Jared \t Credit enima is coming..... | \t \t \t \t12.26.08 - 9:19 pm |
As purveyors of the worst advertiseing campaign ever ("he went to Jared's" repeatedly about 40 times in 30 seconds)- they absolutely had it coming. This makes my day!
Especially since retail jewelry is a hug rip-off (like 500% markup).
Just curious, but will the score of retail bankruptcies boost the sales of the remaining department stores? That is will the few remaining customers of the more boutique stores return to staples such as Sears, Macys, or JCPenney for their shopping?
Can any of you data wizards extrapolate the hit to unemployment from loss of retail jobs based on this estimated industry BK rate? \t Comrade V | \t \t \t \t12.26.08 - 9:21 pm |
More importantly, can you work it the other way - how many new BKs does the increase in unemployment cause?
This is the kind of adverse feedback loops that MSM and shillmeisters like CNBC just couldn't get through their heads and/or ignored when they prattled about "containment".
I can haz bailouts?,
It will at the macro level. The surviving stores that may get a hit are ones that are often (sometimes paired) in the same malls as the BK stores as overall mall traffic will decrease. Anchor stores going BK will be devastating to the other mall stores.
I think it's safe to say discounters will continue to gain share. If they're already free-standing, they will benefit from the reduced mall traffic as well.
Sears / KMart are obviously dead, but I've seen what they're likely to be in the next life. Near my house is a "Sears Appliance and Hardware" branch. It's really pretty great - just Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, etc. IOW, the stuff that people actually come to Sears to buy, without the massive fail of their attempt to remain a department store. Of course, this is in a strip mall with maybe 1/3 the square footage of a mall Sears but I think there's enough brand equity left to maintain some semblance of a presence.
Bailouts and Lama.
1. Yes, it will be more crowded in the few remaining shops.
2. Niche products will disappear.
3. Then general shortages.
4. Then Bernanke's inflation will kick in. First JPM and GS will create a bubble somewhere. Nobody knows where and that's why the call for better regulation is fruitless.
5. Then inflation will reach the middle class. Hoarding and shortages.
6. Timing? I don't know. Most likely a deflationary cliff-dive first that will shock even Jas Jain.
In the malls I am aware of, the anchor stores pay virtually nothing for rent. Typically a Sears or JCPenney's will be the anchor(s) and pay a percentage of gross (1-2%) + some nominal fee.
Most of the mall rent is made off the backs of the small "mom-n-pop" stores (the few that are left). I know a few of these people. The "Midnight Madness" or 5am s--t on Black Friday really sticks them. In more than a few cases, the person who opens is the person who closes. Yup, 5am - 10pm.
Tried to go shopping today and ended up sitting in the parking lot for hours paring and then leaving. Lots of people, all the crap is overpriced, there is no help in the stores and their goal is to piss you off so that you will leave them alone. All I know is that people still insist on giving me gift cards for some inane reason despite my vocal opposition to them. Unfortunately I despise giving companies money more than the gift cards so I try and leech them down to pennies and leave them there.
Mr Wangsilabat, President of Thai Industries in Ayutthaya, said: 'Our small province, which host the largest amount of electronic manufacturers plants in the country, could face lay-offs of 100,000 workers. Our survey show orders have fallen 50-80%.'
No link. The Nation news paper. From mobile.
Manufacturing in Asia is cliff diving. The U.S. consumer is bigger than rest of the world. Will they continue to buy Treasuries? Maybe.
In California, we've already lost one regional department store chain -- Mervyn's -- and another regional chain, Gottschalk's is apparently in trouble.
Multiply that by 20 or 30 for the entire company, then add the national chains.
From what I'm reading, in retail the high end isn't doing well, the middle is under pressure and overcrowded, and only the low end has a shot.
Seeing the same thing in restaurants around here; local paper even did a story. Inexpensive restaurants with quality food are hardly feeling the pain, but the higher end is losing business fast. Restaurant chains will probably host the next wave of bankruptcies after retail.
Liquidate the retailers, liquidate the newspapers, liquidate the auto makers, liquidate Wall Street, liquidate the banks, liquidate the U.S. government.
[bobn writes:
Jared
Credit enima is coming..... | 12.26.08 - 9:19 pm |
As purveyors of the worst advertiseing campaign ever ("he went to Jared's" repeatedly about 40 times in 30 seconds)- they absolutely had it coming. This makes my day!]
Guilt based advertising. Ranks right up there with. "Susanne researched it. We can do this"
Who needs stores? Who needs local banks? Who needs public services? Who needs to own a home? Who needs jobs?
We can just sit around and blog all day how cool it is.
Sorry, just personal observation which, in my case, is often deeply flawed.
nova
No worries. Just thought I'd missed something. Seriously respect the info posted here (in most cases)
Agree, on most takes here. From my semi-insider view, a few of the larger regionals may make it through the year if they can contain their costs quick enough. Not sure how many can make it through another year like '08, though.
The legs are wobbly, the bell is sounding to start the next round. Will they answer? How often will "Down goes Frazier" be repeated before 2010?
What does he say?
NorkaWest | 12.26.08 - 10:20 pm | #
Looks a bit warmed over from December 21, a decent recitation of how the banking sector is pretty well screwed for an extended period of time...quite a bit more interesting post from December 15 on the evolution of banking into 'financial services' with steroids as the metaphor - short term performance boost at the risk of long term damage.
I generally do not get the chance to go shopping directly after Christmas (so I can't offer much by way of comparison), but I got some shopping in today. Stores seemed very busy, but the level of markdowns was absolutely shocking to me. It makes me wonder how bad off stores are going to be when they get their new merchandise in. What will they price it at after this? It does not look good.
This shouldn't surprise anybody. Every city and town in America began to resemble each other and become essentially indistinguishable over the past decade.
We all scoffed the first time we saw two SBX on the same block. Then across the street from one another. Then in grocery stores. Lowe's and Home Depot's five minutes apart. And so forth. How many stores can you buy the same things. What is the essential difference between Kohl's, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Kmart, Cabelas, Pottery Barn, Pier One, Sam's Club, Costco etc ? 6 different grocery stores in the same mile radius, Whole Food, Cub, Safeway, HEB, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Winn Dixie, Publix, Albertsons.
It turns out you can have too many choices, and too much stuff.
WALL*E probably didn't become a big Pixar hit because the parody of consumerist culture didn't stray very far from the truth.
Something a bit more upbeat - successfully running a startup while the SHTF:
Fiscal Chaos Aside, Start-Ups Bloom in Argentina
MENDOZA, Argentina Even in the best of times, Felix Racca faced a formidable task trying to build a new class of entrepreneurs in a country known for cozy cronyism and political melodrama. And now, the Argentine angel investor is trying to do it in the middle of a global storm that has sucked billions of investor dollars out of emerging markets.
So while the Buenos Aires stock exchange was tumbling to a five-year low in October after the government announced it would nationalize private pension savings, Mr. Racca was 600 miles away, coolly discussing the prospects of a start-up with Daniel Caselles. Fiscal Chaos Aside, Entrepreneurial Spirit Grows in Argentina - NY Times
Won't it be cool when the USA collapses including the currency? It won't get as bad as Gaza or South Africa because it can't get that bad. Maybe it'll be like New Orleans in the bubble areas. Cool.
Maybe we'll have a lot of homeless too. Who needs the USA? Right.
Just tank it and default on all the social support and 'entitlements' people have paid into.
I don't know how it is some bloggers can spin this into being something to look forward to.
Some people are rooting for this nation to become some form of 'modern' Bolshevized American Union(USSA) of pauperization(insolvency) and deproletarianization(unemployment).
The plan in the founding of this nation I think was to avoid all this and have some form of liberty not debt servitude and impoverishment.
Central banking and government deregulation took us here with destructive economic cycles.
Why get excited about the Crashing of the USA? The regime in power and central bankers accelerated this demise and the new admin has chosen the same path based on many of the Cabinet appointments.
It's just hard to see the bright side to this right now. Carry on. As you were.
(If the banks don't get their RE/CRE bubble prices, this Crash will implode even faster.)
The term "I can get it for you wholesale" comes to mind."
This is so 70's. Levetts, Circle K, and others. Mismanaged retail is similar in many ways in every cycle. The JCP's and Kohls will eventually carve up bigger market shares of a somewhat smaller pie.
In the race to build sculptures the Easter Islanders de-forested the island and extinguished themselves. The problem was caused by too much de-regulation and a massive liquidity trap in the downturn that the authorities failed to address. Zero interest rate policy and Keynesian infrastructure projects were finally introduced, but by then it was too late.
Wal-Mart buys overseas to keep costs down, yes? I wonder how much money Wal-Mart has siphoned off the U.S. economy in four decades. By that, I mean payments for imported goods.
Now, slowly, Argentines are beginning to trust and invest in each other.
Trust is key.
After the dot.bomb and Enron, I was surprised so many people got back into the "markets". I guess the 401K pension "system" leaves people little choice.
Does everyone here know the story about the two lawyers and the big hungry bear? Substitute retail chains and it's the same situation now:
"Two lawyers [retailers] walking through the woods spotted a vicious-looking bear. The first lawyer [retailer] immediately opened his briefcase, pulled out a pair of sneakers and started putting them on.
The second lawyer [retailer] looked at him and said, "You're crazy! You'll never be able to outrun that bear!"
"I don't have to," the first lawyer [retailer] replied. "I only have to outrun you.""
Moral of the Story: The stores that can stay alive just a little bit longer ("outrun the others") should pick up some business from those that go under -- and that might be enough for them to pull through.
The same thing happened this year with the big dinosaur banks (WFC, BAC, JPM etc.) that have been sponging up deposits to rebuild their capital from those that failed (WB, CFC, WM etc.).
Meanwhile, another one from the "could be worse" department - remember that a lot of BKs aren't complete liquidations; the stores stay open and many employees stay on (at lower wages/benefits perhaps). But I agree about the vicious-cycle potential of rising unemployment.
Finally, thanks to those who suggested (a few weeks ago) reading "Since Yesterday" about the 1930s - I found it very helpful here, in many ways. It was written in 1939 and the sections on 1929-1933 are filled with sentences that are practically word-for-word echoes of the daily news this year. But most of all it was very helpful for girding up for a Depression-type scenario.
I read a library hardcopy, but for those seeking a quick link, the Gutenberg e-text is here:
the guest, you are obviously looking for a knock-down verbal fight with those who want to see the economy find its own way with less government intervention. If you have specific reasons why government intervention is more helpful than government abstinence, then please lay out your arguments. It's not the first time this debate has been engaged, but maybe you have something new to add, and many of CR's readers are open-minded enough to consider thoughtful new contributions.
Seeing the same thing in restaurants around here; local paper even did a story. Inexpensive restaurants with quality food are hardly feeling the pain, but the higher end is losing business fast.
I don't know about that -- I was at the West Restaurant in Carlsbad a couple of days ago. It's a pretty high end restaurant and it was just as full as it was a year ago -- and the prices are even higher than a year ago.
<i>Easter Islanders left written accounts of their system?</i>
Well, you need to read 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond ... When the wood ran out (100% deforestation of larger trees), people started to starve, and didn't have the wood to build boats to transport themselves any distances. Society came apart, and population dropped like a stone. Went from tens of thousands of islanders, to less than I think under five thousand by the time the Europeans found them. How do they know? The discipline called 'Archeology', I understand. No ponies for anyone... but they did have chickens.
The 'survivors' in all this will be the central banks and some of their mega 'investor' banks. Industry and retailing is 'falling down'.
Of course, government entities like the Treasury and the Pentagon will survive.
What won't survive is the middle-class consumer lifestyle which granted became a 'bubble' like everything else in this economy. It was a 'systemic' bubble that permeated every aspect of finance and the economy.
Now it will be systemic deflation.
Do you see how important it was that our elected and 'unelected' stewards of our economy used care and diligence instead of wreckless disregard or intentional mismanagement to safeguard the public interest and solvency of the worker/consumer majority?
You've heard the expression 'set up to fail' and it's hard to believe but I don't buy the ineptitude theory everytime something goes wrong so I guess that undue suspicions. Whatever.
The 'independent' historians if there are any allowed will have to sort this giant Ponzi Crash out someday.
William K. Black, The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Black was the lawyer/whistle-blower in the Savings and Loan and Keating Five scandals; he later took a degree in criminology. His theory of control fraud addresses the situation in which the leader of an organization uses his company as a weapon of fraud and a shield against prosecutiona situation with which law and economics cannot cope.
Black shows that the large frauds were nearly all committed in institutions taken over for that purpose by criminal networks, often by big players like Charles Keating, Michael Milken, and Don Dixon. And theres another thing about predatory institutions. They invariably fail in the end. They fail because they are meant to fail. Predators suck the life from the businesses they command, concealing the fact for as long as possible behind fraudulent accounting and hugely complex transactions; thats the looters point. Jesse's Café Américain
Near my house is a "Sears Appliance and Hardware" branch. It's really pretty great - just Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, etc. IOW, the stuff that people actually come to Sears to buy, without the massive fail of their attempt to remain a department store. Of course, this is in a strip mall with maybe 1/3 the square footage of a mall Sears but I think there's enough brand equity left to maintain some semblance of a presence. Comrade Knifecatcher | 12.26.08 - 9:47 pm | #
They are also frequently 'franchises' - I talked to the owner of our local 'branch' and she absolutely busts ass to provide service. She said in many ways she was nutz to open the franchise - it's a 24 hr a day job 7 days a week and she has kids - but her hubby and her 'spell' each other. But she said she has grown volume every single year - through service. Lesson there for you Mr. Wall Street.
Things could be far worse than the 'Chain Store Massacre' that's upon us. In fact, in the right spirit of things, we should be downright giddy that consumerism is taking a direct hit on the nose.
By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be chillingly obvious. Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources. We too have no emigration valve, because all human societies are linked by international transport, and we can no more escape into space than the Easter Islanders could flee into the ocean. If we continue to follow our present course, we shall have exhausted the world's major fisheries, tropical rain forests, fossil fuels, and much of our soil by the time my sons reach my current age.
"The `Dance of the Derivatives' of 1994-95 gave a foretaste of what is to come. Banks, commission houses, pension funds, and even municipal governments are known to have gambled and to have suffered grievous losses, some irreparable. Observers blamed the debacle on inept or dishonest traders. A more adroit analysis would, however, show that disaster had to strike in any case. The same thing would have happened even if traders had been meticulously following the traditional methods of hedging and arbitrage."
"The term `redistributive society', as it is used by both its protagonists and antagonists, refers to the redistribution of wealth and income -- after they have been produced. More ominously, a movement to redistribute future losses is afoot. If successful, losses will be perpetuated and passed on to society. The scheme will allow the indolent, the inefficient, the inept, and the consistent loss-maker to continue in business indefinitely at the expense of the industrious, the efficient, and the profit-conscious."
"But if the distinction between profit and loss is obliterated, society's internal communication system may be falsified. Ultimately, production would be thrown into confusion. The leitmotif of our chrysophobic age can be described as a parade of the loss-makers. The profit-conscious must be cowed into submission. The gold standard is anathema to the lobby of the loss-makers, as gold puts profit and loss into the sharpest focus, separating the adept from the inept, the industrious from the indolent. The lobby wants a system under which distinction between profit and loss becomes fuzzy, inefficiency can be covered up, and ineptitude entrenched."
I just turned on Cramer on CNBC and he had the phrase 'Calculated Risk' on the TV in the background and I just spit my drink all over my laptop screen.
These Sears franchisees vary a lot, Dry. But yes, service is the key.
I bought a 24HP lawn tractor for the ranch last Spring. I went into the store to buy oil filters. What an ordeal. Replacement blades seem to be a problem also.
Inventory and service are the keys to success in any hard goods business. Just an observation.
Add Bass Pro and Cabela's to your list. badger boy | 12.26.08 - 10:00 pm |
All of them lost me when they became clothes stores with a misleading, to me, name. nova | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 10:08 pm | #
I tie my own flies & build rods - I won't need much in fishing equipment until my next lifetime. Hope I'm not reincarnated as a trout - that would be some seriously bad karma.
Patient renter,
There's always been some forms of anti-Americanism. Not sure that's what I'm seeing.
My argument is consider 'organized fraud' maybe instead of just thinking those in control are bumblers or meatheads. I don't think the PTB is as stupid as some observers make them out to be.
I mean now the ponzi might be as big as Citibank based on a lawsuit anyway...maybe it could be bigger than that. Bigger than Madoff. Bibber than big bank CEOs.
The analysis needs to get as big in scope as the 'systemic' problem IMO. I'm just another observer though. Solid 'independent' research into this latest Crash is needed.
As I said if those who run the system are possibly corrupt or avaricious or even unbalanced, you coud f*#k up Shangri-La or ElDorado if you fleece the thing.
Stalin even screwed up 'communism' if that's even possible.
Why did we fight all these years against the 'Red Menace' when we are getting some mutated form of it today in the USA twisted to serve the priveleged class & related elites
I'm not sure what to call what's been happening globally especially in the last 20 years.
Organized crime?
I don't think it's Capitalism or Socialism in strict theoretical forms if it has been subverted into another political/economic globalized process of some form of wealth extraction from the bottom to the top.
I don't think what's coming should be applauded is what I'm saying and I don't think what's coming can be stopped if some of the same people who probably caused it are still in power. And most of these people in charge are appointed not elected which may be another big problem with our 'failed system'.
Patient renter,
Don't you see that 'selective' government abstinence is a big part of destructive bubble/crash cycles. Economic/finance history indicates this.
"Hope I'm not reincarnated as a trout - that would be some seriously bad karma."
I'm not much into the reincarnation thing, but to make ammends to this world, when I check out I want my worn out body to be fed to the bears at the zoo!
From what I'm reading, in retail the high end isn't doing well, the middle is under pressure and overcrowded, and only the low end has a shot. Bob Dobbs | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 10:13 pm | #
Low end has their own issues - margins. They sell more but make nothing per sale. Meanwhile many [like WalMart] have expanded way beyond their core demographic. It is unclear if these guys will make it go any better than the boutiques. Depends on how severe the overhead burden becomes - a small drop in sales for a heavily levered mass retailer can do as much damage as cliff diving for boutiques with higher margins.
BTW - a focused & well run boutique biz isn't as bad in a recession as folks here believe. It is ONLY bad if they expand too fast, too far & lever up - become a commodity. The best 'fly fishing shops' I ever went to were in the recession years of the 70s & 80s. People like myself knew where they were and drove ridiculous distances to find them - that was before there was a faux-fly or bass shop in every 'vacation destination' mall.
My wife used to do fiber arts [quilts & weaving] and she was the same way - drove silly distances to find real Amish quilt supply stores. Run by real Amish catering to real Amish - not the pretend stuff you see today.
People did this even while paring back their other expenditures - like the cars we drove those ridiculous miles to get to those places. It used to be said of fly fisherman that their cars doubled in value every time they put their rods in their cars - that would have been me back then and I didn't even have expensive rods.
Point is that in a recession people do a lot less impulse buying but their limited passions become addictions and a well run [usually privately owned & operated] boutique can do quite well.
In most ways, the stagflationary 70's were much worse than what we are going through today. Don't mean to be flippant and have empathy for the job losers.
Managing money back then was a real bitch. We didn't have many of the hedging tools to offset risk. If you were caught up in the 'Nifty Fifty' or infrastructure plays with fixed priced contracts, you were screwed. Think Combustion Engineering or Westinghouse.
Pay attention to the balance sheets coming out of this recession. Balance sheets and cash flow will make or break you.
The 'Dance of the Derivatives' and Black's concept of 'control fraud' may be along the lines of the kind of research that may be needed to demystify the events of this latest bubble/crash.
Tg is a born & bred dope,
Yes we can see there is a socialization of losses as seen in the 'Dance of the Derivatives' reference you mentioned.
But there's profit for 'insiders' in blowing the bubble and profit in vulture picking of the burst bubble remains.
Assets of any defleted value will be scooped up at fire sale prices when the thing really collapses. It won't be catching falling knives. It will be piracy & looting as a ship is sinking.
nventory and service are the keys to success in any hard goods business. Just an observation. Ross | 12.26.08 - 11:10 pm | #
Correct sir. And they don't carry a lot of inventory - but the one in my town keeps records of what I've bought so I can call them up and say... I need **** and they will look up my model & order the right spare and tell me when they come in. Pretty fast too - usually only wait a day or two & no shipping fee if delivered to the store. Slicker than snot.
But these folks don't want their biz to fail so they do service. I wonder what happens when they want to retire - who would buy such a ball-n-chain?
Ross writes:
In most ways, the stagflationary 70's were much worse than what we are going through today. Don't mean to be flippant and have empathy for the job losers.
It was far worse back then short term. A lot more folks got laid off, but recessions then were driven by excess inventories for the most part. When the inventory got worked off, you got called back to work. Now it seems that the job losses have more permanence, they are more structural, and we seem to be worse off after each recession (except for debt-induced consumption).
Patientrenter,
If the 'intervention' or 'abstinence' is run by crooks, neither one will work. Do you see that who is running the show is of importance to the 'planned' or 'unplanned' outcome?
I just ordered spare parts for my Toro snowblower from Sears via the internet.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes to receive the order.
Truckee has a small Sears store which is a francize as mentioned above. No traffic - staffed by a relative, young, of the owner. Truckee depends on tourism and now the tourism is skiers. Lucky for the ski resorts we just had a big dump of great powder just in time for the holidays. The webcams show the slopes are packed.
Come on up and enjoy some great skiing and save the local economy.
For you Easter Island (Rapa Nui) fans in this thread:
I just came back from a week there, and the dirty secret is that, after the native peoples were nearly wiped out in the 1700's, the islanders succeeded in repopulating the place and reforesting the island - only to see the destructive cycle repeat itself as the island's tourist economy sucks up all the fresh water and the inhabitants' 5,000 "wild" horses trample the moai and eat up all the vegetation. The horses end up eating a poisonous weed, and their bloated corpses can be found along the beaches where they search for fresh water.
It remains a beautiful and mystical place, but also a testament to how we humans keep doing the same stupid things over and over.
Coldwater Creek. . . I can't see how they can last. Wrong, wrong business model. Why in the world has the stock been going up? Oh that's right, that means it is dying, right?
"Assets of any defleted value will be scooped up at fire sale prices when the thing really collapses.It will be piracy & looting as a ship is sinking."
Even pirates need a safe harbor.
"Educating public opinion to look at gold as a gift of Prometheus, rather than Pandora's box, after 75 years of vicious chrysophobic agitation and propaganda, presents us with a formidable task. Yet we must do what we can to disseminate the truth about gold.
The consequences of the alternative, a credit collapse engulfing the entire world, are too horrible to contemplate."
To get in on the thread topic since I can't find the 'patientrenter' with my response to his questions, the retailers have been haunted by consumers timing their purchases to seasonal sales where margins are cut way down.
Also. Think about it. Retailing is a real estate pricing 'issue' because as bubble CRE prices went up bubble rents went way up for many retailers...the per sq.ft. price and tough lease terms(triple net?). A lot of deflationary problems are/were aggravated by the (ponzi) RE/CRE bubble...
Easter Island was an outlier. The level of destruction did't happen to other Island civilations. Even those in the Med like Cyprus, Malta, Sardenia have had milti millinium cultures.
The only bad thing about in-n-out is the grandmother has passed the ownership to a 22-23 year old grandaughter. I hope she's got good sense.
If your on a sales call in so-cal, the best way to win ears is to stop in with a bag full of burgers. $20 bucks gets ya 6! and happy campers. works every time.
Point is that in a recession people do a lot less impulse buying but their limited passions become addictions and a well run [usually privately owned & operated] boutique can do quite well.
dryfly
Only to a point, Dry. I lost a 20 year old, well run business (surf, ski etc) to recession in the early 90's. Hit like a freight train and I simply could not cut expenses fast enough. I had a loyal clientele but unfortunately not the deep pockets to make it out the other side. A few die hard customers is not enough sometimes.
But I was lucky enough to spend an evening with a guy who has started a half dozen restaurants and ran dozens of others - from bottom feeders to the highest high end. He says you can always tell when a restaurant is dying from NO BUSINESS [place is empty] but you can't usually tell just by observation if a busy restaurant is a profitable one. It really comes down to margins & overhead - and you can't know a lot of that unless you are in the kitchen and or see the books.
Funny ruse. I have read this blog for a long time, but rarely post. The In N Out news got a loud groan out of me that registered with the spouse.
In N Out is an extraordinarily well run business. I am fairly sure their lack of expansion is a conscious decision to ensure they do not lose their quality/consistency. They are what I would call Operationally Excellent.
Sorry for the interruption. I'll go back to being a passive observer.
The planet earth was an outlier. That level of destruction didn't happen to other planet civilizations. Even others like Earth in the Milky way including Gamma Centaurus 3 and Delta Delphinus 4 for example, had civilizations that lasted until their host star reached the latter stages of fusing the stars supply of hydrogen to helium.
Don't worry, we can piss and shit where ever we want, earth is a big place and we can just move away from the dump.
type 1. no doubt. it would be my retail nightmare. as the threads have progressed thru the day , and you think about all the various biz's out there, you invariably think about the ones you hold in hi-esteem.
kinda of like a flyin j bankruptcy. You think it's well run. You see tons of users everyday. so how does it fail?
the flyin j story is also odd, because earlier in the year, xom said they were getting out of the retail biz...should have been a sign.
Only to a point, Dry. I lost a 20 year old, well run business (surf, ski etc) to recession in the early 90's. Hit like a freight train and I simply could not cut expenses fast enough. I had a loyal clientele but unfortunately not the deep pockets to make it out the other side. A few die hard customers is not enough sometimes. Now is a Great time to..... | 12.27.08 - 12:19 am | #
I hear ya.
Funny thing is most of the really great fly shops I used to frequent all went tits up in the BOOM - when Orvis thought they could open a faux fly shop everywhere - they have some good stuff but are mostly a 'clothes store' [Gotta look like a fly fisherman right? Never mind if you can throw a loop or not]. Then the Cabelas & Bass Pro Shops discovered fly fishing and stole the 'cheap market' - it was all she wrote for mom-n-pop fly shops.
And it happened at the peaks - dot.com & this RE bubble NOT in the recessions. Maybe if Cabelas & BPS go down maybe open some 'space' for the small guys again.
tg,
My only point was to refute the Malthusian/Club of Rome nonsense about the end of growth due to a lack of physical materials.
In 1850, if an economist was told what the population of the world would be in 2000, he would have said, No Way. WAY! If you can feed them, they will multiply.
Well perhaps we run out of trees to turn into newsprint...Hehehaha. Times change.
Just another cycle. Same as the old cycle.
We probably have another 150 years of modest population growth til the 'self imposed' limit to growth becomes evident.
I too am calling BS on the In-n-Out story... and I agree with Type 1 Error; Operationally Excellent.
Hell, any fast food restraunt that only gets a <1 paragraph mention in Fast Food Nation and it's basicially a positive paragraph at that has gotta be doing things right =)
Course, I believe they do offer their employees both health care and something approaching a living wage so maybe just because of this unAmerican behavior they are being sacraficied /snark.
....And it happened at the peaks - dot.com & this RE bubble NOT in the recessions. Maybe if Cabelas & BPS go down maybe open some 'space' for the small guys again.
dryfly
You hit the nail on the head. In our case, our vendors, all smaller at the time could not resist the call from large retailers. We lost our cachet!!
In n Out is doing fine. AS someone mentioned, they resist over expansion and have been doing this for a long time. In fact they've survived the loss of one of their key management folks (plane crash) in the last few years.
Chavez's legitimacy continues to erode, and in the low price environment for oil it is difficult to see how he can continue to deliver basic political goods when inflation is running rampant, and price controls have resulted in real scarcity of many staples. I am not advocating a course of action with respect to Chavez, but rather observing that ginning up an external conflict is a timeworn approach to redirecting internal dissatisfaction with a regime.
Point taken, and deserves a reply.
The results of the recent elections were hardly dire and as the only meaningful referendum on "legitimacy," they will have comforted Chavez even in the loss of Caracas. His candidates won in an overwhelming landslide (ie, 17-5) far more convincingly than Obama's margin here and, in contrast to the embarrassment in Minnesota, with general accord about the integrity of the process. For that matter, there were 20% gains (1m new votes) for Chavez in the provinces.
Since the Bolivarian agenda is to redistribute oil wealth in order to provide social services to the political base, and since that base is poor, the diminution of oil revenues may be much less a harbinger of his downfall than the US oil-military establishment will wish. That doesn't preclude his removal, either by Venezuelans or North Americans; democracy has never stopped such people before.
My Kirkland pool place is deader than I've ever seen, twelve customers at 9pm. Damnation. That's even less than last nights club in Boise.
Broward Horne | Homepage | 12.27.08 - 12:44 am | #
Your leather Horne balls frightened all the customers away! LOL. Enough with the Easter Island speck of dirt and good night...
From the reviews. Looks like In-N-Out is another addition to my 'bucket list'. Too bad I don't get out west that often - then considering my current cholesterol levels maybe better I don't get out there that often.
Every In N Out you pass has cars surrounding it clogging the drive-thru; always a good sign.
dryfly,
You can visit their website, but the "catch" is they only do the basics and do them well (although IMO they undercook their fries a tad). Beats the hell out of all the others where every day they're changing the menu.
Agreed. But likely a hoax. Didn't see any news story. Family owned and operated, only expanded when they could afford to. Fresh ingredients and they don't use frozen fries. They definitely have a cult following. Still mainly in SoCal with a few going up the coast and Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
Barton Fink, there are no significant concerns about the integrity of the Minnesota election. None. It's just really close. It's not like Florida 2000 at all, where there were significant concerns with the electoral process.
Chavez's problems is not that his wins haven't been legitimate. His problem is that having his government income cut by 2/3 is going to change the next election.
You would like the food and service, but the lean pull system would impress you the most.
If any American does not understand why toyota is burying GM, they should go eat at a McDonalds/Wendy's/Burger King, and then hit an In N Out Burger. Half as much, four times as good, fresh quality food, and employees that smile and actually make eye contact.
There is no equivalent in the East or South (lived in both places).
the guest writes:
To get in on the thread topic since I can't find the 'patientrenter' with my response to his questions, the retailers have been haunted by consumers timing their purchases to seasonal sales where margins are cut way down
Guest, thsi is VERY important and a fact that has not escaped retailers. They have 'trained' consumers to purchase on promo. Many $$ (and brains) are being spent on systems to analyze these trends and cannibalization. These are not stupid people....well most of them aren't stupid
Also Dry, as for your bucket list. In n Out is definitely worth a shot, but there are TONS of great burger places. I would not consider your life a waste if you never get there. Sounds like you have things pretty wired already
Barton Fink, there are no significant concerns about the integrity of the Minnesota election. None. It's just really close. It's not like Florida 2000 at all, where there were significant concerns with the electoral process. Fair Economist | Homepage | 12.27.08 - 12:58 am | #
Amen - been watching it pretty close [as a native of the state] - I'm shocked they've been as transparent & efficient. I've heard NO ONE complain except out-of-staters [mostly GOPers mad that Coleman was anointed] - 'spose now that Franken is ahead be time for the Dems to bitch. Overall it's been increadibly fair & transparent.
Still got a couple more days to gt it wrong but so far so good.
We probably have another 150 years of modest population growth til the 'self imposed' limit to growth becomes evident.
There are no barriers to growth...EVER!
I'll take the other side to that. Somewhere there is a incredibly hardly disease organism that is saying to itself: There's no barriers to growth...EVER!
Also Dry, as for your bucket list. In n Out is definitely worth a shot, but there are TONS of great burger places. I would not consider your life a waste if you never get there. Sounds like you have things pretty wired already Now is a Great time to..... | 12.27.08 - 1:01 am | #
I love good road food though - it is one of my passions so I'll keep an eye out for them.
I'm going to miss our retailers. This is going to be one ugly recession.
In n Out is good in relation to other fast food places. Their fries are some of the best. But any mid-priced restaurant burger is in an entirely different league (way better) - Denny's, IHOP, Chili's.
I'll take the other side to that. Somewhere there is a incredibly hardly disease organism that is saying to itself: There's no barriers to growth...EVER!
sdtfs
Maybe we DO need another plague. History Channel did a great show n that and how it truly changed the world and gave birth to the Renaissance. Interesting theory.
For you iPhone users, download Yelp. Wherever you are, you can get the local good stuff complete with real reviews. Have found some great places. Burgers, BBQ, even a nudist retreat!!
I guess BB can obsolutely beat deflation if he continues printing at current phase (YOY bank reserve 603.6%).
The rate at which the Fed has been increasing bank reserves is ten times that at which it was doing so in 1934. As Chart 7 shows, the year-over-year increase in bank reserves was 603.6% in November 2008. The Feds seasonally-adjusted net acquisition of assets primarily securities, commercial paper and loans to financial institutions represented 100% of the seasonally-adjusted total borrowing by the U.S. nonfinancial sector in the third quarter of 2008 (see Chart 8). Talk about monetizing debt!
Source - U.S economic & Interest rate outlook december 15,2008 by Paul L Kasriel
I'd like to hear more regarding India-Pakistan rumor mongering. Please link to the forum where this rumor was started wrt 4 planes being shot down...
Or else that forum is this CR thread?
I'm not familiar with India-Pakistan news protocol. If something like that happened to an American army plane we'd already an embedded reporter saying he heard the planes get shot down; and another one will confirm.
I imagine India and Pakistan can't spare any able-bodied folks to be "embedded reporters".
I used Yelp on the iPhone when the wife and I went up to the Central CA Coast. Great app. I actually found a good barber using it.
Pandora is my current favorite. Interesting concept. Trying to algorithmically identify what users like.dislike about music. Kind of like a complex house of quality for radio.
Pandora is my current favorite. Interesting concept. Trying to algorithmically identify what users like.dislike about music. Kind of like a complex house of quality for radio.
Type 1 Error
Things certainly look dire. Sometimes things turn out as bad or worse than people predict. But usually it's not as bad as the worst predictions. It's funny to be considered optimistic, since my nickname at work is Dr. Doom.
Anyone see that among the first victims killed in the Mumbai attacks were a Mumbai police chief and his staff who had been investigating an earlier attack in India allegedly by Hindu terrorists and were going to release a report of their findings. Not sure of these reports but is anyone sure who the Mumbai attack terrorists were.
Why would a war start between India & Pakistan if the perpetrators have not been positively established?
Oh, and I see In-N-Out has taken over this thread.
I think their fries are just average and it annoys me sometimes that their condiments are colder than room temperature on the burgers (and sometimes cheese isn't melted completely).
The truth 'bout fries is that to do them well you need to fry them twice. I can do home-made batches of these fries in ~ 45-60 minutes. It's so good and once you do it this way every other fries (fast food) taste like cardboard, including in-n-out.
Here's the recipe (got it from "Good Eats").
Directions
1a. Fill Dutch Oven up 1.5 inches with Oil
1b. Filling up to the top may cause some sloshing and is bad
1c. Use wide dutch oven.
1d. Keep eye on thermometer and oil changed regularly
2. Put thermometer in place
3. Turn up to high heat, trying to get to 300 degrees
Preparing French Fries
1. Use V-Slicer with wide cutting blade
2. Don't need to unpeel
3. Get fries in cold water ASAP (flush off starch from fries)
4. Store fries in cold water
300 degrees
~ 310-320
1. Make sure fry surface is as dry as possible
2. Drain in salad spinner
3. Put them on top of kitchen towel
4. Starch should be on the bottom of the water bucket... do not put back on with fries
5. Use small batches, move around. Make sure temperature is at 320
6. 2-3 minutes, light gold and floppy first fry.
Let Fries cool off to room temperature
Heat up Oil to 375
2-3 minutes @ 375
Crisp and Golden Brown, drain them, add some kosher salt, 200 degree oven
I mean now the ponzi might be as big as Citibank based on a lawsuit anyway...maybe it could be bigger than that. Bigger than Madoff. Bibber than big bank CEOs. the guest | 12.26.08 - 11:19 pm | #
Man, I'm late to this party! This problem can be boiled down to three words: "CULTURE OF INCOMPETENCE".
I forgot to finish above thought. Inspite of my In-N-Out complaints, I only complain because they aren't the "perfect" fast food that everyone makes them out to be, they are however the best fast food burger restaurant. Of course this excludes places like The Habit or Five Guys; which are kind've pseudo fast food without drive thru.
RR,
Yeah I believe in some incompetence but not as an explanation for everything in the boom/bust cycle.
The public may be 'incompetent' i essence in that they don't really know what the hell is going on for sure thanks to media 'incompetence' or directed disinterest in investigating possible wrongdoing or malfeasance and intentional fraud schemes at high levels of politics and banking/finance.
dryfly, just caught your post about coming back as a trout! seriously bad karma!
i just finished stacking up my gear, heading out to do some ice fishing monday. going to hit two or three different lakes by snowmobile, one of which is stocked with lake trout.
i'll be nice to anything that comes through the ice because of that post.
I'll agree with the Five Guys assessment. Loved the peanuts while I waited at their Arlington, VA store.
But In N Out competes in the drive thru fast food space. They have it mastered. If they were to compete with Chili's/mid level, or niche like Five Guys, I have little doubt they would do it well. The main difference in markets being the amount of meat used and the atmosphere.
Sorry for backtracking to the Easter Island article, but this really is the best bit:
"The very foundation of Heyerdahls civil war and societal breakdown in 1680 has been comprehensively debunked. Notwithstanding this rejection, ... [it] remains an almost universally
accepted core belief among Easter Island historians and researchers."
I do not think "debunked" means what he thinks it means.
Yeah I believe in some incompetence but not as an explanation for everything in the boom/bust cycle. The public may be 'incompetent' i essence in that they don't really know what the hell is going on for sure thanks to media 'incompetence' or directed disinterest in investigating possible wrongdoing or malfeasance and intentional fraud schemes at high levels of politics and banking/finance. the guest | 12.27.08 - 1:44 am | #
My point is that for the past few decades, the country has been actively promoting incompetence in the public and private sectors. Examples: our current President and our President-elect (no flames from the hysteric mobs on either side, please). Promoting incompetence over competence has consequences. Had someone with some competence and some concern or vision for the long-term viability of the firms they managed been in charge, the obvious malfeasance and fraud that took place would have been squelched before it got to be a problem. Promoting, accepting or ignoring malfeasance is a deep form of incompetence.
America needs a wake up call and some serious creative destruction. Think of it like milk of magnesia for the entire country.
Sorry for backtracking to the Easter Island article, but this really is the best bit:
Don't know why the Easter Island thing has to be all or nothing. B.P. makes some good points about exposure to Europeans being the epic downfall, but there's no reason there couldn't have been a civil war, as a matter of fact, there were bound to be, just don't know how severe. Not sure Easter Island is a good case study for Diamond as a disaster scenario, but Benny doesn't do much better when he posits canoes in his wrap-up. And seems like everyone is talking about palm trees as trees, when they're not, either as a supply of wood or botanically.
As dryfly points out, sometimes they're competent in different things than you might wish, that is, politics and being elected, not in ruling or governing. I guess that's where the public's incompetence comes into play.
As dryfly points out, sometimes they're competent in different things than you might wish, that is, politics and being elected, not in ruling or governing. I guess that's where the public's incompetence comes into play. sdtfs | 12.27.08 - 2:24 am | #
My apologies to you sdtfs. I was trying to define competence/incompetence.
GRAND BLANC, Mich. (AP) - The financing arm of General Motors Corp. wasn't immediately saying early Saturday whether it had met a midnight deadline to clear a final hurdle in its quest to become a bank holding company, which would allow it to access billions in federal bank bailout money. GMAC Financial Services LLC already received the Federal Reserve's stamp of approval earlier this week, but needed to complete a complicated debt-for-equity exchange by 11:59 p.m. EST Friday. In an e-mail at 12:45 a.m. Saturday, GMAC spokeswoman Gina Proia did not say whether the company met the deadline. She didn't respond to repeated requests for further comment. (...)
Dryfly - I'm a big fan of both In-N-Out Burger and Culver's. Both terrific, but very different.
In-N-Out is like the original McDonald's; simple (smallish) burger, cheeseburger, fries, and a shake all done quick and fresh and cheap. Depends on huge volume and tiny menu.
Culver's, on the other hand, has a huge menu with all sorts of oddball things and variations (fish? 40 ice cream flavors? chicken hot plate?) More of a better Denny's in some ways. And the burgers, unlike in-n-out, are HUGE. If I still lived in Kansas, I'd be dead (hmm, contradiction?) from all those ButterBurgers (and from Cici's pizza, but that's a different story).
Wow, Just got back from a booze fest with what I though were 3 women (turned out to be FIVE). Life is not all gloom & doom in this case.
From the lack of postings here it seems that many have realized that there's more to life than charts and news flashes. I have to admit I missed a good bit of the 80's recession. Just didn't notice, was out of town surfing.
Cheers to Broward. Pool rocks. Makes the young girls swoon.
My fear would turn to downright terror if In-N-Out went BK. It's not that I love their food, it's just that I can't see even the smallest thing wrong with their business. In fact, I'd even say they provide a model going forward. Please tell me that was an unfunny joke?
Managing money [in the stagflationary 70's] was a real bitch
I have to disagree. I don't know the situation in the US, but in Australia (where you don't get an interest deduction on your primary residence) at the time NOTHING even came CLOSE on the risk/reward scale to the 14% tax free one could achieve by paying down principal on one's mortgage.
Talk about recession proof. Can we get some break names (surf pron)
Spent lots of time in Mexico. Later in life got WAY into wind surfing. San Quinten, Todos Santos. Even hit the islands. Ended up marrying a Hawaiian girl. God loves idiots it seems.
I'm hoping he eventually hates Harvard MBAs
The current consumer-driven economy model is broken. It can't be reanimated because its last stages were not fueled by the actual income of most Americans, but rather by debt - persuading people to substitute "managing their credit" for "increasing their incomes." That way, real incomes could be reduced while keeping consumers buying. Something quite different will come out of this - I hope! The hysterical acquisition of "aspirational goods" was a turnoff.
I also think the effects of the internet have not yet been fully comprehended. So much content for free! The ability to force retailers to the smallest possible margin (and smaller, considering Craigslist and the like). And it's still developing, though it's also creating new "needs" - such as that GPS device with which one can carry all the free online topo maps that can be downloaded. The history of the effects of the internet on retailing, as on society as a whole, has yet to be written. I will probably finally join Freecycle this next year, and give away for free some items that could have been picked up in a Pottery Barn (for example).
And finally, a plea to consider the planet as a whole in our musings about human population. I believe this world HAS to be more than just a resouce base for an ever expanding population. The other creatures on this world have to live - our job as the sentient and powerful beings on this planet is to defend and celebrate them, to celebrate the beautiful habitats around us. THAT is what makes life worth living. We have birth control (another factor the largely male writers of blogs do not factor in enough). How to persuade people to value a two-hour warlk along a snowy path more than two hours spent picking out an HD televison (and what is an HD television anyway - I asked my sister, who has a huge one, and she didn't know).
We can do this! But enough of my near-religious rantings, and time for some self-reflection.
I am a member of the Austrian School concerning economics. I know why we got here. I can even cite significant turning points as well as place it all in an anthropological point of view. Many think we are entering into what has been called severally The Greater Depression, GDII, a Once in a Hundred Year Recession, Collapse of Western Civ... well, perhaps not.
What I haven't heard is what happens on the other side of all this. We suffer, we deflate like a big dog, we start planting our gardens, organizing our neighborhoods, learning all about each other once again for the very first time.
But what else will it look like? Will the localized industrial manufacturing base return, evolve out of the chaos? Will our system of governance be the same? Many other questions, but I wish a dialogue on this meandering Saturday with some of the intellects that habit this place.
Sorry Yossarian, but at any given moment the planet has infinitely more "resources" than we will ever use in a thousand lifetimes.
The major component of any resource is the human mind that converts raw materials into something useful. If the market is allowed to function, prices will indicate when the substitution of one raw material for another is desirable.
A rising population comes with a rising pool of brains to solve problems, and produce resources. Communism aside, there is no reason every individual can't be productive enough to feed ten others. Ludites and materialists look at people and see only their mouths never their brains and hands.
I don't understand how anyone can drive across the United States and think we'll ever run out of land. There are a thousand places we could set down another Hong Kong or New York City and still have a hundred mile buffer zone on all sides.
Comrade Yossarian writes:
Things could be far worse than the 'Chain Store Massacre' that's upon us. In fact, in the right spirit of things, we should be downright giddy that consumerism is taking a direct hit on the nose.
By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be chillingly obvious. Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources.
kidbuck writes: I don't understand how anyone can drive across the United States and think we'll ever run out of land. There are a thousand places we could set down another Hong Kong or New York City and still have a hundred mile buffer zone on all sides.
There may be a hole in your thinking. There is not enough water to support such a city. If there were, it would have already happened. The Colorado River is being abused into submission, the Oglala Aquifer is under duress, and the ethanol program has just ratcheted up the demand for water and stress on the dirt with corn crops.
We won't run out of land, we may just run out of the necessaries that people require.
"But what else will it look like? Will the localized industrial manufacturing base return, evolve out of the chaos? Will our system of governance be the same?"
Ask Cubans what they did after USSR collapse. Quite a nice system sharing the resources.
Uncle Billy Smiles writes:
More sickness. This guy ripped off $380M+ by pretending to be other people and using their offices as if they were his own.
I knew a guy who said he sold furs legitimately in a similar way in the '50s. He would take his clients into the vaults of various furriers in the building and search until he found several furs from which his client could choose. Then he would cut a deal with the owner of the fur and return the rest. The salesmen didn't like him, but the owners did. He said one of his customers was a middle eastern queen.
Is this where we are? More from "Since Yesterday":
"But if business was so shaken by the Panic that during the winter of 1929-30 it responded only languidly to the faith-healing treatment being prescribed for it by the Administration, the stock market found its feet more readily. Presently the old game was going on again. Those pool operators whose resources were at least half intact were pushing stocks up again. Speculators, big and little, convinced that what had caught them was no more than a downturn in the business cycle, that the bottom had been passed, and that the prosperity band wagon was getting under way again, leaped in to recoup their losses. Prices leaped, the volume of trading became as heavy as in 1929, and a Little Bull Market was under way. "
Volker the Viking. 6 Billion people, capitalism and the division of labor will win in the end. Despite all the attempts from Chicago School, Socialists and Keynesians to crush the entrepreneurial spirit of mankind by centrally planning money and economy.
For the first time in history (it started with the Industrial Revolution and sound money in Birmingham, England) the whole world is engaged in capitalism. The benefits are enormous and that's why I will be buying in 12 months time.
Nothing can stop this, not even Keynesian hole-digging, Friedmanite money-printing or Krugmanite new idea every dayism.
Sue (Capital S) writes: "I believe this world HAS to be more than just a resouce base for an ever expanding population. The other creatures on this world have to live - our job as the sentient and powerful beings on this planet is to defend and celebrate them, to celebrate the beautiful habitats around us. THAT is what makes life worth living."
Great sentiment and words, Sue. Sounds like liberalism, and it's beautiful to hear it again. May my country reawaken to its founding legacy and turn away from the Cons: banksters, hypocrites and fools.
"6 Billion people, capitalism and the division of labor will win in the end. "
Except it is now division of robots and automatic factories. That is a whole new game and nobody yet has the answer to that one.
1000 million young ones will also be entering the working age within next 10 years and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, there are 300 million new jobs available for them. The rest 700 million are left with NOTHING.
Comrade Peronista writes: "For the first time in history (it started with the Industrial Revolution and sound money in Birmingham, England) the whole world is engaged in capitalism. The benefits are enormous and that's why I will be buying in 12 months time."
Once the FreeMarket koolaid has been digested, it seems that it is too late to burp it up.
Is it just me, or is something on the CR page making my computer slow down? Noticed since the past few days. It only clears up when I close the CR window and just keep Haloscan open.
(A shame that I am not viewing CR's advertisers, but I can't have my computer freezing up...)
Jared Diamond's best work was on why Western civilization became the most powerful (as opposed to what we know as the Third World). Absolutely brilliant. But when it comes to his theories on civilization collapse, he's fixated on popular theories like environmental despoilation that Joseph Tainter already blew out of the water 20 years ago. Tainter already came up with a better framework for examining collapse - the "declining marginal returns on investments in complexity" model. Certainly we can see much of Tainter's theory at work when it comes to examining the low marginal returns on investment in modern Wall Street with its complex debt products.
January job loss is what I'll be looking at to determine whether I go into the bunker or just keep my head down while going about.
Second that. Jan-Feb unemployment is key
I cant imagine JAN FEB being any better. I wonder why you guys are waiting for JAN FEB...the full recession hasnt migrated into all sectors yet. I see lots of folks still jaunting around STARBUCKS etc...this is just the starting...the progress into other sectors will go into Mid 2009...so JAN FEB is going to be worse for sure ?
Comrade Volker the Viking,
You are right that water is limited. If we knew its true price we could better calculate were it is feasible to build and live. Government bailouts (subsidies) have screwed water's market royally, too. I know people who live in the AZ desert and get 100% of their water trucked in. How much would water from Canada cost if it were delivered by rail of truck? Could it cost more than the high taxes of California?
The Amazon and Arctic still have plenty of land and water. I'm not thinking any of this will be a picnic.
Observation: "People are still slugging down Starbucks and cheap burgers."
Question: What percentage of the population is on a budget?
My guess: 15%
Observation: "The FED's balance sheet is farking exploding like never before!"
Question: What is the comparative % of FED balance sheet increases to total economy (1930-32 vs. "today")?
My guess: roughly equal thus far excluding guarantees (whatever that may ultimately mean)
~related?: I was watching "Exodus" on TCM the other night and Sir Gielgud was explaining how governments are like people in that they'll promise anything in times of stress.
Re: Possible war btw Inida/Pakistan Can find nothing on any news services confirming such activity though considering the subcontinent's proximity to moi taking iodine potassiun for worst case scenario.
Will the markets react to an Israeli invasion of Gaza? When that results in a shower of Iranian built missiles, and Israeli airstikes on Iran, which subsequently closes the Hormuz Strait, things will get more interesting. Happy New Year.
Mel | 12.26.08 - 11:55 am | #
2009 will see upper end real estate take a massive hit.
2009 also will be the yr when debt induced outrageous compensations for media+sports+corporate execs will also take hit. Advertising dollars spent on the media will face big cuts.
2009 will take sheen off obama and taint his regime for being ineffectual.
2009 will see more economic damage outside US as global GDP growth may plunge to 2% in 2009.
Xmas eve no traffic on roads or lines in shops before noon, massive traffic after, but still short lines in shops.
St. Stephens day, heavyish traffic, no register lines, massive price reductions, meager inventories except at walmart. Local boozer that is usually filled on a Friday night more than half empty. Lines at liquor stores, though.
Toys R Us isn't long for this world, borders/B&N will need to drastically slash store counts.
I read that the guy who owns swift trucking is looking to unload his hockey team due to the team's and his personal finances going south.
Hockey could have worked in Phoenix, but building your rink 20 miles from downtown(and 40 miles from your season ticket base) as light rail was getting installed was pennywise and pound foolish. Jerry Colangelo didn't help things, either.
I guess BB can obsolutely beat deflation if he continues printing at current phase (YOY bank reserve 603.6%).
The rate at which the Fed has been increasing bank reserves is ten times that at which it was doing so in 1934.
That is actually a deflationary indicator. The numbers are high because banks are pulling money out of the economy to store at the Fed since the Fed is now paying interest on reserves.
The Fed is printing money now, but not at that rate. M1 is up about 15% over two months, which is about what I'd recommend, except that they should have done some of it eight months ago.
Sales have rebounded as shorts sales/REO take over, down 50% from 2005 highs, lots of room to drop. Lots that went for $2000 before the boom(and $100k at the peak) are selling for $7000 if at all.
At the same time building is only going on on hutchison isle and along the river; all high end single family units. At the same time on the isle houses that were for sale a year ago still are and more have come on line.
I wonder how the heads of Christian churches in the U.S. are dealing with the financial crisis.
Here in Germany, the head of the Lutheran church(es - it's complicated) has attacked Josef Ackermann, head of the Deutsche Bank, for his goal of 25% profits (Renditeziel - return on investment or yield target are other translations).
Bishop Wolfgang Huber called Ackermann's goal a form of Götzendienst or idolatry.
Well, nice to see a Christian that knows how Jesus dealt with the moneychangers, and isn't worried about Ackermann's tender feelings.
Actually, wait, I do seem to recall a certain American religious figure making similar comments -
"Not God bless America, God damn America! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
Shame that Rev. Wright was rarely quoted in full - seems like he and Bishop Huber are actually reading from the same bible, even if one is in German and the other English.
"SANTA CRUZ -- As many as one in 10 homeowners in the county didn't pay property taxes by this month's deadline, the highest level of delinquency in years and a sign that the toll of the nation's housing crisis is likely to grow.....
Of the $203.2 million of property taxes that came due Dec. 10 -- half of the tax year's total -- $19.1 million, or 9.4 percent, has not been paid, according to county figures. That's on top of $11.9 million that remains unpaid from previous years."
We're going to see a lot of of this. Article goes on to say that most of the people not paying their taxes are probably behind or have given up on paying their mortgages.
The main problem is actually the interest that needs to be paid. The interest was never created in the first place. Where will the system find the interest to be paid?
Hockey could have worked in Phoenix, but building your rink 20 miles from downtown(and 40 miles from your season ticket base) as light rail was getting installed was pennywise and pound foolish. Jerry Colangelo didn't help things, either.
Comrade Alexei Mikhailovich
I think sports entertainment and massive event venues were also symptoms of bubblnomics. Regardless, light rail in the US never pennywise but is as you say always pound foolish. Like stadia there is little to no enumerable benefits but rather they serve ephemeral goals of community, at least that's what supporters claim. Most places call it world class city envy but we here in California refer to it a Fresnophobia. Fresno it should be noted lost their hockey team last Tuesday.
mal - so you're missing the weird ads from the Kingdom of Gilboa? For shame.
There's actually quite a sensible discussion over at RGE on AIG and its manifold tentacles. I usually avoid the place because the board is like Target in the week before Xmas. Busy, slightly manic, and you can't find what you want.
Where will the system find the interest to be paid?
Comrade Peronista | 12.27.08 - 10:14 am | #
I agree. I have not seen anyone answer it. If our money is created in debt where do we continually get the interest payment that is created? It seems to me if our economy is growing at that rate the no biggie but if we start to fall short what happens? Do we have continual currency debasement along with and a explosion in BS financial products and calling it growth?
@Currently Accounting: "Remarkable quote from the 1929 bubble:
"These new investment trusts are taking the best stocks out of the market; better buy them now, while they're still within reach." "
Yep, heard the same thing in 2007 regarding the Private Equity funds. Supposedly stock prices were increasing because the supply was being reduced by all the PE purchases.
This time around the "new investment trusts" and "pools" were known as mutual funds, private equity, and hedge funds. But the game was the same.
Your subsequent quote about where we're at is also dead on, I believe. The 2008 crash was in October just as the 1929 crash was, so now we're heading into early 1930 with a little bull market trying to get legs. And the only question is whether the side effects of the crash (vicious cycle effects, or Lollapalooza effects if you think like Buffett's pal Charlie Munger) were priced in by the crash itself, or if they take more time to show up. If the damage is priced in, then we may have seen the final bottom. The fact that the news media are unrelentingly gloomy is also a plus. But if Obama doesn't get traction and the dearth of confidence continues, then another leg down could be in the cards...
FFDIC writes:
Economist
The way the brain buys
Retailers are making breakthroughs in understanding their customers minds. Here is what they know about you Premium content | Economist.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of brains, I just ordered "Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work", can't wait to read it. Soon, we'll do brain scans to filter out the ones with little amgdalas. Could go the other way, the psychopaths could take over the world and scan out the normals. Either way, very science-fictioney...
Last
For now
take care CR, and happy holiday!
What, no bank failure today ?
I was going to make a list of the goners but a better list would be of possible survivors...
The International Council of Shopping Centers...
I find this appellation rather humorous--and indicative of a passing era.
Sporting Goods
Gander Mountain - over expansion, back to catalogs, and maybe a couple "destination" stores.
LL Bean. Same
Dicks. Gone
Eddie Bauer. Gone. Name sold to Chinese firm.
Modells. Gone
Sports Authority. Gone
Foot Locker. Gone
Christan Bernard (told they filed today)
Jared
Can any of you data wizards extrapolate the hit to unemployment from loss of retail jobs based on this estimated industry BK rate?
Actually who has a product(s) that is worth the soon to be hard to come by money?
Jared
\t Credit enima is coming..... | \t \t \t \t12.26.08 - 9:19 pm |
As purveyors of the worst advertiseing campaign ever ("he went to Jared's" repeatedly about 40 times in 30 seconds)- they absolutely had it coming. This makes my day!
Especially since retail jewelry is a hug rip-off (like 500% markup).
Just curious, but will the score of retail bankruptcies boost the sales of the remaining department stores? That is will the few remaining customers of the more boutique stores return to staples such as Sears, Macys, or JCPenney for their shopping?
Nova,
Re: sporting goods. Do you have a source for these? A couple are customers of ours and while hurting, are not close to BK...yet
Can any of you data wizards extrapolate the hit to unemployment from loss of retail jobs based on this estimated industry BK rate?
\t Comrade V | \t \t \t \t12.26.08 - 9:21 pm |
More importantly, can you work it the other way - how many new BKs does the increase in unemployment cause?
This is the kind of adverse feedback loops that MSM and shillmeisters like CNBC just couldn't get through their heads and/or ignored when they prattled about "containment".
"Uh, where's my divvy Mr. REIT?"
"blah, blah, blah..."
"What do you mean I don't get anything if no one is in our spaces?"
"yak, yak, yak..."
"Uh, huh. Well, I think I understand."
"blah, blah, blah..."
"So, what does "mothballing" mean?"
"chortle, cough, sneeze..."
"I'll just take my money back, then."
(Phone line goes dead)
"Hello?"
I can haz bailouts?,
It will at the macro level. The surviving stores that may get a hit are ones that are often (sometimes paired) in the same malls as the BK stores as overall mall traffic will decrease. Anchor stores going BK will be devastating to the other mall stores.
I think it's safe to say discounters will continue to gain share. If they're already free-standing, they will benefit from the reduced mall traffic as well.
YOUR MONEY; Reassessing Safety of Bonds - NY Times
Older Investors Should Examine the Risks in Bonds
(No bank closings pizza and fruitcake do not go well together.)
"light posting for the next few days"...very well deserved. Thank you for all you do. Happy New Year, CR!
Sears / KMart are obviously dead, but I've seen what they're likely to be in the next life. Near my house is a "Sears Appliance and Hardware" branch. It's really pretty great - just Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, etc. IOW, the stuff that people actually come to Sears to buy, without the massive fail of their attempt to remain a department store. Of course, this is in a strip mall with maybe 1/3 the square footage of a mall Sears but I think there's enough brand equity left to maintain some semblance of a presence.
Comrade Peronista writes:
"Barack Obama, Inauguration speech."
CP, please apply for position as speechwriter for transition team. Thank you.
Bailouts and Lama.
1. Yes, it will be more crowded in the few remaining shops.
2. Niche products will disappear.
3. Then general shortages.
4. Then Bernanke's inflation will kick in. First JPM and GS will create a bubble somewhere. Nobody knows where and that's why the call for better regulation is fruitless.
5. Then inflation will reach the middle class. Hoarding and shortages.
6. Timing? I don't know. Most likely a deflationary cliff-dive first that will shock even Jas Jain.
In the malls I am aware of, the anchor stores pay virtually nothing for rent. Typically a Sears or JCPenney's will be the anchor(s) and pay a percentage of gross (1-2%) + some nominal fee.
Most of the mall rent is made off the backs of the small "mom-n-pop" stores (the few that are left). I know a few of these people. The "Midnight Madness" or 5am s--t on Black Friday really sticks them. In more than a few cases, the person who opens is the person who closes. Yup, 5am - 10pm.
ova,
Add Bass Pro and Cabela's to your list.
Tried to go shopping today and ended up sitting in the parking lot for hours paring and then leaving. Lots of people, all the crap is overpriced, there is no help in the stores and their goal is to piss you off so that you will leave them alone. All I know is that people still insist on giving me gift cards for some inane reason despite my vocal opposition to them. Unfortunately I despise giving companies money more than the gift cards so I try and leech them down to pennies and leave them there.
And people wonder why retail is FAIL.
Mr Wangsilabat, President of Thai Industries in Ayutthaya, said: 'Our small province, which host the largest amount of electronic manufacturers plants in the country, could face lay-offs of 100,000 workers. Our survey show orders have fallen 50-80%.'
No link. The Nation news paper. From mobile.
Manufacturing in Asia is cliff diving. The U.S. consumer is bigger than rest of the world. Will they continue to buy Treasuries? Maybe.
Now is a Great time to..... | 12.26.08 - 9:26 pm
Sorry, just personal observation which, in my case, is often deeply flawed.
Add Bass Pro and Cabela's to your list.
badger boy | 12.26.08 - 10:00 pm |
All of them lost me when they became clothes stores with a misleading, to me, name.
I like the tiney Sears store in the closest town..
ever been a better time to buy and sell trademarks.
In California, we've already lost one regional department store chain -- Mervyn's -- and another regional chain, Gottschalk's is apparently in trouble.
Multiply that by 20 or 30 for the entire company, then add the national chains.
From what I'm reading, in retail the high end isn't doing well, the middle is under pressure and overcrowded, and only the low end has a shot.
Seeing the same thing in restaurants around here; local paper even did a story. Inexpensive restaurants with quality food are hardly feeling the pain, but the higher end is losing business fast. Restaurant chains will probably host the next wave of bankruptcies after retail.
Liquidate the retailers, liquidate the newspapers, liquidate the auto makers, liquidate Wall Street, liquidate the banks, liquidate the U.S. government.
[bobn writes:
Jared
Credit enima is coming..... | 12.26.08 - 9:19 pm |
As purveyors of the worst advertiseing campaign ever ("he went to Jared's" repeatedly about 40 times in 30 seconds)- they absolutely had it coming. This makes my day!]
Guilt based advertising. Ranks right up there with. "Susanne researched it. We can do this"
Who needs stores? Who needs local banks? Who needs public services? Who needs to own a home? Who needs jobs?
We can just sit around and blog all day how cool it is.
Hey Satyajit Das has a new post up...
Satyajit Das's Blog - Fear & Loathing in Financial Products
Sorry, just personal observation which, in my case, is often deeply flawed.
nova
No worries. Just thought I'd missed something. Seriously respect the info posted here (in most cases)
Agree, on most takes here. From my semi-insider view, a few of the larger regionals may make it through the year if they can contain their costs quick enough. Not sure how many can make it through another year like '08, though.
The legs are wobbly, the bell is sounding to start the next round. Will they answer? How often will "Down goes Frazier" be repeated before 2010?
Hey Satyajit Das has a new post up...
citizen energyecon | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 10:18 pm | #
What does he say?
What does he say?
NorkaWest | 12.26.08 - 10:20 pm | #
Looks a bit warmed over from December 21, a decent recitation of how the banking sector is pretty well screwed for an extended period of time...quite a bit more interesting post from December 15 on the evolution of banking into 'financial services' with steroids as the metaphor - short term performance boost at the risk of long term damage.
short term performance boost at the risk of long term damage.
citizen energyecon
That line could be used for so many sectors of the US economy.
I generally do not get the chance to go shopping directly after Christmas (so I can't offer much by way of comparison), but I got some shopping in today. Stores seemed very busy, but the level of markdowns was absolutely shocking to me. It makes me wonder how bad off stores are going to be when they get their new merchandise in. What will they price it at after this? It does not look good.
Too Much Retail.
This shouldn't surprise anybody. Every city and town in America began to resemble each other and become essentially indistinguishable over the past decade.
We all scoffed the first time we saw two SBX on the same block. Then across the street from one another. Then in grocery stores. Lowe's and Home Depot's five minutes apart. And so forth. How many stores can you buy the same things. What is the essential difference between Kohl's, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Kmart, Cabelas, Pottery Barn, Pier One, Sam's Club, Costco etc ? 6 different grocery stores in the same mile radius, Whole Food, Cub, Safeway, HEB, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Winn Dixie, Publix, Albertsons.
It turns out you can have too many choices, and too much stuff.
WALL*E probably didn't become a big Pixar hit because the parody of consumerist culture didn't stray very far from the truth.
Something a bit more upbeat - successfully running a startup while the SHTF:
Fiscal Chaos Aside, Start-Ups Bloom in Argentina
MENDOZA, Argentina Even in the best of times, Felix Racca faced a formidable task trying to build a new class of entrepreneurs in a country known for cozy cronyism and political melodrama. And now, the Argentine angel investor is trying to do it in the middle of a global storm that has sucked billions of investor dollars out of emerging markets.
So while the Buenos Aires stock exchange was tumbling to a five-year low in October after the government announced it would nationalize private pension savings, Mr. Racca was 600 miles away, coolly discussing the prospects of a start-up with Daniel Caselles.
Fiscal Chaos Aside, Entrepreneurial Spirit Grows in Argentina - NY Times
Won't it be cool when the USA collapses including the currency? It won't get as bad as Gaza or South Africa because it can't get that bad. Maybe it'll be like New Orleans in the bubble areas. Cool.
Maybe we'll have a lot of homeless too. Who needs the USA? Right.
Just tank it and default on all the social support and 'entitlements' people have paid into.
I don't know how it is some bloggers can spin this into being something to look forward to.
Some people are rooting for this nation to become some form of 'modern' Bolshevized American Union(USSA) of pauperization(insolvency) and deproletarianization(unemployment).
The plan in the founding of this nation I think was to avoid all this and have some form of liberty not debt servitude and impoverishment.
Central banking and government deregulation took us here with destructive economic cycles.
Why get excited about the Crashing of the USA? The regime in power and central bankers accelerated this demise and the new admin has chosen the same path based on many of the Cabinet appointments.
It's just hard to see the bright side to this right now. Carry on. As you were.
(If the banks don't get their RE/CRE bubble prices, this Crash will implode even faster.)
The future of retailing?
The term "I can get it for you wholesale" comes to mind."
This is so 70's. Levetts, Circle K, and others. Mismanaged retail is similar in many ways in every cycle. The JCP's and Kohls will eventually carve up bigger market shares of a somewhat smaller pie.
Maybe we'll have to switch to bankruptcy Fridays...
PBS program NOW just had a very good presentation of what brought us to this place. Stiglitz was featured. Why is he not on the Obama team? Ugh.
In the race to build sculptures the Easter Islanders de-forested the island and extinguished themselves. The problem was caused by too much de-regulation and a massive liquidity trap in the downturn that the authorities failed to address. Zero interest rate policy and Keynesian infrastructure projects were finally introduced, but by then it was too late.
ooga mooga, bwana
regulation / deregulation... Bah, we just need smart regulations, not this industry written crap that gets passed every time.
oh, also we need to ENFORCE the regulations we do have on the books.
Don't forget that retailers are asking Obama to be in on the stimulus plan
. This means they want a number of days without sales tax...
It's only a matter of time before they ask for a bailout of their own.
V
Van Santos - Random thoughts from a random mind
Easter Islanders left written accounts of their system?
Maybe when the wood ran out, they just moved to Christmas Island.
Wal-Mart growth video - something to behold:
Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America, Interactive Edition | FlowingData
Wal-Mart buys overseas to keep costs down, yes? I wonder how much money Wal-Mart has siphoned off the U.S. economy in four decades. By that, I mean payments for imported goods.
donna writes:
Maybe we'll have to switch to bankruptcy Fridays...
That sounds more like it. Bank failures have been verbotten.
Now, slowly, Argentines are beginning to trust and invest in each other.
Trust is key.
After the dot.bomb and Enron, I was surprised so many people got back into the "markets". I guess the 401K pension "system" leaves people little choice.
Does everyone here know the story about the two lawyers and the big hungry bear? Substitute retail chains and it's the same situation now:
"Two lawyers [retailers] walking through the woods spotted a vicious-looking bear. The first lawyer [retailer] immediately opened his briefcase, pulled out a pair of sneakers and started putting them on.
The second lawyer [retailer] looked at him and said, "You're crazy! You'll never be able to outrun that bear!"
"I don't have to," the first lawyer [retailer] replied. "I only have to outrun you.""
Moral of the Story: The stores that can stay alive just a little bit longer ("outrun the others") should pick up some business from those that go under -- and that might be enough for them to pull through.
The same thing happened this year with the big dinosaur banks (WFC, BAC, JPM etc.) that have been sponging up deposits to rebuild their capital from those that failed (WB, CFC, WM etc.).
Meanwhile, another one from the "could be worse" department - remember that a lot of BKs aren't complete liquidations; the stores stay open and many employees stay on (at lower wages/benefits perhaps). But I agree about the vicious-cycle potential of rising unemployment.
Finally, thanks to those who suggested (a few weeks ago) reading "Since Yesterday" about the 1930s - I found it very helpful here, in many ways. It was written in 1939 and the sections on 1929-1933 are filled with sentences that are practically word-for-word echoes of the daily news this year. But most of all it was very helpful for girding up for a Depression-type scenario.
I read a library hardcopy, but for those seeking a quick link, the Gutenberg e-text is here:
SINCE YESTERDAY
the guest, you are obviously looking for a knock-down verbal fight with those who want to see the economy find its own way with less government intervention. If you have specific reasons why government intervention is more helpful than government abstinence, then please lay out your arguments. It's not the first time this debate has been engaged, but maybe you have something new to add, and many of CR's readers are open-minded enough to consider thoughtful new contributions.
Seeing the same thing in restaurants around here; local paper even did a story. Inexpensive restaurants with quality food are hardly feeling the pain, but the higher end is losing business fast.
I don't know about that -- I was at the West Restaurant in Carlsbad a couple of days ago. It's a pretty high end restaurant and it was just as full as it was a year ago -- and the prices are even higher than a year ago.
<i>Easter Islanders left written accounts of their system?</i>
Well, you need to read 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond ... When the wood ran out (100% deforestation of larger trees), people started to starve, and didn't have the wood to build boats to transport themselves any distances. Society came apart, and population dropped like a stone. Went from tens of thousands of islanders, to less than I think under five thousand by the time the Europeans found them. How do they know? The discipline called 'Archeology', I understand. No ponies for anyone... but they did have chickens.
the future of consumption is people dealing all the crap in their garages and closets
The 'survivors' in all this will be the central banks and some of their mega 'investor' banks. Industry and retailing is 'falling down'.
Of course, government entities like the Treasury and the Pentagon will survive.
What won't survive is the middle-class consumer lifestyle which granted became a 'bubble' like everything else in this economy. It was a 'systemic' bubble that permeated every aspect of finance and the economy.
Now it will be systemic deflation.
Do you see how important it was that our elected and 'unelected' stewards of our economy used care and diligence instead of wreckless disregard or intentional mismanagement to safeguard the public interest and solvency of the worker/consumer majority?
You've heard the expression 'set up to fail' and it's hard to believe but I don't buy the ineptitude theory everytime something goes wrong so I guess that undue suspicions. Whatever.
The 'independent' historians if there are any allowed will have to sort this giant Ponzi Crash out someday.
Beatles - Hey Bulldog
YouTube -
William K. Black, The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Black was the lawyer/whistle-blower in the Savings and Loan and Keating Five scandals; he later took a degree in criminology. His theory of control fraud addresses the situation in which the leader of an organization uses his company as a weapon of fraud and a shield against prosecutiona situation with which law and economics cannot cope.
Black shows that the large frauds were nearly all committed in institutions taken over for that purpose by criminal networks, often by big players like Charles Keating, Michael Milken, and Don Dixon. And theres another thing about predatory institutions. They invariably fail in the end. They fail because they are meant to fail. Predators suck the life from the businesses they command, concealing the fact for as long as possible behind fraudulent accounting and hugely complex transactions; thats the looters point.
Jesse's Café Américain
Easter Islanders left written accounts of their system?
No, just those big sculptures.
Near my house is a "Sears Appliance and Hardware" branch. It's really pretty great - just Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, etc. IOW, the stuff that people actually come to Sears to buy, without the massive fail of their attempt to remain a department store. Of course, this is in a strip mall with maybe 1/3 the square footage of a mall Sears but I think there's enough brand equity left to maintain some semblance of a presence.
Comrade Knifecatcher | 12.26.08 - 9:47 pm | #
They are also frequently 'franchises' - I talked to the owner of our local 'branch' and she absolutely busts ass to provide service. She said in many ways she was nutz to open the franchise - it's a 24 hr a day job 7 days a week and she has kids - but her hubby and her 'spell' each other. But she said she has grown volume every single year - through service. Lesson there for you Mr. Wall Street.
Things could be far worse than the 'Chain Store Massacre' that's upon us. In fact, in the right spirit of things, we should be downright giddy that consumerism is taking a direct hit on the nose.
By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be chillingly obvious. Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources. We too have no emigration valve, because all human societies are linked by international transport, and we can no more escape into space than the Easter Islanders could flee into the ocean. If we continue to follow our present course, we shall have exhausted the world's major fisheries, tropical rain forests, fossil fuels, and much of our soil by the time my sons reach my current age.
For those who like to read about COMPLETELY failed societies, here's an older piece of Diamond's. Mostly about Easter Island ... http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html
Trolling alert. Please shine on if it offends.
1996 long gold treatise. Antal Fekete
Antal Fekete on Gold
"The `Dance of the Derivatives' of 1994-95 gave a foretaste of what is to come. Banks, commission houses, pension funds, and even municipal governments are known to have gambled and to have suffered grievous losses, some irreparable. Observers blamed the debacle on inept or dishonest traders. A more adroit analysis would, however, show that disaster had to strike in any case. The same thing would have happened even if traders had been meticulously following the traditional methods of hedging and arbitrage."
"The term `redistributive society', as it is used by both its protagonists and antagonists, refers to the redistribution of wealth and income -- after they have been produced. More ominously, a movement to redistribute future losses is afoot. If successful, losses will be perpetuated and passed on to society. The scheme will allow the indolent, the inefficient, the inept, and the consistent loss-maker to continue in business indefinitely at the expense of the industrious, the efficient, and the profit-conscious."
"But if the distinction between profit and loss is obliterated, society's internal communication system may be falsified. Ultimately, production would be thrown into confusion. The leitmotif of our chrysophobic age can be described as a parade of the loss-makers. The profit-conscious must be cowed into submission. The gold standard is anathema to the lobby of the loss-makers, as gold puts profit and loss into the sharpest focus, separating the adept from the inept, the industrious from the indolent. The lobby wants a system under which distinction between profit and loss becomes fuzzy, inefficiency can be covered up, and ineptitude entrenched."
I just turned on Cramer on CNBC and he had the phrase 'Calculated Risk' on the TV in the background and I just spit my drink all over my laptop screen.
Just wanted to share.
These Sears franchisees vary a lot, Dry. But yes, service is the key.
I bought a 24HP lawn tractor for the ranch last Spring. I went into the store to buy oil filters. What an ordeal. Replacement blades seem to be a problem also.
Inventory and service are the keys to success in any hard goods business. Just an observation.
Add Bass Pro and Cabela's to your list.
badger boy | 12.26.08 - 10:00 pm |
All of them lost me when they became clothes stores with a misleading, to me, name.
nova | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 10:08 pm | #
I tie my own flies & build rods - I won't need much in fishing equipment until my next lifetime. Hope I'm not reincarnated as a trout - that would be some seriously bad karma.
Downturn Ends Building Boom in NY
DOWNTURN ENDS CITY'S BOOM TIME IN CONSTRUCTION - NY Times
Patient renter,
There's always been some forms of anti-Americanism. Not sure that's what I'm seeing.
My argument is consider 'organized fraud' maybe instead of just thinking those in control are bumblers or meatheads. I don't think the PTB is as stupid as some observers make them out to be.
I mean now the ponzi might be as big as Citibank based on a lawsuit anyway...maybe it could be bigger than that. Bigger than Madoff. Bibber than big bank CEOs.
The analysis needs to get as big in scope as the 'systemic' problem IMO. I'm just another observer though. Solid 'independent' research into this latest Crash is needed.
As I said if those who run the system are possibly corrupt or avaricious or even unbalanced, you coud f*#k up Shangri-La or ElDorado if you fleece the thing.
Stalin even screwed up 'communism' if that's even possible.
Why did we fight all these years against the 'Red Menace' when we are getting some mutated form of it today in the USA twisted to serve the priveleged class & related elites
I'm not sure what to call what's been happening globally especially in the last 20 years.
Organized crime?
I don't think it's Capitalism or Socialism in strict theoretical forms if it has been subverted into another political/economic globalized process of some form of wealth extraction from the bottom to the top.
I don't think what's coming should be applauded is what I'm saying and I don't think what's coming can be stopped if some of the same people who probably caused it are still in power. And most of these people in charge are appointed not elected which may be another big problem with our 'failed system'.
Comrade Yossarian | 12.26.08 - 11:06 pm |
Benny Peiser pretty much debunks Diamonds theory point by point.
Link
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/EE%2016-34_Peiser.pdf
Patient renter,
Don't you see that 'selective' government abstinence is a big part of destructive bubble/crash cycles. Economic/finance history indicates this.
"we can just sit around and blog how cool it all is"
I'm cool with that.
I need a fedgov grant first, though.
"Hope I'm not reincarnated as a trout - that would be some seriously bad karma."
I'm not much into the reincarnation thing, but to make ammends to this world, when I check out I want my worn out body to be fed to the bears at the zoo!
I bet, even after the starvation was widespread, if you gave the Islanders more wood they would have used it to build more statues.
They just poured the foundation on a new house along a busy thoroughfare near me. With the MLS absolutely choked with listings someone is building.
From what I'm reading, in retail the high end isn't doing well, the middle is under pressure and overcrowded, and only the low end has a shot.
Bob Dobbs | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 10:13 pm | #
Low end has their own issues - margins. They sell more but make nothing per sale. Meanwhile many [like WalMart] have expanded way beyond their core demographic. It is unclear if these guys will make it go any better than the boutiques. Depends on how severe the overhead burden becomes - a small drop in sales for a heavily levered mass retailer can do as much damage as cliff diving for boutiques with higher margins.
BTW - a focused & well run boutique biz isn't as bad in a recession as folks here believe. It is ONLY bad if they expand too fast, too far & lever up - become a commodity. The best 'fly fishing shops' I ever went to were in the recession years of the 70s & 80s. People like myself knew where they were and drove ridiculous distances to find them - that was before there was a faux-fly or bass shop in every 'vacation destination' mall.
My wife used to do fiber arts [quilts & weaving] and she was the same way - drove silly distances to find real Amish quilt supply stores. Run by real Amish catering to real Amish - not the pretend stuff you see today.
People did this even while paring back their other expenditures - like the cars we drove those ridiculous miles to get to those places. It used to be said of fly fisherman that their cars doubled in value every time they put their rods in their cars - that would have been me back then and I didn't even have expensive rods.
Point is that in a recession people do a lot less impulse buying but their limited passions become addictions and a well run [usually privately owned & operated] boutique can do quite well.
In most ways, the stagflationary 70's were much worse than what we are going through today. Don't mean to be flippant and have empathy for the job losers.
Managing money back then was a real bitch. We didn't have many of the hedging tools to offset risk. If you were caught up in the 'Nifty Fifty' or infrastructure plays with fixed priced contracts, you were screwed. Think Combustion Engineering or Westinghouse.
Pay attention to the balance sheets coming out of this recession. Balance sheets and cash flow will make or break you.
The 'Dance of the Derivatives' and Black's concept of 'control fraud' may be along the lines of the kind of research that may be needed to demystify the events of this latest bubble/crash.
In-n-Out filing Bk. to close all restaurants. reuter's
As long as the Victoria's Secret catalogs keep coming who cares?
Tg is a born & bred dope,
Yes we can see there is a socialization of losses as seen in the 'Dance of the Derivatives' reference you mentioned.
But there's profit for 'insiders' in blowing the bubble and profit in vulture picking of the burst bubble remains.
Assets of any defleted value will be scooped up at fire sale prices when the thing really collapses. It won't be catching falling knives. It will be piracy & looting as a ship is sinking.
But you never get to see Victoria's secret.
Premium content | Economist.com
Economist
The way the brain buys
Retailers are making breakthroughs in understanding their customers minds. Here is what they know about you
nventory and service are the keys to success in any hard goods business. Just an observation.
Ross | 12.26.08 - 11:10 pm | #
Correct sir. And they don't carry a lot of inventory - but the one in my town keeps records of what I've bought so I can call them up and say... I need **** and they will look up my model & order the right spare and tell me when they come in. Pretty fast too - usually only wait a day or two & no shipping fee if delivered to the store. Slicker than snot.
But these folks don't want their biz to fail so they do service. I wonder what happens when they want to retire - who would buy such a ball-n-chain?
Ross writes:
In most ways, the stagflationary 70's were much worse than what we are going through today. Don't mean to be flippant and have empathy for the job losers.
It was far worse back then short term. A lot more folks got laid off, but recessions then were driven by excess inventories for the most part. When the inventory got worked off, you got called back to work. Now it seems that the job losses have more permanence, they are more structural, and we seem to be worse off after each recession (except for debt-induced consumption).
Patientrenter,
If the 'intervention' or 'abstinence' is run by crooks, neither one will work. Do you see that who is running the show is of importance to the 'planned' or 'unplanned' outcome?
I just ordered spare parts for my Toro snowblower from Sears via the internet.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes to receive the order.
Truckee has a small Sears store which is a francize as mentioned above. No traffic - staffed by a relative, young, of the owner. Truckee depends on tourism and now the tourism is skiers. Lucky for the ski resorts we just had a big dump of great powder just in time for the holidays. The webcams show the slopes are packed.
Come on up and enjoy some great skiing and save the local economy.
Re: A jest writes:
In-n-Out filing Bk. to close all restaurants. reuter's
A jest | 12.26.08 - 11:45 pm | #
That's hard to believe. They are always mobbed with long lines.
How can they be bk?
Almost got me with the jest.
For you Easter Island (Rapa Nui) fans in this thread:
I just came back from a week there, and the dirty secret is that, after the native peoples were nearly wiped out in the 1700's, the islanders succeeded in repopulating the place and reforesting the island - only to see the destructive cycle repeat itself as the island's tourist economy sucks up all the fresh water and the inhabitants' 5,000 "wild" horses trample the moai and eat up all the vegetation. The horses end up eating a poisonous weed, and their bloated corpses can be found along the beaches where they search for fresh water.
It remains a beautiful and mystical place, but also a testament to how we humans keep doing the same stupid things over and over.
That's hard to believe. They are always mobbed with long lines.
How can they be bk?
mjc | 12.27.08 - 12:02 am | #
Margins matter. Busy restaurants aren't always profitable restaurants.
Coldwater Creek. . . I can't see how they can last. Wrong, wrong business model. Why in the world has the stock been going up? Oh that's right, that means it is dying, right?
dry, you ever been to in-n-out?
there model is the Best . they have tops 6 products. no freezers. all fresh.
i'd die were they to close.
Easter Island wrote to
Comrade Yossarian | 12.26.08 - 11:06 pm |
Benny peiser pretty much debunks Diamonds theory point by point.
Hey..."Easter Island"
the author of the study you cited, is a "scientst" named "Benny Peiser" has a reputation for bad science in defense of oil companies
your use of the the word "debunked"...thats nonsense
people debate or contest or argue these theories and beliefs
but your tossing around the word "debunk" demonstrates a bias on your part
to see how peiser distorts look at this
Benny Peiser | Logical Science
bottom line, we humans need to curb ourselves...or nature will
"In-n-Out filing Bk. to close all restaurants. reuter's"
Searched their site. No link. Do you have one?
Pretty sure the In n Out thing was "a jest" given the handle.
No story on Reuters.
Company way too impressive to believe they are BK.
"Assets of any defleted value will be scooped up at fire sale prices when the thing really collapses.It will be piracy & looting as a ship is sinking."
Even pirates need a safe harbor.
"Educating public opinion to look at gold as a gift of Prometheus, rather than Pandora's box, after 75 years of vicious chrysophobic agitation and propaganda, presents us with a formidable task. Yet we must do what we can to disseminate the truth about gold.
The consequences of the alternative, a credit collapse engulfing the entire world, are too horrible to contemplate."
Thank Type 1 Error. I shouldn't have been so gullible. Great place to eat, when I am in the Southland.
To get in on the thread topic since I can't find the 'patientrenter' with my response to his questions, the retailers have been haunted by consumers timing their purchases to seasonal sales where margins are cut way down.
Also. Think about it. Retailing is a real estate pricing 'issue' because as bubble CRE prices went up bubble rents went way up for many retailers...the per sq.ft. price and tough lease terms(triple net?). A lot of deflationary problems are/were aggravated by the (ponzi) RE/CRE bubble...
Easter Island was an outlier. The level of destruction did't happen to other Island civilations. Even those in the Med like Cyprus, Malta, Sardenia have had milti millinium cultures.
The only bad thing about in-n-out is the grandmother has passed the ownership to a 22-23 year old grandaughter. I hope she's got good sense.
If your on a sales call in so-cal, the best way to win ears is to stop in with a bag full of burgers. $20 bucks gets ya 6! and happy campers. works every time.
Ross did not get your point.
Mock understand your point but I think it was worth the read.
INDIA PAKISTAN WAR HAS STARTED!
Blogger: Page not found
Point is that in a recession people do a lot less impulse buying but their limited passions become addictions and a well run [usually privately owned & operated] boutique can do quite well.
dryfly
Only to a point, Dry. I lost a 20 year old, well run business (surf, ski etc) to recession in the early 90's. Hit like a freight train and I simply could not cut expenses fast enough. I had a loyal clientele but unfortunately not the deep pockets to make it out the other side. A few die hard customers is not enough sometimes.
dry, you ever been to in-n-out?
A jest | 12.27.08 - 12:09 am | #
Never.
But I was lucky enough to spend an evening with a guy who has started a half dozen restaurants and ran dozens of others - from bottom feeders to the highest high end. He says you can always tell when a restaurant is dying from NO BUSINESS [place is empty] but you can't usually tell just by observation if a busy restaurant is a profitable one. It really comes down to margins & overhead - and you can't know a lot of that unless you are in the kitchen and or see the books.
Funny ruse. I have read this blog for a long time, but rarely post. The In N Out news got a loud groan out of me that registered with the spouse.
In N Out is an extraordinarily well run business. I am fairly sure their lack of expansion is a conscious decision to ensure they do not lose their quality/consistency. They are what I would call Operationally Excellent.
Sorry for the interruption. I'll go back to being a passive observer.
The planet earth was an outlier. That level of destruction didn't happen to other planet civilizations. Even others like Earth in the Milky way including Gamma Centaurus 3 and Delta Delphinus 4 for example, had civilizations that lasted until their host star reached the latter stages of fusing the stars supply of hydrogen to helium.
Don't worry, we can piss and shit where ever we want, earth is a big place and we can just move away from the dump.
type 1. no doubt. it would be my retail nightmare. as the threads have progressed thru the day , and you think about all the various biz's out there, you invariably think about the ones you hold in hi-esteem.
kinda of like a flyin j bankruptcy. You think it's well run. You see tons of users everyday. so how does it fail?
the flyin j story is also odd, because earlier in the year, xom said they were getting out of the retail biz...should have been a sign.
Only to a point, Dry. I lost a 20 year old, well run business (surf, ski etc) to recession in the early 90's. Hit like a freight train and I simply could not cut expenses fast enough. I had a loyal clientele but unfortunately not the deep pockets to make it out the other side. A few die hard customers is not enough sometimes.
Now is a Great time to..... | 12.27.08 - 12:19 am | #
I hear ya.
Funny thing is most of the really great fly shops I used to frequent all went tits up in the BOOM - when Orvis thought they could open a faux fly shop everywhere - they have some good stuff but are mostly a 'clothes store' [Gotta look like a fly fisherman right? Never mind if you can throw a loop or not]. Then the Cabelas & Bass Pro Shops discovered fly fishing and stole the 'cheap market' - it was all she wrote for mom-n-pop fly shops.
And it happened at the peaks - dot.com & this RE bubble NOT in the recessions. Maybe if Cabelas & BPS go down maybe open some 'space' for the small guys again.
TJ is a...
you are right
it was worth the read...downloaded it and read all 29 pages
then researched the author, peiser
he doesnt pass the sniff test
tg,
My only point was to refute the Malthusian/Club of Rome nonsense about the end of growth due to a lack of physical materials.
In 1850, if an economist was told what the population of the world would be in 2000, he would have said, No Way. WAY! If you can feed them, they will multiply.
Well perhaps we run out of trees to turn into newsprint...Hehehaha. Times change.
Just another cycle. Same as the old cycle.
We probably have another 150 years of modest population growth til the 'self imposed' limit to growth becomes evident.
There are no barriers to growth...EVER!
I too am calling BS on the In-n-Out story... and I agree with Type 1 Error; Operationally Excellent.
Hell, any fast food restraunt that only gets a <1 paragraph mention in Fast Food Nation and it's basicially a positive paragraph at that has gotta be doing things right =)
Course, I believe they do offer their employees both health care and something approaching a living wage so maybe just because of this unAmerican behavior they are being sacraficied /snark.
Cn
Ross
you are missing an important difference between the islands of the med verrses easter island
cyprus, sardinia etc were able to trade with europe and africa and others
easter island was one of the most remote civilizations to be found on the face of the planet and as such had a self contained...etc
versus versus versus versus
versus versus versus versus
versus versus versus versus
sorry sp
....And it happened at the peaks - dot.com & this RE bubble NOT in the recessions. Maybe if Cabelas & BPS go down maybe open some 'space' for the small guys again.
dryfly
You hit the nail on the head. In our case, our vendors, all smaller at the time could not resist the call from large retailers. We lost our cachet!!
Maybe a Dingo ate it???
In-N-Out Burger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In n Out is doing fine. AS someone mentioned, they resist over expansion and have been doing this for a long time. In fact they've survived the loss of one of their key management folks (plane crash) in the last few years.
Small company, common goal and focus.
Mock,
My point exactly! Self contained systems are death stars. They implode.
Even Easter Island is a tourist destination today...
The In-N-Out Burger | Fast Company
"even pirates need a safe harbor"
That's why we have Washington DC and Manhattan!
My Kirkland pool place is deader than I've ever seen, twelve customers at 9pm. Damnation. That's even less than last nights club in Boise.
Luckily I know three of them so I can get some games in before it goes under. Established in 1936!
mock-
med islands had to establish and defend their hunting (fishing) grounds so that they had a surplus to trade.
Easter Islands...they fought themselves.
I'm not certain what the lesson is here...
"Destroy others or destroy yourself", maybe?
Seems a tad over simplified but might square with Diamond's thesis on some level(s).
Hmmm...who was that Pareto guy again?
Citizen Energyecon in the last thread:
Chavez's legitimacy continues to erode, and in the low price environment for oil it is difficult to see how he can continue to deliver basic political goods when inflation is running rampant, and price controls have resulted in real scarcity of many staples. I am not advocating a course of action with respect to Chavez, but rather observing that ginning up an external conflict is a timeworn approach to redirecting internal dissatisfaction with a regime.
Point taken, and deserves a reply.
The results of the recent elections were hardly dire and as the only meaningful referendum on "legitimacy," they will have comforted Chavez even in the loss of Caracas. His candidates won in an overwhelming landslide (ie, 17-5) far more convincingly than Obama's margin here and, in contrast to the embarrassment in Minnesota, with general accord about the integrity of the process. For that matter, there were 20% gains (1m new votes) for Chavez in the provinces.
Since the Bolivarian agenda is to redistribute oil wealth in order to provide social services to the political base, and since that base is poor, the diminution of oil revenues may be much less a harbinger of his downfall than the US oil-military establishment will wish. That doesn't preclude his removal, either by Venezuelans or North Americans; democracy has never stopped such people before.
My Kirkland pool place is deader than I've ever seen, twelve customers at 9pm. Damnation. That's even less than last nights club in Boise.
Broward Horne | Homepage | 12.27.08 - 12:44 am | #
Your leather Horne balls frightened all the customers away! LOL. Enough with the Easter Island speck of dirt and good night...
From the reviews. Looks like In-N-Out is another addition to my 'bucket list'. Too bad I don't get out west that often - then considering my current cholesterol levels maybe better I don't get out there that often.
Ross
yes. self contained like easter island...self contained like planet earth
hong konger
"destroy others...or yourself: maybe
but the inter clan warfare was accelerated during the period of resource destruction...many fighting for dwindling reources
Every In N Out you pass has cars surrounding it clogging the drive-thru; always a good sign.
dryfly,
You can visit their website, but the "catch" is they only do the basics and do them well (although IMO they undercook their fries a tad). Beats the hell out of all the others where every day they're changing the menu.
Margins matter. Busy restaurants aren't always profitable restaurants.
Agreed. But likely a hoax. Didn't see any news story. Family owned and operated, only expanded when they could afford to. Fresh ingredients and they don't use frozen fries. They definitely have a cult following. Still mainly in SoCal with a few going up the coast and Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
Barton Fink, there are no significant concerns about the integrity of the Minnesota election. None. It's just really close. It's not like Florida 2000 at all, where there were significant concerns with the electoral process.
Chavez's problems is not that his wins haven't been legitimate. His problem is that having his government income cut by 2/3 is going to change the next election.
Dryfly,
You would like the food and service, but the lean pull system would impress you the most.
If any American does not understand why toyota is burying GM, they should go eat at a McDonalds/Wendy's/Burger King, and then hit an In N Out Burger. Half as much, four times as good, fresh quality food, and employees that smile and actually make eye contact.
There is no equivalent in the East or South (lived in both places).
the guest writes:
To get in on the thread topic since I can't find the 'patientrenter' with my response to his questions, the retailers have been haunted by consumers timing their purchases to seasonal sales where margins are cut way down
Guest, thsi is VERY important and a fact that has not escaped retailers. They have 'trained' consumers to purchase on promo. Many $$ (and brains) are being spent on systems to analyze these trends and cannibalization. These are not stupid people....well most of them aren't stupid
Also Dry, as for your bucket list. In n Out is definitely worth a shot, but there are TONS of great burger places. I would not consider your life a waste if you never get there. Sounds like you have things pretty wired already
mock-
My point exactly. Inter or intra, what's the diff, ultimately?
How much blood has been shed over some fishing grounds in the Med over the last 10000 years?
Perhaps we'll see Easter Island become the mecca of world civ in another 10000?
Does decline mean "the end", or, just an extended "nap"?
Dryfly,
in n out secret menu..great eats
IN-N-OUT Burger
Barton Fink, there are no significant concerns about the integrity of the Minnesota election. None. It's just really close. It's not like Florida 2000 at all, where there were significant concerns with the electoral process.
Fair Economist | Homepage | 12.27.08 - 12:58 am | #
Amen - been watching it pretty close [as a native of the state] - I'm shocked they've been as transparent & efficient. I've heard NO ONE complain except out-of-staters [mostly GOPers mad that Coleman was anointed] - 'spose now that Franken is ahead be time for the Dems to bitch. Overall it's been increadibly fair & transparent.
Still got a couple more days to gt it wrong but so far so good.
Just a real close election.
Ross wrote
Maybe when the wood ran out (on easter island), they just moved to Christmas Island.
Ross | 12.26.08 - 10:44 pm | #
dont you mean they just moved to
... new years eve island
you also wrote:
There are no barriers to growth...EVER!
Ross | 12.27.08 - 12:29 am | #
please tell me you are joking and im just too stupid to get it
It's a biker bar, they love leather here!
You would like the food and service, but the lean pull system would impress you the most.
Type 1 Error | 12.27.08 - 1:00 am | #
Sounds like a plan - and I am a guy who likes 'real burgers'.
Ever heard of Culver's from Wisconsin? Sounds almost like Culver's is a knock off. Similar model except throw in 'custard' to boot.
dry, vegas. next time you get out for a conference.
4888 Dean Martin Dr. Las Vegas, Nevada 89103
across i-15 from the strip.
I've heard NO ONE complain except out-of-staters [mostly GOPers mad that Coleman was anointed]
There you go with facts again (I think you meant "wasn't").
We probably have another 150 years of modest population growth til the 'self imposed' limit to growth becomes evident.
There are no barriers to growth...EVER!
I'll take the other side to that. Somewhere there is a incredibly hardly disease organism that is saying to itself: There's no barriers to growth...EVER!
You guys are making me hungry. Left over time!!
Also Dry, as for your bucket list. In n Out is definitely worth a shot, but there are TONS of great burger places. I would not consider your life a waste if you never get there. Sounds like you have things pretty wired already
Now is a Great time to..... | 12.27.08 - 1:01 am | #
I love good road food though - it is one of my passions so I'll keep an eye out for them.
I'm going to miss our retailers. This is going to be one ugly recession.
In n Out is good in relation to other fast food places. Their fries are some of the best. But any mid-priced restaurant burger is in an entirely different league (way better) - Denny's, IHOP, Chili's.
I'll take the other side to that. Somewhere there is a incredibly hardly disease organism that is saying to itself: There's no barriers to growth...EVER!
sdtfs
Maybe we DO need another plague. History Channel did a great show n that and how it truly changed the world and gave birth to the Renaissance. Interesting theory.
But any mid-priced restaurant burger is in an entirely different league (way better) - Denny's, IHOP, Chili's.
Speed
to the dundgeon with you!
Speed
with no disrespect intended
i think calling whats coming down the pike,a nasty recession
is like saying
king kong was a very large gorilla
dryfly- and you'll need to get one of their bumper stickers "In-N-Out Burger", modified with the 'B' removed.
For you iPhone users, download Yelp. Wherever you are, you can get the local good stuff complete with real reviews. Have found some great places. Burgers, BBQ, even a nudist retreat!!
I guess BB can obsolutely beat deflation if he continues printing at current phase (YOY bank reserve 603.6%).
The rate at which the Fed has been increasing bank reserves is ten times that at which it was doing so in 1934. As Chart 7 shows, the year-over-year increase in bank reserves was 603.6% in November 2008. The Feds seasonally-adjusted net acquisition of assets primarily securities, commercial paper and loans to financial institutions represented 100% of the seasonally-adjusted total borrowing by the U.S. nonfinancial sector in the third quarter of 2008 (see Chart 8). Talk about monetizing debt!
Source - U.S economic & Interest rate outlook december 15,2008 by Paul L Kasriel
I'd like to hear more regarding India-Pakistan rumor mongering. Please link to the forum where this rumor was started wrt 4 planes being shot down...
Or else that forum is this CR thread?
I'm not familiar with India-Pakistan news protocol. If something like that happened to an American army plane we'd already an embedded reporter saying he heard the planes get shot down; and another one will confirm.
I imagine India and Pakistan can't spare any able-bodied folks to be "embedded reporters".
There you go with facts again (I think you meant "wasn't").
Anonymous | 12.27.08 - 1:08 am | #
Signal I need to go to bed - yup should have read WASN'T.
Funny thing is NO ONE I know liked either candidate - still don't - Coleman is considered to be a two bit crony and Franken seems to be a jerk.
OK, Gents (and Ladies),
Just got invited out for food and POOL with 3 ladies.
It's good to be king!!
Happy holidays to all
I used Yelp on the iPhone when the wife and I went up to the Central CA Coast. Great app. I actually found a good barber using it.
Pandora is my current favorite. Interesting concept. Trying to algorithmically identify what users like.dislike about music. Kind of like a complex house of quality for radio.
Pandora is my current favorite. Interesting concept. Trying to algorithmically identify what users like.dislike about music. Kind of like a complex house of quality for radio.
Type 1 Error
Pandora is the NUMBER ONE. Plays all day at home
Things certainly look dire. Sometimes things turn out as bad or worse than people predict. But usually it's not as bad as the worst predictions. It's funny to be considered optimistic, since my nickname at work is Dr. Doom.
Let's hope we're not longing for GWB to come back after BHO's first 2 years are over.
Anyone see that among the first victims killed in the Mumbai attacks were a Mumbai police chief and his staff who had been investigating an earlier attack in India allegedly by Hindu terrorists and were going to release a report of their findings. Not sure of these reports but is anyone sure who the Mumbai attack terrorists were.
Why would a war start between India & Pakistan if the perpetrators have not been positively established?
Oh, and I see In-N-Out has taken over this thread.
I think their fries are just average and it annoys me sometimes that their condiments are colder than room temperature on the burgers (and sometimes cheese isn't melted completely).
The truth 'bout fries is that to do them well you need to fry them twice. I can do home-made batches of these fries in ~ 45-60 minutes. It's so good and once you do it this way every other fries (fast food) taste like cardboard, including in-n-out.
Here's the recipe (got it from "Good Eats").
Directions
1a. Fill Dutch Oven up 1.5 inches with Oil
1b. Filling up to the top may cause some sloshing and is bad
1c. Use wide dutch oven.
1d. Keep eye on thermometer and oil changed regularly
2. Put thermometer in place
3. Turn up to high heat, trying to get to 300 degrees
Preparing French Fries
1. Use V-Slicer with wide cutting blade
2. Don't need to unpeel
3. Get fries in cold water ASAP (flush off starch from fries)
4. Store fries in cold water
300 degrees
~ 310-320
1. Make sure fry surface is as dry as possible
2. Drain in salad spinner
3. Put them on top of kitchen towel
4. Starch should be on the bottom of the water bucket... do not put back on with fries
5. Use small batches, move around. Make sure temperature is at 320
6. 2-3 minutes, light gold and floppy first fry.
Let Fries cool off to room temperature
Heat up Oil to 375
I mean now the ponzi might be as big as Citibank based on a lawsuit anyway...maybe it could be bigger than that. Bigger than Madoff. Bibber than big bank CEOs.
the guest | 12.26.08 - 11:19 pm | #
Man, I'm late to this party! This problem can be boiled down to three words: "CULTURE OF INCOMPETENCE".
Thx,
RR
Overstock's CEO says things are bleak - bankruptcies will happen in Q1.
BTW, Overstock is paying off $50k in debt for lucky few - very cool. I like Mr. Byrne.
Let's hope we're not longing for GWB to come back after BHO's first 2 years are over.
bearly | 12.27.08 - 1:20 am | #
Some will be regardless - that's just politics & to be expected.
The truth 'bout fries is that to do them well you need to fry them twice.
Ah, I used to do that at Chili's as a teenager. There's nothing quite like punching and blanching 400lbs of 'taters.
I forgot to finish above thought. Inspite of my In-N-Out complaints, I only complain because they aren't the "perfect" fast food that everyone makes them out to be, they are however the best fast food burger restaurant. Of course this excludes places like The Habit or Five Guys; which are kind've pseudo fast food without drive thru.
RR,
Yeah I believe in some incompetence but not as an explanation for everything in the boom/bust cycle.
The public may be 'incompetent' i essence in that they don't really know what the hell is going on for sure thanks to media 'incompetence' or directed disinterest in investigating possible wrongdoing or malfeasance and intentional fraud schemes at high levels of politics and banking/finance.
dryfly, just caught your post about coming back as a trout! seriously bad karma!
i just finished stacking up my gear, heading out to do some ice fishing monday. going to hit two or three different lakes by snowmobile, one of which is stocked with lake trout.
i'll be nice to anything that comes through the ice because of that post.
I'll agree with the Five Guys assessment. Loved the peanuts while I waited at their Arlington, VA store.
But In N Out competes in the drive thru fast food space. They have it mastered. If they were to compete with Chili's/mid level, or niche like Five Guys, I have little doubt they would do it well. The main difference in markets being the amount of meat used and the atmosphere.
Sorry for backtracking to the Easter Island article, but this really is the best bit:
"The very foundation of Heyerdahls civil war and societal breakdown in 1680 has been comprehensively debunked. Notwithstanding this rejection, ... [it] remains an almost universally
accepted core belief among Easter Island historians and researchers."
I do not think "debunked" means what he thinks it means.
Pakistan-India ordeal = Innovative fundraising by the Pakistani government and its 57 Ministers.
They're all nicknamed Mr 10%. If they're smart they would be asking to be paid in Gold.
They are not smart.
For anyone still up - a list of prescient economists and their predictions.
Hint: they aren't optimistic.
Yeah I believe in some incompetence but not as an explanation for everything in the boom/bust cycle.
The public may be 'incompetent' i essence in that they don't really know what the hell is going on for sure thanks to media 'incompetence' or directed disinterest in investigating possible wrongdoing or malfeasance and intentional fraud schemes at high levels of politics and banking/finance.
the guest | 12.27.08 - 1:44 am | #
My point is that for the past few decades, the country has been actively promoting incompetence in the public and private sectors. Examples: our current President and our President-elect (no flames from the hysteric mobs on either side, please). Promoting incompetence over competence has consequences. Had someone with some competence and some concern or vision for the long-term viability of the firms they managed been in charge, the obvious malfeasance and fraud that took place would have been squelched before it got to be a problem. Promoting, accepting or ignoring malfeasance is a deep form of incompetence.
America needs a wake up call and some serious creative destruction. Think of it like milk of magnesia for the entire country.
Sorry for backtracking to the Easter Island article, but this really is the best bit:
Don't know why the Easter Island thing has to be all or nothing. B.P. makes some good points about exposure to Europeans being the epic downfall, but there's no reason there couldn't have been a civil war, as a matter of fact, there were bound to be, just don't know how severe. Not sure Easter Island is a good case study for Diamond as a disaster scenario, but Benny doesn't do much better when he posits canoes in his wrap-up. And seems like everyone is talking about palm trees as trees, when they're not, either as a supply of wood or botanically.
RockyR | 12.27.08 - 2:19 am | #
As dryfly points out, sometimes they're competent in different things than you might wish, that is, politics and being elected, not in ruling or governing. I guess that's where the public's incompetence comes into play.
Goodnight. I've had my White Christmas and tomorrow I'm driving back to my snowless rest of the year (Yay!)
As dryfly points out, sometimes they're competent in different things than you might wish, that is, politics and being elected, not in ruling or governing. I guess that's where the public's incompetence comes into play.
sdtfs | 12.27.08 - 2:24 am | #
My apologies to you sdtfs. I was trying to define competence/incompetence.
Doing my bit to help out ... munching contentedly on In-n-Out cheeseburger
No impulse control whatsoever
More sickness. This guy ripped off $380M+ by pretending to be other people and using their offices as if they were his own.
Chutzpah Spree by Accused Lawyer Nets $380 Million: Ann Woolner - Bloomberg.com
Heavy equipment product demo: Tricks with a 15 ton front loader « Bits & Pieces
GMAC bailout in trouble?
GRAND BLANC, Mich. (AP) - The financing arm of General Motors Corp. wasn't immediately saying early Saturday whether it had met a midnight deadline to clear a final hurdle in its quest to become a bank holding company, which would allow it to access billions in federal bank bailout money. GMAC Financial Services LLC already received the Federal Reserve's stamp of approval earlier this week, but needed to complete a complicated debt-for-equity exchange by 11:59 p.m. EST Friday. In an e-mail at 12:45 a.m. Saturday, GMAC spokeswoman Gina Proia did not say whether the company met the deadline. She didn't respond to repeated requests for further comment.
(...)
Dryfly - I'm a big fan of both In-N-Out Burger and Culver's. Both terrific, but very different.
In-N-Out is like the original McDonald's; simple (smallish) burger, cheeseburger, fries, and a shake all done quick and fresh and cheap. Depends on huge volume and tiny menu.
Culver's, on the other hand, has a huge menu with all sorts of oddball things and variations (fish? 40 ice cream flavors? chicken hot plate?) More of a better Denny's in some ways. And the burgers, unlike in-n-out, are HUGE. If I still lived in Kansas, I'd be dead (hmm, contradiction?) from all those ButterBurgers (and from Cici's pizza, but that's a different story).
hairyknuckled burgermunchers
uh buh ba ba ba bu CheezeBOYGA!
LAST!
I ain't goin to work on the railroad!
YouTube - The Best Of Bluegrass - Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
Wow, Just got back from a booze fest with what I though were 3 women (turned out to be FIVE). Life is not all gloom & doom in this case.
From the lack of postings here it seems that many have realized that there's more to life than charts and news flashes. I have to admit I missed a good bit of the 80's recession. Just didn't notice, was out of town surfing.
Cheers to Broward. Pool rocks. Makes the young girls swoon.
My fear would turn to downright terror if In-N-Out went BK. It's not that I love their food, it's just that I can't see even the smallest thing wrong with their business. In fact, I'd even say they provide a model going forward. Please tell me that was an unfunny joke?
"was out of town surfing"
Talk about recession proof. Can we get some break names (surf pron)?
Ross @ 11:33,
Managing money [in the stagflationary 70's] was a real bitch
I have to disagree. I don't know the situation in the US, but in Australia (where you don't get an interest deduction on your primary residence) at the time NOTHING even came CLOSE on the risk/reward scale to the 14% tax free one could achieve by paying down principal on one's mortgage.
el lurko writes:
"was out of town surfing"
Talk about recession proof. Can we get some break names (surf pron)
Spent lots of time in Mexico. Later in life got WAY into wind surfing. San Quinten, Todos Santos. Even hit the islands. Ended up marrying a Hawaiian girl. God loves idiots it seems.
I'm hoping he eventually hates Harvard MBAs
The current consumer-driven economy model is broken. It can't be reanimated because its last stages were not fueled by the actual income of most Americans, but rather by debt - persuading people to substitute "managing their credit" for "increasing their incomes." That way, real incomes could be reduced while keeping consumers buying. Something quite different will come out of this - I hope! The hysterical acquisition of "aspirational goods" was a turnoff.
I also think the effects of the internet have not yet been fully comprehended. So much content for free! The ability to force retailers to the smallest possible margin (and smaller, considering Craigslist and the like). And it's still developing, though it's also creating new "needs" - such as that GPS device with which one can carry all the free online topo maps that can be downloaded. The history of the effects of the internet on retailing, as on society as a whole, has yet to be written. I will probably finally join Freecycle this next year, and give away for free some items that could have been picked up in a Pottery Barn (for example).
And finally, a plea to consider the planet as a whole in our musings about human population. I believe this world HAS to be more than just a resouce base for an ever expanding population. The other creatures on this world have to live - our job as the sentient and powerful beings on this planet is to defend and celebrate them, to celebrate the beautiful habitats around us. THAT is what makes life worth living. We have birth control (another factor the largely male writers of blogs do not factor in enough). How to persuade people to value a two-hour warlk along a snowy path more than two hours spent picking out an HD televison (and what is an HD television anyway - I asked my sister, who has a huge one, and she didn't know).
We can do this! But enough of my near-religious rantings, and time for some self-reflection.
Sue, a gold standard would put a limit on the draining of the earth's resources.
Wisdom Speaker, thanks for the link to Since Yesterday. Remarkable quote from the 1929 bubble:
"These new investment trusts are taking the best stocks out of the market; better buy them now, while they're still within reach."
I am a member of the Austrian School concerning economics. I know why we got here. I can even cite significant turning points as well as place it all in an anthropological point of view. Many think we are entering into what has been called severally The Greater Depression, GDII, a Once in a Hundred Year Recession, Collapse of Western Civ... well, perhaps not.
What I haven't heard is what happens on the other side of all this. We suffer, we deflate like a big dog, we start planting our gardens, organizing our neighborhoods, learning all about each other once again for the very first time.
But what else will it look like? Will the localized industrial manufacturing base return, evolve out of the chaos? Will our system of governance be the same? Many other questions, but I wish a dialogue on this meandering Saturday with some of the intellects that habit this place.
Sorry Yossarian, but at any given moment the planet has infinitely more "resources" than we will ever use in a thousand lifetimes.
The major component of any resource is the human mind that converts raw materials into something useful. If the market is allowed to function, prices will indicate when the substitution of one raw material for another is desirable.
A rising population comes with a rising pool of brains to solve problems, and produce resources. Communism aside, there is no reason every individual can't be productive enough to feed ten others. Ludites and materialists look at people and see only their mouths never their brains and hands.
I don't understand how anyone can drive across the United States and think we'll ever run out of land. There are a thousand places we could set down another Hong Kong or New York City and still have a hundred mile buffer zone on all sides.
Comrade Yossarian writes:
Things could be far worse than the 'Chain Store Massacre' that's upon us. In fact, in the right spirit of things, we should be downright giddy that consumerism is taking a direct hit on the nose.
By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be chillingly obvious. Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources.
Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill Scores - WSJ.com
kidbuck writes: I don't understand how anyone can drive across the United States and think we'll ever run out of land. There are a thousand places we could set down another Hong Kong or New York City and still have a hundred mile buffer zone on all sides.
There may be a hole in your thinking. There is not enough water to support such a city. If there were, it would have already happened. The Colorado River is being abused into submission, the Oglala Aquifer is under duress, and the ethanol program has just ratcheted up the demand for water and stress on the dirt with corn crops.
We won't run out of land, we may just run out of the necessaries that people require.
"But what else will it look like? Will the localized industrial manufacturing base return, evolve out of the chaos? Will our system of governance be the same?"
Ask Cubans what they did after USSR collapse. Quite a nice system sharing the resources.
This might be also one eye opener:
Fred On Everything
3rd world is sometimes not so 3rd world....
Uncle Billy Smiles writes:
More sickness. This guy ripped off $380M+ by pretending to be other people and using their offices as if they were his own.
I knew a guy who said he sold furs legitimately in a similar way in the '50s. He would take his clients into the vaults of various furriers in the building and search until he found several furs from which his client could choose. Then he would cut a deal with the owner of the fur and return the rest. The salesmen didn't like him, but the owners did. He said one of his customers was a middle eastern queen.
So this con man's business model isn't new.
Is this where we are? More from "Since Yesterday":
"But if business was so shaken by the Panic that during the winter of 1929-30 it responded only languidly to the faith-healing treatment being prescribed for it by the Administration, the stock market found its feet more readily. Presently the old game was going on again. Those pool operators whose resources were at least half intact were pushing stocks up again. Speculators, big and little, convinced that what had caught them was no more than a downturn in the business cycle, that the bottom had been passed, and that the prosperity band wagon was getting under way again, leaped in to recoup their losses. Prices leaped, the volume of trading became as heavy as in 1929, and a Little Bull Market was under way. "
"citizen energyecon"
Thanks for the link to the new Dajit post - I love that guy!
Volker the Viking. 6 Billion people, capitalism and the division of labor will win in the end. Despite all the attempts from Chicago School, Socialists and Keynesians to crush the entrepreneurial spirit of mankind by centrally planning money and economy.
For the first time in history (it started with the Industrial Revolution and sound money in Birmingham, England) the whole world is engaged in capitalism. The benefits are enormous and that's why I will be buying in 12 months time.
Nothing can stop this, not even Keynesian hole-digging, Friedmanite money-printing or Krugmanite new idea every dayism.
Sue (Capital S) writes: "I believe this world HAS to be more than just a resouce base for an ever expanding population. The other creatures on this world have to live - our job as the sentient and powerful beings on this planet is to defend and celebrate them, to celebrate the beautiful habitats around us. THAT is what makes life worth living."
Great sentiment and words, Sue. Sounds like liberalism, and it's beautiful to hear it again. May my country reawaken to its founding legacy and turn away from the Cons: banksters, hypocrites and fools.
"6 Billion people, capitalism and the division of labor will win in the end. "
Except it is now division of robots and automatic factories. That is a whole new game and nobody yet has the answer to that one.
1000 million young ones will also be entering the working age within next 10 years and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, there are 300 million new jobs available for them. The rest 700 million are left with NOTHING.
one_timmy, timmy, timmy, tsk, tsk
don't be so negative, we'll be okay, in spite of everything
Comrade Peronista writes: "For the first time in history (it started with the Industrial Revolution and sound money in Birmingham, England) the whole world is engaged in capitalism. The benefits are enormous and that's why I will be buying in 12 months time."
Once the FreeMarket koolaid has been digested, it seems that it is too late to burp it up.
one timmy. In the capitalist world it is the consumer who is King. Everyone benefits. The business man loses.
Is it just me, or is something on the CR page making my computer slow down? Noticed since the past few days. It only clears up when I close the CR window and just keep Haloscan open.
(A shame that I am not viewing CR's advertisers, but I can't have my computer freezing up...)
Jared Diamond's best work was on why Western civilization became the most powerful (as opposed to what we know as the Third World). Absolutely brilliant. But when it comes to his theories on civilization collapse, he's fixated on popular theories like environmental despoilation that Joseph Tainter already blew out of the water 20 years ago. Tainter already came up with a better framework for examining collapse - the "declining marginal returns on investments in complexity" model. Certainly we can see much of Tainter's theory at work when it comes to examining the low marginal returns on investment in modern Wall Street with its complex debt products.
JR, what are you longing for? A centrally planned economy? By bureaucrats at work between 9 to 4?
Comrade Volker the Viking
January job loss is what I'll be looking at to determine whether I go into the bunker or just keep my head down while going about.
Second that. Jan-Feb unemployment is key
I cant imagine JAN FEB being any better. I wonder why you guys are waiting for JAN FEB...the full recession hasnt migrated into all sectors yet. I see lots of folks still jaunting around STARBUCKS etc...this is just the starting...the progress into other sectors will go into Mid 2009...so JAN FEB is going to be worse for sure ?
Oahu : no power !
NYT : - NY Times
Comrade Volker the Viking,
You are right that water is limited. If we knew its true price we could better calculate were it is feasible to build and live. Government bailouts (subsidies) have screwed water's market royally, too. I know people who live in the AZ desert and get 100% of their water trucked in. How much would water from Canada cost if it were delivered by rail of truck? Could it cost more than the high taxes of California?
The Amazon and Arctic still have plenty of land and water. I'm not thinking any of this will be a picnic.
The Amazon and Arctic still have plenty of land and water. I'm not thinking any of this will be a picnic.
kidbuck | 12.27.08 - 8:41 am | #
Check out where the world's largest aquifer is, or at least one of the largest. And who will control it?
Guaraní Aquifer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Observation: "People are still slugging down Starbucks and cheap burgers."
Question: What percentage of the population is on a budget?
My guess: 15%
Observation: "The FED's balance sheet is farking exploding like never before!"
Question: What is the comparative % of FED balance sheet increases to total economy (1930-32 vs. "today")?
My guess: roughly equal thus far excluding guarantees (whatever that may ultimately mean)
~related?: I was watching "Exodus" on TCM the other night and Sir Gielgud was explaining how governments are like people in that they'll promise anything in times of stress.
Seems appropriate.
Re: Possible war btw Inida/Pakistan Can find nothing on any news services confirming such activity though considering the subcontinent's proximity to moi taking iodine potassiun for worst case scenario.
Israel conducts air strike on Gaza
At $35 a barrel, rebuilding Gaza may be difficult this time around.
It won't be 35 for long now.
On another note, that strike must be why gold spiked up all of a sudden.
you people I swear
Re-post--starting to go according to plan;
Will the markets react to an Israeli invasion of Gaza? When that results in a shower of Iranian built missiles, and Israeli airstikes on Iran, which subsequently closes the Hormuz Strait, things will get more interesting. Happy New Year.
Mel | 12.26.08 - 11:55 am | #
2009 will see upper end real estate take a massive hit.
2009 also will be the yr when debt induced outrageous compensations for media+sports+corporate execs will also take hit. Advertising dollars spent on the media will face big cuts.
2009 will take sheen off obama and taint his regime for being ineffectual.
2009 will see more economic damage outside US as global GDP growth may plunge to 2% in 2009.
anecdotal update, Treasure coast, FL:
Xmas eve no traffic on roads or lines in shops before noon, massive traffic after, but still short lines in shops.
St. Stephens day, heavyish traffic, no register lines, massive price reductions, meager inventories except at walmart. Local boozer that is usually filled on a Friday night more than half empty. Lines at liquor stores, though.
Toys R Us isn't long for this world, borders/B&N will need to drastically slash store counts.
I read that the guy who owns swift trucking is looking to unload his hockey team due to the team's and his personal finances going south.
Hockey could have worked in Phoenix, but building your rink 20 miles from downtown(and 40 miles from your season ticket base) as light rail was getting installed was pennywise and pound foolish. Jerry Colangelo didn't help things, either.
For all you CIA fans...
'Viagra lure' for Afghan warlords
BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Viagra lure' for Afghan warlords
At least they are using re- productive measures..
Sunday comics..nahh..who needs them...
I guess BB can obsolutely beat deflation if he continues printing at current phase (YOY bank reserve 603.6%).
The rate at which the Fed has been increasing bank reserves is ten times that at which it was doing so in 1934.
That is actually a deflationary indicator. The numbers are high because banks are pulling money out of the economy to store at the Fed since the Fed is now paying interest on reserves.
The Fed is printing money now, but not at that rate. M1 is up about 15% over two months, which is about what I'd recommend, except that they should have done some of it eight months ago.
About gold, this guy can sure write:
Antal Fekete on Gold
More treasure coast:
Sales have rebounded as shorts sales/REO take over, down 50% from 2005 highs, lots of room to drop. Lots that went for $2000 before the boom(and $100k at the peak) are selling for $7000 if at all.
At the same time building is only going on on hutchison isle and along the river; all high end single family units. At the same time on the isle houses that were for sale a year ago still are and more have come on line.
I wonder how the heads of Christian churches in the U.S. are dealing with the financial crisis.
Here in Germany, the head of the Lutheran church(es - it's complicated) has attacked Josef Ackermann, head of the Deutsche Bank, for his goal of 25% profits (Renditeziel - return on investment or yield target are other translations).
Bishop Wolfgang Huber called Ackermann's goal a form of Götzendienst or idolatry.
Well, nice to see a Christian that knows how Jesus dealt with the moneychangers, and isn't worried about Ackermann's tender feelings.
Actually, wait, I do seem to recall a certain American religious figure making similar comments -
"Not God bless America, God damn America! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
Shame that Rev. Wright was rarely quoted in full - seems like he and Bishop Huber are actually reading from the same bible, even if one is in German and the other English.
Being debt based does our currency demand exponential growth? If so how can it continue?
Retailers aren't the only people with disappointing December cash intake:
Unpaid property taxes surge, signal more housing woes to come - Santa Cruz Sentinel
"SANTA CRUZ -- As many as one in 10 homeowners in the county didn't pay property taxes by this month's deadline, the highest level of delinquency in years and a sign that the toll of the nation's housing crisis is likely to grow.....
Of the $203.2 million of property taxes that came due Dec. 10 -- half of the tax year's total -- $19.1 million, or 9.4 percent, has not been paid, according to county figures. That's on top of $11.9 million that remains unpaid from previous years."
We're going to see a lot of of this. Article goes on to say that most of the people not paying their taxes are probably behind or have given up on paying their mortgages.
Buy crude
Short crude. As I've done since April.
tg is a born & bred dope in a
The main problem is actually the interest that needs to be paid. The interest was never created in the first place. Where will the system find the interest to be paid?
Hockey could have worked in Phoenix, but building your rink 20 miles from downtown(and 40 miles from your season ticket base) as light rail was getting installed was pennywise and pound foolish. Jerry Colangelo didn't help things, either.
Comrade Alexei Mikhailovich
I think sports entertainment and massive event venues were also symptoms of bubblnomics. Regardless, light rail in the US never pennywise but is as you say always pound foolish. Like stadia there is little to no enumerable benefits but rather they serve ephemeral goals of community, at least that's what supporters claim. Most places call it world class city envy but we here in California refer to it a Fresnophobia. Fresno it should be noted lost their hockey team last Tuesday.
mal - so you're missing the weird ads from the Kingdom of Gilboa? For shame.
There's actually quite a sensible discussion over at RGE on AIG and its manifold tentacles. I usually avoid the place because the board is like Target in the week before Xmas. Busy, slightly manic, and you can't find what you want.
Jus sayin.
C
ova wrote:
Actually who has a product(s) that is worth the soon to be hard to come by money?
nova | Homepage | 12.26.08 - 9:22 pm | #
Hard to come by money? The way the fed is printing, it won't be hard to come by at all...maybe too easy to come by.
This trouble in the middle east sets look to continue for some time. Hope it does not escalate.
Where will the system find the interest to be paid?
Comrade Peronista | 12.27.08 - 10:14 am | #
I agree. I have not seen anyone answer it. If our money is created in debt where do we continually get the interest payment that is created? It seems to me if our economy is growing at that rate the no biggie but if we start to fall short what happens? Do we have continual currency debasement along with and a explosion in BS financial products and calling it growth?
Gold Rises Most in a Week on Middle East, South Asia Tensions
Gold Rises Most in a Week on Middle East, South Asia Tensions - Bloomberg.com
But what type of oil should I cook my fries in?
for what it is worth- I have had really good service from my Sears Automotive store.
with due respects to Andiron
"2009 will see more economic damage outside US as global GDP growth may plunge to 2% in 2009."
2% can scarcely be considered a "plunge"
msjuly wrote:
But what type of oil should I cook my fries in?
msjuly | 12.27.08 - 12:20 pm | #
Canola, msjuly, canola.
@Currently Accounting: "Remarkable quote from the 1929 bubble:
"These new investment trusts are taking the best stocks out of the market; better buy them now, while they're still within reach." "
Yep, heard the same thing in 2007 regarding the Private Equity funds. Supposedly stock prices were increasing because the supply was being reduced by all the PE purchases.
This time around the "new investment trusts" and "pools" were known as mutual funds, private equity, and hedge funds. But the game was the same.
Your subsequent quote about where we're at is also dead on, I believe. The 2008 crash was in October just as the 1929 crash was, so now we're heading into early 1930 with a little bull market trying to get legs. And the only question is whether the side effects of the crash (vicious cycle effects, or Lollapalooza effects if you think like Buffett's pal Charlie Munger) were priced in by the crash itself, or if they take more time to show up. If the damage is priced in, then we may have seen the final bottom. The fact that the news media are unrelentingly gloomy is also a plus. But if Obama doesn't get traction and the dearth of confidence continues, then another leg down could be in the cards...
N.B. I will be on travel and most likely internet-free for the next 5 days or so. See you all in the New Year!
LAST!@
FFDIC writes:
Economist
The way the brain buys
Retailers are making breakthroughs in understanding their customers minds. Here is what they know about you
Premium content | Economist.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of brains, I just ordered "Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work", can't wait to read it. Soon, we'll do brain scans to filter out the ones with little amgdalas. Could go the other way, the psychopaths could take over the world and scan out the normals. Either way, very science-fictioney...
An unabashed attempt to market my new blog.
Based on the retail sales, I provide a proof that furniture is more valuable than women's apparel.
I won't be following this blog anymore. It's not coherent.