Bits Bucket for November 21, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. Please visit my Youtube channel which you can also find here:
http:tinyurl.com/http-hbb-com
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
-
August 2025 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
Sacramento, CA Housing Prices Crater 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/market-report/11-15/268126/east-sacramento-sacramento-ca.xls?rt=14
predictions?
this yr ends flat
next yr down 2%
what u got?
crater
CR8R
My home in the Sacramento foothills dropped about 5% in 2015 according to Zillow…..but I still get 3-4 letters a month from realtors and buyers asking if I will sell it. Zillow makes big errors!
Overall, SFR houses in my market have increased about 5% in 2015. There is low inventory and pent up demand. The builders are in higher production mode now, so demand will be better met in 2016 & 2017. That should help keep prices stable.
With 4+million excess empty and defaulted houses and demand at 30 year lows in CA, I think it’s you that made the big error Jingle_Fraud.
You need a bigger risk appetite my friend.
crushing.housing. losses.
Euro and Dollar hit 1-for-1 exchange rate in next 6 months
Yes, we are going to Europe when it happens.
me too, I’m going as an ugly American
I remember when the EU contained the “smarter countries”
Cr8er.
Rates are going up now.
Which eithe means tax hikes are on the way or spending cuts in defense and other programs. Either approach means less money for consumers to gamble on RE.
“Congress Wants To Seize Your Passport For Unpaid Taxes”
Excerpt: “Sometimes you just have to stand in awe at the level of corruption and incompetence in government.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-20/congress-wants-seize-your-passport-unpaid-taxes
Great idea. The govrnment is acting just like any other creditor. Pay your bills….
After you walked away from how many mortgages?
Gotcha Jingle_Fraud.
Zero. I buy the properties of those who walk away. You’re a very poor listener HA.
Can’t keep your stories straight Jingle_Fraud.
800 FICA says it all. HA.
Losing your ass because you overpaid doesn’t Jingle_Fraud?
I believe that has been the rule now for a few years. If you owe more than $50,000, are not in a repayment agreement or other resolution, and the IRS has filed a federal tax lien, your passport can be seized upon your reentry into the United States.I have had more than one client cancel travel plans due to this rule.
a person has to be fairly negligent to allow the situation to occur. It isn’t rocket science, if you Owe the money get into repayment.
What’s to become of energy companies that foolishly financed their operations on a misguided assumption that oil would remain at $100 / bbl forever, thanks to having passed the Peak Oil point of no return?
Marketplace dot org
Chesapeake Energy’s boom and bust
Chesapeake Energy is facing plummeting stock after borrowing its way into a lot of debt.
by Scott Tong
Friday, November 20, 2015 - 13:36
One of the highest fliers in the nation’s fracking boom is crashing hard. Chesapeake Energy, the country’s second-largest natural gas producer, has seen its stock plunge more than 15 percent in two days.
Company bond prices have also fallen. And there’s been a surge in bets that Chesapeake will default on its debt.
“There’s a large number of investors who are concerned about the ability for certain companies to be able to repay their debt,” said Rob Thummel of Tortoise Capital Advisors in Kansas City. “And they are basically trying to profit off the company’s inability to do that.”
Most natural gas drillers are hurting from energy oversupply and low prices. If this winter is a warmer one, as predicted, low demand for gas heat will hurt even more.
But Chesapeake is particularly in hock. Early on in the fracking boom of the past decade, it went on a land grab. The company bought up drill leases with borrowed money.
“Several years ago, Wall Street said ‘You know, the more acreage the better. Why don’t you borrow more money and drill more wells?’” said analyst Mike Breard at Hodges Capital Management in Dallas. “And now it’s ‘you idiot, why did you borrow all that money?’”
…
“Company bond prices have also fallen. And there’s been a surge in bets that Chesapeake will default on its debt.”
Poof number one: The stockholders take a hit.
Poof number two: The bond holders take their hit.
No dollar escapes.
Deflation, baby; It’s a bitch when your dollars go poof. Not so much if your dollars survive ’cause then your dollars’ buying power will increase.
Price equals value. Bring back the prices and you’ll bring back the values.
The maintaining the price of houses - maintaining the high price of houses - has been determined by the PTB to be of National Interest so lots of national effort is put into maintaining the high prices of houses.
But this is not so for the oil industry, the oil industry does not have a Big Brother at hand who is committed to supporting prices, hence they’re screwed.
Both bubbles have always been debt Ponzi pyramids.
The fracking Ponzi is suffering from lack of ever more stupid money.
The housing bubble is not suffering from lack of ever more stupid money so much. Nothing exceeds the stupidity of the US government lending machinery.
“The fracking Ponzi is suffering from lack of ever more stupid money.”
Stupid money that was lured in by stupid oil prices, which are no longer there.
“The housing bubble is not suffering from lack of ever more stupid money so much.”
That’s because stupid housing prices are still there. Take away the stupid prices for houses and you will take away the lure that attracts the stupid money.
In the world of Econ 101 stupidly high prices will squelch demand.
It the world of Stupid 101 stupidly high prices is what drives demand.
Why can’t the oil industry work through Congress to get its own GSE to help keep oil prices in bubble territory?
“But Chesapeake is particularly in hock. Early on in the fracking boom of the past decade, it went on a land grab. The company bought up drill leases with borrowed money.”
There’s that fugg’n leverage… again.
Previous management likely paid themselves handsomely. Hehe.
It’s other people’s money going POOF, not management’s.
They will be subject to Darwin’s laws of evolution!
Sort of… equating science and econ is one of my peaves. Econ is completely made up and subject to hallucinations.
+1 Same here. All those economists use the fancy words and then when they don’t know how to explain something, they resort to “fell like a house of cards” or “what goes up must come down” and “it collapsed under its own weight.”
How much does an economy weigh??
“How much does an economy weigh?”
Most of the ones we are familiar with are lighter than air.
oxide: How much does an economy weigh??”
All of the information flowing on the Internet apparently weighs as much as one strawberry.
It seems it’s a proposition you could easily and intuitively answer.
How heavy is the weight of your massive burden associated with the rapidly depreciating asset you elected to carry?
Human action is economics. Economics happens, regardless of who explains the economics. The black market will always exist and voluntaryism will always be the primary philosophy practiced by most people in any society.
It’s pretty hilarious to read anti-economics screeds scrawled by people who obviously never studied the subject.
Exactly. I laugh at the ignorant fools who put down the subject of economics while they practice it.
The Week
Oil price
Oil price: why it could collapse to $20 a barrel
Nov 20, 2015
‘The world is floating in oil’ and supplies are currently ‘dreadful’, says one analyst
HAIDAR MOHAMMED ALI/AFP/Getty Images
Page 1 of 30
Oil price: why it could collapse to $20 a barrel
“Oil market sentiment has turned back to ‘max-bearish’ mode,” the London-based firm Energy Aspects said in a client note yesterday. “Talk of $20 oil is back.”
The consultancy isn’t the only harbinger of doom for the oil market at the moment. Goldman Sachs warned this week of “elevated risks” that an oil price of $20 a barrel – which the Daily Telegraph describes as “the so-called ‘cash cost’ that forces drillers to abandon production” – is looming in the near future.
Could the oversupply get worse?
Why is sentiment so low, when only recently many experts were confidently talking of the oil price having hit an unsustainable low? It’s all down to persistent oversupply – and fears that the oil crisis is about to get a whole lot worse.
On Wednesday, a report from the US energy watchdog revealed a 300,000 barrel build in stockpiles last week – a quantity that’s small compared to the recent past, but represents the eighth consecutive week of increase. The stockpile comes as a surprise after a commercial report on Tuesday indicated that a fall was imminent. The latest numbers also reveal that US output of oil remains almost flat at 9.1 million barrels a day, confounding experts who have long predicted that the low oil price would kill expensive shale production and help to rebalance the market.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. One official estimate reckons that with domestic storage facilities in the US and elsewhere near record highs, “at least 100m barrels are now being stored on tankers offshore, waiting for better prices”, according to The Telegraph.
“The world is floating in oil, and commercial stocks on land are at a record high,” says David Hufton, head of the oil brokers PVM Group. “The numbers we are facing now are dreadful… This is unprecedented.”
…
Unemployed people in our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs economic “recovery” aren’t doing much driving, it appears. Or consuming.
We’ve got a big Alcoa aluminum smelter up here on Lake Ontario. A while ago we learned that it would shut down. This week we heard that the big nuc power plant next door will also shut down. Bye bye thousands of decent jobs in Oswego.
If they take down the cooling towers, I may have to actually use my compass to find the port on my way home from across the lake.
Washington, DC Housing Prices Sink 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/market-report/11-15/121774/petworth-washington-dc.xls?rt=14
“Most Americans Hit “Peak Income” More Than 15 Years Ago”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-20/most-americans-hit-peak-income-more-15-years-ago
Coincidentally, resale housing prices have quadrupled in that same time and are and triple production cost*.
*Lot, labor, materials, profit at $55/sq ft
My peak income was in 2007…..but I am getting close to repeating today!
My peak income was in 2005. Good old days spending on expensive dinners with friends, women, and booze.
“…expensive dinners with friends, women, and booze.”
That sounds better than paying mortgage interest.
Ventura, CA Housing Prices Crater 5% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/ventura-ca-93003/home-values/
Is China fast approaching its Minsky moment?
China Has a $1.2 Trillion Ponzi Finance Problem
Bloomberg News
November 19, 2015 — 8:00 AM PST Updated on November 19, 2015 — 9:25 PM PST
Does China Have a $1.2 Trillion Ponzi Problem?
Some 45% of new debt will be used to pay interest: Hua Chuang
`Ponzi’ finance was seen by Hyman Minsky as unsustainable
Chinese borrowers are taking on record amounts of debt to repay interest on their existing obligations, raising the risk of defaults and adding pressure on policy makers to keep financing costs low.
The amount of loans, bonds and shadow finance arranged to cover interest payments will probably rise 5 percent this year to a record 7.6 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion), according to Beijing-based Hua Chuang Securities Co., whose lead fixed-income analyst was top-ranked by China’s New Fortune magazine in 2012 and 2013. Dubbed “Ponzi finance” by Hyman Minsky, the use of borrowed funds to repay interest was seen by the late U.S. economist as an unsustainable form of credit growth that could precipitate financial crises.
…
The entire global financial system has a Ponzi problem, thanks to central banks and their .1% accomplices.
Yellon moment will cure it for now.
We are in for our first freeze here in North texas. Time to fire up the fireplace. Had a boomer pecan crop, even the native trees produced good fruit.
Housing:
Millennials are making their move in the housing market.
Millennial buyers currently account for almost 30 percent of nationwide home sales.
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/residential-real-estate/20151115-millennials-are-making-their-move-in-the-housing-market.ece
I saw something on TV that said millennial will surpass boomers in buying power as early as 2018.
ibbots…I asked this question of you the other day…Have you seen much Chinese influence in the purchasing of single family homes the the Dallas area ??
Reminds me of the “Miracle on Ice”.
“11 seconds, you’ve got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles?! YES!!!”
Foreclosure to Home Free, as 5-Year Clock Expires
By MICHAEL CORKERY MARCH 29, 2015
There are tens of thousands of homeowners who have missed more than five years of mortgage payments, many of them clustered in states like Florida, New Jersey and New York, where lenders must get judges to sign off on foreclosures.
However, in a growing number of foreclosure cases filed when home prices collapsed during the financial crisis, lenders may never be able to seize the homes because the state statutes of limitations have been exceeded, according to interviews with housing lawyers and a review of state and federal court decisions.
In New Jersey, where the statute of limitations on foreclosures is six years, the issue has just started being argued in the courts. In November, a bankruptcy judge in Trenton grudgingly allowed a Madison, N.J., man to walk away from a $520,000 mortgage that had been in default since 2007.
In concluding his opinion, Judge Kaplan wrote, “the court will proceed to gargle in an effort to remove the lingering bad taste.”
http://www.nytimes.com/…/business/foreclosure-to-home-free-as-5-year-clock-expires.html -
Link didn’t work for me.
I wonder exactly what it means, “statute of limitation” in this situation. Is it the time from the first missed payment or the time from when the bank files the foreclosure? Even if seven year old missed payments must be ignored, can’t this year’s missed payments be the basis for a foreclosure?
It sounded like the attorneys for the debtor were arguing that the “acceleration” clause in the mortgage caused the entire debt to be due once the lender notified the debtor that they were in default due to lack of payment.
In other words, with the mortgage being due as a lump sum immediately, there are no monthly payments due thereafter—and the entire mortgage balance starts the clock ticking.
Every state (I believe) has a statute of limitations on how long a debt can be collected; it normally does reset with each payment, so it’s only at issue for very old debts that haven’t been paid on for years. (Incidentally, that’s also one reason why it’s a bad idea to make even a token payment on a debt that you dispute the validity of and do not intend to pay).
So their argument actually makes sense to me. It’s a bit ironic (but delightful) that the acceleration clause can be used against them in this manner.
Years back, we had concluded people would not just get free houses; we may have been incorrect in that assessment.
Link didn’t work for me.
Working link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/business/foreclosure-to-home-free-as-5-year-clock-expires.html
Susan Rodolfi is pretty, so she’s entitled to a free home. She shouldn’t have to pay property taxes either. Draconian.
Ms. Rodolfi says she accepts responsibility for falling behind on her mortgage, but she blames her lenders for delaying the modification process. She does not relish the idea of keeping her home through a legal maneuver. She is still seeking a modification, hoping to rebuild her damaged credit and begin a business.
Typical FB mentality. It’s someone else’s fault you overpaid for your depreciating asset and took on more debt than you could prudently afford.
See the little smirk on her face…She played the system and is laughing all the way to the bank…
‘See the little smirk on her face…She played the system and is laughing all the way to the bank…’
I read the article and got the impression she learned how to stonewall her way to getting away scott free. I just wonder why someone wants their personal info/situation plastered onto the internet. She had an FU kinda tone set in the article. Maybe it is a peer supported thing in Miami to have your real estate empire go kablooie and accept no blame?
People say that a strength of Silicon Valley is that failure and bankruptcy carries little shame.
“Maybe it is a peer supported thing in Miami to have your real estate empire go kablooie and accept no blame?”
Florida is a sunny place for shady people.
This is very interesting. Thanks for posting it. It would seem that the shack I purchased in short sale after 6 years of default may have actually belonged free and clear at that point by the deadbeat.
“New York’s highest court, the Court Appeals, has recently held that in a debt-collection law suit, if the creditor to which you originally owed the debt is located in another state, then the place where the injury occurred to the creditor is that other state. In such cases, New York’s borrowing statute, CPLR 202, is invoked and the statute of limitations of the creditor’s home state will apply. Major creditors, such as Citibank, American Express, and Discover Bank are almost always based outside of New York. As such, these creditors, and the third-party debt collectors that purchase their delinquent accounts, are subject to the statute of limitations of the home state of the creditor.
“The most common state in which creditors incorporate is Delaware, which has a 3-year statute of limitations for debt-collection lawsuits (10 Del. C. § 8106). …”
http://longislandconsumerlawyer.com/what-is-the-new-york-statute-of-limitations-to-bring-a-law-suit-to-collect-a-consumer-debt/
Ironically - no statue of limitations for owed property taxes.
Whose money will end up getting stolen on the lending side of the equation in case the argument that theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in unrepaid loan proceeds is legal under certain legal technicalities?
Meant to finish the long question with “…stands up in court?”
North Dallas, TX Housing Market Plummets; Prices Crater 30% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/north-dallas-dallas-tx/home-values/
Personal observtion re retail: 18 months ago was at a major Nor Calif shopping mall. Business was hopping — there was a significant contingent of Chinese tourists loading up on Coach, Burberry, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, etc. $300 luxury handbags? Sold, soon to be taken on the plane for the flight home. Just went back to the same mall: traffic down by more than half and no Chinese tourists anywhere to be seen. Just Americans doing their regular shopping.
Do the locals call it Norcalif? I always imagined Norcal for some reason.
Hanging out in the designer handbag shops? I’m not sure what the thrill is there.
My sister lived in Northern California for years. She refers to San Francisco as “the city.” Not Oakland where she works. Not San Jose. She refers to the area across the Richmond bridge as “home.”
Though I like my area in Orange County a lot, I like The area north of the Golden Gate Bridge much more. But my career opportunities for now are better here. I am trying to break out so that I could live anywhere I want and work mostly from home. Given the choice it would be the cooler coastal area.
Hopefully it’s peak rent payments. Getting a raise this year was a good sign for me.
The Nor Cal mall I never visit (Sacramento Foothills) is so slammed the streets and parking lot look like black Friday already. Now I avoid traveling the area streets too!
Are we proud yet? Exceptional?
‘U.S. DRONE OPERATORS are inflicting heavy civilian casualties and have developed an institutional culture callous to the death of children and other innocents, four former operators said at a press briefing today in New York.’
‘The killings, part of the Obama administration’s targeted assassination program, are aiding terrorist recruitment and thus undermining the program’s goal of eliminating such fighters, the veterans added. Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force. Haas also described widespread drug and alcohol abuse, further stating that some operators had flown missions while impaired.’
‘Beyond the press conference, the group also denounced the program yesterday in an interview with The Guardian and in an open letter addressed to President Obama. At the press conference, Bryant said the killing of civilians by drone is exacerbating the problem of terrorism. “We kill four and create 10 [militants],” Bryant said. “If you kill someone’s father, uncle or brother who had nothing to do with anything, their families are going to want revenge.”
‘In their statements today the former operators opened up about the culture that has developed among those responsible for carrying it out. Haas said operators become acculturated to denying the humanity of the people on their targeting screens. “There was a much more detached outlook about who these people were we were monitoring,” he said. “Shooting was something to be lauded and something we should strive for.”
‘The deaths of children and other non-combatants in strikes was rationalized by many drone operators, Haas said. As a flight instructor, Haas claimed to have been non-judicially reprimanded by his superiors for failing a student who had expressed “bloodlust,” an overwhelming eagerness to kill.’
‘Haas also described widespread alcohol and drug abuse among drone pilots. Drone operators, he said, would frequently get intoxicated using bath salts and synthetic marijuana to avoid possible drug testing and in an effort to “bend that reality and try to picture yourself not being there.” Haas said that he knew at least a half-dozen people in his unit who were using bath salts and that drug use had “impaired” them during missions.’
‘The operators said that they felt increasing urgency to speak out in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last week; they believe drone assassinations have fed the rise of the extremist group the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks.’
‘Westmoreland said of drones: “In the short term they’re good at killing people, but in the long term they’re not effective. There are 15-year-olds growing up who have not lived a day without drones overhead, but you also have expats who are watching what’s going on in their home countries and seeing regularly the violations that are happening there, and that is something that could radicalize them.”
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-say-they-were-horrified-by-cruelty-of-assassination-program/
There is no honor in killing unarmed people with a video joy stick. No wonder it makes the “pilots” crazy.
There is no honor in killing unarmed people with a video joy stick ??
Is there any “honor” in killing a 100+ with a AK-47 that were watching a concert ?? Or a bomb at a Marathon ?? Or a bomb on a plane ??
Where does your question lead dave, and is there any light in that place?
Where does your question lead dave ??
Its looking for your answer….
It is a rhetorical question.
The answer is “no”. There is no honor in any of it.
Markets have blithely ignored the Paris attacks, while seemingly overlooking the reality that living under a state of seige could be the new normal.
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-belgium-raises-terror-alert-to-highest-level-in-brussels-2015-11
My company does not seem interested that I made a privacy enhancing software application work.
It is open source code and had dozens of compile errors and logic errors. But it allows, for instance, anonymous access to subscribed web services.this was originally sesignd by a consortium in response to complaints that their earlier product was not conducive to privacy.
This took me over a year to get going and I am barely starting on finding applications for this.
I know I am not taken seriously because I am not in the favored crowd. Frankly, they are web developers and I am more into the cryptography field.
I ran into one problem with this fix and have begun corresponding with one of the experts. It is sort of frightening. Sometimes I think the original developers were paid off to not finish the work. One guy claimed to get as far as I got and died of ALS last year, I read an article he wrote several years ago about what he did. I documented my work. There is lots more to do in other privacy software.
I have written an outline on how to provision the software in embedded devices and how to demonstrate the privacy.
Did your company ask you to do this or is it your pet hobby project?
It morphed on the side. The less private attestation I worked on, we demonstrated at the RSA conference in San Francisco awhile back. I was paid for that.
This one I did on the side, at the company while waiting for people to finish tasks on their projects. Sometimes I worked on this on weekends.
Yes I consider it company property, though open source. I will not release it back to the consortium without my company’s permission. We are not profiting from it yet.
Sometimes I worked on this on weekends.
Yes I consider it company property, though open source. I will not release it back to the consortium without my company’s permission.
That sounds like an ill-conceived approach: if you care about freedom as much as you say that you do, you could have avoided doing this development on company time and equipment, and been free to release it to the open source community without anyone’s approval.
Well the upgraded consortium product is coming out very soon and I was under the gun for time.
I spent my every other Friday off working on this stuff, and some weekends, to make it go. And it’s done.
Had some health issues, that were very serious this year. My boss visited me at the hospital the day I was taken to emergency.
I made enough money in my past, my boss is my friend and I don’t care about a lump sum, as much as being more valuable in the commercial field.
Sorry to hear about the serious health issue, Bill; I hope that the situation has improved and that the prognosis is good.
Thanks. Prognosis is good according to the doc as long as I am on the drug. Doc says I have a minor lifestyle change. But other sources indicate I have to be more cautious of my lifestyle, which is centered on fitness.
SH, my brother, I’m glad there are still guys like you standing out amidst the mass of sheep and lemmings.
Thanks. For years I worked to protect national interests. Now I am interested in protecting the privacy of the citizen and everyone around the world. It’s funny, if I was asked 25 years ago if I was interested in protecting privacy, I would think, “meh.” But this goes much further into decentralizing everything. Literally everything.
Europeans enjoying the blessings of multiculturalism, thanks to their globalist elites.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-21/army-apcs-roadblocks-deployed-brussels-after-explosives-chemicals-found
The Free Sh*t Army is “warming to socialism.” Imagine that.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/poll-watch-democrats-even-clinton-supporters-warm-to-socialism/?_r=0
A: What is too big to fail?
The EU collusus has feet of clay.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/12009370/Mali-Bamako-terrorist-attack-170-hostages-Paris-Belgium-live.html
Odd, the Establishment propaganda mouthpiece of record, the NYT, is actually printing truth for once. An isolated occurance, but noteworthy all the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html?_r=0
Meanwhile, the sheeple are being medicated into docility and complicance.
http://www.coachisright.com/a-nation-of-pill-zombies/
Ever felt like a stranger in a strange land?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/20/majority-americans-feel-like-stranger-country/
“Demographically, Americans holding these views tend to be white, older, live in the South and have less than a college education. ”
LMFAO. Thanks for the link.
Aka Trump voters
A handful of nihilistic fanatics from a medieval death cult can paralyze an entire metropolis, forcing a massively expensive security response. And yet our overlords want to import the populations that spawn them. It’s almost like they WANT to impose a national security state.
Hey, wait a minute….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-brussels-raises-terrorism-alert-to-highest-level-warning-of-serious-and-immediate-a6743076.html
“Global Trade Just Snapped: Container Freight Rates Plummet 70% In 3 Weeks”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-21/global-trade-just-snapped-container-freight-rates-plummet-70-3-weeks
I guess It will be cheaper to fill up the dollar stores for christmas.
U need to load up on risk assets. I guess that includes homes these days.
If we got the banks and bs out out of building a house they might be more affordable.
I wonder what effect this had on the Baltic shipping cost indexes (clean and dirty tanker, and dry bulk)? Something to look into later today…
There’s an old saying that nicely sums up the situation:
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”
The Telegraph
Finance
Abandon ship: Baltic Dry index hits record low
Onboard the Berge Everest was around 350,000 tonnes of iron ore, enough to make the steel for more than three Golden Gate bridges
By Tara Cunningham, Business Reporter
3:04PM GMT 19 Nov 2015
A leading indicator of world economic growth, the Baltic Dry, has plunged to its lowest ever level
The Baltic Dry Index, which is seen by many as a leading indicator of the state of the world economy, slumped 2.9pc to a record low of 504 today due, at least in part, to China’s economic malaise.
The index measures shipping costs for commodities including iron ore, copper and steel. It has fallen as demand for these cargoes from China has slowed.
The index, which is comprised of three-sub indexes that measure different sizes of merchant ships, is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world.
It hit a peak level of 11,793 in May 2008 amid a surge in demand for commodities, but has been in steady decline since the financial crisis.
In February this year it hit a low of 509 points - but this was surpassed earlier.
Rebecca O’Keeffe, of Interactive Investor, said: “With Chinese steel mills under intense pressure, many are running down their current inventories in an effort to stave off bankruptcy and this has resulted in a collapse in the volume of sea-borne iron-ore and coking coal.
“This major shift in demand and the sustained pressure on commodity prices as a result of the changing Chinese landscape is a key reason why the Baltic Dry Index is at all-time lows.”
…
BloombergBusiness
Baltic Dry Index
BDIY:IND 498.00 -6.00 -1.19%
As of 08:01:41 ET on 11/20/2015. Open
498.00
Day Range 498.00 - 498.00
Previous Close
504.00
52Wk Range
498.00 - 1,324.00
1 Yr Return -62.39%
YTD Return -36.32%
Fine, fine and re-fined rock and roll.
https://youtu.be/GhlSvVxLYjw
Here is a song I used to like
Allman Brothers ” Sweet Melissa ” - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5XJDxe7TVY - 223k -
But it has been forever ruined by Prof. Melissa Click …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGsoRcmYqtA - 437k -
Boo boo hoop! Somebody made a noise I didn’t like!
“Boo boo hoop! Somebody made a noise I didn’t like!”
I know, and they had full scholarship football players from a four and five football team ready to miss a game because of it.
Not to mention the worlds ugliest red head calling for muscle.
Does the dragon no longer wear Prada?
Financial Times
Business of Luxury
China’s rich no longer putting on the Ritz
Brands rethink strategy as spending on high-end goods shrinks
Silhouetted pedestrians walk past the illuminated exterior of a Louis Vuitton store, operated by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, at night in Macau, China, on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Macau’s Chief Executive Fernando Chui pledged a five-year plan to make it less dependent on casinos by diversifying the economy and transform itself into a global tourism center.
Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg
November 20, 2015
by: FT Correspondents
On a quiet afternoon this week, one female shopper was browsing through pricey handbags in Beijing’s largely empty Shin Kong luxury mall.
“I buy all sorts of brands — Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Gucci,” said the financial consultant. “Now the price of luxury products in China is much better than before but mostly, I buy them when I go abroad every year.”
She may be willing to splash out on big brand names at home and abroad, but Chinese shoppers like her are becoming scarcer. The effects of a government crackdown on expensive gift-giving and the deceleration in the economy are being compounded by changing consumer tastes.
Luxury companies are also suffering from heady expansion based on what a report this week, from US think-tank the Demand Institute and its parent institution, the Conference Board, described as “overly optimistic growth and consumption projections” that have “misled foreign investors”.
Luxury spending in mainland China fell last year for the first time, according to Bain & Co, to roughly €15bn. The consultancy expects it to contract a further 2 per cent at constant currency rates, steeper than last year’s 1 per cent decline.
That is a sharp reversal of a decade of remarkable growth, when Chinese luxury spending, at home and abroad, leapt tenfold — from 3 per cent of global luxury spending in 2004 to 30 per cent last year, according to Exane BNP Paribas.
Without its main motor for growth, it is no longer a life of luxury for the world’s €250bn industry, which is having to work harder to adjust to the complexities of a more mature and fragmenting market.
Luca Solca, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, says the Chinese market “hasn’t been great for anyone recently, but Prada and Burberry seem to be under greater pressure from China than their peers”.
…
http://news.yahoo.com/us-lawmakers-forget-assad-focus-172759340.html
‘In an unusual alliance, a House Democrat and Republican have teamed up to urge the Obama administration to stop trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad and focus all its efforts on destroying Islamic State militants.’
‘Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, and Austin Scott, a Republican, introduced legislation on Friday to end what they called an “illegal war” to overthrow Assad, the leader of Syria accused of killing tens of thousands of Syrian citizens in a more than four-year-old civil war entangled in a battle against IS extremists, also known as ISIS.’
“The U.S. is waging two wars in Syria,” Gabbard said. “The first is the war against ISIS and other Islamic extremists, which Congress authorized after the terrorist attack on 9/11. The second war is the illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.” Scott said, “Working to remove Assad at this stage is counter-productive to what I believe our primary mission should be.”
‘In the Philippines on Thursday for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Barack Obama reiterated America’s demand that Assad must go. “The bottom line is: I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power,” Obama said.’
I, We? So when 25 or 35% of the US population voted for you, that obviously made you King of Syria. And with over 200,000 Syrians dead and 11 million wandering the globe, one has to wonder, how do you sleep at night Mr President?
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/obama-isil-terrorism-fear-216130
“Even if I were to cynically say my priority is ISIL and not removing Assad,” Obama explained, “the United States could not stop the fighting in Syria by those who are opposed to Assad’s rule. This is a practical issue, not just a matter of conscience.”
Cynically, WTF does that mean?
‘by those who are opposed to Assad’s rule’
He’s referring to the thousands of international mercenary mujaheddin that the Saudis and other have been paying for years. And the occasional nut-job who wanders down from Belgium. So there isn’t any way, like international law, to stop the outside financing and arming of these guys?
Did someone say outside financing?
http://takimag.com/article/hail_the_ghoul-manfred_von_pentz#axzz3s9SGagJ3
“Thus another smashing success for Mr. Soros, and completely in line with the general understanding that he had his devilish claws not only in any so-called “color revolution” staged after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but in almost every violent upheaval that has shaken countries the world over since then.
Therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise if we find him once again as a leading protagonist in the worst upheaval that Europe, and particularly Germany, has witnessed since the end of World War II. Talk is here, of course, about the organized avalanche of illegal immigrants who are inundating the Old World and creating havoc at an unbelievable scale. Proof of the ghoul’s involvement has been abundant, most prominently a guide printed in Arabic by a subdivision of his “Open Society Foundations” calling itself, conveniently, “Welcome to Europe.” Distributed probably by the tens of thousands, it informs potential invaders of how to go about in the most effective way. It also contains maps, tips, and phone numbers of organizations and government welfare agencies that are supposed to help once they arrive in Europe. What it does not mention is the increasing chaos that awaits them at the borders or the growing hostility inside the overwhelmed countries themselves. A hostility that is bound to increase out of all proportion after the horrible attacks in Paris by Muslim terrorists.”
“To feel and even think that the White Race is inferior in every conceivable plane is natural, given its history and current documents. Let the White Race perish in blood and suffering. Long live the multicultural, racially mixed and classless ecological society! Long live anarchy!”
Nya Dagbladet, March 2014″
That is what George Soros told the world in an interview with a Swedish newspaper only a year earlier, and nothing can reveal his true intentions better than this. Yet as it is, and even though most of his crimes are glaringly apparent, nobody has so far held him responsible for them.”
“Meanwhile, the negative consequences of the ghoul’s demented ploys are manifold. Inventing and fanning interracial conflicts, robbing the global community of fantastic amounts of money, and promoting a kind of Orwellian tyranny where hordes of dim-witted slaves will eventually serve a tiny elite are increasingly perceived by most reasonable people as an assault on their purses and guaranteed liberties alike. Small wonder, therefore, that distrust, disgust, and open enmity have been the result.”
And there it is. His foundations are behind the “color revolutions” here in the US. BLM, La Raza, SPLC, Bill Kristol, you name it, he’s the man behind the curtain.
Told he must go, Syria’s Assad may outlast Obama in office
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNITED_STATES_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-22-10-50-51
Here’s the thing; all of this isn’t about Assad. I’ve suggested before, he’d probably like to get the heck out of there. But what would happen? Would ISIS slaughter millions of Christians and Alawites? It’s certainly possible. Who would stop them?
“Who would stop them?”
My guess is Putin might give it a go. And he’d probably have assistance from Iran. But once he does that, there’s no turning back. He’d have make Syria a permanent protectorate under Assad.
Fitcoin?
Bitwalking dollars: Digital currency pays people to walk
A digital crypto-currency has launched that is generated by human movement.
Bitwalking dollars will be earned by walking, unlike other digital currencies such as Bitcoins that are “mined” by computers.
A phone application counts and verifies users’ steps, with walkers earning approximately 1 BW$ for about 10,000 steps (about five miles).
Initially, users will be given the chance to spend what they earn in an online store, or trade them for cash.
Transfers of the new currency will also be carefully monitored with transactions going through a central ‘bank’ which verifies each deal using the block chain method used to transfer other crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.
Users will have access to their own wallet which stores the dollars they’ve earned and will be able to transfer them to others via the app.
“It’s a currency that can be earned by anyone regardless of who they are and where they live,” says Franky Imbesi.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34872563
Brilliant…a digital currency whose creation generates a health improvement subsidy. It captures public good value if health insurance premiums decrease due to lower societal medical costs.
This brings to mind another idea:
Why not develop a fully decentralized money creation system, and end the Megabank, Inc monopoly in the money creation business? Other than greatly enriching the FIRE sector firm insiders to the Fed’s monetary machinations relative to the rest of Americans, what value does our current system of money creation by central planners have over decentralized alternatives?
Coining money is supposed to be one of the chores of the US government. The seal of the government is supposed to only guarantee weight and purity of what was already monetary metal, not create wealth out of thin air. Fiat is the currency of thieves, dictators and their subject fools. Real money has physical boundaries. Fiat has none.
Fitbit is brilliant? Money from nowhere for people who don’t have a car or health insurance anyway. Changing lives with OPM. Initial funding by a brave group of investors. Try to figure out where the profit is so that those investors can be paid a return, and the inventors a princely salary. Then it is brilliant, if you are in on the ground floor.
I suppose it could be concerning if society en masse decided they would rather spend all day walking around to create money rather than producing anything of value to others, kind of like the chumps you see out scavenging the beach hunting for lost coins with metal detector in hand.
I was considering downloading Etereum Frontier on my desktop. But the warnings on the first download made me decide to get my Raspberry Pu going. It’s a Linux based little computer run off a smart card. If I mess up, the problem will be fixed by reformatting the card. You can make your own smart documents applications. Ethereum is the top developer application for block chain.
I am installing Raspbian while I type this on iPad.
“Here Is The Complete Scenario In Which The Fed Hikes Rates, Starts A Recession, And Launches QE4″
http://zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-22/here-full-scenario-which-fed-hikes-commits-policy-error-starts-recession-and-launche
“the Fed’s experiment has weakened the economy so much, its potential growth rate has been cut in half in the past decade.”
BTW, they’ve pumped another 8 trillion in new debt in just the last 7 years.
It seems like the more money they pump in, the more debt-ridden households become, as they struggle to pay the inflating costs of big-ticket items like education, shelter and medical coverage out of shrinking pay checks in real dollars.
But I guess as long as interest rates remain so low, there’s no need for concern over these ever-growing, crushing household debt burdens.
yeah the 50,000.00 trucks are sure a stretch. All they do is keep extending the loan length to keep payments down.
financial engineering can only take you so far. In the end we need to produce and compete in a global economy which seems to be a real problem.
Since all the Fed gyrations wore thin over a decade ago, what charade are they to wheel out besides more demand crushing QE?
more jawboning? maybe helicopter money?
printing money will never fix the real problems in this economy.
Let it crater, then buy later for 65% less.
Demand crushing QE should lead to lower prices.
Are you sure?
absolutely
How do you know?
I’m omniscient
Gotcha SnowFlake.
Now that U.S. rents are soaring on ever-tighter rental housing inventory and booming employment, has the thought of investing in rental property crossed your mind?
Come on in, folks, the water is fine!
has the thought of investing in rental property crossed your mind ??
Around here, unless you have a boat load of cash it would be foolish to buy a rental right now…
It’d be foolish to spend any money on housing right now….. or in the last 15 years.
Rallying the base
Drudge Report links to article about Iranian military conducting simulated takeover of a mosque in Jerusalem:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151121/ml–iran-israel-802f84ed57.html
No “smaller government” or “less regulations” or “lower taxes” happening here
Neocons gonna neocon
World Net Daily rallies the base:
http://mobile.wnd.com/2015/11/palestinian-boy-2-daddy-buy-me-a-machine-gun/?cat_orig=world
American taxpayers you are being played for suckers and fools, the 40% of the Republican primary electorate that are evengelical Christians will nominate a candidate purchased by Sheldon Adelson (not a Christian) and endorsed by William Kristol (not a Christian) who will send a bunch of poor blacks and poor browns and poor white trash to the Middle East to fight and die for this, and borrow another trillion dollars to pay for all of it
Think about that when you’re sitting in church this morning you f*ing neocon hypocrites
send a bunch of poor blacks and poor browns and poor white trash to the Middle East ??
Yep….All volunteer military is working out quite well for the neocons…No drafting of Senators boys & girls…Dumb them down, let higher education get so costly that most cannot afford and have a economy that puts you on minimum wage at Starbucks or Pappa Johns all the way through your twenties…
The alternative at HS graduation is to join the “Global Force For Good”..
These Christian Zionist poors are doing exactly what their globalist neocon plantation overseers want: stampeding up the cattle chute to the killing floor
Another neo-con success story. Syria will be spawning terrorists and refugees for a generation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/world/middleeast/isis-wives-and-enforcers-in-syria-recount-collaboration-anguish-and-escape.html
New York Times is now all on board for scripting the narrative for another trillion dollar war. They are what Dianne Feinstein (Fat Old Hag, CA) call the real journalists, and they’ll pause from their progressive social agenda just long enough to provide a globalist narrative for the new war(s)
Neocons gonna neocon
You’ve had your neocon, now let’s have some “progressive” with this grabber narrative from Salon dot com:
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/21/second_amendment_time_traveling_if_only_the_framers_could_have_envisioned_the_nra/
Grabbers gonna grab
And remember kidz, the “progressive” narrative only ends one way:
Registration, Confiscation, Extermination
Trump: ‘I would bring back’ waterboarding
Maxwell Tani
Donald Trump said that he would bring back waterboarding if the US captures members of ISIS.
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Trump pointed to ISIS’ gruesome beheading of journalist James Foley last year to justify the return of what former President George W. Bush’s administration referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
“I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us,” Trump told host George Stephanopoulos.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-i-would-bring-back-waterboarding-2015-11
He’s an authoritarian thug
Fortunately, the Republican primary electorate will vote for the candidate that Sheldon Adelson purchased*, and then we can leave all of the torture and murder in the hands of our “friend and ally, the only democracy in the Middle East” the apartheid state of Israel
* this will happen under a Hillary Clinton presidency too
“He’s an authoritarian thug”
It’s impressive how he uses this fact as a selling point. I believe this man could successfully sell umbrellas in a drought-stricken desert.
He’s an authoritarian thug
Donald Trump on his Black Lives Matter heckler: ‘Maybe he should have been roughed up’
Colin Campbell
CNN reported that at a Saturday Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, a man wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt was “punched and kicked” by attendees as he was ejected for heckling the candidate.
“At least a half-dozen attendees shoved and tackled the protester, a black man, to the ground as he refused to leave the event. At least one man punched the protester and a woman kicked him while he was on the ground,” the network reported.
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-protester-roughed-up-2015-11
BLAM! BLAM!
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/11/20/mo-woman-killed-ridgeland-named/76102642/
BLAM!
http://myfox8.com/2015/11/20/police-say-pastors-wife-killed-in-home-invasion-was-raped-by-killer/
That’s some roughing up, right there.
“There are violent criminals, therefore it’s OK to beat up a peaceful protester.”
I’m assuming that’s what passes for logic in your head.
That was a (giggle) peaceful protester? Who said, and how do you know? Were ya there?
I have yet to be persuaded that BLM is composed of peaceful protesters. Ferguson, Baltimore and Bernie’s little aborted rally would indicate otherwise.
Seizing a microphone or shouting at a speaker, while obnoxious, are not violent acts.
Not to mention, I’m not entirely sure this little episode wasn’t staged, “attendees” included. Given that race hoaxing is not uncommon these days (and of course the MSM doesn’t cover when the hoax is exposed), it wouldn’t surprise me.
Palmetto, do you get paid to pimp Trump here, or do you honestly think he’s the best choice for CIC?
The more I read about him, the more he seems like a bloviating white male biggot with a narrowly provincial world view who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
But please set me straight if I am being unfair.
I don’t think you give two fecks in a bucket whether or not you’re being unfair. As you know, I’ve been posting on this blog since 2005, back when you were Get Stucco. And except for my brief time as jose canusi, and a few posts as “restore our future”, I’ve pretty much always been palmetto, long before Trump ever declared for prez.
Speaking of bloviating, your brief queries followed by looonng swaths of other people’s writing fits that category, but it’s typical of an academic who can’t make up their mind to sit on the pot or bend over it. No wonder higher ed is such a blithering mess. But then again, you’re an Obomba supporter.
Feel free to go ad hominem if you have nothing to justify whatever it is a about The Donald that appeals to you. It’s perfectly understandable, as his appeal is clearly far more visceral than intellectual.
Here is a bit more cut-n-paste for you, from Merriam-Webster.com:
vis·cer·al
\ˈvi-sə-rəl, ˈvis-rəl\ adjective
: coming from strong emotions and not from logic or reason
medical : of or relating to the viscera
Full Definition
1
:felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body :deep
2
:not intellectual :instinctive, unreasoning
Pretty much nails Trump’s appeal, doesn’t it?
Like this kind of ad hominen?
“Palmetto, do you get paid to pimp Trump here”
Or the kind of cowardly ad hominen you post about AbqDan ad nauseum when he’s not around to defend himself?
AbqDan was way off base about China, yes, but I never saw him or 2ban for that matter denigrate you or anybody else on this blog despite all the slings and darts they took from those like you who smugly consider themselves intellectually superior.
Anyway, enjoy your tenure while you can, because it looks like all those special snowflakes you’ve had a hand in nurturing are bringing down the system faster than you can say Get Stucco.
AbqDan was way off base about China
And oil.
“Or the kind of cowardly ad hominen you post about AbqDan ad nauseum when he’s not around to defend himself?”
Who is stopping him from defending himself? He obviously was shamefully wrong in his predictions for $80 / bbl oil by December 2015, but so far as I know, nobody is preventing him from ‘defending himself’ from people who point out his error.
“AbqDan was way off base about China
And oil.”
By Palmetto’s self-styled definition, pointing that out is an ad hominem attack.
“By Palmetto’s self-styled definition, pointing that out is an ad hominem attack.”
Pointing it out is not ad-hominem, taking shots at him when he’s not here is, not to mention it’s a waste of time. But then again, dan was posting on his own dime, not on the taxpayer’s, like the Prof.
BTW, mikey, that’s a lousy imitation of goon.
Live from Hashtagistan!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-22/isis-explained-millennials
“But then again, dan was posting on his own dime, not on the taxpayer’s, like the Prof.”
I had no idea the taxpayer was compensating me for posting. Where do I pick up my paycheck?
Surely your bursar provides direct deposit?
Speaking of academia, here’s a positive development. Dismantling Wilson’s legacy is a darned good idea, no matter what the pretext.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/23/nyregion/at-princeton-addressing-a-racist-legacy-and-seeking-to-remove-woodrow-wilsons-name.html?_r=0
Ben Carson Thinks Giving Up Certain Torture Techniques Would Be Too PC
He won’t rule out waterboarding of terrorism suspects
Arthur Delaney
Stephanopoulos asked Carson if he agreed with GOP candidate Donald Trump that the U.S. should resume waterboarding, an “enhanced interrogation technique” President Barack Obama discontinued in 2009.
“There’s no such thing as political correctness when you’re fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you,” Carson said, “and I’m not one who’s real big on telling the enemy on what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.”
Carson also said he favored surveillance of mosques, essentially repeating something he said on Saturday.
“We should monitor anything — mosque, church, school, you know, shopping center — where there’s a lot of radicalization going on,” Carson said.
…when Stephanopoulos asked about blocking people on terror watch lists from buying guns, Carson worried about the Second Amendment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-waterboarding_5651df1ae4b0879a5b0b5c7c
Stone cold kickin’ it, wit my homie Droopy D.
Ben Carson’s new rap ad aims to reach young black voters ‘in a language that they prefer’
http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-carson-new-rap-ad-young-black-voters-african-american-2015-11
(Droopy Dog/Ben Carson voice: “you know what?…that makes me happy.”)
Get ready for a new bailout, taxpayers - this time for Obamacare.
http://nypost.com/2015/11/20/a-new-taxpayer-bailout-to-cover-up-obamacares-failure/
Above I complained that Prof. Melissa Click had ruined forever an Allman Brothers song for me, but I take solace in knowing that for several reasons she could never ruin this one.
The Allman Brothers Band - One Way Out - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr1dPUoLqMM - 334k -
My favorite line from the Allmans’ song Ain’t Wasting Time No More:
“and all the war freaks die off, leaving us alone”
I thought WPA & Co. might like this bikini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z499WFdQN-4 - 323k -
Great tribute to Ronnie. Stars and bars, bikinis and his very own made in the USA music.
Lolas gonna love it.
BUY more FANG and your problems will go away.
Must stop socialism/defend oil industry, at all costs. Thanks, CIA!
The butterfly effect: how the CIA-led overthrow of democratically-elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 (due to his intentions to nationalize Iranian oil) would, once again, over 60 years later, be related to what we are seeing unfold with ISIS today:
Overthrow of Mossadegh -> Shah of Iran takes power (a Western puppet) -> Iranian revolution overthrows him -> Iran transforms into a strictly conservative Islamic state –> Creation of Hezbollah to fight illegal Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, financed by Iran and supported by Syria’s Assad -> US/Gulf/Israeli determination to weaken Hezbollah and prevent Iran’s growing Shiite influence by overthrowing Assad (and thus capitalizing on — not starting — the Syrian revolution) -> ISIS is created, with Gulf support -> Global terror we’re seeing today
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeina-saab/butterfly-effects-led-to-the-rise-of-isis_b_8586074.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Wall Street Journal talking heads condescendingly dismiss gold standard.
http://www.marketwatch.com/video/could-us-go-back-to-the-gold-standard/FF04567D-DA2F-4F9D-9477-E5B373BB38BE.html?mod=MW_story_trending&Link=obnetwork
Turns out that broke people spend little, unless they have ready access to easy credit. Who’d've thunk that would happen?
all with bank credit created out of nothing.
Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’ -Billy Preston
Gold standard, really? The problem with it is that wealth in a given country is directly related to the amount of gold it possesses. This leads to the desire for more gold and eventually to WARS. Apart from that it means that a country’s money supply would depend on the price of gold and not on the DEMAND for money, which I find to be ridiculous.
Printing money and creating endless bank credit is doing wonders for us. Out of control debt that is so bad they have to keep rate at zero so they scan service their debt.
Seem like there is no limit to the amount of dollars that can be created under this.
Things that are scarce tend to hold their value a lot better.
Buy your overpriced homes and cars! Work more years to pay it off. caveat emptor!
Remain calm. All is well….
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_OBAMA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-22-12-35-40
“Brazil’s Disastrous Debt Dynamics Could “Create Contagion” For Emerging Markets, Barclays Warns”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-22/brazils-disastrous-debt-dynamics-could-create-contagion-emerging-markets-barclays-wa
“Brazil is confronting a toxic combination of a primary budget deficit, high public debt (relative to EM countries), very high real interest rates (the Selic stands at 14.25%), sluggish trend growth, a negative commodity price shock and potential contingent liabilities for the sovereign, which together spell trouble for public debt dynamics.”
The article is looking in the rearview mirror.
“So what’s the takeaway besides the fact that Brazil is, for lack of a better word, screwed (because we already knew that)? Well remember, Brazil is representative of the problems facing EM as a whole. Slumping commodity prices, currency carnage, FX pass through inflation, sensitivity to decelerating Chinese demand and to Beijing’s yuan deval, Brazil has it all … In short, the country is a proxy for EM as a whole.”
Has cratered, will crater more.
Why is it liar’s “Tears of Joy” seem to turn into “Tears of Remorse”?
A mortgage…. It’s just enough rope to hang yourself.
CRUSHING.HOUSING.LOSSES.
Always
Is Trump a political lightning rod for frightened, disenfranchised, old white male anger?
A close female blood relative of mine commented, “Trump scares me.”
Given that so many male voters find Hillary equally or more scary than Trump, where is the American voter to turn in the 2016 election?
If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, you can always break the mirror, or punch the guy holding the mirror up to your face. Those are usually more comfortable options than taking a long, careful look at yourself.
Are you ready for more cratering crude?
So far the supply glut spurred by collapsing Chinese demand is dominating the rig count factor in determining the direction of prices. You can only store so much oil on land and at sea before you run out of places to put it. Beyond that point, the world is awash in a sea of cheap oil.
CR8R
MarketWatch dot com
Crude tumbles as analysts brace for prices under $40-a-barrel
By Jenny W. Hsu
Published: Nov 23, 2015 1:35 a.m. ET
Supply concerns heavily overshadow the market
Crude oil prices lost traction on Monday as supply glut concerns overshadowed a report showing a decline in the U.S. oil-rig count.
On Friday, oil prices turned higher after industry group Baker Hughes reported that the U.S. oil rig count fell by 10, sparking some optimism that oil production in North America is tapering down. While some discount the measure’s usefulness, others in the market use it as a gauge of how production might rise or fall in the future.
However, analysts say market participants remain nervous that oil majors, particularly those in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, will continue to ramp up output amid low prices for the sake of defending market share.
The organization is scheduled to meet on December 4 in Vienna. Various reports say the bloc plans to maintain the same policy despite protests by the less cash-rich smaller players.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January (CLF6, -2.98%) traded at $40.67 a barrel, down $1.19, or 2.8%, in the Globex electronic session. January Brent crude (LCOF6, -1.97%) on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.87, or 2%, to $43.78 a barrel.
“A fall below $40 per barrel[for West Texas Intermediate] is very possible and real,” said Barnabas Chen, an OCBC commodities analyst who said traders are mostly in a cautious mode as they expect the global supply glut to worsen next year due to expanding oil stockpiles.
Last week, the U.S. energy department reported the country’s crude inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels in the week ended November 13.
“At 487.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain near levels not seen for this time of the year in at least the last 80 years,” said the official report.
Energy analysts say prices will be further pressured when Iranian oil returns to the market in the coming months, exacerbating oversupply woes.
“The OPEC factor has been mostly priced in but when the sanctions against Iranian oil are fully lifted, we might see another price collapse,” said Daniel Ang, a Phillip Futures energy analyst.
Another factor weighing on oil prices is the rising dollar on anticipation that the U.S. Federal Reserve might tighten monetary policy in the next month policy meeting. As the industry’s standard currency, a stronger greenback means more expensive oil for traders holding other currencies.
…
Has anybody tried to calculate China’s losses due to hoarding commodities at the point of an epic price collapse?
My hunch is that their losses are incalculable.