Monkey Business - Langkawi

Enjoying the waters on Pulau Beras Basah.

More pictures from our holiday time in Langkawi... and the islands nearby.  We took a boat trip on one of our afternoons to a secluded beach on Pulau Beras Basah. The adventures included watching sea eagles and Brahmin kites and a beachside barbecue.

Tasty flower crabs fresh off the grill.

The island hosts a private beach club used by a few Langkawi resorts and families.  The breezy, wooden buildings on site look as if they are barely keeping the jungle back from reclaiming the shoreline.  Much of the natural habitats surrounding nearby islands have tangled mangroves growing far out into the tidewaters.

Visitors arriving and enjoying the sands on Pulau Beras Basah.

Even as the owners keep the jungle at bay, the wildlife has already decided that tourists make for rich pickings.  Wild boars and their piglets snuffle at the forest's edge.  Macaque monkeys show up to welcome every arriving group in hopes of a handout.  You can see pictures of the troop after the jump.  Click on the link below left.

Strategic Default Meme

Stuyvestant Town and Peter Cooper Village: another investment underwater.  Photos from the NY Times.

Here's the idea.  The American housing market has become so bad that many indebted homeowners, perhaps up to ten percent of all mortgage holders, are now shouldering a repayment schedule so onerous that they would be better off returning the keys to the bank and finding their family a nicer rental someplace else. If enough people wake up to this reality and act accordingly the feeble property market could enter another round of unrestrained blood letting. 

The theory has been bubbling away in a number of news sources.  I first read about it before Christmas thanks to Daniel Gross at Slate/The Big Money.  He cited the Wall Street Journal's forecasts that in 2009 one million Americans will stop making payments on properties that they could actually afford with a bit more budgeting or additional income.  Then Nudge author Richard M. Thaler opined on these same homeowners in the New York Times, exploring what behavioral norms prevented people from making a rational business decision not to throw good money after bad.  The Planet Money podcast from NPR chimed in on the matter last week, chatting with a property lawyer in Arizona.  When the idea finally landed in the business section of the New York Times yesterday, the meme was certainly off and running fast.