Why wouldn't he be? Monetary/credit/debt destruction still outpaces monetization, and there's no chance in heck we're going to see wage inflation anytime soon.
For no reason at all, we already had a 250 point rally day this week. If the jobs number isn't horrible beyond belief, we could have another one tomorrow.
Gold and some energy has saved my sorry ass from my ill timed shorts. The recession will end because of increasing energy prices and rising interest rates?
People who have to put gas in their cars? Kind of a big deal, that whole gasoline being a "life tax" here in America.
LOL. Gas is not high. Heck, it even isn't high at 3.00 on average(4.00 in higher living cost areas). People got used to absurdly low costs of gas in the 90's when the country was booming.
Tell me when gas hits 4.00 bucks on average again. Then we begin to worry.
If people can't stand 2.75 gas prices, then the economy is still in recession and it will collapse again anyway.
I remain puzzled that the ad revenue model works for blogs like Mish's or CR's.
Many of these ads are for "still low" mortgage rates and I seriously doubt that people who read these blogs end up taking out these mortgages. Same goes for auto insurance, cell phones, and the like
I suppose those advertisers still pay for eyeballs, regardless of whether they actually generate any sales
I have to agree with you that $3.00 gasoline is not high. Given that there is almost no oil production in this country, and the dollar is still falling, $3.00 is not that bad.
BTW, NatGas, which has been cheap due to large finds in domestic U.S shale beds, may be about to get much more expensive. The administration is preparing to regulate hydraulic fractionation, which heretofore has been specifically unregulated.
TJ and The Bear (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 9:22 pm
Nemo,
Why wouldn't he be? Monetary/credit/debt destruction still outpaces monetization, and there's no chance in heck we're going to see wage inflation anytime soon.
How can you NOT be in the deflation "camp"? At least $7T evaporated in home mortgages alone. A major high-wage sector of the economy simply imploded (aptly named "FIRE"). That's not even touching the derivatives minefield. On top of this savings rises, credit contracting, lending standards rising... and consumer attitudes toward debt and spending are changing. Actual tight money added to the economy is a drop in the bucket next to these factors. Home loan subsidy and readjustment nonsense are also dwarfed in comparison. IMHO anything but deflation right now is a fairy tale outcome people believe because they want to (or have to) hear it, but of course I could be wrong. I just strongly suspect I'm not. We don't appreciate the raw magnitudes at work here and overemphasize the day-to-day parts we can relate to.
sm_landlord (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:41 pm
Eras End,
I have to agree with you that $3.00 gasoline is not high. Given that there is almost no oil production in this country, and the dollar is still falling, $3.00 is not that bad.
Logistics sets the line beyond which the strategist dare not tread.
I used to read MiSh before I discovered CR. Does he still have a blog?
Just kidding, Mike. FWIW, I am also convinced that deflation will stick around for awhile. But when inflation does return - Prepare to shit some bricks.
If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple.
The fact is, I'll drive for a damn long time paying inflated gas prices but the economic calculation is a lot different for the $8-10/hour folks with families. Entitlement programs will actually pay better than a lot of jobs once transportation is factored out. Not that anyone should be surprised by gas prices again, considering that IB's were buying and leasing oil tankers to store the stuff. The first rule of a casino is that the house never loses money.
CR - Thanks for posting that.
Watching it now while I drink a homebrew, and brew a blonde.
So you mean everything is not fixed? That's not what my magic 8 ball and CNBC says.
if you are logged in, new comments appear automatically.
if you aren't, you'll see a line much like the haloscan one ('there are at least X comments...')
if you are bandwidth conscious, you can switch to manual updates, by clicking on the 'here' link in the box at the end. The manual updates will have the same behavior as automatic ones, i.e. they will be inserted inline rather than refreshing the entire page.
if you want to be old school, you can always refresh your browser page.
I'm going to be monitoring this and see if it adds excessive load to the server. My hunch/hope is that it will actually lower it.
People burn something like half their annual consumption of fuel commuting. Another big part is buyin' shit. Combine these two and it is something like 80% of fuel consumption.
So... drive a vehicle that has better fuel efficiency and move closer to work & stores.
If you exchange your typical gas hog at say 20 mpg for a 40 mpg vehicle... and move halfway to work/stores [halve the distance]... you reduce your fuel usage by 50%. [Edit: Do BOTH simultaneously and fuel usage is cut by almost 75%].
We actually did some of this - I drive for a living [huge distances]... and my wife has a long commute. We traded in 20 mpg vehicles for 50 mpg vehicles. I also work from my home office a lot more now too. We might move closer to my wife's employer if she continues to work there. We have already cut our personal fuel usage in half. If we move closer to her job we can probably cut it another half of that.
It isn't something people do in a week - but it is easily doable. People just have to want to make it happen.
It's always felt to me like this blog was a very successful hybrid between comments and IRC. Sort of a running salon, where the ever gracious host moves the party to another room when things get stale. So this seemed a natural extension.
Well I finished listening to the entire video - totally excellent... This sort of grass roots movement to restrict govt spending is what I have been waiting and hoping for.
dryfly (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:11 pm
So... drive a vehicle that has better fuel efficiency and move closer to work & stores.
Best of both for me. I did run the numbers on the difference between a hybrid and non-hybrid on Civic/Accord/Prius a couple years ago when I was buying, and even with an assumption in the neighborhood of 4.50, it would take over 14 years for me to have equalized the price difference based on a worst-case annual driving distance. Sometimes a hybrid makes sense but so much of this fuel crisis stuff is knee-jerk response. Not that I doubt hybrids and alternatives will become more affordable in the longer term. I still get 36-38 highway, 34-35 city, 31-33 in the cold winter months so the difference is not tht great versus something that guzzles fuel and has a good chance of killing the other motorist if I caused an accident.
Ken, in all honestly this commenting system is the best I've seen around by far. Which sadly makes me think soon JS-Kit will be making you an offer to keep a continual lid on the competition.
And good call on the Pig. I'm sure Nemo appreciates it!
kcoop (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:17 pm
It's always felt to me like this blog was a very successful hybrid between comments and IRC. Sort of a running salon, where the ever gracious host moves the party to another room when things get stale. So this seemed a natural extension.
Excellent insight there! This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
re oil prices -- many people that i know live in a state of perpetual financial ruin. any unexpected cost is a disaster. a broken windshield can lead to a late rent payment which causes a fine which causes the cell phone payment to be late, etc... high gas prices kill these people. they go from having a a few extra bucks a month (they live month-to-month) to having a deficit. i have no idea how they can all sleep at night, but that is how they live.
i only burn about 20 gallons a month so i don't really care what prices do. plus i'm a compulsive saver.
When I was looking for a new vehicle in 2003, even doubling the cost of gas at the time, it would have taken about 10 years to pay for the difference between a hybrid and a Honda civic. Plus, at the end of ten years you're stuck with an experimental vehicle with an aging battery pack. Plus, how much lead do those lead-acid batteries evaporate off anyway?
Just buy something with the best gas mileage you can afford.
This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
I think what makes this place different is not the tech, but the people. My guess is the average age of participants here is much higher than most communities, and I mean that in a positive respectful way. There are not only a lot of smart people hanging out here, but people with experience and wisdom. The tech is just the cherry on top.
When I was looking for a new vehicle in 2003, even doubling the cost of gas at the time, it would have taken about 10 years to pay for the difference between a hybrid and a Honda civic. Plus, at the end of ten years you're stuck with an experimental vehicle with an aging battery pack. Plus, how much lead do those lead-acid batteries evaporate off anyway?
Just buy something with the best gas mileage you can afford.
I don't own a hybrid - I drive a diesel Jetta TDI. It actually costs LESS than my previous vehicles and gets ~50 mpg.
Looking at getting a new car now, the Insight looks good, but I don't think I will like the shape and driving of it, but I think I'll take it for a test drive.
Insight is really ugly... the problem with hybrids is after a few years you have to replace the batteries at a huge cost - you are not going to run one of those things 20 years like a gas engine or diesel car...
Comrade Coinz (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:32 pm
This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
I think what makes this place different is not the tech, but the people. My guess is the average age of participants here is much higher than most communities, and I mean that in a positive respectful way. There are not only a lot of smart people hanging out here, but people with experience and wisdom. The tech is just the cherry on top.
Right... I just took it for granted that the community here is distinguished from most, that is largely self-evident I think after a few weeks of lurking. But the tech is also different than anything I've seen, and has a very nice minimalism to its interface so I don't feel like I'm being pounded on by bloated Javascript XML-RPC clients
So a diesel Jetta? You know, once they get the particulates filtered out, diesels are cleaner than gas engines.
Even w/out particulate traps if the engine is well designed & maintained it is 'as clean'. With the traps they are even better. Plus w/ the turbo & high 'low end' torque... they scream.
The only time our Jettas smoke is when they are cold on start up... or in aggressive start stop. We drive open highway long distances at steady speeds almost 90% of the time. Perfect application for a diesel. If we were urban I'd look at a hybrid more carefully.
For iphone users, I recommend you go to the manual mode (click on the 'here' link in that box). Otherwise, you'll be chewing up your battery as it pings the server. It should refresh much faster when you click the manual refresh link than refreshing the page.
The page itself loading slowly... that I haven't experienced with mine. It loads as fast as other pages anyway.
dryfly (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:32 pm
I don't own a hybrid - I drive a diesel Jetta TDI. It actually costs LESS than my previous vehicles and gets ~50 mpg.
Good choice... though you say you travel extensively in your work, so technically you'll be able to justify almost any crazy hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle they manage to invent!
Good choice... though you say you travel extensively in your work, so technically you'll be able to justify almost any crazy hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle they manage to invent!
Except I'm self-employed and it comes out of MY pocket even if it is the 'before tax' pocket.
Problem with diesel is that it comes from about the same cut in the distillation tower as number 2 home heating oil, so you are competing for supply with folks trying to heat their houses. Also, a lot of refinery debottlenecking projects are really excuses to upgrade distillates to mogas, further impacting supply.
I remember living in a house built in the 1950s that burned heating oil.
The house I live in now was UPGRADED to heating oil... it first burned coal. It was then upgraded again to natural gas later... that NEW furnace is the one we got now and it was put in sometime around 1970. The guy who maintains it says there is no reason to put a high efficiency in an old house like mine - I have very little insulation [none in the walls - only in the attic].
I do supplement though with a wood stove. Wood is free around here.
I'm surprised you haven't put insulation in. Aren't there some options out there that don't require tearing out the drywall?
It isn't drywall it is lathe & plaster... the only insulation is old newspapers from WWI - I know from when we put in a wood stove. There is no insulation product available for an old house like this unless we take off the siding and then 'wrap' and insulate. Even then you have to be very careful.
The problem is that the winters in Minnesota are so cold... moisture migrates through the wall and will condense & freeze in the insulation. Venting & 'breathing' is really critical to avoid dry rot & mold later when all that 'frost' melts.
New homes don't have as many issues with dry rot as old ones do... my house was started in 1915 and finished in 1919 - it took the owner that long to build it [DIYer].
The siding is 'original' [and looks it] - when I finally bite the bullet & reside then I'll look into somekind of insulation.
Irony is that old houses like mine are usually small - mine is 1200 sqft - and because it is small it doesn't take much to heat it even with bad insulation. I have friends w/ 3000 sqft highly 'insulated homes' who spend more on energy than I do by a lot.
"If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple."
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
Or did you just mean don't tow your 24 foot boat behind your hummer? Most people are not really in that situation, you know. The lifestyle changes have been and are being made as more people lose their jobs etc.
If you don't like taxes, don't pay them. If your lifestyle is such that you have to pay them, go to jail. It really is that simple.
Dryfly
"We drive open highway long distances at steady speeds almost 90% of the time. Perfect application for a diesel. If we were urban I'd look at a hybrid more carefully."
Exactly diesel pollution increases and mileage decreases significantly in urban driving. Hybrids are for city driving they offer really no benefit on the freeway except for small efficient engines and transmissions.
All that emissions equipment on the new diesels is expensive and may cost more than hybrid IMO in the long run as catalysts prices, urea injectors will stay high or go higher batteries will get cheaper or stay about the same but become more efficient over time
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
That is just BS.
Most people drive way more car than they need a lot farther than they need to and then trade them in before they are worn out and finance the shit out of all of it & don't have an ounce of imagination to think it can be any different than it is. Then wonder why they are broke.
No offense, I just figured you'd have a little more space, given things are a little less expensive in flyover country.
LOL - we raised three kids dogs, cats, and just about went crazy at times in that shack. One thing for sure - in a small house you kick the kids outside to play a lot... even if it is 20 below.
anoddamoose (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 11:38 pm
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
...
If you don't like taxes, don't pay them. If your lifestyle is such that you have to pay them, go to jail. It really is that simple.
Actually, you could draw unemployment during this time, ditch the car to stay at home, qualify for food stamps, apply for income-sensitive housing, and probably live better doing nothing than you would have working (moreso if there are also kids, no longer need daycare expenses). On top of this, you're now unemployed so you owe no taxes. Meanwhile a lot of employed suckers with decent jobs will work F/T to get a standard of living just marginally higher... until, of course, they decide it's not worth the effort anymore.
It's gonna be really interesting to watch this country over the next several years...
I've heard you talk about all of them, which is why my head is still shaking. There's just two of us and one BIG shepherd and we feel like we never have enough space. You definitely live well beneath your means, and I admire that.
Mish is a pretty thoughful guy and has some pretty good ideas, I just disagree with many of them... And a riveting speaker - not so much.
Seems like the current concern is inflation, or deflation. I don't see it in quite those simple either/or terms. I think either of those could happen, but IMO that's not the next majot concern. I am becoming convinced we're heading into a dollar crash - something the Fed/USG will have little control over once it tips over. The entire financial system and what remains of the real economy is so impaired and unstable that holding it together in a tight band between inflation/deflation seems to me impossible to do. Also tough to prepare for. We'll see.
I've heard you talk about all of them, which is why my head is still shaking. There's just two of us and one BIG shepherd and we feel like we never have enough space. You definitely live well beneath your means, and I admire that.
We do some dumb money stuff from time to time but because we have the small cheap house the dumb stuff hasn't been fatal - at least not yet.
I admire folks like you who live where it IS expensive & make many if not all the right choices so you can live well. One of my kids is thinking about moving west when she is done w/ school - I tell her you can live well in Cali... but expect to rent or go broke. She gets it.
BTW - you should see the pile of wood I'm putting together this summer... I have it all over the front yard as we speak - hope to get it cut up tomorrow then go get more... all your 'doomer' talk has me cutting like a SOB!
Fascinating article I found over at Nathan's site about bond auctions (plus gold and equities). Writing style is a bit Jim Willie-ish but gives a good picture of how things work to the bond virgin. On the other hand any times I see the words Comex default I worry that I have just lost five minutes of my life reading some nutter's nonsense. I'd be interested in comments.
Interesting...in the comments someone refers to Germany demanding all their gold back and this is the third time I have read about it this week. Also on the news last nite they were talking about Barackalypse being in Germany to visit Angela Merkel and how relations were strained. I couldn't think why that would be so maybe Germany demanding it's gold back might have something to do with it?
My biggest problem with mish is his arrogance that he knows for sure that we will have deflation.
I've questioned him a bit on his blog a couple times and his replies were generally beside the point.
Fiat money is a human creation and history shows examples of both hyperinflationary and deflationary depressions. There have been many more severe versions of the former and IMO the largest deciding factor of the outcome is the country's external debt load. Even though I am very opinionated I won't say that I'm sure hyperinflation will happen because in the end I believe it has to do with the actions of a relatively small group of people.
btw,
I've cut at least 10 cord so far this year and have about 7 stacked. Only half is more me the rest for my dad.
And on the car topic I use 0% of my gas for commuting(and I do have a job).!
I've cut at least 10 cord so far this year and have about 7 stacked. Only half is more me the rest for my dad.
And on the car topic I use 0% of my gas for commuting (and I do have a job).!
You da man!!! Now I have an urge to get out there cutting TONIGHT!
I won't get that much cut and stacked though we used to do it every year when my father was still alive - heck we cut & stacked about five cords in a single week just a little over a month before he died... I guess there is a lesson there... when in your mid-eighties no green bananas and no more wood than you can burn NOW!
FWIW - my neighbors are getting mighty tired of listening to my chain saw...
OK, so it's not that simple I guess. If it costs me $4.00 a gallon to drive my car, it's costing those who deliver goods to retailers the same. Ergo, the price of everything I purchase, along with gasoline increases in cost. As things increase in cost, I have to make choices as to what I purchase, thus my consumption decreases. When enough people decrease their consumption retailers either lower their cost or go out of business, because their are no buyers for their product. (Harley Davidson is a good example of this). So Mish is right despite what you think. it's deflation or survival. Which do you think works out?
Interesting to see Mish, thanks for the video. Deflation vs. inflation.
There's no word for it as far as I can tell but I think we're facing commodity inflation and wage deflation. Wages will stay/drop due to continuing global arbitrage and people dropping discretionary expenses. Commodities will rise due to dollar devaluation and monetization of the debt.
It's sort of cost-push except more narrowly defined. It's what you'd expect at the end of an empire - the currency becomes worth less and the citizens of empire struggle to make ends meet. Taxes seem high and headed higher. I don't see how this general trend could be reversed.
woah - dry with the p-funk reference... didn't see that one coming...
what a hallucinatory nightmare for short sellers - head and shoulders patterns are everywhere, one day, three day, five day, etc... but, as always, is this the head...
Now I have an urge to get out there cutting TONIGHT!
Just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods and am currently reading Little House on the Prairie to my daughter; ...that Pa Ingalls did a lot of work!
NervousRex (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:43 pm
There's no word for it as far as I can tell but I think we're facing commodity inflation and wage deflation.
Oh there's words for that alright but this is a family blog.
ShadowInventory ( wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 8:22 pm
Well I finished listening to the entire video - totally excellent... This sort of grass roots movement to restrict govt spending is what I have been waiting and hoping for.
SI thats only part of the story
the issue thats as big or bigger is balance of trade (current account deficit)
TJ,
Yes thanks, and it's a lot worse. The backfill for CalPERS and CalSTRS is also growing due to unexpected conditions.
Did you especially like how the current UE benefits are being paid by a no interest balloon loan from Uncle sugar de 2011? CA infrastructure bonds are yielding 5.75% double tax free. The ATMs are shutting down.
The green shoots are already withering, state & local budgets are turning into smokin' craters, Chrysler (and thus GM's) BK's are threatening to go off the tracks, CRE is starting to catch up, and now mortgage rates are rising fast enough to put RRE into arrhythmia.
Things are getting REAL interesting. Is that second, BIGGER wave on the horizon? Could be, could be.
There's a little of revisionist history going on here.
Mish is right that he was predicting the top of the real estate market (and the stock markets) in 2005. Trouble is he was 18 months and 30-40% early. anyone following his advice in 2005-2006 would have been losing a lot of money. I know--I was one of them.
Mish's problem is that he has tunnel-vision. He thinks everyone should be like him, shopping for $1.99 beef and storing it away in the freezer.
The American Consumerism that Mish is always stridently railing against was not the cause of this bubble. It's a separate issue that was exacerbated by the housing bubble. Mish often conflates and equates the two.
Sometimes, i get next to hybrids with my huge, comfortable Ford Powerstroke and mash the throttle. Give them a big blast of black, unburned sooty fuel over their hood and I STILL get 25 MPG mixed.
Hybrid owners think they are better than everybody else. Why is that???
Just kidding, hell if I lived somewhere like SanFran,I would probably have one too. Nah, diesel Jetta. Nothing like fuel that will store for years properly conditioned and wont blow up with a spark from the sweater Aunt Myrtle knitted you for Christmas.
A truly advanced modern society can only achieve the efficiency gains required to maintain consensus of the containment of doubt in the derivative of forward expectations by embracing the militaryfinancialnonprofitllcgovernmentalbankinghedgefunddrugtrade integration throughout all segments of the global economy.
I agree ziemsdmb. I can tell this guy has some good insights,and is very smart, but he is so one sided on the whole world view that I just have to discredit his judgment overall.
The whole thing about bringing all of our troops home now etc etc is so Ron Paul BS that I just tuned him out after that.
Yes Iraq, maybe Afghanistan, but to imply that our footprint in the world does not bolster our economy is quite frankly ridiculous. And I find it ironic he references WWII later on, and totally ignores the complexities of that global war...
You dismiss the notion of bringing troops home as shallow Ron Paul BS. Then you claim we should continue to bolster our economy by keeping a large (military) footprint. WTF are you smoking? A large imperialistic military generally leads to the collapse of advanced societies. It does not bolster our economy except by consuming and taking on ever larger debt loads which is our problem exactly!
"A large imperialistic military generally leads to the collapse of advanced societies".
That and hollowed out manufacturing base and huge debt load. That is already perfect trifecta. Add to that plutocracy plus dependency of foreign oil plus thousands of nutty armed extremist groups and the Bismarck clause on American luckiness has been revoked by the Gods of Cobol
You attack mish...
"And I find it ironic he references WWII later on, and totally ignores the complexities of that global war..."
Yet you say...
"a large footprint over the last 50 years helped us accomplish our world dominance."
I guess "our world dominance" had nothing to do with our abundant resources and the fact that so many other countries had be destroyed by WWII. Cause, meet effect.
Sometimes, i get next to hybrids with my huge, comfortable Ford Powerstroke and mash the throttle. Give them a big blast of black, unburned sooty fuel over their hood and I STILL get 25 MPG mixed.
Diesel exhaust is de'stanki and bad for you. But never fear the Hippies have made sure that your next diesel will be neutered (fitted with a catalytic converter) And yes if you lived in San Francisco, you might get tired of parking that Ford. The millage much less than 25mpg. Then there are the visits to the brake shop every 5000-10000 miles.
Hybrid owners think they are better than everybody else. Why is that???
Everyone thinks they're better than everyone else. As any monkey knows, when a persons guilty pleasure meets with another persons self satisfied smug, then there will be poo. (flung that is)
PS: One thing about hybrids. Really they're a good idea. But as a technology it's new and close to break out. The systems will get better (much better) and cheaper as times go on.
moola and ziemsdmb are members for two hours and post within minutes of each other
when the NSA and CIA types start crawling out from under their rocks one has to wonder whether they are on a mission from Darth or Death
Ron Paul a racist? misogynistic? joke?
And, not to put too fine a point on it, but; Mish is not drab, he's a dweeb, a nebbish. He spent most of his adult life locked in sterile computer vaults dealing with 1's and 0's.
Now he's been jettisoned into the sunlight and discovers dealing with conflicting points of view more complicated. As a result, he rips anyone who disagrees with him. It's all good.
so this is the 'god-like' Mish whose name has been bandied about since I first discovered this site last July.....
I'm waiting for the entire YouTube download....
Some months I created a new award called the Javier Bardem Bad Haircut Award (named after a writer acquaintance of mine named Tom Perotta who wrote
a great collection of short stories in the mid 90s called Bad Haircut) .... previous award winners include Richard Pena who is a major honcho of the NY film
festival world....
why Javier Bardem? remember that hairdo he sported in No Country for Old Men?
I nominate Mish for the award!
ps... the guy who introduced him must not have a wife, that polo striped polo shirt was dog ugly ... perhaps nobody clued him in that it was going to
be taped...
Rick Burns is another future recipient but I can't locate any bowl cut photos of his around the time Civil War was released ....
"And, not to put too fine a point on it, but; Mish is not drab, he's a dweeb, a nebbish. He spent most of his adult life locked in sterile computer vaults dealing with 1's and 0's."
hence, the 'look' he 'sports'! I think I've got one more vote here for the Bad Haircut Award...
To Ken Cooper and CR... on a side I believe if someone invokes the Caesar-like Ignore User that they should pay the equitable penalty that
their prescient comments disappear from the eyeballs of he/she who has been outcast, otherwise I think a violation of the Geneva Convention
against torture might come into play...
volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 5:59 am
so
moola and ziemsdmb are members for two hours and post within minutes of each other
when the NSA and CIA types start crawling out from under their rocks one has to wonder whether they are on a mission from Darth or Death
They're just Republican trolls. Latest incarnations of DK and unit472 and their gun / cop / evangelical forum buddies, coming over to troll the "libs" when they can understand the topic. Leftover zergling dupes of the stillborn Bushite police state. Nothing to do now that they can't tell one-another about how illegals are voting in numbers that can be as shocking as their fancy allows. They'll just be generic wrecker / hater orc types until a new master comes to Bara-Dur. This unpatterned stupidity is good, it means there's no new dark lord for them to cravenly worship.
i did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth pal.
"Pal" is here used as a condescending diminutive, to infantilize the other speaker.
I am saying a large footprint over the last 50 years helped us accomplish our world dominance.
And what exactly did that accomplish if it ends up here? Woo, we took advantage of everyone! Even ourselves! Weren't we clever! Now we're broke, with a demolished apparatus of state, and a world that hates us.
Oh that I could be so brilliant as to compose your "Scarface strategy". Yeah they take you down in the end but in the meantime, YOU GET ALL THE BLOW YOU WANT.
Learn to read pal.
Again, forcing a condescending diminutive on someone, and also implying their ignorance.
Gambit to derail the discussion from real issues, to the standard Republican rhetorical tactic of attacking the speaker in an attempt to get them to present their credentials for approval, so that they can be mocked further / rejected, as the speaker will never grant approval of their counterparty's authority.
And Ron Paul is a racist misogynistic joke.
You forgot to mention he's a lib (LIBertarian, LIBeral, all the same to a "good Bushie") who fucks his sister and eats babies, or are you holding that back for the followup?
dryfly (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 1:40 am
I guess there is a lesson there... when in your mid-eighties no green bananas and no more wood than you can burn NOW!
In the words of William Shatner and Henry Rollins:
ROLLINS: Lifetime guarantee?
BILL: Who's lifetime? Not mine! I haven't that much time left. Let's make it yours. Everybody's got a longer life than me!
I had a thought - it is so much in character for Goldman Sachs to publish a widely-reported increased crude price estimate in conditions where prices are subject to a sudden and severe drop. I know Rich is willing to wait out long-term trends in oil stocks, but for others . . . ? GS talking their book?
I prediect whether the jobs number is spot on, bad, or good, the green shoots rally will continue. High energy costs and rising interest rates will carry us out of this recession.
What else... S&P Asia 50 up 1.23% entering the weekend, NAD/AUD continue to firm, analysts break out the full jingo warble on the Rio deal which is now replaced in the second bloomie story by Keenan and Raja. Looks like Tsingtao and pizza happening.
burnside (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:01 am
GS talking their book?
My feeling since the first petrobubble is that it was let to happen to help the banks recapitalize through unofficial / indirect taxation by playing both the up and down sides. So, it wouldn't shock me.
volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:13 am
Will she be coming with?
He. And yes, we found a nice 5 br that will almost be big enough for the two of us and all the crap. I get my own little apartment so I can rummage around at all hours, and we'll have a library and stuff.
Thanks CR for getting Mish going. And for starting your project as well. I often think about all of the work you do for this blog that none of us see.....
Byz
+1 Thanks for the morning chuckle. Another local bank here got slapped with a cease and desist last week....Still waiting for mine to have a pizza party..
I thought it was funny when Mish, Schiff, and Ritholtz got into their public bruhaha a few months back. All 3 have egos bigger than their intellects. Ritholtz now has a book out when he could have just wrote the final sentence for Schiff's book: "Notwithstanding anything stated previously and to the contrary, all things are subject to change and results may vary". Mish doesn't need to write a book since he follows the blueprints of his former boss at Agora, James Dale Davidson, who already wrote it along with Lord William Rees-Mogg in 1991, The Great Reckoning. Meanwhile, Mish, who looks to be aroung fiftyish and is still paying off the mortgage on his house, and his partner Sitka Investments is having a down year so far.
Mish has some good common sense analysis. Problem is, when you look at him too close, he's a whack job (Fed, fiat currency)...fun to read, though and is sounding alarms that our public officials are trying their best to ignore.
Ok, now...we have to have policy solutions - grounded in history and empirical research to prove the point. That's what's lacking. Mish - get a masters in history from Princeton, and maybe a PhD in economics from MIT or Chicago. Come back with your common sense analysis, backed by solid learning, and you too can have an impact on policy.
See you then. Meanwhile, congratulations, enjoy your 15 minutes - and I mean that. Good work!
Don't short this market yet. The SPX may keep rallying for another 3 months or 3 years? who knows. pimple faced Geithner & bernanke run the show. Thay are sleezy, yes, but the stock market loves free money. wait till the distribution sets in. then short. We could see the SPX at 1200 -1300 b4 we get a nice bear market again.
good articles...http://is.gd/HGYt
Wow.
He's still in the deflation camp (pretty much by definition of "Mish"), right?
So it's your fault.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Love Mish's analysis ...
Pity his solutions suck ...
just keep swimming.....
mish - Google Squared
Come on Google you need to better than this
Nemo,
Why wouldn't he be? Monetary/credit/debt destruction still outpaces monetization, and there's no chance in heck we're going to see wage inflation anytime soon.
with mish on js-kit, nemo on wordpress, and Bill on Cooper?
whats that?, nahhh this is personal...Im not buying or seliling anything.
Wanted:
A good hearted woman
CR,
Did you introduce mish on the stage?
Past returns are no guarantee of future performance, CR...
C
Oil crossed 69.
Go MISH!
... and well done CR.
brilliant, absolutely brilliant
irony is some say google is evil - I suppose the jury is still out
BZ,
Oil can cross 169.. It does not matter. It is based on fiction.. fiction has it's limitations.
Oil crossed 69.
Again, who cares. That is nothing more than speculation of global recovery. Yield curve bouncing is the same. Should I flee saftey or not.
For no reason at all, we already had a 250 point rally day this week. If the jobs number isn't horrible beyond belief, we could have another one tomorrow.
Gold and some energy has saved my sorry ass from my ill timed shorts. The recession will end because of increasing energy prices and rising interest rates?
Eras End (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:31 pm
"Oil crossed 69."
Again, who cares.
People who have to put gas in their cars? Kind of a big deal, that whole gasoline being a "life tax" here in America.
People who have to put gas in their cars? Kind of a big deal, that whole gasoline being a "life tax" here in America.
LOL. Gas is not high. Heck, it even isn't high at 3.00 on average(4.00 in higher living cost areas). People got used to absurdly low costs of gas in the 90's when the country was booming.
Tell me when gas hits 4.00 bucks on average again. Then we begin to worry.
If people can't stand 2.75 gas prices, then the economy is still in recession and it will collapse again anyway.
Gas isn't rising in tandem with the economy, it's moving inversely with the dollar. There's no good news to be had there.
I remain puzzled that the ad revenue model works for blogs like Mish's or CR's.
Many of these ads are for "still low" mortgage rates and I seriously doubt that people who read these blogs end up taking out these mortgages. Same goes for auto insurance, cell phones, and the like
I suppose those advertisers still pay for eyeballs, regardless of whether they actually generate any sales
Eras End,
I have to agree with you that $3.00 gasoline is not high. Given that there is almost no oil production in this country, and the dollar is still falling, $3.00 is not that bad.
BTW, NatGas, which has been cheap due to large finds in domestic U.S shale beds, may be about to get much more expensive. The administration is preparing to regulate hydraulic fractionation, which heretofore has been specifically unregulated.
TJ and The Bear (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 9:22 pm
Nemo,
Why wouldn't he be? Monetary/credit/debt destruction still outpaces monetization, and there's no chance in heck we're going to see wage inflation anytime soon.
How can you NOT be in the deflation "camp"? At least $7T evaporated in home mortgages alone. A major high-wage sector of the economy simply imploded (aptly named "FIRE"). That's not even touching the derivatives minefield. On top of this savings rises, credit contracting, lending standards rising... and consumer attitudes toward debt and spending are changing. Actual tight money added to the economy is a drop in the bucket next to these factors. Home loan subsidy and readjustment nonsense are also dwarfed in comparison. IMHO anything but deflation right now is a fairy tale outcome people believe because they want to (or have to) hear it, but of course I could be wrong. I just strongly suspect I'm not. We don't appreciate the raw magnitudes at work here and overemphasize the day-to-day parts we can relate to.
Any rise in gas prices is money gone ...
Any rise in oil prices is money going overseas ...
sm_landlord (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:41 pm
Eras End,
I have to agree with you that $3.00 gasoline is not high. Given that there is almost no oil production in this country, and the dollar is still falling, $3.00 is not that bad.
Logistics sets the line beyond which the strategist dare not tread.
Mish at about minute 12, "the stock market's going to go nowhere in an interesting way". Quite like that.
And we're back to VIX articles on bloomie...
Bloomberg.com
C'mon, fatten up VIXy. You know you want to.
C
Mish misses the whole Zombie Bank situation ...
If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple.
Mish :
"Bring all the troops home ..."
Great idea !
Does Mish actually live and work in Edmonds, Washington?
The PNW took a huge hit in the last recession. I thad barely recovered by Q4 2007
why are there so many empty chairs up close?
I used to read MiSh before I discovered CR. Does he still have a blog?
Just kidding, Mike. FWIW, I am also convinced that deflation will stick around for awhile. But when inflation does return - Prepare to shit some bricks.
29 ignores nine.
Who is Mish?
Who is Bill?
what is the American SVENSKT?
NZD/AUD rise against USD on CR Board watching Mish. Yen eases.
Wow. The Force is strong in this one.
C
dryfly (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:53 pm
If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple.
Well, it's simple to say!
So ... blogs are "completely free," but in Idaho if you post on the local paper's blog you can be charged with a felony, I know first hand.....
I've added a new feature for auto updating comments. Please let me know if you experience problems.
BTW, you won't experience it until you refresh this page once.
dryfly (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 9:53 pm
If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple.
The fact is, I'll drive for a damn long time paying inflated gas prices but the economic calculation is a lot different for the $8-10/hour folks with families. Entitlement programs will actually pay better than a lot of jobs once transportation is factored out. Not that anyone should be surprised by gas prices again, considering that IB's were buying and leasing oil tankers to store the stuff. The first rule of a casino is that the house never loses money.
cool, ken. thanks
Sweet. Auto-updating comments rule!
ken - the font has gone to half gray-scale.
/oops, no it hasn't.
C
CR - Thanks for posting that.
Watching it now while I drink a homebrew, and brew a blonde.
So you mean everything is not fixed? That's not what my magic 8 ball and CNBC says.
wow, cool
we witness the virtual offshore commentariat please speak up.
edit +1
One thing to note: when you edit an existing comment of yours, it won't show up until someone refreshes the page...
... and a New Era dawns for CalculatedRisk
LMFAO!!!
THANK YOU KEN COOPER!!!!
kcoop -
Nice, working fine with Fedora - firefox.
Now if only some of these ad's will stop crashing firefox.
KK - install the adblock plus addon - no more ads or crashes...
Kcoop - this comment stream is more of a chat room than a comment log...
A few words about this:
I'm going to be monitoring this and see if it adds excessive load to the server. My hunch/hope is that it will actually lower it.
Ken - Fantastic work!
Well, it's simple to say!
It isn't that hard to do.
People burn something like half their annual consumption of fuel commuting. Another big part is buyin' shit. Combine these two and it is something like 80% of fuel consumption.
So... drive a vehicle that has better fuel efficiency and move closer to work & stores.
If you exchange your typical gas hog at say 20 mpg for a 40 mpg vehicle... and move halfway to work/stores [halve the distance]... you reduce your fuel usage by 50%. [Edit: Do BOTH simultaneously and fuel usage is cut by almost 75%].
We actually did some of this - I drive for a living [huge distances]... and my wife has a long commute. We traded in 20 mpg vehicles for 50 mpg vehicles. I also work from my home office a lot more now too. We might move closer to my wife's employer if she continues to work there. We have already cut our personal fuel usage in half. If we move closer to her job we can probably cut it another half of that.
It isn't something people do in a week - but it is easily doable. People just have to want to make it happen.
Kcoop - this comment stream is more of a chat room than a comment log...
That mean you want to turn it off? Just click the here button. Your preferences will be saved in a cookie.
ads are gonna load on a calculatedrisk.com refresh or ping.
ShadowInventory -
But I want to know how people whiten their teeth!
Actually, Ads show, revenue for this fine site.
Oh I like the auto refresh, no doubt... I was thinking more of IRC or some other chat system...
This will make the race for the "nemo" title even more challenging once the pig automatically pops up.
Thanks kcoop.
i thought the user profile spike was interesting.
nemo, or koop, have you thought about how the user/guest ratio and CRVIX correlate?
It's always felt to me like this blog was a very successful hybrid between comments and IRC. Sort of a running salon, where the ever gracious host moves the party to another room when things get stale. So this seemed a natural extension.
So ... blogs are "completely free," but in Idaho if you post on the local paper's blog you can be charged with a felony, I know first hand.....
ACLU.
Actually, it won't, by design.
The pig only pops up after the first person posts.
Mrs Watanabe is still clapping and laughing for Yu.
Whoa! Nice!!!
dryfly, I don't think the ACLU exists in Idaho!
http://www.acluidaho.org/
The pig only pops up after the first person posts.
I sense some collusion here...
Well I finished listening to the entire video - totally excellent... This sort of grass roots movement to restrict govt spending is what I have been waiting and hoping for.
dryfly (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:11 pm
So... drive a vehicle that has better fuel efficiency and move closer to work & stores.
Best of both for me. I did run the numbers on the difference between a hybrid and non-hybrid on Civic/Accord/Prius a couple years ago when I was buying, and even with an assumption in the neighborhood of 4.50, it would take over 14 years for me to have equalized the price difference based on a worst-case annual driving distance. Sometimes a hybrid makes sense but so much of this fuel crisis stuff is knee-jerk response. Not that I doubt hybrids and alternatives will become more affordable in the longer term. I still get 36-38 highway, 34-35 city, 31-33 in the cold winter months so the difference is not tht great versus something that guzzles fuel and has a good chance of killing the other motorist if I caused an accident.
Ken, in all honestly this commenting system is the best I've seen around by far. Which sadly makes me think soon JS-Kit will be making you an offer to keep a continual lid on the competition.
And good call on the Pig. I'm sure Nemo appreciates it!
Ken are you looking for private investment ?
I recall Mish going to Brazil bout a year ago or so..
Whu is Mr I speak Fluent Portuguese and I am belong to SVENSKT?
kcoop (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:17 pm
It's always felt to me like this blog was a very successful hybrid between comments and IRC. Sort of a running salon, where the ever gracious host moves the party to another room when things get stale. So this seemed a natural extension.
Excellent insight there! This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
re oil prices -- many people that i know live in a state of perpetual financial ruin. any unexpected cost is a disaster. a broken windshield can lead to a late rent payment which causes a fine which causes the cell phone payment to be late, etc... high gas prices kill these people. they go from having a a few extra bucks a month (they live month-to-month) to having a deficit. i have no idea how they can all sleep at night, but that is how they live.
i only burn about 20 gallons a month so i don't really care what prices do. plus i'm a compulsive saver.
K Coop, nice AJAXy touch on the comments. Well done!
ShadowInventory - shoulda seen the Mish campaign against the TARP last Sept. Grass roots to the cloisters and a lot of places in between.
C
/oops, he got to that at 46:50.
When I was looking for a new vehicle in 2003, even doubling the cost of gas at the time, it would have taken about 10 years to pay for the difference between a hybrid and a Honda civic. Plus, at the end of ten years you're stuck with an experimental vehicle with an aging battery pack. Plus, how much lead do those lead-acid batteries evaporate off anyway?
Just buy something with the best gas mileage you can afford.
This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
I think what makes this place different is not the tech, but the people. My guess is the average age of participants here is much higher than most communities, and I mean that in a positive respectful way. There are not only a lot of smart people hanging out here, but people with experience and wisdom. The tech is just the cherry on top.
Audit the Fed ...
Great Idea ... !
When I was looking for a new vehicle in 2003, even doubling the cost of gas at the time, it would have taken about 10 years to pay for the difference between a hybrid and a Honda civic. Plus, at the end of ten years you're stuck with an experimental vehicle with an aging battery pack. Plus, how much lead do those lead-acid batteries evaporate off anyway?
Just buy something with the best gas mileage you can afford.
I don't own a hybrid - I drive a diesel Jetta TDI. It actually costs LESS than my previous vehicles and gets ~50 mpg.
Bank Failure:
I think that you are confusing Mish with Russ Winter.
Mish, I believe, lives outside Chicago.
Russ Winter lives in Brazil, except when his Brazilian visa expires; then, he returns stateside, while sorting out his visa situation.
By chance, I subscribed to Mish's investment letter in early '07 until he left.
His writing style and macro knowledge seemed spot on for what was to come,
and of course I still check out his blog most days
Kcoop = Nemo?
ty norka,
yu r correct
Mish, I believe, lives outside Chicago.
At least he did.
Abolish the Fed .... No ...
Stick in the UST and print our own money ...
Mish is under the delusion that the Federal Reserve is a government agency ...
It is not ... it is owned by its Member Banks ... who it is then supposed to regulate ...
So a diesel Jetta? You know, once they get the particulates filtered out, diesels are cleaner than gas engines.
Looking at getting a new car now, the Insight looks good, but I don't think I will like the shape and driving of it, but I think I'll take it for a test drive.
ken, still major slow on iPod. Maybe others have mentioned that? Man, it's torture.
Abolish fractional reserve banking ... Yes ...
But allow the UST the ability to lend money at wholesale rates
to sound qualified banks in accordance with a managed credit and currency
limit ...
Insight is really ugly... the problem with hybrids is after a few years you have to replace the batteries at a huge cost - you are not going to run one of those things 20 years like a gas engine or diesel car...
norka west,
are you positioned for a Unique Selling Opportunity?
Comrade Coinz (homepage, profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:32 pm
This is very cool, and very different, from the stuff presently out there.
I think what makes this place different is not the tech, but the people. My guess is the average age of participants here is much higher than most communities, and I mean that in a positive respectful way. There are not only a lot of smart people hanging out here, but people with experience and wisdom. The tech is just the cherry on top.
Right... I just took it for granted that the community here is distinguished from most, that is largely self-evident I think after a few weeks of lurking. But the tech is also different than anything I've seen, and has a very nice minimalism to its interface so I don't feel like I'm being pounded on by bloated Javascript XML-RPC clients
So a diesel Jetta? You know, once they get the particulates filtered out, diesels are cleaner than gas engines.
Even w/out particulate traps if the engine is well designed & maintained it is 'as clean'. With the traps they are even better. Plus w/ the turbo & high 'low end' torque... they scream.
The only time our Jettas smoke is when they are cold on start up... or in aggressive start stop. We drive open highway long distances at steady speeds almost 90% of the time. Perfect application for a diesel. If we were urban I'd look at a hybrid more carefully.
Always select the right tool for the job.
still major slow on iPod
For iphone users, I recommend you go to the manual mode (click on the 'here' link in that box). Otherwise, you'll be chewing up your battery as it pings the server. It should refresh much faster when you click the manual refresh link than refreshing the page.
The page itself loading slowly... that I haven't experienced with mine. It loads as fast as other pages anyway.
dryfly (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:32 pm
I don't own a hybrid - I drive a diesel Jetta TDI. It actually costs LESS than my previous vehicles and gets ~50 mpg.
Good choice... though you say you travel extensively in your work, so technically you'll be able to justify almost any crazy hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle they manage to invent!
Good choice... though you say you travel extensively in your work, so technically you'll be able to justify almost any crazy hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle they manage to invent!
Except I'm self-employed and it comes out of MY pocket even if it is the 'before tax' pocket.
bANK fAILURE (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 8:39 pm
norka west,
are you positioned for a Unique Selling Opportunity?
Huh?
You woke me up.
Don't do that.
I am still waiting for the Nigerian central bank to send me my money so I can afford to buy Internet viagra and chase Russian brides.
I believe everything in my email.
It's on a computer so it must be right.
NW
Had a '78 diesel Rabbit. 50+ mpg.
All yours people.
Wonder what kind of hat gets pulled out of the rabbit tomorrow?
C
Mish at 44 minutes "Inflation is theft" Amen brother.
Problem with diesel is that it comes from about the same cut in the distillation tower as number 2 home heating oil, so you are competing for supply with folks trying to heat their houses. Also, a lot of refinery debottlenecking projects are really excuses to upgrade distillates to mogas, further impacting supply.
9 bells gotta go
I remember living in a house built in the 1950s that burned heating oil.
I remember living in a house built in the 1950s that burned heating oil.
The house I live in now was UPGRADED to heating oil... it first burned coal. It was then upgraded again to natural gas later... that NEW furnace is the one we got now and it was put in sometime around 1970. The guy who maintains it says there is no reason to put a high efficiency in an old house like mine - I have very little insulation [none in the walls - only in the attic].
I do supplement though with a wood stove. Wood is free around here.
dryfly,
I'm surprised you haven't put insulation in. Aren't there some options out there that don't require tearing out the drywall?
Cheez It, Cool Whip???
Dryfly,
I just picked up a Canadian landcruiser with a 4 banger diesel in it. 25 mpg dragging around two heavy solid axles.
Somewhere things went very, very wrong with cars and trucks.
Cheers,
Prat
I'm surprised you haven't put insulation in. Aren't there some options out there that don't require tearing out the drywall?
It isn't drywall it is lathe & plaster... the only insulation is old newspapers from WWI - I know from when we put in a wood stove. There is no insulation product available for an old house like this unless we take off the siding and then 'wrap' and insulate. Even then you have to be very careful.
The problem is that the winters in Minnesota are so cold... moisture migrates through the wall and will condense & freeze in the insulation. Venting & 'breathing' is really critical to avoid dry rot & mold later when all that 'frost' melts.
New homes don't have as many issues with dry rot as old ones do... my house was started in 1915 and finished in 1919 - it took the owner that long to build it [DIYer].
The siding is 'original' [and looks it] - when I finally bite the bullet & reside then I'll look into somekind of insulation.
Irony is that old houses like mine are usually small - mine is 1200 sqft - and because it is small it doesn't take much to heat it even with bad insulation. I have friends w/ 3000 sqft highly 'insulated homes' who spend more on energy than I do by a lot.
"If you don't like gas prices - drive less. If your lifestyle is such that you can't drive less - change the lifestyle. It really is that simple."
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
Or did you just mean don't tow your 24 foot boat behind your hummer? Most people are not really in that situation, you know. The lifestyle changes have been and are being made as more people lose their jobs etc.
If you don't like taxes, don't pay them. If your lifestyle is such that you have to pay them, go to jail. It really is that simple.
Dryfly
"We drive open highway long distances at steady speeds almost 90% of the time. Perfect application for a diesel. If we were urban I'd look at a hybrid more carefully."
Exactly diesel pollution increases and mileage decreases significantly in urban driving. Hybrids are for city driving they offer really no benefit on the freeway except for small efficient engines and transmissions.
All that emissions equipment on the new diesels is expensive and may cost more than hybrid IMO in the long run as catalysts prices, urea injectors will stay high or go higher batteries will get cheaper or stay about the same but become more efficient over time
Geez, dryfly, your house is smaller than my rented condo.
dryfly,
No offense, I just figured you'd have a little more space, given things are a little less expensive in flyover country.
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
That is just BS.
Most people drive way more car than they need a lot farther than they need to and then trade them in before they are worn out and finance the shit out of all of it & don't have an ounce of imagination to think it can be any different than it is. Then wonder why they are broke.
Free your mind and your ass will follow.
No offense, I just figured you'd have a little more space, given things are a little less expensive in flyover country.
LOL - we raised three kids dogs, cats, and just about went crazy at times in that shack. One thing for sure - in a small house you kick the kids outside to play a lot... even if it is 20 below.
anoddamoose (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 11:38 pm
RIghto. So I quit my job so I could drive less, then had to sell the car to buy groceries and make rent, so was able to drive even less. Now I am homeless and know I will never own a car or anything else of substantive value again, nor do I really have anyplace that I care to drive to. That was such great advice. I can't thank you enough.
...
If you don't like taxes, don't pay them. If your lifestyle is such that you have to pay them, go to jail. It really is that simple.
Actually, you could draw unemployment during this time, ditch the car to stay at home, qualify for food stamps, apply for income-sensitive housing, and probably live better doing nothing than you would have working (moreso if there are also kids, no longer need daycare expenses). On top of this, you're now unemployed so you owe no taxes. Meanwhile a lot of employed suckers with decent jobs will work F/T to get a standard of living just marginally higher... until, of course, they decide it's not worth the effort anymore.
It's gonna be really interesting to watch this country over the next several years...
dryfly,
I've heard you talk about all of them, which is why my head is still shaking. There's just two of us and one BIG shepherd and we feel like we never have enough space. You definitely live well beneath your means, and I admire that.
Mish is a pretty thoughful guy and has some pretty good ideas, I just disagree with many of them... And a riveting speaker - not so much.
Seems like the current concern is inflation, or deflation. I don't see it in quite those simple either/or terms. I think either of those could happen, but IMO that's not the next majot concern. I am becoming convinced we're heading into a dollar crash - something the Fed/USG will have little control over once it tips over. The entire financial system and what remains of the real economy is so impaired and unstable that holding it together in a tight band between inflation/deflation seems to me impossible to do. Also tough to prepare for. We'll see.
I've heard you talk about all of them, which is why my head is still shaking. There's just two of us and one BIG shepherd and we feel like we never have enough space. You definitely live well beneath your means, and I admire that.
We do some dumb money stuff from time to time but because we have the small cheap house the dumb stuff hasn't been fatal - at least not yet.
I admire folks like you who live where it IS expensive & make many if not all the right choices so you can live well. One of my kids is thinking about moving west when she is done w/ school - I tell her you can live well in Cali... but expect to rent or go broke. She gets it.
BTW - you should see the pile of wood I'm putting together this summer... I have it all over the front yard as we speak - hope to get it cut up tomorrow then go get more... all your 'doomer' talk has me cutting like a SOB!
"Sort of a running salon, where the ever gracious host moves the party to another room when things get stale."
Kind of like Diderot and the salons of Enlightenment France...
bearly (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 11:57 pm
Yup. Real tough to prepare for.
Bearly,
You just summarized many of my thoughts going back five years. The dollar is toast, it just doesn't know it yet.
Fascinating article I found over at Nathan's site about bond auctions (plus gold and equities). Writing style is a bit Jim Willie-ish but gives a good picture of how things work to the bond virgin. On the other hand any times I see the words Comex default I worry that I have just lost five minutes of my life reading some nutter's nonsense. I'd be interested in comments.
Nathan's Economic Edge: THE HORROR, Bond Traders are White with Terror...
Interesting...in the comments someone refers to Germany demanding all their gold back and this is the third time I have read about it this week. Also on the news last nite they were talking about Barackalypse being in Germany to visit Angela Merkel and how relations were strained. I couldn't think why that would be so maybe Germany demanding it's gold back might have something to do with it?
Mish, unlike other economists, doesn't defy logic.
My biggest problem with mish is his arrogance that he knows for sure that we will have deflation.
I've questioned him a bit on his blog a couple times and his replies were generally beside the point.
Fiat money is a human creation and history shows examples of both hyperinflationary and deflationary depressions. There have been many more severe versions of the former and IMO the largest deciding factor of the outcome is the country's external debt load. Even though I am very opinionated I won't say that I'm sure hyperinflation will happen because in the end I believe it has to do with the actions of a relatively small group of people.
btw,
I've cut at least 10 cord so far this year and have about 7 stacked. Only half is more me the rest for my dad.
And on the car topic I use 0% of my gas for commuting(and I do have a job).!
Here are several pictures of Tim Geithner's house from Zillow.com. (Unsold at $1.575 million, it's now being rented for $7,500 a month.)
[via Patrick.net]
"Interesting...in the comments someone refers to Germany demanding all their gold back and this is the third time I have read about it this week...."
Germany is (at least until recently) the second biggest net exporter in the world, after China, and is likely stuck in a similar dance.
btw,
I've cut at least 10 cord so far this year and have about 7 stacked. Only half is more me the rest for my dad.
And on the car topic I use 0% of my gas for commuting (and I do have a job).!
You da man!!! Now I have an urge to get out there cutting TONIGHT!
I won't get that much cut and stacked though we used to do it every year when my father was still alive - heck we cut & stacked about five cords in a single week just a little over a month before he died... I guess there is a lesson there... when in your mid-eighties no green bananas and no more wood than you can burn NOW!
FWIW - my neighbors are getting mighty tired of listening to my chain saw...
Ken- not really a problem but I seem to be off by an hour, i.e., this appeared to me at 10:36 PDT
NateTG (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 9:36 pm
"Interesting...in the comments , . . .
OT-any bets on the unemployment number tomorrow?
OK, so it's not that simple I guess. If it costs me $4.00 a gallon to drive my car, it's costing those who deliver goods to retailers the same. Ergo, the price of everything I purchase, along with gasoline increases in cost. As things increase in cost, I have to make choices as to what I purchase, thus my consumption decreases. When enough people decrease their consumption retailers either lower their cost or go out of business, because their are no buyers for their product. (Harley Davidson is a good example of this). So Mish is right despite what you think. it's deflation or survival. Which do you think works out?
(Ken - very cool comment minty-refresher)
Interesting to see Mish, thanks for the video. Deflation vs. inflation.
There's no word for it as far as I can tell but I think we're facing commodity inflation and wage deflation. Wages will stay/drop due to continuing global arbitrage and people dropping discretionary expenses. Commodities will rise due to dollar devaluation and monetization of the debt.
It's sort of cost-push except more narrowly defined. It's what you'd expect at the end of an empire - the currency becomes worth less and the citizens of empire struggle to make ends meet. Taxes seem high and headed higher. I don't see how this general trend could be reversed.
woah - dry with the p-funk reference... didn't see that one coming...
what a hallucinatory nightmare for short sellers - head and shoulders patterns are everywhere, one day, three day, five day, etc... but, as always, is this the head...
"I don't see how this general trend could be reversed. "
dropping down a few income brackets can help with that whole tax thing. worked for me.
Now I have an urge to get out there cutting TONIGHT!
Just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods and am currently reading Little House on the Prairie to my daughter; ...that Pa Ingalls did a lot of work!
dropping down a few income brackets can help with that whole tax thing. worked for me.
John Galters REPRESENT! \m/
NervousRex (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 10:43 pm
There's no word for it as far as I can tell but I think we're facing commodity inflation and wage deflation.
Oh there's words for that alright but this is a family blog.
ShadowInventory ( wrote on Thu, 6/4/2009 - 8:22 pm
Well I finished listening to the entire video - totally excellent... This sort of grass roots movement to restrict govt spending is what I have been waiting and hoping for.
SI thats only part of the story
the issue thats as big or bigger is balance of trade (current account deficit)
"we" are effed and the dollar is toast
Dawg,
See the link I put on your latest post?
TJ,
Yes thanks, and it's a lot worse. The backfill for CalPERS and CalSTRS is also growing due to unexpected conditions.
Did you especially like how the current UE benefits are being paid by a no interest balloon loan from Uncle sugar de 2011? CA infrastructure bonds are yielding 5.75% double tax free. The ATMs are shutting down.
God kills a kitten when Greenspan helps out one of his banking buddies!
TJ -- I've got 2 almost-10 year olds, 2 parents, 2 dogs and 2 cats in 1071 sq. ft. 1200 would rock! That means more than 1 bathroom!
The green shoots are already withering, state & local budgets are turning into smokin' craters, Chrysler (and thus GM's) BK's are threatening to go off the tracks, CRE is starting to catch up, and now mortgage rates are rising fast enough to put RRE into arrhythmia.
Things are getting REAL interesting. Is that second, BIGGER wave on the horizon? Could be, could be.
NoCal SC,
That's tight quarters, but hey, it makes for a close family!
The best part, without question, is that we've got two full baths -- no waiting!
There's a little of revisionist history going on here.
Mish is right that he was predicting the top of the real estate market (and the stock markets) in 2005. Trouble is he was 18 months and 30-40% early. anyone following his advice in 2005-2006 would have been losing a lot of money. I know--I was one of them.
Mish's problem is that he has tunnel-vision. He thinks everyone should be like him, shopping for $1.99 beef and storing it away in the freezer.
The American Consumerism that Mish is always stridently railing against was not the cause of this bubble. It's a separate issue that was exacerbated by the housing bubble. Mish often conflates and equates the two.
"REPRESENT!"
westsayeed!
exactly why does he hate America, anyhow?
Sometimes, i get next to hybrids with my huge, comfortable Ford Powerstroke and mash the throttle. Give them a big blast of black, unburned sooty fuel over their hood and I STILL get 25 MPG mixed.
Hybrid owners think they are better than everybody else. Why is that???
Just kidding, hell if I lived somewhere like SanFran,I would probably have one too. Nah, diesel Jetta. Nothing like fuel that will store for years properly conditioned and wont blow up with a spark from the sweater Aunt Myrtle knitted you for Christmas.
Mish is a quack. He is so one-sided on the role of the government and free markets that he comes off as uninsightful and drab.
Yes, free market capitalism has destroyed itself, forever proving it's failure.
A truly advanced modern society can only achieve the efficiency gains required to maintain consensus of the containment of doubt in the derivative of forward expectations by embracing the militaryfinancialnonprofitllcgovernmentalbankinghedgefunddrugtrade integration throughout all segments of the global economy.
I agree ziemsdmb. I can tell this guy has some good insights,and is very smart, but he is so one sided on the whole world view that I just have to discredit his judgment overall.
The whole thing about bringing all of our troops home now etc etc is so Ron Paul BS that I just tuned him out after that.
Yes Iraq, maybe Afghanistan, but to imply that our footprint in the world does not bolster our economy is quite frankly ridiculous. And I find it ironic he references WWII later on, and totally ignores the complexities of that global war...
Too shallow for my tastes.
You dismiss the notion of bringing troops home as shallow Ron Paul BS. Then you claim we should continue to bolster our economy by keeping a large (military) footprint. WTF are you smoking? A large imperialistic military generally leads to the collapse of advanced societies. It does not bolster our economy except by consuming and taking on ever larger debt loads which is our problem exactly!
i did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth pal.
I am saying a large footprint over the last 50 years helped us accomplish our world dominance.
I do agree Iraq and Afghanistan are bad, but not everything else that Mish said in his diatribe.
Learn to read pal.
And Ron Paul is a racist misogynistic joke.
"A large imperialistic military generally leads to the collapse of advanced societies".
That and hollowed out manufacturing base and huge debt load. That is already perfect trifecta. Add to that plutocracy plus dependency of foreign oil plus thousands of nutty armed extremist groups and the Bismarck clause on American luckiness has been revoked by the Gods of Cobol
Uh, I don't think I misrepresented what you wrote, just picked out the pieces that meant the most to me.
The large footprint helped completely bankrupt our country.
"our world dominance"
Those are your words. They show how warped your worldview is.
Haha,
Normally I would stop but this is funny.
You attack mish...
"And I find it ironic he references WWII later on, and totally ignores the complexities of that global war..."
Yet you say...
"a large footprint over the last 50 years helped us accomplish our world dominance."
I guess "our world dominance" had nothing to do with our abundant resources and the fact that so many other countries had be destroyed by WWII. Cause, meet effect.
Sometimes, i get next to hybrids with my huge, comfortable Ford Powerstroke and mash the throttle. Give them a big blast of black, unburned sooty fuel over their hood and I STILL get 25 MPG mixed.
Diesel exhaust is de'stanki and bad for you. But never fear the Hippies have made sure that your next diesel will be neutered (fitted with a catalytic converter) And yes if you lived in San Francisco, you might get tired of parking that Ford. The millage much less than 25mpg. Then there are the visits to the brake shop every 5000-10000 miles.
Hybrid owners think they are better than everybody else. Why is that???
Everyone thinks they're better than everyone else. As any monkey knows, when a persons guilty pleasure meets with another persons self satisfied smug, then there will be poo. (flung that is)
PS: One thing about hybrids. Really they're a good idea. But as a technology it's new and close to break out. The systems will get better (much better) and cheaper as times go on.
\Drives an E150 with a 351 Windsor.
so
moola and ziemsdmb are members for two hours and post within minutes of each other
when the NSA and CIA types start crawling out from under their rocks one has to wonder whether they are on a mission from Darth or Death
Ron Paul a racist? misogynistic? joke?
And, not to put too fine a point on it, but; Mish is not drab, he's a dweeb, a nebbish. He spent most of his adult life locked in sterile computer vaults dealing with 1's and 0's.
Now he's been jettisoned into the sunlight and discovers dealing with conflicting points of view more complicated. As a result, he rips anyone who disagrees with him. It's all good.
But don't call him drab. It's inaccurate.
so this is the 'god-like' Mish whose name has been bandied about since I first discovered this site last July.....
I'm waiting for the entire YouTube download....
Some months I created a new award called the Javier Bardem Bad Haircut Award (named after a writer acquaintance of mine named Tom Perotta who wrote
a great collection of short stories in the mid 90s called Bad Haircut) .... previous award winners include Richard Pena who is a major honcho of the NY film
festival world....
why Javier Bardem? remember that hairdo he sported in No Country for Old Men?
I nominate Mish for the award!
ps... the guy who introduced him must not have a wife, that polo striped polo shirt was dog ugly ... perhaps nobody clued him in that it was going to
be taped...
Rick Burns is another future recipient but I can't locate any bowl cut photos of his around the time Civil War was released ....
re: Volker the Viking....
"And, not to put too fine a point on it, but; Mish is not drab, he's a dweeb, a nebbish. He spent most of his adult life locked in sterile computer vaults dealing with 1's and 0's."
hence, the 'look' he 'sports'! I think I've got one more vote here for the Bad Haircut Award...
To Ken Cooper and CR... on a side I believe if someone invokes the Caesar-like Ignore User that they should pay the equitable penalty that
their prescient comments disappear from the eyeballs of he/she who has been outcast, otherwise I think a violation of the Geneva Convention
against torture might come into play...
volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 5:59 am
so
moola and ziemsdmb are members for two hours and post within minutes of each other
when the NSA and CIA types start crawling out from under their rocks one has to wonder whether they are on a mission from Darth or Death
They're just Republican trolls. Latest incarnations of DK and unit472 and their gun / cop / evangelical forum buddies, coming over to troll the "libs" when they can understand the topic. Leftover zergling dupes of the stillborn Bushite police state. Nothing to do now that they can't tell one-another about how illegals are voting in numbers that can be as shocking as their fancy allows. They'll just be generic wrecker / hater orc types until a new master comes to Bara-Dur. This unpatterned stupidity is good, it means there's no new dark lord for them to cravenly worship.
i did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth pal.
"Pal" is here used as a condescending diminutive, to infantilize the other speaker.
I am saying a large footprint over the last 50 years helped us accomplish our world dominance.
And what exactly did that accomplish if it ends up here? Woo, we took advantage of everyone! Even ourselves! Weren't we clever! Now we're broke, with a demolished apparatus of state, and a world that hates us.
Oh that I could be so brilliant as to compose your "Scarface strategy". Yeah they take you down in the end but in the meantime, YOU GET ALL THE BLOW YOU WANT.
Learn to read pal.
Again, forcing a condescending diminutive on someone, and also implying their ignorance.
Gambit to derail the discussion from real issues, to the standard Republican rhetorical tactic of attacking the speaker in an attempt to get them to present their credentials for approval, so that they can be mocked further / rejected, as the speaker will never grant approval of their counterparty's authority.
And Ron Paul is a racist misogynistic joke.
You forgot to mention he's a lib (LIBertarian, LIBeral, all the same to a "good Bushie") who fucks his sister and eats babies, or are you holding that back for the followup?
Byz writes: "You forgot to mention he's a lib (LIBertarian, LIBeral, all the same to a "good Bushie") who fucks his sister..."
Well my sister is pretty, does that make it okay?
dryfly (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 1:40 am
I guess there is a lesson there... when in your mid-eighties no green bananas and no more wood than you can burn NOW!
In the words of William Shatner and Henry Rollins:
ROLLINS: Lifetime guarantee?
BILL: Who's lifetime? Not mine! I haven't that much time left. Let's make it yours. Everybody's got a longer life than me!
volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 7:32 am
Well my sister is pretty, does that make it okay?
Only if she's hot for you too.
Very satisfactory description of crude oil/gasoline/distillate markets and pricing from FT Alphaville:
FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » ‘Demand is in the toilet’
Someone is always asking how the crude supply can be excessive at the same time prices are rising. Here's how.
Every body is hot for the Volker!
Some more "pre-news" on the unemployment number at Bloomberg. "Unemployment Rate in U.S. Probably Exceeded 9% for first Time in 25 Years"
There was a similar warning shot what ... last Sunday or so? ... so don't be surprised if market rallies in the face of a 9.1 to 9.3% rate.
9.5+ would be a bit of a shock. Guess we'll find out shortly.
Thanks for the link Burnside!
Morning Byz - you seem to have got up on the jagged side of the bed this morning!
Stoxx50 has freaky batman formation at around 9am GMT.
C
Dukester: Nothing lasts longer than a bad haircut.
Byz:
YVW.
I had a thought - it is so much in character for Goldman Sachs to publish a widely-reported increased crude price estimate in conditions where prices are subject to a sudden and severe drop. I know Rich is willing to wait out long-term trends in oil stocks, but for others . . . ? GS talking their book?
I prediect whether the jobs number is spot on, bad, or good, the green shoots rally will continue. High energy costs and rising interest rates will carry us out of this recession.
What else... S&P Asia 50 up 1.23% entering the weekend, NAD/AUD continue to firm, analysts break out the full jingo warble on the Rio deal which is now replaced in the second bloomie story by Keenan and Raja. Looks like Tsingtao and pizza happening.
C
Counterpointer (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 7:46 am
Morning Byz - you seem to have got up on the jagged side of the bed this morning!
Packing my library. Spouse says, time for a migration to a new abode.
Are you gonna be in Byzantium for the autumnal windbagging? I see they're bringing it here.
Given that there is almost no oil production in this country,
=============
USA is the third largest oil producer in the world
burnside (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:01 am
GS talking their book?
My feeling since the first petrobubble is that it was let to happen to help the banks recapitalize through unofficial / indirect taxation by playing both the up and down sides. So, it wouldn't shock me.
Byz - library!? It that like a carbon-powered wiki or something?
Still checking the forecast on the windbaggery. Looks like occasional squalls with fog and persistent light drivel. Occluded.
C
why do we fret over these fabrications called govwernment reports?
just jiggle the handle on the birth death ratio, or skew one factor or another and violets!
the report is better than expected
Cost of printing a $100.00 Banknote = 10 cents
Seignorage (profit above and beyond production cost) $99.90
1/1000 of face value...
=============================================
George Washington lamented that it would take a cartload of Continental Currency to buy a cartload of goods.
Continental Currency was eventually redeemed @
1/1000th of face value
Byz writes: "Spouse says, time for a migration to a new abode."
Will she be coming with?
Counterpointer (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:09 am
Byz - library!? It that like a carbon-powered wiki or something?
Muscle-powered, currently.
Still checking the forecast on the windbaggery.
Tell me when you know, I know all the good dives.
We'll be weeping for puts today.
volker the viking (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:13 am
Will she be coming with?
He. And yes, we found a nice 5 br that will almost be big enough for the two of us and all the crap. I get my own little apartment so I can rummage around at all hours, and we'll have a library and stuff.
Thanks CR for getting Mish going. And for starting your project as well. I often think about all of the work you do for this blog that none of us see.....
Byz
+1 Thanks for the morning chuckle. Another local bank here got slapped with a cease and desist last week....Still waiting for mine to have a pizza party..
The local bank is now a pizza parlor. It was a bank once upon a time.
Still has a walk-in vault where they keep the dough...
9.4% that should be good for 300pts on the dow
Wow...... that's just gross.
9.4% that should be good for 300pts on the dow
Clearly tracking the Treasury's baseline curve. Ha!
U6 now at 16.4% but "only" 345K jobs lost last month.
Comrade Kristina: Jiggle the handle, the pots still running. Someone soon will pull the covers back and reveal how 'they' got the 'number'.
i know more people that lost their jobs in may than any other previous month
i acknowledge my experience is probably locality biased, but still......
So we expected a loss of 500k+ and a rate of 9.2%. Instead we got a loss of 350k and a rate of... 9.4%?
What am I missing?
Median duration of unemployment is 4 std dev ABOVE the 25 year average.
Green shoots!
Follow the trends, grasshoppers, not the numbers!
Right, swamp calls.
C
Ken C:
Love the automated refresh feature, but it's permitting one of my ignored parties' posts to appear. Perhaps all of 'em. Can't tell yet.
Aha. Only while I'm typing a comment. They disappear when I post. As you were, sir!
SP futes up 16 points. Should be an interesting day.
burnside (profile) wrote on Fri, 6/5/2009 - 8:40 am
Love the automated refresh feature, but it's permitting one of my ignored parties' posts to appear.
Agreed. I can see Juvenal Delinquent but there's no ignore button, so I presume he's blocked but leaking the filter.
Sadistics are no doubt responsible for the meaningless statistics we use to make fancy graphs with squiggly lines going up & down.
Yup, big upside surprise. Hoocoo...
I know many investors who got out when six handles abounded, and they're getting back in. Can't get "priced out".
Byz,
Isn't it time for you to go grope your arsenal again?
I thought it was funny when Mish, Schiff, and Ritholtz got into their public bruhaha a few months back. All 3 have egos bigger than their intellects. Ritholtz now has a book out when he could have just wrote the final sentence for Schiff's book: "Notwithstanding anything stated previously and to the contrary, all things are subject to change and results may vary". Mish doesn't need to write a book since he follows the blueprints of his former boss at Agora, James Dale Davidson, who already wrote it along with Lord William Rees-Mogg in 1991, The Great Reckoning. Meanwhile, Mish, who looks to be aroung fiftyish and is still paying off the mortgage on his house, and his partner Sitka Investments is having a down year so far.
Mish has some good common sense analysis. Problem is, when you look at him too close, he's a whack job (Fed, fiat currency)...fun to read, though and is sounding alarms that our public officials are trying their best to ignore.
Ok, now...we have to have policy solutions - grounded in history and empirical research to prove the point. That's what's lacking. Mish - get a masters in history from Princeton, and maybe a PhD in economics from MIT or Chicago. Come back with your common sense analysis, backed by solid learning, and you too can have an impact on policy.
See you then. Meanwhile, congratulations, enjoy your 15 minutes - and I mean that. Good work!
Don't short this market yet. The SPX may keep rallying for another 3 months or 3 years? who knows. pimple faced Geithner & bernanke run the show. Thay are sleezy, yes, but the stock market loves free money. wait till the distribution sets in. then short. We could see the SPX at 1200 -1300 b4 we get a nice bear market again.
good articles...http://is.gd/HGYt
to imply that our footprint in the world does not bolster our economy is quite frankly ridiculous
Of course it bolsters our economy, but not as much as it bolsters our debt.