastor's comments

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference.

Wright didn't say anything in any of his recent appearances that he hadn't been saying for a long time. Yet last month, Obama defended the same thing.

The only difference I can tell - the critical difference for politicians - is the size of the audiences that heard Wright's most recent appearances, and the widespread reactions to those appearances.

In short, Obama can't sweep Rev. Wright's behavior under the carpet any more, and having to make a choice between his traditional base and the broader base he's going to need to win the remaining primaries as well as the general election in November, he's having to choose the one with more votes. Nothing unusual for a politician. But Hope and Change Man is selling himself as something a cut above other politicians.

Obama spent twenty years in this guy's church. He was the officiating pastor at Obama's wedding. Obama took his kids to this guy's church, to listen to him spread his hate. Twenty years of action are telling me precisely where Barack Obama really stands on what Rev. Wright is saying.

Q and O has much more detail.

Instapundit:

Yes, Wright's views certainly contradict Obama's stated beliefs, policies, and values. Andrew adds: "Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against." Become? I don't see that Wright has changed. People have just noticed. And if this is what Obama is fighting against, then . . . where's the fighting against part?

Bush says no magic wand to lower fuel prices

Trying to calm anxious Americans facing $3.60 a gallon gasoline and soaring grocery bills, Bush again prodded Congress to open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling and allow construction of more nuclear and coal plants.

"I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it, of course," he said during a news conference. "I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems, yet time after time Congress chose to block them."