OT, but scary - the house 3 away from mine just caught on fire. There are still 3 or 4 fire engines in front of our house. I looked it up in the county records, and it was last purchased for roughly 150k more than current market value, in 2007.
In case you were waiting for lower gas costs to hoard a few gallons,
heard from a small engine (lawnmower,
tillers, weed whackers, etc) repair guy that the 10% ethanol gas has a shelf life of about a month even with
preservative additive in it.
Maybe better budget for replacing fuel system line and components if your car/truck is a pre-2007 model.
Anoddamoose writes:
Cheaper gas just in time for my road trip to Vegas. Got lucky.
Anoddamoose | 11.19.08 - 9:32 pm | #
If gas gets cheap enough I might rent a RV and go see the Grand Canyon with the wife and kid this spring. I bet I could get a good deal on a RV rental! Gas would have to go to like a $1.30 a gallon. You never know.
OT, but scary - the house 3 away from mine just caught on fire. There are still 3 or 4 fire engines in front of our house. I looked it up in the county records, and it was last purchased for roughly 150k more than current market value, in 2007.
Serious stuff.
Jason
Serious stuff if you live in a condo, or if you 5,000sq ft house on a 1/3 acre is 5 feet from the property line (to your neighbor who's also 5 ft from the line.)
maybe everything thats reported is real, and maybe the FED is buying down the long end of the treasury curve through trillions of derivatives curently parked at GS.
hell, at this point, Im open to any alternative suggestions for how more pain can be created.
for all I know, Elvis is alive and living in your basement.
I have heard from too many people going for a drive, just because they felt like it. Too many people selling the commuter cars they bought, so that they could spend more time in their F350. They'll offset the newly jobless sooner rather than later.
Look at historical gas prices, they've never fallen so quickly or so much in history. This is one V shaped rebound that will happe
OT: Seriously, what is up with the bond market...deflation???
Me thinks the FED is runnin' up the flag pole to bring the flag down. Got 3/4 of a trillion to finance here shortly.
I usually put about 7K miles on my car a year. This past year I put 2K less because I used my Delta frequent flyer miles to fly my wife to the condo in FL twice.
It was worth it because they were going to expire anyway and round trip was going to cost me $200 (x2 $400$) in gas and 18 hours in driving.
crack swap still negative by over 6bucks...
i'm really happy that i have'nt stepped in on that one.
Gas should be coming in REAL cheap by xmas, around 1.50-60
Gas prices could be the one and only thing that will rescue Christmas sales. This is leaving a lot of extra cash in the pockets of all Americans....what better than to blow it on christmas gifts??
I've filled the gas tank of my M3 4x since Sunday. 2 of those tanks were drained lapping VIR, the other two getting there and back - a worthy use of hydrocarbons if ever there was one. Nice to fill up with 93 octane at $2.05.
By the way, I read somewhere that every gallon of gas burned puts 19 POUNDS of pollutants in the atmosphere. Hard to believe. Something to do with one carbon atom combining with two oxygen atoms. Go figure.
Didn't say it will work - 'work' defined as get us out of this mess at least as wealthy in real stuff & services as we went in - just sayin' that's what they are going to do & my guess both V & M will eventually be 'forced' up... not pretty & not saying Q will improve... P far more likely to go up a lot instead.
My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Gold is only a small part of Schiff's "strategy", because his commisionsions are less on those. His main thing is buying foreign stocks.
No kidding. Or the targets could start carrying weapons themselves. Nothing like a few 50 cals to deal with the problem.
Captain Fish (Paper Pusher) | 11.19.08 - 10:20 pm | #
Read an article about the pirates in the Straits of Malacca - most are 'inside jobs' - meaning somebody on board the ship tips off the pirates when it is safest & how to get aboard around the 'defenses'. Cellphones make it pretty easy.
Lastly the pirates RARELY hurt the crew (sometimes off the 'officers') so what is the incentive for a poor Filipino grunt to get in a shoot out w/ the risk of getting killed for somebody else's fortune?
Sort of like privatizing the army - works great until somebody starts shooting.
I think gold will come back to $1,000-$1,500. I only own a little but its going to come back IMO. I dont know where you bought in but its kind of like insurance. You hate to pay for it but if you need it its nice to have.
I am down on my gold, and have no complaints about it.
My problem is that Schiff is a fraud and a salesman. Lot of people have been hurt by this guy and he will continue to hurt people as long as he is allowed to be a broker. This guy would be happy to invest in anything as long as he makes his 3% commission and plays with his u.s dollar propaganda.
Randolph Duke: Exactly why do you think the price of pork bellies is going to keep going down, William?
Billy Ray Valentine: Okay, pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody is waiting for it to hit rock bottom, so they can buy low. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are saying, "Hey, we're losing all our damn money, and Christmas is around the corner, and I ain't gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip! And my wife ain't gonna f... my wife ain't gonna make love to me if I got no money!" So they're panicking right now, they're screaming "SELL! SELL!" to get out before the price keeps dropping. They're panicking out there right now, I can feel it.
Sink the boat and kill everyone on it. Yes it would suck and it would be a huge environmental disaster however it would be the first time and the last time it ever happened.
I;m thinking this is yet another excuse that Bushco can use to have another "incident"
Still think they should nuke it and get it over with.
My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Gold is only a small part of Schiff's "strategy", because his commisionsions are less on those. His main thing is buying foreign stocks."
I listened to him at a conference once and thought he was almost incoherent. yes, he made a clear case about the moentary and fiscal stupidity of government and citizens, but his investment analysis was unintelligible. Every broken clock is right twice a day. (Tired saying but true).
Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone. He really thought the US would decouple from the rest of the world. The way he invests is a poor stragegy based on stock dividends producing cashflow as if they are like bank deposits.
I think he means minocs(sp), which were the bat like creatures who attached themselves to the power cables of the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back.
"My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?"
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Peter Schiff relentlessly pumped emerging markets, commodities, and non-US currencies based on the decoupling and hyperinflation hypothesis.
I've you've been concentrated in these areas recently you've been crushed. You'd have done much better with US stocks, bonds, and dollars - the very things Schiff has been most bearish on.
IMO Peter is a very smart guy, but his problem is that he's a salesman - his job is ultimately to get you to buy the gold and foreign assets his company deals in.
This sort of "salesman syndrome" where somebody is smart about everything except the stuff they get paid to sell seems pretty much universal to me.
Personally I think the most important thing is to look for somebody who doesn't really have a vested interest in what's bought or sold when judging somebody's advice. So far that strategy has worked out pretty well for me.
OT... but for the person talking about treasuries and the yield curve earlier. I decided to look into this a little bit. The other day I was sitting at my desk and a random memory popped into my head about the yield curve inverting a year and a half ago. Anyhow... I should have taken that sign a little more seriously as you can see in the charts:
Reuters Breaking News
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said to be President-elect Obama's top choice for Homeland Security post: report
Businesswoman Penny Pritzker is President-elect Obama's pick for Commerce Secretary: report 10:18pm EST
means nothing to me,
As for GM. $103bn in long term liabilities. -$60bn in equity. On the upside, their debt is trading around 30¢/$, so you could buy a strong company if you have $50bn assuming they could buy the debt with that average price
"Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone."
Really? Have you ever interated with him in person at one of his conferences? Did you have a chance to talk to his brokers (salespeople) at his brokerage? Did you lose your shirt (and pants) investing with him?
I was at one of his conferences and it was kind of surreal. A guy was complaining about his life savings and schiff was urging him to buy his book. I wanted to throw the stupid book in his face.
Mr. Sparkle
this time last year, the whole of the Australian curve was inverted, a minor inversion in the US treasuries is not a complete disaster, unless the short end gets involved real serious like.
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
Anonymous writes:
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
Dems want to set up the companies for takeover by foreign investors?
Anonymous(Unrated) writes:
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
Anonymous | 11.19.08 - 10:53 pm | #
Peter Schiff SUCKS writes:
Ministry of Truth writes:
"Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone."
Really? Have you ever interated with him in person at one of his conferences? Did you have a chance to talk to his brokers (salespeople) at his brokerage? Did you lose your shirt (and pants) investing with him?
Yes I have talked with him one on one several times. I have no idea who is brokers are and I really don't care since they are the true sales people as you mention. No, I did not lose my shirt investing with him because I handle my own investments.
I don't know much at all about bonds so I'll take your word that it was relatively minor (about 50 bps).
Still, when the curve gets inverted (which doesn't happen often from what I've seen) - bad stuff seems to follow in next 6-12 months in economy. At any rate, I think the chart is interesting in itself.
"Seriously, what is up with the bond market...deflation???"
I remember trading US bond futures at 56 in the 1980s inflation. Last 3 days govt bonds are starting to discount a major business collapse, and I agree.
Liposuction is not a good tool for tightening the skin. The removal of quantities of fat from under the skin can leave the skin even more loose. When drooping skin and fat are the issue, then lift such as a rhytidectomy (facelift), mastopexy (breast lift), abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), or lower body lift, thigh lift, or buttock lift are better tools and may include liposuction during surgery to refine the sculpture.
Peter Schiff is the same con artist that ruled Wall Street for the past 15 years. No difference. He's a for-profit guy, simple as that. He makes $ on both sides of the deal, whatever he recommends about a new gig, he get's upfront $ and then through his clients. Anybody thinks here that something is for free? get real...but the Detroit 3 flying in on corporate jets think they get a free deal...
dryfly,
Well removing stipulations of the existing $25bn loan (which has not been disbursed) would qualify all the other companies (Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, .... all with plants in the south) because the only ones that had vehicles planned to meet the targets in time are GM, Chrysler, and maybe Ford
So it's more of a North/South thing than anything else
I remember trading US bond futures at 56 in the 1980s inflation. Last 3 days govt bonds are starting to discount a major business collapse, and I agree.
peAkcredit | 11.19.08 - 10:58 pm | #
I sense it - freaking awful if it is half as bad as my nightmares imagine it to be. The last thing we'll be worrying about is 'trading the market' if it happens.
NAVSPECWARCOM writes:
Peter Schiff is the same con artist that ruled Wall Street for the past 15 years.
They're all fucking car salesman. If you think PM is the way to go, go talk to the PM guy who will reinforce your thoughts, stocks, bonds, commodities the same way. A Chevy dealership won't sell you a Ford
Corporate default rates are near historic lows, and that means "pretty slim pickings" in the debt areas traditionally traveled by hedge funds, says Prof. Edward Altman, a debt expert with New York University's Stern School of Business. But at the same time, many companies want to retire higher-yielding bonds, make acquisitions, or shore up operating funds without giving up more equity to do it. With banks shedding some of their corporate loans and becoming tighter in their lending, yield-hungry hedge funds have rushed in to exploit other areas of the debt market.
qualify all the other companies (Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, .... all with plants in the south) because the only ones that had vehicles planned to meet the targets in time are GM, Chrysler, and maybe Ford
I don't know. Hard, hard sell US taxpayer money going to Honda, Nissan, etc.
Maybe but why do the Repubs want to hand them a check with no conditions?
Anonymous | 11.19.08 - 11:01 pm | #
Who controls the purse strings? Unions or mgmt? Where would the money go? Who benefits?
If my constituency was senior mgmt, equity & bond holding class - I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep worrying about giving them 'patronage'.
If my constituency were the workers working for those receiving the patronage - I'd want stipulations up the wazoo to make sure at least some of that patronage got through to my constituency.
Dryfly - some friends of ours had a CD/money-market at WaMu for their house down-payment funds. (They closed about 7 days before WaMu went under.)
Whenever the wife would send me a question about the house purchase process, I'd always throw in funny jokes and news about banks and WaMu in particular. (Like the "Ask Us about FDIC insurance" board picture.) Then one day she asked, "Why no funny bank news?" At that point I just said, "It's not funny anymore - it's scary."
Did you see FT article about how yen plays were contributing to negative/low interest rate swap spreads? Just when you think this market could not get any more bizarre....
From 2005: Even issuers in the very low Caa rating category have been able to issue debt (last year, nearly 16% of all new speculative grade issuers were rated in the Caa-C range).
In previous cycles, defaults have escalated two years to five years after record high levels of debt issuance. Indeed, the high level of junk bond debt issued in 1996-98--the majority within the telecom sector--unwound itself in the 2000-02 period. The last of the large bankruptcies having been settled, a new wave of debt issuance began in 2003 allowing companies from shaky industries such as automakers, real estate, energy and even airlines to issue high volumes of public debt either to refinance existing obligations or in the form of "rescue financings." Eager investors with an appetite for risk bought up the bond issues. It is precisely these sectors that are most likely to experience difficulties in 2005-06.
Just as investors in public bond markets were eager for paper, banks were keen to cater to both their investor and issuer clients. As a result, most leveraged finance transactions in the latter 2003-04 period featured second lien loans. Second in the capital structure, these tranches are secured--holders of second lien paper will share collateral with first lien holders in case of bankruptcy--yet offer higher spreads than first lien loans.
Old habits die hard and old dogs do the same tricks over and over:
Bankers insist that their loans are ''well protected,'' whatever other defaults may occur. While loans to junk issuers are not generally secured by specific collateral, banks almost always have first claim on a company's assets in the event it goes bankrupt and has to liquidate. The bankers also fill their loan agreements with myriad covenants that give them the right to step in if a borrower starts getting sickly. ''I've done deals where I knew my loan could be repaid no matter what kind of trouble the company eventually got into,'' says a top executive at a major New York bank. As for the bondholders, % he adds, ''I wasn't so sure they'd see their money back in a bankruptcy situation.'' For taking that extra risk, of course, junk bond investors earn a higher rate of interest than the banks do on their loans. There is little indication that banks will want out of the market any time soon. First Chicago, Drexel's lead bank, did catch the junk bond jitters shortly after the Boesky affair broke, telling Drexel that it would no longer accept junk securities as collateral for short-term loans to the same extent it once had.
There's going to be an absolute mountain of Treasuries on the market,'' said Rob da Silva, managing director of Asia- Pacific fixed income at Principal Global Investors in Sydney. The securities areexpensive,'' he said.
Two-year notes, among the most sensitive to changes in borrowing costs because of their short maturities, yielded 1.08 percent. The record low was 1.0558 percent in 2003.
Demand for the security of short-term government debt pushed three-month bill yields to 0.06 percent, near the lowest since World War II.
Record additions of liquidity have driven the overnight lending rate between banks to less than half the 1 percent target set by Fed officials last month. The gap is shifting investors' focus toward the amount of money in the banking system, eclipsing the central bank's benchmark interest rate as the most important signal of monetary policy.
Well, let's hope for fellow mankind that Schiff continues to be wrong.
2. The easy money has been made in Short-ETF's.
He was early, not wrong. The easy money over the next year or so, starting soon, will be in selected commodities and PMs. Where else are longs gonna go?
The hits keep on coming at Citigroup. The firms stock is now trading at $6.40, a 24% drop in six and one-half hours of trading Wednesday. Heres a by-the-numbers look at the latest goings-on at the bank
I think the bear will continue at least for the next week, although maybe not as strong as today.
Theress an imbalance in the market now between convicted sellers and buyers. Nobody has much conviction left to buy this market. But a lot of people must sell.
They include pension funds, endowments, mutual funds, variable annuities and hedge funds.
Part of the problem is that widely touted "bottom" has not held. That has destroyed confidence, and very few "experts" are now willing to call a new bottom.
How would you like to be the manager of a hedge fund that has to raise $200 million over the next 20 days to meet redemptions? Every morning, you wake up knowing you have to sell $10 million into this market. No choice. You become the market's chump.
It just seems like the Pump House Gang has died and gone away.
Gasoline is $1.43/gal in Kansas, so it really fell off a cliff. This deflation appears to be worse than it was during the Great Depression, and it could get worse as people tighten spending more.
WILMINGTON, N.C. Five sheriff's deputies will be disciplined after they used a Taser while serving an arrest warrant on a man at his father's funeral, a North Carolina sheriff said Wednesday.
Gladwyn Taft Russ III was serving as a pallbearer at the Saturday service and was loading his father's casket into a hearse when the undercover deputies approached him.
Relatives said two deputies dressed in coats and ties grabbed Russ and kneed him in his back before using a Taser on him. One deputy's gun fell out of its holster
Today, at 9CT, the Tbond future was below 121, and the EUR = 1.28 USD. At 4CT, the future was 123, and the EUR = 1.25 USD.
Those kind of moves, in absolute magnitude, are both 3+ daily sigmas, but, more importantly, the USD should not, in normal times, strengthen as the US yield curve flattens.
The only thing that can explain today is capital movement into USD, and then, into high duration, low risk USD, which is a bet on continuing fall in the long end of the curve.
Of course, none of that explains the USD/JPY; JPY continues to strengthen in early morning Asia.
hank to kashnkarry: tarpy wants to feed ppt some C and some F and throw in some of those Lehman bonds that are underfoot, ppt needs to not stumble out of the gate tomorrow. thanks for the backrub.
Start lending or else: Brown tells banks to help businesses in return for their £37bn rescue package
The number of firms going into receivership - an attempt to rescue them from the brink - has rocketed by 238 per cent in a year.
From July to September, 270 firms went into receivership, compared to just 80 in the same period last year.
More than 4,000 firms collapsed into liquidation between July and September, up 26 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Government's Insolvency Service.
But in a hint that the £37billion already lavished on banks may not have been enough to unblock the credit freeze, Mr Brown told MPs any intervention would need extra cash.
He said: 'If we take further measures, that may cost money as well as costing banks changes in the way they operate.
What makes the USA special?
Why should we expect continued funding of our debt?
What steps could taken to bring us out of this death dive?
What makes societies fail?
Is their intrinsic wealth in our existing institutions to provide structural strength and prevent collapse?
Is their any hope?
We focus on the negative reality of the situation, can we focus on solutions?
The yield inversion between 30-year swaps and 30-year Treasury bonds deepened. Thirty-year swap spreads were last quoted at minus 19.00 basis points versus minus 15.75 basis points late on Friday after hitting an intraday low of minus 20.25 basis points.
Much of the demand in 30-year swaps has come from dealers rehedging "non-inversion" notes they sold when the 10-year swap yield rose above 30-year yield last month.
In recent days, another type of hedging emerged, according to UBS analysts.
Whenever the dollar has weakened at or below 97 yen since late October, sellers of Power Reverse Dual Currency Notes (PRDCs) have been keen buyers of 30-year swaps, they said.
ac I concur with the sense of humor. but I also think that everyone gets in (as odd as it sounds) better spirits are tough. Granted I've never done any real "hard time" but at our company meeting tonight (times are tough!) there was more laughter than ever before!
Re: it could get worse as people tighten spending more.
You bring up an interesting point about market efficiency! People have supercomputer power and instant data feeds to tap into market info and it may be possible that this speed will act like a backdraft in a credit fire, as people move far faster than ever before in history. I doubt if that theory is plugged in as a variable in any model, i.e, instantaneous market efficiencies in a liquidity trap. The door shut too fast baby!
Bond Girl,
Thanks for the handy links, that must mean you value my opinion in some way so I'll do my best to respond.
When the low to negative long swaps have come up before I think there was agreement that structured investments were triggering demand, and it's inevitable that the long bond yields drop by the principle of arbitrage.
Given that long term Treasuries are almost entirely official purchases (learned that from Setser), the lack of liquidity allowing this riskless arbitrage is understandable.
While PRDCs do fit the bill for demand behind the 30yr swaps, I would be skeptical of it all falling there. I'm expect there's a whole catalogue of structured products out there that are contributing.
30yr swaps are normally less volatile right? So it's just one more example of complacent risk estimation
Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng are also said to have plans to acquire the two U.S. auto companies, reported the 21st Century Business Herald today. Is the US government going to let Chinese company buy Detroit ? Disclamer bought 10000 shares Ford today at 1.39 and 5000 at 1.27 SAIC, Dongfeng said to buy GM, Chrysler assets | HULIQ
Do you happen to know what the current 30 yr's implied repo is relative to the Dec future's cheapest to deliver? I'm guessing the 30 yr is still too expensive, and hence some of the swap inversion.
Comrade Misean is Dope writes:
Asia is redder thanred.
Red is up, green is down. Have you never received lunar new year money in a red envelope? Gung hay fat choy!
Paul Kasriel, a closet Austrian , has a good commentary on today's CPI report and Fed intentions (ZIRP?)
Yeah... I think Kasriel is one of the good guys.
Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like he fell out of favor with some folks when he criticized the use of monetary policy with an expansionist bias.
It's as if he differs from the current economic orthodoxy in that he thinks that a car should be equipped with a steering wheel, break, and fuel gauge... not just an accelerator.
Personally I agree with the majority of economists today.
The steering wheel is nothing more than a distraction, and what's the point of having a break when it can do nothing but slow you down? Don't even mention that worst of all horrors, the fuel guage, which might actually convince someone to pull off the road and (gasp) stop to refuel!
The key to a robust economy is having nothing to distract you from pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor and leaving it there right where it belongs. For always and forever.
Credit enima is coming.....,
That story is about purchasing GM's China assets (they're #1 by a comfortable margin) for a song. Same deal happened in Germany where a solar company offered 1.1bn for 4 plants and a research campus of Opel. The announcement in each case was more for show than anything else
It's risk aversion,'' said Benedikt Germanier, a currency strategist at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut.There are no yen shorts entering the market. There's no one on the opposite side of the trade.'' A short is a bet an asset will fall.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 6.1 percent yesterday to its lowest close since 2003 after government reports showed consumer prices fell the most on record and housing starts sank to an all-time low. The dollar erased its loss against the euro after the decline in equities accelerated, sparking renewed demand for the greenback as a haven.
Japan's currency reached a 13-year high of 90.93 per dollar last month, threatening exporters' earnings and reducing the value of the nation's U.S. government debt holdings.
Whenever the dollar has weakened at or below 97 yen since late October, sellers of Power Reverse Dual Currency Notes (PRDCs) have been keen buyers of 30-year swaps, they said.
My first thought when I read that article was "How much of this stuff is outstanding? Can it possibly be moving the spread this much?" The popular pension argument made more sense to me, but maybe it is a little of both. Who knows? It is interesting the currency aspect with respect to the fixed income markets now though.
I think the US Treasury could use 2 co-chairs:
Jim Rogers + Richard Koo
2 smart people, 2 very different backgrounds, global experience, opposite perspectives
I'm not in love with the cars guys I'm just in it for the money . Personally I think all bailout suck but, I live in the great bailout nation .Sooner or later Ford will apply for a bank license .
Thanks to all for the enlightening reading and the need for mo' aspirin.
Just one comment re FDIC intrusion into safety deposit boxes from much earlier thread.
What's happened with FDIC takeover of other banks is irrelevant; they were simply fulfilling their required duty to put the bullet into a bank's head while protecting the depositor. That includes safeguarding the contents of the box.
What might happen in this theoretical situation pertains to the significant national need for the contents of said boxes, i.e. physical commodities like gold, silver, diamonds even.
If the various other countries/blocs are moving to a gold predicated currency in whatever form, then the probable thought would be that the US needs every last bit possible. That would even include dentist's offices for crying out loud.
Bond Girl,
I know all swap would be less volatile in normal times (although I must confess my entire memory of them exists during the crisis era)
But my thinking on that was the short end wags up and down with the FF rate, while the 30yr T-bond would be smooth + stable. The other half of the swap would also be stable because it's only the better corporations that would dare try. Even during times of stress, those stronger corporations would be the islands smaller companies cling to.
In retrospect, I was making the assumption inflation probabilities were at least symmetrically distributed (in the market's forecast opinion at least). 30yr swap would be more sensitive to inflation, and the shorter swaps would be more sensitive to credit risks (/ FF rate volatility). On balance over relax and stressed times, the 30yr swap should be and is less volatile than shorter counterparts
Consumer price inflation has suddenly screeched into reverse," said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight. "The inflation threat has disappeared from the radar screen."
Does this remind any of you of:
A tsunami
Eye of a hurricane
Whiplash
Earthquake or Volcano eruption
IMHO, things don't suddenly become calm and peaceful!
Tsunami induced waves and inundation at coast sites are caused by an earthquake underneath the ocean due to tectonic plate movements. For example, the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along a subduction zone where the India Plate (an oceanic plate) was being subducted beneath the Burma Plate. The interface between the two plates resulted in a large fault, termed an interplate thrust or megathrust, which when the earthquake occurred, created a significant vertical shift of a massive volume of sea water. The resulting sea surface elevation profile resolves into tsunami waves propagating radially away from the source region (Geist 1999). A large earthquake under the ocean may create a solitary wave with amplitude of less than a meter. However, due to the large total volume of water displaced (the total amount of energy generated) and peculiarity of bathymetry at particular coastal site, the resulting tsunami runup height could be tens of meters (including astronomical tide), causing major structural damage to bridge structures
Courtney Love has denied reports she is suicidal - but admits to suffering bouts of depression.
The former Hole singer wrote 60 posts on her personal MySpace page on Sunday, many of which were incoherent - and one that stated the star was feeling suicidal, according to celebrity website PerezHilton.com.
Love has retracted the statement - but reveals she does battle depression.
She writes on her blog, " No I am not suicidal, occasionally very occasionally (sic) like all of us I get depressed, and that was over a year ago and I had a mini little depression attack well (a) big one... I dont know quite why it happened but I find that mediciation (sic) is not the answer to this."
Cracker,
Gold is a currency with an extremely stable trade balance (new production vs consumption). Since its trade balance is stable, its value changes are dependent on the purchasing currency. Ergo it's a one-sided currency play
In the Austrian view it was this inflation of the money supply that led to an unsustainable boom in both asset prices (stocks and bonds) and capital goods. By the time the Fed belatedly tightened in 1928, it was far too late and, in the Austrian view, a depression was inevitable.
The artificial interference in the economy was a disaster prior to the Depression, and government efforts to prop up the economy after the crash of 1929 only made things worse. According to Rothbard, government intervention delayed the market's adjustment and made the road to complete recovery more difficult.[21]
Furthermore, Rothbard criticizes Milton Friedman's assertion that the central bank failed to inflate the supply of money. Rothbard asserts that the Federal Reserve bought $1.1 billion of government securities from February to July 1932, raising its total holding to $1.8 billion. Total bank reserves rose by only $212 million, but Rothbard argues that this was because the American populace lost faith in the banking system and began hoarding more cash, a factor quite beyond the control of the Central Bank. The potential for a run on the banks caused local bankers to be more conservative in lending out their reserves, and this, Rothbard argues, was the cause of the Federal Reserve's inability to inflate.
Another explanation comes from the Austrian School of economics. Theorists of the "Austrian School" who wrote about the Depression include Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and American economist Murray Rothbard, who wrote America's Great Depression (1963). In their view, the key cause of the Depression was the expansion of the money supply in the 1920s that led to an unsustainable credit-driven boom. In their view, the Federal Reserve, which was created in 1913, shoulders much of the blame.
In opinion, Hayek, writing for the Austrian Institute of Economic Research Report in February 1929[18] predicted the economic downturn, stating that "the boom will collapse within the next few months."
Ludwig von Mises also expected this financial catastrophe, and is quoted as stating "A great crash is coming, and I don't want my name in any way connected with it,"[19] when he turned down an important job at the Kreditanstalt Bank in early 1929.
What makes the USA special?
Why should we expect continued funding of our debt?
What steps could taken to bring us out of this death dive?
What makes societies fail?
Is their intrinsic wealth in our existing institutions to provide structural strength and prevent collapse?
Is their any hope?
for one, we dicovered and were first to market mass quanitites of rock oil.
We developed significant markets and technologies on the labor of our people that brought us motorized transport and flight
Any dive we take now will pale in comparison to underdeveloped, non-industrialized and resource poor countries/regions.
Socities fail 2/3's of the time from food, and 1/3 of the time from political war which causes the sources of cause 1 to dry up.
There is Huge strength in our system, and many are willing and able to defend it...further than most can imagine.
Cracker(Unrated) writes: the only solution is satisfaction and maintenance of the krill, if the krill are not satisfied, or if the krill die off, the whales die.
Have you ever played the boardgame "Junta!"? It's a very good game. Well worth your time to play.
It models the competition for money and power in a generic third world country during a period of major aid flows.
One of the important things about the design is that score is measured in dollars smuggled abroad.
This is a major and important point of transition in states going down the path to strain and failure. Eventually it stops being about cultivating the country so it can produce future riches. Eventually it becomes "secure everything you can when you can".
Once you get policymakers into the "looting spirit," rule of the state undergoes a major transition.
I would say we are at, near or just past that point.
Anecdote: Traveled the PA Turnpike between Phil and Pittsburgh Sun and Monday. VERY little traffic. Not nearly as many trucks, and rest stops were EMPTY (1-2 cars) in the early evening 6-10PM. Never, ever seen it so sparse
Lowest gas price in Kansas City- $1.41/gal and dropping. That's a hell of a lot better than $4.41! The US consumes 400,000,000 gallons per day, so that's virtually $1 billion that we are collectively "saving" every day compared with the peak. That's our "bailout" I suppose. Now if everyone was smart, they'd use that extra money to pay off credit cards so that we can collapse Citibank once and for all.
Drives me crazy
Driving is so 1900.
Nostrovia,
Maybe everybody is flying instead.
it's all those segways
Unemployed people don't need to drive to get to work.
...feel pity for the folks that just scored a Smart car....just when gas prices are in free fall...priceless!
Flying like pigs.
Still no BED survey, should have been out on Nov. 12, tomorrow's the last day before I call out the cadaver dogs.
What is the BED survey?
miles and miles and miles
Gasing up my SUV,
Gonna go a crusing.
Cheaper gas just in time for my road trip to Vegas. Got lucky.
EvilHenryPaulson: I had no idea that you were such a environmentally concerned conservationist
The Nature Conservancy - Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy - Hank Paulson
Carpooling...like a van full of mexicans headed for the construction site of a building whose loan is defaulting in slow motion.
OT, but scary - the house 3 away from mine just caught on fire. There are still 3 or 4 fire engines in front of our house. I looked it up in the county records, and it was last purchased for roughly 150k more than current market value, in 2007.
Serious stuff.
Lower gasoline prices should mean more vehicle miles driven, but the weakening economy might offset the impact from lower prices.
Think about it, every time you get in your car your going out to spend money even if youre picking up your kids etc.
Stay out of the car and you save money unless your driving to work.
Time to enroll in blacksmithing courses.
In case you were waiting for lower gas costs to hoard a few gallons,
heard from a small engine (lawnmower,
tillers, weed whackers, etc) repair guy that the 10% ethanol gas has a shelf life of about a month even with
preservative additive in it.
Maybe better budget for replacing fuel system line and components if your car/truck is a pre-2007 model.
That said, cccrrrrruuuuuzzzzz o
Is it time for the Volcker rally yet?
From Bloomberg: Equity Indices: Stock Movers
Dow Jones [Leaders/Laggers]
Leader: HP % change -1.67
Priceless Day when everything is red...
Thank god i'm not into Citigroup -23.45%...we are all TARP ready!
BED survey is the post-mortem on employment. It lags the household & establishment surveys by 9 months, but is definitive ex black economy.
Q1 08 is on deck, Q4 07 had(after accounting for seasonal xmas hires from data elsewhere) 200k losses, Q3 07 had a 300k.
I'm expecting Q1 08 to look like a bloodbath because seasonal hires should boost losses To smooth the data 600k should be the baseline.
Anoddamoose writes:
Cheaper gas just in time for my road trip to Vegas. Got lucky.
Anoddamoose | 11.19.08 - 9:32 pm | #
If gas gets cheap enough I might rent a RV and go see the Grand Canyon with the wife and kid this spring. I bet I could get a good deal on a RV rental! Gas would have to go to like a $1.30 a gallon. You never know.
senate won't vote on bailout...
OT, but scary - the house 3 away from mine just caught on fire. There are still 3 or 4 fire engines in front of our house. I looked it up in the county records, and it was last purchased for roughly 150k more than current market value, in 2007.
Serious stuff.
Jason
Serious stuff if you live in a condo, or if you 5,000sq ft house on a 1/3 acre is 5 feet from the property line (to your neighbor who's also 5 ft from the line.)
Philadelphia lightning, get used to it.
Gas would have to go to like a $1.30 a gallon. You never know.
I saw $1.77 yesterday.
maybe everything thats reported is real, and maybe the FED is buying down the long end of the treasury curve through trillions of derivatives curently parked at GS.
hell, at this point, Im open to any alternative suggestions for how more pain can be created.
for all I know, Elvis is alive and living in your basement.
on topic: no more dinosaurs are being created ( brought to you by your crude oil supplier)
This will be the very first time swearing on this board....and it is salt on the wounds...
Hearing some crazy shit about C.
'nf said
I think we should be looking at port traffic, train loads, and commercial freight more than this.
But, it says people not driving as much.
Jam market to 8300, ride it down thru op ex
next week mock battle at 8200
period end, resume march thru 7 handle
I made my last tank of gas last five months.
I have heard from too many people going for a drive, just because they felt like it. Too many people selling the commuter cars they bought, so that they could spend more time in their F350. They'll offset the newly jobless sooner rather than later.
Look at historical gas prices, they've never fallen so quickly or so much in history. This is one V shaped rebound that will happe
001 writes:
I made my last tank of gas last five months.
001 | 11.19.08 - 9:52 pm | #
Darn, thats conserving!
EHP
Is that a Ford or ferrari
OT: Seriously, what is up with the bond market...deflation???
Me thinks the FED is runnin' up the flag pole to bring the flag down. Got 3/4 of a trillion to finance here shortly.
I usually put about 7K miles on my car a year. This past year I put 2K less because I used my Delta frequent flyer miles to fly my wife to the condo in FL twice.
It was worth it because they were going to expire anyway and round trip was going to cost me $200 (x2 $400$) in gas and 18 hours in driving.
I used the money I saved in gas to hire a gardener to do the yard for less than that. No need to come back to ATL.
Driving was so old generation. The new thing is ships - preferably pirate style off of somalia.
India got one of those pirate ships today. About time!
"Driving was so old generation. The new thing is ships - preferably pirate style off of somalia."
Well there's always piratin' to be done.
Nostrovia,
crack swap still negative by over 6bucks...
i'm really happy that i have'nt stepped in on that one.
Gas should be coming in REAL cheap by xmas, around 1.50-60
I think the Treasury bond market is feeling the effect of the massive exit from stock - all that money seeking a safe haven is driving yields down.
Who know....may be the somalian pirates are being employed to drive the price of crude up. Remember, you heard this first from me !!
Bloomberg News
Oil in the $40s soon.
Gas prices could be the one and only thing that will rescue Christmas sales. This is leaving a lot of extra cash in the pockets of all Americans....what better than to blow it on christmas gifts??
dryfly,
Last thread:
"Just don't tell the bond market yet - our little secret - okay?"
Kay...but it won't make any difference.
Nostrovia,
Dreary outlook from Bay Area executives
6 out of 10 SF employers are planning to maintain or increase their workforce
I've filled the gas tank of my M3 4x since Sunday. 2 of those tanks were drained lapping VIR, the other two getting there and back - a worthy use of hydrocarbons if ever there was one. Nice to fill up with 93 octane at $2.05.
Jaso
Gas should be coming in REAL cheap by xmas, around 1.50-60
Oil Equations | 11.19.08 - 10:06 pm |
dontcha really mean by Jan 15th, so all the buses from Birmingham and all points South and West can attend the coronation?
you betcha!
Topher writes:
India got one of those pirate ships today. About time!
Did U.S outsource pirate catching?
Looks like India is getting a lot of things right...
HDFC Avoids Subprime Folly With $30,000 Mortgages (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
what are the arbs dng ?
oil falling.
C bust
they r under dope?
A recap of Caesar and his run-in with pirates.
Julius Caesar and the pirates
We could end this straight away with a policy of sinking any ship that was captured. We are too squeamish.
Spitzer's paypal gal
HOOKER ASHLEY DUPRE OPENS UP ABOUT THE TRYST THAT BROUGHT DOWN ELIOT SPITZER - NYPOST.com
get#
LA auto show is on, Honda scares me a little
2008 LA Auto Show -- Green Cars - latimes.com
By the way, I read somewhere that every gallon of gas burned puts 19 POUNDS of pollutants in the atmosphere. Hard to believe. Something to do with one carbon atom combining with two oxygen atoms. Go figure.
If all the big box retailers are gone, why would people drive?
Did F have a lower circuit of 25% ?
Nikkei taking a stroll downhill back into the 7k range. 36k seems like a distant memory...
Kay...but it won't make any difference.
Didn't say it will work - 'work' defined as get us out of this mess at least as wealthy in real stuff & services as we went in - just sayin' that's what they are going to do & my guess both V & M will eventually be 'forced' up... not pretty & not saying Q will improve... P far more likely to go up a lot instead.
Peter Schiff Sucks.
I am up 200% shorting commodity shares this year. Peter Schiff is down 30-50% on gold stocks etc. Maybe, I don't know what his returns are.
My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?
UC is considering limiting freshman enrollment in fall - Los Angeles Times
10,000 more unemployed by next year
We could end this straight away with a policy of sinking any ship that was captured. We are too squeamish.
No kidding. Or the targets could start carrying weapons themselves. Nothing like a few 50 cals to deal with the problem.
[6 out of 10 SF employers are planning to maintain or increase their workforce]
4 out of 10 plan firings. 6 out of 10 will adjust their plans.
6 out of 10 SF employers are planning to maintain or increase their workforce
war preperations with china? Is there new activity at Mare island? they could bulldozer over that awful golf course.
Previous thread,
Oh Glod!...we're so cooked.
At least it's a dry heat.
Game over man, game over.
It won't make any difference.
We need a bigger boat.
It's not my fault.
So we just float away with the trash.
Minogs!
Just a few shots, sir.
Try and guess these sci fi movie quotes.
I'll do a $25 tip jar for the winner.
Nostrovia,
If GM defaults on its bonds, we're all splattered. Is it 80B they owe, not counting all the CDS?
gas at 1.50 in Idaho, straight from Canada.
Comrade Peronista writes:
My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Gold is only a small part of Schiff's "strategy", because his commisionsions are less on those. His main thing is buying foreign stocks.
Just click on my home page link.
Oh, this is bliss, a gas post. Now I can offer this, for the proud gas-guzzlers:
YouTube - Swervedriver - Son Of Mustang Ford
Step on it, people. I do.
CC
Jesse's Café Américain: An Historic Divergence on the Long End of the Yield Curves
at least somebody saw it.
No kidding. Or the targets could start carrying weapons themselves. Nothing like a few 50 cals to deal with the problem.
Captain Fish (Paper Pusher) | 11.19.08 - 10:20 pm | #
Read an article about the pirates in the Straits of Malacca - most are 'inside jobs' - meaning somebody on board the ship tips off the pirates when it is safest & how to get aboard around the 'defenses'. Cellphones make it pretty easy.
Lastly the pirates RARELY hurt the crew (sometimes off the 'officers') so what is the incentive for a poor Filipino grunt to get in a shoot out w/ the risk of getting killed for somebody else's fortune?
Sort of like privatizing the army - works great until somebody starts shooting.
In the land of over-priced gas we have a few stations at $1.99/gal- San Diego. It was $2.20 just last week
Never thought I'd see it there so quickly.
It's temporary though....No way OPEC lets that continue for any length of time.
Ciao
MS
Previous thread,
Oh Glod!...we're so cooked.
At least it's a dry heat. -aliens bill paxton
Game over man, game over.
It won't make any difference. -little girl from aliens?
We need a bigger boat. titanci
It's not my fault.
So we just float away with the trash. star wars
Minogs!
Just a few shots, sir.
Try and guess these sci fi movie quotes.
I'll do a $25 tip jar for the winner.
Nostrovia,
Comrade Misean is Dope | Homepage | 11.19.08
Gas under 2.00$ in San Diego (La Mesa) for the first time in 2+ years (I forget the actual time frame but it was on the news today.)
Thats big in Diego. Del Mommies are back in their Yukon's, one kid in tow....
.....
So we just float away with the trash.
star wars
Game over man, game over.
Alien something
It's not my fault.
2001, A Space Oddesy.
Peter Schiff SUCKS
I think gold will come back to $1,000-$1,500. I only own a little but its going to come back IMO. I dont know where you bought in but its kind of like insurance. You hate to pay for it but if you need it its nice to have.
game over man, game over...aliens again bill paxto
dryfly,
I heard an article on that too. The cargo is $100MM and the ship is worth that too.
Not to mention it is technically explosive, albeit it hard to get going.
Its pretty easy for a pirate to inflict a $1MM worth of damage with out killing anyone. Paying the ransom is a no brainer.
Now battle ships going to war with pirates. Thats a different story all together!
.......
"We just float away with the trash"
-Hank Paulson circa 2009 on about January 19th
Ciao
MS
But the other 4 are nasty.
Dean,
All except this correct,
"We need a bigger boat. titanci"
Little girl's name is Newt.
Nostrovia,
ebay is full of Smarts for sale. Combination of Pogo Stick and a Crash Helmet, if you ask me. And Civic gets better mileage.
Plantagenet writes:
"We could end this straight away with a policy of sinking any ship that was captured. We are too squeamish."
Yes and a VLCC full of Arabian crude. Actually, I was imagining the negotiation going some like this:
Pirate: "what, you're only offering $25M ransom ... OK boys, start emptying tanks No. 3, 4 and 5."
joe the rivethead writes:
If GM defaults on its bonds, we're all splattered. Is it 80B they owe, not counting all the CDS?
Auto Companies: The Bond Market’s Junkyard - MarketBeat - WSJ
They've been junk for a while now.
we need a bigger boat- Jaws and Hank Paulson
Ciao
MS
Peter Schiff. Is it that bad? Ok.
The problem is that the Broad Money Camp followed M3 and got fooled. They saw hyperinflation coming.
The narrow money camp (Monetary base and M1) saw recession and deflation. And we shorted commodities.
My advice: Follow Frank Shostak. You can find him here: Ludwig von Mises Institute - Homepage
PS! I am currently 100% cash since Tuesday morning and scared shitless.
Topher,
I am down on my gold, and have no complaints about it.
My problem is that Schiff is a fraud and a salesman. Lot of people have been hurt by this guy and he will continue to hurt people as long as he is allowed to be a broker. This guy would be happy to invest in anything as long as he makes his 3% commission and plays with his u.s dollar propaganda.
Cracker,
"It's not my fault.
2001, A Space Oddesy."
Maybe...but not where I was going.
Provide transcript or video.
TIA,
Nostrovia,
Bigger boat is Jaws
If GM defaults on its bonds, we're all splattered. Is it 80B they owe, not counting all the CDS?
Bond Girl, is this not the same back room arguement as AIG, and the Fanny and Freddy twins?
It's not my fault is probably a lot of movies, but one of them is Blues Brothers
I think we're down to:
Minogs!
And just a few shots sir.
Nostrovia,
At this point do CDS's really matter? Sounds like everyone is f'd anyways.
Randolph Duke: Exactly why do you think the price of pork bellies is going to keep going down, William?
Billy Ray Valentine: Okay, pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody is waiting for it to hit rock bottom, so they can buy low. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are saying, "Hey, we're losing all our damn money, and Christmas is around the corner, and I ain't gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip! And my wife ain't gonna f... my wife ain't gonna make love to me if I got no money!" So they're panicking right now, they're screaming "SELL! SELL!" to get out before the price keeps dropping. They're panicking out there right now, I can feel it.
Is this going what's going on on walls street?
Emma Anne
Sci Fi...Star Wars, Han Solo
Nostrovia,
Sink the boat and kill everyone on it. Yes it would suck and it would be a huge environmental disaster however it would be the first time and the last time it ever happened.
I;m thinking this is yet another excuse that Bushco can use to have another "incident"
Still think they should nuke it and get it over with.
Ciao
MS
"Peter Schiff SUCKS writes:
Comrade Peronista writes:
My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Gold is only a small part of Schiff's "strategy", because his commisionsions are less on those. His main thing is buying foreign stocks."
I listened to him at a conference once and thought he was almost incoherent. yes, he made a clear case about the moentary and fiscal stupidity of government and citizens, but his investment analysis was unintelligible. Every broken clock is right twice a day. (Tired saying but true).
Both Jaws and Blues Brothers are scifi. Arguably.
minogs....is that also Star Wars or Empire to be more precise?
actually it sounds like a puerto rican desert to me.
Just a guess
Ciao
MS
Re: "Lower gasoline prices should mean more vehicle miles driven, but the weakening economy might offset the impact from lower prices."
"If GM defaults on its bonds, we're all splattered. Is it 80B they owe, not counting all the CDS?"
Can't they be traded in for, say, a new Suburban?
Minogs is tough,
does it have to do with building rudimentary tools out of rocks?
fashioning a lathe perhaps?
Comrade V
Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone. He really thought the US would decouple from the rest of the world. The way he invests is a poor stragegy based on stock dividends producing cashflow as if they are like bank deposits.
MS,
OK Minogs gone.
Now...hint...Early Star Trek Movie.
Just a few shots sir.
Nostrovia,
I just put this on the wrong thread:
By the way, thanks CR for all of your work today. You are amazing.
I think he means minocs(sp), which were the bat like creatures who attached themselves to the power cables of the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back.
Wrath of Kahn or Search for Spock
Comrade Peronista writes:
"My question is: What is your problem with Peter Schiff?"
My problem is I lost 75% investing with Schiff. This is the norm, there are plenty of people like me. He is a smart guy, but just talks up his predictions, to scare people of U.S Dollars so that he can make his 3% commission.
Peter Schiff relentlessly pumped emerging markets, commodities, and non-US currencies based on the decoupling and hyperinflation hypothesis.
I've you've been concentrated in these areas recently you've been crushed. You'd have done much better with US stocks, bonds, and dollars - the very things Schiff has been most bearish on.
IMO Peter is a very smart guy, but his problem is that he's a salesman - his job is ultimately to get you to buy the gold and foreign assets his company deals in.
This sort of "salesman syndrome" where somebody is smart about everything except the stuff they get paid to sell seems pretty much universal to me.
Personally I think the most important thing is to look for somebody who doesn't really have a vested interest in what's bought or sold when judging somebody's advice. So far that strategy has worked out pretty well for me.
I think it's Minoqs....that may have threw some. I actually just watched it yesterday so I can't really claim to be that with it Sci-Fi wise
Ciao
MS
Nemo,
Finally you post some great music to make up for your paranormal ability to be first; thanks!
Cracker,
Which?
Nostrovia,
CR,
I love you too, lots of thanks and keep up the great work!
OT... but for the person talking about treasuries and the yield curve earlier. I decided to look into this a little bit. The other day I was sitting at my desk and a random memory popped into my head about the yield curve inverting a year and a half ago. Anyhow... I should have taken that sign a little more seriously as you can see in the charts:
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/4144/treasuryyields1vn7.png
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/9725/treasuryyields2yw7.png
What I'm amazed at is that the spread between the long bond and 3 month is basically at a maximum unless somehow, the 3 month yield went negative.
gotta be Spock, but just a WAG..
Reuters Breaking News
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said to be President-elect Obama's top choice for Homeland Security post: report
Businesswoman Penny Pritzker is President-elect Obama's pick for Commerce Secretary: report 10:18pm EST
means nothing to me,
As for GM. $103bn in long term liabilities. -$60bn in equity. On the upside, their debt is trading around 30¢/$, so you could buy a strong company if you have $50bn assuming they could buy the debt with that average price
Since we're into movie quotes ....
Still think they should nuke it and get it over with.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Aliens (1986)
Ministry of Truth writes:
"Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone."
Really? Have you ever interated with him in person at one of his conferences? Did you have a chance to talk to his brokers (salespeople) at his brokerage? Did you lose your shirt (and pants) investing with him?
I was at one of his conferences and it was kind of surreal. A guy was complaining about his life savings and schiff was urging him to buy his book. I wanted to throw the stupid book in his face.
Mr. Sparkle
this time last year, the whole of the Australian curve was inverted, a minor inversion in the US treasuries is not a complete disaster, unless the short end gets involved real serious like.
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
I'll be back, but I must pick up children from stuff.
Misean....its almost done....
just tip the jar.
Headed to bed Nik sliding after sushi, Yen up a full point against the $. Pick you all up in the AM with the European market close.
Anonymous writes:
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
Dems want to set up the companies for takeover by foreign investors?
I am not so sure about the decline in vehicle miles driven...
It could just be car sellers are turning back their odometers to get better prices.
Peter Schiff. Is it that bad? Ok.
The problem is that the Broad Money Camp followed M3 and got fooled. They saw hyperinflation coming.
The narrow money camp (Monetary base and M1) saw recession and deflation. And we shorted commodities.
BTW though I disagreed with Peter Schiff short-term I think it's entirely possible that he may be correct in the longer-term.
But Petey seemed to be suggesting that these we're nearer-term possibilities.
Again I suspect it's possible that "salesman bias" may have lead him to neglect the timing issues.
Anonymous(Unrated) writes:
Major weirdness going on with this automakers bailout. I hear R's want to give Detroit the $25B meant for greening now with no strings attached. D's are blocking wanting loan stipulations. Who blinks?
Anonymous | 11.19.08 - 10:53 pm | #
We do - like when pepper spray is shot at them.
Peter Schiff SUCKS writes:
Ministry of Truth writes:
"Schiff believes what he says and he not trying to scam anyone."
Really? Have you ever interated with him in person at one of his conferences? Did you have a chance to talk to his brokers (salespeople) at his brokerage? Did you lose your shirt (and pants) investing with him?
Yes I have talked with him one on one several times. I have no idea who is brokers are and I really don't care since they are the true sales people as you mention. No, I did not lose my shirt investing with him because I handle my own investments.
Cracker,
"gotta be Spock, but just a WAG.."
I thought I was sure until that post. Crap you may be right. I can't find the sceene on youtube to confirm it is Wrath of Kahn.
Oh well...ya'll win $25 to CR.
Nostrovia,
Cracker,
I don't know much at all about bonds so I'll take your word that it was relatively minor (about 50 bps).
Still, when the curve gets inverted (which doesn't happen often from what I've seen) - bad stuff seems to follow in next 6-12 months in economy. At any rate, I think the chart is interesting in itself.
We do - like when pepper spray is shot at them.
I blink, then cry. 1500+ shares. I'll cry like a baby.
Dems want to set up the companies for takeover by foreign investors?
Tiberius | 11.19.08 - 10:54 pm | #
No F'ing chance - they don't want the $25B to go to bonuses & dividends. Pension funds - well that's just fine.
I don't know the latin for it but ask - who benefits?
"Seriously, what is up with the bond market...deflation???"
I remember trading US bond futures at 56 in the 1980s inflation. Last 3 days govt bonds are starting to discount a major business collapse, and I agree.
The market is undergoing cosmetic surgery:
Liposuction is not a good tool for tightening the skin. The removal of quantities of fat from under the skin can leave the skin even more loose. When drooping skin and fat are the issue, then lift such as a rhytidectomy (facelift), mastopexy (breast lift), abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), or lower body lift, thigh lift, or buttock lift are better tools and may include liposuction during surgery to refine the sculpture.
Dr. Larry Weinstein reviews LIPOSUCTION
YouTube - Dr. Larry Weinstein reviews LIPOSUCTION
Mall Owner Lines Up Bankruptcy Law Firm - WSJ.com
General Growth hires bankruptcy counsel
Peter Schiff is the same con artist that ruled Wall Street for the past 15 years. No difference. He's a for-profit guy, simple as that. He makes $ on both sides of the deal, whatever he recommends about a new gig, he get's upfront $ and then through his clients. Anybody thinks here that something is for free? get real...but the Detroit 3 flying in on corporate jets think they get a free deal...
dryfly,
Well removing stipulations of the existing $25bn loan (which has not been disbursed) would qualify all the other companies (Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, .... all with plants in the south) because the only ones that had vehicles planned to meet the targets in time are GM, Chrysler, and maybe Ford
So it's more of a North/South thing than anything else
dryfly writes:
Dems want to set up the companies for takeover by foreign investors?
Tiberius | 11.19.08 - 10:54 pm | #
No F'ing chance - they don't want the $25B to go to bonuses & dividends. Pension funds - well that's just fine.
I don't know the latin for it but ask - who benefits?
Maybe but why do the Repubs want to hand them a check with no conditions?
I remember trading US bond futures at 56 in the 1980s inflation. Last 3 days govt bonds are starting to discount a major business collapse, and I agree.
peAkcredit | 11.19.08 - 10:58 pm | #
I sense it - freaking awful if it is half as bad as my nightmares imagine it to be. The last thing we'll be worrying about is 'trading the market' if it happens.
Sweet, with gas prices falling I can finally do that modification I have been wanting to do to my Smart car!
YouTube - Monster Smart
Bond Girl - who is this General Growth, and how many divisions does he command??
COMCEN
NAVSPECWARCOM writes:
Peter Schiff is the same con artist that ruled Wall Street for the past 15 years.
They're all fucking car salesman. If you think PM is the way to go, go talk to the PM guy who will reinforce your thoughts, stocks, bonds, commodities the same way. A Chevy dealership won't sell you a Ford
Re: bond market...deflation
On a micro level, look at this:
USNews.com: Hedge funds find there's money to be made in lending to distressed firms and start-ups Posted 4/2/06
Corporate default rates are near historic lows, and that means "pretty slim pickings" in the debt areas traditionally traveled by hedge funds, says Prof. Edward Altman, a debt expert with New York University's Stern School of Business. But at the same time, many companies want to retire higher-yielding bonds, make acquisitions, or shore up operating funds without giving up more equity to do it. With banks shedding some of their corporate loans and becoming tighter in their lending, yield-hungry hedge funds have rushed in to exploit other areas of the debt market.
qualify all the other companies (Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, .... all with plants in the south) because the only ones that had vehicles planned to meet the targets in time are GM, Chrysler, and maybe Ford
I don't know. Hard, hard sell US taxpayer money going to Honda, Nissan, etc.
Bond market tangoing with the exchange rate
http://alphaville.ftdata.co.uk/lib/inc/getfile/3005.jpg
isn't there a PeterSchiffSucks website somewhere guys?
Maybe but why do the Repubs want to hand them a check with no conditions?
Anonymous | 11.19.08 - 11:01 pm | #
Who controls the purse strings? Unions or mgmt? Where would the money go? Who benefits?
If my constituency was senior mgmt, equity & bond holding class - I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep worrying about giving them 'patronage'.
If my constituency were the workers working for those receiving the patronage - I'd want stipulations up the wazoo to make sure at least some of that patronage got through to my constituency.
Ask who benefits and you usually find the answer.
Dryfly - some friends of ours had a CD/money-market at WaMu for their house down-payment funds. (They closed about 7 days before WaMu went under.)
Whenever the wife would send me a question about the house purchase process, I'd always throw in funny jokes and news about banks and WaMu in particular. (Like the "Ask Us about FDIC insurance" board picture.) Then one day she asked, "Why no funny bank news?" At that point I just said, "It's not funny anymore - it's scary."
I do, that's who.
Bingo dryfly.
Fun with the game.
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Nostrovia,
EvilHenryPaulson writes:
Bond market tangoing with the exchange rate
Did you see FT article about how yen plays were contributing to negative/low interest rate swap spreads? Just when you think this market could not get any more bizarre....
From 2005: Even issuers in the very low Caa rating category have been able to issue debt (last year, nearly 16% of all new speculative grade issuers were rated in the Caa-C range).
In previous cycles, defaults have escalated two years to five years after record high levels of debt issuance. Indeed, the high level of junk bond debt issued in 1996-98--the majority within the telecom sector--unwound itself in the 2000-02 period. The last of the large bankruptcies having been settled, a new wave of debt issuance began in 2003 allowing companies from shaky industries such as automakers, real estate, energy and even airlines to issue high volumes of public debt either to refinance existing obligations or in the form of "rescue financings." Eager investors with an appetite for risk bought up the bond issues. It is precisely these sectors that are most likely to experience difficulties in 2005-06.
Just as investors in public bond markets were eager for paper, banks were keen to cater to both their investor and issuer clients. As a result, most leveraged finance transactions in the latter 2003-04 period featured second lien loans. Second in the capital structure, these tranches are secured--holders of second lien paper will share collateral with first lien holders in case of bankruptcy--yet offer higher spreads than first lien loans.
Forbes.com: Corporate Loan Defaults: A Rising Possibility In 2005
So it's more of a North/South thing than anything else
EvilHenryPaulson | 11.19.08 - 11:01 pm | #
That makes sense - didn't know Honda, Toyota & Hyundai were at the trough too - whoocoodanode.
Well, let's hope for fellow mankind that Schiff continues to be wrong.
2. The easy money has been made in Short-ETF's.
The winner will the person who has cash in 24 months.
Best of luck all.
Anybody pick up some Ford today? Fully 0.5% of my personal portfolio was moved in to F at 1.26 near the close.
I did it just for kicks, but it feels strangely rewarding to actually have ownership in a specific company for a change.
Like I'm actually contributing and am slightly less of a sociopath.
Is this how real human beings feel?
whos not on sweeet bennny's teeets?
....
That makes sense - didn't know Honda, Toyota & Hyundai were at the trough too
They're not. The House and Senate should just poke their eyeballs out with pencils before they include them
Bond Girl,
Haven't seen that article yet, but I'll go look for it.
dryfly,
Not so much the other autos being at the trough as congresspeople like to bring $ to their region and only an idiot refuses free money
Old habits die hard and old dogs do the same tricks over and over:
dryfly writes:
So it's more of a North/South thing than anything else
EvilHenryPaulson | 11.19.08 - 11:01 pm | #
That makes sense - didn't know Honda, Toyota & Hyundai were at the trough too - whoocoodanode.
dryfly | 11.19.08 - 11:10 pm | #
You have link to that?
Is this how real human beings feel?
Don't know. I don't know any. Not even that guy in the mirror
sweeet bennny's teeets?
mmmmm, suck, suck... more sweet milk, mmm
Nikkei down only 5%, WTF?
Kona writes:
sweeet bennny's teeets?
mmmmm, suck, suck... more sweet milk, mmm
I hate the chest hair between my teeth
ac,
"Like I'm actually contributing and am slightly less of a sociopath."
Well now, that's a confessional. But since you're just swapping ownership, didn't you give the asshat wanting to get out an out?
/Ducks!
Nostrovia,
British retailer on the verge of collapse:
Bloodbath on the high street: Woolworths up for sale for just £1 |
Business |
The Guardian
ac,
"Like I'm actually contributing and am slightly less of a sociopath."
Well now, that's a confessional. But since you're just swapping ownership, didn't you give the asshat wanting to get out an out?
/Ducks!
Nostrovia,
Comrade Misean is Dope
Well that's just how markets work, for every buyer there's necessarily...
Wait.
DID YOU JUST CALL ME A GREATER FOOL?!
There's going to be an absolute mountain of Treasuries on the market,'' said Rob da Silva, managing director of Asia- Pacific fixed income at Principal Global Investors in Sydney. The securities areexpensive,'' he said.
Two-year notes, among the most sensitive to changes in borrowing costs because of their short maturities, yielded 1.08 percent. The record low was 1.0558 percent in 2003.
Demand for the security of short-term government debt pushed three-month bill yields to 0.06 percent, near the lowest since World War II.
Record additions of liquidity have driven the overnight lending rate between banks to less than half the 1 percent target set by Fed officials last month. The gap is shifting investors' focus toward the amount of money in the banking system, eclipsing the central bank's benchmark interest rate as the most important signal of monetary policy.
He was early, not wrong. The easy money over the next year or so, starting soon, will be in selected commodities and PMs. Where else are longs gonna go?
we're going to run out of schadenfreude before xmas
chest hair?
With reference to the previous thread (market crashes)...
"Down 90%" sounds terrible, but it's even worse if you think of is as:
Down 50% (where we are now), then
down 40% from there, then
down 40% from there, then
down 40% from there!
ac,
"Well that's just how markets work, for every buyer there's necessarily...
Wait.
DID YOU JUST CALL ME A GREATER FOOL?!"
You still got it. Friggin' funny man.
Nostrovia,
The old version of Steen Jakobsen blog
Oriental currency web strengthening potential
The easy money over the next year or so, starting soon, will be in selected commodities and PMs
I agree. Though it could be a decade instead of a year or so. Inflation/Stagflation will set i
rich,
aye but gold is merely a currency play. The real money starts in seeds
Ford at a buck 26. Taurus's at the dollar store for xmas?
November 19, 2008, 6:49 pm
Citigroups Troubled Tale of the Tape
Citigroup’s Troubled Tale of the Tape - Deal Journal - WSJ
The hits keep on coming at Citigroup. The firms stock is now trading at $6.40, a 24% drop in six and one-half hours of trading Wednesday. Heres a by-the-numbers look at the latest goings-on at the bank
I think the bear will continue at least for the next week, although maybe not as strong as today.
Theress an imbalance in the market now between convicted sellers and buyers. Nobody has much conviction left to buy this market. But a lot of people must sell.
They include pension funds, endowments, mutual funds, variable annuities and hedge funds.
Part of the problem is that widely touted "bottom" has not held. That has destroyed confidence, and very few "experts" are now willing to call a new bottom.
How would you like to be the manager of a hedge fund that has to raise $200 million over the next 20 days to meet redemptions? Every morning, you wake up knowing you have to sell $10 million into this market. No choice. You become the market's chump.
It just seems like the Pump House Gang has died and gone away.
Gasoline is $1.43/gal in Kansas, so it really fell off a cliff. This deflation appears to be worse than it was during the Great Depression, and it could get worse as people tighten spending more.
Paul Kasriel, a closet Austrian
, has a good commentary on today's CPI report and Fed intentions (ZIRP?)
Enjoy.
http://www.ntrs.com/popups/popup_noprint.html?http://web-xp2a-pws.ntrs.com/content//media/attachment/data/econ_research/0811/document/dd111908.pdf
Don't tas me bro!
WILMINGTON, N.C. Five sheriff's deputies will be disciplined after they used a Taser while serving an arrest warrant on a man at his father's funeral, a North Carolina sheriff said Wednesday.
Gladwyn Taft Russ III was serving as a pallbearer at the Saturday service and was loading his father's casket into a hearse when the undercover deputies approached him.
Relatives said two deputies dressed in coats and ties grabbed Russ and kneed him in his back before using a Taser on him. One deputy's gun fell out of its holster
Re: bonds and fx:
Today, at 9CT, the Tbond future was below 121, and the EUR = 1.28 USD. At 4CT, the future was 123, and the EUR = 1.25 USD.
Those kind of moves, in absolute magnitude, are both 3+ daily sigmas, but, more importantly, the USD should not, in normal times, strengthen as the US yield curve flattens.
The only thing that can explain today is capital movement into USD, and then, into high duration, low risk USD, which is a bet on continuing fall in the long end of the curve.
Of course, none of that explains the USD/JPY; JPY continues to strengthen in early morning Asia.
rich,
"They include pension funds, endowments, mutual funds, variable annuities and hedge funds."
Well thank Glod these aren't a problem. ERISA is blowing in the breeze.
Nostrovia,
hank to kashnkarry: tarpy wants to feed ppt some C and some F and throw in some of those Lehman bonds that are underfoot, ppt needs to not stumble out of the gate tomorrow. thanks for the backrub.
You still got it. Friggin' funny man.
Nostrovia,
Comrade Misean is Dope
In all seriousness, I think we may be headed for a time where having a sense of humor is far more valuable than having a lot of "wealth".
EHP,
FT.com / Capital Markets - More troubles emerge among derivatives
and a better explanation
US SWAPS-Spreads narrow; 30Y inversion to Treasury deepens
| Reuters
This will be The Word in 2009: Receivership
Also see Big Joke in UK:
Start lending or else: Brown tells banks to help businesses in return for their £37bn rescue package
The number of firms going into receivership - an attempt to rescue them from the brink - has rocketed by 238 per cent in a year.
From July to September, 270 firms went into receivership, compared to just 80 in the same period last year.
More than 4,000 firms collapsed into liquidation between July and September, up 26 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Government's Insolvency Service.
But in a hint that the £37billion already lavished on banks may not have been enough to unblock the credit freeze, Mr Brown told MPs any intervention would need extra cash.
He said: 'If we take further measures, that may cost money as well as costing banks changes in the way they operate.
What makes the USA special?
Why should we expect continued funding of our debt?
What steps could taken to bring us out of this death dive?
What makes societies fail?
Is their intrinsic wealth in our existing institutions to provide structural strength and prevent collapse?
Is their any hope?
We focus on the negative reality of the situation, can we focus on solutions?
ac,
"In all seriousness, I think we may be headed for a time where having a sense of humor is far more valuable than having a lot of "wealth"."
I'm sure you recognized this over a year ago as I did.
My Mom's Mom was one of the funiest persons I've known. She lived through the GDI. I must get it from her. What else have you got when all else fails?
Nostrovia,
good point, how is the Treasury going to fund itself going forward? I don't think they have a pla
From Reuters piece:
The yield inversion between 30-year swaps and 30-year Treasury bonds deepened. Thirty-year swap spreads were last quoted at minus 19.00 basis points versus minus 15.75 basis points late on Friday after hitting an intraday low of minus 20.25 basis points.
Much of the demand in 30-year swaps has come from dealers rehedging "non-inversion" notes they sold when the 10-year swap yield rose above 30-year yield last month.
In recent days, another type of hedging emerged, according to UBS analysts.
Whenever the dollar has weakened at or below 97 yen since late October, sellers of Power Reverse Dual Currency Notes (PRDCs) have been keen buyers of 30-year swaps, they said.
the only solution is satisfaction and maintenance of the krill, if the krill are not satisfied, or if the krill die off, the whales die.
30 year swaps--that's confidence
@mp | 11.19.08 - 8:00 pm | #
Thanks for putting those together!
......
ac I concur with the sense of humor. but I also think that everyone gets in (as odd as it sounds) better spirits are tough. Granted I've never done any real "hard time" but at our company meeting tonight (times are tough!) there was more laughter than ever before!
People seemed friendlier too...
Again odd.
.....
Duarte,
Re: it could get worse as people tighten spending more.
You bring up an interesting point about market efficiency! People have supercomputer power and instant data feeds to tap into market info and it may be possible that this speed will act like a backdraft in a credit fire, as people move far faster than ever before in history. I doubt if that theory is plugged in as a variable in any model, i.e, instantaneous market efficiencies in a liquidity trap. The door shut too fast baby!
"Thanks for putting those together! "
My pleasure. Hope they are useful to you.
GGP hired BK counsel...here we go, what happens to all of those properties?
Asia is redder thanred.
you go.
Nostrovia,
"Now's a good time to buy or sell a MALL."
crispy&cole writes:
GGP hired BK counsel...here we go, what happens to all of those properties?
I suppose that depends on the lenders
GGP: they have a very enola gay website
Bond Girl,
Thanks for the handy links, that must mean you value my opinion in some way so I'll do my best to respond.
When the low to negative long swaps have come up before I think there was agreement that structured investments were triggering demand, and it's inevitable that the long bond yields drop by the principle of arbitrage.
Given that long term Treasuries are almost entirely official purchases (learned that from Setser), the lack of liquidity allowing this riskless arbitrage is understandable.
While PRDCs do fit the bill for demand behind the 30yr swaps, I would be skeptical of it all falling there. I'm expect there's a whole catalogue of structured products out there that are contributing.
30yr swaps are normally less volatile right? So it's just one more example of complacent risk estimation
will report back.
lets hope it doesn't all happen before i read it. i'm liking playing dr. doom (small 'd's) in my office.
Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng are also said to have plans to acquire the two U.S. auto companies, reported the 21st Century Business Herald today. Is the US government going to let Chinese company buy Detroit ? Disclamer bought 10000 shares Ford today at 1.39 and 5000 at 1.27 SAIC, Dongfeng said to buy GM, Chrysler assets | HULIQ
GGP link
- NY Times
@Bond Girl:
Do you happen to know what the current 30 yr's implied repo is relative to the Dec future's cheapest to deliver? I'm guessing the 30 yr is still too expensive, and hence some of the swap inversion.
(I don't have access to a Bloomberg right now)
Comrade Misean is Dope writes:
Asia is redder thanred.
Red is up, green is down. Have you never received lunar new year money in a red envelope? Gung hay fat choy!
disclamer: last of the big spenders
The yen may advance to 94.50 versus the dollar and 117.65 per euro over the next couple of days, he said.
Japan's currency reached a 13-year high of 90.93 per dollar last month, threatening exporters' earnings.
EHP,
no,
but perhaps I shall now.
Nostrovia,
@Bond Girl:
Never mind. I'm wrong on that as an inversion hypothesis.
Paul Kasriel, a closet Austrian
, has a good commentary on today's CPI report and Fed intentions (ZIRP?)
Yeah... I think Kasriel is one of the good guys.
Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like he fell out of favor with some folks when he criticized the use of monetary policy with an expansionist bias.
It's as if he differs from the current economic orthodoxy in that he thinks that a car should be equipped with a steering wheel, break, and fuel gauge... not just an accelerator.
Personally I agree with the majority of economists today.
The steering wheel is nothing more than a distraction, and what's the point of having a break when it can do nothing but slow you down? Don't even mention that worst of all horrors, the fuel guage, which might actually convince someone to pull off the road and (gasp) stop to refuel!
The key to a robust economy is having nothing to distract you from pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor and leaving it there right where it belongs. For always and forever.
Credit enima is coming.....,
That story is about purchasing GM's China assets (they're #1 by a comfortable margin) for a song. Same deal happened in Germany where a solar company offered 1.1bn for 4 plants and a research campus of Opel. The announcement in each case was more for show than anything else
cr companion dudes: give a crap about any of this
Austin Tex | 11.19.08 -- thanks for the commentary, concise.
EHP and James Bond Girl, the same.
I like the fixed income / debt posts that are becoming more frequent.
(I'm still working on understanding the macro money creation threads tooo!)
Cheers all!
~
It's risk aversion,'' said Benedikt Germanier, a currency strategist at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut.There are no yen shorts entering the market. There's no one on the opposite side of the trade.'' A short is a bet an asset will fall.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 6.1 percent yesterday to its lowest close since 2003 after government reports showed consumer prices fell the most on record and housing starts sank to an all-time low. The dollar erased its loss against the euro after the decline in equities accelerated, sparking renewed demand for the greenback as a haven.
Japan's currency reached a 13-year high of 90.93 per dollar last month, threatening exporters' earnings and reducing the value of the nation's U.S. government debt holdings.
Whenever the dollar has weakened at or below 97 yen since late October, sellers of Power Reverse Dual Currency Notes (PRDCs) have been keen buyers of 30-year swaps, they said.
Cracker(Unrated) writes:
gas tax, on tap.
not a price floor, rather a price support for the dirty thirsty krill.
Not a bad idea.
Byzantine_Ruins
well thats disapointing, I've said many times you should shun Cracker since the crcompanion came out.
I gotta go sleepeze.
Night all.
Nostrovia,
EHP,
negative swap spread
Swaps at all points are less volatile in normal circumstances, and the cost is more or less backwards now.
Compare Bloomberg.com:
Personal Finance
My first thought when I read that article was "How much of this stuff is outstanding? Can it possibly be moving the spread this much?" The popular pension argument made more sense to me, but maybe it is a little of both. Who knows? It is interesting the currency aspect with respect to the fixed income markets now though.
My Mom's Mom was one of the funiest persons I've known. She lived through the GDI. I must get it from her. What else have you got when all else fails?
The economy can fail and you can still have humanity.
Sometimes I think elevating the cultural status of the wrong one above the other may be our ultimate downfall.
30 year swaps--PRDC's (look it up), let's releverage
yipee!
I think the US Treasury could use 2 co-chairs:
Jim Rogers + Richard Koo
2 smart people, 2 very different backgrounds, global experience, opposite perspectives
One can dream, can't they?
crispy & cole,
I posted link upthread on General Growth from WSJ if you are interested
I'm not in love with the cars guys I'm just in it for the money . Personally I think all bailout suck but, I live in the great bailout nation .Sooner or later Ford will apply for a bank license .
Ladies and Gentlemen, my head hurts.
Thanks to all for the enlightening reading and the need for mo' aspirin.
Just one comment re FDIC intrusion into safety deposit boxes from much earlier thread.
What's happened with FDIC takeover of other banks is irrelevant; they were simply fulfilling their required duty to put the bullet into a bank's head while protecting the depositor. That includes safeguarding the contents of the box.
What might happen in this theoretical situation pertains to the significant national need for the contents of said boxes, i.e. physical commodities like gold, silver, diamonds even.
If the various other countries/blocs are moving to a gold predicated currency in whatever form, then the probable thought would be that the US needs every last bit possible. That would even include dentist's offices for crying out loud.
G'night.
tomorrow's gonna suck.
probably open up tomorrow. Dec will probably suck. lack of money and no velocity will sting
ew post. g' nite all toooo.....
fashioning a lathe perhaps?
Cracker | 11.19.08 - 10:43 pm
Not minors you idiot... miners!
Ford down 25 percent today to $1.26. It was 35$ in about 1999. Just started looking at stock charts going back to 1980s and 1970s. Sobering.
It just seems like the Pump House Gang has died and gone away.
rich | 11.19.08 - 11:31 pm
If you mean PPT, sure, why not, the election was lost, Bush's legacy is shit (as well it should be) - why bother any more?
aye but gold is merely a currency play. The real money starts in seeds
EvilHenryPaulson | 11.19.08 - .
gold is an anti-currency play, seeds is more of a play for krill gotta eat, dont matter if Chemicals are the seeds whale blubber.
if oil is food, then chemicals are food. Check the melamine content in your cornnuts.
Bond Girl,
I know all swap would be less volatile in normal times (although I must confess my entire memory of them exists during the crisis era)
But my thinking on that was the short end wags up and down with the FF rate, while the 30yr T-bond would be smooth + stable. The other half of the swap would also be stable because it's only the better corporations that would dare try. Even during times of stress, those stronger corporations would be the islands smaller companies cling to.
In retrospect, I was making the assumption inflation probabilities were at least symmetrically distributed (in the market's forecast opinion at least). 30yr swap would be more sensitive to inflation, and the shorter swaps would be more sensitive to credit risks (/ FF rate volatility). On balance over relax and stressed times, the 30yr swap should be and is less volatile than shorter counterparts
Consumer price inflation has suddenly screeched into reverse," said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight. "The inflation threat has disappeared from the radar screen."
Does this remind any of you of:
IMHO, things don't suddenly become calm and peaceful!
Tsunami induced waves and inundation at coast sites are caused by an earthquake underneath the ocean due to tectonic plate movements. For example, the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along a subduction zone where the India Plate (an oceanic plate) was being subducted beneath the Burma Plate. The interface between the two plates resulted in a large fault, termed an interplate thrust or megathrust, which when the earthquake occurred, created a significant vertical shift of a massive volume of sea water. The resulting sea surface elevation profile resolves into tsunami waves propagating radially away from the source region (Geist 1999). A large earthquake under the ocean may create a solitary wave with amplitude of less than a meter. However, due to the large total volume of water displaced (the total amount of energy generated) and peculiarity of bathymetry at particular coastal site, the resulting tsunami runup height could be tens of meters (including astronomical tide), causing major structural damage to bridge structures
Courtney Love has denied reports she is suicidal - but admits to suffering bouts of depression.
The former Hole singer wrote 60 posts on her personal MySpace page on Sunday, many of which were incoherent - and one that stated the star was feeling suicidal, according to celebrity website PerezHilton.com.
Love has retracted the statement - but reveals she does battle depression.
She writes on her blog, " No I am not suicidal, occasionally very occasionally (sic) like all of us I get depressed, and that was over a year ago and I had a mini little depression attack well (a) big one... I dont know quite why it happened but I find that mediciation (sic) is not the answer to this."
Courtney Love: 'I had a mini depression attack' - Story - Entertainment - 3 News
tsunami induced waves.
interesting. but how many people actually go out into the danger zone and live with baskets of fish?
Forrest, Forrest Gump.
Cracker,
Gold is a currency with an extremely stable trade balance (new production vs consumption). Since its trade balance is stable, its value changes are dependent on the purchasing currency. Ergo it's a one-sided currency play
Uh huh...
Great Depression
Great Depression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the Austrian view it was this inflation of the money supply that led to an unsustainable boom in both asset prices (stocks and bonds) and capital goods. By the time the Fed belatedly tightened in 1928, it was far too late and, in the Austrian view, a depression was inevitable.
The artificial interference in the economy was a disaster prior to the Depression, and government efforts to prop up the economy after the crash of 1929 only made things worse. According to Rothbard, government intervention delayed the market's adjustment and made the road to complete recovery more difficult.[21]
Furthermore, Rothbard criticizes Milton Friedman's assertion that the central bank failed to inflate the supply of money. Rothbard asserts that the Federal Reserve bought $1.1 billion of government securities from February to July 1932, raising its total holding to $1.8 billion. Total bank reserves rose by only $212 million, but Rothbard argues that this was because the American populace lost faith in the banking system and began hoarding more cash, a factor quite beyond the control of the Central Bank. The potential for a run on the banks caused local bankers to be more conservative in lending out their reserves, and this, Rothbard argues, was the cause of the Federal Reserve's inability to inflate.
CNN: AUTO BAILOUT VOTE CANCELLED
These dudes were on it!
homedad43 writes:
Ladies and Gentlemen, my head hurts.
Yeah, me neither...
But I must thank the commentariat for a very interesting night's thought banquet.
and also:
DID YOU JUST CALL ME A GREATER FOOL?!
ac | 11.19.08 - 11:23 pm
Levity from ac is rarer than sobriety from Elvis.... jus sayin/
What makes the USA special?
Why should we expect continued funding of our debt?
What steps could taken to bring us out of this death dive?
What makes societies fail?
Is their intrinsic wealth in our existing institutions to provide structural strength and prevent collapse?
Is their any hope?
for one, we dicovered and were first to market mass quanitites of rock oil.
We developed significant markets and technologies on the labor of our people that brought us motorized transport and flight
Any dive we take now will pale in comparison to underdeveloped, non-industrialized and resource poor countries/regions.
Socities fail 2/3's of the time from food, and 1/3 of the time from political war which causes the sources of cause 1 to dry up.
There is Huge strength in our system, and many are willing and able to defend it...further than most can imagine.
I'm not driving any more, but I am driving faster. Remember, drive it like you stole it.
Cracker(Unrated) writes:
the only solution is satisfaction and maintenance of the krill, if the krill are not satisfied, or if the krill die off, the whales die.
Have you ever played the boardgame "Junta!"? It's a very good game. Well worth your time to play.
It models the competition for money and power in a generic third world country during a period of major aid flows.
One of the important things about the design is that score is measured in dollars smuggled abroad.
This is a major and important point of transition in states going down the path to strain and failure. Eventually it stops being about cultivating the country so it can produce future riches. Eventually it becomes "secure everything you can when you can".
Once you get policymakers into the "looting spirit," rule of the state undergoes a major transition.
I would say we are at, near or just past that point.
I drive less . Less stress too.
Anecdote: Traveled the PA Turnpike between Phil and Pittsburgh Sun and Monday. VERY little traffic. Not nearly as many trucks, and rest stops were EMPTY (1-2 cars) in the early evening 6-10PM. Never, ever seen it so sparse
Lowest gas price in Kansas City- $1.41/gal and dropping. That's a hell of a lot better than $4.41! The US consumes 400,000,000 gallons per day, so that's virtually $1 billion that we are collectively "saving" every day compared with the peak. That's our "bailout" I suppose. Now if everyone was smart, they'd use that extra money to pay off credit cards so that we can collapse Citibank once and for all.
These prices can't be good for ethanol...it sucks to be them.
"As the DOT noted, miles in September 2008 were 4.4% less than September 2007, so the YoY change in the rolling average will probably get worse."
Um, unless you're an oil company or a road maintenance company, fewer miles driven is better, not worse.
No job, no driving to work.