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Recent Recommendations
A beautiful performance like I have never seen before.
ps. ABX charts plunging agai
I believe I saw her once in San Jose when she was younger. It reminded me of the time I saw Karl Malone play against the Warriors. Something like CR & Tanta
half of my comment wasn't posted (maybe insufficient internets voltage).
"insert token Borat comment here".
and tg: never EVER compare Karl Malone to a real athlete. His mid-late career whinefest negates anything he did before in life.
I guess the point is that the inability to put reasonable estimates on the value of this stuff isn't simply due to an inability to account for them accurately due to the fact that they don't trade enough to have a genuine market price. Whoever loaded up on these piles of shit should have some knowledge of just what is contained in them. Even if the "market" isn't much interested in trading in these things because there's a lack of transparency, someone should be able to make a reasonable guess about what kind of revenue streams can be reasonably expected from them.
Unless, of course, no one has any clue what these pieces of paper represent. And that seems to be where we are.
Level 3Model derived valuations in which one or more significant inputs or significant value drivers are unobservable.
sandman, I'll check out the ABX. This Sasha does a great Borat imitation - she is very funny.
Best Wishes.
i think this is what they do when you accidentally forget your skates at home.
Plain and simply speaking, the year has started off on a bad note. After only three trading days, the S&P 500 is down 3.86% (2nd worst start ever), the Dow is down 3.5% (4th worst ever), and the Nasdaq is down 5.57% (worst ever). Below we highlight the five worst three day starts to the year for each of the three indices.
Great change of pace...and lookit that: nobody dropper her.
Sasha has tremendous confidence in her partners...this is no ABCP party...no TAF card tables behind the curtain entertaining incompetence.
Ok, such a tonic.
ever EVER compare Karl Malone to a real athlete.
OK but he still had je ne sais quoi.
i just attempted my yearly toe-touch. it didn't go well, i think i dislocated my shoulder.
Go Sasha!
bacon dreamz, don't hurt yourself!
Maybe they should have a warning label - don't try this at home.
Best to all.
Newsletter is published and in my inbox.
Reality - what a concept.
CR, if i owned a pair of skates, i would be dead by now.
What a nice diversion. Thanks CR.
Now back to business:
About 25 years ago, I attended the Annual BMO Outlook Conferences. No I was not some swinging big biz tycoon - the CHM happened to be my mentor in school.
Anyway, at one conference, I sat through a (way-to-long) talk on how gold and precious metal would soar in the coming years because of the middle class in the emerging markets.
Wrong.
It was an attempt to overlay western values on other markets.
Today I read this again from a BMO person. Again it/he is mapping western values on emerging cultures. While I agree on the general theme, the markets/commodities he identified is pure, well, not right in my opinion.
Every sociologist knows that as incomes rise do does the appetite (literally) for protein. So it is not corn/beans but rather meat. A 55% increase on pork prices in the last six months, in China is a good example. Simply put protein is valued more than grasses and kernels. It is a matter of human history.
So forget oil and forget corn it is pork and beef and chicken that matters.
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food
I've had spaghetti that's less flexible than she is. Most cool.
Name dropping, family friend, Japan connection; did Robyn rub off on you, CR?
Just joking.
What a performance. Thanks!
Before the start of the last recession in March 2001, the unemployment rate rose 0.4 percentage point, according to Labor Department figures.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, which determines when recessions begin and end, defines them as a ``significant'' decrease in activity over a sustained period of time.
Martin Feldstein, the outgoing head of the NBER, said in a Dec. 14 interview that the chance of a contraction was ``about 50 percent.''
CR,
Can you pipe in some Mozart into the waiting room and perhaps a bowl of warm milk?
States Short on $2.7 Trillion Owed Retirees, Pew Says (Update1)
By Adam L. Cataldo
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. states are short almost 27 percent of the estimated $2.73 trillion in pension and benefit payments owed to retired workers over the next 30 years.
States, on the hook for an estimated $2.35 trillion in pension payments and $381 billion for retiree benefits including health care, are underfunded by $731 billion, the Pew Center on the States said in a report released today. While states have set aside $2 trillion for pension payments, only $11 billion is available for benefits.
``It is really a situation where states have been making promises that they have to pay for tomorrow and not putting the money aside today,'' Susan Urahn, the center's managing director, said in an interview. The center, a part of the Pew Charitable Trusts, reviews state policies and works to promote nonpartisan solutions, according to information on its Web site.
States Short on $2.7 Trillion Owed Retirees, Pew Says (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Other key findings include:
Hawaii, Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington had particularly troubling drops in their pension funding levels.
Arizona, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin were on track at the end of FY 2006 to have fully funded their non-pension promises for the next 30 years.
Half of the states account for almost 94% of the non-pension liabilities. None of the five largest states, California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois, had put aside money for non-pension benefits as of FY 2006.
11 states face long-term liabilities in excess of $10 billion. These include New York at $50 billion, California at $48 billion, and Connecticut and New Jersey at nearly $22 billion each.
West Virginia reduced its long-term bill coming due for its non-pension benefits by more than half, from an estimated $7.8 billion to $3.4 billion, after setting up a trust fund for payments and adopting several other reforms.
The U.S. is approaching a genuine crisis with respect to delivering benefits owed to public employees, says Thomas White, an employee benefits attorney at Chapman and Cutler, a financial services law firm. He explains that the data reported is only as good as the actuarial assumptions underlying each plan.
Even those pensions that are "fully funded" use overly optimistic assumptions of future investment returns.
Very nice, CR! Thank you for sharing that. I'll be rooting for Sasha in 2010...
"payments owed to retired workers over the next 30 years"
for the last, well as long as everybody can remember...for retired folks, some municipal fees were waived. Today, I went to City Hall to pay $45.00 to renew a liscense for my Grandmother's house - the municipality changed the rules
Rules change. Times change. Payments owed will change.
Payments at least 30 days past due on a cluster of consumer loans climbed in the summer to their highest point since the country's last recession in 2001.
The American Bankers Association said Thursday that the delinquency rate on a composite of consumer loans increased to 2.44 percent in the fourth quarter, up sharply from the prior quarter and the highest since the second quarter of 2001.
Credit cards: Delinquency rate fell to 4.18 percent in the third quarter, from 4.39 percent in the second quarter.
Home-equity lines of credit: Delinquency rate jumped to 0.84 percent in the third quarter from 0.77 percent.
It's the highest since the final quarter of 1997.
Home-equity loans: Late rate rose to 2.28 percent, a two-year high.
Indirect auto loans (those arranged through dealerships): Rose to 2.86 percent, a 16-year high.
DH
loved her in blades of glory! couldnt help but think of CR while i watched that epic of a film.
On the TAF adding 50% more fund wouldn't that have the effect of reducing the interest rate of the auction? Kind of a rate cut without a rate cut.
Outstanding CR - Thx.
CR
she never seemed to be mentally capable of breaking thru to the gold. seems like she was troubled by something in her life.
idoc, no problems. She is mentally tough - and it's a physically tough sport. These skaters are always injured.
She has plenty of 1st place finishes, just not in the biggest event. Imagine playing one football game every four years - and being judged on that game.
If you want to see mentally tough, watch her final performance at the Olympics. She was hurt, and couldn't make the first jump in practice - but she tried anyway in the finals. After she fell - and slipped on her 2nd jump - she skated perfectly. Almost everyone else would have thrown in the towel. Her friends and family couldn't have been more proud, even if she had won.
Best Wishes.
dc1000, I haven't seen Blades of Glory yet. Some day I'll rent it.
Best Wishes.
Like..who cares?
CR... the world is crashing like you said it would and now you are talking baout skaters...huh?
frank
have a little heart,eh? he said she was a family friend and some of us have asked about her before.
CR
maybe i'm dense but from what u posted it sounds like she won't be competing anymore? too bad, she has the most talent.
CR:
watch the movie for the laughs not for sasha. she's in it for about 1 hot second.
dude, you're up at this hour? how bout some comment feedback on the active threads
:)? ?
idoc, read the title if you can't read the posts.
Officially, (this means think, I believe) the TAF worked so well that they are increasing the amounts by 50%...even before we know how many of those (pre-approved) [presumably not out-and-out wastrels...bone-headed HFs] commercial banks actually paid back these 4 week loans. Will we get nervous if by the end of Jan the amounts have increased another 50%? How long before the first bank defaults and names a few of the other current players...in the spirit of fun? Will it make that much difference to the public reputation of these banks if the public reputation of any ABCP packer is as well known as it is?
I don't see how this (50% increase) counts as a rate cut. FF rates, around which the auction rates begin (eg ~50bp lower) are declining, --therefore larger amounts now are more expensive now than they would be in a month's time, yes? ABCP back to diving suggests not much has changed.
calmo,
Potter ends up with $8000 in Its A Wonderful Life, George is still making $40 a week and he has to use all the money donated from the fine folks of Bedford Falls to pay back Uncle Billys screw up; I see Bush as Uncle Billy and the US taxpayer as George and maybe Paulson as Potter?
DH
To wit:
The program authorized the Fed to lend to institutions other than the 20 primary dealers that trade with the central bank.
Who are they and how much for how long?
For the guy cleaning the ice rink:
I want to emphasize an important difference between the Feds normal daily open market operations (OMO), and the TAF auctions. In the case of OMO, the Fed deals only with the 20 primary dealers, all of whom are securities firms who earn the bulk of their income from trading. When the Fed deals in open market operations it is essentially mainlining amphetamines directly into the veins of the market.
The TAF auctions are different in that, while the PDs may certainly be participating, any bank can take part. Instead of lending wholesale to the PDs who then act as a conduit to the rest of the financial system via the mechanism of the market, the Fed is doing an end around direct to the end user banks. The bulk of these funds apparently will be used to shore up weakening balance sheets on a short term basis, and not for speculative trading, as is the norm for the primary dealers. While I will include the Taffies in the SOMA graph, the addition of $20 billion via this route should have far less direct impact on the market than a $20 billion direct injection via standard OMO.
The Fed had announced that it was instituting the Term Auction Facility on Wednesday 12/12:
Under the Term Auction Facility (TAF), the Federal Reserve will auction term funds to depository institutions. All depository institutions that are eligible to borrow under the primary credit program will be eligible to participate in TAF auctions. All advances must be fully collateralized. Each TAF auction will be for a fixed amount, with the rate determined by the auction process (subject to a minimum bid rate). Bids will be submitted by phone through local Reserve Banks.
ormally the Fed pushes liquidity out to the system through its now 20 primary dealers (There had been 21, but Nomura Securities withdrew. Nomura is no more a PD). That worked via the conduit of the markets. Now the Fed has created a means to bypass the PDs and go direct to any bank that wants it. I suppose this would involve some incentive to potential borrowers other than the PDs, many of whom may not need the cash, as evidenced by the difficulty the Fed has had keeping the Fed Funds rate from falling below target recently.
Snowhead
http://www.frbdiscountwindow.org/discountmargins.pdf
Brady Bonds- US Dollar Denominated
Whats up with those babies?
The Fund may invest in Brady Bonds, which are securities created through the exchange of existing commercial bank loans to sovereign entities for new obligations in connection with a debt restructuring. Investments in Brady Bonds may be viewed as speculative. Brady Bonds acquired by the Fund may be subject to restructuring arrangements or to requests for new credit, which may cause the Fund to realize a loss of interest or principal on any of its portfolio holdings.
PIMCO Income Opportunity Fund, et al. · N-2/A · On 11/26/07
Filed On 11/26/07 5:27pm ET · SEC Files 333-146089, 811-22121 · Accession Number 1193125-7-253285
Oh baby..this is nice ice dancing.....
Brady Bonds may be collateralized or uncollateralized, are issued in various currencies (primarily the U.S. dollar) and are actively traded in the over-the-counter secondary market. Brady Bonds are not considered to be U.S. Government securities. U.S. dollar-denominated, collateralized Brady Bonds, which may be fixed rate par bonds or floating rate discount bonds, are generally collateralized in full as to principal by U.S. Treasury zero coupon bonds having the same maturity as the Brady Bonds. Interest payments on these Brady Bonds generally are collateralized on a one-year or longer rolling-forward basis by cash or securities in an amount that, in the case of fixed rate bonds, is equal to at least one year of interest payments or, in the case of floating rate bonds, initially is equal to at least one years interest payments based on the applicable interest rate at that time and is adjusted at regular intervals thereafter. Certain Brady Bonds are entitled to value recovery payments in certain circumstances, which in effect constitute supplemental interest payments but generally are not collateralized. Brady Bonds are often viewed as having three or four valuation components: (i) the collateralized repayment of principal at final maturity; (ii) the collateralized interest payments; (iii) the uncollateralized interest payments; and (iv) any uncollateralized repayment of principal at maturity (these uncollateralized amounts constitute the residual risk).
Hat tip...oui!!
Blades of Glory is worth watching for all the skater cameos. Plus hearing Jim Lampley and Scott Hamilton doing the competition voice-overs is priceless.
CR,
How do I get the newsletter.
Good luck to Shasa !
Best,
Yal
Dirty Deeds
The mortgage crisis has blighted the landscape with boarded-up houses. Now a few cities are holding giant lenders accountable for what foreclosure leaves behind
by Michael Orey
Homeowners may flee, but banks still remain liens on abandoned houses
On Dec. 17 in a windowless Buffalo courtroom, Cindy T. Cooper, a prosecutor for the city, buzzes among a dozen men in suits, cutting deals. "You've got to unboard [the house], go in, and clean it out," she tells one. "If all the repairs are done quickly, I wouldn't ask for any fines." To another, she says, "the gutters weren't done right," and asks to see receipts for the work. It's "Bank Day" in Judge Henry J. Nowak's housing courtroom, more typically a venue where landlords and tenants duke it out over evictions and back rent. Instead, Cooper is asking lawyers for CitiFinancial (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Countrywide Financial (CFC) to fix problems like peeling paint, broken masonry, and overgrown or trash-filled yards at houses the city says the banks are responsible for maintaining. It may be surprising to find these financial-services giants hauled before this obscure local tribunal. In fact, Cooper and Nowak are at the forefront of a pioneering effort to deal with a vexing problem: the surging number of vacant and abandoned homes resulting from the mortgage market meltdown. The vacancies occur when lenders bring foreclosure suits against delinquent borrowers.
Sorry for the long quote.
Is this another D-Bank style overhyping of a minor legal issue?
Is the servicer responsible for coming up with the repair money? Or is the investor?
If the loan has been securitized and sold, where does the money come from? The over capitalization?
If the MBS were really, really, underwater would it be possible for the investors to be on the hook for coming up with the repair money?
Weird, Indymac posted their November production report on their blog but I dont see a SEC filing for it.
http://www.theimbreport.com/
I think this page explains the trouble they are in:
http://theimbreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/tables-2-3-4.pdf
Sasha is whats known as a "spinner"
I think I got a chubb
I liked the video. But it's hard to see her skates. They are very small, no?
Thanks for the lovely Sasha routine!
Although I find it incredibly ironic, that much of the time on CR is spent in discussion of rigged/sloppy/poor administered transactions and loans, and here we are discussing figure skating, a sport notorious for rigged/sloppy/poorly administered competitions...
Now that I've seen Sasha Cohen do figure-skating without skates, I'm confident that she'll medal in Vancouver, when she does wear skates.
Brava!
Ellen, this was not an adjudicated performance, except by us --right? And for me this is more than a breath of fresh air and a welcome relief from the usual grind of sorting through the housing mess.
So, how to nudge you back to your opener and keep you from straying to that "here we are discussing figure skating"?
How about this: if there is 1 note that comes across in this Sacha performance it is confidence.( ..she doesn't even need skates...how daring is that?) Is that element, confidence, in short supply as we watch the market stumble out of the 2008 gate?
Thank you Snowhead...now about those PDs who decline to loan to those "pre-approved" commercial banks...unlike the Fed who is just so much more generous...possibly lax, if only we knew what those approval regs amounted to, if only we knew what the default rate was on the previous month's auction...if only there was less obfuscation.
Is this a preview for the next Cirque show?
Inventive. Good stuff. Thanks CR
Will 2010 support a Vancouver/Whistler housing bubble:
seek archives of the excellent
http://van-housing.blogspot.com/
Compare to Vancouver @ Expo86 or Salt Lake City @ 2002.
I loved your Sasha Cohen posts and distributed them widely (hopefully a good thing to do). They got rave reviews. I think one was before Christmas in 2006. Very well recieved.
Compare to Vancouver @ Expo86 or Salt Lake City @ 2002
Expo 86 was one of the rationalizations for the early 80's RE bubble in Vancouver which crashed by 45% before Expo even happened.
Calgary, which hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, saw a similar crash in the same time frame.
But this time it's different.
Beauty in the face of madness is always a welcome respite. Thank you CR
Ella,
Thank you for bringing this discussion to that which matters. You are entirely, and beautifully, right. Best of fortune, Sasha, and to all who seek to dedicate their lives to creating beauty.
Remember all, the markets were created to serve the aspirations of mankind; not mankind's aspirations, to serve the market. In the end, a dance while we starve may be better than a feast without dance.
Good luck to all, in the coming storms.
As per Vancouver please note:
1. This town has one of the highest murder rates (per capita) in North America
2. This town has one of the highest B&E rates in Canada
Don't miss out on your chance to invest in Vancouver real estate! We're number one for property crime and unaffordability for housing. Check out Vancouver Condo Info for more info.
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