No asset is so safe as is held in the form of a Hoopajoops LTD gold posterior deposit lozenge. The only market phenomenon that could disgorge profits secured by such a vehicle is a rapid influx of unexpected liquidity within the securing entity.
If you short the Hoopajoops LTD gold posterior deposit lozenge you will be responsible for paying all declared dividends...an obligation you may find rather unpleasant.
it finally occurred to me that the guarantee of the "assets" might be actually guarantees of the liabilities, since these assets are usually securitized collateral for bonds. So the real question is: who are the counterparties to these assets?
Question: I've lost just under $100,000 in the last 14 months. I'm 69 years old, live alone, and cannot work because of back problems. I keep reading and hearing on TV that if you're in your seventies, you should be in treasuries and cash. Am I a total fool to still be hanging on to my portfolio, which is all in mutual funds, sweating bullets over my monthly statements? Is it better to get out with $100 and get back in with that intact than it is to ride the surge up with $5?
The toughest political debate in the next decade will be the restructuring of 'baby boomer' retirements. They will get increased government funding to allow a liveable minimum, but at the same time it will only be affordable if they have to work much longer to qualify.
I would not want to be in a pharma company that believes today's 'free-market'/intellectual-monopoly pricing is sustainable. The amounts spent on Sales & Marketing versus R&D is staggering and wasteful.
The answer to the question is if you are 69 you should plan on living off the cash proceeds of investments. Anyone over 65 should be all cash and treasuries, and maybe a paid off house. Your expected life span is maybe 5 to 7 years, on average. Advances in medical technology have helped end of life spans some, but still there is going to be a sharp increase in mortality rates as the large group of boomers moves into the sixties and seventies. That is still a couple of years down the road, but it will have a big impact.
Well said, EHP. I would love to see a full ban on pharmaceutical ads. Utterly unjustifiable waste that is robbing us all blind . . . all except for Big Pharma and their allies in Big Media. Thieves!
EHP:
Congress is reconsidering re-implementing the ban on direct to consumer advertising, which was another of the boneheaded deregulatory moves of the late 1990s.
As a sufferer of restless leg syndrome, my quality of life has been improved because of direct marketing of pharmaceuticals Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation
Zol> During the GD, unemployment reached 20-25%. Would that compare to U3, U6, or something else? \
I, too, would like to hear how we can derive a close comparison unemployment figure to track this recession with the good old GD.
I should clarify for others that the part-time as unemployed under U-6 is only part-time for economic reasons
Basically what has happened over time is the tranching of unemployment data both to provide for timely information, and in part for political purposes
The GD unemployment overstated the number because of the significant off-the-books economy at the time. U-6 would be the closest to it by far
I have no idea empirically why you would suggest U-3 would the closer to the same metric unless you wanted to make things seem better today than they are
Gary Shilling:
• $60,740 is the average 401k account for 55-64 year olds, only 10% contributed maximum in the last year
• noticed a shift to wage reductions instead of simply layoffs, trend went back to the 1930s
Although it's not an excuse for what 55-64 year olds should have done in the past, with a median income of somewhere around $45,000, it's no surprise that only 10% contributed the maximum ($20,500 last year).
Many seniors in the coming years are going to be subsisting on Social Security alone.
Social security is a nice supplement but as someone who is retired I can tell you that you'd better have additional income. It is impossible IMO to make it only on social security w/o a drastic drop in standard of living.
It's not so bad if you don't go anywhere, do anything, buy your clothes second-hand, and just send cards at Christmas. Oh yeah, shop with coupons or do without. You get used to it after a while.
"it finally occurred to me that the guarantee of the "assets" might be actually guarantees of the liabilities, since these assets are usually securitized collateral for bonds. So the real question is: who are the counterparties to these assets?"
remember when I asked you about this a few days ago, regarding Citi? it is about the counterparties.....
I think Citi is being defused and pre-broken into smaller bits to be liquidated more easily by the eventual full-scale takeover. it is coming.
Hoenig is going to be in the news and interviewed. Congress is going to want to hear from him.
And i haven't even checked where Citi finished today. Did it break a buck?
Hoenig is setting expectations. The FDIC credit line increase is the tell. They're getting ready to take Citi into receivership. 208 Billion in FDIC insured deposits - the joint venture with Morgan Stanley takes care of brokerage - Banamex will go to Mexico - Nikko will go to Japan. The rest will run as usual.
"666 is no longer alone,
He's getting out the marrow in your back bone,
And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll,
Gonna blow right down inside your soul.
Pythagoras with the looking glass reflects the full moon,
In blood, he's writing the lyrics of a brand new tune."
Next week may see the suspension of the FASB rule 157, also known as mark-to-market. This will push financials up by double digit percentages. Longer term, this one change can end the financial crisis and restore confidence in banks.
We'll see, something about knowing these companies can legally cook the books dose not instill confidence in me, just the opposite in fact that just shows how bad it really is and their numbers can never be trusted.
Many of the so-called "toxic loans" are actually performing and their value (if held to maturity) is higher than the mark-to-market one. This will allow the banks time to recover and rebuild their capital base, now that all of them drastically reduced their dividend payouts.
"Next week may see the suspension of the FASB rule 157, also known as mark-to-market. This will push financials up by double digit percentages. Longer term, this one change can end the financial crisis and restore confidence in banks."
Given how cheap it is to buy Citi's outstanding bonds, the govt could get lots of it for less than 50% of par. Of course, if they take over the bank, they can also wipe out $350 billion of their bonds. I am concerned that the FHLBs might own a lot of those.
OT: but here are the links to 2 things I published today, one on the employment report and the other on bank debt being more attractive than bank stocks, just in case anyone is interested.
Taxpayers Furious With Budget Cuts Take Frustration To Streets Of NYC
Organizers Say 50,000 On Hand For 'Rally For New York'
Reporting
Hazel Sanchez NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A massive budget backlash came to lower Manhattan on Thursday. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers marched on City Hall, rallying to stop proposed funding cuts.
The rally cries of labor unions, community groups and families outside City Hall could be heard throughout lower Manhattan. Desperation for an economic lifeline brought out more than 50,000 people along several blocks of Broadway in a self-described "Rally For New York."
Great idea, New Yorkers! I'm sure you are willing to chip in to fix the multi-million dollar budget deficit, right?
I know that this article is mostly shock, little awe, but protesting budget cuts in this economy--cuts in the public sector no less--is just as idiotic as Mr. "I Hate Home Debtors"'s rant on the floor of the CME.
So, I'm starting to believe the savings glut theory to the cause of the financial crisis. Except that the savings glut is not as much between countries as between generations.
Okey dokey, here's the craziness anecdote of the day:
Sale by fannie mae, purchase by young couple starting out, lending by fha.
Fannie Mae and fha are clearly run by untrained monkeys. Fha as usual picky. Complaints valid (like are the burglar bars legal?), but should have been addressed weeks ago.
Getting extra time out of fannie is an agony each time. Trust me,
there is not a line of eagerly panting buyers lined up to buy this
property. The real estate broker actually got on a three way phone conversation between the head of Fannie's REO dept and the president of the bank, about this realitively miniscule 200k property.
Let it be said, this broker EARNED her commission.
The larger picture is that there was something like 55k foreclosures in Miami-Dade County last year. Supposed 10% of them are being sold by fannie. And the only one financing is fha, the picky. Unless both figure out what they are doing, this is a disaster. When you add 2007 and 2009 REOs, you have rotting houses on the scale of twice Hurricane Andrew!!
And yes, I do see a bottom forming at the 50-45 cents on the dollar level. Contract to be signed at almost exactly 50 cents on the dollar in Hendry County, and about 48 cents on the dollar here in Dade.
Plus the unfortunate young couple being ground between fannie and fha is at half off about too.
O or somebody better start asking who is gonna finance the purchase of these REOs if he is worrying about house prices not dropping beyond the half off stage.
And headlines said that 20% of houses in South Fla are delinquent on their mtges.
If you want to read the BLS' methodology, How the Government Measures Unemployment
However you have to keep in mind the household phone survey has 2 flaws:
1) the questions are prescribed, but the interviewer does not have a script. The results would be better if the household filled out the survey itself with any definitions listed. A phone interviewer would ask someone if they had responded to any ads in the last 28 days and place someone into the 'discouraged worker' category but the household itself would still consider itself actively looking for work, but that there was no one left to contact in the last 4 weeks. That's where the definitions are more political than practical.
2) It's a PHONE SURVEY. Phone surveys do not contact households without a landline. Given the Last In First Out layoff standard, the younger demographic which is SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be a mobile-only household is stripped out and that is statistically distortionary.
I actually quite like the BLS survey, they do the best they can and they are honest with what they do. It is time it was overhauled though.
Honestly they would be better off setting up a service where the newly unemployed or underemployed contact them. It might be too early given the computer-phobic which remain in the workforce, but for the sake of continuity they should set it up now because the running cost is much less than 60,000 telemarketerish interviews each month. They could tie that reporting in to a website that gives individuals information on the job market (regions with labor demand, skills/qualifications in demand, things that are forecast to be in demand 5-10 years onward). Could accept reporting by web-form, touch tone phone, snail mail, etc. Would be more timely, more comprehensive, more room for granularity, lower cost, more useful to the unemployed, better at ignoring those who actively choose not to work (employed by leisure if you will)
win-win
in the mean time, a 1995 review/overview of U-1 to U-7 discussion
and of course, households that stopped paying the mortgage are likely to stop paying for the landline which is another overlooked demographic chunk.... don't know how the BLS deals with households which stop reporting before they've done 4 surveys
I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)
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Turns out, our friends at Citibank have learned how to combined distressed bonds and CDSs to discover "new market opportunity", at the cost of creating a class of protected bondholders that resist any restructuring, and indeed, may even desire BK.
The double-bank-win is that Citi not only sells the CDSs that make this possible, generating short-term cash; but when the bill comes due sometime in the future, we, the taxpayers, will likely be the only surviving payoff counterparties. Epic Sweetness.
ringfence
Vegas Book BFF over/under this weekend is 4.
I'll take the under. FDIC don't gots the resources.
I'll take the under again too. I think it may be closer to 1.
This comment thread has been HALO-IZED by CRbot.
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I'm not first
No asset is so safe as is held in the form of a Hoopajoops LTD gold posterior deposit lozenge. The only market phenomenon that could disgorge profits secured by such a vehicle is a rapid influx of unexpected liquidity within the securing entity.
ROFL!!!
If I go short on the lozenges, do you stick them up your...
If you short the Hoopajoops LTD gold posterior deposit lozenge you will be responsible for paying all declared dividends...an obligation you may find rather unpleasant.
Yuck. Funny, but yuck.
Wow. The US has gotten by pretty cheaply... so far.
So Wells Fargo just cut their dividend by 75%.
Meaning that they're not out of cash yet, but are vewy vewy wowrwied.
OK, Atlanta, you're up!
Another interpretation would be that they are saving their dime to get out from under the gov TARP.
it finally occurred to me that the guarantee of the "assets" might be actually guarantees of the liabilities, since these assets are usually securitized collateral for bonds. So the real question is: who are the counterparties to these assets?
Assets can be protected by government money? Who invented this new concept. Give her a Nobel.
$250 bill will pay for a LOT of toothbrushes.
Thats a lot of coin by any measure. So are these now called "Asset Backed Securities"?
So now it's "Back A...," oh never mind
Nice explanation of the U3 and U6 unemployment rates here - Capitalism Gone Wild: U.S. Headline Unemployment (U3) at 7.6 pct, but Real Unemployment (U6) was 13.9 pct in January 2009
also some data that shows how much worse the West Coast is - Capitalism Gone Wild: California Unemployment Surging Ahead of the Nation Now at 10.1% (U3) - a Wide Disparity Over the U.S. East Coast
During the GD, unemployment reached 20-25%. Would that compare to U3, U6, or something else?
Has the Bank of England gone to a straight money printing scheme yet?
NOW PBS
Retirement: You Asked, She Answered . NOW on PBS
Retirement at Risk . NOW on PBS
Question: I've lost just under $100,000 in the last 14 months. I'm 69 years old, live alone, and cannot work because of back problems. I keep reading and hearing on TV that if you're in your seventies, you should be in treasuries and cash. Am I a total fool to still be hanging on to my portfolio, which is all in mutual funds, sweating bullets over my monthly statements? Is it better to get out with $100 and get back in with that intact than it is to ride the surge up with $5?
The toughest political debate in the next decade will be the restructuring of 'baby boomer' retirements. They will get increased government funding to allow a liveable minimum, but at the same time it will only be affordable if they have to work much longer to qualify.
I would not want to be in a pharma company that believes today's 'free-market'/intellectual-monopoly pricing is sustainable. The amounts spent on Sales & Marketing versus R&D is staggering and wasteful.
The answer to the question is if you are 69 you should plan on living off the cash proceeds of investments. Anyone over 65 should be all cash and treasuries, and maybe a paid off house. Your expected life span is maybe 5 to 7 years, on average. Advances in medical technology have helped end of life spans some, but still there is going to be a sharp increase in mortality rates as the large group of boomers moves into the sixties and seventies. That is still a couple of years down the road, but it will have a big impact.
Sorry, but the average remaining lifespan at 65 is 19 years...
If you have already attained the age of 69 you have lots longer than that to live, especially if you are a woman.
Well said, EHP. I would love to see a full ban on pharmaceutical ads. Utterly unjustifiable waste that is robbing us all blind . . . all except for Big Pharma and their allies in Big Media. Thieves!
Zombie, zombie, zombie...
YouTube - The Cranberries - Zombie
I'm very surprised we haven't heard the Federal Reserve has increased it's $40bn swapline with the Bank of England.
Perhaps they are not playing together, and the BoE is acting as money printing guinea pig without a safety line
So, this is or isn't our friday bank failure?
EHP:
Congress is reconsidering re-implementing the ban on direct to consumer advertising, which was another of the boneheaded deregulatory moves of the late 1990s.
As a sufferer of restless leg syndrome, my quality of life has been improved because of direct marketing of pharmaceuticals
Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation
The ban on liquor and cigarettes ads is to blame for most of the problems we are experiencing.
Now we know why the markets spiked at 3:30. I knew we'd find out the reason after the markets closed.
Ahh, to be a puppeteer...
Pierson puppeteer? They generally crashed markets. Not exactly PPT!
Do I smell pizza?
Zol> During the GD, unemployment reached 20-25%. Would that compare to U3, U6, or something else? \
I, too, would like to hear how we can derive a close comparison unemployment figure to track this recession with the good old GD.
GD unemployment would have been U-6 (jobs/working age population)
although there was a large underground cash economy, so many part-time jobs went unreported
GD employment would be more U3 than U6. U6 counts people with undesired part-time work as unemployed.
U-3 stops counting them as unemployed if they don't report interviewing for a job in the last 60 days
I should clarify for others that the part-time as unemployed under U-6 is only part-time for economic reasons
Basically what has happened over time is the tranching of unemployment data both to provide for timely information, and in part for political purposes
The GD unemployment overstated the number because of the significant off-the-books economy at the time. U-6 would be the closest to it by far
I have no idea empirically why you would suggest U-3 would the closer to the same metric unless you wanted to make things seem better today than they are
Gary Shilling:
• $60,740 is the average 401k account for 55-64 year olds, only 10% contributed maximum in the last year
• noticed a shift to wage reductions instead of simply layoffs, trend went back to the 1930s
Although it's not an excuse for what 55-64 year olds should have done in the past, with a median income of somewhere around $45,000, it's no surprise that only 10% contributed the maximum ($20,500 last year).
Many seniors in the coming years are going to be subsisting on Social Security alone.
Social security is a nice supplement but as someone who is retired I can tell you that you'd better have additional income. It is impossible IMO to make it only on social security w/o a drastic drop in standard of living.
It's not so bad if you don't go anywhere, do anything, buy your clothes second-hand, and just send cards at Christmas. Oh yeah, shop with coupons or do without. You get used to it after a while.
I'm glad I didn't save more.
The former U.S.A. ( for all intents and purposes the U.S. does not exist as an economic entity) .bailout of the FDIC: $500 billion
The bailout of the bailouters: Priceless
Next: The political collapse
Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout
Basel Too writes:
"it finally occurred to me that the guarantee of the "assets" might be actually guarantees of the liabilities, since these assets are usually securitized collateral for bonds. So the real question is: who are the counterparties to these assets?"
remember when I asked you about this a few days ago, regarding Citi? it is about the counterparties.....
I think Citi is being defused and pre-broken into smaller bits to be liquidated more easily by the eventual full-scale takeover. it is coming.
Hoenig is going to be in the news and interviewed. Congress is going to want to hear from him.
And i haven't even checked where Citi finished today. Did it break a buck?
Hoenig is setting expectations. The FDIC credit line increase is the tell. They're getting ready to take Citi into receivership. 208 Billion in FDIC insured deposits - the joint venture with Morgan Stanley takes care of brokerage - Banamex will go to Mexico - Nikko will go to Japan. The rest will run as usual.
an ode to to the SPX 666
"666 is no longer alone,
He's getting out the marrow in your back bone,
And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll,
Gonna blow right down inside your soul.
Pythagoras with the looking glass reflects the full moon,
In blood, he's writing the lyrics of a brand new tune."
(Geneisis circa 1972)
I am listening..
Rumor is the FDIC credit line increase is so that they can deal with Citi... Deposit base of 288 billion?
Next week may see the suspension of the FASB rule 157, also known as mark-to-market. This will push financials up by double digit percentages. Longer term, this one change can end the financial crisis and restore confidence in banks.
Longer term, this one change can end the financial crisis and restore confidence in banks.
snark?
Woo-hoo!!!! Gotta say, I hope it happens. Sold my SKF (holy crap, that thing skyed this week) and loaded up on financials.
We'll see, something about knowing these companies can legally cook the books dose not instill confidence in me, just the opposite in fact that just shows how bad it really is and their numbers can never be trusted.
Why?
Many of the so-called "toxic loans" are actually performing and their value (if held to maturity) is higher than the mark-to-market one. This will allow the banks time to recover and rebuild their capital base, now that all of them drastically reduced their dividend payouts.
"Next week may see the suspension of the FASB rule 157, also known as mark-to-market. This will push financials up by double digit percentages. Longer term, this one change can end the financial crisis and restore confidence in banks."
hahaha, right.
any bank failures yet?
Given how cheap it is to buy Citi's outstanding bonds, the govt could get lots of it for less than 50% of par. Of course, if they take over the bank, they can also wipe out $350 billion of their bonds. I am concerned that the FHLBs might own a lot of those.
It's been a long week for everybody. Not the least of which Geithner and Bernanke.
I put together 27 financial comedy videos into 1 link.
Relax, It's Been A Long Week--Friday Comedy Celebration: The Best Financial Comedy On The Planet. 27 Videos All Gathered Into 1 Link. - Home - The Daily Bail
Happy Friday to all both longs and shorts.
NYSE Will Start Rejecting On-Close Orders to Ease Swings in Stock Prices
Calvin ball.
Guest: do you have any intel on FAS 157 suspensiion or are you just speculating?
There is a hearing in Congress scheduled for March 12th on a bill to suspend rule 157. FASB and SEC chiefs will testify.
"Assets can be protected by government money?"
Guaranteed, not protected.
It's important to understand the difference.
OT: but here are the links to 2 things I published today, one on the employment report and the other on bank debt being more attractive than bank stocks, just in case anyone is interested.
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
General Fulda reports that an Offensive Ocean Weapon (OOW) test target is being towed to a site in the central Atlantic.
BUDGET BACKLASH: Thousands Rally At City Hall
Taxpayers Furious With Budget Cuts Take Frustration To Streets Of NYC
Organizers Say 50,000 On Hand For 'Rally For New York'
Reporting
Hazel Sanchez NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A massive budget backlash came to lower Manhattan on Thursday. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers marched on City Hall, rallying to stop proposed funding cuts.
The rally cries of labor unions, community groups and families outside City Hall could be heard throughout lower Manhattan. Desperation for an economic lifeline brought out more than 50,000 people along several blocks of Broadway in a self-described "Rally For New York."
Wait till they cut out pensions....The real riots begin the
Great idea, New Yorkers! I'm sure you are willing to chip in to fix the multi-million dollar budget deficit, right?
I know that this article is mostly shock, little awe, but protesting budget cuts in this economy--cuts in the public sector no less--is just as idiotic as Mr. "I Hate Home Debtors"'s rant on the floor of the CME.
(Tea party indeed.)
So, I'm starting to believe the savings glut theory to the cause of the financial crisis. Except that the savings glut is not as much between countries as between generations.
Okey dokey, here's the craziness anecdote of the day:
Sale by fannie mae, purchase by young couple starting out, lending by fha.
Fannie Mae and fha are clearly run by untrained monkeys. Fha as usual picky. Complaints valid (like are the burglar bars legal?), but should have been addressed weeks ago.
Getting extra time out of fannie is an agony each time. Trust me,
there is not a line of eagerly panting buyers lined up to buy this
property. The real estate broker actually got on a three way phone conversation between the head of Fannie's REO dept and the president of the bank, about this realitively miniscule 200k property.
Let it be said, this broker EARNED her commission.
The larger picture is that there was something like 55k foreclosures in Miami-Dade County last year. Supposed 10% of them are being sold by fannie. And the only one financing is fha, the picky. Unless both figure out what they are doing, this is a disaster. When you add 2007 and 2009 REOs, you have rotting houses on the scale of twice Hurricane Andrew!!
And yes, I do see a bottom forming at the 50-45 cents on the dollar level. Contract to be signed at almost exactly 50 cents on the dollar in Hendry County, and about 48 cents on the dollar here in Dade.
Plus the unfortunate young couple being ground between fannie and fha is at half off about too.
O or somebody better start asking who is gonna finance the purchase of these REOs if he is worrying about house prices not dropping beyond the half off stage.
And headlines said that 20% of houses in South Fla are delinquent on their mtges.
When was the last time a bunch of monkeys lost 30-40 billion dollars in a quarter?
"Fannie Mae and fha are clearly run by untrained monkeys."
I did say UNTRAINED monkeys.
But you are right, I am unfairly criticizing monkeys.
Mark To Market Hearings
CRbot presents, (with apologies in advance to FFDIC), a new feature called:
F'D FDIC: Breaking sounds from the bankerfront...
March 6, 2009 - PR-37-2009 Northeast Georgia Bank, Lavonia, Georgia, Acquires All of the Deposits of Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, Georgia
You're WELCOME, crispy&cole. I very much hope you're satisfied now.
... now hammering FDIC's site more than 12 times faster. I hope YOU'RE very much satisfied now, Wisdom Speaker. Good luck keeping up, mere mortals.
Treasury buys a tranche on lloyd's assets for worthless shares... nice deal!
Hey, I thouight it was Friday..
What's going on today??
PR-37-2009 Northeast Georgia Bank, Lavonia, Georgia, Acquires All of the Deposits of Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, Georgia
Krugman on trial baloons
If you want to read the BLS' methodology, How the Government Measures Unemployment
However you have to keep in mind the household phone survey has 2 flaws:
1) the questions are prescribed, but the interviewer does not have a script. The results would be better if the household filled out the survey itself with any definitions listed. A phone interviewer would ask someone if they had responded to any ads in the last 28 days and place someone into the 'discouraged worker' category but the household itself would still consider itself actively looking for work, but that there was no one left to contact in the last 4 weeks. That's where the definitions are more political than practical.
2) It's a PHONE SURVEY. Phone surveys do not contact households without a landline. Given the Last In First Out layoff standard, the younger demographic which is SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be a mobile-only household is stripped out and that is statistically distortionary.
I actually quite like the BLS survey, they do the best they can and they are honest with what they do. It is time it was overhauled though.
Honestly they would be better off setting up a service where the newly unemployed or underemployed contact them. It might be too early given the computer-phobic which remain in the workforce, but for the sake of continuity they should set it up now because the running cost is much less than 60,000 telemarketerish interviews each month. They could tie that reporting in to a website that gives individuals information on the job market (regions with labor demand, skills/qualifications in demand, things that are forecast to be in demand 5-10 years onward). Could accept reporting by web-form, touch tone phone, snail mail, etc. Would be more timely, more comprehensive, more room for granularity, lower cost, more useful to the unemployed, better at ignoring those who actively choose not to work (employed by leisure if you will)
win-win
in the mean time, a 1995 review/overview of U-1 to U-7
discussion
and of course, households that stopped paying the mortgage are likely to stop paying for the landline which is another overlooked demographic chunk.... don't know how the BLS deals with households which stop reporting before they've done 4 surveys
New Thread: Bank Failure #17 in 2009: Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, Georgia
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/03/bank-failure-17-in-2009-freedom-bank-of.html ( 0 comments ...You could be FIRST! )
I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)
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First, to our sagacious, wise, and knowing benevolent benefactor and bestower of revealing financial charts adorned with red and blue lines:
Please, for the love of your immortal God of mortals, can we keep the comment and layout changes to a minimum? I'm tired of whipping the code janitor, and may have to escalate to electroshock. If that's not possible, could you possibly give CRbot a 'heads up'?
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CRbot: Like the terminator, I'm back. Again.
Well, I'm off to Merritt Island, and will see if we rack
up more that one bank failure--in Georgia again. Georgia is being picked on, no doubt!
I don't know who is head of the banking commission there in Georgia, if they even have one, but they gotta lotta 'splain' to do.
We got one!
Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, GA
FDIC: Failed Bank List
Countries who make enormous guarantees in hundreds of billions must be rich.
The real burn is this link from Bloomberg (from a previous thread, hat tip ??): Darth Wall Street Thwarting Creditors with Credit Swaps
Darth Wall Street Thwarting Debtors With Credit Swaps (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
Turns out, our friends at Citibank have learned how to combined distressed bonds and CDSs to discover "new market opportunity", at the cost of creating a class of protected bondholders that resist any restructuring, and indeed, may even desire BK.
The double-bank-win is that Citi not only sells the CDSs that make this possible, generating short-term cash; but when the bill comes due sometime in the future, we, the taxpayers, will likely be the only surviving payoff counterparties. Epic Sweetness.
Oh, and notice that these are not even "naked" CDSs... these damn things really are the toxic gifts that keep on giving.
Did someone say "monkeys?" free legal advice