Market Conditions: 1/3rd of Chicago Area Homeowners Still Underwater

What’s the problem with Chicago’s housing market?

According to Crain’s, it is the underwater homeowner.

More than 506,000 Chicago-area homes—or one-third of the market—were underwater as of the fourth quarter, according to California research firm CoreLogic Inc. That’s up 7.6 percent from the previous year.

Underwater properties are bogging down a residential market that’s clawing back from its post-crash ditch. By opting to stay put, these homeowners are removing a substantial portion of potential saleable properties from the market, limiting choices for those who are ready to buy.

Mr. Tregoning, 35, co-owner of a Chicago real estate brokerage, is one of a host of Chicago homeowners whose properties are “underwater,” meaning the debt on the house exceeds its current value. Mr. Tregoning figures his home would fetch just $350,000 or so in the current market—far less than the $380,000 in loans on the house near the axis of the Kennedy and Edens expressways, let alone the $420,000 he paid for it in 2006.

Selling now would require writing a check to the bank to make up the difference between the sales price and the debt. That’s a no-go, despite the family’s desire for more space and different school options. “We’d have to come to the table with probably 40 to 50 grand,” Mr. Tregoning says.

Inventories have crashed through the floor in the 9-county Chicagoland area.

Through March 2013, only 35,400 homes were listed, down 43% from a year ago. The peak number of listings was in July 2008 (pre-Lehman for anyone wondering), when it hit 103,949.

The lack of inventory is causing distortions in the market place, as we’ve chattered about before, such as multiple bids, paying over listing price, waiving inspections, and, in this case below, buying sight unseen.

For buyers, meanwhile, the process of finding and closing on a home has become a scrum—and it’s likely to stay that way for a while. This spring, showings are drawing crowds and bidding wars, and fast sales are common, buyers and brokers say.

“It’s frustrating just because whenever we’ve looked before, there’s been a pretty nice selection,” says Maribeth Brewer, 54, visual merchandising manager at the Field Museum.

Ms. Brewer and her husband have a contract to buy a two-flat near Diversey Avenue and Pulaski Road for $325,000, $6,000 above the list price. They did so sight unseen, burned by the loss of three other properties to competitors this spring.

When will this market “normalize”?

Will it take higher interest rates, higher selling prices, or both?

Or are multiple offers now the new norm?

How ‘underwater’ homeowners are stalling Chicago’s recovery [Crain’s Chicago Business, Micah Maidenberg, May 20, 2013]

308 Responses to “Market Conditions: 1/3rd of Chicago Area Homeowners Still Underwater”

  1. This is what I’ve been saying for a long time. Lack of inventory is not caused by greedy homeowners waiting for higher prices, it’s caused by sellers who are unable/unwilling to bring money to the table to get out. Until mortgages are paid down more and prices rise a little, there’s not going to be much available.

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  2. This is EXACTLY what we’ve experienced… even in just looking for reference right now (as we need to sell first), anything that looks good is gone in less than a week. I’m a little worried that once we sell we won’t be able to find anything because the good homes go so quickly. We will either lose out to a quicker bid or sellers will begin pricing a bit higher because they can, then we’re priced out of areas we could normally afford… hopefully that doesn’t wind up being the case. It’s stressful though.

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  3. coulda/woulda/shoulda bought 2010-2012. A while back in response to G’s request I showed the ‘bottom’ in Old Irving Park for the typical four sq or victorian. $375,000 in the winter of 2010. Now everything is in the mid-400’s and higher. Inventory is way down but fortunately, most is ‘reasonably’ priced for the market. Most.

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  4. Why doesn’t this issue equalize out? less buyer and sellers in the same proportion?

    Why does this issue only affect supply (in the sense that it’s the only side talked about). They’re saying that decreased supply leads to increased price (Econ 101). But why shouldn’t it decrease buyers too? So that decreased buyers and sellers would leave the price unchanged?

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  5. “coulda/woulda/shoulda bought 2010-2012. A while back in response to G’s request I showed the ‘bottom’ in Old Irving Park for the typical four sq or victorian. $375,000 in the winter of 2010. Now everything is in the mid-400?s and higher. Inventory is way down but fortunately, most is ‘reasonably’ priced for the market. Most.”

    Should have listened to you as that is where we’re looking… it’s just a matter of timing for most people. We simply weren’t ready or in a position to move then. We are now, and this is happening. Mid $400’s would be nice, but as I said, they are all gone in a hot minute!

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  6. @ HH, come again.
    Let’s give you a very simple argument that even you can process. There are renters who don’t have to worry about selling their place before buying. When the gradient of market is positive (or our perception of it), people start to buy fearing they’d loose the great rates and having to purchase at higher prices.

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  7. gringozecarioca on May 21st, 2013 at 11:53 am

    “Why doesn’t this issue equalize out? less buyer and sellers in the same proportion?
    Why does this issue only affect supply (in the sense that it’s the only side talked about). They’re saying that decreased supply leads to increased price (Econ 101). But why shouldn’t it decrease buyers too? So that decreased buyers and sellers would leave the price unchanged?”

    Because it has little to do with the amount of buyers and sellers. It has mostly to do with which side is more aggressive at the moment. Think of any organized market. For every buyer there is a seller. There is never a day that there are more buyers than seller, it is always net 0. Yet price moves every day. It is based on which side is looking more aggressively for the other side. On the downside, in RE, this was neutralized by sellers not having been allowed to sell, or transfer of assets to stronger hands (Banks) that did not have to sell. No such constraint appears to exist on the upside….

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  8. So what impact will it have when the people who can’t sell currently find themselves in a position where they can? Right now, not only do they constrain supply by not putting their places on the market, but they also are not in the demand pool, since they won’t buy another house if they can’t sell their own. Of course, not all of them will return to the ownership pool (I would assume that many will be content to rent for a while to avoid another potential trap), but many of them will. It seems like there could be a bit of a wave on both the supply and demand side when many of these owners emerge from under the water.

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  9. ” It has mostly to do with which side is more aggressive at the moment. Think of any organized market. For every buyer there is a seller. There is never a day that there are more buyers than seller, it is always net 0. ”

    Excellent Ze. You understand the “cash on the sidelines” logical fallacy.

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  10. I’ve been saying since this started the govt focus should have been on helping homeowner’s reduce principal balances which is the real problem. Unfortunately, most of the programs have been around payment reduction only. The refinance programs should have been designed to put folks in 10 or 15 year loans at ultra low rates (like 1%). This would allow homeowners to at least get the principal paid off on the mortgages so they can sell at lower market prices. 15 year loans five years ago would be a third paid off already. The severely underwater guy with a 30 year even at low rates who refinanced five years ago still isn’t going to be in a great position since most of the payment is interest. When life catches up with them, they will still eventually foreclose or short sale. Saving $200-$300/mo doesn’t change that Joe Sixpack might still be $75-$100k underwater.

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  11. I’m of the opinion that the next economic downturn will lead to another round of mass layoffs which will finally, once and for all, wipe out a significant number of underwater homeowners who’ve managed to hang on for all these years. It’s not a question of ‘if’ it’s a matter of ‘when’. A lot of underwater homeowners are in a tenuous financial situation to begin with. Most ‘deleveraging’ in the economy comes from default, not repayment.

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  12. Russ, here’s a loan modification on my desk right now:

    Value of house: $230k
    Current principal balance: $271k
    Past due: $91k
    Escrow advances: $32k
    Past due interest $48k
    Combined principal balance: $442k
    Principal reduction: $210k
    New principal balance: $232k
    Deferred principal balance: $67k (balloon payment at the end of note)
    Interest bearing principal balance: $164k
    2.0% interest for first 5 years; year 6 at 3.0%; year 7-24 at 3.375%
    Balloon at end of $67k.

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  13. My note had some juice in it (construction loan) so my interest rate is higher than this loan mod! and this borrower stopped paying for years too. makes me want to stop paying my note.

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  14. “I’m of the opinion that the next economic downturn will lead to another round of mass layoffs which will finally, once and for all, wipe out a significant number of underwater homeowners who’ve managed to hang on for all these years. It’s not a question of ‘if’ it’s a matter of ‘when’. A lot of underwater homeowners are in a tenuous financial situation to begin with. Most ‘deleveraging’ in the economy comes from default, not repayment.”

    If this is your belief then why the hell to you buy a house. Come in off the ledge, its a beautiful day and the holiday weekend will start soon.

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  15. Sorry…. never proof my posts “If this is your belief then why the hell DID you buy a house”

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  16. Worst financial mistake of my life? Buying a condo I could actually afford in Aug-09. Too late to qualify for Harp/Hamp and I can’t justify destroying my perfect credit by walking away.

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  17. “I’ve been saying since this started the govt focus should have been on helping homeowner’s reduce principal balances which is the real problem. ”

    Yeah so comps are set at the principal reduced amount? The government did everything it could to support housing prices to prevent further declines and for the time being it appears to have worked. If they can keep the status quo for the next 4-5 years more and more people will emerge from being underwater and the market will start to correct.

    Massive amounts of principal forgiveness would incentivize all sorts of bad behavior with regard to neighbors who didn’t qualify for it walking away and the reduced price setting comps.

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  18. with rents being as high as they are, why aren’t more people renting their homes and buying a place. You most likely are more then covering your monthly bill + some. Put the extra towards principle and you will get above water.

    Why doesn’t the gov’r look into how the real estate agents can still charge 6% for basically doing jack s***…..that would help people a great deal

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  19. “with rents being as high as they are, why aren’t more people renting their homes and buying a place.”

    1. Have to live somewhere in the gap.
    2. (usually) Have to have 1 year of rental income for that to count for mortgage qual, which makes #1 a long gap.
    3. Rental market for SFH trickier than condos; many condos have rental caps; ie, real and perceived difficulties with managing a rental.

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  20. Well, duh!!!! So what’s the problem? This is how markets self-correct. Supply down, demand up results in higher prices which results in higher supply. Problem solved.

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  21. “If this is your belief then why the hell to you buy a house. Come in off the ledge, its a beautiful day and the holiday weekend will start soon.”

    I bought because the time was right for *me*.

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  22. Bob, I’m not talking about write downs of principal. Basically just allow people to refinance into shorter term loans at ultra low rates. For homeowner’s who still have great credit, employed, etc but significantly underwater, they could get a 10 or 15 year loan at roughly the same payment as their existing 30 year loan and may cases cheaper. However, with the shorter term loan, they would very quickly get themselves into an equity position that would allow them to sell at a lower price because instead of paying interest to the bank, their payments are mostly going to reducing the principle. Yes, they would still lose their down payment, but they have essentially gotten the anchor from around their neck. For most folks now, just not having to write a check at closing is a relief. Since there is no short sale or they don’t necessarily have to write a check at closing, they can sell the place and move on.

    HARP kind of does this, but the rates aren’t low enough and there is too much bureaucractic BS. They made it way too complicated.

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  23. “Massive amounts of principal forgiveness would incentivize all sorts of bad behavior with regard to neighbors who didn’t qualify for it walking away and the reduced price setting comps.”

    Uh, see above. massive amount of forgiveness and yet defaults continue to trend lower and lower. People don’t just walk away hoping for a better deal and those that do have been burned.

    That’s one of those republican talking point fallacies, it seems logical, but it’s not actually true. The Dems have the same fallacies too.

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  24. Respect_My_Authoritah on May 21st, 2013 at 1:17 pm

    “When will this market “normalize”?

    What people do not seem to understand is that A LOT of those underwater homes are NEVER going to return to those values.

    What Mr. Tregoning needs to understand is that he made a mistake and needs to move on.

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  25. “So what impact will it have when the people who can’t sell currently find themselves in a position where they can?”

    they find themselves competing with reluctant landlords like me who already have a home and have paid down their mortgage enough to avoid bringing money to the table, and the renters MiuMiu mentioned.

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  26. “coulda/woulda/shoulda bought 2010-2012.”

    I bought in March 2012… right at the bottom baby 🙂 I’ve already made 60k on my house, and have only lived in it for two months! Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm though.

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  27. “Why doesn’t the gov’r look into how the real estate agents can still charge 6% for basically doing jack s***…..that would help people a great deal”

    I second this notion. Real estate agents are worthless… they rank right up there with car salesmen. Highly doubtful that I’ll ever use a real estate agent. Didn’t use one to buy my current condo and won’t use one to sell either of my condos. Side note: I will use them to rent out my condo. One months rent is an acceptable cost to keep me away from the background checks and constant showings. My time is more valuable.

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  28. ““Why doesn’t the gov’r look into how the real estate agents can still charge 6% for basically doing jack s***…..that would help people a great deal””

    The very first case we were taught in ‘complex litigation’ in law school was the infamous california realtor cartel case from the 1960’s where lawyers tried to sue under anti-trust and class action for the 6% fee; and they lost MISERABLY. I doubt any lawyer has attacked the cartel since.

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  29. You could always do what my friend’s old neighbors did:

    1. Don’t get married, but live together with someone as though you are married
    2. Buy a house in just one of your names
    3. Live there a few years until you get bored of it and want a nicer place
    4. Save up for a new place by not paying current mortgage
    5. Wait for several years while the bank tries to foreclose
    6. Buy a new place under the other person’s name

    Repeat steps 1-6 after 7 years and the first person’s credit has improved.

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  30. gringozecarioca on May 21st, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    “Excellent Ze. You understand the “cash on the sidelines” logical fallacy.”

    Everything I know, I must be fair and give credit to having read Bobs old late night drunken rants…

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  31. “Why doesn’t the gov’r look into how the real estate agents can still charge 6% for basically doing jack s***…..that would help people a great deal”

    They still charge 6% because the consumer lets them. They believe that some agents have magic dust so they have them list their $1.5 MM condo on the MLS and it sells in this market in one week and then they pat themselves on the back for picking the right realtor. It’s a competitive market and there are choices out there but look at some of the buildings and neighborhoods and you’ll see that people like to go with the “name” or the woman who lives in the building and “knows” it, whatever that means.

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  32. “Everything I know, I must be fair and give credit to having read Bobs old late night drunken rants…”

    I thought you were unfairly endowed with it by the Elders of Zion. No?

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  33. gringozecarioca on May 21st, 2013 at 4:28 pm

    “I thought you were unfairly endowed with it by the Elders of Zion. No?”

    That is actually the correct answer but I didn’t want to wind up HH. Been trying to minify his image of me as Jason Alexander with a kippah and 8 arms with tentacles… although when i re-read the above, I like it more if one changes minify to minyan and tentacles to testicles…

    Now going to make some pizza… celebrate the southern Italians.. or as the Northern Italians refer to them.. moulans..

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  34. Multiple offers, offers over the ask price, waived inspections… we’re in the midst of a classic feeding frenzy and I’m stepping away. I hope like hell for a hike in interest rates to calm things down a bit and generate more interest for my savings.

    Imagine my chagrin. I was not quite positioned to buy in 2010-2011, and wept for the deals that were getting away. Now that I AM positioned, every single place that I like and can afford is “pending” or “contingent”. Every.single.one. Only one active listing, and that one is occupied, and by a family with a new baby and another on the way.

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  35. “Now that I AM positioned, every single place that I like and can afford is “pending” or “contingent”. Every.single.one. ”

    So clearly realtors and sellers are leaving money on the table in my opinion. Not sure why that is happening. Ignorance? Malfeasance?

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  36. All government assistance for buried homeowners incentivizes bad behavior and is setting us up for another wave of defaults in the future. Aside from the staggering default rates of loan modifications- the rate of re-default on loan mods is about 35%- people who are rewarded for careless buying and borrowing by loan modifications and outright gifts like principal reduction and short sales with no penalty or tax consequences, instead of being Scared Straight by bankruptcy and foreclosure. Now, the housing industry is lobbying for FHA to make loans for people with recent foreclosures.

    One poster on another blog left the following comment on how the forbearances and gifts, all indirectly financed by the taxpayers, including people who in no way benefited from the Great Rampage, but who have to help pay for these gifts while they struggle to pay market rate rent and save for a down payment, or who are retirees trying to live on 1.5% savings interest. Here:

    “Just talked to a sales person at a local home builder’s office. She says people have tons of cash coming in because they are happy to tell her (!) that they have been saving for years because they are squatters in their homes to be foreclosed and have not paid rent for years.
    Others tell her after getting a loan modification — lowered principal by 100k, say, and extended to 40 years hence lower monthly payments — that they were able to rent out the house instead of foreclose and go buy another.”

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  37. HH:

    (1) Underwater mortgages / lenders requiring money brought to the table is a supply constraint. This means a leftward shift in the supply curve, which means a lower quantity and a higher price.

    (2) This higher price does not cause a leftward shift of the demand curve; rather, the higher price reflects a leftward move along the demand curve to the new equilibrium. Thus, there will be fewer buyers and sellers at a higher price.

    (3) For completed transactions, the ratio of actual buyers and sellers is always 1:1. For every long, there is a short, for every holder, there is a writer.

    (4) But the number of interested buyers does not necessarily equal the number of interested sellers at a given time. For example, there might be 50,000 contracts on the buy side and 100,000 contracts on the sell side at a given time.

    (5) That said, it would be a mistake to say that, in the above example, there is “selling pressure.” The relative number of interested buyers versus sellers overall tells you nothing of how many bids and offers are at each level, or each party’s motivation / impatience / willingness to cross the spread (“aggression”). This is also ignoring market orders that you can’t see.

    (6) The relative number of interested buyers versus sellers at a given price level can give you an indication on price direction. If we know that there are 6,000 Dark Lord Day tickets for sale for $15, and 30,000 beer nerds crash the website trying to buy said tickets at that price, we know that the equilibrium price is not $15. As the prices of the tickets go up through craigslist sales, this is not a “demand increase”; rather, it’s price discovery for the equilibrium price. Not a perfect example because of price discrimination, but you get what I’m saying. Likewise, if there are five interested buyers for each 2br/2ba condo offered at $300k, the equilibrium price is not $300k.

    (7) Cash on the sidelines is neither here nor there with respect to the inability to predict price pressure from relative buyers versus sellers in the overall market.

    My $0.02.

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  38. “So clearly realtors and sellers are leaving money on the table in my opinion. Not sure why that is happening. Ignorance? Malfeasance?”

    How can that be ignorance if there are multiple offers on many properties? Wouldn’t that automatically push the price up? I’m sure some people are offering over the asking price.

    I guess the real question to ask is- how high can sellers go before buyers will say “no”? Maybe they won’t. Maybe that 2/2 that sold for $450,000 in 2008 will command $450,000 or $475,000 right now. The market is the market. But clearly it won’t command that or they’d be asking it- right?

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  39. “Multiple offers, offers over the ask price, waived inspections… we’re in the midst of a classic feeding frenzy and I’m stepping away.”

    When it gets crazy, you just have to say “no.” Laura- your gut is telling you this is all wrong (because it is.) But this could last far longer than people realize. I doubt the Fed will ease up at all this year. Why would they? They’re trying to reflate the market and they’ll do it for far longer than we all think.

    I was thinking of shutting down this site, but I AM going to turn it into a forum site. At least then we can all chat about how insane it gets just before it busts again. Maybe after the second bust- I’ll go back to featuring properties again.

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  40. “I’ve already made 60k on my house, and have only lived in it for two months!”

    You’re making $1000 a day just for living? Wow. And THAT’S so normal.

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  41. In my mind, the market isn’t that crazy right now. Supply is low, which sucks, but not everything is flying off the shelves. Only those properties priced appropriately are selling quickly.

    My husband and I bought a 2/2 in Lakeview just shy of 10 years ago. We’re currently under contract to sell it for $2,900 more than we paid. Crazy? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.

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  42. “My husband and I bought a 2/2 in Lakeview just shy of 10 years ago. We’re currently under contract to sell it for $2,900 more than we paid. Crazy? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.”

    Thanks for the input, Ace. It’s valuable to hear from people on the ground. How quickly did you sell it?

    Your example is why I asked Gary- how high does he think prices can go before the buyers balk? Because, according to him, in this market, you should have been listing your property for a lot more (especially if it sold really fast.)

    But is that really the case?

    I think price still matters. Buyers have been conditioned to get a “deal” the last couple of years.

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  43. What’s the differential for very similar comps but one is conventional sale and the other is a short sale? Conv / SS = 110% 125% ???

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  44. “How can that be ignorance if there are multiple offers on many properties? Wouldn’t that automatically push the price up? I’m sure some people are offering over the asking price.

    I guess the real question to ask is- how high can sellers go before buyers will say “no”? Maybe they won’t. Maybe that 2/2 that sold for $450,000 in 2008 will command $450,000 or $475,000 right now. The market is the market. But clearly it won’t command that or they’d be asking it- right?”

    Not if you’re not on the market long enough to get good price discovery. A lot of buyers travel/ are not able to look at properties until the weekend and they may not be available the first weekend that a property is on the market. If a property comes on the market on a Monday and some buyer comes along with an OK but not the best offer on Wednesday then the seller is screwed and so is the 2nd and 3rd buyer. That’s why with some foreclosure sales they are now saying that they will reject all offers obtained in the first week – very smart.

    Why are properties underpriced? Because it’s hard to know where the market is RIGHT NOW. We’re looking back 6 months at what sold and often missing the mark. I’ve been underestimating the appeal of duplex downs or basement units lately. I’ve been astonished at what they sell for. Time to adjust my valuation yardstick.

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  45. “but I AM going to turn it into a forum site. At least then we can all chat about how insane it gets just before it busts again. ”

    And of course we could all come up with our own properties to talk about.

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  46. “You’re making $1000 a day just for living? Wow. And THAT’S so normal.”

    I know, right. 🙂 I actually lucked out because my developer priced the condos at post-bust prices and they sold them like hotcakes. They’re now working on the next phase and raised the starting price by nearly $100,000 (this phase is nearly identical to my phase). And by working on, I mean they have the plans, but haven’t broken ground. And if you’d like to buy one, you’re SOL. They’re sold out. 40 units gone in only a few months, before the shovel ever hit the dirt.

    It’s definitely not the normal… but the story is indicative of what’s going through a lot of buyer’s minds right now. Low interest rates, decreased home values… buy buy buy! I’m just the lucky SOB who bought at the perfect time. Hopefully the consumers and banks have learned their lesson and this feeding frenzy won’t result in another crash in 5-7 years.

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  47. “‘My husband and I bought a 2/2 in Lakeview just shy of 10 years ago. We’re currently under contract to sell it for $2,900 more than we paid. Crazy? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.’

    Thanks for the input, Ace. It’s valuable to hear from people on the ground. How quickly did you sell it?”

    Oh I envy you!! I have a studio in Lakeview that was purchased in 2007 for $170k. It’s now worth $90-$100K. And if I try to sell it, I’m competing against a dozen studios in my building that are in foreclosure… all owned by the same d-bag, of course.

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  48. looking to buy on May 22nd, 2013 at 8:49 am

    More on the ground info. My neighbor below, sold his 2/2 in Old Town for nearly the same price he paid for it almost 10yrs ago. It sold less in less than a month. It was brand new when he bought it and the kitchen and baths remain the same. The only improvements were some builtins int he living room and paint.

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  49. The Obama admin stopped the free market

    so now we have “limited” inventory even though 1/3 ( or more) are underwater and the over buildout, of course, still exists

    buying Dem votes

    COSTS YOU MONEY

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  50. Anecdote here…

    2 properties went on the market in my building in the last 3 days and I shit you not every time I walk my dogs in the afternoon there is a realtor showing a young couple one of the places. NEVER have I seen anything like that before in my building

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  51. Sonies, I’ve noticed the same things in my building. One place went under contract after less than a week. The ask price was $60k over what I paid for a similar unit (not sure what the close price will be). I was surprised.

    I wonder how long this can possibly last. Americans are so optimistic.

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  52. Ace here. We sold our place very quickly – it was put on the market mid-week but was not open to showings until the open house on Sunday. Offer came the next day. We wanted to sell quickly because we were already under contract on a new place. Stupid, yes, but something came on the market that I knew wouldn’t last and we jumped on it.

    We also had a good idea of what our place would sell for, since another unit in our 6-unit vintage building went under contract several weeks earlier. That couple, who sold for the same price as ours is going for, took a $34K loss, since they lived here just shy of 5 years. They received 3 offers at ask during the first week on the market (they went on the market post-Super Bowl). Interestingly, when they were interviewing realtors, another realtor wanted to put the place on the market for about $40K less than what it ultimately went on the market (and sold) for.

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  53. @Gary Lucido – Another issue with current pricing is appraisals. You might think that things are underpriced since they’re going under contract very quickly, but if the seller held out to get 3% more on the place, would the appraisal come through? A friend selling his Lincoln Square condo had the appraisal come in at $8K less then the agreed-upon sales price, and I’ve heard of others having the same issue.

    And, although I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, would getting an extra 3% on my place be worth it given the disruption to my life of having it on the market for another two months? I have two kids in a 2/2, so showings would have been a complete nightmare. There are many of us in the same boat – living in 2/2s with kids, wanting to move for the past several years but it just didn’t make financial sense. We’re worn down and just want it all over with!

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  54. looking to buy on May 22nd, 2013 at 9:51 am

    Ace,
    Where are you moving to?

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  55. The 2/2 was a nice try at urban family living but 1,200 sq feet with no extra space (garage, basement, yard etc) is just too small for modern families. The model should have been the extra large 3/2’s that are all over thefar north side. There are 1,500 sq ft or larger 3 beds with formal dining rooms and dens and sunrooms in Rogers park and edgewater that were suitable for family living for decades. The 2/2 of today is a luxurious version of the Stalinist apartment block that litters most Eastern European and North Korean cities. I wonder what will happen to all the 2/2’s of the future.

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  56. “I wonder what will happen to all the 2/2?s of the future.”

    If we’re lucky, they’ll disappear. I hate 2/2s… can’t believe I once considered purchasing one. Then I got smart, and bought a 3/3.

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  57. ” I wonder what will happen to all the 2/2?s of the future.”

    They’re pretty decent rentals. If they were built with above-mccrapbox standards.

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  58. “I wonder what will happen to all the 2/2?s of the future.”

    More arch-liberal singles, more homosexuality, less offspring, less family formation equals more marginal demand for 2/2s than even exists right now.

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  59. That’s going to be a lot of work to transfer a large number of the city’s 2/2s into the hands of able and willing landlords. And they sell for a lot of money too” often not enough to justify owning it as a rental.

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  60. @ Ace, does your “vintage” place have modern amenities, AC, W/D, parking, elevator, etc…?
    I think the world vintage sometimes is misused insteadnof old. Not saying it is necessarily the case here.

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  61. antique means over 100 years old
    vintage = over 50 years
    collectible = over 25 years

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  62. 2/2’s are great if you don’t have kids, other than that not so great, still blows away the 1/1, 2/1, and 3/1 though

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  63. “More arch-liberal singles, more homosexuality, less offspring, less family formation equals more marginal demand for 2/2s than even exists right now.”

    Isn’t that good HH? It means all your arch nemesis will be concentrated in certain down town hoods, and you can go to suburbs and avoid them all?

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  64. Instead of turning them into rentals, a lot of 2/2’s should be combined. Sure, there are lots of big 3+ bedroom units in Rogers Park, etc., but there’s a shortage in the prime northside hoods.

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  65. I have a 2/2 and couldn’t imagine raising a kid in it, but it’s perfect for me as a single person.

    There are a large number of babies and toddlers in my building. These are the people who have put their units on the market in the past few weeks.

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  66. “And they sell for a lot of money too” often not enough to justify owning it as a rental.”

    But that’s *now*; in the future, rental-type places will return to rental-type pricing.

    “Instead of turning them into rentals, a lot of 2/2?s should be combined.”

    This will work well in buildings with large enough floorplates, where there might be a 1/1 or a studio next door to the 2/2, and for places where there are 2 2/2s per floor, but there are a lot of ’em in buildings where it will be less practical. But even a 25% reduction in the total number of 2/2s would probably correct the imbalance.

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  67. I luv my Rogers Park 2/2 or should I say “Tokyo” 2/2….all 836 square feet…Very little closet space and the bathrooms super tiny. At least I have an excuse for not inviting family.

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  68. 2/2s aren’t too bad if they are of adequate size. Problem is developers got greedy and stuffed 2/2s into a floor plate that really should have been a 1 bedroom. I had a vintage 2/2 condo that was around 1500 sqft and it felt huge. Big seperate dining room. Huge kitchen. Massive living room with sun room. Breakfast area. Decent sized bedrooms.

    I wouldn’t have wanted to raise a kid in it, but it was plenty of space. I do believe developers are missing out on not building more 3/2s. If the city really wants families to stay in the city, they need to figure out how to get more 3 and 4 bedrooms built at reasonable prices. I bet there are some folks who would pay for the space and maybe a base level of finishes to keep the prices more reasonable.

    Where the mistake is made is that most of the 2/2 buyers are typically newly weds or fairly young. They are at that age where they are starting to make adult money, but haven’t yet really lived like an adult. A small 2/2 seems ok when you are in your mid to late 20s, then you start to mature and realize they really aren’t enough space for a couple/kid with modern lifestyles.

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  69. If vintage is over 50 years, as HH says, then my 1949 home counts as vintage, which sounds good. Luckily, it was built in 1930s/40’s style, before all the split-level/ranch nonsense took over a few years later. It doesn’t have some of the cool vintage touches, like arched doorways or a front porch, unfortunately, but it does have a beautiful brick fireplace and built-in bookshelves in the LR and wood floors throughout.

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  70. “At least I have an excuse for not inviting family.”

    lol sometimes thats a positive 8)

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  71. Ace here again. We’re moving to a SFH in North Center/Lincoln Square. As for the place we’re selling, it’s 1350 sq. ft., and lacks parking, but has central air, high ceilings, W/D in-unit, working fireplace, nice sized deck, original moldings, hardwood floors throughout, etc., etc. I think it’s gorgeous – so much nicer than all of the recently built condo buildings. As for parking, we rent across the street (we’ve also done street parking through the years, too). Oh, and no elevator, although at 3 stories, I don’t consider that as lacking an amenity. The building is about 100 years old, give or take, and was probably one of the first gut rehabs (when they still did gut rehabs, rather than just tearing them down and building the cookie-cutter buildings that are everywhere today).

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  72. “Isn’t that good HH? It means all your arch nemesis will be concentrated in certain down town hoods, and you can go to suburbs and avoid them all?”

    What are you talkin’ about?!!! This is America, the home of the brave (as the famous song goes). This is Chicago, the city of Big Shoulders. We’re supposed to give up our great North American cities to a bunch of pervs, testoserone-challenged hipsters, and queers? They should be the ones shunned outside the walls!

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  73. “Ace here again.”

    Is anyone else wondering whether or not Ace realizes his name appears above his post? Or maybe this is just how he rolls, announcing himself whenever he walks into a room? 🙂

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  74. “Another issue with current pricing is appraisals. ”

    I think appraisals are getting better. There has to be a mechanism to reflect rising prices. But they are a crapshoot and buyers with the money can often cover the difference.

    “would getting an extra 3% on my place be worth it given the disruption to my life of having it on the market for another two months? ”

    That’s a personal choice but 3% is a lot.

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  75. Hey Gramin – Jimmy likes Elaine.

    Also, I’m a girl. 😉

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  76. ” anyone else wondering whether or not Ace realizes his name appears above his post? Or maybe this is just how he rolls, announcing himself whenever he walks into a room? ”

    if my name were Ace I’d probably do the same thing

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  77. I enjoy that new song ‘bugatti’ by Ace Hood…

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  78. gringozecarioca on May 22nd, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    “antique means over 100 years old
    vintage = over 50 years
    collectible = over 25 years”

    Did Mr Homophobe just give us a lesson on antiquing????????????

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  79. “The lack of inventory is causing distortions in the market place, as we’ve chattered about before, such as multiple bids, paying over listing price, waiving inspections, and, in this case below, buying sight unseen.”

    I’ve bought sight-unseen before, but I never waive the inspection.
    If it’s a foreclosure they will make you take it “as is”, however you can still perform an inspection.
    The listing agent can schedule the inspection as if it’s a regular viewing of the property.
    They just won’t allow you to make the purchase contingent on the property passing inspection in the contract.
    Make sure you do the inspection before you give them your earnest money.
    But NEVER buy a property without an inspection.
    I use Domicile Consulting.
    They are very thorough.

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  80. HH, come out! come out! where ever your are!

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  81. “HH, come out! come out! where ever your are!”

    Olic, you are often right but on this one I still say that he is straight. I think he is in some sort of artsy field (ze suggested once that he is architect, one of the posters, and architect never refuted it) where immigrants and gays dominate. I bet some wealthy jewish person decided to patronize the talented Asian gay guy over Dan’s tasteless self and since then he hates modern, Asian, gay, Jewish, liberal and all their combinations 😉

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  82. “ze suggested once that he is architect, one of the posters, and architect never refuted it”

    Nah, not a chance. ‘Didn’t dignify it with a response’ is more like it. Not to mention that OPRF, where architect lives, is pretty much the 8th circle for youknowwho.

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  83. “Olic, you are often right but on this one I still say that he is straight. I think he is in some sort of artsy field (ze suggested once that he is architect, one of the posters, and architect never refuted it) where immigrants and gays dominate.”

    Miu your probably right, I love hanging with the gays they can be so much fun. There is no way HH could be that much fun.

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  84. “There is no way HH could be that much fun.”

    I show you some fun, bent over the kitchen table.

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  85. HH watches dancing with the stars???? He has to be a gay man traped in a racist body.

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  86. gringozecarioca on May 22nd, 2013 at 8:47 pm

    “I show you some fun, bent over the kitchen table.”

    Honestly, last thing I want to think about HH, is you bent over a kitchen table..

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  87. homedelete, I have no words to convey to you and everyone else in here just how effing THRILLED I am that the underwater homeowner whose loan mod you have on your desk is getting a massive principal reduction at just the hour when our Powers have managed to manipulate a severe shortage of visible for-sale inventory in the housing market along with super-low interest rates and FHA loans made available to people with FICOs of 580 and 3.5% down-payments.

    I mean, but the whole thing is a no-lose situation for careless borrowers and irresponsible lenders, and a no-win for everyone else. If you buy the place with your 3.5% down loan, then become a serial refinancer with one cash-out refi after another as prices rise due to the kind of lending that enabled you to buy in the first place, why, then, that’s just great. Everyone wins but first-time buyers But if values crater as they did in 2008-11, well, just walk away, or default and squat rent-free while you wait for your loan mod and principal reduction that will enable you to own your house for substantially less than the price you agreed to pay. Heads you win, tails the taxpayers and everyone who bought honestly loses.

    I’m sick at my stomach reading about it.

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  88. HH, you won’ EVER, EVER be able to bend me over the kitchen table. Perhaps Mitch though…. 😉

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  89. “FHA loans made available to people with FICOs of 580 and 3.5% down-payments. ”

    Oh Laura look at how much progress has been made in tightening up credit standards. It used to be 500 and 3% down.

    “More than 17 percent of all FHA loans were delinquent in September. (2012)”

    http://ochousingnews.com/news/17-of-fha-loans-delinquent-in-september-bailout-coming

    And they have a huge portfolio at over $1T.

    Will be interesting to see if the extended FHA loan limits that expire at the end of 2013 are renewed or not. If not there will be some downward pressure in the good ol’ GZ where idiots are using FHA loans to buy 425k single dwellings with 15k down. Hopefully tea party house members can force gridlock and let the higher limits expire.

    But to make you feel a little sicker Laura FHA borrowers are getting an _extra_, _added perk_. Their mortgages are assumable. This means if they goto sell in 3-10 years and rates are higher, the fact that the new buyers can then get a discounted mortgage means they can overpay for the property then and FHA borrowers get another wealth transfer.

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  90. “Their mortgages are assumable.”

    That is utterly amazing. Truly unreal. It just shows the deep level of deviancy in WashDC.

    Seriously, when these things get drafted, also 3,000 page things like Obamacare or amnesty for illegals show up also, and none of the congresssmen real any of it….. does anyone know how or who “drafts” this stuff? they are the true brains behind the evil. Then the drafts show up as bills and voila they get voted on? Who are these behind the scenes lawyers?

    No sane banker would allow assumable mortgages without incredible levels of scrutiny. Assuming a lease is easier.

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  91. “Perhaps Mitch though…”

    I’m going to show miumiu and oilc who is boss…. they like to think they are sophisticated or whatever, but we’ll see how sophisticated they look bent over my kitchen table. That’s what I’m talking about, not homos.

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  92. “does anyone know how or who “drafts” this stuff?”

    Lobbyists. In this case lobbyists for the housing industry. Likely even lobbies that many people that read & post here indirectly contribute to in Realtor membership fees, and let’s not forget the banking lobbyists.

    To slightly mitigate the assumable part the 30yr FHA loans do have relatively steep fees. But even those are dwarfed by the equity gain the seller is likely to see even if rates only go up 2.5% in 5-7 years. Remember that 250bps at this stage of QE is interest rates almost doubling.

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  93. No sane banker who had to eat his mistakes would allow it, is what you mean, helm. You can take a lot of risk when you know that someone else will have to take your losses.

    Our bankster-owned politicians have created a risk-free world for the financial cartel at the expense of everyone and everything else. We have shoveled well over a trillion dollars into various bailouts and support programs designed to shield the major financial houses from the results of their malfeasance. Well, you never get rid of risk- you only shift it, and we’ve shifted it to the taxpayers and savers, and to the public at large. There is almost no way for most people to plan their finances and impossible to avoid major risk no matter what direction you go. Buying in the middle of a rampage like this has obvious risks, but your alternative is watching the value of your stored cash be eroded by inflation in rents, food, and fuel, while taking the risk that your savings will be “Cyprused” to save a largely insolvent banking system that looks to me to be held together by bag ties and scotch tape.

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  94. I see that HH went crying to Sabrina and had his racist rant deleted. So now my responses are left hanging without context. What a whip.

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  95. hh asks if the kitchen table is part of the brasillia midcentury set?

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  96. gringozecarioca on May 23rd, 2013 at 8:31 am

    “There is almost no way for most people to plan their finances and impossible to avoid major risk no matter what direction you go. ”

    Yes.. said before not owning does not mean you do not have risk. Not owning just means you are short what others are long. Risk is linear. This makes sense. This is how it should be. This is obvious.. just need to smoke lots of weed to see it.

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  97. “Fortunately, even those with poor to fair credit can qualify to assume an FHA-insured mortgage. As of July 2012, FHA requires a minimum credit score of 580 in order to qualify for its mortgage insurance programs, including mortgage assumption. Lenders often require higher credit scores before approving a buyer to assume an FHA-insured mortgage. Lender credit scores vary, but a score of 620 often is required before assuming an FHA-insured mortgage, as of July 2012.”

    LOL! wow…

    So say in 3 years rates are 5%, I can have the buyer assume my 3.3% rate?

    Never heard of this before but damn thats so crazy its true…

    Who’s laughing now HD? Not only did I get a low cost refi thanks to HAMP, an 8k tax credit from the GUBMENT, I also only put a minimal amount down which allowed me to gain significant appreciation in my stock portfolios from 2009 to today!

    That sure makes me feel better on this shit-tastic weather day

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  98. Looks like they are tightening the FHA PMI requirements come June 3rd, requiring PMI be kept for the _duration_ of the 30yr loan. Thing is this is a credit tightening in name only, as currently PMI can only be removed after 5 years and 78% LTV. Well once one gets to that level with new FHA loans they can just refi into a conventional loan.

    But new FHA loans that are assumable will keep those sky high fees, dimishing their value. This new policy will _not apply_ to FHA loans issued before June 3, 2013. People that got FHA loans prior to this date get to have their cake & eat it, too, while taxpayers have no cake and are left hungry.

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  99. Another quick anecdote – went to our local watering hole (original Small Bar) on a recent warm Saturday and in their beer garden were no less than 1/2 dozen tots. Even the bartender was talking about how strange that was, I believe his phrase was “when did this area become Roscoe Village?”

    For better and for worse, we are seeing a lot more not-LP income but solidly middle class+ income couples around here, often with kids. I think the allure of a yard must override other genetic programming. We had a burned body found in a trash can on the 3100 block of n. Kimball, and the general consensus was “ehh. shit happens.”

    A lot of old crusty types are going to be dropping like flies in this neck of the wood in the next 5 – 10 years, we just lost our one remaining white trash family – these are the types helmethoffer likes to pretend don’t exist, the chronic drunks, the ones dealing/using meth out of the basement while their senile father watches the Price is Right and the soaps every day from his recliner under a framed portrait of John Paul II or JFK.

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  100. The appeal of the yard is real. Kids and dogs need yards. Even if its small. Cramping a family into a small condo sucks. It might be ok in some major cities in the world but its not ideal.

    I’ve been saying for a while that Avondale Is next to gentrify. Apts for hipsters and houses for families.

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  101. gringozecarioca on May 27th, 2013 at 5:59 am

    Quiet here… Bob back from Monaco Grand Prix yet?

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  102. “went to our local watering hole (original Small Bar) on a recent warm Saturday and in their beer garden were no less than 1/2 dozen tots. Even the bartender was talking about how strange that was, I believe his phrase was “when did this area become Roscoe Village?”

    “A lot of old crusty types are going to be dropping like flies in this neck of the wood in the next 5 – 10 years, we just lost our one remaining white trash family”

    Where I come from it appears you have several younger white trash families in your neighborhood, but apparently you’re too blind to see it. Because they’re paying $5 for a Lagunitas instead of $2 for a High Life it makes it okay to bring your toddler to a bar, it makes it okay for a _half dozen_ to bring their toddlers to a bar?

    “We had a burned body found in a trash can on the 3100 block of n. Kimball, and the general consensus was “ehh. shit happens.””

    Yeah the shit that happened to them is they were caught overpaying for RE during the boom years and are now stuck, and are now clinging to anything to keep up appearances that they’re raising their family in a less than ideal location/situation.

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  103. err that they’re not raising

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  104. “A lot of old crusty types are going to be dropping like flies in this neck of the wood in the next 5 – 10 years, we just lost our one remaining white trash family – these are the types helmethoffer likes to pretend don’t exist, the chronic drunks, the ones dealing/using meth out of the basement while their senile father watches the Price is Right and the soaps every day from his recliner under a framed portrait of John Paul II or JFK.”

    The trash in Logan Sq. and Avondale is mexican, old fart mexican men driving pick-ups, wearing cowboy hats who don’t pull over for sirens or fire trucks (they’re too stupid, or their Third World culture doesn’t require them to…they bring their idiocy here). You’re just a full blow liar if you’re trying to represent that the trash in your area is Polish versus Mexican. The Polish kept up their properties, not so much our vibrant newcomers, vibrancy equals garbage and gangs, “beware of dog” signs everywhere, graffiti, and Lorca schools. There is nothing more pathetic than an anti-White white person, the skeptic d-bags of the world, who schelps his kid to a white neighborhood for school, like the world’s top hypocrite. Go visit that deli, Kurowski on Central Park/Milwaukee. It’s is 100x cleaner than the Mexican dumps and carnicerias you see. The skeptics of the world are the stupidest people alive. Mexicans have huge drinking problems, and their culture doesn’t seem to mind if they drive drunk either. How many times in you shithole neighborhood to you see an empty Corona or Modelo twelve pack box with empty bottles? Oh yeah, it’s the clean Polish white people doing that. You don’t fool anyone with your lies and falsehoods. Busted.

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  105. “We had a burned body found in a trash can on the 3100 block of n. Kimball, and the general consensus was “ehh. shit happens.”

    Yeah, you douche-bag. Was that the Mexicans or Polish? Do tell us…..

    Idiot = skeptic

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  106. Keep on worrying about those polite old-timers with JPII photos in their houses, they’re the real reason Chicago sucks!! Sure thing!

    For the year 2010, in a city roughly 33 percent black, 32 percent white, and 28 percent Hispanic:

    95.5% of murder arrests in Chicago were African-American and Hispanic.
    93.4% of arrests for criminal sexual assault in Chicago were African-American and Hispanic.
    96.3% of arrests for robbery in Chicago were African-American and Hispanic
    92.2% of arrests for aggravated assault in Chicago were African-American and Hispanic
    92.7% of arrests for burglary in Chicago were African-American and Hispanic

    Source: Chicago Police Department, 2010 Annual Report

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  107. http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21578043-our-latest-round-up-house-prices-reveals-some-sharp-contrasts-boom-and-gloom

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  108. jeez, hh, everybody knows that the system is biased against minorities, and white people are arrested far less, especially for drug crime.

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  109. gringozecarioca on May 28th, 2013 at 8:00 am

    “jeez, hh, everybody knows that the system is biased against minorities, and white people are arrested far less, especially for drug crime.”

    LOL.. someone like me, pretty much has to kill someone to get arrested. Then I would make bail next day anyway.. And that’s with obvious flight risk.. It’s good to be a white male.. Awesome actually. Like being born dealt a straight flush.

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  110. “and white people are arrested far less, especially for drug crime.”

    lol maybe white people are better criminals?

    or maybe there are less instances of white people you know, doing criminal stuff out in public?

    I watched two white boys get stopped from their car in the middle of ontario street on Sunday night by 3 narcotics cars, frisked down, had their car searched, and the pigs didn’t find anything and had to let them go. They all had a laugh and went on their way.
    was certianly a bizarre sight

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  111. Intriguing racist rant as usual, but I didn’t say they were Polish, now did I? You really are a rube if you think Avondale is 100% Polish & Mexican, the fact is BOTH of those immigrant groups are moving out and closer to the burbs.

    ” You’re just a full blow liar if you’re trying to represent that the trash in your area is Polish versus Mexican.”

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  112. I suppose in your worldview the hoity toity folk bringing their kids to Revolution Brewing for dinner are white trash? The place (and Small Bar) have kid menus for god’s sake.

    Don’t confuse neighborhood bars that serve food & are family-friendly with whatever craptastic bars you patronize in Lake View. And you call yourself a Green Zone expert, tsk. People like me were raised in bars, where your parents knew the owners, the kids all went to the same schools, etc. We are/were the white people Helmuthead fantasizes about, he’s just angry he missed out.

    You need to find a woman, you are getting increasingly old and bitter.

    “Where I come from it appears you have several younger white trash families in your neighborhood, but apparently you’re too blind to see it. Because they’re paying $5 for a Lagunitas instead of $2 for a High Life it makes it okay to bring your toddler to a bar, it makes it okay for a _half dozen_ to bring their toddlers to a bar?”

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  113. If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash, skeptic. The fact that your parents brought you to bars growing up says a lot about you.

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  114. “If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash…”

    That’s a rather odd and arguably baseless assertion, unless you’re basing it on fundamentalist religious grounds (in which case, while I respect your right to make it, it’s problematic for other reasons). What sorts of places would be toddler appropriate, for one to enjoy a more favorable socioeconomic/class label?

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  115. “If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash…”

    Snap I am white trash.

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  116. “You need to find a woman, you are getting increasingly old and bitter.”

    He needs to find a man, to bend over the kitchen table. as an aside, did you enjoy watching Behind the Candelabra this weekend?

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  117. “If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash”

    1. Bob takes toddler to bar.
    2. Bob is white trash (no offense, Bob, just illustrative for current purposes).
    3. Everyone who takes a toddler to a bar is white trash.

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  118. ““If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash…””

    This is Chicago and the line between a ‘bar’ and an ‘eating establishment’ is obscured. Think Moretti’s in Edison Park. Sure, it’s a bar, and a big bar, but the outdoor patio is filled with Children and they have a kids menu.

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  119. “Snap I am white trash.”

    Yellow trash, and too new to this country to know the norms.

    “What sorts of places would be toddler appropriate, for one to enjoy a more favorable socioeconomic/class label?”

    Places where the primary focus of the establishment isn’t on alcohol or the consumption thereof. I guess Chicagoland, with its multiculti atmosphere, somewhere this norm of the rest of society got lost in translation. Just a bunch of lost, cultureless people, who think its okay to bring one’s toddler to a beer garden.

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  120. “Just a bunch of lost, cultureless people, who think its okay to bring one’s toddler to a beer garden.”

    Would taking toddler to ye olde english pub be okay?

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  121. This discussion of kids at bar and grills is funny. Have any of you been to Wisconsin? I think the state is like 94% white. Kids are at bars all the time.

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  122. How about Red Lion Inn?

    They have lots of beers on tap and by bottle, but also serve lots of british food and have a kids meun? Is trashy to bring your kids there?

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  123. So German doesn’t qualify as a culture in your book? These are the people who made YOUR favorite neighborhood what it is today, ya dummy. LOL… you will always be a follower, Bob.

    “Places where the primary focus of the establishment isn’t on alcohol or the consumption thereof. I guess Chicagoland, with its multiculti atmosphere, somewhere this norm of the rest of society got lost in translation. Just a bunch of lost, cultureless people, who think its okay to bring one’s toddler to a beer garden.”

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  124. Bob is living proof that De’Nile isn’t just a river in Egypt. He wants the neighborhood that the Germans built, he just doesn’t want German culture.

    “This discussion of kids at bar and grills is funny. Have any of you been to Wisconsin? I think the state is like 94% white. Kids are at bars all the time.”

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  125. All of our regular dinner joints have bars, the stools of which always seem to be occupied when we’re there (5:30-6:30). Granted, these aren’t the sorts places folks spend hours and hours drinking a lot, but I’d venture that most people (parents included) sitting at tables and having dinner have at least one drink. And I’m sure the management of any place, however food-oriented it might be, is keenly aware of booze/wine/beer sales, given the massive profits involved.

    I don’t think I’ve been to an actual micro-brewery in Chicago. But I’ve spent plenty of time in them in other states, and all have good-to-great food options. Plus, they tend to have ample booth seating and fries, both of which are appreciated by toddlers.

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  126. “however food-oriented it might be, is keenly aware of booze/wine/beer sales, given the massive profits involved. ”

    In many states, it is illegal to allow anyone under the age of 21 into an establishment where the majority of gross receipts are from alcoholic beverages.

    “Granted, these aren’t the sorts places folks spend hours and hours drinking a lot,”

    Its a restaurant with an attached bar, far different from a beer garden.

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  127. Classic – more child raising advice from Bubbabob. I acknowledge Bob is cc’s residing expert on white trash. I believe everyone here (except Bob’s bud, the table bendee) would much prefer miumiu or oilc purchasing next door to them versus an obnoxious drunken lout with delusions of superiority moving in.

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  128. Southbound, did it ever occur to your raisin-sized brain that you’re the white trash? Another anti-White white person, the most loathsome and ugly idiots that ever existed. For some reason the baby boom generation is over-represented with these types, and we can see the “results” their anti-progress and utter failure has foisted on our nation and future generations to clean-up, if they even can.

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  129. “LOL.. someone like me, pretty much has to kill someone to get arrested. Then I would make bail next day anyway.. And that’s with obvious flight risk.. It’s good to be a white male.. Awesome actually. Like being born dealt a straight flush.”

    Nice try. But you’re right that Jews do not go to jail. You have to be pretty much a Pollard or a Madoff level case, and Pollard is going to get out someday anyway. Note that none of the IRS jews before Congress will go to jail. There is a level of justice that stands apart, you know it.

    “but I didn’t say they were Polish, now did I?”

    “Framed portrait of JPII”. You said it I didn’t. You’re just a liar, backtracking. How many criminals have JPII tattooed on their arms, stickers on their getaway vehicles, statues in their drug houses? versus those of Our Lady of Guadalupe? LOL.

    “I suppose in your worldview the hoity toity folk bringing their kids to Revolution Brewing for dinner are white trash?”

    Yes, the worst kind possible. They take their kids to a communist-themed restaurant with power-salutes for tappers, that operates for a capitalist profit paying (LOL) minimum wages to the mexican busboys and cooks, and the white trash liberal parents get buzzed on 6% beers in this schizophrenic environment. Great F’n example. What a complete class of morons. It’s comical.

    “everybody knows that the system is biased against minorities, and white people are arrested far less, especially for drug crime.”

    Laughable and stupid. The stats were for violent crimes, not “drug offenses”. Nice try though, parroting that stuff. Stick to the math, not propaganda coming out of liars’ mouths.

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  130. “If your bring your toddler to a bar, regardless of whether it’s a micro-brewery with a kids menu, you are white trash, skeptic. The fact that your parents brought you to bars growing up says a lot about you.”

    Bingo.

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  131. HeilHofer deems other people trash? A guy who brags/ posts lies here about living his ‘cool’ wife-less, child-less single life yet decrys the moral decay represented by Mr Big portraying his life style on Sex in the City? HH is a truly ignorant buffoon. And HH repeatedly posted ravingly ignorant racist nonsense in response to the actual white trash comment, confirming he pretends they don’t exist.

    “A lot of old crusty types are going to be dropping like flies in this neck of the wood in the next 5 – 10 years, we just lost our one remaining white trash family – these are the types helmethoffer likes to pretend don’t exist, the chronic drunks, the ones dealing/using meth out of the basement while their senile father watches the Price is Right and the soaps every day from his recliner under a framed portrait of John Paul II or JFK.”

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  132. Resident ignoramus is apparently unaware about 10% of male Catholic babies born in the year of JP’s world tour were named to honor him, which I thankfully learned before I asked my Irish relative if she named her other son George Ringo.

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  133. PS back to skeptic’s Avondale… (if anyone is still interested in his false narrative that the problems are due to “white trash” Polish people versus the hispanics.) Another contrast would be to visit the Botánica at 2901 N. Milwaukee and then visit St. Hyacinth basilica at 3636 W Wolfram St. You tell me who has the “trash” and backwards culture. These bizarre botanicas contain herb remedies, tarot card readers, occult bric-a-brac and some strange corrupted version of Catholicism. Many times the “saints” for these third world illiterates are merely fronts for voodoo spirits. That botanica has a massive grim reaper statue with “offerings” in front of it, a “Lazarus” statue with rotting food sacrifices, pigs’ heads on plates as offerings. I could go on an on….it’s “vibrant” Chicago. Now walk over to St. Hyacinth and check that place out, built over 100 years ago by “poor immigrants”. It shows you clearly the difference between what first world white “poor” immigrants create, versus the third world “botanicas” etc. Make it a field trip on Sat or Sunday, you’ll see that skeptic holds deep animus and bias, it’s hard to figure out why….likely just a non-conformity complex where he feels it gives him one-upsmanship, but under scrutiny it utterly fails.

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  134. “Its a restaurant with an attached bar, far different from a beer garden.”

    Um, what’s the difference? I would agree that the Sheffield’s “beer garden” is different, but they don’t serve food. If the place serves actual meals, what is the difference bt eating inside and outside that makes it white trash to do so?

    As you can see, it hurts my soul that Bobbo thinks I’m white trash. Yee-Haw!!

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  135. Are you white trash if you bring your kids to Resi’s to eat in the garden?

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  136. I have a plan to start a bar with a playground. I think it would be very popular in neighborhoods with lots o kids and few backyards. Should be up on kick starter any day now as soon as I finish the waiver all customers must sign .

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  137. “Um, what’s the difference?”

    You’ll learn the difference in the future when your kids struggle with drugs/alcohol/behavioral problems. Its funny the SWPLs think their behavior is somehow acceptable just because someone tells them so (oh but the beer garden has a kids menu it MUST be okay). Hahaha–sheeple to the end.

    There is a difference as I outlined above. People don’t typically binge drink at restaurants, talk loudly and use profanity, and generally go there to get drunk. They do at beer gardens. The distinction is lost on the SWPLs who somehow think because its a microrbrewery and they’re paying $6/beer it’s okay.

    Also regarding immigrants I don’t often see poles in 20yr old rusted out pickup trucks which obviously aren’t street legal scavenging the alleyways for scrap metal and other items.

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  138. Europeans have been taking their children to bar/restaurants for ages. This is a fun topic.

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  139. Chicago-area home prices were almost 8 percent higher in March compared with the same month in 2012, the fifth straight year-over-year increase in a closely watched index.

    Local single-family home prices, however, did not rise as much as a national 20-city index, which was up 10.9 percent compared with March 2012, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller indices released today.

    Chicago-area prices were up 7.8 percent compared with March 2012.

    “Home prices in all 20 cities posted annual gains for the third month in a row. Twelve of the 20 saw prices rise at double-digit annual growth,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “The 10- and 20-city composites recorded their highest annual growth rates since May 2006.”

    Read more: http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.com/article/20130528/CRED0701/130529833/home-prices-up-almost-8-percent-in-first-quarter#ixzz2UbtaRxNo

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  140. WTF is going on here!?

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  141. I really wish Sabrina would lock comments on posts after a few days. It really seems like any thread more than a few days old just devolves into the same hand full of idiots trying in vain to figure out who has the biggest penis and distracts from the new posts.

    How long until the new forum format is up and running?

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  142. “People don’t typically binge drink at restaurants, talk loudly and use profanity, and generally go there to get drunk. They do at beer gardens.”

    Use some non-circular logic, Bobbo. “I know it when I see it” ain’t cutting the mustard. Where are these restaurant-based ‘beer gardens’ that fit your standardless standard? Big Star? I’ll give you that one, in addition to Sheffields. Gimme another.

    I will also note that your definition means that anyone who takes a kid to a professional sporting event of any sort is white trash.

    Also, are you one of those that consider 5 drinks in an undefined ‘session’ to be ‘binge drinking’?

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  143. Germans are white trash it appears.

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  144. Vlajos: do you spend more time reading/posting here or on city-data forum? Whatever you do, don’t encourage your drover, lookout, etc. buddies to spam up this site too.

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  145. “Germans are white trash it appears.”

    Well I take offense to that since I’m German. But I thought it was Italians who were white trash… at least that’s the impression I got from watching a few minutes of Jersey Shore.

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  146. More strawmen arguments from little Adolf. I’m laughing this is still so confusing to you, but I’ll clarify a bit:

    Dealing meth out of your dad’s basement while not paying rent = trash. They just happened to be white, most of us don’t feel a need to insert some larger racial superiority/inferiority dialogue.

    And as for “Polish vs Hispanics,” for a guy who claims to be defending Catholics, you are pretty clueless. Have you somehow missed the boat regarding Mexicans and Catholicism? I have so many Catholic mixed-breed friends I can’t even count (this is why I also noted the JFK portrait), Irish-Mexican, Polish-Irish, Mexican-Polish, Irish-Italian, Italian-Mexican, it just goes on and on and on. There’s nothing “white” about being Catholic, you dumbass. You probably hate the fact that Jesus was a Jew to boot.

    “PS back to skeptic’s Avondale… (if anyone is still interested in his false narrative that the problems are due to “white trash” Polish people versus the hispanics.) Another contrast would be to visit the Botánica at 2901 N. Milwaukee and then visit St. Hyacinth basilica at 3636 W Wolfram St. You tell me who has the “trash” and backwards culture”

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  147. Dang, I hope I didn’t distract from the penis argument. Who won?

    “I really wish Sabrina would lock comments on posts after a few days. It really seems like any thread more than a few days old just devolves into the same hand full of idiots trying in vain to figure out who has the biggest penis and distracts from the new posts.”

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  148. “There’s nothing “white” about being Catholic, you dumbass.”

    Damn straight. F’ing papist-traitors should be banned from Murica.

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  149. “Dealing meth out of your dad’s basement while not paying rent = trash.”

    100x less of a problem than the Hispanics’ problems. You’re not being truthful. You probably don’t even acknowledge or see your own SWPL class’ deleterious/degenerative affects either, do you?

    “Have you somehow missed the boat regarding Mexicans and Catholicism?”

    No I haven’t. You are the one who doesn’t get it. Catholicism is a European religion, started in Rome. It was brought to the amerindian sun-god worshipping cannibals by European Spaniards. The amerindian versions of it are weak (i.e. Botanicas), corrupted (pentecostal fire lord worship), bastardized, etc. No chance the mexicans could even maintain a St. Hyacinth, let alone create it or build it like the poor/penniless peasant Polish immigrants did over 100 years ago. LOL! You’re clueless. Christ = God in Christianity. He’s not some mere jew male, their high priests of which he condemned and laughed at. Where did you ever come up with that? Oh, I probably better not say….

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  150. You mean the Romans who crucified Jesus?

    ” You are the one who doesn’t get it. Catholicism is a European religion, started in Rome.”

    So if they were penniless, how did they buy the bricks? Did Jesus build the bricks out of water for them?

    “No chance the mexicans could even maintain a St. Hyacinth, let alone create it or build it like the poor/penniless peasant Polish immigrants did over 100 years ago. ”

    It must really pain you to see things like the St Hyacinth church building on Barry & Christiana, which is now a fully functional (and in fine shape) church dominated by “amerindian sun-god worshipping cannibals.”

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  151. What the hell is a “SWPL” again? And what on earth would be 100x WORSE than a bunch of near-illiterate methheads dealing drugs on your block? Nazi Panther tanks steamrolling over the housing stock?

    “100x less of a problem than the Hispanics’ problems. You’re not being truthful. You probably don’t even acknowledge or see your own SWPL class’ deleterious/degenerative affects either, do you?”

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  152. They eat people in Mexico these days? I’ve only been once, but didn’t see any cannibalism.

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  153. “What the hell is a “SWPL” again?”

    Liberal white, anti-White whites, urban-hipster narcisscist type….take themselves and their “ideas” so seriously they are often impecunious, therefore send their kids to public schools, try and rationalize that, they have a non-confromist streak which inhibits healthy mental development vis-a-vis their co-ethnics.

    “And what on earth would be 100x WORSE than a bunch of near-illiterate methheads dealing drugs on your block?”

    It’s not as big a problem as the crime and degeneracy of the hispanic subculture which is 100x more widespread and problematic in Avondale/Logan Sq. You’re exaggerating, and being called on it.

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  154. Is this really a debate about race superiority/inferiority?

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  155. “So if they were penniless, how did they buy the bricks? Did Jesus build the bricks out of water for them?”

    Good question. I certainly haven’t seen the mexicans build a single thing of merit, and they have far more advantages/technology than the poor Polish immigrants did 100 years ago!! When a parish goes from white to Hispanic, the maintenance of the property declines. It’s just the way it is. St. Hyacinth is still operated by Polish, I believe, that’s why it’s in such fine condition. Go inside there, and get some “diversity” and culture that you normally wouldn’t get sticking to drinking at Leftist dumps and bars. You’ll see how nice it is. You just have to give credit where it’s due. It’s far more impressive an edifice than a modern brew-pub.

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  156. Gramin, HH likes to get everyone all worked up with his racist rants. Just ignore him.

    “Dang, I hope I didn’t distract from the penis argument. Who won?”
    Well we all know who lost right HH……………. or did you just spend too much time in the pool.

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  157. “Is this really a debate about race superiority/inferiority?”

    Yeah, sadly. There are some who simply refuse to admit basic things like Asians and blacks don’t have the same SAT scores. The tyranny of enforced equality and political correctness is very strong here.

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  158. “HH likes to get everyone all worked up with his racist rants. Just ignore him.”

    Bullcrap. It’s usually some idiot like skeptic or Southbound, anti-White white liberals, that start bashing “white trash” or “Bridgeport” or “frat boys” or “Oak Lawn”, etc. that leads some of us to defend them from the vile commentary and bigotry. That’s always how it starts.

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  159. None of that spells out what SWPL stands for, which was the question. Perhaps your own gene pool isn’t as sparkling as you think it is.

    “Liberal white, anti-White whites, urban-hipster narcisscist type….”

    But this – THIS – is why we love you. Oh, the irony is thicker than pollution in Beijing.

    “You’re exaggerating, and being called on it.”

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  160. “that leads some of us to defend them from the vile commentary and bigotry.”

    You are truly noble, sir.

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  161. skeptic, click here: http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=SWPL

    “You’re exaggerating, and being called on it.”

    like what?

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  162. WTF do these four things have in common? Are there white trash frat boys in Bridgeport who moved there from Oak Lawn or something?

    btw, if you’re going call people “anti-White white liberals,” that would be AWWL for short. the fact you capitalize White really shows what a hack you are. White isn’t an ethnicity. it’s not a race. It actually has ZERO bearing in science. It’s a socio-political construct.

    “Bullcrap. It’s usually some idiot like skeptic or Southbound, anti-White white liberals, that start bashing “white trash” or “Bridgeport” or “frat boys” or “Oak Lawn”, etc.”

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  163. like I’m going to click on some White Power link from you, dude.

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  164. “None of that spells out what SWPL stands for”

    Stuff White People Like. Some intertubez thing that made Bobbo laff (oh how he laffed) sometime in 2009 or something.

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  165. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=SWPL#seen

    “White isn’t an ethnicity. it’s not a race. It actually has ZERO bearing in science. It’s a socio-political construct.”

    Non-whites have no problem discerning who is white. They understand the construct fully. They know IMMEDIATELY if someone is white, or isn’t. You’re the one who is confused by babble.

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  166. yeah Bobbo brought that term here, I just co-opted it, since it’s quick to type: SWPL

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  167. AWWL, that’s a good shortcut, agreed.

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  168. “They know IMMEDIATELY if someone is white, or isn’t.”

    They also very quickly are able to ascertain whether they can take advantage of their minority status to gain some sort of advantage in dealing with said whites, or not. For SWPLs they frequently can, for people like me or you they can’t.

    There are a LOT of dumb leftist whites from the burbs or elsewhere that move here and non-whites are able to take advantage of because they appeal to their sense of white guilt. I’ll never forget in 1992 at a convention some south side POS asked my pa for $12 for a pizza in front of me. LMAO! That beggar is probably either dead, toothless or in jail by now. Such is life on “da streetz”.

    And the likes of Koman Lewis–he belonged in a zoo or should’ve never have been born or his mother given public assistance to raise him.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57586379-504083/jonylah-watkins-update-koman-willis-ill-man-charged-in-slaying-of-6-month-old-chicago-girl/

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  169. Asians and blacks don’t have the same SAT scores… you’re absolutely correct… because we, white Americans, brought blacks over here as slaves. And once they were freed, we segregated them and treated them less than equal. And today, in the 21st century, it seems that some of us still treat them less than equal.

    Do you know what the difference is between a little black boy, a little white boy, a little hispanic girl and a little asian girl? Not a damn thing. One is not superior and neither is one inferior. They each have the propensity to learn and do great things in their lifetimes. Maybe we ought to start looking at them as equal and start fixing the problem. Higher crime rates in minority neighborhoods are a direct result of racist public polices put forth by whites. Lower graduation rates by black high school students are a direct result of racist public polices put forth by whites.

    Arg… I can’t stand racist / bigoted / hateful generalizations put forth but some simple minded fool. Would love to round em all up and throw em in a furnace.

    … Dammit… there’s that German in me speaking again.

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  170. Ah – well, in this case I have to agree with Bob, that site is hilarious. What it has to do with any of the nonsense Helmuthead is blathering about is beyond me, though.

    If you want a dose of reality on “white pride” crap and Chicago, here’s a fun blast from the not-terribly-distant past:

    http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/skinheads/Content?oid=873583

    “Stuff White People Like. Some intertubez thing that made Bobbo laff (oh how he laffed) sometime in 2009 or something.”

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  171. “And the likes of Koman Lewis–he belonged in a zoo or should’ve never have been born or his mother given public assistance to raise him.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57586379-504083/jonylah-watkins-update-koman-willis-ill-man-charged-in-slaying-of-6-month-old-chicago-girl/

    Huh, Bob???

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  172. “because we, white Americans, brought blacks over here as slaves.”

    No-one alive ever owned slaves.

    “One is not superior and neither is one inferior.”

    One is far, far more likely to come from a single-parent household headed by a female, whose father didn’t stick around. And two are far more likely to become pregnant much earlier than the others out of wedlock.

    Oh those darn statistics standing in the way of the fake reality you’d like to construct.

    “Lower graduation rates by black high school students are a direct result of racist public polices put forth by whites.”

    No evidence of this whatsoever. Its just the fake reality you’d like to construct to reinforce your beliefs. Your paradigm is not factually based whatever–no more than armchair philosophizing.

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  173. “Huh, Bob???”

    “Asians and blacks don’t have the same SAT scores… you’re absolutely correct… because we, white Americans, brought blacks over here as slaves. ”

    Slavery explains the SAT score gap? No further discourse with you is necessary as you’re incapable of correcting perceiving reality. Methinks you should join the peace corps and try to teach primitive cultures how to dig a sanitized well. Cultures that haven’t mastered literacy do indeed need constant instruction in such basic tasks as we know verbal re-telling introduces inaccuracies over time.

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  174. Heilhofer: This thread didn’t devolve over Oak Lawn, Bridgeport or frat boy Bob comments but devolved when Bob and you posted your belief (shared by other neocons) that we parents should lead lives toe-ing lines designed but not followed by your ilk, who have strong opinions based on no actual experience (do you have any offspring HH or Bobbo? Did you help raise them or just send money to a baby momma?). Talk about arm chair philosophizing by someone whose paradigm (ha) is completely made up.
    When you post bullcrap cc’rs are going to call you out for being bullcrappers. Btw I note every post by you or bubbabob gets exactly two thumb up votes – it’s sweet you two stick together that way.

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  175. “No evidence of this whatsoever. Its just the fake reality you’d like to construct to reinforce your beliefs. Your paradigm is not factually based whatever–no more than armchair philosophizing.”

    You honestly believe that enslaving Blacks, segregating blacks, and confining them to the poorest conditions in America has absolutely nothing to do with increased violence, lower literacy rates, etc? Or what about the fact that blacks are more likely to face the death penalty than their white counterparts? 1960s… MLK… Thurgood Marshall…

    How can anyone, let alone an entire subset of the population, be expected to rise to the top when they’re confined to the bottom by racist and bigoted policies?

    Whatever you’re smoking, I want some of it.

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  176. LOL, I can see the steam coming out of helmut’s head from here:

    http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/zoom-in-avondale-pope-john-paul-junk/Content?oid=9828556

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  177. ” has absolutely nothing to do with increased violence, lower literacy rates, etc? ”

    I think current great society programs such as welfare have a much stronger affect today in the collapse of the nuclear family in the ‘hoods and the ensuing violence. Programs advocated by the likes of your kind as some sort of “repayment” for far past things that have little to no bearing on the current state of inner city minority neighborhoods today are what is responsible for the current state of these neighborhoods.

    “they’re confined to the bottom by racist and bigoted policies? ”

    If you were to compare SAT scores of AA admits at Harvard vs. others, your theory falls apart. Additionally that H degree isn’t worth as much from an AA candidate as another to a potential employer precisely because of this.

    Gramin–know anything about fences? The POTUS sure does–his Kenwood home has a great one (even before he had SS protection)–and it wasn’t for right wing loonies back then. He’s not having Kenwood’s “finest stock” within 500yards of his girls, and for good reason.

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  178. wow everyone suree is fired up today, must be the folks that forgot to BUY NOW OR BE PRICED OUT FOREVER!

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  179. “If you were to compare SAT scores of AA admits at Harvard vs. others, your theory falls apart.”

    No, it precisely supports my argument.

    A. AA touches such a small percentage of the population that it has no discernible impact and no ripple effect.

    B. By the time AA comes into play (college), it’s entirely too late. Why do we think that giving an 18 year old a bump on college admissions because he’s black fixes the problem when we’ve given the finger to the millions of Black preschool students, dooming them from the start?

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  180. These conversations are so tiresome. What I really want to talk about its HH’s opinion of last night’s Behind the Candelabra! Did you think it was fab? who knew Matt was so hunky! Tell us all about it HH, tell us all about it!

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  181. Gramin :
    Do you know what the difference is between a little black boy, a little white boy, a little hispanic girl and a little asian girl? Not a damn thing.

    Bob:
    And two are far more likely to become pregnant much earlier than the others out of wedlock.

    I’d guess that the two girls are far, far more likely to become pregnant (either in or out of wedlock) than the two boys. But what do I know; I’m just a self-hating white person or a SWPL or something.

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  182. “we’ve given the finger to the millions of Black preschool students, dooming them from the start?”

    We’ve? Not that would be the black ghetto mamas who doomed their offspring from the start. I had nothing to do with it. You, on the other hand, might be one so I can’t comment.

    I find it fascinating it’s such an alien concept to SWPLs that other people can reproduce without seemingly caring as much as they do for their offspring. Its on the difficulty level of theoretical physics to the likes of people like you.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39993685/ns/health-womens_health/t/blacks-struggle-percent-unwed-mothers-rate/#.UaUNDpywUgo

    “We’ve”. No this responsibility isn’t collective, Gramin. And you could spend 40k/pupil/yr and it wouldn’t do nearly as much as this basic fact. I went to a highschool where spending was low per pupil, but from solid middle class families. Compared with the inner city HS across the river spending was much higher per pupil with far worse results in terms of graduation % and attending college.

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  183. “No this responsibility isn’t collective, Gramin.”

    There it is… your problem. It is collective. We, as a society, are responsible for our shortcomings. When will you f’ing realize that working together as a whole is better than working individually?

    And I wish that black woman wouldn’t have got pregnant from the start… so why don’t we give her affordable access to family planning! Oh that’s right… I bet you spend your free time waving signs outside Planned Parenthood.

    Anyone who knows me well knows that I love Hillary Clinton. It’s a strange fascination, I know… but I have to admit, we’d have adorable children. But back to the point…

    Hillary, as you know, is pro-choice. She’s a Democrat, so she doesn’t really have an option here. Her belief, and mine, is that we can get rid of abortions that are caused by unwanted pregnancies. And we can do this very easily: easy and affordable access to birth control!

    You know who else supports this notion: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. They’ve taken it a step further and said give it to everyone… without a prescription! Let the women have it!

    Alas, if only it could be so… too bad your right wing religious neocons have to get in the way and oppose what is only sensible (and, again, agreed upon by the medical community).

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  184. We went to Spain last year, brought the kids along. Went out to eat in a little bodega in Alicante. Cute place nothing fancy. Brought our kids, so did half the Spaniards there.

    Are Spaniards white trash?

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  185. I’m still waiting for Bobbo’s answer to this:

    “Also, are you one of those that consider 5 drinks in an undefined ‘session’ to be ‘binge drinking’?”

    What is it Bobbo?

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  186. “We, as a society, are responsible for our shortcomings.”

    Their shortcomings are their offspring. Cut the welfare payments as the incentive and you’ll see the problem start to diminish. When there’s no accompanying welfare check for having children out of wedlock I’d guarantee the out of wedlock birth rate drops. Flash forward 15 years and the murder rate will drop.

    But the Democrat party isn’t about to do that. They know these welfare payments represent votes. And so the cycle of violence and poverty continues unabated.

    “easy and affordable access to birth control!”

    They give out condoms free in CPS if I’m not mistaken. The problem isn’t they can’t afford birth control. The problem is they are incentivized to have offspring out of wedlock and said offspring often provide some sort of purpose to an otherwise dreary, tough life.

    The Democrat party mantra though knows if they can blame these ills on something as simple as birth control and can advocate free BC then more captive votes. And this simplistic explanation allows them to hide/deny the root causes affecting these neighborhoods.

    I actually hope you get your free BC for the ghetto masses. I don’t anticipate things will change much and in a few years what will you cling to as the source of the issues plaguing inter-generational poverty and violence? You’ll have to scrape around to find something excuse.

    At the end of the day you can’t blame “right wing neocons” for the inner city ghettos across the US. And you can’t blame slavery or jim crow laws. Sooner or later you have to start blaming the actual people responsible for the condition of their own neighborhoods. But I know personal responsibility is an alien concept to the likes of you. It _must_ be collective! Somehow that “white privileged” person on the northside is responsible for over half of Chicago looking and feeling like a third world ghetto, surely!

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  187. “Are Spaniards white trash?”
    YES and so are the french, the southern germans, the southern and central italians, the romanish speaking swiss, the belgian, the dutch outside major cities, all the UK north of Hadrian’s wall, and south of Hadrians wall to about an hour north of london, the poles, the irish. Basically only the austrians and the swiss aren’t white trash.

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  188. “Basically only the austrians and the swiss aren’t white trash.”

    You didn’t trash the Scandis. Trash, or no? Sonies is awaiting your answer.

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  189. Heh reminds me of the jury duty I was recently at, judge was intervieweing everyone, and some young woman, couldn’t have been older than 21… unmarried single woman named “Money Love”, her “job” was “raising my boy” and her “hobby” was “shopping”

    good grief

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  190. Actually when we went to Vienna, prior to kids, my wife and I ate at a few taverns (good traditional hardy food) AND the Viennese had kids in these places.

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  191. You think that horny teenagers (a universal trait) are having sex to “make money” via welfare payments/kids?

    Are you insane?

    “They give out condoms free in CPS if I’m not mistaken. The problem isn’t they can’t afford birth control. The problem is they are incentivized to have offspring out of wedlock and said offspring often provide some sort of purpose to an otherwise dreary, tough life.”

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  192. Vlajos (May 28, 2013, 3:58 pm)
    “Actually when we went to Vienna, prior to kids, my wife and I ate at a few taverns (good traditional hardy food) AND the Viennese had kids in these places.”

    Forgot, half the folks were smoking, eating and drinking. Total white trash.

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  193. gringozecarioca on May 28th, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    Vlajos,
    If Sara Carbonero is trash I want to be a garbageman.

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  194. Gringo, me too! Damn is shot HOT!

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  195. gringozecarioca on May 28th, 2013 at 4:06 pm

    Apologize for reverting to an annony level of immaturity, but I just realized her name appropriately has the word boner in it… Schwiinnnggg..

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  196. “You think that horny teenagers (a universal trait) are having sex to “make money” via welfare payments/kids? ”

    They know they can get by via welfare once knocked up/the state will step in to take care of the mistake they made with their bad mate selection behavior.

    Gramin is so stupid they rail against “neocons” yet in Cook County I don’t see too many elected Republicans.

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  197. The problem with condom distribution is that it places the primary responsibility for birth control on boys/men, but the consequences of sex without birth control fall primarily on girls/women. Condoms are also easy to hand-wave during the heat of the moment.

    If I were Emperor of the World (and if I had no qualms about disrespecting individuals’ bodily integrity), I would decree that all boys have a reversible vasectomy at age 12. They would be able to reverse it without charge at any time after age 25.

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  198. Austrians are trash too except for that family with lots of kids that was in that movie with the mountains and such from the 20’s or whatnot. And it goes without saying the Viking peOple are trash, total fracking garbage, I didn’t think I needed to address them. And they’re socialist too so they’re all poor white trash.

    And Russians theyre barely human.

    The worst though are the Balkan ‘whites’. They’re practically subhuman. Look at the Boston bombing. I impute theyre behavior to all of the Balkans. Yes that’s ridiculous but I believe it. And the fact they pray to a different god makes them heretics that will go to hell.

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  199. gringozecarioca on May 28th, 2013 at 4:15 pm

    The problem with condoms are that they suck.
    Oh, and Westloopeo also said they taste funny.

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  200. “The worst though are the Balkan ‘whites’. They’re practically subhuman”

    What is the old saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day?

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  201. All in seriousness , everyone assumes its a foregone conclusion that young nubile poor teens will use birth control if they had access to it. This conclusion however needs to be reconsidered. Some cultures, in fact, in most cultures in the world, having children ‘young’ is completely normal. In fact what we consider young in Chicago is completely normal in most of the world and even outside big cities women have children in their teens or early 20’s. my mother was married and with a child at 22 and that was normal for the 1970’s. did ou ever think that they mothers WANT to have children young? And that they probably had access to birth control but decided not to,use it? It’s cultural and its presumptuous for us rich and upper middle class privledged folks to look down on entire cultures of women who don’t wait until their 30’s to have children.

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  202. No, they really can’t get by. This is why they often end up never leaving home.

    The govt provides a smidgen of basic support, but I have read numerous studies which all show that you can’t just make ends meet with welfare. These folks end up babysitting, doing odd jobs, etc. to try and eke out a living.

    I don’t disagree with you it’s a terrible lifestyle choice, but Madeline is right that it’s really the boys who need to shape up, girls in these impoverished communities often have such low self-self esteem that they are afraid to stand up for themselves and to demand that the guy use a condom.

    “They know they can get by via welfare once knocked up/the state will step in to take care of the mistake they made with their bad mate selection behavior.”

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  203. Young women have children because they have sex and don’t use protection. They know they’re going to get pregnant. It’s not rocket science and they teach this shit to kids young these days. They have children because THEY WANT CHILDREN. It’s really that simple. The welfare state that arises from unwed out of wedlock children is merely secondary. That’s just what you do after having children. You go apply for benefits. They don’t have kids for the benefits Rush Limbaugh, they get the benefits because they want the children. Crazy to think America has a subculture, well, mainstream culture, where out of wedlock child birth is the norm. It just kind of evolved into this.

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  204. “communist-themed restaurant”

    Lol, you cannot make this shit up.

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  205. Skeptic, you can’t blame it on the boys. It takes two to tango. The fact of the matter is that the culture be it white trash or inner cities share a commonality in that sex starts young in unsupervised environments with one parent. And then they want children because that’s just what you do. Have babies. It’s naive to think that it’s self esteem or access to family planning would just solve all their problems.

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  206. “they’re socialist too”

    Get your vocab righ HD. They are COMMUNIST. If you ever support any type of social safely net or government involvement, you are a communist and you are secretly in love with Stalin.

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  207. C’mon moo–we know you only have eyes for Mao.

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  208. C’mon Bob, tell us if you think 5 drinks in an evening, or on a saturday afternoon, is ‘binge drinking’. And, if not, what does it take for you to consider it a ‘binge’?

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  209. gringozecarioca on May 28th, 2013 at 5:12 pm

    “Young women have children because they have sex and don’t use protection. They know they’re going to get pregnant. It’s not rocket science and they teach this shit to kids young these days. ”

    I thought the whole point of the internet was to teach them to pull out and go for the “money shot”.

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  210. “Do you know what the difference is between a little black boy, a little white boy, a little hispanic girl and a little asian girl? Not a damn thing. One is not superior and neither is one inferior. They each have the propensity to learn and do great things in their lifetimes. Maybe we ought to start looking at them as equal and start fixing the problem. Higher crime rates in minority neighborhoods are a direct result of racist public polices put forth by whites. Lower graduation rates by black high school students are a direct result of racist public polices put forth by whites.”

    All of that is false. Absurdly so. It’s just amazing that someone could hold such ridiculous beliefs in this day and age! 21st century science, statistics, and long-term social science studies clearly show you don’t know what you are talking about.

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  211. Please stop HH. Just stop and go away. You’re really being ridiculous now.

    Go read Savage Inequalities and at least learn something.

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  212. HD, I am not saying family planning is the “the” solution, but another reason girls have sex is you know, it feels good. Show me some studies backing up this idea that teen moms are scheming to have babies and cash in on this mythical welfare money bus (not to be confused with the mythical welfare money shot!).

    As for Lil’ Adolf, it is great to watch someone continue to dig themselves into a hole long after they hit China and came out the other side.

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  213. “This thread didn’t devolve over Oak Lawn, Bridgeport or frat boy Bob comments but devolved when Bob and you posted your belief (shared by other neocons) that we parents should lead lives toe-ing lines designed…”

    It devolved with skeptic’s use of the term “white trash” and his bigotry against the Polish folks of Avondale who have JPII pictures etc.

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  214. Skeptic, you’re not going to convince ANYONE with a brain, that first generation Koreans who ace the SATs and get into medical schools while blacks fail miserably, and 3rd generation Hispanics underperform is the result of “whites”. If you want to blame Southbound and his generation, or claim his people are responsible, then go ahead. But Korean immigrants outperform blacks and hispanics because they have higher IQs, pure and simple.

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  215. “communist-themed restaurant”
    Lol, you cannot make this shit up.

    LOL…oh really? What does “revolution” mean then?

    http://www.quarkmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jpg

    Personally, I hope the capitalist makes lots of money off the suckers like skeptic and sends his kids to private schools, that skeptic can’t afford.

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  216. here’s one that works, the dingbat AWWL bar server is classic!! LOL

    http://www.chicagomag.com/galleries/749/15568-C201006-A-Logan-Square-Revolution-Brewing.jpg

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  217. “The worst though are the Balkan ‘whites’. They’re practically subhuman. Look at the Boston bombing. I impute theyre behavior to all of the Balkans. ”

    Retarded. The Serbs and Croats were trying to rid themselves of the muslim subhumans, but Clinton and Hollbrooke and neocons decided that bombing Christians was the better way to go. McCain is supportive of arming nutcase Chechen terrorists because the neocons tell him that “putin” is the real enemy of America. It’s all messed up, but Chechens are not like Serbs. They are enemies, opposites. Not sure that Chechens are Slavs, they’re closer to being Khazars which are what most jews are, ashkenazim. Look it all up.

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  218. Damn HH, how did you manage to blame the loser Boston Muslim crazy terrorist-wanna-be bomber’s action on Jews again?
    You should start your “Six Degrees of Kosher Bacon”. You’d win hands down.

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  219. “If you were to compare SAT scores of AA admits at Harvard vs. others, your theory falls apart. Additionally that H degree isn’t worth as much from an AA candidate as another to a potential employer precisely because of this.”

    Why don’t you compare the SAT scores of the legacies with those who are “normal” admits while you’re at it? It would be a real eye opener.

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  220. Go read Savage Inequalities and at least learn something.

    Also recommended: Family Properties. http://www.amazon.com/Family-Properties-Struggle-Transformed-Chicago/dp/0805091424/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

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  221. steve heitman on May 28th, 2013 at 11:22 pm

    As soon as real estate starts heading higher this site goes to shit… nothing to talk about!

    Buy some real estate and call it a day…

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  222. “As soon as real estate starts heading higher this site goes to shit… nothing to talk about!”

    That’s okay. We probably only have about 12 to 18 months before it crashes again. This entire reflation is artificial. It can’t be sustained because rates won’t stay this low. Already just this month, rates are up 50 basis points.

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  223. logansquarean on May 29th, 2013 at 8:13 am

    So has the collective here come to a decision as to whether the market hit bottom in 2011? or when?

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  224. “So has the collective here come to a decision as to whether the market hit bottom in 2011? or when?”
    The early winter months of 2012; started to pick up volume/price in the spring of 2012, and then sustained the increase through today

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  225. “Please stop HH. Just stop and go away. You’re really being ridiculous now.”

    dont worry he will eventually end up at the wrong Autozone

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  226. “That’s okay. We probably only have about 12 to 18 months before it crashes again”

    HAH! Laughable… no way the music stops that soon, don’t you understand that every one of your predictions over the last few years has been way off? Should call you Costanza instead of Sabrina

    /anon out

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  227. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 9:04 am

    “So has the collective here come to a decision as to whether the market hit bottom in 2011? or when?”

    I said it was turning up in May of 12 when I sold the beach house… It’s never over until I sell something at the bottom or buy something at the top.. I have a long history to base this off of…

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  228. Collective here used to say no bottom in horizon when G the bully was leading them, see
    http://cribchatter.com/?p=9782

    Except Gary, milkster, and a few others, everyone was predicting more doom and gloom and how shadow inventory would drive the prices down further. I’m glad I bought and didn’t listen.

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  229. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 9:17 am

    “Except Gary, milkster, and a few others, everyone was predicting more doom and gloom and how shadow inventory would drive the prices down further. I’m glad I bought and didn’t listen.”

    Actually I am fairly certain I came up with an argument for why shadow inventory was irrelevant, but I was stoned back then so today I no longer remember it. 🙂

    btw.. 6 degrees of kosher bacon.. never heard that before but really liked it…. we always called it Jewish Geography..

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  230. You’re right Ze. I just changed Kevin to Kosher 😉

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  231. HH, your IQ drops every day as far as I can tell. Here’s a RECENT (eg, not your wack early 20th century eugenics-science BS) analysis, how anyone can even begin to argue that decades of ingrained poverty haven’t had an impact on educational achievement in those communities is beyond me.

    I grew up with two black kids (they were unrelated) that were adopted, but raised by professional/upper class “white” (if Italian counts) parents in Lincoln Park. One was an IB student at LPHS just narrowly lost a race for state senator on the East Coast and is running again. The other kid was less academically bent. I’ve lost track of him, but he seems to just be living a “normal” life. You can’t overgeneralize about race because it has no scientific backing whatsoever. And even when culture/opportunities are standardized, people from similar background often end up having wildly divergent paths.

    So please STFU and learn some science. You are an embarrassment to the human race.

    http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/05/the-virtues-of-a-cognitive-workout-new-research-reveals-some-neurological-underpinnings-of-intelligence/

    “How much does environment influence intelligence? Several years ago University of Virginia Professor Eric Turkheimer demonstrated that growing up in an impoverished and chaotic household suppresses I.Q. – without nurture, innate advantages vanish. What about genes? They matter too. After decades of research most psychologists agree that somewhere between 50% and 80% of intelligence is genetic. After all, numerous studies demonstrate that identical twins raised apart have remarkably similar I.Q.’s.”

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  232. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 10:12 am

    ““How much does environment influence intelligence? Several years ago University of Virginia Professor Eric Turkheimer demonstrated that growing up in an impoverished and chaotic household suppresses I.Q. – without nurture, innate advantages vanish.
    What about genes? They matter too. After decades of research most psychologists agree that somewhere between 50% and 80% of intelligence is genetic. After all, numerous studies demonstrate that identical twins raised apart have remarkably similar I.Q.’s.””

    Do you realize that those two statements kinda, maybe, sort-a, suggest that intelligence is clearly “predominately” genetic, and if you are dumb you live in a chaotic household because your dumb chaotic parents passed genetic garbage into you…..

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  233. “I grew up with two black kids (they were unrelated) that were adopted”

    Clearly your anecdotes with a sample size of two are representative of an entire population of millions and 12.9% of the US population.

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  234. I still wanty to know what Bob considers to be “binge drinking”.

    Need that guide post to figure out if I should disparage parents in the ‘beer garden’ with their kids for being ‘white trash’ or ‘euro’.

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  235. reminds me of that simpsons scene where homer builds a barbeque and becomes an art wierdo, and his art friends are drinking at moes…

    Moe: So you guys are Eurotrash, how’s that working out for you?
    Guenter: To be honest, we are adrift in a sea of decadent luxury and meaningless sex.
    Moe: Uh-huh. So where would this sea be located?

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  236. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 10:43 am

    “Need that guide post to figure out if I should disparage parents in the ‘beer garden’ with their kids for being ‘white trash’ or ‘euro’.”

    Isn’t that why they came up with the term “euro-trash” to simplify life for all of ya that shared that confusion.

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  237. good grief…this thread is still going. LOL Will be back later on…

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  238. “Why don’t you compare the SAT scores of the legacies with those who are “normal” admits while you’re at it? It would be a real eye opener.”

    That helps underqualified jewish kids from suburbia to maintain ridiculous levels of over-representation beyond merit. You’re right. Been going on 4-5 decades now.

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  239. “the loser Boston Muslim crazy terrorist-wanna-be bomber’s action on Jews again?”

    Simple facts. The Khazars (jewish ashkenazism) come from the same geographical area as do Chechens. They are the closer cousins, than those that live in the Balkans, kosovars excluded of course.

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  240. “Khazars (jewish ashkenazism)”

    Weren’t they converts to judism iirc? IT’s not like they were one of the original tribes of isreal

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  241. “Also recommended: Family Properties.”

    Oh yeah, I already know alot about that racism. I think JZ was involved in exposing that racism once too. Lawndale was a Jewish neighborhood on the west side, and when blacks threatened their isolation, self-segregation and clannish ways of life, there was racial conflict, that ultimately led to Jews completely abandoning the neighborhood in classic “white flight” and self-segregating in other areas like Rogers Park, Skokie, Northbrook, etc. The pattern is clear-cut, even today. No chance they would stick it out like the urban Italians, Polish, Lithuanians, and even the Irish, who continue this today to live side-by-side with blacks. Jews do not do this.

    Financial chicanery and racism was rampant among those Jews fleeing from the influx of black america:

    “Satter uncovered a citywide scheme, in which landlords sold African-Americans overpriced homes, keeping the titles until black homeowners paid them off, while charging excessive interest rates to insure they never could. Called contract selling, the practice cost thousands of migrating blacks their livelihoods. ”

    “Beryl Satter’s Family Properties is really an incredible book. It is, by far, the best book I’ve ever read on the relationship between blacks and Jews.

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  242. wow such knowledge of countries and thier geographical place, and yet cant make it to the autozone you specified yourself.

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  243. “I still wanty to know what Bob considers to be “binge drinking”.”

    I’m sure he’ll answer. But he’s used to untimed testing, so who knows when he’ll get back to you.

    Did bob get a new job w looser internet restrictions? Or did he spring for a smartphone/tablet? Or is he ‘between jobs”?

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  244. “I grew up with two black kids (they were unrelated) that were adopted, but raised by professional/upper class “white” (if Italian counts) parents in Lincoln Park. One was an IB student at LPHS just narrowly lost a race for state senator on the East Coast and is running again. The other kid was less academically bent. I’ve lost track of him, but he seems to just be living a “normal” life. You can’t overgeneralize about race because it has no scientific backing whatsoever. And even when culture/opportunities are standardized, people from similar background often end up having wildly divergent paths.
    So please STFU and learn some science. You are an embarrassment to the human race.”

    You’re not intelligent, nor to you read enough about the facts, data, or the truth. Look, we’re in the 21st century now, and science and medicine, advanced statistics, etc. are here to stay, so you’re going to continue to lose and revert to ad hominem responses or rely on pseudo-science, or social scientist “pop-star” charlatans for your back-up, and it makes you look foolish, an embarrassment.

    There are all kinds of twins studies, adoption studies, etc. Fact is that the children of black college professors don’t do as well on SATs as the children of white, jewish or asian professors. Now, how could this be, considering they all have the exact same advantages? It’s called reversion to the mean, which is lower.

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  245. “Isn’t that why they came up with the term “euro-trash””

    That’s a separate insult which, as far as I can determine, has little, if any, relationship to ‘binge’ drinking.

    I take it from Bobbo’s non-response, that he is either in a Carrie Nation phase, or has no coherent response.

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  246. “the term “euro-trash”

    Euro-trash is a term from the Eighties, when in that decade designer clothes (for men) made a come-back. No longer the long-haired, pot-smoking Seventies, the styles changed to suits, dress shoes, and cocaine. The Americans were caught off guard, as the Europeans (like exchange students at colleges, for instance) had the distinct cultural advantage with the finer points of these new styles. So, they got more girls, and the Americans lashed out and derided them (and their american copy-cats) as eurotrash pussies. Girls still liked the new look, that’s why they loved George Michael from Wham, and the dude turned out to be a flamer, proving the good old American boys right after all.

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  247. anon: it’s hard to quanitfy the “binge” aspect of the Revolution Brewing types, because many of them also smoke high-grade pot, and therefore don’t need as much potent microbrew, some of which is approaching or exceeding 7% alcohol. So, if you’re like skeptic, you do a few one-hitters, take the scruffy mixed-breed ugly dog for a walk, bring along the toddler, tie up the dog, and then down a few strong microbrews. In this subculture, bingeing has many different variables, God knows what other multiple-medications they are on since they believe in that stuff, so….it’s not quite as simple an analysis as like downing a pitcher of Miller Lite.

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  248. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 11:17 am

    ” Girls still liked the new look, that’s why they loved George Michael from Wham”

    My favorite was how the ladies loved Ricky Martin… “oh you’re just saying he’s gay because you’re jealous”

    “That helps underqualified jewish kids from suburbia to maintain ridiculous levels of over-representation beyond merit. You’re right. Been going on 4-5 decades now.”

    Really how big of a deal is this that you keep harping on it.. Basically we are just screwing over the yellows and they bombed us in Pearl Harbour anyway… Maybe we take a way a few spots from some “real” whites, but that’s about it as the brothers and latinos don’t qualify anyway. Now I could understand your angst if we had the same connections into the NFL or NCAA. Then I would agree that Nebraska starting middle linebacker – Menachem Goldstein at 5’6″ 165 lbs with 5.3 speed in the 40 would be a terrible injustice.

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  249. Bob defines binge drinking as drinking done by others not his own drinking. Did Bob’s parents make him a functioning alcoholic by modeling poor behavior early in his life? Doubtful – I believe Bobbo inherited a genetic predisposition, which is also found in both my family and my wife’s family. I consider myself truly blessed that I and my offspring did not lose this genetic lottery. The notion that kids watching people drink leads to bad behavior later in their life is just more bullcrap posted by no-nothings.

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  250. oops – I meant ‘know-nothings’. I should avoid getting a beer buzz early in the morning! I did stop in at a bar this morning – for work purposes so I didn’t drink. I am amazed at how many people are in this bar drinking at 8:30 am each time I stop to meet with its owner. Today there were 8 people sitting together (aside from 5 guys at the bar drinking things like red bull and yager) dressed like they came from 3rd shift a local hospital (scrub type clothes) but I didn’t look to see if they were drinking pop or alcohol. At least I hope they were coming home from a shift!!

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  251. “Really how big of a deal is this that you keep harping on it.. ”

    Sabrina keeps bringing it up. However, she maintains a level of false information, when her comments imply that somehow whites, WASPs, christians are somehow the big beneficiary of nepotism in the Ivy League. It’s shown that Jews are the big beneficiaries of nepotism and racism in at the Ivies, and the most impacted are whites, especially those from rural areas etc. It’s the opposite of what she believes, and I feel a duty to get the true info out there, that’s all.

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  252. “The notion that kids watching people drink leads to bad behavior later in their life”

    I’m not concerned about that; being called ‘white trash’ by Bob has stung me so badly that I need to lash out, but I *must* do so with the appropriate epithets. I need to distinguish between the ‘binge drinking’ ‘beer gardens’ and the others, before I begin cursing the other patrons.

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  253. LOTS of interesting info, from the relentlessly negative zerohedge site: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-29/meanwhile-big-investors-quietly-slip-out-back-door-housing-stupid-money-jumps

    Meanwhile, Big Investors Quietly Slip Out The Back Door On Housing As “Stupid Money” Jumps In

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  254. from article: “The firms are building a new institutional real estate asset class from the 14 million leased single-family residences that are worth an estimated $2.8 trillion, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.”

    I wonder how many of these houses are located in Chicagoland? Anyone who follows this know the answer?

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  255. “I feel a duty to get the true info out there, that’s all.”

    You are truly noble, sir.

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  256. “The notion that kids watching people drink leads to bad behavior later in their life”

    Did someone actually type this?

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  257. And what pray tell are these “advanced” statistics again? Does Fox News hold the patent by any chance?

    I posted a story from a peer-reviewed scientific publication’s website. They ARE science, if you and your ilk ran the world we’d still be using leeches and trying to cure miasma.

    “ou’re not intelligent, nor to you read enough about the facts, data, or the truth. Look, we’re in the 21st century now, and science and medicine, advanced statistics, etc. are here to stay, so you’re going to continue to lose and revert to ad hominem responses or rely on pseudo-science, or social scientist “pop-star” charlatans for your back-up, and it makes you look foolish, an embarrassment.”

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  258. LOFL! Wow, it’s like he was right there on Milwaukee Avenue with me!

    If only I knew where to find these “multiple-medications,” do they make you smarter at math? And do tell us more about ” as simple an analysis as like downing a pitcher of Miller Lite,” as I think your inner valley girl may have accidentally surfaced and mangled your otherwise Aryan-pristine English.

    “anon: it’s hard to quanitfy the “binge” aspect of the Revolution Brewing types, because many of them also smoke high-grade pot, and therefore don’t need as much potent microbrew, some of which is approaching or exceeding 7% alcohol. So, if you’re like skeptic, you do a few one-hitters, take the scruffy mixed-breed ugly dog for a walk, bring along the toddler, tie up the dog, and then down a few strong microbrews. In this subculture, bingeing has many different variables, God knows what other multiple-medications they are on since they believe in that stuff, so….it’s not quite as simple an analysis as like downing a pitcher of Miller Lite.”

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  259. “Did someone actually type this?”

    You have to weave a couple of Bob’s posts together to get all the way to that, but, yeah:

    “Bob (May 28, 2013, 12:34 pm)
    “Um, what’s the difference?”

    You’ll learn the difference in the future when your kids struggle with drugs/alcohol/behavioral problems. Its funny the SWPLs think their behavior is somehow acceptable just because someone tells them so (oh but the beer garden has a kids menu it MUST be okay). Hahaha–sheeple to the end.

    There is a difference as I outlined above. People don’t typically binge drink at restaurants, talk loudly and use profanity, and generally go there to get drunk. They do at beer gardens. The distinction is lost on the SWPLs who somehow think because its a microrbrewery and they’re paying $6/beer it’s okay.’

    It’s also the post that made me wonder what ‘binge’ drinking is in Bob’s world.

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  260. “downing a pitcher of Miller Lite”

    I hear on the teevee and radio box that that is a good way to demonstrate one’s masculine bona fides and “Man Up”. Perhaps a box of Virgina Slims would add to the effect.

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  261. Bob’s posts are entertaining for so many reasons… I met a New Trier teacher a few weeks ago, and he started going on and on about the issues their student body apparently has with heroin, coke and other hard drugs. I noted that’s not exactly how New Trier gets described in the news and he said something like “oh, their parents have the money and connections to largely bail them out of their troubles.”

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  262. yeah I typed it in response to bobbo’s attempt at psycho’s analysis: “..You’ll learn the difference in the future when your kids struggle with drugs/alcohol/behavioral problems…”
    Bob’s self description sounds like a functional alcoholic to me. Like many boomers I watched my parents, my relatives & their upper middle-class peers consume enormous amounts of alcohol (mainly at homes BubbaB but also at restaurants). While I experimented with drinking & pot, I outgrew over consuming in my 20’s. Now I have a glass red wine/ day plus a beer or two at max 2x/ wk. Just saying Bobbo.

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  263. Shee-it, alcohol practically saved humanity. As the saying went, “better to die of cirrhosis in your 40s than dysentery in your 20s”

    And let’s face it, your Chicago beer drinker’s chances of getting cirrhosis are somewhere between zero and zip point shit. You need to consume something like a pint of 80 proof alcohol a day for a few decades to actually get that.

    Drinking and driving is the far bigger safety issue – but that’s why having brewpubs,restaurants, etc within walking/public trans distance of your home is great.

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  264. “There are all kinds of twins studies, adoption studies, etc. Fact is that the children of black college professors don’t do as well on SATs as the children of white, jewish or asian professors. Now, how could this be, considering they all have the exact same advantages? It’s called reversion to the mean, which is lower.”

    Provide the citation for those studies or STFU.
    Given your math knowledge is at the level of a worm it might be hard for you to appreciate these guy’s work, but look up David Blackwell (Berkeley), William Massey (Princeton), Emery Brown (MIT).

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  265. “Now I have a glass red wine/ day plus a beer or two at max 2x/ wk.”

    3 drinks in a day Southbound? Depending how skinny you are, some people would call that ‘binge’ drinking.

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  266. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    “3 drinks in a day Southbound? Depending how skinny you are, some people would call that ‘binge’ drinking.”

    So what does one call 6 bong hits before morning coffee?

    “I met a New Trier teacher a few weeks ago, and he started going on and on about the issues their student body apparently has with heroin, coke and other hard drugs.”

    Every time someone mentions New Trier I think of Coke… I have said it here numerous times.. New Trier kids love blow.. Every single one I knew..

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  267. “I met a New Trier teacher a few weeks ago, and he started going on and on about the issues their student body apparently has with heroin, coke and other hard drugs.”

    I don’t doubt this. Ever see the movie Less than Zero? I could easily see little Zachary or Josh up in Glencoe playing bigshot party-boy and falling into that wannabe-glitz scene, thinking they are just like their L.A. & West Hollywood cousins. I thought Jami Gertz was great in that film.

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  268. “So what does one call 6 bong hits before morning coffee?”

    That you’re a …what was Bobbo’s ‘insult’?…an epicurean?

    Also now need to know if ‘binge’ drinking is an epicurean pursuit by itself, or if it requires something more.

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  269. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 2:51 pm

    ” Ever see the movie Less than Zero?”

    Even read the book. Much better movie of his book was American Psycho, which book was not that good but movie was just fantastic…

    “Jami Gertz was great in that film”

    Ze has to agree.. That was a big year for her.. Lost Boys (classic) as well.

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  270. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    “Also now need to know if ‘binge’ drinking is an epicurean pursuit by itself, or if it requires something more.”

    Ze’s rule of thumb… it depends on how much per bottle or glass (if spirits) note: ordering wine by glass never does not consitute epicurean unless it is ordered as part of a flight… scotch over 20+ and you are definitely epicurean and can make fun of people like Bob all you want for not knowing the pleasure of either of those things… Osetra or Beluga served with a silver penguin holding half an egg shell filled with Creme Fraiche and you move into the category that you don’t really care much that Bob shares the same planet as you because he really doesn’t…

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  271. Hey, how about those Chicago homeowners who are underwater? I hear it’s about a third of them.

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  272. gringozecarioca on May 29th, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    and obviously remove “does not” as the double negative is a problem there…

    Now excuse me as I take my VA rated -bred in Germany, German Shepherd for her walk, so that I can get her back in time for her organic dinner…..

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  273. “Hey, how about those Chicago homeowners who are underwater? I hear it’s about a third of them.”

    Well, it’s obviously their parents’ fault for either (1) taking them to beer gardens, (2) exposing them to ‘communism’ in a postive light, or (3) not being the ‘right’ kind of ‘white’ people.

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  274. Nonchatterer on May 29th, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    More venues coming for the white trash W.o.W. to kick it mit die kinder, Vaterland style. Just down the block from Heimathilfer’s favorite Spartacist stube….

    http://logansquarist.com/2013/05/27/the-radler-and-das-coming-soon-to-logan-square/

    Also, HH, re your contention about ze Choos and ze shvartzen living zusammen, you may want to consider the notably rare exception of Hyde Park.

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  275. And same remains true to an extent in Homewood/ Flossmoor/ Oly Fields/ Park Forest area.

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  276. “More venues coming for the white trash W.o.W. to kick it mit die kinder, Vaterland style. Just down the block from Heimathilfer’s favorite Spartacist stube….”

    Yeah I read about that too. Good luck to those guys.

    You know you’ve hit “the end” when the only restaurant concept left to cover is German. It’s the very last thing that any owner would try and sink money into, despite Germany having some of the top restaurants and overall kick-ass quality cuisine in the world. If you’ve ever been over there, you know. Quality in everything, meats, produce, presentation, wine and beer all top notch, and the country is spotlessly clean. So…anyway, why German now? Because there’s nothing else left to do, when you already have Ethiopian and “brazilian/sushi fusion” and Peru restaurants. The elephant in the room, about why nobody has upscaled German cuisine thus far….is you guessed it, my favorite folks who would whine incessantly about it, their reviewers in all the magazines and leftist papers and blogs would find a clever way to bash it….etc. ad nauseum. Nothing about Germany could ever be positive to them, and the mere existence of the place “could lead to another auschwitz” is the way these people actually think. Look for a very measured response, or expect them to completely ignore it and hope it fails.

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  277. “And if you had to stop into a bar this AM “for work purposes””

    Crap, even being *in* a bar constitutes ‘binging’? That’s some short rope that girl has you on, Bobbo.

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  278. Nonchatterer on May 29th, 2013 at 9:31 pm

    “Quality in everything, meats, produce, presentation, wine and beer all top notch”

    Have to disagree there. In Germany, fresh meat sucks. S-U-C-K-S. Smoked and encased, not bad but also not exceptional. Beer: very good for what it is but cossetted by regulation. Can’t innovate.

    “So…anyway, why German now? Because there’s nothing else left to do…”

    Bingo. Plus a certain young fogey appeal. It’s not SWPL. Isn’t that what you’re bitching about lately?

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  279. German food is not new to Chicago.

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  280. Why haven’t we seen any upscale English food places either, oh wait, because IT SUCKS, just like DETROIT hahah

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  281. “And if you had to stop into a bar this AM “for work purposes””
    Crap, even being *in* a bar constitutes ‘binging’? That’s some short rope that girl has you on, Bobbo.”

    What, I missed some brilliant posting by fat frat boy bubBob which apparently was deleted for Bobbo being too noble in his attempt to get the truth out there?

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  282. yeah bubBob my work requires that I stop in to speak with owners of bars, greek family restaurants, gas stations and lots of places I wouldn’t visit except they are great candidates for redevelopment. I’m guessing I may have walked past you at least once while you were handling physical audit of the inventory for the asset based loan your employers wanted to make (did you confirm existence of 56 cases of Cutty Sark in the basement?) Wadda loser!

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  283. Heilhofer is driven to prove he is dumber than most basketball players never mind college educated minorities. “”The elephant in the room….is you guessed it, my favorite folks who would whine incessantly about it, their reviewers in all the magazines and leftist papers and blogs would find a clever way to bash it. Nothing about Germany could ever be positive to them..” Yeah so it is you and fellow skinheads causing the boom in Audi/BMW/Mercedes etc. Oh wait you own a Datsun. Damn few fellow Datsun lovers in the north shore. Stupid, hateful & ignorant – ya hit the trifecta you loser.

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  284. Southbound: you can’t get away from what you admitted. You are the urinal puck salesman of Chicago taverns. You were also kicked out of your fraternity during pledging for “experimenting” in the form of a homosexual advance towards one of the active members.

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  285. Bobbo apparently hasn’t made it to #8 yet. Keep fighting the good fight Bobbo, I’ll toast your efforts with a binge beer this evening.

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  286. BubbaB: Sorry to insult someone clearly mentally disadvantaged who deservedly was given extra time for standardized tests. Have someone read this to you slowly. Your repeated posting of lies you’ve made up doesn’t make them true, it just means you reposted your made up lie. Get a life BubBob: unlike you I married & raised children. I believe if one of us is likely to be… – oh nevermind BubBob. I have to get back to making things happen – but hey when someone needs to fill their quota of hiring mentally challenged people, you will have a shot at getting another job.

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  287. “Yeah so it is you and fellow skinheads causing the boom in Audi/BMW/Mercedes etc.”

    I’m not a “skinhead” you bald-headed overweight duped baby boomer AWWL urinal-puck salesman. I’ve never even met a skinhead and neither have you or anyone else here. People in HP and Glencoe prefer Lexus! BMW is a type A gentile’s car. You don’t know jack shit about much. And Ze pretty much proves my point about bratty snot-nose NS kids from HP and Glencoe (or similar NY jewburbs) who like using drugs, he’s a poster-boy for the group and loves “Less than Zero”, proves my point completely.

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  288. I think Southbound might be Joe Zekas, same type of gadfly and sanctimonious duped baby boomer liberal. This is from yochicago, maybe we should add urinal-puck salesman to the list:

    Joe Zekas

    Joe Zekas works at adding to his used-to-be’s: dirt-poor Pennsylvania coal-town kid, shortest in class through 8th grade, New Jerseyan, hitch-hiker, motorcyclist, statistical typist, library clerk, delivery boy, classical scholar wannabe, gas station attendant, tuxedo salesman, psychiatric aide, social worker, civil rights activist, draft-dodger, gun-toting truck driver (Brinks), bartender, temp secretary, Lucey’s Raider, Wisconsinite, large-firm attorney, real estate developer, condo converter, tax shelter syndicator, multi-level marketer, married person, newspaper publisher, money-losing tech gadfly, software developer to name a few.

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  289. “I’ve never even met a skinhead and neither have you or anyone else here.”
    Ugh, Helmie.
    I’ve unfortunately encountered many skinheads growing up in Canada and vacationing in England.
    I’m glad those experiences are far behind me and that that culture never really caught on in the US.
    The US is God’s country and I love it and feel completely at home here.
    A friend once told me he’d rather grow up in a tough white neighborhood than a tough black one.
    I was like “yeah, that’s because you ARE white.”
    I don’t like low-income/ignorance in any color.

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  290. I’ve also suspected that of Southbound. Only Joey Z responds in similar fashion as SB.

    So many successful careers JZ has had he must really love working as he continues to do so in his advanced age. Good ol’ Crohn’s disease Joey Zekas.

    I especially liked it when he invented a new moniker “sparky” on his website to try to add legitimacy to his insane ramblings.

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  291. Also, Helmie and Bob,
    I don’t know what your beef with Southbound is all about.
    I find him interesting and I like when he shares what he is working on.
    I like that he’s into the Southside – a very underrated part of the city!

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  292. http://www.flickr.com/photos/yochicago1/3612422180/

    Just look at him–what a joke. Good thing he’s a smoker–we won’t have crabby ol’ Joey Z to deal with for much longer. One can only wonder what other lower class habits he has acquired, I’m sure a spitoon can’t be far off for this Pittsburgh coal mine mountain boy.

    In his frat they saw Joe wasn’t quite the caliber of material to be a successful alumnus and they were correct, but now he attempts to spin it as he left voluntarily. HAHA!

    I can’t imagine what hell it must be for the one or two employees that work under him. I bet he has a cult of personality only a North Korean dictator could come close to approximating at his place of work.

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  293. HH proves again he never learned reading comprehension but feels a need to prove he didn’t learn much else either. I don’t know Joe Z but I was a middle class south side kid; taller than average like every southsider; not an attorney… We don’t need or want to meet a skinhead – we know they exist. You relentlessly repeat the hatefilled lies and total crap skinheads believe here altho no one wants to read your crap. Do something positive for once – hey you didn’t answer – any offspring? Did you help raise or just sent money to the baby momma? Divorced huh? Hard to imagine that a woman couldn’t put up with a great catch like you.

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  294. Southbound first appeared on Cribchatter on 3/15/2012 later in a thread JZ chimed in on. They also admit to having two children as JZ has. Craggly ol’ Joe you cover is blown, man.

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  295. Won’t you 3 get a room already and get your frustrations with each other out?

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  296. “Oh wait you own a Datsun.”

    Funny– I always pictured him in a red Pinto.

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  297. “Won’t you 3 get a room already and get your frustrations with each other out?”

    They’d all end up at different no-tel motels on Lincoln Ave.

    Groove would be at one on Lincoln Highway.

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  298. gringozecarioca on May 30th, 2013 at 3:08 pm

    “And Ze pretty much proves my point about bratty snot-nose NS kids from HP and Glencoe (or similar NY jewburbs) who like using drugs, he’s a poster-boy for the group and loves “Less than Zero”, proves my point completely.”

    Such a poster boy that I don’t even feel remotely insulted 🙂 … and no, that is loves American Psycho (which I watched last night.. some hilarious lines in that film…)… Just said I read the book Less Than Zero, but surprisingly, Ze reads a lot.

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  299. “some hilarious lines in that film”

    Like (apropos of the degenerated state of this thread):

    “Well, for one thing, I think he was probably a closet homosexual who did a lot of cocaine. That whole Yale thing.”

    and

    “Craig McDermott: Lucky Jew bastard.
    Patrick Bateman: Jesus, McDermott, what does that have to do with anything?
    Craig McDermott: I’ve seen that bastard sitting in his office, talking on the phone to the CEOs, spinning a fucking menorah.
    Patrick Bateman: Not a menorah. You spin a dreidel.
    Craig McDermott: Oh, my God. Bateman, do you want me to fry you up some fucking potato pancakes? Some latkes?
    Patrick Bateman: No. Just cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks.”

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  300. “Bobbo apparently hasn’t made it to #8 yet.”

    Hard to see him getting through 8-9. I’m still rooting for him to progress on his personal arc though.

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  301. BubBobbo posting meaningless lies & drivel. I’ve been on cc longer than you’ve held any job, loser. Any kids Bob? No woman in your life? What woman wouldn’t want a pasty fat loser to tell them all about what Rush spewed today when they get home from work. You don’t like women do you BubBobbo? I bet you miss the all guy life of the frat. I’ve got more than 2 kids but you’re incapable of counting aren’t you, you loser? That’s why you keep losing entry level bean counting jobs.
    I love the irony of a hillbilly making fun “…wonder what other lower class habits he has acquired, I’m sure a spitoon can’t be far off for this Pittsburgh coal mine mountain boy.” Spoken like a pot calling a kettle bobbo.

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  302. “We don’t need or want to meet a skinhead – we know they exist. ”

    LOL!!!! I DVR’ed one of those prison Lockdown: Cook County Jail shows. Watched it just last night. They process 500,000 people thru there a year, they covered all the different blocs, the boot camp, you name it….guess what Southbound? The prison is overwhelmingly at over-capacity with non-white inmates, many of whom are affiliated with race-based gangs. So, save us your bullshit that Chicago has a problem with “skinheads”, it’s just comical how delusional you are. Go visit Coo County jail and see who causes all the serious problems in our city. Oh, yeah but they’re all just there because they’ve been kept down by whites, right? Your people, your generation, your ideas, your philosophy….these are your results Southbound, this dystopia, not a utopia. Failures and debt are all you and your ilk have left us to inherit, a crappier country with statistics failing and dropping on every level: schools, drop outs, crime, racism, illegitimacy, debt, deficits, STDs, abortions, obesity….this is the world that Southbound created and insanely defends. skinheads my ass, go visit Cook County Jail, Mr. Southsider fool.

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  303. gringozecarioca on May 30th, 2013 at 4:19 pm

    Anon.. when he said the Yale thing I was rolling… I still think my favorite part is when he is talking about Phil Collins and telling the girls what to do…

    So did Bob really call you white trash? I missed this.. I guess he found out where you really grew up.

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  304. As noted, earlier in life I presided over a psychiatric ward and was a social worker.

    Bob and helmethofer take me back to the days when I kept their ilk under lock and key and doled out their meds.

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  305. Ahhhh I love watching Joey Z lash out under his alter-ego. Covers blown, loser. 😀

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  306. “So did Bob really call you white trash?”

    He said anyone who takes their children to ‘beer gardens’ is white trash; ergo…

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  307. BubBobbo should consider this advice: “”Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Abraham Lincoln

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  308. heres my favorite scene from american psycho, warning a bit graphic and probably not safe for work

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=vzN3qO-qc8U&feature=fvwp

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