Landlords don't have much pricing power? What are you smoking? They set their prices! I did mention that property taxes are rising so this is also pushing up prices. In my area, ymmv, I can tell you for a fact that rental prices are up because of taxes and the multiple roommate arrangements on the rise. With the large amount of empty foreclosed houses (shadow inventory or not), people have to move SOMEWHERE to live. It's a simple reallocation of resources (malinvestment in a way) and it affects those of us that rent and live on our own when other people start pooling resources, thus being able to afford more collectively.
It's interesting that you mention the older large homes coming onto the market. Ive observed a move toward turning these sorts of houses into "apartments" instead of keeping them single family homes. The amount of rent one of those properties can bring in isn't ignored by neighboring landlords and to "keep up", prices rise for the other properties in the vicinity.
Maybe. There's a ton of search hits for things like "student loans for living expenses". Loans designed and marketed to pay for living expenses as a student. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons but it's being taken advantage of.
http://www.studentloanconsolidation....-expenses.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5325719_appl...dent-loan.html
http://www.loan.com/student-loans/ho...-expenses.html
http://www.ehow.com/list_5949218_gov...ng-school.html
It's possible the people I spoke to didn't understand the exact process under which they receive the money but that's neither here nor there. Loans and grants are being used for student living expenses, not school itself, and that's backdoor stimulus/welfare. No wonder the school loan bubble is past a trillion dollars now.
This is occuring regardless of manufacturer or food content. High quality food, low quality food, whatever. The dog food example was just an example of something that I noticed in particular, hence "anecdotal-ish". It wasn't a linchpin for my observation that banks are starting to lend again and inflation is taking hold.
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