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ken cooper mortgage pig is starting to sound like a cash register ka ching!
ken, can you make it oink in the next version?
just wondering...
if the bailout is all deficit spending, it means the gov't is spending money it doesn't have to help the economy plug the holes where money should be. so, no money pays for no money. we are in a good shape then as no harm is done. settling the bailout will be interesting then during my next filing date of April 15, 2009.
Serf AG - Mortgage Pig needs to lower her voice a wee bit.
ken, can you make it oink in the next version?
Maybe Ken could program topic-specific sounds. If it's an article about the TARP, then pigs feeding at a trough. If it's an article about taxpayers asking how we'll pay for this, a squealing pig. etc. etc.
CR nice Paul Simon jingle! some thread music -
YouTube -
CR,
I spoofed that song back in June.
Exurban Nation: 50 Ways
Bernanke said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways
Bush said why dont we both just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning youll begin to see the light
And then he stimulated me and I realized he probably was right
There must be fifty ways to leave your mortgage
Fifty ways to leave your mortgage
"Voluntary repossessions involve the bank selling the property at auction "
Note this optimistic fusion of the two stages of the process:
1) "owner" dumping the property
2) bank selling the property
As the situation worsens, these two will decouple into:
1) "owner" dumping the property
2) bank holding the property
The progression is all too observable here in the US.
Somehow this Kinks song came to mind...
All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old,
But there's no England now.
All the wars that were won and lost
Somehow don't seem to matter very much anymore.
All the lies we were told,
All the lies of the people running round,
They're castles have burned.
Now I see change,
But inside we're the same as we ever were.
Living on a thin line,
Tell me now, what are we supposed to do?
Living on a thin line,
Tell me now, what are we supposed to do?
oh deary deary me
YouTube - 4 Paul Simon BBC TV (50 Ways To Leave Your Lover)
Perhaps a lawyer whoo knows UK law can add a bit of background regarding the bank options. IANAL, but I think in the UK the bank can go after other assets of the homeowner. In most of the European countries I know of, mortgages are recourse loans.
Personal Shipping story:
We ship millions of dollars of ag commodities into Asia and Europe. Our containers (along with other growers of this commodity) have been sitting idle at a Russian port for a week with no payment. They are returning back this week (hopefully, as this is a not a quickly perishable ag commodity, we can move to another buyer at a lower price). According to reports from our contacts there, we are not the only ones who containers are being returned, letters of credit with Russian companies are currently not accepted by US banks...
The stories you are reading at Naked Capitalism, on international shipping woes are true...
"Jingle mail" in the UK is probably not people just cutting their losses - as opposed to the US, you can't just walk away from the mortgage loss, if the house is sold, voluntarily or forcibly, the person who took out the mortgage is still liable for any shortfall between the sale price and outstanding mortgage.
Does Englan have non-recourse loans? I know Australia only has recourse loans. You try to walk awaythere an the bank sues you for its losses.
IF England only has recours then what we are seeing is not 'walking away' we are seeing people in their finance sector who know they are not going to find another job and cannot make payments. I think the follow up statistic is vluntary bankruptcy.
Incidentaly, Japan has/had a culture that stated you could not walk away, so people are either spending their entire lives paying off thei over-priced home or they committed suicide s the honorable way out.
C&C,
I read something similar to that about Iceland not too long ago, but based on the volatility of the currency.
Very little could be shipped into and out of the country.
So far this is the first hiccup we have had and hopefully the last...I know of a large grower of a perishable commodity that the same thing happened to, he is screwed. The product is lost, very scary. This is the type of thing that could put a freeze on global trade of perishable goods.
The stories you are reading at Naked Capitalism, on international shipping woes are true...
crispy&cole
~~~~~~~
london banker did a nice summation. all the more reason for folks prepping for food coops, the natural next progression is hoarding -
If cargo trade stops, the wheat doesnt get exported. If the wheat doesnt get exported, the mill has nothing to grind into flour. If there is no flour, the bakeries and food processors cant produce bread and pasta and other foods. If there are no foods shipped from the bakeries and factories, there are no foods in the shops. If there are no foods in the shops, people go hungry. If people go hungry their children go hungry. When children go hungry, people riot and governments fall.
Systemic Risk, Contagion and Trade Finance - Back to the Bad Old Days
C&C,
So what does this mean in the end? People expecting commodities are out of luck and the you take it in the shorts with your good floating around the 7 seas?
Sorry, just trying to figure out where all this eventually leads..
The mortgage payees (I refuse to call them homeowners since the only thing they own is mortgage debt), I want to know what % of them put a down payment on the property, was the mortgage interest only payments, or prinpical & interest, and how many took out a 2nd loan on the property?
A Simon/Garfunkel verse for the prescient crystal ball readers:
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right,
Here I am,
stuck in the middle with you...
Whoops..
Serf Ag explains. THanks
From the article: Lenders can chase homeowners for mortgage debts for up to six years. A forced repossession will seriously damage a credit rating, making it hard for a borrower to secure credit in future.
What does it mean for us? We wont be selling anything to a country (company) that tried to stiff us! We sell a significant amount of product to India and China, so far no problems with payment there....
"We wont be selling anything to a country (company) that tried to stiff us! We sell a significant amount of product to India and China, so far no problems with payment there...."
OK. So no Letter of Credit issues with them or are you working on some other method of securing payment?
This stuff fascinates.
Sam the butcher is selling hamburger for $6/lb. A customer complains that Ed the butcher is selling for only $1.89/lb. Sam asks "why don't you buy from him?" "Because he had run out." Sam the butcher replies "Ahhh, yes. That is the price I charge when I am out too."
"We sell a significant amount of product to India and China, so far no problems with payment there...."
crispy&cole | Homepage | 11.15.08 - 10:10 am | #
NPR broadcast interview with Kuwaiti scrap metal dealer yesterday. His cargo gets to China, they refuse to accept, knowing he's stuck and forced to settle for less than half original contract price.
NPR: "Doesn't that mean you lose money?"
Scrap Metal dealer:"Yes, its part of the business."
C&C,
I don't quite understand what is the cause of the problem. NC implies that LOCs are an easy thing to cut (something I have seen in the bond market with variable rate debt), but what you are saying is that the LOCs aren't being accepted, as I guess default risk is the concern? But the credit is ultimately backed by the cargo, right?
This is something I have not understood about the liquidity problems we are having. It is like collateral makes no difference anymore.
"But the credit is ultimately backed by the cargo, right?"
Bond Girl | 11.15.08 - 10:17 am
Not when the collateral has had a 50% haircut like other commodities.
"It is like collateral makes no difference anymore."
This is a corollary of the Fed's new rule: lack of collateral makes no difference.
Talked with a doc yesterday. He wanted to tell me the story of his son's friend who bought five houses in Temecula. I said, "Does it go like this"?:
Bought five houses with no doc, Neg am loans in 2005? Yup. Neg cash flow from the git go? Yup. Cash out? Not sure. Stopped paying? Yup. Still renting out and collecting good coin? Yup. Filing BK just before forclosure completed? Yup. Lawyer tells them they'll get another 6-12 months. Arnie may give them more.
Hey Arnold, Vee must get zee forclosures started, no more girlie man slouches living for free.
Bond Girl, check out London Banker, he goes into the LOC problem in some depth. worked for 400 years, but times are different now -
The combination of the global interbank lending freeze with the collapse of the speculative, leveraged commodity price bubble have undermined both the confidence of banks in the ability of a far-flung peer bank to pay an obligation when due and confidence in the value of the dry cargo as security for the credit if liquidated on default. The result is that those with goods to export and those with goods to import, no matter how worthy and well capitalised, are left standing quayside without bank finance for trade.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again....or so it seems.
The buyer of our product was unable to come up with any form of payment. The product in the containers is almonds, so we have time to turn it around to someone else, unfortunately the price is a little lower. Also, the Russian buyer has purchased before with no issues...I will get more details this week and share.
Ron Paul on sound money and G20
Jesse's Café Américain
Did he say whore or horror here?
There was discussion last night of who would make a good Treasury Secretary for Obama. If he had any sense, I think he would enlist London Banker. Regrettably, he is just a politician.
Ah, do not know why I did not think of that.
In the auction rate security fiasco, it was amazing to see that auctions were failing for student lenders because no one wanted to touch asset backed debt. But we were looking at debt issuers who were overcollateralized and the assets were explicitly guaranteed by the federal government. Defaults in loan portfolio almost non-existent. Cut out of the bond market, can't get a LOC from anyone.
The banks & Wall Street devolved into casinos. Government reckless spending on wars to enrich the MIC, and Reaganomics deregulation has brought the USA to its' knees. Europe, Japan, China, and OPEC have been patient vultures. Now, their circling over the body. We are at war with traitorous politicians within our system that conspired in our demise; Financial Armageddon.
serf Alan Greenspend | Homepage | 11.15.08 - 10:21 am
Yup. I begin to suspect that all the lozenges we were taught in school about the Great Depression, Smoot-Hawley, etc. were gross simplifications exceeded only by their egregious omissions.
I wonder now if Smoot-Hawley was a way to force U.S. banks to avoid further credit risk, after the excesses of the 1920s (e.g. Florida real estate bust).
crispy&cole writes:
The buyer of our product was unable to come up with any form of payment. The product in the containers is almonds, so we have time to turn it around to someone else, unfortunately the price is a little lower.
Thanks. Perhaps the almond council needs a new marketing campaign.."A container a day, that's all we ask."
Ron Paul for Secretary of Treasury
a somewhat related ag story....
a coworker has a family that are life long dairy farmers (this ~is~ wisconsin, after all...).
how it works is, the dairy cows are impregnated once every 12-18 months to get them to lactate.
the female baby cows are kept on the dairy farm to produce milk, and the male baby cows are sold at auction to be raised for meat.
the last auction of male baby cows had zero bids - 100% fail. it is no longer economically viable to raise them.
the farmers took the male baby cows and stuffed them in any trailer they could find that wasn't attended, just to get rid of them.
coworker says he has never seen this in 50 years of dairy farming.
Thanks for that londonbanker link. For others curious about the freeze-up in letters-of-credit, it is VERY interesting.
Systemic Risk, Contagion and Trade Finance - Back to the Bad Old Days
Sorry, just trying to figure out where all this eventually leads..
Now is a Great time to... | 11.15.08 - 10:07 am
I think we have been discussing this for some time now. Those of us more dour than others are not smug about seeing our worst concerns come to pass.
Ser Alan: We said awhile back that this cargo situation was one we should pay heed to, you with one eye as I recall. Maybe it was someone else, perhaps EHP.
Have ye opened yer other eye yet?
So are you saying they just abandoned the cows?
"the last auction of male baby cows had zero bids - 100% fail. it is no longer economically viable to raise them."
Seems like they could sell them for veal or something.
VV, yep that was me. eyes wide open now, but want to close them. it's possible that this will be just a very short duration, but not seeing any indicators along those lines.
ullpointer - I have a similar story. I was out touring or fields with our farm manager last week and we drove past thousands of acres of table grapes that are dying on the vine. The farmers should have picked them up by now, any rain on table grapes this late in the season will destroy the crop (they can tarp the vines to protect against this, but many were not tarped). Because of a dramatic slowdown of sales, the cold storages for grapes are full and the alternative source is to sell your grapes in bulk to the wineries, however, they are full and the price paid to growers is falling below the cost to harvest them, so for now they are letting the grapes die on the vine.
...coworker says he has never seen this in 50 years of dairy farming. - nullpointer
New England dairy industry circa 1970.
abandoned is such a strong word dear.
Think of it as the Baby Moses in his basket.
crispy&cole writes:
Personal Shipping story:
We ship millions of dollars of ag commodities into Asia and Europe. Our containers (along with other growers of this commodity) have been sitting idle at a Russian port for a week with no payment. They are returning back this week (hopefully, as this is a not a quickly perishable ag commodity, we can move to another buyer at a lower price). According to reports from our contacts there, we are not the only ones who containers are being returned, letters of credit with Russian companies are currently not accepted by US banks...
Ouch. Yea. My friends in shipping or import/export are hurting.
What struck me is that this still was a container traffic movement. If the contrainer returns to the US, its an import movement. If it ships out again there is another X TEU's exported...
Got Popcorn?
Neil
"they can tarp the vines to protect against this"
What, the vines will also become bank holding companies? This has gone too far!
Plantagenet writes:
"they can tarp the vines to protect against this"
What, the vines will also become bank holding companies? This has gone too far!
Plantagenet
~~~~~~~~
NICE!
So this can be screwing with import/export numbers? Don't you think they would account for that?
LOL, Plantagent
--
Ken, please filter this and label it as Irritating and Juvenile for the rest of the folks who want to employ your Nurse Ratched add-on.
Great song, CR, and positively appropriate. I like this one, too.
I'm just mad about foreclosure
Foreclosure's mad about about me
They call it Jingle Mail
Quite right, Bankster.
YouTube - Donovan - Mellow Yellow
Jas
Why is this shipping thing a big deal? Won't the sellers just demand payment in advance or "cash on the barrelhead"? I believe the phrase "cash on the barrelhead" actually comes about from this exact circumstance!!!
Broken record time. Unintended consequences of moral hazard. Trade only works when contracts are enforceable AND enforced. Clearly international trade is about to collapse as parties and counterparties start reneging either because they can or because they don't respect the other side of the transaction.
Can somebody else write a CR comment reader that blocks out all the comments chattering about how wonderful Ken's low-value-comment-deleting Firefox add-on is? Thx.
Won't the sellers just demand payment in advance or "cash on the barrelhead"?
I doubt it. If you're importing from me, and I want cash-in-advance: I will be happy to take your cash in advance. When I don't bother delivering, what recourse do you have?
Why is this shipping thing a big deal? Won't the sellers just demand payment in advance or "cash on the barrelhead"? I believe the phrase "cash on the barrelhead" actually comes about from this exact circumstance!!!
o.jeff | 11.15.08 - 10:47 am
Because of the days of cheap credit no one longer has the cash in advance to pay for goods, but relies on just-in-time supply chain. They exist in the difference between interest rates and margins on the product.
they are full and the price paid to growers is falling below the cost to harvest them, so for now they are letting the grapes die on the vine.
crispy&cole
Ouch.
In GD1, they burned harvested crops (and unharvested) to keep it from being looted and competing on the grey market. This time hey caught it pre-harvest.
Ghad, if crop futures are broken down, that is a HUGE failure of the system. This could put me into the Guns and Butter crowd...
Got Popcorn?
Neil
I couldn't get any sleep last night. I feel so incredibly forlorn about the poor people's homes being destroyed in the awful California fires. Bad things shouldn't happen to good people like that.
George Bush hates black people.
@o.jeff | 11.15.08 - 10:47 am
No foreign importer, in their right mind, would pay cash in advance to any U.S. exporting entity right now, prior to receiving the shipment.
That may be why there is a G20 meeting now.
I see the lightbulbs going on over the heads of CR addicts everywhere. This is no longer a liquidity crunch nor even a velocity of money problem but has morphed into a systemic crisis.
So if there are growing delivery risks, that is going to start affecting commodities prices.
"I see the lightbulbs ..."
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 11.15.08 - 10:54 am
Sorry if I've never acknowledged the contributions you've consistently made to the CR comments section.
Its the blogsite's fault (not mine). So much talent, so little time.
The breakdown in credit should give a huge advantage to vertically integrated companies.
Imaging you own a farm in IOWA, a container ship in Seattle, and a farmer's market in India. You could still operate.
Who fits this mold? Oil companies?
So if there are growing delivery risks, that is going to start affecting commodities prices.
Bond Girl
~~~~~~~~~
eventually, things are still quite deflationary.
Nullpointer--does that mean that they were physically at the auction and he stuffed them in other peoples' trailers?
Unbelievable.
Kuwaiti scrap metal dealer yesterday. His cargo gets to China, they refuse to accept...
From IHT 11-11-08: Nuclear scrap contaminating consumer goods
Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods
Last year, U.S. Customs rejected 64 shipments of radioactive goods at U.S. ports, including purses, cutlery, sinks and hand tools
the world's biggest stainless-steel scrap yard. "There will be more of this because a lot of the scrap coming to us right now is from the 1970s and 1980s, when there were a lot of uncontrolled radioactive sources distributed to industry."
Bartender, another round of radioactive beer on tap for my friends
"Who fits this mold? Oil companies?"
Plantagenet | 11.15.08 - 10:58 am |
bingo.
XOM dividend yield 2.17%
INTC dividend yield 4.20%
Tell me again? Who's the commodity producer with low growth potential.
I think focusing on the "letters of credit" is probably missing the true problem. The truth is that the price and demand for the goods have fallen and/or the buyer no longer wants the goods (because demand has fallen on their side) or cannot afford them. As the almond story illustrates, the impoter could not come up with any form of payment for the goods.
If businesses can no longer depend on cheap and easy access to credit, then they will have to save up enough cash to actually have a cash reserve to conduct business. Those that cannot should fail, and this is correct.
That cow story is one of the strangest things I've ever heard.
The Saturday WSJ has a picture of Korean investors storming their bank, wrestling with guards and seeking redress from the pigmen who gave them "bad advice".
Now we know why every new branch bank teller counter is like the Maginot Line.
Geesh. There has to be a solution to this. 50% down? Cargo released when wire transfer received? Don't tell me wires aren't going thru?
rps | 11.15.08 - 11:00 am
Nice cite. Kudos.
Sorry for no link to Kuwaiti scrap metal dealer but radio interview made it clear the scrap would be sold at destination, just for lots lower than original contract.
Dawg said:
This is no longer a liquidity crunch nor even a velocity of money problem but has morphed into a systemic crisis.
Holy crap. I'll take a pitcher of the radioactive beer please.
The halt to trade could be Smoot-Hawley 2.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
scuse me, looked again, the Koreans are storming the headquarters of the pigmen. This can get them killed?
rob,
The law of supply and demand, when pushed to it's singularity, gives way to the Law of Scarcity. You are absolutely correct that the light bulb is blinking on, but it is far to late for many a poor wretch. Their lives are about to change in a fundamental way, and I fear the poor dears just won't be able to take the stress.
I went to have my pre-employment drug screen yesterday. It was 11am when I entered the diagnostic center, a small mom & pop operation. The guy behind the counter looked genuinely surprised. He said I was his first customer of the day. I indicated that wasn't surprising considering companies are letting people go, and not hiring. He mentioned that he he not making any money and he may not last the year out. I asked him what he did before he opened his operation and he informed he sold medical equipment and made a nice living off it....around $200k/yr. He is trying to get back in it, but he's now over-qualified, so he's trying to dumb down his resume because he says he will now work for $60k/yr because it's better than nothing. Wage deflation will also go along with price deflation, with few exceptions. Then....hyperinflation. I tend to agree with Michael Panzer and some others about deflation first and then hyperinflation.
Hopefully I pass the drug screening. I had a poppyseed muffin for breakfast before I left.
There's always a third party in commodities trading, right? Even for deliveries in the US, there's a clearinghouse.
Psychodave, thanks for the kind words.
Plantagenet writes:
The breakdown in credit should give a huge advantage to vertically integrated companies.
Imaging you own a farm in IOWA, a container ship in Seattle, and a farmer's market in India. You could still operate.
Who fits this mold? Oil companies?
I'll get pummeled for this but GE and Berkshire Hathaway come to mind. GE just bought a floundering medical devices company and immediately started booking lots more sales financed through cheap credit courtesy of GE Capital Credit. Pissed me off privately as I was preparing to personally fund the leaseback/purchase program for some awesome coin. Instead GE Cap gives out what amounts to a 7 digit signature loan for deep sub-prime.
Morrocco,
if it was for a banking job, then more poppyseed items would firmly put you over the top for the position.
C&C You are not alone:
"Brett Stuart, a founding partner of the agriculture trade consulting firm Global AgriTrends, said, "It's ground to a halt. We were sending 2,000 tons of beef per week to Russia and it's almost zero now. We aren't sending hardly anything there.........
U.S. pork exports to Russia have also been hurt in recent months by the dollar-ruble exchange rate as well as the growing lack of credit available to importers, said Nick Giordano, vice president and counsel on international trade policy for the National Pork Producers Council"
Duration Of Pullback In US Meat Exports To Russia Uncertain
My comment: will we find ourselves w/ selected markets of way too much and none at all. My favorite local merchant always has the freshest and best selection of nuts and this year NO pecans - cant get any, none available from his importer...I had to go on ebay last night to buy a few pounds. I love pecans
We watched For Your Eyes Only last night. Comcast is carrying Bond movies now, some free. It sucked. I liked Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun with Roger Moore, but what were they thinking with For Your Pigs Only?
Senorito, it wasn't a banking job. In fact, it's hopefully the industry that will be least affected by the shit that will hit the fan. Operative word there is "least."
1929er - This is/was all about GS, Leham et al selling mini bonds where they were told that they were the same as money market accounts only paying high interest. Some of the pig men are now being forced to cough up the fund to repay the sickers who bought them.
"GE Cap gives out what amounts to a 7 digit signature loan for deep sub-prime."
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 11.15.08 - 11:13 am
Not to rub it in, but this reminds me of my finance question of the week:
Why is everybody from CR (his own respected self) to Jesse's Cafe pissed off at GE for getting FDIC insurance?
Seems to me they're paying premiums for it like everybody else, and are probably more good for the money than any U.S. bank.
So why do people allege they're in on the TARP bailout like they're some fly-by-night insurance company?
Barley - thanks for the link!!
"Credit Suisse analysts said. "Russians have been asking for extended payment terms and renegotiated prices.""
I had a poppyseed muffin for breakfast before I left.
Morocco Bama
In process of a job change some years aog I was forwarned about eating poppyseeds...makes me chuckle
We were sending 2,000 tons of beef per week to Russia and it's almost zero now. We aren't sending hardly anything there.........
Study Shows Mad Cow Disease Can be Genetic
Previously believed to be a food-borne disease, researchers have discovered that some cows are genetically predisposed to contract bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The report shows that up to 48,000 cattle in the United States alone could carry the gene.
@Rob Dawg
"Instead GE Cap gives out what amounts to a 7 digit signature loan for deep sub-prime."
And what sucks is that GE is doing this with taxpayer funds via their access to the government commercial paper scheme. This is absolutely nuts. We are subsidizing bankrupt huge financial companies with the hard-earned taxpayer dollars -- or worse, from the hard-earned money of our children not yet born. This is so immoral it is disgusting.
Barley, I disagree. This is a shock that is allowed to happen in order to usher in the next phase. What that next phase is, or will be, is cause for much speculation, but you can be certain our opinion matters not in its fomentation.
Barley | 11.15.08 - 11:15 am |
speaking of Russia, we export quite a bit to them and they had been buying our debt. oil/NG being their fundamental economic engine, they are in trouble, as are we as exporters and debtors to them.
i think this has been reported here, but they have a tried and true method for times like these -
Police Get Orders to Crush Crisis Unrest
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered police on Friday to stamp out any social unrest or crime arising from the global financial crisis.
Police Get Orders to Crush Crisis Unrest | News | The Moscow Times
C&C - I read a news article last week about some huge shipments of raw chicken being refused because of weak LOC...busy trying to find you the news bite as it had name of the poultry profucer, and a few trade/export experts quotes....
World war is in our future.
It's the next "hoocoodanode."
Do not have the impertinence to ask me when.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered police on Friday to stamp out any social unrest
serf alan greenspend
And, as of Oct. 01, we have live, on duty, military, on the ground, in the US of A! (mmmm)
If folks start protesting I would expect that banks will be the first stop then govt. offices
Time to consider investing in companies involved in security/policing
Serf, it's amazing, but most folks don't know that we have always had a strong export relationship with Russia, even during the Cold War era. Keep your enemy just strong enough so you can rationalize your progessively militarized economy.
eed more cofffeeeee to many typos
How to ramp up real money supply on main street? Get the insurers hard on the gov't nipple via TARP, proceed to wealthy and wooded housing community. Wait for the
Santa Ana blowhard. Light match. Printing press--TARP--Insurers--homedisowners. Supply decreased, demand increased. Money to spend delivered B-52 style, er, fire tanker style. Counterdeflationary Dresden Central Bank.
"Keep your enemy just strong enough so you can rationalize your progessively militarized economy."
Morocco Bama | 11.15.08 - 11:29 am
A nice young man destined for U.S. Army intelligence, Soviet specialization, kept it simple for me back in 1973:
"One side keeps the other side going."
TARP is the rich man's mentality; we'll spend our way outta debt
I think I might have found the NPR story that was talked about:
A Strange Shortage Illustrates The Global Economy : NPR
"A Strange Shortage Illustrates The Global Economy"
ew thread of happy news...
"the NPR story that was talked about"
was the story I referenced above.
Doc at the Radar Station | 11.15.08 - 11:36 am
Honors to your research mad skilz.
Shakur Adel-Al-Essa, who works for a Kuwaiti metal and recycling company
[signed] unreconstructed 36kbyte dialup user
psychodave,
I realized I had the wrong story soon after I posted, but it was very mysterious...
*If global trade has contracted significantly, you would expect a surplus of empty containers-generally.
*If we have a scarcity of containers here, that implies that our imports have dropped faster than our exports-which is in line with the logic in the story.
However this contradicts CR's inbound/outbound shipping charts earlier, which seemed to imply that our exports have fallen off more rapidly instead. Unless... our exports have fallen off more rapidly because we don't have the containers to ship...... Hmmm.
Shakur Adel-Al-Essa, who works for a Kuwaiti metal and recycling company
"I've forward-sold around 15,000 tons of material, and only 3,000 tons went through," Adel-Al-Essa says. "The rest were either canceled or asked for discounts or asked for discounts and changed payment terms."
The other 12,000 tons, Adel-Al-Essa says, are either in port or heading back at huge losses to him.
"I have to sell them at current prices today. That's the nature of the business," he says.
So tens of thousands of tons of imported scrap metal unloaded from boats and rejected by buyers are now sitting in limbo in ports around the world, especially in China. With broken contracts becoming a norm, trust between foreign sellers and Chinese buyers is at an all-time low.
psychodave,
I think I know where the empty containers are that we need to export goods-they must be sitting idle in transit and nobody is unloading them, or if they get shipped back here, the containers aren't being unloaded here either. ??
@ Doc at the Radar Station | 11.15.08 - 12:28 pm
I've no good answers for you, that's why I come here.
Additionally, I've got some information overload problems, plus the freaks are showing up in mass on the next thread.
I'm Signing Off for the day. The best I can offer you is this link:
My #1 priority right now
Thanks for you generous attention.
I don't see comment links any more on CR's blog! Are we being shown the door?
To echo what other people have said, this isn't "jingle mail" as understood in the states. You don't get off the hook by handing in your keys. Most likely these people have no equity left and figure the monthly payments will be less if they rent a smaller place than if they stay in their current home.