Bits Bucket For June 26, 2008
Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
May 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Friendly, honest neighborhood brokers…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=abwfMWTg3rfY&refer=home
Americans curtailing spending - blame everyone but themselves.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTloxVUXKB0A&refer=home
A lot of difficulties beset many Americans these days. We wonder whom to blame.
Cartoonist Walt Kelly had our self-inflicted troubles figured out nearly forty years ago. He wrote, “There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us!
“We have met the enemy and they is US!”
Pogo
The Eloquent Pogo…
http://www.wrisley.com/commentD.htm
I may be a cruel person for saying this, but this one cracked me up…
“Jody Felton, 48, has found another way to cope with the pain at the pump: her disabled husband has taken to riding his electric cart to go shopping near their home in Cedar Woolley, Washington, rather than going by car. ”
How far was it to the store? A mile? How often did he go to the store? Three times a day? Jeebus.
Over the past three years some folks up in my neck of the woods have taken to driving their rascals in the street. This is totally an accident waiting to happen - it’s near the end of a highway - tons of cabs, buses, you name it.
I suppose sooner or later you’ll see a vid on You Tube - yeah that’s cruel too.
my in laws are in florida and say the golf carts are working overtime
and alot more golf cart accidents
But how much gas are they actually saving? Assuming they’re halfway intelligent with their shopping habits (three trips to the grocery store a week is two more than me), but three trips over the distance they drive in the cart might be a total of 15 miles. That is one gallon of gas in an SUV.
So they save $4.50 a week, and put wear and tear on their scooter while paying for insurance on the car in the driveway.
Typical people: spend $25 to save $4.50. Idiots.
A acquaintence in the city of angles who is grossly overweight, (6 foot 300 pounds) told me he was going to buy a vespa-like scooter for his 40 mile commute, and I immediately conjured up a vision of Jonathon Winters riding a kid’s bike in “It’s a Mad, Mad World”.
I just wonder where all the electricity is going to come from for all the people preaching electric cars.All that coal will be great for global warming critics.
Can you guys imagine how much more greenhouse gases are going to be created by india and china to say the least.
It seems to me that politicians are useing this global warming stuff to get more money out of us. My car registration has a 20.00 smog fee now.My electric bill had a climate change fee on it.what is going to be next?
Ignoring what can’t be seen for what can be seen.
Bastiat lives!!!
Our electric bills have been coming in around a Dollar a month, in the 8 months since we’ve had our solar array up, and we just turned on the air conditioner last week, which uses a lot of juice, and it’ll be interesting to see how much this month’s bill is?
That was a GREAT movie - What a cast… They’ll never have actors like that again…
I don’t know about you but our utilities (PG&E) is raising their rates once again. So how much do you really save?
Heh- Around here, every underage kid without a licence swarms the streets in golf carts, Gators, ATVs, anything to gey around the lack of licence. The cops never stop them either.
“get”
jwhite - going for your moring constitutional?
futures are down already
I am preparing for my daily “March of Equity Destruction” as I type…
“March of Dimes on the Dollar”
I hate those things. They don’t belong on the roads. The people I see using them don’t give drivers any respect. I’m mean myself, I guess. Bet most of the people didn’t pay for them either.
They travel with equal impunity on both the streets and the sidewalks too. Those that I’ve observed firsthand, and there’s lots of them where I live, are not all that old. Rather than age, it is their size, that tends to typify them.
Medicare = Medicar
“Rather than age, it is their size, that tends to typify them.”
Um, you noticed that too? I wonder which came first.
Utah recently passed a law making ATVs legal on city streets (not highways). But they do have to be licensed and have proper safety equipment, such as headlights, seat belt, etc. I see a few around - not enough here to be a problem for drivers. Actually, there aren’t even enough cars around here to be a problem. I don’t think it’s legal to drive ATVs around larger cities like Salt Lake, don’t know.
Don’t know why, but when I see some dude on an ATV going down the road I think, what a dork..yet a motorcycle still has elegance. At least they have to be able to balance and handle the thing.
I laughed at that one too.
The Can’t Do Society
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_cant_do_society.html
“Americans also harp about the faults of prior generations. We would never make their blunders — even as we don’t seem to mind using the power plants, bridges and buildings that they handed down to us.”
Truer words . . .
Doesn’t have to be like Canada’s. Swiss or French systems are worth looking at.
Sedro Wooley, WA is rural, two lane roads. Who knows how far the grocery store is, but probably within a 15 mile round trip for the scooter’s range. Dangerous though and often rainy. My one way to the closest store is 9.3 miles and we are considered part of the town. Don’t mock, it is not becoming.
blame Bush
Nah,
It’s blame everyone but yourself.
Thirty-five percent of those who have received or expect to receive a rebate say they intend to save it all or use it to pay down debt. That’s a contrast to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Time poll in February, when 67 percent said they planned to use the rebate for those purposes. Since then, gas prices have risen 30 percent.
What?! You mean to tell me people are just going to continue spending and not save or pay off debt? This is such a shock!
Maybe it isn’t enough to make a difference in their debt.
How far does $600 go towards the “average” $10k credit card balance? Hardly a dent.
Assuming 120 month ammortization, $600 would knock almost a year off your repayment schedule. Not wonderful but a better return than most other $600 investments.
If your credit card is charging you 19.9% interest it IS the best investment around. I can’t figure out where else you would get that sort of return on a risk free investment.
Though it just might not do much for your minimum monthly payment.
“Americans want the government to do more besides the rebates to help the economy, according to the poll.”
Who are these “Americans”? Duh? I’m asking the wrong crowd - sorry!
Ah, yes… no doubt the people want the government to hand out more “free stuff” so they can louge around in their Hummers and McMansions, gorging themselves on crap while shopping for junk to show off.
“They also want the government to do more to help homeowners facing foreclosure and to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the subprime-mortgage crisis that exploded in August. ”
Show me a poll on that because I don’t believe it. Every poll I’ve seen shows the opposite. People forget that renters make up almost 1/3 of american households.
Re: the link
The average man/woman on the street just looked up from what they were doing.
Buffett sees possible stagflation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=amCCz4wNzVCE&refer=home
Wasted away again in Stagflationville?
The fact that they intervened on Bear Stearns prevents them from needing to intervene on other large investment banks,” Buffett said. “The very act of the fire engine showing up when there was a fire means that other fires won’t break out in this particular case.”
I dont get it. What is he saying.
Sounds to me like the opppsite is true.
Now that they know there’s a working fire truck and helpful insurance agents standing by to reimburse claims with no questions asked, the neighbors will be encouraged to play with matches and smoke in bed, or even to actively set their own houses on fire.
He means that the companies won’t suffer from losing investor confidence.
Lehman setting up “dark pool” in the UK.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/lse-lehman-launch-european-trading/story.aspx?guid=%7B602B79F4%2DF3D2%2D41B1%2DA030%2D0B3174D2E266%7D
“Son of Super-Sewer Meloc” Lives! Remember the “Super-SIV” - this looks like its latest version.
I love how we’re all supposed to be happy that this will let them obfuscate and hide the true value of what they are trading. Unreal!
Thanks J!
I read the embedded link on dark pools and fired an email off to the SEC, FBI and IRS.
Why?
One little word, hope.
They hope they are operating within the law.
HA!
I have no idea if the e-mails sent will even be reviewed, but I keep sending them anyway, and sign my name to boot!
LOL - big bullseye on my bum.
Leigh
Economists Worry About Consumer Spending For The Holidays… Glad I’m not an ‘economist’ seems like all they do is worry…
NEW YORK - The holiday shopping season is still months away, but already a growing number of economists are predicting that it could even be worse than last year — which is to say, disastrous.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-holiday-outlook,0,5695018.story
Gee, I’ll try to contain my grief.
Who gives a ****.
ditto
only 179 days til x-mas
have the x-mas sales started yet?
i agree tx chick who gives a rats ass
The pols give a crap. GDP is heavily realiant on consumer spending and if people start saving instead of spending, it will decrease GDP causing an appearance of a weakening economy, even if the saving is a better choice for the individuals. And if the economy appears weaker the current pols might get voted out the next go ’round.
3 years ago after a xmas gift exchange extravaganza took 3 hours to complete, my wife and I laid down the law and told our family we didn’t want any gifts from adults and we weren’t going to give(giving gifts to kids is still ok) any either, from now on.
We encouraged our family to join along, but my sisters would have nothing to do with it, as they live to shop.
xmas has turned into a later-day Potlatch…
“The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family’s house and hold a feast for their guests. The main purpose of the potlatch is the re-distribution and reciprocity of wealth.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch
Bahhh Humbug
Read any Charles Dickens lately? LOL
The stress wasn’t spending a grandido, it was shopping for family members that are scattered hither and yon, that we see 2 or 3 times a year, and vice versa.
Plus, i’ve heard the holiday has horrible religious connotations.
LOL! My family did that years ago, taboo to buy except for the kids and for the grandparents. Much better.
Our new rule is to only exchange what we’ve made by hand. The quality and sentimental value of the homemade gifts is infinitely higher than the throwaway junk we exchanged before.
I just sent my niece a gift , just because.
I told her no thank you notes, a phone call instead.
I told her to tell her brother I don’t like dark chocolate.
I told my neice now that she is grown up, I can tell her things I’m not supposed to tell her.
Plus, i’ve heard the holiday has horrible religious connotations.
A few days later (January 1st), of course, is the extremely well-named Feast of the Circumcision.
I enjoyed wishing people a Happy Circumcision Feast Day when I was a Catholic schoolboy. Sounds more exotic than Happy New Year.
We made the same rule about gifts for adults.
We hate making lists. If we want/need something generally, we buy it. So Christmas became all about making lists for relatives of **** we didn’t need/want–it was just plain stupid.
So, gifts for adults are outlawed.
(We broke the law though….found some books that we thought some adults would enjoy—so sue me, I bought you a friggin’ book)
A few days later (January 1st), of course, is the extremely well-named Feast of the Circumcision.
Feast? Tiny slivers cut off the ends of hot dogs and fried?
IIRC, retail businesses operate in the red all year, relying on debt to meet payroll and other operating costs. Xmas is their payday, where they recoup the cash to pay back the year’s debt.
Maybe we’ll finally see retail pop.
What a happy thought. If you spend, to help the economy, you put yourself into debt and you’re screwed. If you save, to help yourself, the economy goes to heck and you’re screwed anyway.
So, is this a Catch 22, or a double-edged version of “The tragedy of the commons?” Either way, better stock up on canned peas while they’re still on sale, and available…
that’s what happens when your economy is based almost entirely on consumption.
“Consumption” was the old-fangled way of saying somebody had Tuberculosis…
It is a MYTH that spending helps the economy. Capital helps the economy, consumption destroys capital (because it is “consumed”). Think of it like seed corn where everyone lives on corn. The growth on the economy “measured” by the amount of corn that is consumed and so the PTB encourage everyone to consume more and more corn. Borrow corn and consume it if you have to. Saving corn to plant next year hinders consumption today!
PLEASE PEOPLE, stop giving legitimacy to the “consumer economy” and the idea that “consumer spending” “drives” the economy. There is no catch 22 except in the twisted/illogical nature of the propaganda that is spewed daily.
The strength of the economy is measured by the average strength of the people in the economy. So by saving money you increase your strength, by investing your money to improve your productivity (or reduce your recurring expenses) you increase your wealth AND help the economy by providing more goods and services to the market.
Thanks Dan.
Saving helps the economy grow in the long -term. The pols like spending because it gives the illusion of prosperity at the cost of long-term health. But they only care about the next election, not the long-term health of anyone or anything.
Exactly. I don’t know whether it was by design or accident that “spending is good” became an American economic mantra. The local news stations definitely buy into it–but then again, they only represent the local business interests. It is amazing what people will agree to if it creates more spending. Sure, we could all cut off our small toes because it would stimulate the medical sector and prompt the redesign of shoes, but we just don’t do it.
if people start saving instead of spending
I think for the majority, that should be “stop borrowing instead of spending”.
Correction again:
“stop borrowing and spending”
Borrowing and spending are not really mutually exclusive, but is kinda hard if you’re focused on borrowing OR spending (or both)
Durrr.. Sorry.
…but saving is kinda hard…
“GDP is heavily realiant on consumer spending and if people start saving instead of spending, it will decrease GDP causing an appearance of a weakening economy, even if the saving is a better choice for the individuals.”
Don’t expect to hear that hard fact/truth expressed by the financial news and MSM mongoloids.
Heaven forbid people save for the future. If they did that, they would have a degree of freedom vs. being totally dependent upon government promises and handouts. Can’t have that!
“Kara Flynn, 25, of Milwaukee, said she will probably cut back on the edible treats she bought family members from grocery chain Trader Joe’s last year.”
Generally speaking, “edible treats” sure beat the heck out of more crap for the closet as far as I’m concerned.
I always try to give gifts that can be used up…eaten, applied, whatever.
I concur. Candy, eating out, or a movie are my favoite presents.
“The holiday shopping season ….could even be worse than last year — which is to say, disastrous.”
Ya mean it’s back to basics? I can think of quite a few people who would slap a positive label on that situation.
After 68 years they see the handwrting on the wall…
http://www.nelsons-christmas.com/
just a couple of blocks from where i live…and its available for rent
Perceptions of supply shortfall keep oil prices high
Market is discounting new supplies and slowing demand, CERA says
(Marketwatch)
A “shortage psychology” in oil markets is overshadowing news of fresh discoveries and falling demand… [snip]
Investors are viewing future oil supplies through the prism of expected high-demand growth in China and India, which “tends to be the end of all discussions,” he added…
Question: Has oil peaked?
If not, name something that has not been factored into today’s price which could drive price higher.
(no black-swan events allowed)
1. True Middle East reserves are about 50% of what the world believes. In the mid-80s, all ME producing countries jacked up their “reserves” because export quotas were tied to reserves. More reserves, more you could sell. No new discoveries announced. Purely paper reserves.
2. Export Land Model - As oil exporting countries consume more of the oil they produce, less is available for export. Mexico is our #3 supplier, with direct pipelines into the U.S. At current decline rates, Mexico will not be exporting oil in about 6 years. Saudi consumption has grown by 7% per year the past two years. As Vietnam has done with rice, we may see a situation in which oil exports are banned by certain countries in order to preserve the oil for domestic consumption. Indonesia, US, and UK are good examples of countries that used to be big exporters, now net importers.
3. 50% of our oil comes from about 20 supergiant fields, nearly all of which are in confirmed declined. To replace the depletion rate, many, many smaller fields must be drilled and we don’t have enough rigs and equipment.
4. Energy Return on Energy Invested - It takes energy to get energy. In East Texas and much of Middle East, poke a hole in ground, insert straw, suck it up. EROEI of 100 to 1. Deepwater rigs, much lower. Ethanol, possibly negative EROEI or negligible EROEI.
5. As Japan and Korea industrialized, went from using one barrel per person per year to about 17. That represents true improvement in standard of living. China and India will try to get their up to that level (ultimately impossible, but they will try). Do the math for 3 billion people in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, etc.
I could go on and on, but that’s a good enough start. I would also add that probably all of the so-called oil “bears” are still buying oil-based products and filling gas tanks, which seems kind of odd behavior for people who believe oil is in a bubble.
That’s a nice list of “shortage psychology” elements. The premise of the article is that these are well known, widely believed by specuvestors and are already factored into today’s price.
I was kinda hoping for something new.
here’s the link
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/oil-shock-stems-fears-future/story.aspx?guid=%7B64502852-80F4-4C51-8BA1-ED9E2B2389B1%7D
Well, define “psychology”. The bottom line is that people in this country and around the world can’t get as much oil as they want unless they are willing to pay ever increasing prices. Honestly, if you believe it is all “psychology,” be my guest. I’ve seen What the Bleep and know how powerful our minds are.
Are all the factors I named fully discounted by the market at this time? Yeah, for right now. Unfortunately, 500,000 new autos will be sold again this month in China, and overall exports will probably decline. Next month’s fully discounted price is likely to be higher. I don’t see or hear the media focusing on the export situation at all. All I hear is people trying to pin blame. Net exports are the key.
I have run the numbers to my personal satisfaction thanks to work by people like Matthew Simmons, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Defeyes, etc. to believe that we have a serious problem and it is here right now. It’s not a drill, and it’s not “psychology.” It’s a fundamental problem between supply and demand and the way we have constructed our society and growth-dependent global economy around the assumption of always-cheap oil.
Robert Hirsch really does a much better job of explaining it all than me.
Robert Hirsch
17% more new cars sold in China last month
17& less new cars sold in the USA last month
Who’s your Daddy, Saudi Arabia?
It’s not about what i believe. I admit to not having enough information to develop a belief.
Alls i asked for was elements that have not yet been factored into today’s price, which are capable of raising price further.
I suppose your answer is an ever increasing level of paranoia (or of acceptance of reality, depending on one’s inclinations) that the world will experience an oil shortage.
Right now, there is no shortage. Right now inventories have risen while demand has fallen.
Today’s price predicts a shortage. It does not accurately reflect current supply and demand.
“…500,000 new autos will be sold again this month in China”
Are they good drivers? I’d say collision repair shops are a definite “growth” industry as well …cobblestone road builders.
I remember Korean adult drivers, fairly fresh to the USA in the late 70’s in L.A., that would put their turn indicators on, when they encountered natural banking turns…
I saw a car on the LA freeway once and the Korean guy was hauling chickens in the back seat.
And I rode busses in rural China in the 90’s and shared seats with chickens… (not by choice)
Heck, let’s burn it as fast as we can. Then what will the wackos in the Mideast have left to terrorize us with? A global shortage of construction fill?
“went from using one barrel per person per year to about 17. That represents true improvement in standard of living.”
I beg to differ. I have a long commute, so I use a lot of oil. My standard of living would improve if I had a shorter commute and used less.
Why do you beg to differ? I never said Japanese or Koreans use those 17 barrels of oil driving cars. Some of them do sure, but both countries have rail systems that put ours to shame. The majority of residents in Tokyo or Seoul take train/subway to get to work. The 17 barrels of oil and better standard of living comes from all the oil-based products we use in daily life, including construction of rail cars, bicycles, packaging for food, overseas vacations, makeup, making beer and sake, delivering them to store and restaurants etc., etc.
It’s the extra 8 barrels (from their 17 per year to our 25 per year) that are wasteful and don’t contribute to happiness. Those 8 barrels are the truly wasteful stuff like driving SUV to get a loaf of bread, and single drivers like you driving to work.
“As Japan and Korea industrialized, went from using one barrel per person per year to about 17. That represents true improvement in standard of living. China and India will try to get their up to that level (ultimately impossible, but they will try). Do the math for 3 billion people in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, etc”.
Nothing a pandemic wont take care of. Seriously China and India have poor resources to take care of any disease outbreaks. That also goes for the USA. Someday soon a Capitan Trips will be unleashed. The good news is there will be more oil available.
“Captain Trips”
(shudder) I just re-read “The Stand” about a month ago. Still the best thing King ever wrote (IMHO), and eerily contemporary today.
He peaked with “The Shining” and “The Stand” and then went into a tailspin. I’ve never had the heart to give any of his current stuff a try. Anyone willing to recommend one of his later stuff that’s worthwhile?
It’s particularly fun if you live in Boulder and are headed to LV next week :-).
Yea! “The Stand fans” By far the best “horror” story I’ve ever read…..although “The Pet Cemetary” also by Steven King was a distant 2nd.
So cool you mentioned Captain Tripps. I have scenes from that book flash through my mind all the time….and I last read that book in ‘83!
I read Frank Herbert’s Dune series about a year or two later and remember virtually nothing except that I slowed my reading pace during the last 2 books knowing he had just died and I wouldn’t have access to any more of his fantastic creation. Guess I’ll have to reread those.
At current decline rates, Mexico will not be exporting oil in about 6 years.
I would predict 3 years.
The Congress in Mexico is trying to figure out why although the price of oil double since last year, oil revenues are flat.
The Narcos down under/up over are making major Dollars (Pesos need not apply) from their operations, and paying off everybody from the street urchins to the chiefs of police to be on their side, and whole towns are being over.
Viva La Revolucion, numero dos
and lest it be forgotten midst the acknowledged elements, the futures purchased via the Fed lendings to HSBC, CITI, Wachovia, and others in an attempt to ease the pain of their CDO losses have shot the number/amount of oil futures into the stratosphere.
The well-supported supposition is that given it takes .06 to control a barrel of oil on the xchange, it sounds like a great arbitrage for the bedevilled bankers. Just gotta have their leverage hit…
Peak oil exists, but there is no immediate shortage, at least none which would propel gas prices so high, so fast. Shortages mean long lines at the pump, alternate days to fill up, stations actually running out. This is not happening - anywhere.
This is part and parcel of the Enron loophole. Loathe as I am to want any part of government interference in markets, there comes a time when supporting/covering for/bailing out only those maniacs in the executive offices of the investment banks and massive commercials at the expense of the rest of us requires a simple legislative adjustment: those who do not take delivery of a commodity may purchase futures with minimum cash up front of say, 20%.
Fed policy statement
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/complete-text-fomc-statement/story.aspx?guid=%7B2B2E6913%2DCB46%2D4560%2DAF46%2D9A58C5B5F2F4%7D
“some firming in household spending” ? Doesn’t have anything to do with the 70 billion in free (yea, right…) money that has been sent out so far? 30 billion left to send out. Let’s see what August’s numbers look like.
Delinquencies Rise At Freddie & Fannie… Wuz up with this, looks like they may need some more of our tax dollars to ’shore’ things up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502889.html
These guys have lost almost 12 billion bucks in the last few quarters, and taxpayers haven’t paid a penny. But don’t let a little thing like facts get in the way of your hysterics.
anecdote: a house I almost bought last year for 229K was “bought” by a flipper a few months later, relisted at 335K (hahahah) and then foreclosed June 4 of this year. He never moved in.
Anyway, it’s now in the hands of Fannie. I went out to look at it again on Monday because I might now put in a lowball offer (I’m thinking 160 or so). I called the number on the notice on the door and got a very nice and helpful person who located it in their database and told me what I need to do to submit an offer to them. I was shocked at how efficient they were.
And now I get an 8K tax credit too for buying a foreclosure if I buy it? Damn!
very nice tx-
doing your part to stimulate the economy
but you will probably run when the papers are put in front of you
housebuyingphobia-sweeping the nation
the thing that will get me to sign is the idea that I don’t want to be paying for housing after I’m about 65
Whoh, TX chick, are you going to buy and pay off a mortgage? Property taxes and all?
Can I take this as a sign that there are other options than renting forever?
I’m not saying that this is the bottom. But it seems that for three years, this blog has glorified renting and scorned buying, even future post-bubble buying. Anyone — women especially — who didn’t feel like renting for 30 years was treated with contempt, labeled a “nester,” and likened to the shrew in the Suzanne commercial, with jokes and derision about which spouse wore the pants, etc. thrown in for good measure.
So is smart buying actually going to be acceptible at some point?
7k but whats a thousand these days.
“I get an 8k tax credit for buying a foreclosure”
I thought that was only for first time owners….cuz I was looking at that myself…..only to have my hopes dashed!
But don’t let a little thing like facts get in the way of your hysterics.
“Hysterics”?…”A fit of uncontrollable laughter or crying.”
No hysterics here, of course many folks have trouble picking the proper use of some words, I know I do from time to time.
I’ll try and dig up a report from last year that stated F &F have indeed made use of taxpayer dollars, through back door channels. I suppose if a person works hard enough they can find “facts” to back up their statements.
‘I suppose if a person works hard enough they can find “facts” to back up their statements.’
In your case it’s easier to just type it.
Kinda like those Abe Lincoln “quotes”.
To be fair, both Fannie and Freddie operate on below-market rate loans from the taxpayers.
The GSEs raise money through the bond markets. The US taxpayer/govt is a borrower, not a lender.
I am concerned what Obama and democratic controlled congress and senate will do.
Though as usual with our government; inefficiency incompetence and indecisiveness will save the day.
According to AG they also have a line of credit with the Treasury.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/2004/20040224/default.htm
I haven’t been able to find any more specific information about this line.
My 401K shores up these guys some. I do wonder when they will run out of rope and their bonds deteriorate. So far, I haven’t had the guts to take the tax hit and take the money out.
You could at least move it over to a MM or treasury fund. At least that stops the bleeding. With my 401k, I count myself as ahead by 37.3% (thank you, California, may I have another?) at the outset and then any gains on top of that are a bonus. 1% + 37.3% is not bad at all.
The MM is heavily into obscure MBS.
No treasury fund available to our “participants”.
I’m ahead way more than the 37% (for now), as company dollar matches.
Yeah. That sucks. I’m all in on treasuries in mine. Actually makes me glad that I decided last year to clean up the 401ks I had scattered among 4 former employer plans into a single rollover IRA. Lots more investment options, and my IRA broker even allows shorting as well as uncovered options trades. I’m up about 20% on the year which is miles better than my stash in my current employer’s 401k.
‘The purchases have the potential to boost profits or reduce red ink at a time when the companies have been reporting heavy losses.’
‘Both companies expanded their holdings largely by buying their own securities. Such purchases represented $20.2 billion of the $32.8 billion growth in Freddie Mac’s investment portfolio in May and $8 billion of the $8.5 billion increase in Fannie Mae’s portfolio.’
OK, so how does buying your own product boost your profits, unless you are merely using accounting tricks?
..Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac package mortgages into securities for sale to investors, guaranteeing that they will pay the investors if the borrowers default.
they don’t usually own the mortgages.. the product is packaged and sold. They earn their money on an insurance policy.
By “buying” or keeping the mortgages in-house, they earn the interest on the loan, which no doubt provides greater income than that from an insurance premium… they also become voluntary knife catchers.
Goldman downgrades U.S. brokers.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stock-futures-down-earnings/story.aspx?guid=%7B88356666%2DCC5A%2D400F%2D96E6%2D90C08DCE2171%7D&dist=MostReadHome
…and GS downgrades GM, and GS disses the other banker men’s banks…
Gee, I wonder how GS was positioning themselves these past couple of months?
Who & where is their ex CEO?
Lately it seems that when Bank A downgrades Bank B, within short order Bank B will downgrade Bank A.
Is this so? I haven’t tracked it closely, but it just seems to be playing out that way.
Can Goldman downgrade themselves?
Fortis, Belgium’s largest financial services company will scrap a 2 billion dollar dividend, tries to shore up capital in worsening conditions.
Luckily, things outside of the US are just ducky.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axIjx5DyBDvw&refer=home
“Banks and securities firms have raises $314 billion in the past year after record writedowns and credit losses of almost $400 billion from thre collapse of the subprime mortgage market.”
This $314 billion raised was the easy money. This was uninformed knifecatcher money, money raised while there was hope of a quick recovery.
Raising hundreds of billions in the future will be more difficult because the pool of uninformed knifecatcher money is being or has been depleted.
Tight money conditions lie just ahead, IMO.
Looks like just a tiny financial iceberg ahead captain, I wouldn’t worry much about it.
Financial lifeboats = ready cash.
This is for Phillygal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121443823260805375.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
kewl
Vero Possumus?
One of the secrets of success which has always been promoted through seminars and reading materials to *act* the part. If you want the job, *act* as if it is already yours.
My Latin is quite bad. What does that translate to? “True Roadkill?”
one of her specialties
LOL
commentary by karl rove. as good as our beloved president’s words.
Some of y’all that are less adept at this whole dollar thing (like myself) might enjoy the book “Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It’s Under Siege;
by Craig Karmin (Author).
Published Feb 2008. I really enjoyed it, just finished it last night.
Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits
Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.
careful- lots of free-er healthcare folks here.
if an oil rich democracy can’t do it what makes folks here think we can have FREE-er healthcare
it’s like the 4000 sq ft house for everyone- not happening
The way things are going, the dysfunctional US healthcare model will crash and burn under its own weight. As the number of uninsured/underinsuered steadily increases each year, and we’ll see more clamoring for universal healthcare a la Canada and Europe.
The greedy stench of insurance cos, big pharma, lawyers, unions, hospitals and doctors needs to be cleansed from the current system.
..while Canadian baby boomers have yet to get old and sickly and really hammer on the system, which some say might easily bankrupt the country.
who, rush? americans saying canada might go bankrupt, that’s rich.
The Canadian health care system has problems, but this comparison is essentially false. Back in the New Deal time frame US employers got saddled with the burden of supporting health care. That only worked for a while and is now falling apart both because it is unreasonable to expect employers to pay for everything and because we in the US spend roughly twice as much on health care while being less healthy than other developed nations.
The “Canadian Health Care We So Envy” headline is clearly false and intended only to raise reactions. The issue is not envy of Canada’s system, but the critical need to address our own. The business community is the most prominent member of the “We” in that statement, which is important to bear in mind.
All the health care revision proposals in the US that don’t get immediately shot down are insurance based so that people still have the option of spending their own money as they see fit. That is quite different from the “single payer” concept that Canada is working with.
The relation to housing markets seems a little strained. Currently medical problems are the greatest cause of bankruptcy and homelessness, but would even making grand changes to health care really change where people live or how much they pay for their residences?
You know Mole I’d really like some honest data on all this but it seems like everyone has an agenda. Maybe things will be less charged after election season.
Excellent! And I say this with personal knowledge as both my parents were Canadian, as is the rest of my extended family, including a brother who is a Canadian doctor.
Yeah, I bet this Canadian did not have to “make an appointment” for his visit in a US of A hospital:
On March 31, 2005, Young was admitted to a hospital in New York for treatment for a brain aneurysm. He was treated successfully by a minimally invasive neuroradiological procedure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_young
dude, I forgot to mention that my Canadian grandfather also died in the same American hospital as my parents. After 4 weeks in the ICU even though he was 99 years old and had suffered a stroke. I brought him there after finding him in his bed unconscious. Without any guarantee of payment whatsoever, the hospital took him in and give him full and complete treatment until his death.
So blow me.
txchick, I’ll kindly disregard the last statement in your post above…without anger or disrespect…what exactly are you trying to infer?
“…my parents both died in American hospitals. In fact, the same American hospital - 12 years apart.”
I think that says it all.”
This post might offend people, but the only way to “fix” the public healthcare system is by more efficient allocation of resources. Frankly, we’re spending too much money on sustaining a miserable quality of life for people who will never recover. For any system to be sustained, there needs to be the potential return on investment to justify the tremendous cost. And right now, public healthcare tends to allocate far too many resources toward keeping invalids alive indefinitely for no possible benefit.
Or better yet, how about requiring that people take a little more responsibility for their own health care; i.e., if someone waddles in with T2 diabetes, high BP, heart disease etc. after 30 years of pigging out and smoking, make them pay more.
If things were just left alone, those people would pay more by default.
I think we are already doing that. My aunt who is 66 can barely walk and needs to have her kneecap replaced. Medicare won’t do it until she loses weight(which will probably never happen).
Then there are the premmies-6 months early. Now my middle daughter was a premmie-4 weeks and did extremely well. But that isn’t always the case. Fortunately we had excellent insurance because we couldn’t have paid the full amount.
maybe it and housing should be completely deregulated- we’ve seen what subsidies do…………
My vote would be to reduce regulation calling for MD’s to be involved in a lot of routine health care. They’re frankly overqualified in this age of relational databases. Trained and qualified diagnosticians backed by searchable databases of symptoms and cures could take care of most minor care issues that make up the bulk of our medical expenses.
Mad: We are seeing the result of qualification creep. Medical industry is hierarchical, doctors ratchet-up the requirements for doctors, nurses the requirements for nurses, MRI technicians the need for MRI technicians, medical administrators the need for medical administrators. 5 decades of this and look at the costs! I’m guessing that the ratchet affect in Canada and the US is pretty much the same.
Supposedly in the UK if you sue someone and lose you pay your and defendant’s legal fees. If we got rid of the lawyer tax, health care and many other services would would cost a bit less.
You’d think all my Canadian relatives were dying on the vine because of such shoddy medical service they receive, as opposed to here.
I’d also point out that we pay canada a hell of a lot of oil money…
my parents both died in American hospitals. In fact, the same American hospital - 12 years apart.
I think that says it all.
My favorite aunt died about 6 years ago in a hospice in Calgary.
I thought it was really well run, quite honestly.
What sort of arrangement do we have for people with or w/o insurance, in their final days?
We call it the inland empire
or Parkland Hospital
end of life-Hospice.
Kennedy died at Parkland Hospital too you know…
some day when I have time I’ll give you all the stats on the % of babies born at Parkland who are illegal aliens from all over the place, not just Mexico.
I think it’s well over 50%
and of course they pay nothin
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
42 infants a day born at Parkland. 70% of babies born at Parkland are from parents who are illegal aliens.
Your source? A Guy from the rightwing Manhattan Institute who wrote “Capitalism can save Healthcare”.
Let’s look at what Claude Castonguay really says.
http://canadianmedicine.blogspot.com/2008/03/interview-claude-castonguay-quebec.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080219.wquebechealth0219/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080219.wquebechealth0219
He does not want to do away with the Canadian System, but rather want a tax increase to help pay for it. And a co-pay to doctor.
When asked about other systems to look to. He talks of Britain and France. But never mentions a US type system.
This editorial took out of context quotes to make a point that Castonguay simply was not saying.
In other words, pure bs.
Don’t they already pay 50% taxes to have that medical system?
And you say they need copays and more taxes as well?
Canadian Income Tax Calculator
A person making $1,000,000/year in salary in Ontario would pay $445,808 in income tax.
A person making $35,000/year, the Canadian median, would pay $5,094.
a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.
Well gee that’s funny. Go to Google Maps (or just Google) and type in Norwalk Ontario. The only matches are in Ohio and Wisconsin. Yahoo Maps gives Norwalk Street in Toronto! No town of Norwalk in Ontario, Canada.
Your so-called “facts” are irrelevant.
Here’s what you need to know:
A.) USA #1!
B.) Canada can stick it up the patoot.
C.) Adequate healthcare for all = Satan Satan Satan Socialist Red Menace Homosexual Terrorist.
you forgot tree hugging
Crap, you’re right.
(Though Treehugger is implied by all those other profane words.)
When I’m upstate to visit family, I cross the border and see doctors in Canada. Americans can make appointments and ask for the price…and pay cash. Their best doctors are world class, may have done additional training at the Cleveland or Mayo Clinic, and there is no messing about with insurance.
I buy my prescriptions there as well, written by Canadian doctors. And since I’m a “private” client,far easier to arrange an appointment.
I lived in Montreal for 4 years, working in the Canadian health care sector. It can barely able to provide timely access or modern equipment. They hemorrhage their most talented personnel to the USA and elsewhere. It is not “free” either, with the Canadian tax burden being essentially the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
All the “free” health care types here need to realize that nothing comes free, and a government takeover does not lead to greater efficiency or quality.
It
canis barely able to…All the “free” health care types here need to realize that nothing comes free, and a government takeover does not lead to greater efficiency or quality.
Strawman argument. No one who advocates Universal Healthcare says it will be “free”. It will mean higher taxes. BUT, it will mean not paying more money to the Insurance Companies.
And actually a simple look at cost vs care for EVERY industrialized country with Universal Healthcare compared to the US shows that government run healthcare is less costly and better quality for the general population. (looking at things like birth mortality and lifespan)
I don’t see why I/we have to pay more so that loser slackers that didn’t study, don’t work and can’t think will get a free ride.
When you say better for the general population I get images of some dumb ass from the back of the class that thought he was cool and ends up knocking up his girlfriend.
Then all the sudden its “for the children” or some old people… queue violin music.
If you’ve got some studdies that show something along with good data of how the Candian health care system reacts in a recession… great.. post some links. You keep knocking people down because their sources are conservative? What about your sources?
Aren’t they equally biased to liberal causes?
I just want data.
My source is the Congressional Research Service. A Government organization, Not a “liberal” source.
The same finding was found by the W.H.O. and the U.N.
The problem is that the system is not set up to rein in costs in a rational way. Why haven’t prices for MRI’s and other imaging decreased? Personal technology keeps going down in price - but medical technology cost keeps increasing.
Insurance is so badly done, as well. People should be able to purchase catastrophic healthcare insurance for a reasonable price - the kind of insurance that doesn’t kick in until you pay $15-20k deductible for a given year or medical issue — but will keep you from getting bankrupted beyond that if you have a catastrophic problem.
I don’t mind that doctors, nurses or administrators may be well paid - but there has to be some incentives and mechanisms to rein in costs.
about mri. have you seen the supeconducting magnet used for that thing? and the juice it requires? how about the physics behind. no wonder it’s one very expensive piece of equipment to own and operate.
one more thing. would you rather the you get to be opened up to see what is happening underneath your flesh?
But looking at things like cancer suvival rates and the US is number one in the world. See this August 2007 Telegraph article:
http://tinyurl.com/497vds
UK cancer survival rate lowest in Europe
Birth mortality and lifespan numbers will adjust when the US isn’t number one in the industrialized world in teenage pregnancies.
http://tinyurl.com/6od683
Canadians pay less taxes per capita to pay for health care than Americans do. By per capita I mean per taxpayer, not per person receiving government health care.
Yes you read that right.
See Ed is here to explain that reality that you see doesn’t exist.
NSO, the problem is you suffer from a defective memory.
There are plenty of resources in the system.
The system works great and you love the system.
Norwalk Ontario doesn’t come up on Google Maps ?
Here is the link to the full article.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299282509335931
Dow futures down almost 100 points. Might be rocky today.
The financials are toast. Since everything is so incestuous one downgrade creates massive exposure for others, resulting in writedowns and continuing downgrades. MBIA has to return all of their GIC invested money with make-whole (assuming the purchasers were smart enough to demand it at the time of negotiation) next week. Billions, and billions, and billions. Capital? What Capital?
I note that is not breaking news, but was a result of last weeks’ downgrades, but as it works its way through the system and available cash is consumed, we spiral down into the abyss.
129 SKF wasn’t bad, eh?
I wish I wasnt so scared to day trade. Safer for inexeperienced ppl like me to wait for a bottom and buy cheap and hold long term. I wish I had more time to focus on learning all the ways to profit from the collapse.
It’s so simple…
Everything Dollar denominated is gonna whacked, cash-stocks-bonds.
It’s suddenly Argentina, late 2001 here…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999-2002)
Ready to tango?
Safer for inexeperienced ppl like me to wait for a bottom and buy cheap and hold long term. I wish I had more time to focus on learning all the ways to profit from the collapse.
I feel the same way. It’s apparent that many people can profit under any market conditions. I’m not anywhere close to that kind of enlightenment — though I see the possibilities.
Heh. I ordered the Jeff Cooper course that Txchick recommends…but meanwhile read up on basic futures trading, or options (not even sure what the diff is).
Got to the part about having to cover when the price shoots up unexpectedly and my hair about stood on end. :O
Not sure I’m cut out for it either, LOL.
Same here - we’re sitting on the edge of the Index/ETF pool with our toes in the water, but haven’t actually made the plunge yet.
profit under any condition and for added fun, do it against the strong prevailing trend
that’s what makes it exciting
Just admit it txchick you’re a thrill seeker.
I show up here every day and take on this pool of satan worshipping communist homosexual treehugging terrorists, don’t I?
Somebody’s gotta do it
The U.S. stock market’s behavior on FOMC meeting days and shortly thereafter never ceases to mystify me. Somehow the market miraculously closed near the opening bell yesterday. Today, it is as though Wall Street’s bull herd decided to run off the nearest cliff. Was there some news between last night and this morning that explains the change in sentiment? Or was it another one of your morning walks that caused the damage?
It seems that ppl sell on the financial and banking related downgrades. I dont get it. As I noted when Ambac and MBIA were downgraded last week this will result in billions in write downs and further downgrades for the sector and that it was huge news. Apparently the sheeple dont believe it until they get it in writing or hear it on cnbc. Ppl like us just know what is comming through common sense so the announcements are meaningless. Regardless of whether these companies actually take or announce the write downs to the extent they should, economics dictates that will be necessary at some point. No way to avoid it. Why need it in writing? Why are thoughts more valid when expressed on CNBC or in the WallStreet Journal, or confirmed by biased Wall Steet types?
Rational expectations act as slow as molasses in this market environment.
True. That’s why I’m too scared to day trade.
The secret is to accept that most people don’t do what’s rational. If you need proof of that, just take a look around at what has gotten us into the current slop into which we’re currently sinking.
The herd generally has no clue (or finally gets said clue about the time it’s out of date). Contrarianism can be profitable.
“Apparantly the sheeple don’t believe it until they get it in writing or hear it on cnbc.”
That’s been my observation. News isn’t news until annointed as such by the MSM.
“Apparently the sheeple dont believe it until they get it in writing or hear it on cnbc.”
I referred to this AMBAC/MBIA situation to a friend who’s husband is in that business. Having earned a PhD herself in another area than business, she’s no dummy. However, she truly had no idea what I was talking about. Nor was she really interested in hearing an explanation. Her Dad was a stockbroker who’s been telling them to be cautious since way before I found this blog 2.5 years ago. But she doesn’t want to hear the details. When a potential move was on the horizon she was looking to buy!
Is this thing too ugly to digest?
If we didn’t live the last downturn is it too much to understand how it will touch our lives or is this like a movie on the tellie?
When does the DOW go below 10000?
Methinks Wall Street’s pig men may be running out of lipstick.
Oooooh. Nice.
this fall is my guess. the day after the election of the messiah wins
Coming Soon: Not-So-NICE Health Care?
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299282658708852
A British court just ruled that the U.K. government unfairly denied anti-dementia drugs to Alzheimer’s patients. The government’s reason for refusing to cover the drugs? Money. Government scrooges didn’t want to foot the bill.
The U.S. Senate is considering legislation to create a Comparative Effectiveness Research Institute under Medicare.
Like NICE, the new agency would conduct studies on the relative effectiveness of various medical treatments, analyzing how different options stack up against one another.
In theory, this research could provide doctors with more complete information when deciding which treatment to recommend. But in practice, the agency’s findings would likely be used by Congress to lower the government’s health care spending.
By generating studies that show that older, cheaper drugs are just as effective as newer cures, cost-conscious lawmakers could rationalize not covering expensive cutting-edge medicines under Medicare, Medicaid and other publicly funded programs.
If they’re cheaper and just as effective, what’s your beef?
As someone in the biz, let me tell you that there are very few newer medications out there that are much better than the older, cheaper ones. For the most common problems–hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, allergies, heartburn–95% of the time the old drugs work great. And they’re 4 bucks for a month’s supply at Walmart or Target.
The real problem is that even though thoses studies will give you the general rule for most people, it doesnt’ work for everyone. I don’t remember which of her many health problems it was, but my mother’s doc tried the old/cheap medication on her - didn’t work. Tried a slightly more expensive one - didn’t work. Tried the new more expensive one - it worked. Insurance refused to pay since the studies say the other ones work just as well. It took months for the doc to convince them that for *this* patient, they didn’t.
It is outrageous when the doc uses the expensive one first to try to get a vacation out of the drug company. But when he has determined the expensive one is the only effective treatment for a particular patient after trying the other ones? Well that is a problem with the system too.
My thoughts on why health care is so expensive.
1. Do you really need an mri for a broken arm?
2. Tv advertising of drugs has produced an enormous number of hypochondriacs
3. Overweight and obesity..
4. Over building of hospitals and clinics in same areas, each with thei own mri, and specialized equipment.
5. Hospitals, don’t give you an estimate…they just charge!
6. Does it really take three doctors to review xrays?
7. Fast foods have contributed to childhood attention disorder, autism, allergies. Montisodium glutamate and corn fructose. We had a cure for this…three cornered ruler, in the hands of a good nun.
8. Over issue of antibiotics to children…get an immune system!
9. No one lives forever..get over it. Cancer, ms, heart attack…why should I pay to keep your sorry ass alive?
1 Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed.
9.
Terry, do you look good in a speedo? LOL
“6. Does it really take three doctors to review xrays?”
Answer: Not a bad idea actually standard “Malpractice prevention Q.A. insurance” if they been up for 22 hours & are thinking about their next “duplex rental income investment property” in Chula Vista, CA
“5. Hospitals, don’t give you an estimate…they just charge!”
And then “hold” your body in “impound” at $1499.00 per day…until they check your credit report. Bad credit…you’re fine… now get him outta here, stat!
“10. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed.”
Careful there…then we would not have Phillis Diller. (I Just read her book, Fangs family…she’d agree with you.)
All that, and you left out: Malpractice Insurance? How unBuffet like…Are you a doctor?
This is analysis is reactionary in nature, and a bit scrambled. There are a number of attempts going on to rate the relative effectiveness of various medical treatments, and Oregon has been making a bit deal about this for more than a decade now. Touching on Medicaid is complex since it is well known and understood that Medicaid is the most out of balance of all the entitlement programs. The four major groups of programs that have the Medicaid title will have to be done away with or completely redesigned in the near future. That the relative effectiveness of medical procedures might be taken into account is actually one of the smaller issues with that. Above all of this it is important to keep in mind the differences between “single payer” schemes such as Britain has and insurance based programs which are at the core of most US health care reform proposals.
Anger comes through in these posts about health care, but what is the point of that? The system for payment is unfair and breaking down and the results are far behind the rest of the developed world. Being satisfied with back of the pack status isn’t really consistent with American attitudes present or historic.
Lennar revenues fall 61%
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/lennars-quarterly-loss-narrows-revenue/story.aspx?guid=%7B597DEAB0%2D7F26%2D4AF3%2D98B6%2D12AAB37C2A6C%7D
Ohhhh, those poor, POOR little rich kids… *sniff*
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aQQb2YqkwJsQ&refer=home
Whoa nelly! Look at the RIMM story! Bombs away! That’ll hurt beta.
Here comes our 1275.
I’m a decade trader rather than a day trader, so call me when we get below 1200. Wouldn’t dare buy til then.
“I’m a decade trader rather than a day trader…”
“… a decade trader …”
I like it. Trade the grand swings. Buy at P/Es below 10, sell when P/Es go through the roof. An easy, no sweat way to get filthy rich.
This is not going to end well. Will we stop at 1275, or crash straight to 1000?
Buy when the big banks begin to fail. That’s when ppl will be the most fearful.
they need another rally to distribute IMO. We should take a look at the weekly and monthly S&P on some down time.
The dec to jan swoon was about 16%, that would put the spx at 1209.
OEX is back dipping it’s toes at the 589 support from March 10. I wonder how the big boys like the water temperature. Bought 200 July 520 puts at $0.25 yesterday afternoon at the late afternoon peak. Cashed out half this morning at 0.55. Now playing with the house’s money on the other half.
So far, so good. The house’s money is doing well. I’m thinking sizable sell-off into the weekend, then the start of a summer bounce before another, deeper cratering event toward the end of the year.
This looks like Wayzata High School back in our old district. OT, it’s also the town some of my ancestors landed when they first came to the New World. They should have bought and held real estate!
OOPs sorry, link.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aWm38u5mLS28&refer=home
Sorry - link.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aWm38u5mLS28&refer=home
Sorry! Double post!
Link.
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aWm38u5mLS28&refer=home
“A recent spike in real estate inventory is a sign that a growing number of New York City homeowners are seeking to cash out before prices fall, brokers said.”
http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/inventory-spike-signals-cash-out-mentality/80712/
Either than, or they just lost their high-paying job in finance, so they are selling their pied-a-terre.
“Ultimately, more choices for buyers leads to fewer deals being made. The mix of sellers unwilling to lower prices and buyers expecting bargains ‘creates frustration,’ Mr. Miller said. ‘The perception by buyers is doom and gloom, and the perceptions by sellers is the stats in New York are really high.’ As inventory climbs and sales continue to stagnate, Mr. del Rosario said, ‘it’s a bit of a standoff.’”
How unfair. The data shows other parts of the country are already past the standoff phase. We continue to lag.
We need some good news to give sellers, not to mention idiot buyers, religion. Believe it or not, I know of somebody actually closing on a house in Prospect Heights (where the marauding teen gangs are jumping new arrivals) for something like 2.2 mil. And they were told at contract signing a few weeks ago that there was another offer 50K higher, so they ponied up.
suckers
prospect heights=bed stuy=ghetto
these people are stark raving mad with those prices
and the marauding teens are in fact a very real thing
good luck with that
Some of these newbies are so clueless, walking around in sandals (what about dog crap and broken glass?) talking on cell phones or with IPODs blaring, not paying attention, that I almost feel like mugging them myself just to wake them up.
Doctor friend who’s been trying to sell a 1-bed on the West Side lowered by 35k…still no bites. Agent says market is at stand-off. She’s not under water, if she lowered another 100k she might be able to move it, but no dice. Now she’s thinking that even with a 500 a month reset in November, it will be cheaper than trying to find a rental that takes dogs–(she has 2 pekes).
This is the logic…rentals are hard to find, everybody is in debt, so she’s thinking of renewing her 1/0 with WAMU and and just continue paying the interest, and not worry about the principal.
She’s a great friend, but she knows my views, and in the end, folks will do what they want.
Meanwhile, how much did rents go up by? I’m betting it was less than $500.
Chasing the market down.
Stories like that are why I kind don’t buy the theory that middle class America will be streaming back into the cities due to higher gas prices
Skip, Faster,
note that she is not even thinking about the mortgage principal as an albatross around her neck…what she’s doing is not like renting, unless she’s figuring that it will never be repaid. But we haven’t gone there in conversation.
The other thing is NYC could change back to a less friendly, more dangerous place fairly quickly. I tend to the cautious, pessimistic view…but with stabilized rents being kicked up to 8.5% increase, I’m thinking this may be my last year here too.
No way can I charge my clients 8.5% more.
$2.2M in the freakin’ ghetto. And they ponied up $50K extra?
These people are really morons. They will either be foreclosed upon or be totally house-poor.
IMO unless you’re Tom Cruise, no job is secure enough, or income high enough, to pay the note on a $2.2M house (with interest) for 30 years. You’d have to live paycheck to paycheck just to keep up, even if you go easy on the expensive toys. You’d be financially better off — and less stressed out — picking apples, shelving books at Borders, and living in a $40K cottage in Oil City, PA.
I’m only half kidding.
There are no jobs secure, period including Tom Cruise’s. And that holds anywhere in the world.
The moronic idea of paying interest on such a large note for 30 years is such a relic, I can’t even begin to imagine how they do it.
Is “couch jumper” a job category?
I think it’s a psychiatric diagnosis.
As for the folks I know getting that “deal” on the fringe of the ghetto … they had a major windfall and are paying 50% cash (could pay 100%, but didn’t for some tax reasons that are beyond me), but I could think of way better ways to blow MY dough, if I ever were as slick as they were in making it. Starting maybe with a little penthouse rental for a couple of years!
When will prices finally drop?! The stress of putting off my other half for 3 years is getting bad. I finally convinced him to visit his relatives in Australia. He’s been putting it off for all three years just in case we need to move into Our New Place.
BTW, my doctor has high level clientele (read *Manhattan/upper income). He tells me many of his patients have already lost their jobs, but are being given cover by their former employers to *pretent* they’re still working, so they can get new jobs easier.
How much longer?! Oh the humanity!
Looks like the folks in Cocoa Beach are going to have to break out their own sparklers… No 4th fireworks.
http://www.local6.com/money/16709180/detail.html
Everyone’s over-reacting
(from Fortune)
The trouble with gloom is that when you’re surrounded by it, that’s all you can see. A sunny tomorrow could be on its way, but the present darkness is definite. Obviously I’m talking about the economy, not the weather, and I’d like to propose the radical thought that, contrary to the evidence that surrounds us right now, just possibly the apocalypse is not at hand.
Today’s pervasive pessimism certainly seems well founded. Oil above $130 a barrel is a massive tax on the U.S. economy. Sharply falling home prices are panicking U.S. consumers. Their inflation-adjusted total compensation hasn’t risen significantly in years, and the prospects don’t look good after the latest jobs report, which showed a big jump in unemployment. You can’t blame people for feeling miserable - the consumer confidence index just hit a 16-year low - or for cutting way back on spending. Since consumers power the U.S. economy, economists figure a recession is on its way or already here. And since this recession (if that’s what it is) seems driven by very large forces, it’s hard to see what might turn it around.
So it’s important to remember that we’ve been here before. The closest parallel was the miserable ’70s and early ’80s, when stocks went nowhere for years, stagflation dragged on, the dollar tanked, and oil prices rocketed. America’s economic model no longer worked, we thought, and Japan’s superior system would slowly but surely grind us to dust. No one could see the solution, yet our system found it. U.S. industry restructured - painfully - and has since produced more than 20 years of impressive growth, interrupted only by the mini-recessions of 1990–91 and 2001.
The way we get out of today’s slump will be different. Here’s one plausible scenario. Home prices, down 17% from their peak, stop falling in most of the country by year-end. The financial system clears out the last remnants of subprime junk; by the fourth quarter, credit eases back to near-normal levels. The oil price bubble bursts as today’s high prices eventually bring forth lots of new production (see Shawn Tully’s column). Even if unemployment goes to 6% from today’s 5.5%, people remember that it hit 6.3% just five years ago, when the economy was growing. Finally consumers can breathe - and spend - again. Traumatized by the housing bust, they don’t spend as freely as in the old days. (But that’s good. They’ll need savings years from now when Washington is forced to squeeze Medicare benefits.)
In the bigger picture, new industries arise from today’s turmoil. Environmental technologies create efficiencies far greater than anything needed to meet recent high energy costs; the whole economy becomes more efficient, and the world buys these new technologies in volume. Biotech develops devices and therapies that help not just aging Americans but billions worldwide. More companies apply the creativity-based business models of Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Target (TGT, Fortune 500) in other industries, resulting in new categories of jobs unimagined today.
How do I know any of this will happen? I don’t. In fact, I’m practically certain things won’t play out just as I’ve described; the future always fools us. But I do know that our system has a genius for producing solutions that no one individually can see. And I know that our capital markets are still the world’s best at allocating resources, and that our peculiarly American talents for risk taking, problem solving, and imagining are especially valuable in today’s global economy.
It’s a bit unsatisfying to say that we should simply believe things will get better without being able to say how. In fact, that position is easy to ridicule as Pollyanna-ish. Yet in previous tough times, that has been exactly the correct position to hold. Right now, when seeing beyond the gloom is so difficult, is a good time to remember it.
“The way we get out of today’s slump will be different. Here’s one plausible scenario. Home prices, down 17% from their peak, stop falling in most of the country by year-end.”
Where’s the crack pipe when I need it. The housing bubble is just starting to pop in the NE. It’s commercial real estate that’s coming next…..
An article like that, whose author cannot envision anything beyond a hyper-consumer economy, shows why we’re boned.
Besides, this is not the 70s-early80s. I’m so sick of hearing that all to neat comparison. Aside from the price of petro IMO there’s no comparison. If they think that another period like 1985-2000 is waiting in the wings then they are absolutely daft.
Was the writer even born in the 70s?
“So it’s important to remember that we’ve been here before. ”
No we haven’t. People try to compare what’s going on now to what has gone on in the past. We have NEVER had global banking conditions like they exist now. We have NEVER have had the level of debt that we now have. We have NEVER had a nationwide housing bubble. I could go on but I’ve doomed and gloomed myself enough today. Time to start pricing handguns.
Yeah, ‘Dont worry! Be Happy!.
What a load of BS.
“The closest parallel was the miserable ’70s and early ’80s, when stocks went nowhere for years, stagflation dragged on, the dollar tanked, and oil prices rocketed. America’s economic model no longer worked, we thought, and Japan’s superior system would slowly but surely grind us to dust. No one could see the solution, yet our system found it. U.S. industry restructured - painfully - and has since produced more than 20 years of impressive growth, interrupted only by the mini-recessions of 1990–91 and 2001.”
*****
I’m not sure with regard to the historical revisionist part of the above statement.
IIRC, no one was truly “afraid” of any “Japanese superior system” in the late 70’s or early 80’s.
By the early 80’s, everyone was afraid of inflation. Hence the one-term Carter presidency and then the Volcker rates.
The Japanese thing was later, in the late 80’s, as they bought up US real estate (later taking a bath), and as at the same time their real estate and the Nikkei went sky high… peaking in ‘89-’90.
“The closest parallel was the miserable ’70s and early ’80s, when stocks went nowhere for years, stagflation dragged on, the dollar tanked, and oil prices rocketed”
I remember that. Dow < 1000. About 1982 I did my very first investing, but didn’t really have enough to play with and had to use a full service broker. But I knew it was the time.
Hope I recognized when it’s time again. Sometime I think it’s only when I don’t have money that I can sense these things - like Microsoft in 1989. I knew but I was flat broke. Criminy.
Wisconsin Public Radio aired program about the proposed mortgage bailout. They actually found a UW economics professor opposed to the bailout.
Overall, a good program
http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/jca/jca080626b.rm
They go after some mopes from Bear Stearns, the mopes from Countrywide and let the big fish walk:
from Bloomberg
Wall Street Sold Auction-Rate to Investors as It Warned Issuers
“June 26 (Bloomberg) — Yanping Cui, 57, says she invested in auction-rate bonds last December at the urging of a broker at UBS AG in Long Beach, California. The same month, UBS told one of the issuers of those securities, a New Hampshire student-loan agency, that the $330 billion market was in danger of failing. …”
If this was not so serious, it would be hystericcal… in the words of my dear Uncle Vinnie, ‘f**k ‘em.
That’s one Totaaaaaaaly Huge Swiss Miss…
they are not making any more thumbs.
Well then, just stick the whole body of finance in a vice-grip and keep tightening it up.
Eric Roberts In the Pope of Greenich Village:
“Cholee, Cholee….they took my f-ckin thumb”
GREAT MOVIE VOZWORTH
is Ben Bernake bed bug eddie?
Wow! My might powers have again manifested themselves!!! Oil up 3 bucks, long term unemployment climbing, market tanking… What next? The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man trampling NYC? I’m truly impressed with myself - JW wanders off mumblimg to himself as he tries to convert gold into lead psychically…
OK, JW, good buddy, you just gotta make this not-so-secret power work for you now.
Buy high, go for a walk, sell low. Or…buy high, DON’T go for a walk, sell higher.
I dunno Utah… I REALLY like that gold into lead thing… (JW goes off to collect wife’s jewelry…)
These multiple percentage point daily swings are like a freaking ATM machine. Just bring your dramamine.
Or a mugger.
That works, too. I assume at some point it will become less easy to scalp a 15% profit on a three hour index option play. But I don’t expect that to be the case for the duration of the summer.
JW, …have you noticed whether the the guys that look like bad dressed “Blues Brothers” following you are getting…more numerous?
Ya mean the ones talking into their thumbs… Why yeah, there are a couple staring through the window right now… JW waves… Hi guys!!!!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/first-quarter-gdp-revised-10-inflation/story.aspx?guid=%7BE06D9BA1%2D55E4%2D4847%2DAA5D%2D2B8FA4ABD0DF%7D
“The biggest drag was investment in housing, which decreased at a 24.6% rate, subtracting 1.1 percentage points from growth.”
Existing home sales inch up, prices continue to decline.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B2A0889E0%2D9DF1%2D4E44%2D8CE6%2D9BA378954930%7D&siteid=mktw
I thought real estate prices always went up, at least on a national basis? And what is with this “not-seasonally adjusted” crap? Don’t inventories of used homes for sale normally fall during the red hot summer sales season?
The relatively low drop in NAR median sales price compared to the 15 pct+ drop in the Case-Shiller index suggests the average quality of homes selling may on the rise.
BULLETIN
U.S. EXISTING-HOME SALES INCH UPWARD, AS PRICES CONTINUE TO DECLINE
U.S. May existing-home sales rise 2% as expected
By Rex Nutting
Last update: 10:00 a.m. EDT June 26, 2008
…
Resales have sunk 15.9% in the past year and are down 31% from the peak in 2005. The median sales price was down 6.3% compared with a year earlier. Inventories of unsold homes fell 1.4% on a not-seasonally adjusted basis to 4.49 million, a 10.9-month supply.
In this summer of discontent, you can feel a revolution forming, a revolution of false entitlement meeting reality, like a head-on collision.
Revolution day is just around the corner, and i’m not talking about July 4th…
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
That sounds like something Elizabeth Cotton would’ve written…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F6sXL4Jb_s
She wrote this song at age 12. I love the comment about sounding like a dying ox. Legend or not, I sort of agree.
It’s from the Broadway show Les Miserables.
That was actually my first guess.
How often is this initial jobless claims number identical in back-to-back reports? I would not be at all surprised to see that number stay magically below 400,000 for the foreseeable future.
BULLETIN
U.S. BENCHMARK 30-YEAR MORTGAGE RATE UP MODESTLY
ECONOMIC REPORT
First-time jobless claims unchanged at 384,000
U.S. labor market remains weak: Weekly continuing claims stay atop 3 million
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Last update: 8:42 a.m. EDT June 26, 2008
Comments: 13
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of first-time filings for state unemployment benefits neither rose nor fell in the latest week but remained at a level that points to a weak labor market, government data showed Thursday.
Initial jobless claims held steady at 384,000 for the week ended June 21, the Labor Department reported. Flooding in Iowa accounted for 4,000 claims, a Labor spokesman said.
Readings consistently higher than 350,000 signal that the labor market’s in a fragile state, and initial claims figures have been above that mark since the end of April.
I don’t think the BLS counts outsourced jobs as “losses”. If your tech support job goes off to India and you get to flip burgers or wash windows instead, it is merely considered a “cost-cutting” measure or a “labor shift”.
Oil traders seem rather unconvinced by the Fed’s tough new anti-inflation stance.
INDICATIONS
U.S. stock futures cast sharply down opening tone
Goldman Sachs: U.S. brokers no longer ‘attractive’; oil above $138 a barrel
By Steve Goldstein & Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:17 a.m. EDT June 26, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock futures pointed to a steep opening fall on Thursday after a mix of economic data added to a negative tone already set by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s downgrade of U.S. brokers and cautious outlooks from Research In Motion Ltd., Nike Inc. and Oracle Corp.
Is a respiking operation imminent, now that the DJIA is nearing its five-year low?
Sorry — should have said “two-year low” (need more caffeine!).
If you were thinking about coming up to the Sierra Nevada, please don’t.
We are choked with smoke from all the wildfires and visability might be a few thousand feet…
Fugly
Man, I feel for you. Being downwind of about all points west, we get smoke from fires all over, and it can make life miserable trying to breathe (not to mention for those dealing with the actual fire). I get low-grade headaches when the smoke comes in, maybe I better prepare myself, as we’ll see your smoke if it gets bad. Good luck out there, Lad, hope it’s not coming your way.
from the NY Times: http://tinyurl.com/584agh
In other Western states, high gas prices are battering firefighting budgets, tough economic times are making it harder to recruit volunteers in some rural areas, and the prospect of deep cuts in assistance from the Forest Service is darkening the horizon.
“Federal and state fire agencies are looking at what they can do to control costs; the local departments are just looking to keep fuel in their trucks,” said Brett Waters, the fire chief in Belgrade, Mont., and president of the Montana County Fire Wardens Association. “You’re going to see this year, more than before, a lot of discussion about who’s paying for what.”
The budget crimping has meant less field training and reconnaissance of conditions, fire officials said, raising concerns that firefighters will not have a full picture of the potential danger.
“The best offense is preparation and training — it’s really tough when you have to reduce that because of the budget,” said Bob Roper, the county fire chief in Ventura County, Calif.
On the plus side, our swimmin’ hole on the river is reaching peak fun…
Like a 60 degree jacuzzi of whitewater @ present.
Good luck Lad.
Don’t know about you, but fires make my ‘alligator-brain’ parts go berserk - can’t sit still, can’t sleep, can’t eat, having to quell the urge to ‘flee!flee!. all the time - even if the fire’s miles away
Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it) most of the tinder near our part of the Santa Monica Mountains went up earlier this year.
Though, its not even July yet.
We’ll see how well LaLaLand holds up this fire season.
The bigger problem with these fires is, precious freshwater must be used to extinguish them, a Faustian Bargain.
8,000 lightning strikes means a LOT of fires.
Will Bank of America give Countrywide Financial Corporation an opportunity to clear its good name against lawsuits from Washington, California and Illinois before going through with its acquisition plans?
Countrywide’s Pressures Mount
Three States File
Legal Actions;
Holders Clear Sale
By RUTH SIMON
June 26, 2008; Page A3
The legal and financial pressures on Countrywide Financial Corp. mounted Wednesday as officials in three states filed separate legal actions against the mortgage lender.
The actions, by the attorneys general of California and Illinois, and the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, came on the same day that Countrywide shareholders voted to approve the sale of the company to Bank of America Corp. The all-stock transaction was valued at $4 billion when Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide in January. But Bank of America shares have since slipped, and the value has fallen to about $2.8 billion. The transaction is scheduled to close on July 1.
The California action, filed in state court by Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., alleges that Countrywide used “misleading marketing practices” to steer home buyers into “risky and costly loans” without regard to borrowers’ ability to pay. Mr. Brown alleges that Countrywide, based in Calabasas, Calif., was driven by an effort to boost the company’s market share and fill demand from Wall Street for loans that could be packaged into securities. The 46-page complaint also names Countrywide Chairman Angelo Mozilo and the company’s president, David Sambol.
WAHOOO!! Patience, grasshopper, patience - we WILL see MozilloMan in orange, my friends. Either that or he’ll “mysteriously” disappear off a bridge somewhere.
Housing rescue stalls in Senate
$300 BILLION FOR HOMEOWNERS HELD UP
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 06/26/2008 01:31:14 AM PDT
First good news I’ve seen all day!
I don’t think this bill will stop housing prices from dropping, but it MIGHT keep a few banks that deserve to die alive.
I find this amusing. What sort of attorney do they think they will get for 65-70/hr
http://dallas.craigslist.org/lgl/733191246.html
Before long, they might be able to get a pretty good one…
DOJ Missed Two Mortgage Crisis Culprits: Phil and Wendy Gramm
Posted June 24, 2008 | 06:28 PM (EST)
The Department Of Justice arrested the two principle Bear Stearns investment executives and about 300 others in the Real Estate Foreclosure fiasco recently. While this makes the Justice Department appear to be addressing the problem, it is merely a dog and pony show designed to distract public attention and avoid going after the real culprits of the disaster. Phil and Wendy Gramm, two central conservative movement players, are as much to blame for creating the conditions that removed safeguards and federal oversight from energy and credit banking instruments as those who took advantage of their deregulatory loopholes.
gee why don’t you see how Mother Jones weighs in on the subject
go to opensecrets.org and have a gander at who received the $$$$ from the financiers of this disaster
Former Texas Sen. and chief UBS lobbyist Phil Gramm is John McCain’s head financial adviser.
and the publication writing this is a left wing nut site
tell it to Jim Johnson
“and the publication writing this is a left wing nut site”
But your posts with links to extremist nutjob national review is acceptable. I really dig that hypocrisy.
Finally, some political balance on the Obama bashing teeter-totter…let’s get out the water hose & make some mud and then the fun will really start.
PB, couldn’t you find a link from a better source?
“The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.”
“Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there. A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.”
Wendy Gramm, Phil’s wife, as chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Presidents Regan and George H.W. Bush pushed deregulation of financial packaging for energy traders. This deregulation allowed Enron to set up many of the schemes it used to defraud California energy consumers and after its collapse, its employees and investors.
uh, care to tell us how much $$$$ the messiah has received for his campaign from the financiers?
keep the women and children away, it’s scary
Sounds to me that they got a couple of very high paying jobs kind of like Dick Cheney at Halliburton.
Neither side gives a damn about us.
Thats the bottom line!
Mike
“Phil and Wendy Gramm, two central conservative movement players, are as much to blame for creating the conditions that removed safeguards and federal oversight from energy and credit banking instruments as those who took advantage of their deregulatory loopholes.”
You mean similar to the gaping loophole advantages for banking and investment interests at taxpayer expense contained in the current Dodd fiasco/bailout.
Yeah, hey, LOOK OVER THERE! I love the denial, so transparent.
Last night I heard a sound bite on a late-night McCain campaign ad about “mortgage restructuring,” but Google served up no insights. Does anyone know about what sort of mortgage perestroika McCain has in mind?
Market breaks through S&P 1300 level.
Please, for the sake of the stock market, run, don’t walk!
YEp, just entered call bids which *should* be hit around 1277-1270
GM at it’s lowest point since - drumroll - 1955… Oil up $4.00 The financials are getting slaughtered. CNBC cheerleaders are talking about a “bottom”. Hmmmmm
I will point out that SKF is lower than the high made the other day when the indices were also higher. That could mean there is bottom fishing in the financials. FWIW
I’d say the financials are worth buying on the dip since they now have the implicit backing of our gub’ment…
Just like everyone else lookin “for de gub’ment chek”…
The SKF like most 2 fer 1 indices when it moves in your favor goes 2:1 when it goes against you it is 4:1 - this makes it very profitable to short the index and short the stocks anticipating volatility and market movement either way. This is currently happening in SKF - losing premium rapidly.
What on God’s earth happened to GM? Last time I checked, the price of their stock was over $30 a share, thanks to Kirk Kerkorian’s meddling.
The only thing GM has going for it is the Volt and it is years away.
The 0 percent financing is going to kill them as people “walk away” from the 700 per month crowd BIG SUVs. I can’t believe how many people are paying over 400.00 per month for a car.
Next web site to come up
You have already walked away from your house, now walk away from your car.com
“…You have already walked away from your house, now walk away from your car.com”
PB quoted Mr. Simon not so long ago:
The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
Id like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
She said its really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning wont be lost or misconstrued
But Ill repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover
Just slip out the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You dont need to be coy, roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, gus
You dont need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, lee
And get yourself free
50 ways to leave your lover…Words & music by paul simon
This has been a stealth crash, retail has yet to throw in the towel. How long before gm declares bk? No capital raise coming for them.
Is today a good day to buy the dip?
getting there. tomorrow afternoon or monday a.m. might be even better
Do you realize you are expressing the same deflationary sentiment which is leading would-be homebuyers to wait a year or two before dipping their feet into the owner-occupied housing market?
I”m a rug merchant. You know that. None of that means anything to me.
LOL
Does that mean you sweep the dirt under the rug? Is that a Canadian tradition?
Damn carpetbaggers!
I can’t help but contemplate what would have happened to U.S. stock prices if the Fed had tightened. If oil keeps going up, we may get an answer later this year.
i think the FED should have saved some of those magic bullets they were using for days like this! instead they choose to use them all up in a 7 month period.
Exactly.
Perhaps the strategy was to panic early and often.
“…If oil keeps going up, we may get an answer later this year”
Nov 5th perhaps? ”
Here Mr. Obama, it’s all for you & yourin’s…we quit! Oh, your welcome.”
Is it recoupling time for the globalized financial market place?
BULLETIN
EUROPEAN STOCKS’ CLOSE IS LOWEST SINCE 2005;
DOW INDUSTRIALS AT NEARLY 2-YEAR INTRADAY LOW
EUROPE MARKETS
Jitters over banks, dollar shake up Europe
Fortis drops on plan to raise capital; EADS lower on downgrade
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
Last update: 12:07 p.m. EDT June 26, 2008
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Stocks in Europe ended Thursday at their worst closing levels in over two-and-a-half years, with weak U.S. earnings outlooks, a plan by Dutch-Belgian banking group Fortis to issue new shares and strength of the euro all combining to weigh on markets.
With losses that grew by the hour, the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 (ST:SXXP: news, chart, profile) ended the session down 2.6% to 288.48, the worst finish since October 2005.
What a difference a day makes! All these credit bubble favorite stocks were going up just yesterday…
A feeble attempt to get mopes long. Worked in the techs. dorks
This is the perfect market to learn to trade/invest. Any mope can make money when the market goes up 1000% over 10 years. In this market, pick any stock, study it and trade or invest. A low risk/low return way of learning the market. Learn what you do wrong and learn why. This is an ideal market for beginners. I am serious. (and this is an awesome market for seasoned professionals.)
Most of these stocks had a miraculous bounce the minute the market closed — I guess that is a reward for those who kept the faith?
i saw that too? do you think it has to do with the short sellers? i couldent quite figure that out.
There is a silver lining to today’s selloff — Mr Market successfully avoided the 20 pct threshold for bear market status (at least on the DJIA):
Today’s close = 11,453.42
52-Wk High (10/11/08) = 14,279.96
Total DJIA percentage decline through today =
(11,453.42/14,279.96-1)*100 = -19.79 percent –
We still have 0.21 percent breathing room between the current DJIA level and bear market territory.
Fahrenheit $911
Robert T. Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” has a new book coming out (in December, milk it, milk it!): “Rich Brother, Rich Sister.” These are the kinds of “books” you can read in about 5 minutes while standing in the bookstore. When is he going to write one called “Rich Author, Poor Author”???
From the Amazon PR:
“Two lives, together, then apart, then together again, as a brother and a sister discover the riches of life. Rich Brother, Rich Sister combines the inspirational true life stories of Robert Kiyosaki and his sister Emi into one book that will reaffirm your belief in the power of purpose, the importance of action, and the ability to overcome all obstacles in a quest for wealth, both financial and spiritual.
In 1962, the United States detonated a nuclear bomb ten miles off the coast of Christmas Island in the South Pacific. From that moment two people, born of the same parents, and with the same childhood experiences, found themselves on different life journeys to find truth, happiness, purpose, and ultimately financial success. Robert became a world-famous entrepreneur, author, and teacher of all things financial, and Emi a highly devout Buddhist nun, author, and teacher of all things spiritual.
This book will inspire you along your own life’s journey to find your own truth and purpose, your own path to prosperity—both financial and spiritual—all the riches of life that were meant for you…and us all.”
Kiyosaki is a notorious charlatan, which explains why he’s coming to Tampa to teach suckers how to be rich. Most won’t grasp the message, which is, “Put on how-to-get-rich seminars for suckers, and you can be rich!” It’s teaching by action, not by words.
Since anybody can claim to be a spiritual teacher, his sister’s (in both senses of the word) credentials don’t impress me either. I’ve endured zillions of such gurus over the years, but not one has come across as particularly evolved. Most have struck me as complete fakes. Maybe the lady is for real, but if she has teamed up with her charlatan brother to market a get-rich-quick-get-spiritual-quick book, chances are she’s as unethical and vainglorious as he.
How about…
“Rich Stepbrother, Rich Stepsister”?
Good grief, this guy and now his sis, makes me sick. If people woke up to what he all about, he would be outta bidness in a New York minute.
I posted this craigslist beaut last night but it’s worth a re-post.
For sale, $629K That’s a lot for Missoula.
Surprise! For rent at only $1995!
Still laughing.
At 250-300K, that wouldn’t be such a bad deal. Knock about 40-60% off and that thing goes in minutes. Great piece of land, nice looking home. BUt at that price. Not a chance! You know what that amount would buy in Oil City, PA? That’s right! The whole county!
At 250-300K, that wouldn’t be such a bad deal.
Well they’re not going to just give it away! LOL
OT: Supreme Court rules I can keep my guns. Wahooo!!!
Now, where exactly did I leave my loaded .22 pistol this time…dang.
Actually, I’m conflicted on this one. Somebody once told me that people don’t kill people, guns kill people, or something like that.
BTW, La Verkin, Utah, passed a law that it’s illegal to NOT own a gun. Don’t know if it still stands.
Whew! Just found my pistol. Good thing, one of the dogs had dragged it in under the porch where I keep my box of Hercules dynamite powder and blasting caps.
The neo-cons have been getting a hard-on about the prospect of allowing guns in National Parks, oddly enough, the one large public place where your 2nd Ammedment rights must be left in a holster, back @ home.
If guns were allowed in campgrounds in Yosemite-King’sCanyon-Sequoia N.P.’s, there’d be yahoos shooting at bears, missing said bears and hitting their neighbors, slumbering in their 38 foot rv, anchored nearby.
I worked with a very intelligent guy once (computer programmer) who was a hard-core loner. He never camped in the parks or campgrounds, liked his solitude. If anyone came into the area he was in to set up camp, he pulled out his .44 and started target shooting, they usually left right fast. He was actually a very gentle soul (I suspect most .44 owners aren’t necessarily).
But who’s to say we shouldn’t allow guns in the parks if it would reduce the number of people? Just make sure you’re only allowed to shoot in the campgrounds.
I’ve been bluff charged by black bears a few dozen times, and it’s kinda fun if you know what’s coming (they ALWAYS back off), but would-be Walter Mitty Sochaks would think they are being attacked, and pull the trigger if allowed the opportunity.
Hey Lad, do you think it would be possible to arm the wildlife? Would sure make life more interesting, and equitable too - being a good American, I’m always for equality.
One of my favorite photos from around 20 years ago, had a platoon of Azusa, Ca. police officers, all with their guns drawn on a black bear hanging out in a hot tub.
I think they overkilled it.
Fear does strange things to people, and fear is usually based in ignorance. -Cactus Rat
Regarding guns in national parks, it can actually be a big PITA when you’re one of the few people who take horseback pack trips through the wilderness area around the southeast corner of Yellowstone and the only route happens to go through a corner of the park. You need the firearm for grizzly bear reasons, but passing through that little stretch of the park is kind of like passing through one of those interstate speed traps that little towns in corners of states like to set up when the highway passes through their jurisdiction. Try not to look conspicuous and hope that they didn’t send out an eager beaver looking to impress somebody back at HQ.
Just wanted to point out that it’s not all idiots shooting at campground signs from their RV.
I’d like to point out that by definition, only idiots shoot at campground signs. Also, I think that the people that shoot at campground signs already bring in their guns and break the laws. It’s impossible to pass enough laws to stop these idiots. All the laws are already in place.
Isn’t the legislation about allowing people with concealed carry permits to carry concealed guns into national parks? These people don’t shoot up camp signs, and passing this legislation would allow them to carry their concealed handguns without being a “criminal”.
Yes…it’s always the “neo-cons”. And great scare tactics on how there’s gonna be lots of yahoos shooting at bears and hitting RVs, etc. Point me to the studies that show where enacting right-to-carry laws have caused crime to increase and people to start poaching bear and hitting RVs. People with concealed weapons don’t do these things, criminals do. And criminals are already doing them now, or they aren’t, but passing laws so that non-criminals can carry a concealed weapon legally isn’t going to magically increase the number of criminals.
And did you ever answer that question from many bit buckets ago where somebody asked you how you pay your debts? I know many of us are curious given your stance on the worthless dollar and how keeping it in banks is a huge mistake, how it is that you actually pay for things.
hahahahah. Wampum.
“People with concealed weapons don’t do these things, criminals do.”
People with weapons do these things.
I see it all the time, but usually not in the parks (I live near and often visit 3 national parks). I could care less about shot-up signs, it gives them character, it’s when I see shot-up rock art and animals that I get testy.
Out here in my part of the wild West, I don’t think the people who do these things are neo-cons, actually, they’re the ones generally most opposed to the neo-cons. They are usually just your typical good old boy rednecks who hate any loss of freedom of any kind. I find myself very conflicted on all this, as I agree with them about loss of freedom, yet I often see them doing some pretty harsh things (I could provide a book’s worth, believe me, about the destruction they can do).
But some of these rednecks would also stand behind you no matter what and protect you, they just seem to have a general lack of empathy for the natural world. I live in one of the most redneck towns in Utah, and it seems to me you’d be better off just carrying your rifle in a rack in your pickup window where everyone can see it, rather than concealing it. It’s a great deterrent. But truth is, there’s nothing to deter, it’s a fine place to live, generally.
Actually, truth be known, some of the most Nazi-like people I’ve dealt with have been what we call Parkies, the law enforcement for the national parks. They seem to understand the letter of the law, but not the intent. I was once harassed for looking at rocks in the pathway to the bathroom in a national park, treated like I was stealing something for picking up some flakes I found in the gravel, which had been trucked in (I’m an archaeologist). That is an extreme example, not all the parkies are insane. Nor are rednecks.
Given my choice between a redneck and a Parkie, I’d take neither, but maybe the redneck. Or maybe both, depending on who they are, cause both subtypes contain some fine people. As for me, I’m a redneck environmeddler.
I told you I was conflicted. But I do have guns, though I’m not really sure where they are right now…
Michael Viking…
I’m embarassed to admit that aside from my paid off ranch, I keep almost 1% of my assets in U.S. Dollars @ this time, as they are still useful, until the shit hits the fan.
And yes, keeping your money in an American Bank is a huge mistake @ this point of the game, perhaps you haven’t been following the news?
aladinsane…
Tell me how many guns you keep on this ranch.
Oh, and also tell me how many signs, bears and RVs you’ve shot with those guns, because based on your writing, it’s my understanding that people with guns do these things.
We have friends in La Verkin and there is most definitely something in the water, there.
Maybe it’s dynomite powder or uranium tailings or some such Utah type thing.
Remember when they made it illegal for the UN to walk their soils? Like the UN could walk or what, but maybe I’m misremembering the actual wording of the law…
We were somewhere in Utah, and the morning paper had a front page color photo of the UN Flag being burned, by the locals…
Gotta love those locos…
OT: Supreme Court rules I can keep my guns. Wahooo!!!
This will no doubt piss off a bunch of Libs. I had no intention giving up my fire arms under any circumstances. Now I wonder who will be the first to file suit against the D.C. gun ban.
the NRA
Housing crash hits baby boomers
Home-price declines will eat into boomer retirement nest eggs: report
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
Last update: 8:02 p.m. EDT June 24, 2008
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — The collapse of the housing bubble will likely have drastic implications on the wealth and retirement of certain baby boomers, according to a report Tuesday by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The median household headed by those between 45 and 54 in 2009 will have about 25% less wealth than the median household of that age in 2004, according to the report. That household’s wealth will decline to $113,268 in 2009, from $150,113 in 2004.
And that’s if housing prices remain at the level they were in March.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/25/america/bush.php
All fans of satire should appreciate this…
“From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant”.
So this is a state of the art prize winning plant, which would imply that some ’smart’ people put it together! So putting GW’s name could lend credence to him backing a smart efficient operation.
So the S.F. crowd that thinks it tied him to sewage, may not be as smart as they believe. But hey it’s S.F. what more needs saying.
President Bush FINALLY got something right - he learned how to play guitar!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wTVLIZaxMk
I didn’t know he liked that “hippie” music? …Well it is without lyrics.
Goes good with blogging, Thanks!
Yeah, his PR agent was really sharp and got him an easy to remember name, Chet.
“You got a bunch of guys drunk who came up with an idea,”
I’m Shocked & in Awe
“… over 400.00 per month for a car.”
That would be 12*5*400 = $24,000 over the life of a five-year loan.
I know a 58 year old woman who recently traded her 3 year old Kia for an ‘08 Sportage.Since the Optima wasn’t paid off, that was added to her 7 year loan. $400 a month payments. She’s a breakfast manager at Burger King. My daughter who is an assissant manager and scheuled for the nest store to come open in her district couldn’t make that payment. This woman can’t either, especially withcurrent gas prices. The last i heard, she was having money problems again. She is in poot health and probably will not be able towork much longer. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for her.
Bearpont Morovia?
http://dealbreaker.com/2008/06/call_it_jpmor-gan_nyp.php
I think I’ll buy a little WM here at $5 for giggles. Worked on Bear Stearns.
I bought some last week at a little over six thinking the same thing. Hasn’t worked out just yet but I think they will be bought out too.
I sold half my July 7.5 puts on what looked like a double bottom around 3:10 eastern.
The rest is house money, but I agree the significant risk is the buyout. I’ve been thinking that for several days. It seems almost like WAMU is going to go to zero and the press won’t even make a peep.
City of Utica gets the Arson Task Force back on the job.
http://news10now.com/content/all_news/romemohawk_valley/118864/utica-arson-task-force/Default.aspx
From the sign of the times folder:
Received a cold call this morning from a chiropractor’s office looking to offer special deals for local residents. I think at this point people’s wallets are hurting more than their backs.
The problem is there are a lot of folks in the US of A that:
“…can’t get off their backs!”
they must be in the same boat with the dentist’s and plastic surgeons!
I got a hand-addressed letter from a local dentist welcoming me to the new neighborhood.
Private Equity Can Save the Banks
By OLIVIER SARKOZY and RANDAL QUARLES
“…It may be tempting to think the worst is over, but this is only the beginning. The International Monetary Fund recently estimated that the global financial sector can expect to realize nearly another $600 billion in losses, while some economists have projected the figure will be closer to $1 trillion. In any case, it is clear that the financial-services industry will continue to need unprecedented amounts of new capital over the rest of this year.
Over the past 20 years, private equity firms have demonstrated the ability to shoulder risk and to improve the efficiency and profitability of the companies they invest in. They are exactly the kind of investors we should attract to the financial-services industry. Restrictions and disincentives, however, dramatically and unnecessarily reduce the pool of capital available to the industry. In addition to increasing the industry’s cost of capital, these limitations increase the risk that taxpayers will ultimately be called on to assume some of these burdens…”
WSJ
We will save the banks provided there is no scrutiny. Mssrs. Sarkozy and Quarles are the Carlyle Group. What a bunch of assholes.
they’re replaced realtors as the #1 villain in my book
“…are the Carlyle Group”
“from the “many”…for the “few”
Connect the dots…or…follow the money?
“Connections between the Carlyle and the Bush family have inspired controversy, particularly in relation to the War on Terror and the Iraq War. George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of State James A. Baker III have at times been advisors to the group. One writer claimed that Saudi Arabian interests have given $1.4 billion to firms connected to the Bush family. Of this figure, $1.18 billion comes from contracts awarded to defense contractor Braddock, Dunn & McDonald, which Carlyle sold before George H. W. Bush became an advisor.[23]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group
Private Equity is peeling potatoes, and doing K.P. after that.
new description for the stock market when it has a bad day.
“The stock market remains in a funk during afternoon trading, unable to compose a rally thus far this session.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/marketupdate/overview?u
It seems to me like the market is more often unable to compose a crash, due to some kind of mysterious dark floor which always buoys it up when the news suggests there is no reason for the market to rally.
One of MS. Txchick47’s carpets, lol
http://finviz.com/map.ashx?t=etf
Check out the beautiful hues of flaming red.
I’m looking forward to having my bids hit tomorrow or Monday.
Is that what is known as Wall Street’s red carpet treatment for long investors?
I only have one thing to say, at least the housing bubble is contained.
The Tao of Bugs: June 25th 2008:
Daffy: “Hey Bugsy, what will happen with the Dow today?”
Bugs: “eh, it could be that the “Flush” is in Daffy”
Porky the Pig: “Hey, what is Bugsy saying Daffy?”
Foghorn Leghorn: “Well look here son, what he means is this: in some places in the world the toilet water swirls around thisa away…in other parts of the world it swirls around thata way..but either way… it goes down to the main drain, get it boy?”
Elmer Fudd: “I think I used too much toilet paper Foghorn…”
Martin the Martian: “Uh Oh…”
Wiley E. Coyote: (Frantically turning the ACME catalog pages..) “Rubber boots… page 332, super sized plunger…page 978, toxic waste absorbent…page 1027”
Daffy: “That’s despiiiiiiiiiiccccccccccable! …page 39, Daffy gets latrine duty again!”
Pepé Le Pew : (sings) “Affair d’amour? Affair d’coeur? Je ne sais quoi … je vis en espoir. (Sniffs) Mmmm m mm … un smella voo feenay … (Hums)”
Yosemite Sam: “thats the worst thing I’ve seen…north, south, east, aaaaand west of the Pecos”
Sam Sheepdog: (takes his time card and punches out of work) “See ya tomorrow Ralph”
Porky the Pig: “Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”
Bugs: (munching on a carrot, resting in a row boat going down the river) eh, I guess the writers are still on strike?…(singing) “row, row, row your boat gently down the stream…“
Daffy Duck’s…. DDD index:
Dow
Down
Done!
NYSE Volume: 8,000,000,000 + today?
Bugs: “eh, could be Daffy…who’s striking the gavel at the closing today Daffy?”
Daffy: “It’s a team effort by the striped suit clan today Bugsy, Citigroup/ Bank of America / Washington Mutual”
Bugs: Eh, so anyway, what’s up, Doc?
Daffy: You didn’t listen to a word of any of this, did you, Bugs? Nothing’s up.
Foghorn Leghorn: Now hold on there Daffy, see here son,..why let me tell ya boy…these days in Lonney Toon… Down is Up…and Up is Down…er, maybe it’s the other way around. (wisphering).. Daffy has a lotta feathers up there between his ears…heeheehee…boy is as sharp as a #2 pencil I tell ya!
Perhaps this delay will give pundits ample time to sort out the recent news items about the shady dealings of Countrywide, Bank of America and UBS with top senatorial proponents of this bailout bill.
Housing bill stalls in US Senate through holiday
Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:52pm BST
WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will not resume consideration of a major housing market rescue bill until after it returns in early July from its Independence Day recess, lawmakers and aides said on Thursday.
Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada has blocked further progress on the widely supported bill by insisting, against Democrats’ wishes, that he be allowed to try to attach an amendment dealing with renewable energy tax credits.
“It looks like we’re being held up on housing because of Sen. Ensign’s insistence on an unrelated amendment,” said Democratic Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin on Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, late on Wednesday said the Senate would complete the housing bill on the first week after the recess ending on July 8.
Today I wrote to the 9 senators who voted “no” in the test-vote. (U.S. Mail, not email.)
I’m asking them to introduce an amendment to the bill to give something back to the people who had nothing to do with the current situation.
My suggestion was to eliminate the tax on dividend income for the next 5 years. That way, people who saved instead of borrowed would get a small reward.
Since “Billary” didn’t get the nomination…otherwise, it would be:
Clinton & “It’s the economy stupid” all over again.
More Cheney-Shrub “Legacy” problems:
75% blame Bush’s policies for deteriorating economy:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-poll26-2008jun26,0,7304218.story
IMHO, gloomy financial news stories like this one should be banned, as they are very bad for Wall Street profitability.
The Short View: Credit fears resurface
By Jamie Chisholm
Published: June 25 2008 19:21 | Last updated: June 25 2008 19:21
Fears are mounting that conditions are set to deteriorate markedly in credit markets.
Why can’t these gloomsters come up with some positive news to pull the stock market out of its swoon?
Countdown to the close:45min58sec
June 26, 2008 3:13 P.M.ET
BULLETIN
B. OF A.: 7,500 JOB CUTS TO COME AFTER COUNTRYWIDE ACQUISITION CLOSES
Oil barrels past $140
prof. bear, be careful where you stash your cash.
Analyst foresees growing weakness at Calif. banks
“Banks with high concentrations in overbuilt markets such as Sacramento and San Diego are particularly at risk, Morford said. Umpqua Holdings Corp., East West Bancorp Inc., Central Pacific Financial Corp., and Capital Corp. of the West have already reported large increases in problem construction loans, and Morford expects there will be more problems to come.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080626/western_banks_analyst_note.html?.v=1
My wife works for one of the banks mentioned in the commercial loans deptartment. They went through a really slow period and have been doing really well for the last 6 months. The consesus is, they are still very worried how this is going to shake out.
Home loan aid programs could be cut in housing bill
Thursday June 26, 1:55 pm ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080626/home_loan_assistance_fight.html?.v=2
A noted historian has recently taken interest in the origins and operation of the PPT. I am hoping he writes a book on this subject so I can satisfy my longstanding curiosity about it.
The Plunge Protection Team
An Elite Group Protects the Financial Sector
By Kevin Phillips 04/25/2008
Some people foolishly think that Washington’s recent high-profile effort to steer, subsidize and protect the American financial sector is the beginning of something new — a revolutionary development.
It isn’t. Consider that the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – nicknamed “the Plunge Protection Team” by The Washington Post in 1997 - quietly observed its 20th birthday on Mar. 18.
“Quietly,” in fact, is an understatement. “Semi-secretly” would be more like it. The Working Group, or PPT, is much-pondered but reclusive group that has declined to submit to the federal Freedom of Information Act or to testify in detail before Congress about its activities. This is true even though its current chief, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. – Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is another prominent member — made no secret of revving up its operations after he took took over at Treasury in 2006.
The curious reader will wonder: Just what does the PPT do?
Right now, Congress ought to able to pursue this basic question: Is the PPT a kind of committee for the extra-legal coordination, manipulation and subsidization of financial institutions and markets? Has it been stepping in when free-market forces have become too perilous to profits and asset values — in financial crisis years like 1998, 2001 and 2007. Has Washington decided to protect the financial sector more than any other element of the U.S. economy?
Over the last decade or so, the Treasury Dept. and the Fed have both developed something of a scofflaw attitude toward strict interpretation of federal statutes and regulations. For example, both winked in the late 1990s, as federal regulators allowed Citibank to merge with Travelers Insurance, despite contrary law still on the books. Both winked in more recent years, as major banks set up huge multi-billion-dollar structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, to do on an off-the-books basis what they were not allowed under banking law. Now we have the federally funded J.P Morgan Chase takeover of Bear Stearns. The PPT may well have had a quiet role in some of these actions.
For the bigger picture, look back to the stock market crash of 1987 — the sickening Oct. 19 fall when the Dow-Jones Industrial Average lost 508 points or 23.6 percent of its value in a single trading day. Alan Greenspan had just taken over as the Federal Reserve Bank chairman, and some believe that the Fed intervened to support the market the next day — by either buying Standard & Poors futures or telling several collaborative broker-dealers to do so.
One of the comments with the article is just beautiful!
*****
Posted 04/26/2008 03:00pm with +1 vote
It’s a damming indictment of the stunning stupidity of the bankers that even with a financial system specifically designed to enrich them at the expense of everyone else on the planet they still manage to screw it up.
Sorry to repost an article here from ancient history (five months ago), but I am curious about how the New New Deal is working out so far?
Bush convenes Plunge Protection Team
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Last Updated: 1:18am GMT 11/01/2008
Bears beware. The New Deal of 2008 is in the works. The US Treasury is about to shower households with rebate cheques to head off a full-blown slump, and save the Bush presidency.
On Friday, Mr Bush convened the so-called Plunge Protection Team for its first known meeting in the Oval Office. The black arts unit - officially the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets - was created after the 1987 crash.
It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly by through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (DOW, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell) and key credit levers. And it has the means to fry “short” traders in the hottest of oils.
Isn’t this about the time of day, the PPT Cruiser props up a sagging market?
Any minute now, PPT to the rescue!!
What a horrific coincidence! Oil has topped $140/bl on the same day the DJIA has kissed its 52 week low…
June 26, 2008 2:46 P.M.ET
BULLETIN
Oil barrels above $140 mark
Crude futures top $140 a barrel for the first time in electronic trading on Globex.
Nellie, bar the door!
Dow Jones Industrial Average. INDU (INDEX)
11,500.07
Change:-311.76 -2.64%
Volume:176,098,853
2:49pm 06/26/2008
52-Wk Low:
01/22/08 11,508.74
The silver lining: I see growing evidence that Wall Street is getting past the denial stage of the credit bubble implosion.
Almost covered my shorts
It happened just earlier today
Thinkin of gettin long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my shorts fly
Cause I feel like doubling down to the ground
Must be because I had shorted the SPY at Thanksgiving
And I’m not feeling up to par
It increases my net equity
Like looking at my mirror and seeing a beer bar
But I’m not giving in an inch to fear
Cause I missed only once this year
So doubling down into the ground
When I finally get myself together
I’m going to get down in that sunny southern weather
And I find a place inside to laugh
drinking in Brazil from a glass
I feel like I owe it to someone
Doubling down into the ground
Hey, Hoz, not bad - do a youtube of it for us - set it to music - you can get Prez Bush to accompany you on guitar (see above).
Treasuries Advance on Concern Credit-Market Losses Will Worsen
By Sandra Hernandez and Daniel Kruger
June 26 (Bloomberg) — Treasuries rose as stocks tumbled and concern that credit-market losses will worsen bolstered speculation the Federal Reserve won’t raise borrowing costs this year.
The rally began as traders sought the safety of government debt on speculation Chrysler LLC will file for bankruptcy. The automaker said it has no plans to do so. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank, may take $8.9 billion in writedowns in the second quarter. Demand at the government’s $20 billion of sale of five-year notes to the highest since October.
“Everybody’s like a cat on a hot tin roof,” said E. Craig Coats Jr., co-head of fixed income at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. in New York. “There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty out there.”
I stopped long enough to read a bit of bits and tits. Wish I hadn’t.
i’m getting that constricted feeling in my jaw and neck. AKA panic!
I am trying to run to the bank to get large cash, but I have a handy man here all week, so I can’t leave yet.
We need a pow wow.
Smoke signals spell danger!
PB, do you have CNBC on today by any chance?
No. But I am horrified to confess that I am beginning to doubt that the stock market always goes up.
this is a garden variety double bottom in the making so far.
just like the march and august ones last year.
so far.
PB gettin f-ck-owed on march lows.
classic…..more bear market.
B of A ad motto: “The Bank of Opportunity”
Here’s you “opportunity” to collect: “unemployment”
Here’s you “opportunity” to join the: “foreclosure bandwagon”
Here’s you “opportunity” to send Mr. Mozilla a “Thank You!” card
Help me out here will you guys…
BofA to cut 7,500 jobs after Countrywide deal
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080626/bank_of_america_countrywide.html
mmmm, more canned old people.
Cane the old people? “Whack! Take that grandma, he stickly said.”
Preserved and sealed in a can or jar.
however, I suppose you could cane ‘em first to soften the tissues and then preserve them in a jelly like substance. Forget SPAM were talkin Canned Old People.
or it could just mean fire the redundants who are levered up with high salaries.
Canned old people…..its whats for dinner.
“The opportunity to Bankrupt America”
Call bids hit. Wow, guess I bid too much.
Does it seem more like summer of 2001 or of 2002 at this point?
not yet. reminds me of the summer of last year
Which year again?
U.S. Stocks Tumble, Sending Dow to Worst June Since Depression
By Michael Patterson
June 26 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst June since the Great Depression, as record oil prices, credit-market writedowns and a slowing economy threatened to extend a yearlong profit slump.
it does seem like last august already.
Fears of prolonged financial turmoil deepen
By Francesco Guerrera, Michael Mackenzie and Nicole Bullock in New York
Published: June 26 2008 19:13 | Last updated: June 26 2008 20:29
Investors’ fears of a prolonged period of financial turmoil deepened on Thursday as a raft of downgrades for blue-chip companies sent European and US shares into a tailspin.
At the same time, fears for the global economy intensified as crude oil prices broke through $140 for the first time, surging $5.50 on the day to a record $140.05, after Libya threatened to lower production.
Stock markets in Europe and the US fell below lows set in March, when fears of a systemic financial crisis peaked.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
FT Alphaville: Oh, there’s a credit crisis on.. - Jun-26
Dollar hit as US rate rise hopes scaled back - Jun-26
Q&A: US slowdown goes global - Jun-25
Yes , we have second on that opinion:
“If you have that opinion and you’ve got good fundamental reasons and tech support behind it, then play the downside,” Ianieri says. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“With this kind of lingering credit crisis, a weaker dollar is really just spreading more risks and that risk spreads into higher commodity prices and lower stocks,” he says. “That adds to our rationale that sooner or later the Fed has to step in and do something very firm and put a low on the dollar, because it isn’t helping anybody at the moment except people who are short the dollar and long crude.”
“Ianieri has been short financials during the credit crunch and home builders as real estate problems continue.”
Anyone one care to second that opinion?, …Yes,you Sir.. in the speedo:
“The reality is things go up and things go down, and if we’re going to be efficient in making money in the market consistently, we have to take advantage of both,” says Ron Ianieri, head of Options University. “There is a time to be short and being short something that is dropping is just as profitable as being long something that is up.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/cnbc/080626/25391526.html
LOL
I doubt it
I’m still pressing.
Now more than ever we need a “Defense of Homeowner” law that will prohibit Congress from calling anyone a “Homeowner” if he has 0% equity in a home.
I wrote a letter to the Times Reporter who had the article yesterday called. “Approval Is Near for Bill to Help U.S. Homeowners”. Nowhere in the article did he present the other side.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washington/25housing.html
It’s as if this liberal reporter thinks that we have some sort of guarantee in the constitution to a McMansion. He also accepted the “1.7 Billion Dollar” figure at face value.
I’m using a $170,000,000,000 figure. This presumes half of this very-high risk group will default again.
OK, this estimate may be high, but the “1.7 Billion” that Barney and Chris claim assumes house prices will rise again, etc.
There’s another way to get at $170,000,000,000. Figure out how much it will cost to LOWER the housepayment of all the at-risk houses by $500/month. This also adds up to $170,000,000,000. I did the math a couple of weeks ago here. Realistically, with rising fuel prices, etc, any change less than $500/month won’t help. The money to lower these people’s house payments will come from SOMEWHERE and that SOMEWHERE are people earning money and paying taxes.
Now, the reporter was correct in saying that the money for this won’t come directly from my tax dollars. That’s true, but it will come from somewhere. If the Treasury simply prints the money, you’ll pay for it in a devalued/inflated dollar.
If you’re at the top 25th percentile of wage earners, your share will be about $6800. If you’re at the top 1%, it’s nearly $40,000. The money needs to come from somewhere…
Here’s the ANGRY response I got from the Times:
“I’d be more than happy if you wanted to put the article in the hands of a panel of experts on Congressional legislation and on journalism and to discuss their findings.”
Hows about a panel of housing/economic authorities who have predicted everything that’s happening today in advance (sometimes years in advance), avidly read daly just about every news article of note on the subject, discuss it firsthand with people on the street all over the world (each other), have backgrounds that are diverse and thereby introduce heterogeneity into the analysis, and truly are unbiased? I would count such a group as far more “expert” than some bunch of hand-picked political toadies hiding behind the Wizard of Oz screen of so-called Congressional expertise.
What a self-righteous idiot.
Nowhere before has “owner” referred to anyone who has a 0% stake in something. And 100% of all the “homeowners” Chris-Barney-Barack want to help have a 0% stake. (If they didn’t they don’t need gov help. Simply sell the house!)
‘ But reasonable human beings in the context of a discussion about mortgages would refer to me as a “homeowner,” and perhaps as a “borrower” but the notion that a word would be used to convey one political position or position reflects your “bias.” ‘
Apocalyptic, doom-and-gloom bubbleheads are hardly “reasonable human beings.”
Thanks for sharing this with us. That was a quite enjoyable smackdown that Mr Herszenhorn delivered. All that crazy-talk just doesn’t work so well when you try it on someone outside your little cult, now does it?
Ben’s Blog - the “little cult” of the Informed. Honored to belong, Sir.
I come here to read Ben’s blog posts. They are quite informative and I appreciate the links to the original articles. Ben provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date summary of the housing industry on the web.
I read the comments sections strictly for entertainment.
Then stay out of the BITS BUCKET! Ben doesn’t post anything here! It’s for people to put forth their own ideas about the bubble, no matter how far out you think they are.
yeah dad.
the bits and whatever else I wanna comment on for your amusement.
last August I sold GE for 36 and change.
its under 27 today….all stupid mother-f=ckin idiots post here.
I rent in Jupiter Fl. sold my home of 20 years in Aug. 05 at this point this ” little cult” has saved me about $250,000.00 OOOPS I spilled my kool aid
Fed may ease rules on bank buy-outs
By James Politi in Washington and Henny Sender in New York
Published: June 27 2008 00:21 | Last updated: June 27 2008 00:21
The Federal Reserve is considering making it easier for private equity firms to take large stakes in banks, without being subject to existing restrictions and commitments, as part of efforts to encourage capital-raising in the troubled US financial system.
In the past 20 years, some lawyers say the central bank has been increasingly onerous in its interpretation of congressional rules triggered by purchases of bank stakes larger than 24.9 per cent.
Under pressure from buy-out groups such as Carlyle, keen to pour money into US banks but unhappy with limitations on investments by groups other than “bank holding companies”, the Fed is considering some changes, say sources close to the debate. However, the discussions are preliminary and nothing is imminent, they say.
A Fed spokesman said: “We are looking at ways to make things more workable.”
As the financial crisis approaches its first anniversary, banks and investment banks have continued to seek fresh sources of capital to make up for losses associated with the declining values of mortgage-related assets. So far, banks have raised about $400bn, but economists and fund managers estimate the hole on bank balance sheets may be as large as $1,300bn. “The regulators should have the flexibility to come up with the least-cost solution,” said Samuel Golden, a former official at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who now heads Alvarez & Marsal’s financial advisers.
Why does Angelo Bernanke have to fix these banks problems at any cost ? What happened to the investors that bought all this stuff, or was that all pension money that has to be protected by tax payers that don`t have a pension.
Principles of Management by Crisis:
1. Any solution which robs Main Street to pay Wall Street is fair game, provided a crisis is sufficiently dire.
2. All crises are sufficiently dire.
Tom Asbrook, host of On Point, discusses houme prices and the economy.
Guests are Karl Case (of Case Schiller Index fame) as well as Eric Belsky of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, as well as a realtor from Arizona.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/06/20080626_a_main.asp
interesting.
only 400+ comments in the bits.
420 users at the peak of CR. (on the systemic emergency rate cut it was over 660)
Big picture gets 66 comments?
Russ winter got in the 60’s as well.
Mish….always off the chart.
Im not sure which way is up.
something about fours and sixes. Hard tens…thats the move. get odds with money on the next roll.
7 out line away.
Did somebody chop down the money tree?
June 27, 2008 1:18 A.M.ET
BULLETIN
Stock rout spreads to Asia
Shanghai, Taiwan and Mumbai suffer sharpest declines as record oil prices, steep U.S. losses hammer Asia. Transportation. Financial shares hardest hit. Exporters and financials big losers in Japan. Some mining, gold stocks gain.
• Toyota eyes across-board price hike in Japan
• Citi seeks to sell India IT, outsourcing units
• Taiwan raises rates again (wsj.com)
• Business news in Chinese
Asian indexes
Shanghai -4.5%
Taiwan -3.8%
Mumbai -3.3%
Tokyo -2.3%
Hong Kong -2.2%
Seoul -2.1%
Sydney -1.7%
Singapore -1.5%
JAPAN
Inflation hits 10-year high
Consumer prices rise 1.5% in May, biggest jump since 1998, and follow an 0.9% increase in April.
Value of M&A tumbles as buy-out boom ends
By Julie MacIntosh in London
Published: June 26 2008 23:33 | Last updated: June 26 2008 23:33
The value of mergers and acquisitions in the first half sank by nearly a third from the same period last year to $1,860bn as the collapse of the buy-out boom prompted a steep drop in the number of high-value deals. (Click here for interactive table)
What is a “wind egg?” It sounds nasty.
June 26, 2008
Another wind egg from the Fed
At its regular meeting yesterday, the Fed opted to keep the target for the Federal Funds rate unchanged at 2.00 percent. With the most recent figure for headline CPI inflation coming in at 4.2 percent yoy, US monetary policy continues to be strongly stimulating.
From a macroeconomic stability perspective - price stability and the highest sustainable levels of employment and growth - monetary policy is far too expansionary. Inflation has been persistently above the Fed’s comfort zone for years. Inflation expectations have now moved up sharply. Dislocating these inflationary expectations will require either a period of low inflation brought about by excess capacity and high unemployment or a miracle. The Fed apparently believes in miracles. I only hope and pray for miracles. I don’t consider them a substitute for the right policies.
Fears grow of new stage in credit crisis
By Henny Sender in New York
Published: June 27 2008 00:44 | Last updated: June 27 2008 00:44
Progressive Moulded Products has become the latest motor parts company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, inflicting losses on its owner, private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners and lenders led by Goldman Sachs. Thomas H. Lee is expected to see its $200m investment go to zero while Goldman, which provided a slug of junior, mezzanine debt is also likely to lose everything. The company has about $550m debt.
…
“This is a company that deserved to live,” says one person involved in the restructuring process. “Anyone buying commodities is running out of money and today there is no breathing space for companies if they can’t get credit.” That is especially so for motor parts suppliers since the carmakers who are their customers have their own backs to the wall.
The rise in oil prices has struck with increasing severity in the past two quarters. Even two months ago, the industry was forecasting vehicle sales of 15m. Today, that figure has been slashed to 12.5m. The very speed of this change in economic circumstances combined with the contraction in credit means that companies have far less flexibility in avoiding bankruptcy court.
That suggests a new stage in the credit crunch. “Companies are running out of cash because of higher costs and the banks are cancelling revolvers wherever they can,” those close to the restructuring said. Moreover, in the absence of financing, the chances are far greater that a company might be forced to enter into a fire sale of assets.
I like it when the MSM does its job!
Come Clean, Senators
June 27, 2008
C’mon, senators. Give it up …
In the wake of reports that several federal politicians — including Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — got special mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., Capitol Hill watchdog politico.com decided to take the issue a step further. It contacted the offices of all 100 U.S. senators and asked them details about their current mortgages.
It’s a fair question. The Senate is, after all, in the thick of debate over a sweeping government overhaul of the mortgage business. That legislation will help not only homeowners, but major banks facing huge potential losses from the subprime mortgage crisis.
06.26.2008 9:00 pm
Sleaze-o-rama
By Editorial Board
More sleaze oozed out of the subprime mortgage mess this month with news that two U.S. senators got sweetheart loans from a giant mortgage company.
One of them, Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., heads the Senate Banking Committee, which gives him heavy clout over mortgage lenders. The other is Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
Angelo Mozilo, the controversial chairman of Countrywide Financial, gave both of them loans at low fees and reduced interest rates.
Mr. Dodd’s critics are pointing to this ethical transgression as a reason to kill a reasonable plan to rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure on subprime mortgages. They claim that the plan is a bailout for Countrywide. It may look that way — Bank of America, which is taking over Countrywide, reportedly helped write the bill containing the plan — but the fact is, it would help thousands of distressed homeowners keep their homes.
It’s difficult to say what is more remarkable about the senators’ behavior: the petty venality or the stupidity.
MICHAEL WINSHIP:
Feds looked away as mortgage companies cashed in
The Associated Press
Posted Jun 27, 2008 @ 01:30 AM
Pity poor Ed McMahon. Remember Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show,” host of “Star Search,” the guy who used to deliver flabbergasted citizens those multimillion-dollar checks from Publishers Clearing House?
With his own big paydays largely in the past, he’s nearly $644,000 behind in his payments on a $4.8 million mortgage. Countrywide Financial Corp., the country’s biggest home mortgage lender, may soon foreclose on his Beverly Hills mansion.
Ed might fare better with Countrywide if he had a government job. Last week, Jim Johnson, former chief of staff for Vice President Walter Mondale and CEO of the federally chartered banker Fannie Mae, which buys and resells mortgages, had to resign from his position as head of the task force looking for Barack Obama’s running mate.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Countrywide — Fannie Mae’s largest mortgage provider — gave him preferential treatment for millions of dollars in personal loans.
Countrywide CEO:
“Countrywide Has Made A Positive Impact On The Country”
Countywide CEO Angelo Mozilo thinks his company being treated unfairly by the media according to a article in BusinessWeek. At the Countrywide annual shareholders meeting, Mr. Mozilo said:
“Despite widespread and often unfounded headlines of the past year, Countrywide has made a positive impact on the country,” he said
He went on to say that Countrywide made over 22 million loans and had saved 143,000 people from foreclosure by restructuring their troubled mortgages.
“I’m very proud of our accomplishments,” Mozilo said. “We’ve made the dream of home ownership available to everyone regardless of ethnicity. We’ve helped millions of people in good times and bad.”