doesn't that create an unfair playing field that some people have the information and others do not?
Isn't creating an unfair playing field the whole point of the exercise?
Just ask a banker who's not one of the Nineteen.
(I'm not intending snark here--it seems to me there HAS to be significant information asymmetry if this stuff is ever going to get offloaded in a way that will leave the banks solvent. As each plan is exposed as yet another attempt to get the public to overpay for bank assets, a new and more obscure version of the same is unveiled.
Can we get a split screen with comments from the last thread on the right and new comments on the left, and maybe the text of the new comments in blue, with the old as red and maybe some music, where is the music here?
we can guess the 12 categories (why didn't they just list them?
I'm guessing a different list.
1. We admitted we were powerless over greed.
2. Came to believe that Power greater than us could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn over our balance sheet and our business to the Fed as we understood them.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
. . .
8. Made a list of all we have harmed.
9. Made amends to such people whenever possible unless it costs any money.
. . .
12. Having a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other bankers, and practice these Steps in all our affairs (and not just our wives).
The issue I have with captchas is the friction. This site is often pretty chatty, and the idea of having to recognize a pattern every time you want to comment doesn't sit well. Plus many of the spambots are learning to work around them anyway. The service I'm talking about tries first to determine whether a comment is spam, and then only presents a captcha if it's uncertain. But I really don't want to add additional costs; we're already spending a fair amount on the server.
Creating asymmetrical information (the unfair playing field) may be the point. Bankers are known for gaming just about anything, and I don't believe the government regulators or the federal reserve banks are treating the banks impartially.
....regardless what anyone tells you, the cost of food is going up. Beef has been lower due to culling of cow herds, due to depressed milk prices & higher feed costs. Cow beef feeds mid America thru Club Mac & steer beef also provides prime grades for high-end restaurants. HE restaurants don't sell the amounts of total slaughtered beef anymore so welcome to cheap beef. Beef will skyrocket by fall. In the meantime, most everything else is going up. Look at the container weight (not size) - it gets smaller but the physical size of container stays the same (from what little I've seen, heard, or been told).
Seems like the granularity of the 12 catagories (in the name of transparency) may be effective in spreading out the pain over a larger number of catagories. Instead of seeing shockingly large loss numbers concentrated in just a handful.
Ken, you will never win. Make people register. Every CAPTCHA has been broken and will continue to be broken. I run a forum myself and have had to put up multiple roadblocks to keep spammers out, they have people sitting around with nothing to do all day but figure out ways to break through systems designed to keep them out.
You simply cannot have anonymous commenting anymore.
It is amazing how little knowledge people have on numerous subjects. Try not to specialize too much in one subject only people.
Jesus was not a Jew from Judea, he was an Nazarene Essene. "They repudiated conventional Judaism in favor of a form of Gnosticism, and were the most esteemed healers in the Holy Land at the time. The word Essene comes from the Greek 'essenoi' meaning something secret or mystic."
Isn't the current U6 unemployment rate 16.2%?.......and likely to climbe over 17% this month.............guess if you are unemployed long enough you are not adverse anymore.
Lets cut to the chase: The game the Treasury is playing is to boost people's confidence. The point of the stress test is to assure everyone that, after careful study, the banking system is sound. Go ahead and buy homes, cars, and other spending. Everything is getting better.
Along with the stimulus plan and the myriad programs (foreclosure plan, etc..), its all a big bluff. In the last 6 weeks, the stock market has said that this policy will work, and that - in and of itself - helps promote this strategy (companies can issue equity to make themselves sounder).
The scary part is, if people discover the Emperor has no clothes (that is, the default rates across credit products continue to escalate, unemployment continues to rise, etc..), I don't know what will revive people's confidence in the possible next scary leg down. People who bought into this rally or bought real estate this spring and summer will be shell shocked if they are losing serious money by this fall.
Who can blame Summers for nodding off? Hell, he's heard it all; he wrote most of it himself. Can you blame the guy for catching a few ZzZ's? Especially when he already knows the outcome?
Here is a hint - the MI companies, who are also taking an equity position, are forecasting and EXPECTED loss of 15% on their books of business.
See Radian, they set up a Premium Deficiency Reserve, which means they think the premium is not going to cover the losses, so they have to add an extra reserve.
Part of the PDR is assuming a lifetime loss rate.
They assume 15% on their existing book, which is an expected, not stress number.
Mi losses are very similar to HE losses - the top portion of the equity, 100% loss given default, etc. Except MI risk is generally on agency conforming loans, not a ton of Alt A, etc.
Countrywide's HE, as an example, was largely on Option ARMs.
Yogi,The first time I got fired in my life was in January 2005 for openly calling it a bubble and referring to Option Arms as insane in an office meeting.I was physically threatened and verbally abused on several occasions by Real Estate and Loan Brokers for expressing my opinions publically and never backed down .I somehow think I have paid some dues...
.
. "1 currency now -yogi (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 4:31 am reply
Hey popcorn surprise, got an elected body in session again?
Kiss the Queen's ass for me."
What a freakishly bizarre thing to commit to print. Are you sure you want others to know how ignorant you are. Remember, it's always better to be thought of possibly being an idiot than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
White papers like this are an insult to democracy. People at those tea parties should realize that one of the key reasons their taxes are up (36% to 39%) is because the banks will need more money and Papa Hu does not look too eager to oblige.
"Looking Forward" is doing a great disservice to this country. Germany and Japan benefited a lot from dwelling on their mistakes and doing a good deal of soul searching. This nation should be discussing sanctioned torture as well as unbridled greed and transfer of wealth from poor to rich.
Societies are based on trust and cooperation.Trust in our society is rapidly diminishing and the illusory nature of the benefits that were promised to our populace is becoming clear to all.this is not a positive development...who do you trust other than a bill collector?
Hey! BSR: do you raise those exotic cows from Africa? And , how the fuck do you know if the price is going up? It already has. Just look at all the inflation we're not having. Look at it, just look dammit!
I'm looking forward to the bankruptcy of the US either by hyperinflation or downright default. I believe it will be deflation and default. Other countries will no longer trade with us and the whole globalization experiment will come to an end. Yes we will have to make things that we want in our own country once again. Oh the horror. Bilateral trade agreements will be back en vogue the way it should have been all along, and it's the only thing that will produce meaningful sustainable jobs in our own country on a permanent basis. Tuff Shit if the globalists don't like it that way. Bilateral trade agreements would be a good place for BO to start if he really wants to fix a root cause of our problems.
I never expected to be proven so right within months, I thought it would take years. I would accept an apology, but I don't believe you're humble enough.
If the current level of credit support was considered insufficient to cover projected losses, the security was written down to fair value with a corresponding “other than temporary impairment” charge, in accordance with accounting guidelines, equal to the difference between book and market value.
Report: U.S. Household Wealth to Continue Its Trillion-Dollar Plunge Report: U.S. Household Wealth to Continue Its Trillion-Dollar Plunge
Private wealth among families in the United States is continuing to decline after dropping by a staggering $15 trillion between June 2007 and December 2008, according to a report by the Center for American Progress.
In a telephone interview, Christian E. Weller, the co-author of the report, said: “You will continue to see losses of another $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first quarter” once the numbers have been tallied up. “I would expect losses for second quarter,” said Weller, who co-wrote “Household Wealth in Freefall.”
But, he added, providing a glimmer of hope: “I don’t expect losses of the magnitude of $2 trillion to continue every quarter.”
In the report released Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based center stated that the 22.8% drop is the “sharpest relative wealth decline in 50 years.” The previous record occurred during the oil crisis in the mid-1970s when the decrease during that 8-month period was 12%.
“In terms of total wealth, I think the housing market will continue to be in a slump until the end of the year,” Weller said in the interview. “[Home] prices will continue to drop and that affects the paper wealth that almost all families have.”
Note to the Fed: Clearly some analysts have the 12 categories and related indicative loss rates. To be fair, the Fed should release this additional information ASAP.
Note to the Fed: Clearly the masses are too mentally deficient to manage their own affairs or have property rights. So it's critical that you take control over the process of wealth accumulation and day-to-day actions that give them influence in this world.
Just don't make the same mistake that Stalin and Hitler did by killing them outright... they might catch on.
Kill them with welfare and dependence.
Teach them that you'll think for them and that if they think for themselves you'll take away their free lunch.
Don't slaughter the man to win the war - his ideas and children will simply rise against you instead.
"Looking Forward" is doing a great disservice to this country. Germany and Japan benefited a lot from dwelling on their mistakes and doing a good deal of soul searching. This nation should be discussing sanctioned torture as well as unbridled greed and transfer of wealth from poor to rich.
So true. Arrogance and hubris keep us from moving forward by ignoring the past.
We may or may not get around to the first issue, but we will never, in our current configuration, discuss, much less punish, greed and the transfer of wealth from poor to rich. It's become an American obsession.
The sense of entitlement in this country is totally out of whack with the principles on which the country was founded.
Sure, the low end feels entitled to their gubmint check every month, but the high end, the supposedly well educated and certainly prosperous members of society have the same sense of entitlement. It is exactly the reason that CEO pay became 500 times janitorial pay, with one year's gift of those options by itself worth more than the janitor's entire extended family will earn in their cumulative lifetimes.
A "popular" essay from another field adapted for The Economists. Something our would be Ruler Academics might consider:
Likewise, a scaling-up of [the economy] is not merely a repetition of the same elements in larger sizes, it is necessarily an increase in the number of different elements. In most cases, the elements interact with each other in some nonlinear fashion, and the complexity of the whole increases much more than linearly.
The complexity of [the economy] is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of [an economy] that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence. For three centuries, mathematics and the physical sciences made great strides by constructing simplified models of complex phenomena, deriving properties from the models, and verifying those properties by experiment. This paradigm worked because the complexities ignored in the models were not the essential properties of the phenomena. It does not work when the complexities are the essence.
Additional useless info related to economic markets:
In 2008, Fund/SERV processed 193 million transactions valued at US $2.9 trillion, from 650 fund complexes. The system supports 42,000 individual funds across multiple asset classes. Worldwide mutual fund assets were US $21.66 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2008 with a third (US$9.48 trillion) domiciled in Europe, according to The Investment Company Institute.
In 2008, DTCC settled more than US$1.88 quadrillion in securities transactions.
Doc writes: "Report: U.S. Household Wealth to Continue Its Trillion-Dollar Plunge"
What is the distribution of that "wealth destruction"? Are the 10$ with 90% of the wealth taking as much a hit (on a percentage of capital basis) as the middle class?
I'm a machinist 20 years experience. I'm on a self imposed sabbatical Ayn Rand style living off the proceeds I made after selling My house up north 4 years ago. I saw this whole thing coming and waiting out a rebirth of our nation the way it is supposed to be.
Keep the possibility of a significant monetary inflation in mind, with no advance in real terms but a handsome nominal rally.
Yes, they are that desperate and reckless and short-sighted. That's what they did in 2003 in creating the housing bubble to save Wall Street and the financial markets
jesse.
the deflation trade is wrong, why is the deaf laotion trade worng?
WesCorp has approximately 950 individual securities within its investment portfolio.WesCorp had a process for determining securities subject to Other Than TemporaryImpairment (OTTI). This process involves running securities through a series of filters thatdrive the depth of analysis and whether analysis is done internally or externally. From thisfiltering process WesCorp identified 253 securities for advanced analysis, indicating a possibility of OTTI. Of these 253 securities, 44 were subjected to external vendor analysis.Between the internal and external analysis performed, ultimately 47 of these 253 securitieswere determined to have OTTI as of December 31, 2008.Comparison of results between WesCorp’s internal analysis and the external, independentanalysis implies that had WesCorp externally modeled a greater portion of its investment portfolio, credit loss projections would have been greater resulting in greater OTTI charges.There are 37 ALT-A securities, with an approximate par value of $1.25 billion, which were allmodeled for credit losses by the following three sources: .... interesting analysis ....
Simplistically, if we don't want to inflate or borrow our way out of our toxic debts, and the Federal Govt (US citizens) ultimately must pay off the debt, and if the wealth and their advisors act to block any tax increase on the wealthy, then isn't the burden on the middle class magnified?
Basically, and purely theoretically, instead of everyone's living standard falling by 10%, the living standard of the middle class will fall by 50%?
Basically, and purely theoretically, instead of everyone's living standard falling by 10%, the living standard of the middle class will fall by 50%?
Jackrabbit, seems to me you just answered your earlier question:
How does income inequality affect our ability to recover from this depression?
My view is that the American middle class is being forced out of existence. It's been coming on for 30 years or so, but it seems the process is accelerating.
We will have the upper class, the working class and the lower class.
Considering the impact of the once-mighty middle class on the consumer based economy, and the absence of the middle class in the future, I don't know whether we "recover from this depression," much less how that might occur.
M - Thank you for your reply. It helps me understand where you're coming from. While I agree with many things you say concerning social justice, your opinions in regard to several other controversial subjects are highly suspect, if not outright offensive, IMO. You might want to moderate your posts in reference to these inflamatory subjects, and dismiss your self-styled campaign to "educate" the public. Please take this advice with my warmest regards. In all due respect, I am, ... etc, etc...
I' m not suggesting that it will happen. Income inequality increased during the boom years, and I'm just curious about the effect that has on a trouble economy with huge debts. How does income inequality in 2007 compare to income inequality in 1929?
Income inequality means we equalize a bit by altering the tax code. We did it before, and everyone knows it's preferable to civil war.
A few ruling families controlling the power structure may be possible in small countries. The wealthy 1% can't survive in the US without a middle class aspiring to that status.
TJ, the flame has been lit under the pot for some time now and the frog is still sitting peacefully in the water.
Granted, but as long as "the masses" have had their plasma TVs, iPhones, SUVs and stainless barbecues everyones blissfully ignorant. Take those away and there'll be hell to pay.
Larry Summers sure doesn't seem too stressed about the stress tests, snoozin'.
But I will say, Bernanke has looked at least as grim as he did during the fall and at the time of BSC collapse. Timmay seems pretty damn downbeat. They might be nervous about the coming flood or treasury issuance and the swollen Fed balance sheet at a time when they may need to pull a rabbit out of their hats.
From previous thread but it looks to me like First Bank of Idaho spent most of their money on their branch offices. I wonder if Bruce Willis had any money with these jokers; he's known to be a Ketchum/Sun Valley guy.
Just had a chance to catch up after another wild day.
I noticed that a key announcement on the NCUA website was missed in all the excitement earlier over the Credit Union Failure. Apparently the capital losses in the higher-level Corporate Credit Unions (not serving the public, but providing back-office support to the "Natural Person Credit Unions" that you and I go to), are threatening to impair their operations going forward. So the NCUA's solution is to let them pretend their capital ratios haven't changed since six months ago, unless the "OCCU Director" decides otherwise! This smells pretty nasty...
We anticipate some corporate credit unions will reflect losses that will be absorbed by capital when they post their March 31, 2009, financial statements, or should they restate their December 31, 2008, financial statements. As many of the functions that corporate credit unions perform are tied to the level of capital, there was a serious concern that they would be unable to provide normal daily operational services to their member credit unions after recording capital losses. To avoid any disruption of critical services, the NCUA Board has issued an order that will permit corporate credit unions to use the capital level as reported on their November 30, 2008, NCUA 5310 Call Report, for purposes of determining regulatory compliance with capital-based requirements and regulations in the corporate rule. However, the OCCU Director has been delegated the authority to restrict or modify this general waiver as it applies to a particular corporate credit union based on safety and soundness considerations. We believe this will allow corporate credit unions to continue to meet members’ needs while also ensuring corporates do not take additional undue risk.
The wealthy 1% can't survive in the US without a middle class aspiring to that status.
It's that aspiration that leads to the sense of entitlement the wealthy have. As long as everyone wants it and they have it, they see themselves as superior to everyone else.
If no one wanted it, i.e., if the average middle class Joe or Jane did not aspire to acquire wealth, then I believe the wealthiest 1% would indeed not hold their position for long. Joe and Jane would not tolerate it.
So far the frog is still tolerating the warm tropical water.
.....I say lets have a different kind of revolution this time.........one where no one shows up. People just start dropping out - I'll be the first. When things improve, I'll contribute again.
yogi, resistance to any fundamental change is very high. There has been no change in attitudes or behavior so far. Nothing seems to change unless there is blood in the streets (literally or figuratively).
"and 2000 and today might provide more useful information"
the depression served as a wonderful corrective to the inequality of the day. i'd imagine that similar dynamics have taken place in the past year. at the very least, the property-rich upper-middle-class have done about as well in the past year as rural landholders in Ukraine did in 1930. the more stubborn roaches in the fumigation job are the CFO types who can write themselves new options packages at will.
.....I say lets have a different kind of revolution this time.........one where no one shows up. People just start dropping out - I'll be the first. When things improve, I'll contribute again.
The wealthy don't have income, they have assets. Heck in California you pay the highest rate somewhere in the mid $40k range.
The problem facing big government is the paradox between needing more money from the productive classes and thus pushing the productive classes into non-participation.
The issue I have with captchas is the friction. This site is often pretty chatty, and the idea of having to recognize a pattern every time you want to comment doesn't sit well. Plus many of the spambots are learning to work around them anyway.
Could we put a captcha on Lucifer, or perhaps require that he retype each comment he makes five times before it posts so we know he really means it
pushing the productive classes into non-participation.
I'm already there! I am giving notice in three weeks, reeling in all my spending, and taking some junior college classes. I'm gonna learn some science!
I'm more optimistic than some postings I've seen on CR, but I think selfish obstinancy will prevail for some time. It may take a new generation to change the culture.
As someone posted a few days or weeks ago: the rat race is over. the rats won.
Better recheck your local campus demographics. If this is the central valley from Sacramento down past Stockton, you'll find it's Red State Republican territory with a lot of white folks too.
Also, don't underestimate the power of motivation for those working their way out of that dirt poverty state.
TJ and The Bear (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:59 pm reply
No, but I can synthesize pretty much anything.
That explains Jim's "tastiest coffee ever".
LOL! Even worse my bad influence has got him to buy an iPhone.
I actually do a little writing in my spare time. Mostly pranks. You wouldn't believe it but some of the hoaxes I've written have made it onto the national news.
Hoops, you have written some of the best stuff I've ever read, for being written off the cuff. I can only imagine what you are capable of if you actually try.
What a journey through songs about revolution and I can't even link the soundtrack. The name doesn't even exist on youtube.
It's not under Jefferson Airplane lyrics (173 songs)
It's not under Jefferson Starship lyrics (101 songs)
It's under Paul Kantner . . . even though it was Grace Slick singing.
From Blows Against the Empire
The Song A Child Is Coming
What are we gonna do when Uncle Samuel comes around
Askin' for the young one's name
And lookin' for the print of his hand for the files in their numbers game
I don't want his chances for freedom to ever be that slim
Let's not tell 'em about him —
Okay, so that was a very long way to go for a tenuous connection at best.
But they did that well over a decade before Uncle Samuel required babies to have official numbers, as they do today.
It's hard to dropout once you're in the system, but if you never get put into the system . . . .
If there is no large middle class in western countries, the corrupt rich in south american, asian and african countries will lose power.. who are they going to sell stuff to? who will give them money? can they or will they be able to buy second homes in the west? send their kids here? have a first world type lifestyle..
i heard an entertaining sermon on 'the mark of the beast' while driving through the central valley - california stereotypes to the contrary, it is 90% christian radio once you leave the SF market driving north. Head or the hand... gotsta have that social # to have a job or a bank account!
I am surprised that so many of you believe that conspiracy type stuff can be pulled off an industrial scale.
While I am sure that there are many who would like to be the real 'illuminati', the chaotic nature of the universe and size/complexity of human civilization make that impossible.
I could give you complex examples to explain the why, but lets stick with the simpler examples.
Humans cannot control-
Their life (even if you are a CEO of a big industrial bank, you can still get terminal cancer.. or die otherwise)
Their relationships (wifes, kids, friends, accquaintances can turn against you or disappoint you).
Unforeseen events ( natural or man-made calamities).
At best, some people can get lucky for a decade or two and exert some influence, until the universe changes directions.. again.
I have to confess that abrahamic religions do not make sense to me..
The God in most religions does too many questionable things and is to personal to be all powerful. It is not unlikely that the gods in most religions were ET (yes.. I know that is an old idea.. but it makes a lot of sense)
"I have to confess that abrahamic religions do not make sense to me.."
You mean that if, on a camping trip, you stumbled upon a man who was holding a huge knife, had his kid tied up and seemed to be listening to an invisible voice - that would strike you as strange? (Genesis 22:10)
barfly, CCR is always a good choice, but since I had the opportunity to review a lot of lyrics and hear a lot of songs tonight, I have to say that this is one of the best combinations I came across:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low.
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.
When logic and proportion
Have fallen softly dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the doormouse said:
Then, when I think how Walt Disney was able to get into Lewis Carroll's head and put it visually into a cartoon before most people even knew what psychedlics was, makes it all seem worthwhile.
One rabbinic interpretation of the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is that it is God punishing Abraham for the way he treated his son Ishmael in the previous chapter.
At his wife Sarah's request, he had sent Ishmael and his mother Hagar into the desert to fend for themselves. Sarah had seen Ishmael teasing Isaac and was either afraid for his safety or determined to eliminate the competition, depending on interpretation.
Abraham smashed the idols. Today he would throw a brick through a bank's window, or maybe disrupt a Larry Summers interview.
Good find mp. It seems that the market is willing to discount such figures as they pertain to the real economy. Likewise with UE. Apparently GPD is scheduled to expand with nary an uptick in either trend.
So if by an Abrahamic religion you mean Judaism, the point is we don't worship Abraham, or call him or any human a saint. We tell his story, the good,bad, and ugly, and try to learn something.
January finished petroleum products back to 2003 levels. Natural Gas and Petroleum Navigator Error Page
We might actually end up reducing our carbon footprint by 10% as promised just not how we planned it.
1 currency now -yogi: Or maybe disrupt one of Larry's naps.
The discussion about religion is not so much deserving as it is sedulous. Suffice my position to be in agreement with my wife's. The whole thing is a scam perpetrated by men as a way to subjugate women. That men have gotten away with it for so long is a fitting testament to the ability of women to absorb punishment. Oh, BTW, should you or any others feel the need to agree, support or in any way incline your thoughts and prayers in my direction; a tithe would be appreciated. My PayPal account is standing by. Don't go cheap. Man up.
Lucifer: the gods were not ET. They were more along the lines of that which is described in "The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". A must read for even the most common house wife.
from Pavel's flu-link: "Finnish rock band The Rasmus canceled a Mexico City concert and the Mexican Football Federation said two weekend soccer matches would be played with no spectators present as a precaution."
They offered to have The Rasmus play with no spectators but then they'd have to cancel the soccer!
Calculated Risk: Clearly Westwood Capital has the indicative loss rates - doesn't that create an unfair playing field that some people have the information and others do not?
Is not fault, is feature. Otherwise Goldman-Sachs can't take away record profits. Of course insiders are being provided with all this information for trading purposes. How else are they going to recapitalize the banks? And if this seems like robbing the retail investor by rigging the stock market, we'll just wave the flag of potential civil disorder. It's for the security of the state that the rich are made richer on the backs of the poor.
Expediency justifies everything and nothing. Not just me being pithy I don't think, I think they are doing it the way they see as natural and I think that's the reason why we can't get solid policy -- what is seen as "good" and "normal" is at odds with what people from the modern public policy paradigm expect.
Interesting times: a "top secret" stress test paper by the BaFin (German equivalent to the FDIC) was leaked to the press (link to Bloomberg article). Bad credits and toxic papers add up to 812 (816 according to German newspapers) billion Euros (more than 1 trillion US$) for German banks. Roughly 44% of this is located at "state banks" (Landesbanken).
The news magazine "Spiegel" now reports that federal and state goverments have to close a deal on Monday to prevent one of the "Landesbanken" from failing within the next couple of months.
"two year cum losses of 12% on commercial real-estate loans"
they must be kidding. I look very closely at loans made after 2005 and when loans go into default, re-appraisals are down by at least 25%. It takes a year or more to liquidate the loans, and although there haven't been all that many liquidations (due to the difficulty of getting new loans to refinance), average losses are on the order of 40%.
BR, fault or feature, what is described is facilitation of insider trading - providing select clients with privileged information. Surely this is proscribed somewhere in SEC codes or regs?
pavel.chichikov (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 7:20 am
The tragedy of a world cut loose from traditional moral systems.
"Kill them all, God will know his own" -- it's not precisely about moral systems, but about the willingness of societies to discipline themselves into formal methods. I think it's more about general education -- you need a fairly sophisticated, abstractly-oriented viewpoint to understand why taking the direct route to the solution of a serious problem is often a decisive mistake.
burnside (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 8:53 am
Have I overstated or misunderstood?
Nope. The people on the inside of the us banking policy establishment are totally beholden to vested interests inside the upper echelons of the banking industry. From the current regulatory perspective, what is good for Wall Street banking is not just good for America, it's indistinguishable.
Thus, they will do "anything" -- a patriotic concept of unimpeachable quality, long established as encompassing contempt for the rule of law, torture, kidnapping of foreign nationals, and the destruction of the Bill of Rights -- in order to "save the country". That it is criminal or misguided or self-defeating is immaterial, as we have long established as a society, what is important is the fig leaf of public emergency or threat to the public.
To what degree they are criminal and to what degree criminally naive is something that would have to be ascertained via investigation. It's easy to say they're criminals, but I imagine many of them are just "useful idiots". You constantly see people claiming "the Constitution isn't a suicide pact" -- as if we didn't draft to war and administer capital punishment under its rubric -- so it is likely that is a though-form shared in those circle, as in every other. People just don't have the concept set to frame the multigenerational impact of the decline of personal and administrative standards.
Byz, I've recognized the presence of unethical behavior in individuals or even claques within government all my adult life - have seen it swing through some dark episodes - and questioned whether or not it would right itself or capsize.
Don't know why this particular development, rather than others in recent years, should finally break my confidence - possibly that it raises no significant commentary except among ourselves, and that it seems evidence of a specific continuity undisturbed by regime change.
Lucifer (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 1:51 am reply If there is no large middle class in western countries, the corrupt rich in south american, asian and african countries will lose power.. who are they going to sell stuff to?
The corrupt rich will still get their billions in bribes. They don't need the peons as long as they have the transnats run by the billionaire boyz. Close the tax havens down and shine a light on cockroaches like Cheney's KBR & Halliburton.
Pavel, Byz: You can always create law to make any action legal. But is it ethical? We are at the cosmic nexus between the two. Americans will have to choose. Time to call for a Pecora-like commission. The citizens of my village don't know how we got where we are today. Shine a light on it.
They were more along the lines of that which is described in "The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". A must read for even the most common house wife.
Ah yes, Julian Jaynes, my old beat up copy is staring back at me from the bookshelf as we speak.
While there were some parts of that book that I did not agree with, that book is probably one of the most important I have ever read in shaping the way I look at the world around me, and my fellow human beings.
Don't know why this particular development, rather than others in recent years, should finally break my confidence - possibly that it raises no significant commentary except among ourselves, and that it seems evidence of a specific continuity undisturbed by regime change.
Well, you'll know what I mean.
Yep. You have your finger on it, I'd say.
I unfortunately had a prescient mix of security-development emphasis and really solid Japanese political economy teachers, so I was like "oh here we go" 15 years ago when policy cohort uptake size and entrant quality started declining precipitously and public-private captivity became fully entrenched.
1
Where's Nemo and his refresh monkey?
And here we were all set for a religious discussion in the next thread down.
Saved from my worst inclinations!!
Such a killjoy liz...My garden is growing like mad! I have over 20 grape tomatoes already and several baby sweet peppers...
doesn't that create an unfair playing field that some people have the information and others do not?
Isn't creating an unfair playing field the whole point of the exercise?
Just ask a banker who's not one of the Nineteen.
(I'm not intending snark here--it seems to me there HAS to be significant information asymmetry if this stuff is ever going to get offloaded in a way that will leave the banks solvent. As each plan is exposed as yet another attempt to get the public to overpay for bank assets, a new and more obscure version of the same is unveiled.
Transparency is the enemy.)
Unless his refresh monkey sends the right http 'cookie', it could be banned as anonymous.
As each plan is exposed as yet another attempt to get the public to overpay for bank assets, a new and more obscure version of the same is unveiled.
Transparency is the enemy.
No snark taken. This is self-evident to anybody paying attention.
M-LEC => TARP => PPIF => whatever
There is a well reputed spam filtering service available that attempts to minimize CAPTCHAs, but it costs 30 euros a month.
In 2010, that will only be $300000000000000000000000000 USD!
Seriously, though, I have no problems with CAPTCHAS if that's the quickest, easiest or cheapest solution.
Can we get a split screen with comments from the last thread on the right and new comments on the left, and maybe the text of the new comments in blue, with the old as red and maybe some music, where is the music here?
we can guess the 12 categories (why didn't they just list them?
I'm guessing a different list.
1. We admitted we were powerless over greed.
2. Came to believe that Power greater than us could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn over our balance sheet and our business to the Fed as we understood them.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
. . .
8. Made a list of all we have harmed.
9. Made amends to such people whenever possible unless it costs any money.
. . .
12. Having a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other bankers, and practice these Steps in all our affairs (and not just our wives).
Hey KCoop..........Fine job, bud...........I'll send you some silver b4 2 long......
The issue I have with captchas is the friction. This site is often pretty chatty, and the idea of having to recognize a pattern every time you want to comment doesn't sit well. Plus many of the spambots are learning to work around them anyway. The service I'm talking about tries first to determine whether a comment is spam, and then only presents a captcha if it's uncertain. But I really don't want to add additional costs; we're already spending a fair amount on the server.
One scenario that assumed a 10.3% unemployment rate at the end of 2010 required banks to calculate two-year cumulative losses of
WTF!?!?! The Banksters are running the numbers? What kind of test is that?
Creating asymmetrical information (the unfair playing field) may be the point. Bankers are known for gaming just about anything, and I don't believe the government regulators or the federal reserve banks are treating the banks impartially.
..and maybe some music, where is the music here?
Sacred Spirit
bf:
For the dead banks:
YouTube - Band Of Horses - The Funeral
the funeral by band of horses
....regardless what anyone tells you, the cost of food is going up. Beef has been lower due to culling of cow herds, due to depressed milk prices & higher feed costs. Cow beef feeds mid America thru Club Mac & steer beef also provides prime grades for high-end restaurants. HE restaurants don't sell the amounts of total slaughtered beef anymore so welcome to cheap beef. Beef will skyrocket by fall. In the meantime, most everything else is going up. Look at the container weight (not size) - it gets smaller but the physical size of container stays the same (from what little I've seen, heard, or been told).
Seems like the granularity of the 12 catagories (in the name of transparency) may be effective in spreading out the pain over a larger number of catagories. Instead of seeing shockingly large loss numbers concentrated in just a handful.
BSR do you raise beef cows? what breeds? and have you tried Wagyu beef?
Ken, you will never win. Make people register. Every CAPTCHA has been broken and will continue to be broken. I run a forum myself and have had to put up multiple roadblocks to keep spammers out, they have people sitting around with nothing to do all day but figure out ways to break through systems designed to keep them out.
You simply cannot have anonymous commenting anymore.
It is amazing how little knowledge people have on numerous subjects. Try not to specialize too much in one subject only people.
Jesus was not a Jew from Judea, he was an Nazarene Essene. "They repudiated conventional Judaism in favor of a form of Gnosticism, and were the most esteemed healers in the Holy Land at the time. The word Essene comes from the Greek 'essenoi' meaning something secret or mystic."
Was Jesus raised and trained as Nazarene Essene? - The Dead Sea Scrolls - Zimbio
Isn't the current U6 unemployment rate 16.2%?.......and likely to climbe over 17% this month.............guess if you are unemployed long enough you are not adverse anymore.
OK everyone on line put up $10. Just hit the button.
Unless you're homeless or unemployed.
I'm in for a double.
How about for one week charge a nickel per comment.
Lets cut to the chase: The game the Treasury is playing is to boost people's confidence. The point of the stress test is to assure everyone that, after careful study, the banking system is sound. Go ahead and buy homes, cars, and other spending. Everything is getting better.
Along with the stimulus plan and the myriad programs (foreclosure plan, etc..), its all a big bluff. In the last 6 weeks, the stock market has said that this policy will work, and that - in and of itself - helps promote this strategy (companies can issue equity to make themselves sounder).
The scary part is, if people discover the Emperor has no clothes (that is, the default rates across credit products continue to escalate, unemployment continues to rise, etc..), I don't know what will revive people's confidence in the possible next scary leg down. People who bought into this rally or bought real estate this spring and summer will be shell shocked if they are losing serious money by this fall.
Yogi,I'm in Real Estate, does that count?
Who can blame Summers for nodding off? Hell, he's heard it all; he wrote most of it himself. Can you blame the guy for catching a few ZzZ's? Especially when he already knows the outcome?
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EVERYTHING IS WRONG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If you're in Real Estate, you owe dues for the bubble years. But you can finance it...
11% for Home Equity?
BWWWAAAAHAHAHAHA.
Here is a hint - the MI companies, who are also taking an equity position, are forecasting and EXPECTED loss of 15% on their books of business.
See Radian, they set up a Premium Deficiency Reserve, which means they think the premium is not going to cover the losses, so they have to add an extra reserve.
Part of the PDR is assuming a lifetime loss rate.
They assume 15% on their existing book, which is an expected, not stress number.
Mi losses are very similar to HE losses - the top portion of the equity, 100% loss given default, etc. Except MI risk is generally on agency conforming loans, not a ton of Alt A, etc.
Countrywide's HE, as an example, was largely on Option ARMs.
Hey popcorn surprise, got an elected body in session again?
Kiss the Queen's ass for me.
Hey, folks, this is "Change We Can Believe In"!!!
They spend millions on the report and give us the 99 cent summary.
This summer will be bad.
UPPER LEFT
HIT THE BUTTON
Yogi,The first time I got fired in my life was in January 2005 for openly calling it a bubble and referring to Option Arms as insane in an office meeting.I was physically threatened and verbally abused on several occasions by Real Estate and Loan Brokers for expressing my opinions publically and never backed down .I somehow think I have paid some dues...
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"1 currency now -yogi (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 4:31 am reply
Hey popcorn surprise, got an elected body in session again?
Kiss the Queen's ass for me."
What a freakishly bizarre thing to commit to print. Are you sure you want others to know how ignorant you are. Remember, it's always better to be thought of possibly being an idiot than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
Who cares that unemployment is over 16%.....we just have to figure out when and where war breaks out before anyone has to tell the truth.
The 12 categories were listed in the appendix -- your guesses were exactly correct:
First lien mortgages: Prime, Alt-A, Subprime
Second/junior lien mortgages: Closed-end junior liens, HELOCs
C&I loans
CRE loans: construction, multifamily, non-farm/non-residential
Credit cards
Other consumer
Other loans
ccap: please let it slide.
consider it slidded
CR,
How does this $240B compare with the Roubini $2.6T numbers? Is that an apples to organges comparison?
White papers like this are an insult to democracy. People at those tea parties should realize that one of the key reasons their taxes are up (36% to 39%) is because the banks will need more money and Papa Hu does not look too eager to oblige.
"Looking Forward" is doing a great disservice to this country. Germany and Japan benefited a lot from dwelling on their mistakes and doing a good deal of soul searching. This nation should be discussing sanctioned torture as well as unbridled greed and transfer of wealth from poor to rich.
Societies are based on trust and cooperation.Trust in our society is rapidly diminishing and the illusory nature of the benefits that were promised to our populace is becoming clear to all.this is not a positive development...who do you trust other than a bill collector?
Hey! BSR: do you raise those exotic cows from Africa? And , how the fuck do you know if the price is going up? It already has. Just look at all the inflation we're not having. Look at it, just look dammit!
Ken - You could apply captchas only to people who post w/o registration. Registered member need not be subject to further verification.
I'm looking forward to the bankruptcy of the US either by hyperinflation or downright default. I believe it will be deflation and default. Other countries will no longer trade with us and the whole globalization experiment will come to an end. Yes we will have to make things that we want in our own country once again. Oh the horror. Bilateral trade agreements will be back en vogue the way it should have been all along, and it's the only thing that will produce meaningful sustainable jobs in our own country on a permanent basis. Tuff Shit if the globalists don't like it that way. Bilateral trade agreements would be a good place for BO to start if he really wants to fix a root cause of our problems.
You are a complete ass, comrade.
I never expected to be proven so right within months, I thought it would take years. I would accept an apology, but I don't believe you're humble enough.
Tom Stone (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:57 pm
* reply
Societies are based on trust and cooperation.Trust in our society is rapidly diminishing
wow, Tom is quite the philosopher, huh.
Night all,time for me to dance by the light of the moon!
Michael (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:59 pm
* reply
I'm looking forward to the bankruptcy of the US either by hyperinflation or downright default.
Well, good luck. How's that going so far?
Lets cut to the chase: The game the Treasury is playing is to boost people's confidence.
See posts by Jesse
and Tyler Durden 
on numerous signs of manipulation of the equity market. Too many to recap.
i THOUGHT jESSE HAD A COLD? AND WAS NOT UPDATING SIDEBARS....
DRINK KNURDS...
so much work to get a drink
Report: U.S. Household Wealth to Continue Its Trillion-Dollar Plunge
Private wealth among families in the United States is continuing to decline after dropping by a staggering $15 trillion between June 2007 and December 2008, according to a report by the Center for American Progress.
In a telephone interview, Christian E. Weller, the co-author of the report, said: “You will continue to see losses of another $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first quarter” once the numbers have been tallied up. “I would expect losses for second quarter,” said Weller, who co-wrote “Household Wealth in Freefall.”
But, he added, providing a glimmer of hope: “I don’t expect losses of the magnitude of $2 trillion to continue every quarter.”
In the report released Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based center stated that the 22.8% drop is the “sharpest relative wealth decline in 50 years.” The previous record occurred during the oil crisis in the mid-1970s when the decrease during that 8-month period was 12%.
“In terms of total wealth, I think the housing market will continue to be in a slump until the end of the year,” Weller said in the interview. “[Home] prices will continue to drop and that affects the paper wealth that almost all families have.”
Note to the Fed: Clearly some analysts have the 12 categories and related indicative loss rates. To be fair, the Fed should release this additional information ASAP.
Note to the Fed: Clearly the masses are too mentally deficient to manage their own affairs or have property rights. So it's critical that you take control over the process of wealth accumulation and day-to-day actions that give them influence in this world.
Just don't make the same mistake that Stalin and Hitler did by killing them outright... they might catch on.
Kill them with welfare and dependence.
Teach them that you'll think for them and that if they think for themselves you'll take away their free lunch.
Don't slaughter the man to win the war - his ideas and children will simply rise against you instead.
Slaughter the war and win the man.
i THOUGHT jESSE HAD A COLD
Jesse is back, baby, Jesse is back
Tom Stone (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 8:59 pm reply
Night all,time for me to dance by the light of the moon!
[insert gratuitous realtor joke here]
Aw heck, just goodnight Tom.
"Looking Forward" is doing a great disservice to this country. Germany and Japan benefited a lot from dwelling on their mistakes and doing a good deal of soul searching. This nation should be discussing sanctioned torture as well as unbridled greed and transfer of wealth from poor to rich.
So true. Arrogance and hubris keep us from moving forward by ignoring the past.
We may or may not get around to the first issue, but we will never, in our current configuration, discuss, much less punish, greed and the transfer of wealth from poor to rich. It's become an American obsession.
The sense of entitlement in this country is totally out of whack with the principles on which the country was founded.
Sure, the low end feels entitled to their gubmint check every month, but the high end, the supposedly well educated and certainly prosperous members of society have the same sense of entitlement. It is exactly the reason that CEO pay became 500 times janitorial pay, with one year's gift of those options by itself worth more than the janitor's entire extended family will earn in their cumulative lifetimes.
Steven Joyce, oops, missed that. It was pretty obvious ...
tyaresun, this is just for 13 banks, and these are just future losses (not including losses to date). So it is hard to compare.
best to all.
$15 trillion of wealth destruction so far. Wealth destruction is the most wonderful part of about the complete and total collapse of our economy.
Steven Joyce, oops, missed that. It was pretty obvious ...
Gee, CR, and here we thought you were omniscient.
What a shock to realize you're human.
A "popular" essay from another field adapted for The Economists. Something our would be Ruler Academics might consider:
Likewise, a scaling-up of [the economy] is not merely a repetition of the same elements in larger sizes, it is necessarily an increase in the number of different elements. In most cases, the elements interact with each other in some nonlinear fashion, and the complexity of the whole increases much more than linearly.
The complexity of [the economy] is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of [an economy] that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence. For three centuries, mathematics and the physical sciences made great strides by constructing simplified models of complex phenomena, deriving properties from the models, and verifying those properties by experiment. This paradigm worked because the complexities ignored in the models were not the essential properties of the phenomena. It does not work when the complexities are the essence.
Michael, if it is not too personal, what do you do for a living, might I ask?
What a shock to realize you're human.
That's what he wants you to think.
Michael, if it is not too personal, what do you do for a living, might I ask?
I bet he flies planes that emit curious smoke trails over urban areas.
"Wealth destruction" is economic semantics, of course. Most of that wealth never really existed.
How does income inequality affect our ability to recover from this depression?
To Louise:
2118 days from now it is going to snow in Corpus Christi.
Additional useless info related to economic markets:
In 2008, Fund/SERV processed 193 million transactions valued at US $2.9 trillion, from 650 fund complexes. The system supports 42,000 individual funds across multiple asset classes. Worldwide mutual fund assets were US $21.66 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2008 with a third (US$9.48 trillion) domiciled in Europe, according to The Investment Company Institute.
In 2008, DTCC settled more than US$1.88 quadrillion in securities transactions.
Doc writes: "Report: U.S. Household Wealth to Continue Its Trillion-Dollar Plunge"
What is the distribution of that "wealth destruction"? Are the 10$ with 90% of the wealth taking as much a hit (on a percentage of capital basis) as the middle class?
I'm a machinist 20 years experience. I'm on a self imposed sabbatical Ayn Rand style living off the proceeds I made after selling My house up north 4 years ago. I saw this whole thing coming and waiting out a rebirth of our nation the way it is supposed to be.
Again?
Keep the possibility of a significant monetary inflation in mind, with no advance in real terms but a handsome nominal rally.
Yes, they are that desperate and reckless and short-sighted. That's what they did in 2003 in creating the housing bubble to save Wall Street and the financial markets
jesse.
the deflation trade is wrong, why is the deaf laotion trade worng?
This may be of interest if you've had a few six packs sort of on topic?
Distressed Securities Held by Corporate Credit UnionsSummary of NCUA AnalysisApril 10, 2009
http://www.ncua.gov/CoporateStabilizationProgram/BondSummary.pdf
WesCorp has approximately 950 individual securities within its investment portfolio.WesCorp had a process for determining securities subject to Other Than TemporaryImpairment (OTTI). This process involves running securities through a series of filters thatdrive the depth of analysis and whether analysis is done internally or externally. From thisfiltering process WesCorp identified 253 securities for advanced analysis, indicating a possibility of OTTI. Of these 253 securities, 44 were subjected to external vendor analysis.Between the internal and external analysis performed, ultimately 47 of these 253 securitieswere determined to have OTTI as of December 31, 2008.Comparison of results between WesCorp’s internal analysis and the external, independentanalysis implies that had WesCorp externally modeled a greater portion of its investment portfolio, credit loss projections would have been greater resulting in greater OTTI charges.There are 37 ALT-A securities, with an approximate par value of $1.25 billion, which were allmodeled for credit losses by the following three sources: .... interesting analysis ....
Simplistically, if we don't want to inflate or borrow our way out of our toxic debts, and the Federal Govt (US citizens) ultimately must pay off the debt, and if the wealth and their advisors act to block any tax increase on the wealthy, then isn't the burden on the middle class magnified?
Basically, and purely theoretically, instead of everyone's living standard falling by 10%, the living standard of the middle class will fall by 50%?
JackRabbit,
You'll see a revolution, or at least a civil war, before that happens.
OT Here's a really good educational experience.
The Pharmacratic Inquisition
The Pharmacratic Inquisition DVD - Official Online Edition
Basically, and purely theoretically, instead of everyone's living standard falling by 10%, the living standard of the middle class will fall by 50%?
Jackrabbit, seems to me you just answered your earlier question:
How does income inequality affect our ability to recover from this depression?
My view is that the American middle class is being forced out of existence. It's been coming on for 30 years or so, but it seems the process is accelerating.
We will have the upper class, the working class and the lower class.
Considering the impact of the once-mighty middle class on the consumer based economy, and the absence of the middle class in the future, I don't know whether we "recover from this depression," much less how that might occur.
Simon Johnson on Moyers tonight: "[European] banks, seriously, right now, are too big to save, let alone too big to fail. "
You'll see a revolution, or at least a civil war, before that happens. \
TJ, the flame has been lit under the pot for some time now and the frog is still sitting peacefully in the water.
M - Thank you for your reply. It helps me understand where you're coming from. While I agree with many things you say concerning social justice, your opinions in regard to several other controversial subjects are highly suspect, if not outright offensive, IMO. You might want to moderate your posts in reference to these inflamatory subjects, and dismiss your self-styled campaign to "educate" the public. Please take this advice with my warmest regards. In all due respect, I am, ... etc, etc...
I' m not suggesting that it will happen. Income inequality increased during the boom years, and I'm just curious about the effect that has on a trouble economy with huge debts. How does income inequality in 2007 compare to income inequality in 1929?
How does income inequality in 2007 compare to income inequality in 1929?
I don't believe that's a meaningful comparison, especially given the social programs adopted since 1929.
Inequality between 1980 and today, 1990 and today and 2000 and today might provide more useful information.
Income inequality means we equalize a bit by altering the tax code. We did it before, and everyone knows it's preferable to civil war.
A few ruling families controlling the power structure may be possible in small countries. The wealthy 1% can't survive in the US without a middle class aspiring to that status.
TJ, the flame has been lit under the pot for some time now and the frog is still sitting peacefully in the water.
Granted, but as long as "the masses" have had their plasma TVs, iPhones, SUVs and stainless barbecues everyones blissfully ignorant. Take those away and there'll be hell to pay.
Larry Summers sure doesn't seem too stressed about the stress tests, snoozin'.
But I will say, Bernanke has looked at least as grim as he did during the fall and at the time of BSC collapse. Timmay seems pretty damn downbeat. They might be nervous about the coming flood or treasury issuance and the swollen Fed balance sheet at a time when they may need to pull a rabbit out of their hats.
From previous thread but it looks to me like First Bank of Idaho spent most of their money on their branch offices. I wonder if Bruce Willis had any money with these jokers; he's known to be a Ketchum/Sun Valley guy.
Just had a chance to catch up after another wild day.
I noticed that a key announcement on the NCUA website was missed in all the excitement earlier over the Credit Union Failure. Apparently the capital losses in the higher-level Corporate Credit Unions (not serving the public, but providing back-office support to the "Natural Person Credit Unions" that you and I go to), are threatening to impair their operations going forward. So the NCUA's solution is to let them pretend their capital ratios haven't changed since six months ago, unless the "OCCU Director" decides otherwise! This smells pretty nasty...
From Media Advisory - Weekly Corporate Credit Union Update - April 24, 2009
We anticipate some corporate credit unions will reflect losses that will be absorbed by capital when they post their March 31, 2009, financial statements, or should they restate their December 31, 2008, financial statements. As many of the functions that corporate credit unions perform are tied to the level of capital, there was a serious concern that they would be unable to provide normal daily operational services to their member credit unions after recording capital losses. To avoid any disruption of critical services, the NCUA Board has issued an order that will permit corporate credit unions to use the capital level as reported on their November 30, 2008, NCUA 5310 Call Report, for purposes of determining regulatory compliance with capital-based requirements and regulations in the corporate rule. However, the OCCU Director has been delegated the authority to restrict or modify this general waiver as it applies to a particular corporate credit union based on safety and soundness considerations. We believe this will allow corporate credit unions to continue to meet members’ needs while also ensuring corporates do not take additional undue risk.
The wealthy 1% can't survive in the US without a middle class aspiring to that status.
It's that aspiration that leads to the sense of entitlement the wealthy have. As long as everyone wants it and they have it, they see themselves as superior to everyone else.
If no one wanted it, i.e., if the average middle class Joe or Jane did not aspire to acquire wealth, then I believe the wealthiest 1% would indeed not hold their position for long. Joe and Jane would not tolerate it.
So far the frog is still tolerating the warm tropical water.
.....I say lets have a different kind of revolution this time.........one where no one shows up. People just start dropping out - I'll be the first. When things improve, I'll contribute again.
BSR +1000
yogi, resistance to any fundamental change is very high. There has been no change in attitudes or behavior so far. Nothing seems to change unless there is blood in the streets (literally or figuratively).
BSR, I'm trying to find a line from an old song triggered by your "People just start dropping out."
But in the process I stumbled across a more top 40 sound that sort of applies:
YouTube - Volunteers - Jefferson Airplane
I'm going to keep looking. It was a great line.
"and 2000 and today might provide more useful information"
the depression served as a wonderful corrective to the inequality of the day. i'd imagine that similar dynamics have taken place in the past year. at the very least, the property-rich upper-middle-class have done about as well in the past year as rural landholders in Ukraine did in 1930. the more stubborn roaches in the fumigation job are the CFO types who can write themselves new options packages at will.
.....I say lets have a different kind of revolution this time.........one where no one shows up. People just start dropping out - I'll be the first. When things improve, I'll contribute again.
Slacker strike!
Actually this is already happening:
Premium content | Economist.com
If social mobility continues to decline, I expect many people will just opt-out and walk the earth.
sportsfan, is it related to this?
Turn on, tune in, drop out - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reminiscent of the old 60's mantra of the hippies: "tune in, drop out"
The wealthy don't have income, they have assets. Heck in California you pay the highest rate somewhere in the mid $40k range.
The problem facing big government is the paradox between needing more money from the productive classes and thus pushing the productive classes into non-participation.
Well I signed up, I was/am the poster known as comrade lurker, decided to go with a more non-lurker moniker
"walk the earth" LOL
Jackrabbit (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:16 pm reply
Reminiscent of the old 60's mantra of the hippies: "tune in, drop out"
Ahem. Tune in, turn on and drop out.
"I expect many people will just opt-out and walk the earth"
Like Kane in Kung Fu.
People just start dropping out - I'll be the first.
Hmmmm... screw the teabag parties, let's see a middle-class strike! "A Day Without a Taxpayer"???
The issue I have with captchas is the friction. This site is often pretty chatty, and the idea of having to recognize a pattern every time you want to comment doesn't sit well. Plus many of the spambots are learning to work around them anyway.
Could we put a captcha on Lucifer, or perhaps require that he retype each comment he makes five times before it posts so we know he really means it
pushing the productive classes into non-participation.
I'm already there! I am giving notice in three weeks, reeling in all my spending, and taking some junior college classes. I'm gonna learn some science!
I'm more optimistic than some postings I've seen on CR, but I think selfish obstinancy will prevail for some time. It may take a new generation to change the culture.
As someone posted a few days or weeks ago: the rat race is over. the rats won.
Thread music:
YouTube - Legend of a Mind ~ Moody Blues
and taking some junior college classes.
I once went with a friend to a junior college enrollment session. I've never seen so many hot 18-20 year old girls in one place before.
What are you going to take?
RD, ever had acid?
Here's an interesting article from Brad DeLong. Note the 2 regarding winners & losers during the great depression and the great leveller.
Climbing Out of the Great Depression
I prefer this one, I have the dang tune stuck in my head now...for those who haven't seen it yet
YouTube - Gene Burnett - Jump You F*#kers (A Song For Wall Street)
....makes tired just thinking about it................I think teenager with problems..........no thnx, can't get past that....LOL...I MUST be old!
What are you going to take?
Chemistry, physics, biology, math, not in that order. I have three semesters worth of classes all mapped out.
Unfortunately I'll be taking them in the central valley, so all my 18-20 year old classmates will all probably be dirt poor hispanic farmers.
barfly (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:34 pm reply
RD, ever had acid?
No, but I can synthesize pretty much anything. Lots of years in organic and quant/qual chem labs.
dirt poor, hispanic, and farmer do not mean they are hideous she-beasts that will turn you to stone
Lysergic acid diethylamide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
@Hoop: "dirt poor hispanic farmers."
Better recheck your local campus demographics. If this is the central valley from Sacramento down past Stockton, you'll find it's Red State Republican territory with a lot of white folks too.
Also, don't underestimate the power of motivation for those working their way out of that dirt poverty state.
No, but I can synthesize pretty much anything.
That explains Jim's "tastiest coffee ever".
TJ and The Bear (profile) wrote on Fri, 4/24/2009 - 10:59 pm reply
No, but I can synthesize pretty much anything.
That explains Jim's "tastiest coffee ever".
LOL! Even worse my bad influence has got him to buy an iPhone.
dirt poor, hispanic, and farmer do not mean they are hideous she-beasts that will turn you to stone
I hit this JC up like 10 years ago when I was in my pre-college days. These people are not hittable.
Unfortunately I'll be taking them in the central valley, so all my 18-20 year old classmates will all probably be dirt poor hispanic farmers.
Well, the place I toured was in central FL, which is definitely of the Latin persuasion. Poor or not, they were definitely hittable.
Out of curiosity, what career are you leaving?
Securities attorney at one of the biggest firms doing bailout stuff. Yeah.
I expect many people will just opt-out and walk the earth.
Have you considered my servant, Job? A blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?
Securities attorney at one of the biggest firms doing bailout stuff. Yeah.
Ah. Well, you'll need a better background story for the young latinas in your math class. No one's going to believe you otherwise
Hoop, you should consider screen-writing. Work for yourself.
I actually do a little writing in my spare time. Mostly pranks. You wouldn't believe it but some of the hoaxes I've written have made it onto the national news.
The law job has screwed up my writing abilities, though. I hope after a few months they'll come back. Just not as creative as I used to be.
You wouldn't believe it but some of the hoaxes I've written have made it onto the national news.
Al Gore speechwriter?
You wouldn't believe it but some of the hoaxes I've written have made it onto the national news.
Somehow,... I think we'd believe it. Were you the one responsible for TARP? That prank gone awry?
Hoops, you have written some of the best stuff I've ever read, for being written off the cuff. I can only imagine what you are capable of if you actually try.
Securities attorney. You know where the bodies are. You can't just leave the family.
What a journey through songs about revolution and I can't even link the soundtrack. The name doesn't even exist on youtube.
It's not under Jefferson Airplane lyrics (173 songs)
It's not under Jefferson Starship lyrics (101 songs)
It's under Paul Kantner . . . even though it was Grace Slick singing.
From Blows Against the Empire
The Song A Child Is Coming
What are we gonna do when Uncle Samuel comes around
Askin' for the young one's name
And lookin' for the print of his hand for the files in their numbers game
I don't want his chances for freedom to ever be that slim
Let's not tell 'em about him —
Okay, so that was a very long way to go for a tenuous connection at best.
But they did that well over a decade before Uncle Samuel required babies to have official numbers, as they do today.
It's hard to dropout once you're in the system, but if you never get put into the system . . . .
Low blow, Dawg- (but funny LOL)
If there is no large middle class in western countries, the corrupt rich in south american, asian and african countries will lose power.. who are they going to sell stuff to? who will give them money? can they or will they be able to buy second homes in the west? send their kids here? have a first world type lifestyle..
Think about it.
Tupuli, no, I finally linked the words, but the way it was sung was more emphatic.
i heard an entertaining sermon on 'the mark of the beast' while driving through the central valley - california stereotypes to the contrary, it is 90% christian radio once you leave the SF market driving north. Head or the hand... gotsta have that social # to have a job or a bank account!
CCR - Fortunate Son
I am surprised that so many of you believe that conspiracy type stuff can be pulled off an industrial scale.
While I am sure that there are many who would like to be the real 'illuminati', the chaotic nature of the universe and size/complexity of human civilization make that impossible.
I could give you complex examples to explain the why, but lets stick with the simpler examples.
Humans cannot control-
Their life (even if you are a CEO of a big industrial bank, you can still get terminal cancer.. or die otherwise)
Their relationships (wifes, kids, friends, accquaintances can turn against you or disappoint you).
Unforeseen events ( natural or man-made calamities).
At best, some people can get lucky for a decade or two and exert some influence, until the universe changes directions.. again.
HollywoodHack,
I have to confess that abrahamic religions do not make sense to me..
The God in most religions does too many questionable things and is to personal to be all powerful. It is not unlikely that the gods in most religions were ET (yes.. I know that is an old idea.. but it makes a lot of sense)
Best of luck, Hoop. You'll be much happier in the long run, though perhaps not as handsomely compensated for your time.
CCR - Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
"I have to confess that abrahamic religions do not make sense to me.."
You mean that if, on a camping trip, you stumbled upon a man who was holding a huge knife, had his kid tied up and seemed to be listening to an invisible voice - that would strike you as strange? (Genesis 22:10)
barfly, CCR is always a good choice, but since I had the opportunity to review a lot of lyrics and hear a lot of songs tonight, I have to say that this is one of the best combinations I came across:
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low.
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.
When logic and proportion
Have fallen softly dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the doormouse said:
Then, when I think how Walt Disney was able to get into Lewis Carroll's head and put it visually into a cartoon before most people even knew what psychedlics was, makes it all seem worthwhile.
Feed your head. Goodnight, all
Funny, but this came out today and I don't see any green shoots of recovery
IEA Oil Market Report
US Total Product Demand
http://omrpublic.iea.org/demand/us_tp_ov.pdf
One rabbinic interpretation of the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is that it is God punishing Abraham for the way he treated his son Ishmael in the previous chapter.
At his wife Sarah's request, he had sent Ishmael and his mother Hagar into the desert to fend for themselves. Sarah had seen Ishmael teasing Isaac and was either afraid for his safety or determined to eliminate the competition, depending on interpretation.
Abraham smashed the idols. Today he would throw a brick through a bank's window, or maybe disrupt a Larry Summers interview.
Good find mp. It seems that the market is willing to discount such figures as they pertain to the real economy. Likewise with UE. Apparently GPD is scheduled to expand with nary an uptick in either trend.
No green shoots of recovery here either
American Association of Railroads
Rail Traffic- Week Ending April 18, 2009
"Sharp Decline Reported in Rail Freight Traffic"
Association of American Railroads
So if by an Abrahamic religion you mean Judaism, the point is we don't worship Abraham, or call him or any human a saint. We tell his story, the good,bad, and ugly, and try to learn something.
January finished petroleum products back to 2003 levels.
Natural Gas and Petroleum Navigator Error Page
We might actually end up reducing our carbon footprint by 10% as promised just not how we planned it.
Good night and good luck.
1 currency now -yogi: Or maybe disrupt one of Larry's naps.
The discussion about religion is not so much deserving as it is sedulous. Suffice my position to be in agreement with my wife's. The whole thing is a scam perpetrated by men as a way to subjugate women. That men have gotten away with it for so long is a fitting testament to the ability of women to absorb punishment. Oh, BTW, should you or any others feel the need to agree, support or in any way incline your thoughts and prayers in my direction; a tithe would be appreciated. My PayPal account is standing by. Don't go cheap. Man up.
Lucifer: the gods were not ET. They were more along the lines of that which is described in "The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". A must read for even the most common house wife.
Flu news:
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Paradigm Lost,
Thanks for the DeLong link!
from Pavel's flu-link: "Finnish rock band The Rasmus canceled a Mexico City concert and the Mexican Football Federation said two weekend soccer matches would be played with no spectators present as a precaution."
They offered to have The Rasmus play with no spectators but then they'd have to cancel the soccer!
Calculated Risk:
Clearly Westwood Capital has the indicative loss rates - doesn't that create an unfair playing field that some people have the information and others do not?
Is not fault, is feature. Otherwise Goldman-Sachs can't take away record profits. Of course insiders are being provided with all this information for trading purposes. How else are they going to recapitalize the banks? And if this seems like robbing the retail investor by rigging the stock market, we'll just wave the flag of potential civil disorder. It's for the security of the state that the rich are made richer on the backs of the poor.
Expediency justifies everything and nothing. Not just me being pithy I don't think, I think they are doing it the way they see as natural and I think that's the reason why we can't get solid policy -- what is seen as "good" and "normal" is at odds with what people from the modern public policy paradigm expect.
"Expediency justifies everything and nothing."
The tragedy of a world cut loose from traditional moral systems.
Interesting times: a "top secret" stress test paper by the BaFin (German equivalent to the FDIC) was leaked to the press
(link to Bloomberg article). Bad credits and toxic papers add up to 812 (816 according to German newspapers) billion Euros (more than 1 trillion US$) for German banks. Roughly 44% of this is located at "state banks" (Landesbanken).
The news magazine "Spiegel" now reports that federal and state goverments have to close a deal on Monday to prevent one of the "Landesbanken" from failing within the next couple of months.
"two year cum losses of 12% on commercial real-estate loans"
they must be kidding. I look very closely at loans made after 2005 and when loans go into default, re-appraisals are down by at least 25%. It takes a year or more to liquidate the loans, and although there haven't been all that many liquidations (due to the difficulty of getting new loans to refinance), average losses are on the order of 40%.
Hoops,
Start with the math - be sure it is the calculus for science and engineering track - particularly before doing the physics.
Is not fault, is feature.
BR, fault or feature, what is described is facilitation of insider trading - providing select clients with privileged information. Surely this is proscribed somewhere in SEC codes or regs?
Have I overstated or misunderstood?
pavel.chichikov (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 7:20 am
The tragedy of a world cut loose from traditional moral systems.
"Kill them all, God will know his own" -- it's not precisely about moral systems, but about the willingness of societies to discipline themselves into formal methods. I think it's more about general education -- you need a fairly sophisticated, abstractly-oriented viewpoint to understand why taking the direct route to the solution of a serious problem is often a decisive mistake.
Sorry if I am naive here, but I'm genuinely shocked.
burnside (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 8:53 am
Have I overstated or misunderstood?
Nope. The people on the inside of the us banking policy establishment are totally beholden to vested interests inside the upper echelons of the banking industry. From the current regulatory perspective, what is good for Wall Street banking is not just good for America, it's indistinguishable.
Thus, they will do "anything" -- a patriotic concept of unimpeachable quality, long established as encompassing contempt for the rule of law, torture, kidnapping of foreign nationals, and the destruction of the Bill of Rights -- in order to "save the country". That it is criminal or misguided or self-defeating is immaterial, as we have long established as a society, what is important is the fig leaf of public emergency or threat to the public.
To what degree they are criminal and to what degree criminally naive is something that would have to be ascertained via investigation. It's easy to say they're criminals, but I imagine many of them are just "useful idiots". You constantly see people claiming "the Constitution isn't a suicide pact" -- as if we didn't draft to war and administer capital punishment under its rubric -- so it is likely that is a though-form shared in those circle, as in every other. People just don't have the concept set to frame the multigenerational impact of the decline of personal and administrative standards.
I'm not shocked. I've seen too much amateur conspiracy stuff lately. TPTB haven't adapted well to collective intelligence.
burnside (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 9:00 am
Sorry if I am naive here, but I'm genuinely shocked.
I'm sorry. It must suck just hitting it. This is the way things run here now.
Byz, I've recognized the presence of unethical behavior in individuals or even claques within government all my adult life - have seen it swing through some dark episodes - and questioned whether or not it would right itself or capsize.
Don't know why this particular development, rather than others in recent years, should finally break my confidence - possibly that it raises no significant commentary except among ourselves, and that it seems evidence of a specific continuity undisturbed by regime change.
Well, you'll know what I mean.
I'm sorry. It must suck just hitting it. This is the way things run here now.
Well, don't be sorry.
I've got some elemental assumptions to revisit. In fact, thanks.
Traderwalt: You're welcome.
Lucifer (profile) wrote on Sat, 4/25/2009 - 1:51 am reply If there is no large middle class in western countries, the corrupt rich in south american, asian and african countries will lose power.. who are they going to sell stuff to?
The corrupt rich will still get their billions in bribes. They don't need the peons as long as they have the transnats run by the billionaire boyz. Close the tax havens down and shine a light on cockroaches like Cheney's KBR & Halliburton.
Check it out:
FRONTLINE/World: The Business of Bribes | PBS
mp: Thanks for the links.
Pavel, Byz: You can always create law to make any action legal. But is it ethical? We are at the cosmic nexus between the two. Americans will have to choose. Time to call for a Pecora-like commission. The citizens of my village don't know how we got where we are today. Shine a light on it.
Thanks for the advice and words of encouragement guys.
They were more along the lines of that which is described in "The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". A must read for even the most common house wife.
Ah yes, Julian Jaynes, my old beat up copy is staring back at me from the bookshelf as we speak.
While there were some parts of that book that I did not agree with, that book is probably one of the most important I have ever read in shaping the way I look at the world around me, and my fellow human beings.
Islam is an Abrahamic religion.
I suspect the Real Abraham not not Jewish in any sense that we would recognize now.
But there is no knowing.
Prolly no one would read this but old testament stories about rising on a "pillar of fire" sound like what a launch looks like.
This is prolly complete nonsense.
Don't know why this particular development, rather than others in recent years, should finally break my confidence - possibly that it raises no significant commentary except among ourselves, and that it seems evidence of a specific continuity undisturbed by regime change.
Well, you'll know what I mean.
Yep. You have your finger on it, I'd say.
I unfortunately had a prescient mix of security-development emphasis and really solid Japanese political economy teachers, so I was like "oh here we go" 15 years ago when policy cohort uptake size and entrant quality started declining precipitously and public-private captivity became fully entrenched.
LL: Muslim tradition claims descendancy from Ishmael, the son Abraham had with his concubine. Jews don't dispute it.
By smashing the idols and insisting on an abstract concept of god, Abraham (not a proven historical person) is considered the first Jew.