Month: June 2014

Bring Your Own Guillotine: Anti-Monarchy Protests Break Out Across Spain

The news of Spain's King Carlos' abdication this morning warranted barely a headline in the US media. However, once again, the simmering social unrest of nations full of repressed citizens burst into action as widespread anti-monarchy protests erupted across Spain. On the heels of last week's European elections that saw extreme left and extreme right parties, it seems the Spanish monarchy's move has lit the blue touch paper in a nation still suffering from record high unemployment and record high suicide rates. Protesters carried guillotines and chanted "Neither king nor master" and "Long live the struggle of the working class" demanding a referendum.

 

A Pre-Franco Republic flag covers a guillotine at one anti-monarchy protest…

 

Via Publico (via Google Translate)

Cities all over Spain and outside the territory held demonstrations to demand a referendum for the citizens is to choose the form of government. The Puerta del Sol and the Plaza Catalunya, the main points

La Puerta del Sol de Madrid se llenó nada más dar comienzo la concentración por la República.

"Spain is republican", "at the Third", "referendum now." And dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of messages flooded social networks after the announcement of the abdication of the king. 's citizens mobilized and called from concentrations 20 hours in the streets of cities all over Spain and outside the territory to require that a people to decide the form of state and the probate process does not continue.

Political parties that have joined so far, this petition are Izquierda Unida, and we Equo. The tricolor was flown Monday in some municipalities and even the building of Les Corts Valenciennes. In most cases they have been representatives of leftist parties, mainly IU, which personam have placed the flags, although the City of Altafulla (Tarragona) affixing the Republican banner has been driven by the team of government.

Public live narrated what has happened in the streets, the Puerta del Sol in Madrid as the main reference point for mobilization:

22.42 The largest concentration took place in Madrid's iconic Puerta del Sol This is followed by the Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona. Concentrations were replicated throughout Catalunya, Tarragona, Girona and Lleida. As in the Basque Country, which highlights the Bilbao, with thousands of people at the Arriaga square. In Seville's Plaza Nueva in Granada, Valencia, Zaragoza, Salamanca, Burgos, Palma de Mallorca, in various cities of the Principality of Asturias, Extremadura. The cry has been resounding: image demonstration in Logroño.

 

22.38 In the following link you can see a photographic look at the various concentrations: The tricolor wanders throughout Spain.

22.35 At all points of Spain concentrations were performed. From Murcia to Asturias. Dozens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people have taken to the streets by the Republic and to claim that citizenship is to choose on the continuity of the monarchy.

22.33 A protester in the Puerta del Sol: "In 78 decided to put on the throne the puppet dictator Now let's put the son of the dictator puppet I say. defect." says Tristan, which is defined as a student and worker precarious, reports Irene White.

22.30 After the ceremony in the Plaza Catalunya, protesters have begun to move to the Sant Jaume square, home to the Government and the City of Barcelona, ??reports Europa Press.

22.26 Thousands of people have also taken to the streets in Galicia to demand a referendum in favor of a "Galician Republic." Image of Europa Press:

 

22.20 In Paris, hundreds of people have also focused to claim the right of Spaniards to decide in a referendum. The mobilization was organized through social networks by the collective support in Paris for the match and we Garnet Tide, a network of international meetings aimed at coordinating the Spanish immigrants. "Neither thieves nor Bourbons. People decide. Can" was among the slogans of concentration, which mainly Spanish residents gathered in the French capital, reports Europa Press.

 

22.18 Protesters prevents the mouth of the Madrid Metro New glass dome at the center of the Puerta del Sol closes, specifically block fence that opens and closes automatically from inside the mouth Metro and gives access to Renfe, reports Irene White.

22.14 In the summer resort of Casa del Rey also protest against the monarchy. Concentration in Palma de Mallorca. Royalty Efe:

22.12 According to sources in the government delegation, 200 people gathered in Toledo, 400 in Albacete, Cuenca and other 200 300 in Guadalajara, reports Europa Press.

22.10 Overview of the Puerta del Sol The best summary of the number of people who have gone to the bullring. Royalty Efe:

22.05 Some of the slogans chanted in the Puerta del Sol, "Neither king nor master"; "No two without three, republic again"; "Long live the struggle of the working class"; "The Bourbons sharks."

 

 

Just good news that Spanish bond yields are all time record lows… or there would be real problems in the country!!




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“We All Lost”

Submitted by Tim Price via Sovereign Man blog,

“I say to all those who bet against Greece and against Europe: you lost and Greece won. You lost and Europe won.”

 

– Jean-Claude Juncker, former prime minister of Luxembourg and president of the Eurogroup of EU Finance Ministers, 2014

He used aspirin, matches and rocket-powered roller skates.

He also variously deployed an anvil, a weather balloon, a giant kite kit, nitro-glycerine, triple strength fortified leg muscle vitamins, and dehydrated boulders (just add water !).

When these failed to work, he tried triple strength battleship steel armour plate, a jet bike and an outboard steamroller.

Undaunted, he also put to use bumblebees, tornado seeds, a jet-propelled pogo stick, a giant rubber band, and five miles of railroad track.

Later innovations, invariably supplied by the ACME Corporation, included earthquake pills and an instant icicle-maker.

But it was all to no avail. Wile E. Coyote never managed to catch the Road Runner.

Today’s central bankers have a far more elusive prey. They are trying to ignite inflation, and like Wile E. Coyote they are willing to use just about anything in their toolbox in pursuit of their objective.

Quantitative easing, the process by which a central bank purchases financial assets with ex nihilo money, thereby injecting liquidity into the banking system, was first tried – briefly – in early 2001 by the Bank of Japan, which had run out of conventional tools in driving interest rates down to zero during the previous two years.

The first iteration of QE was widely regarded as a failure; the neo-Keynesians, who cannot come across an economy without calling for government stimulus for it, claim that it failed because it was not pursued aggressively enough.

Why inflation? Why pursue a policy that explicitly punishes the prudent saver to the benefit of the foolishly overindebted (whether the latter category comprises a government, corporation or individual is somewhat moot) ?

Because without inflation, western governments, and the western banking system whose interests have fused with the interests of those governments, will fail.

Pensioners, savers, and investors on fixed incomes are all collateral damage in this war – governments’ first and in fact sole priority is to erode their debt mountain through the stealth taxes of inflation and currency debasement.

Tony Deden of Edelweiss Holdings has written as follows:

“Mr Bernanke [and now his successor at the Fed, Janet Yellen] is wilfully trying to debase the dollar. He will succeed. His colleagues at the ECB purport to be against such measures. This will not last long for they, too, will resort to coin-clipping. They too will fail. Today is Greece and Ireland. Tomorrow is Spain. Next month is Britain, France and a host of others. The following month is China, Japan, America and so forth. It may take years but the whole culture of credit and debt will fail. This is reality. We just do not know how or when.”

Anticipating that ‘when’ is particularly troublesome, for asset managers and their clients alike.

Dealing with the ‘how’, and attempting to protect capital during the process, is difficult enough.

Fund managers Incrementum have nicely described the problem as the interplay between the forces of deflation (the free market’s natural response to this crisis) and inflation (the knee-jerk policy response of governments and their client central banks), and in turn compared this interplay to the permanent pressure of two opposing tectonic plates.

Currency is being created (monetary inflation) by central banks. But currency is also being destroyed (monetary deflation) by deleveraging within the commercial banking system.

The problem would be less acute if Europe’s banks had gone to the bother of restructuring after the original earthquake hit in 2008. They did not.

We operate within a debt-based monetary system, so every time a bank calls in a loan or a borrower pays back a loan, money disappears from the financial system.

Trying to balance these opposing forces, the task of every central banker, is going to become increasingly difficult. At some point it may become impossible. Even with jet-propelled ACME roller skates.




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Researchers Ponder Whether Online Drug Markets Like Silk Road Reduce Violence

Also potentially good news for anybody whose drug dealer is also the IT guyThough the online illicit black
market Silk Road developed a reputation for being an “Ebay for
Drugs” (before being shut down by the feds), two professors have
taken a closer look and found otherwise. In actuality, it appears
as though a significant amount of drug sales could best be
classified as “business-to-business”—drug manufacturers selling to
drug dealers.

Therefore University of Lausanne criminologist David Decary-Hetu
and University of Manchester law professor Judith Aldridge want us
to consider the idea that the growing interest in online illegal
drug vending (Silk Road saw an increase of 600 percent in drug
sales over the course of a single year) could actually reduce
violence in the illegal drug market. Wired took note of the
study:

“This new breed of drug dealer is… likely to be relatively free
from the violence typically associated with traditional drug
markets,” reads the paper, the title of which calls Silk Road “a
paradigm-shifting criminal innovation.” “Whereas violence [in the
traditional drug trade] was commonly used to gain market share,
protect turfs and resolve conflicts, the virtual location and
anonymity that the cryptomarket provides reduces or eliminates the
need – or even the ability – to resort to violence.

“In the drugs cryptomarket era,” the paper adds, “having good
customer service and writing skills…may be more important than
muscles and face-to-face connections.”

They don’t have any numbers to back up their ideas as factual,
and Silk Road’s sales, despite their growth, were a drop in the
bucket of all drug sales. But the professors’ point is that if the
online drug market expands at the rate it did during Silk Road’s
existence, certain market pressures would be relieved.

The report can be downloaded here.
Color me a bit skeptical. A certain amount of the drug violence
worldwide is based on control of space to grow and manufacture
drugs, and the market going virtual won’t change the situation (but
then, how much of that violence is between drug cartels and
governments?). The inability for those who are engaged in the drug
trade to turn to the police and courts when they’re victimized
remains a problem. People may not get mugged or killed in
drug-related violence on the street level as much, but we could see
more cybercrime among participants. The drug market will still be a
competitive market, and because the government insists on
prosecution, participants still lack protection. A virtual
marketplace may introduce a significant amount of safety, but not
nearly as much as decriminalization.

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ISM Update: “We Have Recalculated And Confirmed: The Economy Is Accelerating”

What a difference a few vocal complaints from the administration and central planners make.

First, we had this:

  • ISM’S HOLCOMB SAYS DROP MAY BE JUST A `SLIGHT PAUSE’

And this contained in the pre revision-revision report:

The report was issued today by Bradley J. Holcomb, CPSM, CPSD, chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “The May PMI® registered 53.2 percent, a decrease of 1.7 percentage points from April’s reading of 54.9 percent, indicating expansion in manufacturing for the 12th consecutive month. The New Orders Index registered 53.3 percent, a decrease of 1.8 percentage points from the 55.1 percent reading in April, indicating growth in new orders for the 12th consecutive month. The Production Index registered 55.2 percent, 0.5 percentage point below the April reading of 55.7 percent. Employment grew for the 11th consecutive month, registering 51.9 percent, a decrease of 2.8 percentage points below April’s reading of 54.7 percent. Comments from the panel reflect generally steady growth, but note some areas of concern regarding raw materials pricing and supply tightness and shortages.”

What? Growing slower than last month and missing expectations? But… but.. this will crush consumer confidence in rigged markets and manipulated data. Retract! Retract!!!

Sure enough, a few hours later we get this.

“We apologize for this error. We have recalculated and confirmed that the actual index indicates that the economy is accelerating,” said Bradley J. Holcomb, CPSM, CPSD, chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “Our research team is analyzing our internal processes to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,” he added.

 

“The May PMI® registered 55.4 percent, an increase of 0.5 percentage point from April’s reading of 54.9 percent, indicating expansion in manufacturing for the 12th consecutive month. The New Orders Index registered 56.9 percent, an increase of 1.8 percentage points from the 55.1 percent reading in April, indicating growth in new orders for the 12th consecutive month. The Production Index registered 61.0 percent, 5.3 percentage points above the April reading of 55.7 percent. Employment grew for the 11th consecutive month, registering 52.8 percent, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points below April’s reading of 54.7 percent. The Supplier Deliveries Index registered 53.2 percent, 2.7 percentage points below the April reading of 55.9 percent. Comments from the panel reflect generally steady growth, but note some areas of concern regarding raw materials pricing and supply tightness and shortages.”

 

The Manufacturing Report on Business® can be traced back to the start of the survey in 1923 and since then it has become a reliable planning tool for businesses and governments. “We are committed to maintaining the integrity of this report,” Holcomb said.

 

The error resulted when the software incorrectly used the seasonal adjustment factor from the previous month.

What else can one say here: like all the data from the BLS, like all the data from the Department of Commerece, we now learn that all the data from the “private sector” as well is subject to momentary manipulation the second it reveals anything but the propaganda lie.




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Ira Stoll on Michael Bloomberg’s Presidential Aspirations

Michael Bloomberg is no longer the
mayor of New York City. But as Ira Stoll observes, in just the past
week, Bloomberg has given a world-class demonstration of how he
plans to remain relevant even while out of office, delivering
high-profile speeches touching on gun control, liberal bias in
higher education, and the virtues of private philanthropy over
government spending. It looks like we haven’t heard the last of
Bloomberg.

View this article.

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Kerry Says U.S. To Continue Palestinian Aid, McConnell Will Fight Obama’s Carbon Rules, Fudge Says Fat Kids Are National Risk: P.M. Links

  • Secretary of State John Kerry
    told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. will
    continue to disperse
    aid to Palestine    , where a
    new unity government     has been formed between President Mahmoud
    Abbas’ Fatah movement and the militant Hamas group.
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
    says     that he will introduce legislation to stop President
    Obama’s new Environmental Protection Agency carbon rules.
  • Fat kids put the “future of our nation at risk,” assures Rep.
    Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) who is proposing a
    multi-million dollar     federal grant for healthy food. Smells
    like pork, Fudge.
  • A bill that would allow the Veterans Affairs Department to

    fire     poorly performing senior executives but would prevent the
    “wholesale political firings” of individuals is on the fast track
    for consideration by the Senate.
  • Google is spending $1 billion on satellites in a bid to bring
    an Internet connection to
    the entire world    .
  • Pop star and public nuisance Justin Bieber apologized today
    after a video from several years ago revealed him using the
    n-word in a joke    .
  • A government building in rebel-held Luhansk, Ukraine was bombed
    today, killing at least seven. Pro-Russians claim it was an
    airstrike by the Ukrainian government, while pro-Ukrainians

    say     it was a ground-level missile from the separatist
    militants.

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and don’t forget to sign
up for Reason’s daily updates for more
content.

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Happy International Whores’ Day! Celebrating the Birth of the Sex Worker Rights Movement

Today is “International
Whores’ Day,” a day commemorating the 1975 occupation
of the Church of St. Nizierof in Lyon, France, by more than
100 prostitutes. The event is considered to be the birth of the
modern sex workers’ rights movement. 

Here’s a good
summary of the sit-in from the blog Prized and Reviled:
 

On the 2nd of June in 1975, around 100 street-based sex workers
decided they’d had a gutful of police being more interested
in harassing and arresting them, than in solving murders and
other crimes committed against them. They took over a church and
staged a sit-in, in protest.

As the days wore on, the police became more and more impatient.
Instead of attempting to negotiate with the sex workers and resolve
their issues, the police just threatened them with increasingly
harsh penalties. When the protesters still showed no sign of
backing down after a full week in the church, the police announced
that they were going to have the sex workers’ children removed
from their homes.

This cruel threat outraged the women of Lyon, who promptly
walked into the church and joined the sex workers in
solidarity. If you’re going to remove the sex
workers’ children, the women said, then you’re going to have to
remove ALL our children-because how can you tell the
difference between one mother and the next?

So, that’s awesome, right? Only sadly, after a few days, police
did what they do and busted in with some batons. The protest ended
with the women being arrested and beaten. But many of the Lyon sex
workers had their fines written off; legit police investigations
into unsolved sex worker murders were launched; and the event
sparked similar protests in Marseilles and Paris. 

Maggie McNeill of The Honest Courtesan explains
the significance of International Whores’ Day to the sex worker
community: 

As I’ve explained before, there are three major days observed by
sex worker rights activists: the Day To End Violence Against
Sex Workers (December 17th, the anniversary of the 2003
sentencing of the Green River Killer); Sex Worker Rights
Day (March 3rd, the anniversary of a 2001 festival in Kolkata
attended by over 25,000 Indian sex workers despite efforts from
prohibitionist groups who tried to prevent it by pressuring
the government to revoke their permit); and today, Whores’ Day. …
In a very real sense, today is the birthday of the sex worker
rights movement; though Margo
St. James had already founded [sex worker rights organization]
COYOTE two years before, the French protests were the first
ones large and vociferous enough to gain media attention, and led
to the formation of the French Collective of Prostitutes (which in
turn inspired the founding of the English Collective of Prostitutes
and a number of other, similar organizations). And had its growth
not been stunted by the unwelcome arrival of AIDS (and its
attendant demonization of anything sex-related), decriminalization
might very well have been the rule among advanced countries by now
rather than the exception.

For a brief time, St. James and sex workers’ rights activists
were able to win support from mainstream feminists, including the
National Organization for Women. That didn’t last for long (though
I’d argue younger feminists today are trending back toward
supporting sex work decriminalization). In a
paper comparing French prostitute protest movements in 1975 and
2002, sociologist Lilian Mathieu notes that the earlier protest
movement “immediately garnered broad support from the feminist
movement.” In its later incarnation, however:

Not only did a majority of feminists refuse to support the
prostitutes’ cause on the second occasion, but the focus of debate
shifted from challenging police repression to a controversial
debate about the very existence of prostitution itself, and about
the legitimacy of the people who practice this “profession” to
enter as such in public debate.

These days, McNeill writes, “the most outspoken and effective
activism in the world is being done by the sex workers in
… India, Bangladesh, Korea, Cambodia and Thailand,” as well
as in African countries such as Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and
Zimbabwe.

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Treasury Yields Jump Most In 7 Weeks As Stocks Shrug At Fabricated Data

PMI beat, ISM missed (after all fabrications), and construction spending missed big… so sell bonds and buy stocks!! Today saw Treasury yields spike 5-7bps (10Y's biggest 1-day move in over 6 weeks). Stocks were mixed with Trannies surging once again to record-er highs (+0.5%) and Russell (-0.5%) along with Nasdaq modestly red (S&P and Dow also record highs). Of course all the excitement of the day was the post-ISM reaction and re-reaction (which saw the Russell lose 1.2% at its worst). The USD rose 0.3% (best day in a month) to 4-month highs. Gold, silver, and oil all fell 0.4% or so (reflecting USD strength) as Copper surged 1.4% (presumably after China's PMI over the weekend). VIX was higher and notably divergent from stocks once again…

 

Mixed day for US equities…

 

But not for bonds…

 

VIX remains decoupled from last week's exuberance…

 

But JPY caught up and Treasuries appear to be trying to…

 

The USD rose 0.3% today -its best best in a month – to the highest in 4 months…

 

And the USD strength is pressuring commodities (aside from Copper which surged on the back of China PMI we presume).

 

 

The day across stocks, bonds, and gold as ISM hit and adjusted…

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg




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Washington Post Calls Out “Anti-GMO Fundamentalists”

Killer TomatoesLast month, a bunch of idiots, I
mean, voters in two Oregon counties
banned farmers from planting modern biotech crops on their own
land. Various other states are considering ballot initiatives that
would require foods made using ingredients from biotech crops be
labelled as such. Here’s a hint to the superstitious: a huge
proportion of America’s corn and soy crop are genetically enhanced.
So since practically all processed foods in the U.S. contain either
corn sugar or soy oil and meal or both, make your food purchase
decisions by simply looking on the labels for those
ingredients.

The Washington Post’s editorial board published a

superb opinion piece today denoucing the anti-scientific
asininity of the Oregon voters:

GENETICALLY MODIFIED crops have increased the productivity and
improved the lives of farmers — and the people who depend on them —

all over the world. Now, they are banned in two counties in
Oregon.

Voters in two Oregon counties have chosen to
outlaw the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
in the productive Rogue Valley. They are not the only ones going in
the wrong direction. Several places in California, Hawaii, Maine
and Washington state also have bans in place, though the Oregon
counties are the first in which GMOs had been actively
cultivated…

There is no mainstream scientific evidence showing that
foods containing GMOs are any more or less harmful for people
to consume than anything else in the supermarket, despite decades
of development and use. If that doesn’t convince some people, they
have the option of simply buying
food bearing the “organic” label. There is no need for the
government to stigmatize products with a label that suggests the
potential for harm. Outright bans, meanwhile, are even worse than
gratuitous labeling…

The application of current biotechnological tools to agriculture
offers a wide array of benefits , benefits that are only beginning
to be seen. There is the potential to create crops that are easier
to grow, better for the environment and more nutrient-rich. Smart
genetic modification is one important tool available to sustain the
world’s growing
multitudes. Making good on that promise will require both an
openness to the technology and serious investment in GMOs within
wealthy countries. The prospect of helping to feed the starving and
improve the lives of people across the planet should not be nipped
because of the self-indulgent fretting of first-world
activists…

…there is nothing reasonable about anti-GMO fundamentalism.
Voters and their representatives should worry less about “Frankenfood”
and more about the vast global challenges that genetically modified
crops can help address.

See also my article, “The
Top Five Lies About Biotech Crops.”

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McMansions Are Back And Are Bigger Than Ever

There was a small ray of hope just after the Lehman collapse that one of the most deplorable characteristics of US society – the relentless urge to build massive McMansions (funding questions aside) – was fading. Alas, as the Census Bureau today confirmed, that normalization in the innate desire for bigger, bigger, bigger not only did not go away but is now back with a bang.

According to just released data, both the median and average size of a new single-family home built in 2013 hit new all time highs of 2,384 and 2,598 square feet respectively.

 And while it is known that in absolute number terms the total number of new home sales is still a fraction of what it was before the crisis, the one strata of new home sales which appears to not only not have been impacted but is openly flourishing once more, are the same McMansions which cater to the New Normal uberwealthy (which incidentally are the same as the Old Normal uberwealthy, only wealthier) and which for many symbolize America’s unbridled greed for mega housing no matter the cost.

 

Not surprisingly, as size has increased so has price: in 2013 both the average and median price for sold new single-family homes hit record highs of $324,000 and $268,900.

 

The data broken down by region reveals something unexpected: after nearly two decades of supremacy for the Northeast in having the largest new homes, for the bast couple of years the region where the largest homes are built is the South.

 

While historically in the past the need for bigger housing could be explained away with the increase in the size of the US household, this is no longer the case, and as we showed last week, household formation in the US has cratered, so the only logical explanation for this latest push to build ever bigger houses is a simple one: size matters.

Furthermore it turns out it is not only size that matters but amenities. As the chart below shows, virtually all newly-built houses have A/C, increasingly more have 4 or more bedrooms, 3 or more car garages, 2 or more stories, patios and porches (at the expense of decks), and other critical luxuries.

 

In conclusion it is clear that the desire for McMansions has not gone away, at least not among those who can afford them. For everyone else who can’t afford a mega home or any home for that matter: good luck renting Blackstone’s McApartment.

For those curious for more, here is a snapshot of the typical characteristics of all 2013 new housing courtesy of the Census Bureau:

Of the 569,000 single-family homes completed in 2013:

  • 518,000 had air-conditioning.
  • 59,000 had two or fewer bedrooms and 251,000 had four bedrooms or more.
  • 27,000 had one and one-half bathrooms or less, whereas 188,000 homes had three or more bathrooms.
  • 166,000 had a full or partial basement, while 91,000 had a crawl space, and 312,000 had a slab or other type of foundation.
  • 305,000 had two or more stories.
  • 333,000 had a forced-air furnace and 216,000 had a heat pump as the primary heating system.
  • 347,000 had a heating system powered by gas and 214,000 had a heating system powered by electricity.

The average single-family house completed was 2,598 square feet.

Of the 307,000 multifamily units started in 2013, 23,000 were age-restricted.

Of the 195,000 multifamily units completed in 2013:

  • 14,000 were age-restricted.
  • 129,000 were heated with electricity and 64,000 were heated with gas.
  • 91,000 had two or more bathrooms.
  • 79,000 had one bedroom and 27,000 had three or more bedrooms.

The average square footage of multifamily units built for rent was 1,082.

Of the 10,000 multifamily buildings completed in 2013:

  • 5,000 had one or two floors.
  • 6,000 used electricity as the primary heating fuel.

Of the 429,000 single-family homes sold in 2013:

  • 120,000 used vinyl siding as the principle type of exterior wall material, while only 12,000 used wood.
  • 300,000 had 2-car garages, whereas 98,000 had garages for three cars or more.
  • 207,000 had one fireplace and 20,000 had two or more fireplaces.

The average sales price of new single-family homes sold was $324,500, compared with the average price of $292,200 in 2012.

The average price per square foot for new single-family homes sold was $93.70.

The average new single-family home sold was built on a lot of 15,456 square feet.

91,000 contractor-built single-family homes were started in 2013.

The average contract price was $298,000.




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