Bits Bucket for January 24, 2016
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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
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Dear Mr. Banker,
Are you getting tired of having to come into the office? Of having to actually interact with potential Debt Donkeys, you know, shake their hands, smile, offer coffee, maybe give out a couple of free slices of pizza, … pay the secretary? (Not a whole pizza, mind you.) That all must really hurt your heart.
I remember when you offered free pizza in the late 90’s. I almost fell for that bit. Along with all the colorful brochures with pictures of happy smiling people. (Que R.E.M.) Anyway, I was watching the TeeVee at the relatives house the other day (I haven’t had TeeVee piped into the house I rent, in ages, so it was an interesting experience) when on comes a commercial featuring Ty Pennington (you Like that guy) and he’s pitching the idea of a mortgage’s offered Totally Online. Scheduling appraisals,… choosing your rates,… digital signature,… the works. Everything was done online. Everything! The whole She-Bang. Mr. Banker doesn’t have to do a thing. …I thought of you when I saw that commercial and wondered if you were tired of coming into the office so much. And, … paying the secretary. Or, the electric bill at the office. Not too mention having to pay someone to take out your trash. …Do you get excited thinking about the possibilities? Or, is this old news?
Mr. Banker bringing the pizza:
http://youtu.be/UPXUG8q4jKU
Old news
“Are you getting tired of having to come into the office? Of having to actually interact with potential Debt Donkeys, you know, shake their hands, smile, offer coffee, maybe give out a couple of free slices of pizza, … pay the secretary? (Not a whole pizza, mind you.) That all must really hurt your heart.”
I really do not spend a lot of time at the office interacting with debt donkeys or any other type of donkeys, instead I have debt donkeys of my own - lackeys - to do the interacting in my behalf - my favorites being those heavily-student-loan-indebted donkeys who (if I word my job offer promises correctly) will work for me as interns for free instead of as employees for (gasp) money.The few pukes that I do pay money to are mostly driven to work for job titles, titles such as Vice President of Loans or Vice President of Collections and so forth - job titles that will give them all-important bragging rights to their friends and (amazingly) to complete strangers.
And as for the pizza - well, lets just say I get more for my money by offering free coffee instead. You see coffee is a stimulant and drinking a cup or two does wonders in easing financial transactions and this is why I ply my prospective marks with lots of the stuff.
“I remember when you offered free pizza in the late 90’s. I almost fell for that bit.”
Coffee, as I said I now offer free coffee. Come in for a cup or two and lets discuss the merits of our Dotted Line Special. Or rather, come in and discuss the merits with one of my employees - these days I generally have more important things (nautical types of things that having to do with yachts) to attend to.
“Along with all the colorful brochures with pictures of happy smiling people. (Que R.E.M.) Anyway, I was watching the TeeVee at the relatives house the other day (I haven’t had TeeVee piped into the house I rent, in ages, so it was an interesting experience) when on comes a commercial featuring Ty Pennington (you Like that guy) and he’s pitching the idea of a mortgage’s offered Totally Online. Scheduling appraisals,… choosing your rates,… digital signature,… the works. Everything was done online. Everything! The whole She-Bang.”
Our outstanding education system has done a fine job of conditioning the masses to the point that even this stupidity works like a well oiled machine in convincing hundreds of thousands of totally dumbed-down pukes to regularly and willingly shift huge quantities of their hard-earned money up the economic food chain to my coffers - where it rightfully belongs.
“Mr. Banker doesn’t have to do a thing.”
It’s God’s Plan.
“I thought of you when I saw that commercial and wondered if you were tired of coming into the office so much. And, … paying the secretary.”
The intern. Paying the intern. Paying her with promises.
“Or, the electric bill at the office.”
Funny you brought that up; I’m thinking of installing electric meters at everyone’s desk. Coin operated.
“Not too mention having to pay someone to take out your trash.”
I’m still working on that one.
Mr. Banker owns the Republicrat duopoly’s “choices” you dupes keep sending to Washington. So the jokes on you, sheeple. Mr. Banker and his political puppets have rigged the game to ensure they win, you lose. So keep bending over, dupes.
The Oligopoly is robbing the sheeple blind, yet 95% of them still bend over, Pavlovian-style, on demand by voting for the Republicrat duopoly’s Wall Street water carriers.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2016/01/saving-banks-on-back-of-real-economy.html
“How Billionaires Are Investing In 2016: The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play The Game”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-23/how-billionaires-are-investing-2016-only-winning-move-not-play-game
“The trade now is to hold as much cash as possible,” said Nikhil Srinivasan
Too late for that to happen. And if you’re holding onto a depreciating asset like a house and an inflated mortgage payment?
You’re screwed.
Thid is a historically bad time to be sitting on an expensive pile of risky assets purchased with dumb borrowed money.
What about if you are holding pesos?
The peso is dropping faster than Bristol Palin’s prom dress.
Faster than Monica dropping under the desk?
“The trade now is to hold as much cash as possible,”
And to hold onto anything that generates cash flow - such as a good-paying job, a good-paying job that:
1. Cannot be exported.
2. Is located in a non-right-to-work state.
3. Involves a union contract.
Union is a terrible idea unless you’ve already had the job for many years. The standard union boss MO now is to sell out the newbies so the old fat and lazy can keep on being old fat and lazy. This selling out has accelerated recently, especially in public unions.
“The standard union boss MO now is to sell out the newbies so the old fat and lazy can keep on being old fat and lazy.”
Yep. A thing of beauty.
The standard union boss MO now is to sell out the newbies so the old fat and lazy can keep on being old fat and lazy.
That’s ‘Murica more generally, thanks to the Boomers - the most singularly worthless and feckless generation these shores have ever raised up.
You are just jealous and envious!
2. Is located in a non-right-to-work state.
3. Involves a union contract.
So your comfortable life was essentially created by progressives.
Yes.
At someone elses expense.
Typical something for nothing lieerals.
Very little of what I have and what I enjoy is not of someone else’s expense.
“700 Days In No Man’s Land - Why They Can’t Keep It Up”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-23/700-days-no-mans-land-why-they-cant-keep-it
“The global economy has had its artificial boom and CapEx frenzy already and years of deflationary liquidation and correction lie ahead.”
Did you get suckered into the 15 year global housing bubble?
One US dollar will buy 18.45 Mexican pesos. One of the benefits of doing business with China is your currency gets devalued against the dollar when the China bubble pops. It’s time to go hang on the beach in Cabo!
lol@Jingle_Fraud
A spendthrift dreams only of spending what he does not have for what he does not need.
Yes, just what we want, a third world country on our border becoming even more poor.
The distorted notions of MT Pockets knows no bounds. Something for nothing is their schtick.
Yes, just what we want, a third world country on our border becoming even more poor.
Yes, but the Republicrat duopoly sees them as wage slaves and a permanent Democrat supermajority, so they have a green light to flood across the Rio Grande.
I’m expecting a big Chinese Yuan devaluation, but not sure about the timing.
“The End Is Nigh For The Fed’s Bubble Epoch”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-23/end-nigh-feds-bubble-epoch
“Twice in the last 15 years, markets have tried to correct the mistakes and excesses of the Bubble Epoch.”
“The gaggle of price-fixers the job of which is to regularly falsify one of the most important price signals in the economy. The idea that the economy can be “improved” by the interventions of a handful of people who have zero practical economic experience and rely on extremely dubious theories to guide their decisions is downright bizarre.
Have you prepared for the return to the pre-interventionist economy?
Phoenix Capital Research: “The Bursting of the Bond Bubble Has Begun”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-23/bursting-bond-bubble-has-begun-pt-3
I really must admit I do not understand much about the bond market or bond bubble, but it seems to me I’ve heard of various similar crashes predicted or claimed to have begun here for the last few years but never any actual reckoning.
With the exception of oil.
One week til Trump provides a reckoning in Iowa, then NH, then SC.
Oil had no monopoly on fixed, bottlenecked and rigged prices at grossly inflated levels.
“I really must admit I do not understand much about the bond market or bond bubble, but it seems to me I’ve heard of various similar crashes predicted or claimed to have begun here for the last few years but never any actual reckoning.
“With the exception of oil.”
Exercise patience.
Mr. Market injects reality to assets immediately.
The accountants follow up later and do the same thing to the debt.
‘With the exception of oil’
Yeah, house prices never fell, for instance.
My foggy recollection is that U.S. stocks lost about half of their value between September 2008 and March 2009, after which U.S. housing prices slowly cratered for roughly a three-year period. Housing declines finally turned around after the Fed made a concentrated effort to reflate the Housing Bubble starting in early 2012.
That’s why I said the last few years. Obviously housing cratered. Unfortunately prices skyrocketed back up and for the last few years we’ve been seeing apparently unsustainable double digit price appreciation. No one will ever doubt, and history will remember, the documentation Ben Jones has done on the housing crash.
My comment was more directed at the bond stuff though.
“No one will ever doubt, and history will remember, the documentation Ben Jones has done on the housing crash.”
Nah, somebody else will steal his documentation and then call it their own.
Plagiarism = The sincerest form of flattery.
One week til Trump provides a reckoning in Iowa, then NH, then SC ??
Out of the ashes of the Bush administration this is where the republican party finds itself…
Out of the ashes of 8 years of Obama failures is where we find our country.
Uh…haven’t bond prices majorly increased in recent weeks?
Bursting bubbles are normally associated with price collapse. Current examples include the Shanghai Index, the Baltic Dry Index, oil and more generally a broad swath of industrial commodities.
Inverted yield curves normally precede recessions.
The Wall Street Journal
Credit Markets
Rattled Investors Paying a Premium for Longer-Term Treasurys
Negative term premiums grow along with market fears
By Min Zeng
Updated Jan. 20, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
The global scramble to snap up safer assets intensified Wednesday, sending the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note below 2% and restoring an unusual situation in which investors willingly pay more for longer-term bonds than for an equivalent series of shorter-term securities.
This inversion, known as a negative term premium, stands on its head the longstanding practice of paying less for longer-term bonds…
So long as ZIRP or near-ZRP is in force, I don’t believe an inverted yield curve is even feasible.
Financial Matters: US Treasury yield curve best measure of what’s in store for 2016
January 03, 2016 6:00 am
Barry Nielsen, Financial Matters
It is the time of year when Wall Street and the financial press publish their year-ahead outlooks for financial markets and the economy. Those outlooks provide good insights into both the positives and negatives for the economy and markets heading into 2016. They are worth the read.
I always read them as seen through an overlay of my own macroeconomic view. My starting point is that only free markets and capitalism lead to long-term economic growth and prosperity.
However, regardless of my or your beliefs on economic systems and principles and subsequent views on the economy and markets, there is one economic indicator that has a history of 100 percent accuracy. It is the U.S. Treasury bond yield curve.
The yield curve is the graphical representation of the yields on U.S. Treasury bonds from one month maturity to 30 years maturity. It is generally an upward sloping line from left to right with short-term treasury bonds on the left side of the x-axis and long-term treasury bonds on the right end of the x-axis.
In its natural state, the yield curve is upward sloping from left to right because the longer the maturity of a bond, the higher the inherent risk, and therefore, the higher the required return or yield.
The biggest risk to U.S. Treasury bond prices is inflation. When inflation expectations increase, bond prices go down and bond yields go up. The opposite is true when inflation expectations decrease; bond prices go up, and bond yields go down. A bond’s yield moves inversely to its price.
The risk of inflation and the impact on treasury bond yields and prices is greater the longer the maturity of the bond. In short, inflation has a bigger impact on the real value of money to be received over the course of 30 years than it has on the real value of money to be received in the short-term. In other words, in light of the risk of inflation, you would put a higher price on having $100 dollars today than you would on receiving $100 in the future.
The current and expected rate of inflation is usually well correlated with economic activity. When the economy is growing, the rate of inflation tends to tick upward as employees are able to command increases in salaries and merchants are able to raise prices. The opposite is true during periods of economic recession; inflation expectations fall.
The yield curve is a very valuable forecaster of the economy. If U.S. Treasury investors believe that the economic future is bright, they naturally price in the risk of an increase in inflation. In other words, the slope of the yield curve steepens as the price of longer-term bonds falls relative to short-term bonds. And, if they believe that the economy is set to slow, which leads to a fall in inflation expectations, the yield curve will flatten as the price of longer-term bonds rises relative to short-term bonds.
Remember, current and future inflation expectations have a greater impact the longer the maturity of a bond.
Sometimes the yield curve inverts; meaning that short-term yields are higher than long-term yields. In other words, the shape of the curve becomes downward sloping. When this happens it is a sure sign of a pending economic recession. An inverted yield curve has preceded every recession in the last 75 years.
Keep an eye on the U.S. Treasury yield curve as we head into 2016. It has been in a flattening trend since the fall of 2013, and is currently the flattest it has been since the months leading up to the “Great Recession.”
It still has quite a ways to go before it inverts, a sure sign of pending economic recession, but a flattening curve does not suggest a robust economy heading into 2016. It will be an interesting year in financial markets.
…
Is the Central Scrutinizer a bike riding San Franciscan?
In the style of Freddy Mercury.
https://youtu.be/KwvWtZl2ICY
Are you a white collar pretender?
And not very convincing.
Jackson Browne - The Pretender + lyrics - YouTube
Video for the pretender youtube
▶ 5:53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQiXQUGbac0
Jackson Browne - The Pretender
Lyrics:
I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen
Nice…but frighteningly reminiscent of my life, down to the rental home and bag lunches…
I have no idea what white collar pretender means. But a bike riding San Franciscan would have very little credibility to me. It says all I need to know about political leanings.
And your petulant rage tells me you’re fat, old, miserable, envious, and weak.
It’s hilarious how all you rugged individualists are too fat to get themselves across the parking lot to Golden Corral without a rest. You wonder why nobody heeds your whining? It’s because people can see from 100 yards away the you’re not a man, but a giant, plump baby, all but spilling out of the wheeled couch you use to convey yourself from chair to chair.
Fear not, your lifetime of sedentary self indulgence will grant you the sweet release of death soon, and some paramedics will heave your quivering jello mass onto the stretcher, to take you to your final grease fire.
So cheer up, fatty! The Golden Corral in the sky awaits!
lol@lola
The Golden Corral in the sky awaits!
All you can eat for eternity, and breakfast never ends.
Always prying into someone elses business. Typical lieeral.
That hilarious and settles that. Bike riding, seat sniffing, Gavin Newsome worshipping, lieberal. Hahahhahaha. Except when it comes to insulting fatties, then the true compassion shows.
I hear the distant wail of a butt hurt fatty…
Fetch me a bag of Cheetos Russ. Be quick about it.
It would mean that you are a well-educated Troll for Trump pretending to be a blue collar male.
Are you a fat bottomed girl?
You’re no fan of girls Lola.
go long the ruble !
Get out of debt, Donkey. The yields are tremendous.
All you coastal Californians, when was the last time you were actually at the beach?
Couple of times a month.
Wednesday last week. San Clemente during lunch.
“Couple times a month” is a frequency estimate, you can say when you were last actually there.
I’m not in California, but I took a nice walk along the shore two days ago, and will again today.
Scientists discuss the ocean’s effect on the brain.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/ZZ/20110606/NEWS/110607923
Spending days, weeks, months out on the water is a kind of experience that cannot be explained.
The Wedge.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=467toW0yei4
Scientists discuss the ocean’s effect on the brain.
Are these the same dumb scientists what say we’s gonna grow gills? They just now discovered we like the ocean?
What are we paying these fools for?
What are we paying these fools for?
Not all of them can work on the global warming scam. It’s a crowded field.
The Wedge ??
Long time ago I did it several different times….Pretty nasty…Did not do very well…Got slammed pretty hard…
Skimboards at The Wedge …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWrRXGvNSBg
Bodysurfing The Wedge …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Aygp8JaMkqQ
I hope not to meet such a wave!
Water apes, all.
I only go to shoot sunsets but i hate people in my photographs!
Ann,
Try the southern Oregon coast sunsets. Like around Banden. The beaches are mostly empty. My sister and I spent thanksgiving afternoon and into the evening taking incepredible pics with our Canons. Temp was in the 50s, wind was blowing. And we made it into town in time for a nice table at a very good restaurant for TG dinner.
Try the southern Oregon coast sunsets ??
Try Brookings in October…..Take #101 all the way up…Pretty sweet…
I’ll have to try that sometime. We only went as far south as Bandon that time. Drove from Portland. We stopped in many places. Never went to Cannon Beach. My sister went there several times. She also takes aerial photos. Has a friend who flies a small plane and they go all over the Oregon Cascades and coast.
If you’re on a road trip, Cape Flattery in Washington absolutely amazing for photos. Just take the 101 and keep heading north. There is some fantastic hiking in the area too.
Sort of road tripping in February. Flying into the gay area, then driving to wine tasting country. Will bring my iPad, paperbacks. I don’t intend to drink much, but taste some good stuff and maybe repeat. It will be the most expensive wines I will taste all year and then I will return to my $2.63 Charles Shaw cabernet sauvignons.
If you head south, you can hit the tasting rooms and get hammered for free. North of SF, the coast is absolutely stunning… You’ll have a great trip either way.
One of my sisters is living north of the GG. She’s been in that area for ten years with a year in Maryland in the middle of it. Lived in Fort Bragg.
I fell in love with Westport north of Fort Bragg.
Two weeks ago
Two weeks ago for 5 days….
I am going to spend more time at the OC beaches this year now that I am a Californian (with the license plates to show for it).
Enjoy that beach! Kind of a variation on a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, a Phoenix gun lovin voluntaryist in the People’s Republic of California.
Thanks.
Voluntaryists don’t see any borders. Nor do they always follow victimless crime laws.
Those sour grapes are making you fat and bitter.
Been there done that for many years. It ain’t worth the premium and getting worse.
I go for the crowd, not for the water.
Last time I went to Baker Beach, I was treated to the sight of a hot new agey chick playing nekkid in the surf.
It cost me 3x as much to live there as in flyoverland, but with 5x the income, so the savings account gets lots of love. If you ain’t got the skillz, you don’t get to stay. I’m sure there’s a Burger King in Omaha that needs a manager.
The old timer Californians found gold. I met a lot of them over the years. They bought houses on one income in the best climate areas of California in the 1950s and 1960s. Unaffordability started in the 1970s. The smarter buyers were keen on the first Earth Day message: Avoid polluted areas.
Many old time decent people now with white hair, lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren would not think of living elsewhere.
A colleague of mine who grew up in a rich family in San Francisco is a surfer. He had to work in Maryland for a year and he had to make money. But never wants to do that again. He’s a surfer and southern California is the only place for him. He would not ever consider relocating.
I’m still building up a Roth. With health the way it is (what I got heart related is not much of a science yet), I prefer to be closer to my siblings and they are on the west coast. So I think I will stay in California on retirement. The dedicated bike paths in Irvine are incredible.
Every place has problems. But home is always the state you grew up in and where your long time friends live.
All you coastal Californians, when was the last time you were actually at the beach?
No point going there in the winter. The water is cold enough in the summer. The place isn’t Cancun.
If you were to ask me how often I saw the ocean when I lived in coastal metro San Diego (Oceanside), I would say that it was close to daily. When I moved further inland, it would vary. When I had a job in the Carlsbad area, it was a few times a week. When I worked in Rancho Bernardo, not so often. Maybe a few dozen times a year.
How about seeing the Sierras? On a clear day after a rain and no fog, looking east to the 13,000 foot high peaks (and higher, like Mt Whitney) was unbeatable. I would take that over the ocean. It means the air is as clean as the ocean air. I lived in the SJV from the late 60s to the mid 80s.
The San Joaquin Valley gets 5 days like that out of the year
“No point going there in the winter.”
It’s beautiful, especially when a storm is on the way in and the waves get wild and woolly. Many folks just put on a wet suit and surf 12 months a year.
True that.
Took a morning off from work in Irvine and went back up to Redondo Beach (I lived in that area for 8 years) on a day after a storm. Windy and cold and desolate with some debris from the storm washed up. The Queen’s necklace. You could see all the way to Pacific Palisades and yonder.
Pocketed a few ounces of gold bullion during that day. Splendid clear crisp beach day to vacate the USD.
People with mortgages can never go here:
http://i.imgur.com/WJ7cVeU.jpg
Region VIII
Sweet Goon….How the hell did you get the dog up there ??
Are you kidding? Dogs love to hike in the mountains.
Dogs love to hike in the mountains ??
Well Duh….Looks pretty high up to me…Did Goon walk up there with the dog ?? Still waiting to hear from him…
The dog walked there on 4 legs.
“Did Goon walk up there with the dog ??”
You are kidding, right?
OH this is going to go down as a classic HBB line. “How the hell did you get the dog up there?”
You know it.
… And piss off bears and lead them back to you.
Doctored photo.
At elevation 14,200′ looking south toward the Sangre de Cristo Range:
http://i.imgur.com/Iy7GcmS.jpg
Dogs whose owners have mortgages never get to go here. We were on the mountain for 13 hours yesterday and the dog loved every minute of it.
Dogs whose owners have mortgages never get to go here.
Death-pledge leads to sad dogs.
“At elevation 14,200′ looking south toward the Sangre de Cristo Range:”
That shot reminds me of Tom Cruise in Oblivion.
Lola’s gonna lose a lot of income with the blizzard, but I’m still hoping he’s safe and warm in some shelter, telling tall tales to the other bums until the library opens back up and he can google what’s going on in Brazil.
Here’s the proxy server Lola uses.
http://brazilproxy.com/
The Establishment must be destroyed because it is full of fascists who demand lies be accepted as truth on issues of race, gender, immigration, ethnicity, medicine, psychology, and science. Barney Saunders is closest to nationalizing the means of production though.
The Establishment are installed by the cretins who make up 95% of the electorate. What’s your solution to that problem?
More trumpling tears, no doubt.
There is no solution. It will continue to the logical conclusion.
Well, probably not a solution, but I’m going to start by voting for the first person in a generation who has positioned himself against “fascists who demand lies be accepted as truth on issues of race, gender, immigration, ethnicity, medicine, psychology, and science” and who isn’t just a crank and who may actually have a realistic chance to win. Then I’ll see where the chips fall.
The guy who’s obviously a megalomaniac and a fascist?
Who helps you tie your shoes in the morning?
Any strong male who loves America is a fascist to Frisco bicycle riders.
Strong? The man is a fat sausage crammed into a 5000 dollar suit. The only thing strong about him is the force gravity exerts on his wibbley belly.
Seems your jealous of his success.
Interestingly I’ve seen the antiTrump arguments shift now to a “he’s just lying about what he says he wants to do.” Everyone is afraid of a wall.
he’s just lying about what he says he wants to do.”
I agree with that. Trump ain’t no building no wall. He will continue like Bushobama.
No wall or physical barrier will ever be a match for human ingenuity. If you want to end illegal immigration, go after the employers that exploit them as wage slaves and deny them free (taxpayer-funded) services. That will remove the incentive to come here. But of course the DNC has a vested interest in incentivizing mass migration since there is no quicker path to a permanent Democrat supermajority and the unfettered looting of the middle and working classes that will enable by the Oligopoly.
Vacate the federal reserve and you won’t pay for illegals.
Wall is a waste of money. Just fine and jail employers the problem would be gone.
Feckless Obama hasn’t done either one.
Wall is waste so is jailing employers. They will always find a workaround.
Everify is not very hard to implement. It’s a question of will. Current crop, especially Liebs, have done everything to undercut that system.
The GOP establishment is already starting to embrace him. Looks like Lucy’s gonna yank that football away once again, leaving the Trumplings crying boo hoo on their backs.
The wall needs to be completed, about 700 miles have already been built, 1989 miles to go. You can claim he’s lying, but you’d hate him even more if you thought he was telling the truth right?
700 miles of wall, and they don’t even need to go to the end to get across it. They go over and under in a multitude of ingenious ways.
So lets waste 3x as much money completing it….
While they do go over and under, that is a tiny trickle where there is a wall in place. The wall stops 90 percent easily.
I worked in IT in agriculture a few years back. What stopped the flow was enforcement of ssn and green card checks, and fining employers that didn’t comply…. Enforcement of laws already on the books.
No jobs means no illegals. A wall means nothing unless you have gun towers every 100 yards.
And Obama has done nothing about it. Nothing.
Bush passed the “build the wall bill” in 2006. But, I am sure you knew that, like all of the Trump-believers.
This time is different–eh?
They built 700 miles, guess who was in charge thereafter? And like all govt projects they knew it would cost more. But it isn’t really that costly. It could easily be paid for by taxes on Mexican goods and remittances going south. Even if it could not, raising taxes to pay for a wall is an 8 to 1 favorite over stuff like wasting money on climate change.
The sea was angry yesterday my friends, like a NOAA spokesman refusing to turn over internal communications surrounding a recent climate change study that overturned the previous settled science that showed there had been no “global warming” since January 1997.
Trust in these corrupt government propaganda outlets is long gone. Long. Gone.
I’ve offered wondered about the cause-effect relationships between the MSM and the stupidity of 95% of the population. Are the latter dumbed down because they get their worldview from the media, or do we have such a dumbed-down media because we have such a stupid population?
I think it’s the latter mostly… It’s a profit driven industry that has to cater to its customers. Fox was cleaning up on the mouth breather demographic, so the other networks followed.
It’s not just the MSM that saps the analytical capabilities of most people. Hours glued to image only communications…no analytical thought. How many families sit down to dinner together and actually discuss things? Most people are spending 50% of their energy working in a rut to consume and pay debt service and commuting that they have no energy for thinking.
It is easier to be told what the answer is.
I’m starting to think critical thinking may be something you’re born with or not… And most people just aren’t. This makes democracy highly suspect at best.
And there we have it, a fundamental problem with democracy. Kid you need to grow up.
I reject tyrrany of the moron majority. As a moron, you find this idea upsetting.
So, what did Hillary Clinton actually say during her $250K a pop speeches to the financial firms that just so happened to benefit from Bill Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagal? I guess we’ll never know.
If you like your crony capitalism, you can keep your crony capitalism.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-24/hillary-responds-if-she-will-release-her-goldman-sachs-speech-transcripts
Bill Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagal ??
Why didn’t republicans under the Bush administration bring it back ?? Why haven’t the republican controlled House & Senate brought it back ?? They seem to have time to try and defund planned parenthood and kill Obamacare…
Why didn’t the CollapsoCrats under the Obama administration bring it back?
Because the Republicrat duopoly is owned by the Oligopoly, which has used the repeal of Glass-Steagal and its control of the Fed to enrich itself beyond measure.
Is it safe to conclude the collapsing oil price is a great source of economic stimulus in countries where most everyone drives a car, such as the U.S.?
Not so much in oil exporters like Norway, Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada or Mexico…
The San Diego Union Tribune
Business
Energy & Green
Drowning in oil
Soaring crude output, plunging gas prices produce windfall for consumers, but what about the economy?
By Dan McSwain | 5:57 p.m.
Jan. 23, 2016
A natural gas flare on an oil well pad burns as the sun sets outside Watford City, N.D. Jan. 21, 2016. Persistent low oil prices have lead to slower business in much of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. The collapse of U.S. oil and gas investment could have further to fall and Americans are showing signs of spending less of their windfall from lower gasoline prices than in the past, darkening the outlook for the U.S. economy.
ANDREW CULLEN
The price of oil just keeps on crashing, leaving consumers around the world with trillions of extra dollars to spend.
Economic boom to follow, right? Not so fast.
Even as oil nears historic depths, stock markets are staggering, defaults are rising and key policymakers around the world seem either confused or incompetent. Uncertainty, that age-old bane of new investment, increases by the day.
We may be heading into the first global recession triggered by an oil depression, and it’s not at all clear the U.S. will escape, said economist Donald Luskin in a recent Wall Street Journal essay.
Luskin backed his argument with a truckload of scary statistics, ranging from falling trade and manufacturing activity to crumbling markets for high-yield bonds and skyrocketing debt loads in developing nations.
If he’s right, this time truly would be different. It was soaring oil prices — not cheaper crude — that precipitated three recessions since 1970.
The hard part is separating cause from effect.
“I think Luskin has the causation backward,” said UC San Diego economist James Hamilton, an expert on oil markets and the macroeconomy. “It’s slowing world GDP growth (particularly in China) that is causing oil prices to fall, not falling oil prices that are causing GDP to fall.”
Hamilton notes that the U.S. is still a net importer of oil, so the overall savings to consumers more than offset the pain among domestic producers. Job growth has been robust lately. Consumer spending has been resilient.
So Hamilton and many other experts aren’t predicting an impending U.S. recession. They do worry that slowdowns in developing nations, especially China, have raised risks of contagion, mostly because their collective economies have grown into a much bigger share of global output than they had in previous downturns.
…
Sorry about the bad link. If you click it, hopefully you can access the source article. It’s long but well worth reading. Here’s a snippet from a later part of the article:
“Confidence slips in China
And practically nobody believes the government statistics. Economist Robert Barbara notes that flat electricity production and drop-offs in rail shipments in 2015 far exceeded the retrenchments seen at the depths of the Great Recession.
During that global crisis, China responded with history’s biggest debt-fueled infrastructure boom.
Here’s my favorite mind-blowing statistic, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey and International Cement Review: In just three years starting with 2011, China consumed 6.4 billion metric tons of cement — nearly 50 percent more than the U.S. used in the entire 20th century, which included construction of the Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system.
An economic hangover seems inevitable. China’s debt stands at $25 trillion, more than 240 percent of its total economy, The Economist magazine calculates.
Slowdown magnifies the problem as companies struggle to make debt payments. Similarly, employers in Brazil and other emerging economies that borrowed in dollars are being pinched by the rising value of the U.S. currency.
It’s no surprise that volatility has returned to stock exchanges. More baffling is why a crash on the Shanghai exchange, which trades in relatively small firms and almost none of the big Chinese national conglomerates, should seem to spook markets in London and New York.
…”
link?
Click anywhere in the article where I first posted it (I must have screwed up the punctuation on the html for the link, as it never closed). Note to self: html and cell phone posting don’t mix!
Or click here.
Hillary’s bribes
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2015/08/Hillary%20Clinton%20Speeches%202013-2015_1.jpg
Look, Sarah Palin!
You can get away with so much more when you just shut your fool mouth.
Is the current crop of presidential hopefuls the answer to comedians’ prayers?
Palin Endorsement Cold Open - SNL
Published on Jan 24, 2016
Sarah Palin (Tina Fey) endorses Donald Trump (Darrell Hammond) for president at an Iowa campaign stop.
Republican party is getting what they deserve….IMO, Jeb’s poor showing has little to do with Jeb and everything to do with his brother….Jeb is paying the price for his brother running this country into a ditch…
So you guys deserve Hillary, then?
Nobody deserves Hillary… And trump will inflict her on all of us.
It’s pretty funny how the Trumplings who post here pretend they aren’t secretly trying to get Hillary elected.
Like Bush is an upgrade to Hillary? Or is it Cruz?
Oh, it has to be Rubio, right?
Actually it’s the other way around, the cryptoHillary crowd here will never criticize her or say a single thing bad about her. That’s how you know them.
Here I’ll go first. Hillary is a corrupt, venal, crooked, incompetent liar with no moral center, no moral fiber and a terrible track record at everything she has done. Trump is a 1000x better than her.
Your turn.
Hillaryous is unelectable.
Feel the Bern!
You had it nailed until that last line.
Sanity is within reach…
The main purpose of Trump’s candidacy is to help Hillary Clinton get elected.
Not a single pineapple has criticized Hillary. For the pineapple self identification see above (except Lola who is locked up).
Lola’s back in the RageCage. lol@Lola.
“Not a single pineapple has criticized Hillary.”
The fact that other posters ignored your idiotic suggestion proves nothing.
It proves the Hillarybots won’t criticize Hillary. It’s real easy and you have been challenged to do it multiple times. Each time punked. That’s all the proof I need you are for Cankles along with the other pineapples.
“It proves the Hillarybots won’t criticize Hillary.”
Saying this proves that you are a moron.
Princess Sarah’s return sure has been.
Barney Saunders is pro debt slavery.
Here’s a time-lapse satellite view of the blizzard …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=467toW0yei4
Ooooops … Go here instead …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/24/amazing-time-lapse-of-blizzard2016/
Was there a lightly-reported bank run last week in Italy?
Italy bank runs could be the ‘Northern Rock’ signal of global financial meltdown
January 23, 2016 12:43 PM MST
Depositors waiting for bank to open
Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images
On Jan. 21, the oldest surviving bank in the world, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, reported that depositors have been initiating a series of bank runs which have put the financial institution on the precipice of collapse, with all attempts to calm account holders having so far failed.
In fact, since last Monday the share price of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA has fallen over 46%, while overall stock markets around the world have experienced a 15-30% drop since the start of the new year.
Back in 2007, bank runs on the British financial institution known as Northern Rock ushered in the start of the global financial crisis that culminated in a collapse that would require taxpayer bailouts, and tens of trillions in central bank liquidity. And while we have seen a number of similar runs since that time in country’s like Cyprus and Greece, none of these occurred at a time when the entire financial system was in as dire straits as we have right now in several economies around the world.
…
What would it take for people to lose confidence in a currency?
I the only answer hyperinflation?
Or about to lose an existential war.
Un-possible! Draghi assured us he would do “whatever it takes” to print away any and all bankster insolvencies. And the Fed has assured us that the Eurozone crisis was “contained.”
Don’t forget how subprime was also contained…to $200 bn, if memory serves.
Only “fringe” blogs are reporting bank runs in Italy, so they can’t possibly be occurring…CNBC and the rest of the mainstream financial media would never leave us in the dark about such an important development.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/a-run-on-the-banks-begins-in-italy-as-italian-banking-stocks-collapse
there was a local gas station with 1.99 gas and the pumps were swamped. kitty corner was a chevron with gas @ 2.59 and the pumps were totally empty. Across the freeway about 1000′ an arco was busy with gas at 2.19.
people are so desperate to save a buck they will wait inline 15 minutes to save a couple bucks on gas.
1.97 in NY. No lines anywhere.
1.72 Palm Beach Gardens Fl. no lines
1.58 in Longmont, CO; no lines either
When you make 30 bucks an hour, that’s not a bad roi for sitting.
Russ you’re the paradox. An empty-pocketed snob.
I used to feel bad for people like you… but now I get a great deal of amusement in rubbing your smug little faces in your failure. I’ve been on both sides… grew up in a big rectangular state and had had the wherewithal to get myself out. When I go back to visit, I see the failure I could have been waddling around Walmart, trying to fill up my empty life with Chinese crap, and bitching about my betters.
The only reason you have betters is because you’re such an abysmal failure. The bar is so low that it’s easy to get to the top of the heap. You can blame others and resent your pathetic lot in life, or you can get up off your fat butt and try and improve your life.
Russ,
Why all the anger?
Why all the anger?
Trump voters? Angry old white men only know anger.
I thought Russ might be a Trump fan.
Good for you Russ.
“Trump voters? Angry old white men only know anger.”
That statement is seething with anger.
You’re right, Russ is filled with rage.
Careful though. Sometimes they try to sucker you over with a “cash price” and use of a debit card will cost you more than the corner sign price.
Welcome to Costco. Not just waiting, they are on their smart phone….
Money. Vacate the Fed.
1 hour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTfkpEkSXk4&feature=youtu.be
“QE is like a roach motel, once your in you cant get out.” P. schiff
But there’s a great roach party at first!
Tom Brady is a looser.
Region VIII
The Patriots look deflated.
They couldn’t tuck it away.
Like someone had spied on their playbook.
These are the days of our Region.
Cam Newton will exit the Souper Bowl in an ambulance.
Region VIII
Hand-egg?
Will China’s cental bankers be the first to say no to moar stimulus to avoid further debasing their currency? B…b…but what will prop up our asset bubbles and Ponzi markets?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-24/leaked-document-reveals-why-china-will-not-roll-out-any-major-monetary-stimulus
CENTRAL BANKS OWN THESE MARKETS.
Pottery Barn rules:
You break it, you bought it.
Corrupt Democrat-run municipalities and Banana Republics like Puerto Rico always under-invest in infrastructure since the priority is on paying the Free Sh*tters to mark D on Election Day in exchange for never-ending entitlements, and running various “programs” that are little more than vehicles for patronage and graft for Democrat activists. So now, surprise surprise, the lights are about to go out - although a bailout is assured since the biggest and most corrupt Democrat regime of all, the Obama administration, is not about to let their junior partners go down the drain.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-24/here-come-blackouts-largest-ever-muni-restructuring-falls-apart-puerto-ricos-power-a
I’ll take a bailout of public utilities over a bail out of banks and trillion dollar wars any day. Why is this a problem of under investment. It sounds like they can’t pay the debt. Why is it an underinvestment problem?
U.S. Enlisted military, former and current, pledge to prevent Adolph Trump from evicting Muslims.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-22/us-military-members-support-young-muslims-on-social-media/7047228
Perhaps you concur that if elected, Trump could easily escalate his campaign proposal to deny Muslims entry to the U.S. into a policy to deport or inter all Muslims.
Only if Dems allow it. Will you?
Yes.
you guys make me laugh with all this trump nonsense.
They have to resort to lies to calm their fears. Their side is collapsing and getting ready to nominate either a criminal or a socialist.
Trump shills who secretly work for the Clinton campaign, raise your hands high.
Your logic is astounding. Yes people who shill for Hillary call her all sorts of terrible things and those who won’t even when challenged are not the shills. Hillary is awful. See there I am shilling for her again.
Your continual bloviating pretension will be even better once Trump sweeps in the next couple of weeks. At least there will be an objective winner to this question. Can’t wait to hear your rationalizing then.
Being opposed to Trump means being in favor of Hillary or Sanders?
Fifth grade logic.
“Your logic is astounding.”
You are lying about being a blue collar dude.
“Fifth grade logic.”
Par for the course for a pretend blue collar dude.
Every US soldier took an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The rights of US citizens, including Muslim Americans, are very explicitly spelled out in a much-trampled and nearly forgotten document called the Bill of Rights, as well as the DUTY of American military personnel to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Too many big words in the constitution. Those founding father guys were all fancy and effete. Luckily shotgun Jesus delivered a scratch and sniff constitution that Real Americans can understand!
Tell it to the abused cadets at the air force academy in Colorado Springs who were pressured to become born again.
I don’t like losers.
Will you dislike yourself in case you don’t win the election this November?
If the Hillary is so bad, why can’t the dems stop her? They got options, right?
Same goes for Republicans. If they don’t view Trump as a worthy representative of their party, aren’t there ways to nominate someone else?
No, there is not. The Establishment GOP has been captured by oligarchs who ensure only their co-opted creatures like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio are annointed as candidates, while candidates who would truly represent the interests of rank and file Republicans - which are diametrically opposed to those of the .1% that has usurped and subverted the GOP - have no chance of being selected for any real leadership position. Witness the replacement of the puppet John Boehner with the stooge Paul Ryan. The Republican base has only one option left to it: give the Establishment GOP the finger by either voting for Trump, or voting for a write-in candidate.
The same is true on the Dem side. Seriously what Dem would support TPP, NAFTA. Very few.
“Well, since it is now common knowledge that it is all about central bank and rigged markets, the next logical step is to predict what happens to markets when looking at “asset prices” from a purely central bank liquidity standpoint, aka the Austrian money flow perspective.
And while for the longest time many, including us, were focused on DM central banks, over the past year a new market participant emerged: Emerging Markets, whose $7 trillion in reserve assets had become a source of reverse liquidity, or “quantitative tightening” as dubbed here over the summer, as numerous nations have been forced to liquidate USD-denominated assets to compensate for the loss of trade exports and oil revenue in the aftermath of the death of the Petrodollar which initially was noticed on this site alone and subsequently everywhere else.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-24/one-chart-which-explains-why-markets-are-all-falling-down
“As Credit Suisse notes, “oil exporting countries hold about $1.7trn of official reserves but as much as $4.3trn in sovereign wealth fund assets.” And while the composition of the SWF asset pool is likely to be far more multifarious than the makeup of official FX reserves making it more difficult to assess i) how quickly they could be liquidated in a pinch, and ii) what effect that liquidation would have on USD assets, especially USTs, the important point is that if we have indeed entered a new era in which crude and commodities are destined to trade at comparatively depressed levels, the pressure on exporters to adapt to the new reality could force them to begin drawing down the vast store of SWF assets. Thus, if one wants to understand how large the petrodollar unwind could potentially be in the worst case scenario, it’s important to take stock of SWF assets. ”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-30/71-trillion-global-sovereign-wealth-fund-assets-infographic
lol@lola
http://goo.gl/vvho45
Imagine if you will….
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/01/24/imagine-if-you-will-2/
True. And further, imagine the former libertarians laughing off warnings about another bombastic arrogant chameleon, the likes last seen in the 1920s in Germany.
Did Trump ever go to art school?
The sheeple of Michigan are getting the government they voted for.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rick-snyder-flint-water-crisis-2016-1
the Kinks — Got To Be Free:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7qChiEGugE
Is anyone keeping tabs on the news out of Davos?
Updated: January 25, 2016 00:19 IST
Sobering reflection from Davos
DOW to Drop 80% in 2016 - 80% Stock Market Crash to Strike in 2016, Economist Warns
China’s stock market turbulence and the impact its growth slowdown is having on the global economy were dominant themes last week at the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos. And as the four-day gathering of international finance and corporate captains, government policymakers and central bankers wound down on Saturday, the jury was still out on whether China is headed for a hard landing or is in control of its transition. That China and its fortunes have come to dominate discussions is testimony to the extent to which its companies and manufacturing industry have integrated with the rest of the world, as well as to the increased international concern over the perceived opacity of the country’s banking and financial sector’s real levels of indebtedness. This was perhaps best reflected in International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde’s exhortation that financial markets need more “clarity and certainty” about China’s management of the yuan’s exchange rate, especially with reference to the U.S. dollar. A modeling study done by Oxford Economics posits that a 10 per cent decline in the value of the Chinese currency against the dollar by the third quarter of 2016 — if accompanied by resultant competitive devaluations among emerging market peers — could roil economies and markets worldwide, with the eurozone and Japan projected to be the hardest hit. The domino effect could retard global growth by 0.2 per cent and hurt countries including the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India. Interestingly though, the same study projects that China would have little to show by way of gains from the yuan’s weakness, lending credence to the Chinese authorities’ assertions that they are not interested in engendering a scenario of competitive devaluations. Still, that second-order effects of what happens in China will be hard to hazard a guess about has already been proven by the recent volatility seen in markets worldwide. And the brave words of regulators notwithstanding, central bankers are running out of ammunition. As Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said, monetary easing may have run its course and reached the limits of efficacy as a policy tool.
…
Populism
Trump Is Losing the Davos Primary Among His Fellow Billionaires
Matthew Campbell
Jacqueline Simmons
Simon Kennedy
January 20, 2016 — 8:14 AM PST
Schwarzman: Sanders Almost More Stunning Than GOP Primary
The collapsing center of U.S. politics poses a growing threat to global business, according to Davos delegates who say they’re watching anxiously as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders ride a populist wave in the presidential election.
“Trump is right now busy chasing the Mexicans,” T.K. Kurien, the chief executive officer of Indian information-technology services firm Wipro Ltd., said in an interview at the Swiss mountain resort, where the World Economic Forum meets this week. “But after he finishes with the Mexican story, I am pretty sure he’ll train his guns on us.”
Wipro gets about half its revenue from the U.S., much of it from outsourcing for large companies. Kurien said he’d be equally concerned if Vermont senator Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist seeking the Democratic nomination on a platform of reining in corporate power, were to win the presidency in November.
The turbulent American election season is near the top of a long list of concerns weighing on the 2,500 corporate executives, political leaders, and financiers at this year’s gathering in Davos. With less than two weeks before voting in primaries gets under way, Trump has led the Republican field for months, while polls show Sanders is catching up with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Wrong Revolution
As usual, Trump is grabbing the most attention, even though the real-estate magnate’s blond mop and booming voice aren’t among the sights and sounds in Davos this year. His dominance of the race for the Republican nomination has attendees fretting that appeals to xenophobia and protectionism are taking hold in the world’s largest economy.
Trump has endorsed a “temporary” ban on Muslims entering the country and the building of a wall on the Mexican border. He rails at the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas competitors, and on Tuesday said that as president he would “get Apple to start building their damn computers and things” in the U.S., instead of China.
While political change is essential, Trump is offering the wrong kind, according to BlackRock Inc. founder Larry Fink.
“For those constantly focused on re-election and nothing more, we need a revolution,” Fink, a major donor to past Democratic Party campaigns, said Wednesday in Davos. “Unfortunately, now the revolution may be Donald Trump.”
‘Amount of Anger’
If Trump has grabbed the most headlines, the rise of Sanders is “almost more stunning,” according to Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone Group LP. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote, the Vermont senator is running neck-and-neck with Clinton or ahead of her, according to recent polls.
“What’s remarkable is the amount of anger, whether it’s on the Republican side or the Democratic side,” Schwarzman told Bloomberg Television in Davos.
Anti-establishment candidates are making inroads because “Middle America has lost faith in the economy,” said Tim Adams, head of the Institute of International Finance, and a U.S. Treasury official under the George W. Bush administration. That “leads people to extreme options and outcomes.”
…
Could it possibly be that neither Democrat nor Republican voters generally are looking forward to another eight years with the Clintons occupying the White House?
Dynasties are unamerican. Bush II was punishment for ignoring that.
If the GOP had the stones to back Rand, there is no way Hillary could win.
Good point. But they lack those stones.
The Pauls might get in the way of their wallets.
Are Chinese financial authorities trying to bail out the stock market after 40%+ losses merely reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic?
BloombergBusiness
China’s Intervention Vow Seen Making Stocks Even Less Attractive
Kyoungwha Kim and Kana Nishizawa
January 22, 2016 — 12:06 AM PST
A customer pays for gold at the Jin Hua Heng gold shop in Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. Like the rest of Asia, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the worlds gold buying, the people of Thailand are snapping up necklaces, bracelets and ingots at the start of the year, adding to demand from Western investors who are buying bullion as a haven from financial turmoil.
Photographer: Dario Pignatelli/Bloomberg
The last thing China’s stock market needs is more meddling by the state.
That’s the view of Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd., who say the government’s latest pledge to control speculators will only make matters worse.
China is willing to keep intervening in the stock market to ensure a few speculators don’t benefit at the expense of regular investors, the nation’s Vice President Li Yuanchao said in an interview on Thursday.
Increased intervention is undermining government pledges to move to a more market-based economy, while the perception by some foreign investors that policy makers are mishandling the volatility in financial markets is heightening concern that the deepest economic slowdown since 1990 will worsen. An unprecedented rescue campaign by the government to shore up stocks failed to prevent the Shanghai Composite Index from falling into a bear market last week for the second time in seven months.
“The more they do, the less credibility there is,” said Nicholas Yeo, Hong Kong-based head of Chinese equities at Aberdeen Asset Management, which oversees about $430 billion. “You have to allow the market to find a bottom and recover from there, whether it’s a currency or stocks. They might even increase speculation interest if they don’t allow the market to be a market.”
…
China Bears Descend on Alibaba as Investors Fret About Economy
Bonnie Cao
January 24, 2016 — 8:00 AM PST
Updated on January 24, 2016 — 2:42 PM PST
Short interest in Alibaba surge to highest in 14 months
Shares fall 13% in 2016; China GDP at slowest in 25 years
U.S. short sellers have pushed bets against Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to the highest in more than 14 months on concern that China’s deepest economic slowdown since 1990 will only get worse.
Short interest in China’s biggest online retailer surged to 7.5 percent of shares outstanding on Jan. 21, the highest since November 2014, according to data compiled by Markit and Bloomberg. That is more than double from a Dec. 1 low. Bearish bets on rival JD.com Inc.have hovered around 2 percent since last month.
Pessimists are once again taking aim at Alibaba — a bellwether for U.S. investor sentiment on China — as mainland stocks entered a bear market last week. Those wagers are already starting to pay off as a selloff since the start of the year sent the American depositary receipts of Alibaba down more than 13 percent.
Investors see Alibaba as a stock that reflects the state of the Chinese economy, said Henry Guo, a San Francisco-based analyst at Summit Research Partners LLC., who has a buy rating on the stock. “With China’s economic outlook worsening, that’s just an easy way for people to have short China exposure.”
China’s top leadership has signaled it may accommodate more economic slackness as officials tackle delicate tasks such as reducing excess capacity. The world’s second-largest economy will slow to 6.5 percent this year and 6.3 percent next year, according to the median of economist estimates.
…
Davos Debate on China’s Economy: Bloomberg Special
5:50 PM PST
January 22, 2016
Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua moderates a discussion about where the Chinese economy is heading from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Panelists include Christine Lagarde of the IMF, Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, Soho China CEO Zhang Xin, CSRC Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai and Jiang Jianqing of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. (Source: Bloomberg)
I listened to a bit of the Davos panel discussion of China’s issues. (It is 54 minutes long, so would keep me up past my bedtime to listen to the entirety of the discussion.)
Missing from the opening panelist’s list of China concerns:
- Massive overcapacity due to a recent building boom the likes of which the planet has never previously witnessed
- Drastic collapse in import demand for industrial commodities demand sending commodities export nation economies down the toilet
90% Chance of a ‘Bumpy Landing’ in China: Xingtai Capital
4:49 PM PST
January 24, 2016
Michelle Leung, founder and chief executive officer at Xingtai Capital Management, discusses her outlook for China’s economy. She speaks to Bloomberg’s Angie Lau on “First Up.”
(Source: Bloomberg)
dailycaller.com/…/300-scientists-want-noaa-to-stop-hiding-its-global-warming-data/ - 131k -