How about the airports around New York City, London, and Geneva? Same phenomenon should be operative there. (Except around New York the abandoned vehicles with keys in the ignition probably wouldn't say put long enough for the police to find them first.)
"I sure hope Tiger Woods got his money in advance on his golf courses...maybe he wil be working at the local muni course when this depression is over
crispy&cole"
What is it with the US govt that they can not figure out their own laws...I do recall that we have a justice dept...If the various agencies can not figure out the regulations, how are they suppose to enforce them?
U.S. Hires Bankruptcy Lawyers to Advise on Automakers Bailout
By Tiffany Kary
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government hired a New York law firm with bankruptcy expertise to advise it on how to restructure General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, two people involved in the work said.
The U.S. Treasury Department hired Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP to evaluate restructuring scenarios, including a possible bankruptcy funded by the government, the people said. Cadwalader, hired last month, is working with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, a Chicago-based law firm, and Rothschild Inc., an investment bank, both hired previously, the people said
Stupid me, the old admin had 8 years to put people in positions of responsibility and they are still there..
Dubais Edifice Complex Is Falling on Hard Times: William Pesek
Commentary by William Pesek
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- As construction cranes littering Dubais skyline go idle, its time to revisit that ever intriguing economic indicator: the Skyscraper Curse.
As this columnist has pointed out periodically, theres an uncanny, if unscientific, correlation between financial crises and efforts to build the worlds tallest building. Look no further than Kuala Lumpur in 1997, Chicago in 1974, New York in 1930 and in biblical times with the Tower of Babel.
The human propensity for architectural overreach has been a surprisingly reliable omen. Its not a stretch to think of such projects as visual punctuation marks. A giant billboard made of steel, glass, concrete and money. A common thread between skyscrapers and economic disasters has to be easy credit, which fuels irrational growth, valuations, and hubris.
I was supposed to have a closing, same closing, on Mon, Tues, Wed, and today, Thurs.
The bank and the title co between them, clearly don't know how to process a file and close a transaction.
Seems like the bank has let go so many employees, that the institutional memory of how to process a loan is lost. That, or in heady days of yore, they weren't really processing and analyzing loans anyhow, so the info was lost 3 years ago, or more.
Finally, I said, hey, I'm not gonna be here tomorrow, and even if I were, I have no confidence that the loan will close tomorrow. Borrower isn't losing any rate lock or anything and Tues next is convenient for her, so I said to the loan broker, who was so exasperated with the lender by this point that they were worn down, that fine, they will accomodate us and close on the date we want. Not Fri, not Mon, but Tuesday. If they don't like it, tough.
My paralegal will be closing another one tomorrow, all paperwork done, for 40k. Tax assessor has the value at 136k. Might be a bit high, but the tax assessor's value has been pretty accurate lately.
I have gone from waiting for the End of The World to witnessing it.
Mentioned before, but another foreclosure selling at 200k, loan was 430k. Present appraisal is 218k, not that that means anything. House has a lot of electrical work to be done, but that's fine as buyer is an electrician!!
Liquidity is nothing more and nothing less than very easy availability of money, or credit, for speculation as well as projects. Lot of liquidity that has gone into projects has gone into building projects in many parts of the world with Dubai being the poster child. I have read that foreigners are begging to fund projects in India. Pakistan is a hotbed of Arab investments in huge building projects. Can you time a bubble?
Too much liquidity means too many imprudent projects and lot of thoughtless speculation. These things always end very badly. All floods exhaust and the money liquidity could dry up as quickly as it flooded the global economy.
The "Petro Dollar liquidity," that Bill Gross thinks was a significant component, will dry up once the crude oil prices trade below $50 a barrel on a sustained basis because the oil producing countries budgets, or expenses, have swelled and there would be lot less excess cash available. Saudi Arabia was in financial troubles in late 1990s when the crude prices were low.
ObDepressionJoke: You know you're in a depression when the only indoor desert skiing you will be doing will be in your head after your breakfast of toads and puddle water.
Really, what is a "saloon" besides an Old West drink, gambling, and whoring operation? Is it some Arab low rider?
Elvis
.
google 'british saloon car'-- generally means a big 4-door sedan. Sometimes used for minicars, but that's not likely with the Dubai high rollers.
lucifer, Exactly...giant skyscrapers seem to be the inflection points of booms turning to crashes. A developer likely can only find financing for these projects when money is screaming through the system.
From Eurowatch on Spain. Spain is at 14% unemployment, has an ugly real estate crash, and has a lot of banks whose names are recognizable unhappy.
I was struck by how you could easly substitute names and and fastfoward to a possible American future.
So the liquidity drought (which starts in the centre) works its way all the way back up the tubes till it reaches the end of the line (the most peripherical points) and then when you open those taps, the water simply does not flow out, or if it does it is more a trickle than a flood. And the centre is having problems, as we saw in the case of yesterday's 7bn 10 year treasury bond auction (Tuesday) which produced a Spanish yield differential jump at its highest level since the euro came into existence - 137 basis points above the equivalent German Bunds. More ominously, foreign investors were notably absent, leaving Spanish banks to soak up the debt. Which makes all that nonsense Spanish people have been seeing on their TV screens this week about how the banks are not lending enough to households and businesses seem even more ridiculous, since it is the needs of the government itself which is increasingly "crowding out" all the rest.
Now going back to the foorball blackout, normally Spain's regional and municipal governments would plug their funding gap by borrowing, and by doing so from the regional cajas, but of course these entities are precisely among the worst affected by the credit drought, and they themselves are running out of money, and totally dependent on short term funding from the ECB for their immediate liquidity needs. So the bottom line is that people are becoming less and less willing to extend credit, and especially to "bad payers" like the local and regional governments, as we can see in the Barça case.
Gee, in that harsh desert environment, I wonder who is going to maintain all the newly minted technology and infrastructure? Hmmmm, it's not going to be the "expats" who are beating feet in droves. Me thinks that Dubai will end up resembling the cities in that NatGeo special. You know, the one where the humans disappear, the buildings crumble, and the animals rule. Only there really aren't any animals to speak of in the desert....
Lets not spend much time with after the fact stuff... Like it really matters
"A key question the Obama administration wants answered is whether the governments $17.4 billion in loans to Chrysler and GM would be first in line for repayment, ahead of earlier lenders such as Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the people said"
Checks in the mail expect on Monday, you know the Post Office doesn't...
"Unless the companies show by March 31 that they will be able to return to profit and repay the money, the government can demand repayment of the loans"
We need our money back... silence followed by dial-tone
CR - its not only the expats. A good population of Pakistani workers have been there for a few years now. They send paychecks back home. Pakistan is feeling the pinch and there are fewer checks and now workers returning home.
What a mess.
fyi...The Brits are putting pressure on Polish guest workers to leave the UK.
"House has a lot of electrical work to be done, but that's fine as buyer is an electrician!!
lawyerliz"
Make sure he pulls a permit and gets it inspected because if he does the work himself, and there is a problem his HO P&C policy is void unless inspected.
Really? I thought Ireland was the perferred destination for Polish workers? Must be a lot of Poles going home since they leaving Ireland also. Next year Poland goes Euro also?
A steady flow of downgrades has turned into a flood in recent weeks, with thousands of Alt-A tranches taking the plunge. The falls have been unusually steep: of the $59 billion of AAA-rated securities that Moodys cut between January 29th and February 2nd, an astonishing 91% went straight to junk, according to Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities. In ratings terms, Alt-A is doing worse than subprime.
Into that filthy hole in the flank of the Great Pyramid
Go eight thousand tourists and flies
But the masks of the pharaohs are missing
And the eyes of the jackals are looking
Under the lights of Cairo
Row west from the temple of Karnak
With your back toward the valley of kings
When you come to the desert youll find
The buried god of the moon
Under electrified sand
Not so when our cities are found
Under the lengths of the coastlines
They will find our corroded wreckage
But nothing that looks like a mask
Of lapis and beaten gold
"Gee, in that harsh desert environment, I wonder who is going to maintain all the newly minted technology and infrastructure? Hmmmm, it's not going to be the "expats" who are beating feet in droves. Me thinks that Dubai will end up resembling the cities in that NatGeo special.
"
There's a wonderful book by the otherwise gloomy and artsy sf writer J.G. Ballard about the decadent denizens of a half-deserted, has-been resort city in the middle of the desert, called "Vermillion Sands." Dubai-on-the-skids would make an excellent, cheesey backdrop for a novel some years in the future.
This makes me wonder where Skippy from Family Ties is? Anybody know? Maybe he is in Dubai, too. Or maybe he married Mallory and they are living in the Faulklands?
Where they gonna get food?
lawyerliz
.
Used to be a trading/fishing town. They'll do some of that, and recycle the buildings. I doubt they'll let it go to waste. Anyway, I think we'll be seeing a lot more trader and fund manager 'skips' in the next couple of years, right here in the US.
Hey liz, just got my new rate on my ARM, I got a stay of execution, my payment and rate stay as they are...Now, I have six months to get that refinance done before my next reset...PHEW.
How about the airports around New York City, London, and Geneva? Same phenomenon should be operative there. Wisdom Speaker | Homepage | 02.05.09 - 6:04 pm | #
You do not go to jail or get your hand cut off in those cities...
It shows the 'daily life' aspect of the current mess.
It also answers the question: Why do 'those' people have drug and alcohol problems? Because that's a quick, effective stress-reducer. The rich play golf, I guess, to take a break. The 21st Century Joads get high at home.
It was a nice suburban development once. Whispering Oaks East was a mix of townhomes and single family in the far suburbs. Nice, in 2006, maybe even 2007. Not now in 2011. Foreclosures, walkaways, and no money for maintenance had ripped holes in the facade.
The county had quit patroling except on demand. If you called 911, you better mention the word gun if you wanted someone to show up. Squatters had begun moving in some of the houses in 2010. At first we had sympathy for them, especially the kids. Then "it" had started.
Tonight I smelled smoke. Not good. Burning houses had become popular. Wild parties on the lawns as the house burnt. Gunfire was becoming common. At first we thought it was firecrackers. Not anymore.
When I heard the shots we went into the drill. Frame houses do not stop high powered assault weapons, and 3 blocks away a neighbor had died from a random round. The kids headed for the basement, lead by my tight lipped wife. I grabbed the Mossberg and turned out the lights. It was going to be a long night.
"The county had quit patroling except on demand. If you called 911, you better mention the word gun if you wanted someone to show up."
nova
.
Dang, that's my county, right now.
He saw the shadows. Flitting across the lawn. Disbelieving at first. He watched the shadows move, losing them behind what was once a nice example of topiary art. Now, just a shaggy English boxwood.
They had slipped into the woods behind the old couple across the street. "Shit" he thought, "What to do." Call 911? Go after them. No he couldn't do that. He had to stay here.
What was their names? He had talked to them a couple times. The old guy had a major attitude last time he had talked to him. Apparently he had been someone once. Well, like everyone else - he wasn't now. That made him laugh bitterly to himself.
When I heard the shots we went into the drill. Frame houses do not stop high powered assault weapons, and 3 blocks away a neighbor had died from a random round. The kids headed for the basement, lead by my tight lipped wife. I grabbed the Mossberg and turned out the lights. It was going to be a long night. \t nova | \t \t \t \t02.05.09 - 6:59 pm | # A thousand pounds of bulk food in 5 gallon buckets makes a nice fortification...I joked to relatives when I showed them my storage room that if there was any gunfire in the neighborhood we could lay down in the storage room and the buckets would stop anything short of a 50 cal.
A 27 year old Sacramento-based mortgage broker has come clean on his website to the tune of nearly $1 billion in fraudulent loan originations. Excellent coverage by News 10 and the Mortgage Fraud Report. Here's an excerpt from his 7-page mea culpa:
Our company boasted region-best 30,000 square feet, 120 employees, and handling a monthly gross revenue over $5m. Fraud was rampant. We found investors that were not re-pulling credit reports, so we would change a 500 fico to a 700 fico, a person in foreclosure and make It look like they were never late, fake w2s, pay stubs, bank statements, verification of deposits, none of which was being re-verified. These investors, who were securitizing these assets as AAA rated were not even verifying anything in the files? I am sure that their investors were assured everything from correspondents was being audited. Every time a lender caught a file we would "fire" the employee produce termination paperwork to the investor, and re-hire the employee under a different alias. Over the course of the 3 years, over $810,000,000 in mortgage backed securities originated from my companies. That's a 24 year old selling a billion dollars in bad mbs securities which by 2008 were in default with out doubt.
Just remember, when the politicians wax poetic about "rescuing" the banks, this is what your tax dollars will be buying.
Dr John Kellogg, was an advocate of natural healing, as was the Adventist church, and also had a fixation about colonic hygiene. He believed that the bowels should move three times a day. He also believed firmly in the physical dangers of masturbation, writing about the many diseases and medical conditions that would follow such sinful activity. The eating of pork was another of his preferred targets. He wrote about the horror and the dangers of eating pork because pigs seemed to him such filthy creatures... [Dr. John Harvey Kellogg] persisted with the belief that inspired visions could be channelled through a religious medium to bring God's truth to the world.
Kellog is dumping Michael Phelps. Dirk | 02.05.09 - 7:11 pm | #
If he had shown some backbone about the issue instead of backstroke, then maybe I would share that view. I guess at least he did not go the denial route and say somthing like, "I was holding it for a freind."
He wasn't sure if he really heard, or just imagined the manical laughter. He knew he would never forget the arching bottles trailing flames as they smashed through the windows. Nor would he forget the old lady running out the front door screaming. Screaming "Help!" Her husband stumbling out after, a black plastic shape in his hand.
Wow, a Glock he thought. His first thought 'I wonder if I can get to it if he dies.' The old man pulled up as one of the shadows took shape. Moving towards him quickly. He watched as the old man pointed the gun but nothing happened! The safety old! The safety!
Then he dies and our hero retrieves the Glock. His wife smiles as he shows her what he had retrieved. Her only comment "I always thoght the Smyths were assholes." She squeezed his bicep and whispered "You devil." He smiled. Life was good.
DETROIT -- Chrysler LLC executives, making their second sales plea to dealers in two weeks, urged them today to order 15,000 more cars by Monday to keep the company viable.
"You have two choices," said Chrysler co-President Jim Press. "You can either help us or burn us all down."
"We've got to get the cash flow coming in so we can get to March 31 as a viable company," Press said in a conference call to dealers this afternoon. "By doing that right now, we can begin to harvest the long-term benefits of the investments we're making."
"By successfully keeping the doors open in January and February, we'll get the loan," said Press, referring to $4 billion Chrysler has received from the U.S. Department of Treasury. Chrysler must submit a plan to the government by Feb. 17 to show it's a viable company. The government will decide by March 31 whether to keep the loan in force.
I wonder how it will effect the airline Emirates (EK). Dubai has done a phenominal job of becoming the regions low cost transport hub.
There is no choice in Dubai on Bankruptcy... flee or be really stupid. It does say something about the local petty theft if 3,000 cars, with keys in the ignition, could be identified as abandoned at the airport.
"By doing that right now, we can begin to harvest the long-term benefits of the investments we're making."
"By successfully keeping the doors open in January and February, we'll get the loan," said Press
Struggling Auto Parts Suppliers Prepare to Seek Federal Aid
By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; Page A06
Bruised by plummeting car sales and production cuts, automotive parts suppliers are gearing up to lobby for federal aid in the coming weeks.
Industry members have been discussing several options with the Treasury Department and lawmakers, weighing whether to seek funds from the financial rescue package, the stimulus plan or other sources, according to Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs for the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association.
Did anyone catch this dandy of a quote from a reuters article today from Peter Kenny who actually wishes for the good old Enron days:
"NEW YORK (Reuters) Stocks rose on Thursday on investor hopes that the Obama administration's plan to shore up the financial system would include a measure that would help banks stem losses and revive lending.
Traders said investor sentiment was buoyed by talk that Washington would suspend an accounting requirement on the recognition of losses that has resulted in billions of write-downs for banks.
"The notion that you can suspend this mark-to-market provision, which was established after Enron, as way of halting the slide in the value of financials is at the fundamental core of putting on the brakes," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.
"The market reaction is a barometer how well (the suspension) could impact market psychology and market value."
You cannot even make this stuff up anymore. It is Honali (Puff the Magic Dragon's fantasyland) or bust for the banks!
This is hilarious if you consider all those gleaming glass and steel high rise monuments to be nuclear fuel rods poking into the sky. Critical mass is about to be achieved me thinks. TFB! (too fucking bad)
There was something uncanny about it. Nightmarish, literally. But also the scene in the basement when the Martians cautiously explore it. Nice that there was nothing at all on the soundtrack.
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Then he dies and our hero retrieves the Glock. His wife smiles as he shows her what he had retrieved. Her only comment "I always thoght the Smyths were assholes." She squeezed his bicep and whispered "You devil." He smiled. Life was good.
nova
No, no, no, no, no..."You devil." Tooooo Cheeeeesey.
Keep it hard. Keep it horrific. Make it nearly terminal like the California budget crisis. There are mentally ZOMBIE teens with AK47's out there. They don't quit! They're hungry! Jeez, do I have to write it for you?
Suspending mark to market rules = legalize securities fraud. Its that simple folks. Why buy the stock of any company when the book value belongs on the fiction shelf.
What is it about Americans that can't accept a lower standard of living, reduced goals, a sustainable life; shit gets tough and people start fantasizing about mossbergs and zombies. God how we are douche-bags.
But the ending, which is basically the one Wells wrote, was and is unconvincing. Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
We write stories which relieve anxiety by forcing the ending to be fortunate.
"Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?"
Pav, I'm sure you have a healthy respect for the vast creativity of DNA. It will burn us, too, one day, and we've run that gauntlet for billions of years.
These days whenever I see sinister aliens in films I think that these monsters are never more monstrous, for example, a detachment of SS commandos moving into a Russian village.
Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth? Pavel Chichikov | 02.05.09 - 7:49 pm | #
Would a scientific community that could put a probe on Mars have a problem with metric units?
Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth? Pavel Chichikov | 02.05.09 - 7:49 pm | #
Surely possible...capability in one field of endeavor is not necessarily correlated with capability in another. Reminds me of a line from a "Simpsons" episode, and probably other places: "Any sufficiently technologically advanced civilization will have lost the urge for violence." Bwahahahahaha!!! Whatever...
They loosened the requirements on 'models' for level 3 assets last fall. Can't remember who/if there were markups after that
There's also issues about properly pricing deferred tax assets, goodwill, and holding treasuries on loan while the Fed parks worthless but not yet expired debt
"Pav, I'm sure you have a healthy respect for the vast creativity of DNA. It will burn us, too, one day, and we've run that gauntlet for billions of years."
It's been apparent now for some years that the dominant life form on this planet in terms of biomass and biological/ecological effect is the bacterium.
Maybe, but it's too easy a way of resolving the plot to be very interesting as a story.
Look at the precautions we took with the Apollo 11 crew. And how smart are we?
Look at it this way - if the 'Martians' come from a planet biologically sophisticated enough to evolve them, they must surely know a great deal about microorganisms, if only in self defense.
Not half bad writing. BH was right about the Glock. Glock has several safeties with the primary on the trigger. The only real safety is keeping your finger off the trigger until you decide to shoot.
The reason soldiers/LEO's like Glocks is once you decide to shoot you only have to point and pull.
I like them because they are indestructible and easy to maintain.
rich wrote: "This is a shame. Dubai was in the process of becoming an international trade hub"
Oh, it'll still be an international trade hub. It has the regulatory setup for that. But it'll be at the relatively grubby, paper-shuffling, deal-making, labor-intensive end of the spectrum, not the glitzy zillionaire's end.
Pavel - dead thread, I know. But if you are still there, good poem. Very compact and descriptive. I especially liked how you maintained the 7-beat drumroll last line to each stanza. Well done!
I saw this one coming when cnbc did a show on dubai at those palm beach front residences and they were all vacant. Why would somebody want to live in that dangerous part of the world in the desert?
lawyerliz writes:
I have gone from waiting for the End of The World to witnessing it.
Liz: Talked to an 'advocate' today at this Carlsbad, CA walkaway firm, and was informed that that office has 40 agents each working 100+/- cases (at $995 each). Said they had desks available and would I be interested in joining.
If I can find a SoCal REO for cash with what's left of our last sale's equity and walk us out of the IE hot weather and hot mortgage water, I'm mad enough at our corrupt, corporate bound congress, to volunteer to work for these guys.
i expected doobai implosion to follow mumbai implosion. Looks like indian metro area real estate implosion is still some quarters away.
Many bric enthusiast haven't accounted for real estate BUST that will devastate their economies. Beware of Brics.
Faber cracks me up. He's really quite ghoulish. It's a short vid and he gives that Dr Doom grimace at the end. Probably earns him a spot on dubya's evil-doer list...
I spent a bit of time in Dubai back in the early 90's. Once you got away from the business district, it was a dump. My wife wanted me to buy a carpet. I spent six months wandering around the city before I found someone who sold carpets for less than 20 grand. Then followed two weeks of haggling, drinking tea, and hanging out without letting the shopkeeper know exactly which carpet I really wanted. While there were a number of Brits, most all businesses were run by hired Pakistanis and Indians. Buying anything was an exercise in patience and subterfuge.
Pavel Chichikov:But the ending, which is basically the one Wells wrote, was and is unconvincing. Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
My bet is that would be the primary reason why aliens would not come here, completely impossible to predict what would happen when the alien microbes start mixing it up with the earth ones and vice versa. Maybe you're completely immune, or maybe the local microbes hew you up like a piece of meat, or perhaps worse, your microbe take over and turn the worlds oceans into into an anoxic soup, everything dies, the world you spent thousands of years getting too then gets back before freezing solid.
Oh, and I have to say this. If I had to shoot someone in my basement, I'd probably describe that day as perhaps the worst day of my life.
Pavel Chichikov wrote: "These days whenever I see sinister aliens in films I think that these monsters are never more monstrous, for example, a detachment of SS commandos moving into a Russian village."
The scariest monsters in "The Mist" were the people inside the store.
I suppose it's because I'm unlikely to ever have to face Lovecraftian horrors, but scared humans turning on one another is all too believable.
ova wrote: "The long term investment being gov money I guess."
Are there any companies out there that haven't adopted that as their primary business strategy? If so, sell their stock; there's no way they can compete with the ones on the government teat.
Jon H wrote: "Oh, [Dubai]'ll still be an international trade hub. But it'll be at the relatively grubby, paper-shuffling, deal-making, labor-intensive end of the spectrum, not the glitzy zillionaire's end."
That's actually a good thing, both because it's actually sustainable long-term, and because there's not going to be much at the glitzy zillionaire's end in the short-term.
ALERT... authorities have begun mandatory castration against people they find 'skipping.' This just happened to my neighbor's cousin and it could be happening right now to anyone who is caught! Be careful, this is scary.
why not, gas is cheap !
They need a Skip Tracer Czar !
Now we know that curse of building high rise buildings is real!
one hell of a ghost tow
If anyone wants a cheap Porsche Cayenne or Bentley, you know where to go.
Dubai...suckers paradise...
Party's over.
what happened to the mile tall building, rotating buildings, palm shaped islands?
Empire State- 1933
WTC and Sears-1970
Petronas-1997
Burj Dubai- 2009
"saloons"
I thought they quit driving saloons way back in the 1800s.
I sure hope Tiger Woods got his money in advance on his golf courses...maybe he wil be working at the local muni course when this depression is over
the magical power of "free markets" strikes again, driving the price of automobiles into the negative.
How about the airports around New York City, London, and Geneva? Same phenomenon should be operative there. (Except around New York the abandoned vehicles with keys in the ignition probably wouldn't say put long enough for the police to find them first.)
"Dubai," is practically a punchline.
"I sure hope Tiger Woods got his money in advance on his golf courses...maybe he wil be working at the local muni course when this depression is over
crispy&cole"
Maybe he left his yatch docked there.
Skip out or get tortured and thrown in debtors prison, no brainer
This is a shame. Dubai was in the process of becoming an international trade hub. A lot of investments bigger than cars may go down the drain.
As sad as it is, this is why I still believe in EUM and EEV.
In emerging markets, it's not just about stock prices falling.
It's about "emptying out."
What is it with the US govt that they can not figure out their own laws...I do recall that we have a justice dept...If the various agencies can not figure out the regulations, how are they suppose to enforce them?
U.S. Hires Bankruptcy Lawyers to Advise on Automakers Bailout
By Tiffany Kary
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government hired a New York law firm with bankruptcy expertise to advise it on how to restructure General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, two people involved in the work said.
The U.S. Treasury Department hired Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP to evaluate restructuring scenarios, including a possible bankruptcy funded by the government, the people said. Cadwalader, hired last month, is working with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, a Chicago-based law firm, and Rothschild Inc., an investment bank, both hired previously, the people said
Stupid me, the old admin had 8 years to put people in positions of responsibility and they are still there..
Dubai = El Centro with more laws..... no thanks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LjTWSKbfiU
(I've posted this a few times but it still amazes me...)
......................
Didnt haliburton set up there.... LOL!
..................
There was this guy, about 20 threads ago, who was asking everyone here what they thought of Dubai real estate-- wonder whether he took the bait.
Those who return risk arrest at the airport.
On the plus side, you probably wouldn't need to rent a car.
Dubais Edifice Complex Is Falling on Hard Times: William Pesek
Commentary by William Pesek
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- As construction cranes littering Dubais skyline go idle, its time to revisit that ever intriguing economic indicator: the Skyscraper Curse.
As this columnist has pointed out periodically, theres an uncanny, if unscientific, correlation between financial crises and efforts to build the worlds tallest building. Look no further than Kuala Lumpur in 1997, Chicago in 1974, New York in 1930 and in biblical times with the Tower of Babel.
The human propensity for architectural overreach has been a surprisingly reliable omen. Its not a stretch to think of such projects as visual punctuation marks. A giant billboard made of steel, glass, concrete and money. A common thread between skyscrapers and economic disasters has to be easy credit, which fuels irrational growth, valuations, and hubris.
Dubai’s Edifice Complex Is Falling on Hard Times: William Pesek - Bloomberg.com
I'll bet Avis is having a tough time competing with free cars available in the parking lot.
I guess this can't be good for trump's Dubai project . Which has been on hold since Nov 2008 Dubai Luxury Real Estate: Donald J Trump Organization Dubai UAE Luxury Real Estate Condominiums Residential Resort Hotel Property
correlation between financial crises and efforts to build the worlds tallest building.
.
Aka "The Freudian Fail."
They got a Trump hotel in Panama City FL?????
...oh, this I gotta see.
"In emerging markets, it's not just about stock prices falling.
It's about "emptying out."
rich "
Emerging markets, like the rest of the world, are screwed for the next five to seven years.
The city's beautiful beaches marred by illegal dumping
'Smelly sewage' threatens Dubai's clean image http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/11/02/59341.html
Well, Broward, the cars prolly have liens on 'em.
This post is amusing.
I was supposed to have a closing, same closing, on Mon, Tues, Wed, and today, Thurs.
The bank and the title co between them, clearly don't know how to process a file and close a transaction.
Seems like the bank has let go so many employees, that the institutional memory of how to process a loan is lost. That, or in heady days of yore, they weren't really processing and analyzing loans anyhow, so the info was lost 3 years ago, or more.
Finally, I said, hey, I'm not gonna be here tomorrow, and even if I were, I have no confidence that the loan will close tomorrow. Borrower isn't losing any rate lock or anything and Tues next is convenient for her, so I said to the loan broker, who was so exasperated with the lender by this point that they were worn down, that fine, they will accomodate us and close on the date we want. Not Fri, not Mon, but Tuesday. If they don't like it, tough.
My paralegal will be closing another one tomorrow, all paperwork done, for 40k. Tax assessor has the value at 136k. Might be a bit high, but the tax assessor's value has been pretty accurate lately.
I have gone from waiting for the End of The World to witnessing it.
Mentioned before, but another foreclosure selling at 200k, loan was 430k. Present appraisal is 218k, not that that means anything. House has a lot of electrical work to be done, but that's fine as buyer is an electrician!!
Really, what is a "saloon" besides an Old West drink, gambling, and whoring operation? Is it some Arab low rider?
--
My comments of two years ago:
Liquidity is nothing more and nothing less than very easy availability of money, or credit, for speculation as well as projects. Lot of liquidity that has gone into projects has gone into building projects in many parts of the world with Dubai being the poster child. I have read that foreigners are begging to fund projects in India. Pakistan is a hotbed of Arab investments in huge building projects. Can you time a bubble?
Too much liquidity means too many imprudent projects and lot of thoughtless speculation. These things always end very badly. All floods exhaust and the money liquidity could dry up as quickly as it flooded the global economy.
The "Petro Dollar liquidity," that Bill Gross thinks was a significant component, will dry up once the crude oil prices trade below $50 a barrel on a sustained basis because the oil producing countries budgets, or expenses, have swelled and there would be lot less excess cash available. Saudi Arabia was in financial troubles in late 1990s when the crude prices were low.
Jas
The Palm shaped island is really there. Here is a satellite image of it on Google: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&t=h&layer=x&g=dubai&ll=25.120924,55.129008&spn=0.066677,0.100336&z=14
ObDepressionJoke: You know you're in a depression when the only indoor desert skiing you will be doing will be in your head after your breakfast of toads and puddle water.
"House has a lot of electrical work to be done, but that's fine as buyer is an electrician!!
lawyerliz"
Sounds like a perfect house for a good fire insurance policy to me.
This is different than the cars piled up in Long Beach how?
If you think a hard drive is what happens when your car has 4 flat tires...you might be in a depression.
Nostrovia,
Really, what is a "saloon" besides an Old West drink, gambling, and whoring operation? Is it some Arab low rider?
Elvis
.
google 'british saloon car'-- generally means a big 4-door sedan. Sometimes used for minicars, but that's not likely with the Dubai high rollers.
skippity do da, skippity day
my oh my what a wonderful day
Those whacky Brits.
Dallas hardware store offers Bush door greeter position
Think Progress » Dallas hardware store offers Bush door greeter position.
Gee I thought he was qualified to be assistant manager at a burger joint
rich,
Interesting to note the three biggest block trade amounts in Selling on Strength: SPY, FXI and EEM...
Money Flows: Selling on Strength - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com
Given the manner of their leaving I'd say "those who return" will prove to be a VERY small group.
Yup, if you were hoping to spec on an apartment and loose the bet and walk away, you first get stripped of assets then its off to jail.
In some countries contracts are contracts and the government steps in. In the US you can hide behind lawyers.
Anecdote is by definition not evidence.
Evidence is not anecdote. Rather it is a systematic collection of data
As a result, anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron.
sorry gotta point that out in reference to the post...
Once again, the physician son of a friend in Brisbane has a contract to work in Dubai. Was supposed to be there by now.
Wonder how that's working out. I'll write.
Me thinks this sucker really IS goin down.
lucifer,
Exactly...giant skyscrapers seem to be the inflection points of booms turning to crashes. A developer likely can only find financing for these projects when money is screaming through the system.
"Gold plated Personlized tags costing 15k to 25k"...What a comeuppence.
Sounds like other countries have born and bred dopes.
Nah, Elvis, they actually want to live there.
Some do, ya know.
I actually thing the Palmy island is cool, in a sickly decadent sort of way.
From Eurowatch on Spain. Spain is at 14% unemployment, has an ugly real estate crash, and has a lot of banks whose names are recognizable unhappy.
I was struck by how you could easly substitute names and and fastfoward to a possible American future.
So the liquidity drought (which starts in the centre) works its way all the way back up the tubes till it reaches the end of the line (the most peripherical points) and then when you open those taps, the water simply does not flow out, or if it does it is more a trickle than a flood. And the centre is having problems, as we saw in the case of yesterday's 7bn 10 year treasury bond auction (Tuesday) which produced a Spanish yield differential jump at its highest level since the euro came into existence - 137 basis points above the equivalent German Bunds. More ominously, foreign investors were notably absent, leaving Spanish banks to soak up the debt. Which makes all that nonsense Spanish people have been seeing on their TV screens this week about how the banks are not lending enough to households and businesses seem even more ridiculous, since it is the needs of the government itself which is increasingly "crowding out" all the rest.
Now going back to the foorball blackout, normally Spain's regional and municipal governments would plug their funding gap by borrowing, and by doing so from the regional cajas, but of course these entities are precisely among the worst affected by the credit drought, and they themselves are running out of money, and totally dependent on short term funding from the ECB for their immediate liquidity needs. So the bottom line is that people are becoming less and less willing to extend credit, and especially to "bad payers" like the local and regional governments, as we can see in the Barça case.
Gee, in that harsh desert environment, I wonder who is going to maintain all the newly minted technology and infrastructure? Hmmmm, it's not going to be the "expats" who are beating feet in droves. Me thinks that Dubai will end up resembling the cities in that NatGeo special. You know, the one where the humans disappear, the buildings crumble, and the animals rule. Only there really aren't any animals to speak of in the desert....
They were better off building pyramids.
Lets not spend much time with after the fact stuff... Like it really matters
"A key question the Obama administration wants answered is whether the governments $17.4 billion in loans to Chrysler and GM would be first in line for repayment, ahead of earlier lenders such as Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the people said"
Checks in the mail expect on Monday, you know the Post Office doesn't...
"Unless the companies show by March 31 that they will be able to return to profit and repay the money, the government can demand repayment of the loans"
We need our money back... silence followed by dial-tone
CR - its not only the expats. A good population of Pakistani workers have been there for a few years now. They send paychecks back home. Pakistan is feeling the pinch and there are fewer checks and now workers returning home.
What a mess.
fyi...The Brits are putting pressure on Polish guest workers to leave the UK.
What a mess.
think
"House has a lot of electrical work to be done, but that's fine as buyer is an electrician!!
lawyerliz"
Make sure he pulls a permit and gets it inspected because if he does the work himself, and there is a problem his HO P&C policy is void unless inspected.
lawyerliz writes:
think
lawyerliz
No! Too painful.
Nostrovia,
Don't they like chop your hand off over there if you default or steal or whatever?
Barley | 02.05.09 - 6:35 pm
Really? I thought Ireland was the perferred destination for Polish workers? Must be a lot of Poles going home since they leaving Ireland also. Next year Poland goes Euro also?
OT: RE: Alt-A
From the Economist:
A steady flow of downgrades has turned into a flood in recent weeks, with thousands of Alt-A tranches taking the plunge. The falls have been unusually steep: of the $59 billion of AAA-rated securities that Moodys cut between January 29th and February 2nd, an astonishing 91% went straight to junk, according to Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities. In ratings terms, Alt-A is doing worse than subprime.
We are all Alt-A now!
Jim
"They were better off building
pyramids."
INTO THE GREAT PYRAMID
Into that filthy hole in the flank of the Great Pyramid
Go eight thousand tourists and flies
But the masks of the pharaohs are missing
And the eyes of the jackals are looking
Under the lights of Cairo
Row west from the temple of Karnak
With your back toward the valley of kings
When you come to the desert youll find
The buried god of the moon
Under electrified sand
Not so when our cities are found
Under the lengths of the coastlines
They will find our corroded wreckage
But nothing that looks like a mask
Of lapis and beaten gold
\t\t\t\t\tPavel
\t\t\t\t\tOctober 8, 2008
"Gee, in that harsh desert environment, I wonder who is going to maintain all the newly minted technology and infrastructure? Hmmmm, it's not going to be the "expats" who are beating feet in droves. Me thinks that Dubai will end up resembling the cities in that NatGeo special.
"
There's a wonderful book by the otherwise gloomy and artsy sf writer J.G. Ballard about the decadent denizens of a half-deserted, has-been resort city in the middle of the desert, called "Vermillion Sands." Dubai-on-the-skids would make an excellent, cheesey backdrop for a novel some years in the future.
The classic boom/bust if ever there was one.
Pav - That was great
Cool, Pavel.
The dry desert air will preserve what isn't looted, but dust will wreck the electronics.
Where they gonna get food?
"over there" Easy come, easy go. Believe they picked that up from some past US President's 500K speech's.
Off to Brevard County.
Happy dooming.
Any new bets on Bff?
Any new speculations about when we reach the 6 handle??
This makes me wonder where Skippy from Family Ties is? Anybody know? Maybe he is in Dubai, too. Or maybe he married Mallory and they are living in the Faulklands?
Where they gonna get food?
lawyerliz
.
Used to be a trading/fishing town. They'll do some of that, and recycle the buildings. I doubt they'll let it go to waste. Anyway, I think we'll be seeing a lot more trader and fund manager 'skips' in the next couple of years, right here in the US.
This looks like a job for Repo Man.
Hey liz, just got my new rate on my ARM, I got a stay of execution, my payment and rate stay as they are...Now, I have six months to get that refinance done before my next reset...PHEW.
How about the airports around New York City, London, and Geneva? Same phenomenon should be operative there.
Wisdom Speaker | Homepage | 02.05.09 - 6:04 pm | #
You do not go to jail or get your hand cut off in those cities...
Excellent article:
Would You Pay $103,000 for This Arizona Fixer-Upper? - WSJ.com
It shows the 'daily life' aspect of the current mess.
It also answers the question: Why do 'those' people have drug and alcohol problems? Because that's a quick, effective stress-reducer. The rich play golf, I guess, to take a break. The 21st Century Joads get high at home.
rats fleeing a sinking ship
They are lucky it is only jail time.
In Saudi Arabia they will cut your
peepee off. Oh the joys of being a
religious fanatic.
Long live Freedom down with the
commies and fanatics.
Can we drive these across the Bering Strait to get them back to the States? Mr. Gore? Mr. Gore?
today's best 35 financial links are here, with thumbnails inside one link.
sqworl | The Daily Bail We're keeping tabs on the heist. 2-05-09 dailybail.com
and a special AIG links squirrel is here with the best 15 stories on AIG's rape of the taxpayer. both background and today. must see photo.
sqworl | AIG Squirrel of Taxpayer Pain and the Shitkeepers at AIG
Any new bets on Bff?
lawyerliz | 02.05.09 - 6:42 pm | #
Last O/U I heard was 3, 1 Georgia.
Yep, it will really be fun...
It was a nice suburban development once. Whispering Oaks East was a mix of townhomes and single family in the far suburbs. Nice, in 2006, maybe even 2007. Not now in 2011. Foreclosures, walkaways, and no money for maintenance had ripped holes in the facade.
The county had quit patroling except on demand. If you called 911, you better mention the word gun if you wanted someone to show up. Squatters had begun moving in some of the houses in 2010. At first we had sympathy for them, especially the kids. Then "it" had started.
Tonight I smelled smoke. Not good. Burning houses had become popular. Wild parties on the lawns as the house burnt. Gunfire was becoming common. At first we thought it was firecrackers. Not anymore.
When I heard the shots we went into the drill. Frame houses do not stop high powered assault weapons, and 3 blocks away a neighbor had died from a random round. The kids headed for the basement, lead by my tight lipped wife. I grabbed the Mossberg and turned out the lights. It was going to be a long night.
Dubai always struck me as Casablanca on steroids...
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
ova, you should write, I want to know how the story ends?
I want to know how the story ends?
No, you don't.
.
Vegas Book BFF over/under is 3.5. No prop bets.
I want to know how the story ends?
Comrade Kristina | Homepage | 02.05.09 - 7:03 pm | #
Watch the ferry scene in War of the Worlds. The rest of the movie is ass but that scene is scary.
"The county had quit patroling except on demand. If you called 911, you better mention the word gun if you wanted someone to show up."
nova
.
Dang, that's my county, right now.
scone, yeah and I with no basement...At least my house is concrete block...
scone, yeah and I with no basement
Hiding in the basement is defensive, anyway. Best defense is a good offense.
Mount CCD cameras and execute opportunity fire on anything that comes with 200 yards.
.
These skippers should be beheaded, or in the least, have their hands and feet removed.
Kellog is dumping Michael Phelps. No more Kellog Corn Flakes for me. I hope everyone else feels the same way.
Dawn of the dead, banks.
What happened to the stimulus, today?
He saw the shadows. Flitting across the lawn. Disbelieving at first. He watched the shadows move, losing them behind what was once a nice example of topiary art. Now, just a shaggy English boxwood.
They had slipped into the woods behind the old couple across the street. "Shit" he thought, "What to do." Call 911? Go after them. No he couldn't do that. He had to stay here.
What was their names? He had talked to them a couple times. The old guy had a major attitude last time he had talked to him. Apparently he had been someone once. Well, like everyone else - he wasn't now. That made him laugh bitterly to himself.
Dirk writes:
Kellog is dumping Michael Phelps. No more Kellog Corn Flakes for me. I hope everyone else feels the same way.
Dirk | 02.05.09 - 7:11 pm |
Maybe he can pick up a NORML endorsement gig. How cool would that be?
When I heard the shots we went into the drill. Frame houses do not stop high powered assault weapons, and 3 blocks away a neighbor had died from a random round. The kids headed for the basement, lead by my tight lipped wife. I grabbed the Mossberg and turned out the lights. It was going to be a long night.
\t nova | \t \t \t \t02.05.09 - 6:59 pm | #
A thousand pounds of bulk food in 5 gallon buckets makes a nice fortification...I joked to relatives when I showed them my storage room that if there was any gunfire in the neighborhood we could lay down in the storage room and the buckets would stop anything short of a 50 cal.
Nova's clearly hitting the bottle again tonight. It's the only way he can handle all of those haunting memories.
They should stay and overthrow the monarchy.
It worked for us. 1776,right?
Taleb excoriates rating agencies.
Bloomberg News
MUST SEE ! (from 1h40)
C-SPAN Video Player - House Financial Services Hearing on Madoff Investigation
A 27 year old Sacramento-based mortgage broker has come clean on his website to the tune of nearly $1 billion in fraudulent loan originations. Excellent coverage by News 10 and the Mortgage Fraud Report. Here's an excerpt from his 7-page mea culpa:
Our company boasted region-best 30,000 square feet, 120 employees, and handling a monthly gross revenue over $5m. Fraud was rampant. We found investors that were not re-pulling credit reports, so we would change a 500 fico to a 700 fico, a person in foreclosure and make It look like they were never late, fake w2s, pay stubs, bank statements, verification of deposits, none of which was being re-verified. These investors, who were securitizing these assets as AAA rated were not even verifying anything in the files? I am sure that their investors were assured everything from correspondents was being audited. Every time a lender caught a file we would "fire" the employee produce termination paperwork to the investor, and re-hire the employee under a different alias. Over the course of the 3 years, over $810,000,000 in mortgage backed securities originated from my companies. That's a 24 year old selling a billion dollars in bad mbs securities which by 2008 were in default with out doubt.
Just remember, when the politicians wax poetic about "rescuing" the banks, this is what your tax dollars will be buying.
Sacramento Real Estate Statistics: Your Bailout Money At Work: $1 Billion Fraud In Sacramento
Dr John Kellogg, was an advocate of natural healing, as was the Adventist church, and also had a fixation about colonic hygiene. He believed that the bowels should move three times a day. He also believed firmly in the physical dangers of masturbation, writing about the many diseases and medical conditions that would follow such sinful activity. The eating of pork was another of his preferred targets. He wrote about the horror and the dangers of eating pork because pigs seemed to him such filthy creatures... [Dr. John Harvey Kellogg] persisted with the belief that inspired visions could be channelled through a religious medium to bring God's truth to the world.
He sounds like a real charmer.
Kellog is dumping Michael Phelps.
Dirk | 02.05.09 - 7:11 pm | #
If he had shown some backbone about the issue instead of backstroke, then maybe I would share that view. I guess at least he did not go the denial route and say somthing like, "I was holding it for a freind."
scone, yeah and I with no basement...At least my house is concrete block...
Comrade Kristina
.
Out here, the kids love their AK-47s:
Police nab gun-toting teen
He wasn't sure if he really heard, or just imagined the manical laughter. He knew he would never forget the arching bottles trailing flames as they smashed through the windows. Nor would he forget the old lady running out the front door screaming. Screaming "Help!" Her husband stumbling out after, a black plastic shape in his hand.
Wow, a Glock he thought. His first thought 'I wonder if I can get to it if he dies.' The old man pulled up as one of the shadows took shape. Moving towards him quickly. He watched as the old man pointed the gun but nothing happened! The safety old! The safety!
Then he dies and our hero retrieves the Glock. His wife smiles as he shows her what he had retrieved. Her only comment "I always thoght the Smyths were assholes." She squeezed his bicep and whispered "You devil." He smiled. Life was good.
CHYRSLER IS DONE??
DETROIT -- Chrysler LLC executives, making their second sales plea to dealers in two weeks, urged them today to order 15,000 more cars by Monday to keep the company viable.
"You have two choices," said Chrysler co-President Jim Press. "You can either help us or burn us all down."
Sorry. Just got on a roll for a few minutes.
"We've got to get the cash flow coming in so we can get to March 31 as a viable company," Press said in a conference call to dealers this afternoon. "By doing that right now, we can begin to harvest the long-term benefits of the investments we're making."
"By successfully keeping the doors open in January and February, we'll get the loan," said Press, referring to $4 billion Chrysler has received from the U.S. Department of Treasury. Chrysler must submit a plan to the government by Feb. 17 to show it's a viable company. The government will decide by March 31 whether to keep the loan in force.
Ceberus = Idiot investors with lots of leverage
SMF,
Are you out there? Maybe 3 years ago I loudly stated that Dubai wasn't in a bubble. Boy am I eating those words...
lucifer writes:
Empire State- 1933
WTC and Sears-1970
Petronas-1997
Burj Dubai- 2009
lol But the trend is true.
I wonder how it will effect the airline Emirates (EK). Dubai has done a phenominal job of becoming the regions low cost transport hub.
There is no choice in Dubai on Bankruptcy... flee or be really stupid. It does say something about the local petty theft if 3,000 cars, with keys in the ignition, could be identified as abandoned at the airport.
How many at LAX? SFO? JFK? LGA? ORD? Not many.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
"By doing that right now, we can begin to harvest the long-term benefits of the investments we're making."
"By successfully keeping the doors open in January and February, we'll get the loan," said Press
Thye long term investment being gov money I guess
Sorry. Just got on a roll for a few minutes.
nova
.
That was fun, dude. Did you see 'I am Legend?' Similar theme.
urged them today to order 15,000 more cars by Monday to keep the company viable.
Local Chrysler dealer in Hemet just had a
liquidation sale. I don't think they will be ordering.
crispy&cole writes:
CHYRSLER IS DONE??
Naaa... 15,000 new trucks to some government agency.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
the bulk-food buckets would stop anything short of a 50 cal.
Great.
You die of lead poisoning anyway.
.
No. Never saw it. Thanks.
So were do you live Mr. Panda?
The safety old! The safety
Dude, that ruined it for me.
It's a GLOCK, for christ's sake.
.
Struggling Auto Parts Suppliers Prepare to Seek Federal Aid
By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; Page A06
Bruised by plummeting car sales and production cuts, automotive parts suppliers are gearing up to lobby for federal aid in the coming weeks.
Industry members have been discussing several options with the Treasury Department and lawmakers, weighing whether to seek funds from the financial rescue package, the stimulus plan or other sources, according to Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs for the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association.
Struggling Auto Parts Suppliers Prepare to Seek Federal Aid - washingtonpost.com
Atlas has Shrugged for real in America today i.e. FUBAR !
100% OT, but this is fascinating. Audio of pilot of plane that went down in Hudson and air traffic controllers.
Did anyone catch this dandy of a quote from a reuters article today from Peter Kenny who actually wishes for the good old Enron days:
"NEW YORK (Reuters) Stocks rose on Thursday on investor hopes that the Obama administration's plan to shore up the financial system would include a measure that would help banks stem losses and revive lending.
Traders said investor sentiment was buoyed by talk that Washington would suspend an accounting requirement on the recognition of losses that has resulted in billions of write-downs for banks.
"The notion that you can suspend this mark-to-market provision, which was established after Enron, as way of halting the slide in the value of financials is at the fundamental core of putting on the brakes," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.
"The market reaction is a barometer how well (the suspension) could impact market psychology and market value."
You cannot even make this stuff up anymore. It is Honali (Puff the Magic Dragon's fantasyland) or bust for the banks!
Um, I guess the link would help.
F.A.A. Releases Flight 1549 Tapes - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com
This is hilarious if you consider all those gleaming glass and steel high rise monuments to be nuclear fuel rods poking into the sky. Critical mass is about to be achieved me thinks. TFB! (too fucking bad)
"Watch the ferry scene in War of the Worlds. "
There was something uncanny about it. Nightmarish, literally. But also the scene in the basement when the Martians cautiously explore it. Nice that there was nothing at all on the soundtrack.
saloon = sedan
bonnet = hood
boot = trunk
damper = shock absorber
spanner = wrench
Lewis buys 2.2 million of BoA stock (in desperate bid to ward off shareholder pitchforks and keep his job):
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/02/05/CEO_spends_22_million_on_BOA_stock/UPI-23551233877857/
There were empty cars in US airports after the dot com crash.
bye bye dubai
New Thread: Stimulus, Bailout and Employment Report ( 0 comments ...You could be FIRST! )
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Then he dies and our hero retrieves the Glock. His wife smiles as he shows her what he had retrieved. Her only comment "I always thoght the Smyths were assholes." She squeezed his bicep and whispered "You devil." He smiled. Life was good.
nova
No, no, no, no, no..."You devil." Tooooo Cheeeeesey.
Keep it hard. Keep it horrific. Make it nearly terminal like the California budget crisis. There are mentally ZOMBIE teens with AK47's out there. They don't quit! They're hungry! Jeez, do I have to write it for you?
Thanks barley and Liz.
Suspending mark to market rules = legalize securities fraud. Its that simple folks. Why buy the stock of any company when the book value belongs on the fiction shelf.
Aspen Sothebys goes BUST...
Sotheby's Shutters Aspen Real Estate Office
Aspen Sothebys goes BUST...
crispy&cole | Homepage | 02.05.09 - 7:44 pm | #
Awesome. I was begining to wonder when we might start seeing signs of distress for the top 1%.
What is it about Americans that can't accept a lower standard of living, reduced goals, a sustainable life; shit gets tough and people start fantasizing about mossbergs and zombies. God how we are douche-bags.
But the ending, which is basically the one Wells wrote, was and is unconvincing. Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
We write stories which relieve anxiety by forcing the ending to be fortunate.
Eh? And so on?
"shit gets tough and people start fantasizing about mossbergs and zombies. "
Yep.
"Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?"
Pav, I'm sure you have a healthy respect for the vast creativity of DNA. It will burn us, too, one day, and we've run that gauntlet for billions of years.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 11:23:51 AM (IST)
Indians Flee Dubai as Dreams Crash - Fall out of Economic Crisis
I have seen that story picked up and copied a few times since the
ot a newspaper, but another early primary source
New cars at Dubai Airport : Dubai General Chat - Dubai Forums
These days whenever I see sinister aliens in films I think that these monsters are never more monstrous, for example, a detachment of SS commandos moving into a Russian village.
Aliens projected outwards.
Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
Pavel Chichikov | 02.05.09 - 7:49 pm | #
Would a scientific community that could put a probe on Mars have a problem with metric units?
Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
Pavel Chichikov | 02.05.09 - 7:49 pm | #
Surely possible...capability in one field of endeavor is not necessarily correlated with capability in another. Reminds me of a line from a "Simpsons" episode, and probably other places: "Any sufficiently technologically advanced civilization will have lost the urge for violence." Bwahahahahaha!!! Whatever...
re: Mark to Market
They loosened the requirements on 'models' for level 3 assets last fall. Can't remember who/if there were markups after that
There's also issues about properly pricing deferred tax assets, goodwill, and holding treasuries on loan while the Fed parks worthless but not yet expired debt
"Pav, I'm sure you have a healthy respect for the vast creativity of DNA. It will burn us, too, one day, and we've run that gauntlet for billions of years."
It's been apparent now for some years that the dominant life form on this planet in terms of biomass and biological/ecological effect is the bacterium.
Of course, there are other ways of looking at it.
Or a detachment of Spetznatz moving into an Afghani village...sorry Pavel, I just couldn't resist.
"Surely possible"
Maybe, but it's too easy a way of resolving the plot to be very interesting as a story.
Look at the precautions we took with the Apollo 11 crew. And how smart are we?
Look at it this way - if the 'Martians' come from a planet biologically sophisticated enough to evolve them, they must surely know a great deal about microorganisms, if only in self defense.
Nova,
Not half bad writing. BH was right about the Glock. Glock has several safeties with the primary on the trigger. The only real safety is keeping your finger off the trigger until you decide to shoot.
The reason soldiers/LEO's like Glocks is once you decide to shoot you only have to point and pull.
I like them because they are indestructible and easy to maintain.
"Or a detachment of Spetznatz moving into an Afghani village...sorry Pavel, I just couldn't resist."
Or *kontraktniki' in Chechnya. No argument there.
I've seen stories about their behavior that are simply hair-raising.
"Would a scientific community that could put a probe on Mars have a problem with metric units?"
Looks like it.
rich wrote: "This is a shame. Dubai was in the process of becoming an international trade hub"
Oh, it'll still be an international trade hub. It has the regulatory setup for that. But it'll be at the relatively grubby, paper-shuffling, deal-making, labor-intensive end of the spectrum, not the glitzy zillionaire's end.
The reason soldiers/LEO's like Glocks is once you decide to shoot you only have to point and pull.
I like them because they are indestructible and easy to maintain.
amon | 02.05.09 - 8:02 pm | #
Yup. Why, they have almost hell-and-back reliability...
Pavel - dead thread, I know. But if you are still there, good poem. Very compact and descriptive. I especially liked how you maintained the 7-beat drumroll last line to each stanza. Well done!
He watched as the old man pointed the gun but nothing happened! The safety old! The safety!
nova | 02.05.09 - 7:19 pm | #
No safeties on Glocks.
I saw this one coming when cnbc did a show on dubai at those palm beach front residences and they were all vacant. Why would somebody want to live in that dangerous part of the world in the desert?
lawyerliz writes:
I have gone from waiting for the End of The World to witnessing it.
Liz: Talked to an 'advocate' today at this Carlsbad, CA walkaway firm, and was informed that that office has 40 agents each working 100+/- cases (at $995 each). Said they had desks available and would I be interested in joining.
If I can find a SoCal REO for cash with what's left of our last sale's equity and walk us out of the IE hot weather and hot mortgage water, I'm mad enough at our corrupt, corporate bound congress, to volunteer to work for these guys.
The Santa Rosa PD got rid of their Glocks,too many "Accidents" while clearing at shift end.Poor training or stupidity,take your pick.
i expected doobai implosion to follow mumbai implosion. Looks like indian metro area real estate implosion is still some quarters away.
Many bric enthusiast haven't accounted for real estate BUST that will devastate their economies. Beware of Brics.
andiron - Dubai might come to look like Mumbai, the way things are going -
Faber - "US Treasuries should be JUNK"
Video - CNBC.com
Faber cracks me up. He's really quite ghoulish. It's a short vid and he gives that Dr Doom grimace at the end. Probably earns him a spot on dubya's evil-doer list...
I spent a bit of time in Dubai back in the early 90's. Once you got away from the business district, it was a dump. My wife wanted me to buy a carpet. I spent six months wandering around the city before I found someone who sold carpets for less than 20 grand. Then followed two weeks of haggling, drinking tea, and hanging out without letting the shopkeeper know exactly which carpet I really wanted. While there were a number of Brits, most all businesses were run by hired Pakistanis and Indians. Buying anything was an exercise in patience and subterfuge.
Now that the war in Iraq is winding down, Dubai will be finished.
Fucking Muslim anti-Semites will rot in hell with Hitler.
Now is a great time to Dubai or sell real estate!
Ba-dum ching. (ducks, runs for cover)
Pavel Chichikov:
Pavel Chichikov:But the ending, which is basically the one Wells wrote, was and is unconvincing. Would a society that could build interplanetary spaceships be unaware of and unprepared for alien microorganisms, especially on a planet as lush as Earth?
My bet is that would be the primary reason why aliens would not come here, completely impossible to predict what would happen when the alien microbes start mixing it up with the earth ones and vice versa. Maybe you're completely immune, or maybe the local microbes hew you up like a piece of meat, or perhaps worse, your microbe take over and turn the worlds oceans into into an anoxic soup, everything dies, the world you spent thousands of years getting too then gets back before freezing solid.
Oh, and I have to say this. If I had to shoot someone in my basement, I'd probably describe that day as perhaps the worst day of my life.
One thing I can tell you about Dubai from living here is that the girls are still hotter than LA. I mean that.
rhis story is about a freekin MONTH old ! get a grip!
That firm is almost certainly a scam.
Banks still not modifying enough to make a difference. They will be, but not yet.
Pavel -- Reminded me of Cargoes by John Masefield.
Pavel Chichikov wrote: "These days whenever I see sinister aliens in films I think that these monsters are never more monstrous, for example, a detachment of SS commandos moving into a Russian village."
The scariest monsters in "The Mist" were the people inside the store.
I suppose it's because I'm unlikely to ever have to face Lovecraftian horrors, but scared humans turning on one another is all too believable.
ova wrote: "The long term investment being gov money I guess."
Are there any companies out there that haven't adopted that as their primary business strategy? If so, sell their stock; there's no way they can compete with the ones on the government teat.
Jon H wrote: "Oh, [Dubai]'ll still be an international trade hub. But it'll be at the relatively grubby, paper-shuffling, deal-making, labor-intensive end of the spectrum, not the glitzy zillionaire's end."
That's actually a good thing, both because it's actually sustainable long-term, and because there's not going to be much at the glitzy zillionaire's end in the short-term.
ALERT... authorities have begun mandatory castration against people they find 'skipping.' This just happened to my neighbor's cousin and it could be happening right now to anyone who is caught! Be careful, this is scary.
Dubai Becoming a Ghost Town - BlackBook
So 17 castrations have been verified!!!