My next door neighbors bought their house in 1997 for about $135,000... Now they are in default with $356,000 on the first mortgage and who knows how much on 2nd, 3rds etc... It looks like they are going to walk - nice for me, hated them anyway and the bank will resell the house at this price... Now if I could just pick my new neighbors.... Actually I could buy the house and rent it out, but I'm not going that route....
Look on the bright side - Much inventory brings more diverse buyers. So this is a good thing. Unless of course we are in a recession and everybody it closing their respective wallets, and then it is not terribly good news because it means prices will remain soft..
Somewhat OT but, sadly, not really, in terms of the pressures that made MEW such a part of the landscape and the truly warped fabric of middle-class Americana...
A friend recently had a beautiful, healthy baby. She wanted to do the labor largely at home, so was at the hospital for a grand total of 20 minutes before delivering - no anesthesia, no IV, no medication, no ID, etc .... The hospital was a bit packed (as maternity wings tend to be at random times) so she stayed less than 24 hours to escape the noise of the shared room.
The bill arrived today - the insurance company is on the hook for a little over $10,000. She's only on the hook for 1K, but still... how did a motrin and one night in a diagnostic room shared with a few other couples repurposed as a maternity room end up costing ten grand? What does a C-section cost an insurance company at the same hospital - 30, 40 grand?
The FED flow of funds report has shown that mortgage debt was close to 5 trillion in 2002 and by late 2008 was close to 11 trillion. Clearly this was never a first time buyer issue but always a credit binge gone wild with mortgage refi being the leading edge. No mystery here never was, that the MSM along with the financial media tried to pin the tail on first time home buyers has always been another financial sector narrative produced by the GS PR dept.
ShadowInventory
I am seeing people who bought in 2006, and still expect their gains to be 150%, And they just don't understand why other people are not snapping up their secondary and primary loans.
You know these are the people who after 6 months with no offers, they RAISE the asking price. ( For the first time in a long time felt sorry for a RA who was trying to describe reality.
I don't know if quoting other members to create a tag line is possible, but taken totality out of context ---
'I must drink more to erase'
Dr,- I think I need to increase the dosage.
I said "No" over and over again.
But she still ripped my clothes off.
What do you need bearer bonds for, SI?
A quick getaway to Switzerland, maybe?
Lot of business analyst positions open.
It's probably a big pay cut but anything is now, probably.
I didn't anticipate that the off-shoring would kill coding but B/A work is a lot more localized, it would be very difficult to offshore it, i think.
So I now I hear Blackrock is managing money which exceeds the UST - To big to fail?.
Not really exceed, but extend with publicly announced purchase dates, and if you call now you can get a bonus of a dividend/dispersement/whatever they want to call it.
So am I the only one needing to throw up on any former belief of a free market? Or are we just doing an exit stage left, now back in, exit stage right.
Now, just stand while everything burns around you and sing the national anthem of "...+++..."
Starting to think too much, ... Must run for cover,,, now.
Comrade Coinz, from one of your previous posts. Do you have a link showing that the US was a creditor during WWII? I thought I remember seeing a graph that said the last time we were a creditor was many many many moons ago? 189X or something....
I have been to Switzerland, nice place - didnt have any bonds at the time - back then I think it was travelers checks... But I probably dont need them now - I have my own mode of transportation - As my wife says, "I am the wind beneath the sheets..."
nades, google 'us net creditor 1960s'. there are many links, including a StLFed paper which seems to suggest that we were indeed a net creditor until 1982 (probably due to commodity-fueled emerging market debt in the 70s).
the last time the US was completely out of debt was January 8, 1835 under Andrew Jackson...
A visual graph will confirm that the greatest increase in debt is war expense.
The debt basically freezes in peace time.
That's what should have happened in 1989 after the USSR collapsed.
Here's the property history off a Redfin listing for a bank-owned house near me.
Property History for 320 HARBOR Dr
Date Event Price Appreciation Source
Jun 11, 2009 Listed $498,960 -- MLSListings #80928415
May 22, 2009 Sold $724,465 28.7%/yr Public Records
Oct 27, 1997 Sold $39,000 -- Public Records
Bought it cheap (although that $39K price is at least $100K too low), fixed it up, took near $700K out of it and handed it back to the bank, which is trying to sell it for half a mil.
All i could find is this.... Granted I cant do the derivatives in my head but it seems like we've been borrowing for a long long time....
The first dramatic growth spurt of the debt occurred because of the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war. The debt slowly fluctuated for the rest of the century, finally growing steadily in the 1910s and early 1920s to roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in World War I.[18]
The buildup and involvement in World War II brought the debt up another order of magnitude from $51 billion in 1940 to $260 billion following the war. After this period, the debt's growth closely matched the rate of inflation until the 1980s, when it again began to increase rapidly. Between 1980 and 1990, the debt more than tripled. The public debt shrank from FY 1998 until FY 2002 on a nominal dollar basis, although the total debt has not declined since FY 1969.[19] By the end of 2005, the gross debt had reached $7.9 trillion, about 8.7 times its 1980 level.[20]
Add a little rice to the mash you are brewing KK - it will increase the alcohol content...
OT
Sorry trying to stay on topic, but I do the R laws. If I want to up it, I do the full move up in base, hops and grain additions. Adjunts just do not do it for me, I would and never add basic sugar first.
I have to admit I'm spoiled and target the perfectly balanced 120+ IBU IPA's. OK, at first taste it's like a BMC, then it mugs you from behind and you don't remember what happened next. Of course carmalizing (sp?) sugar or honey in different ways is another story.
But I also experiment with recipes, yeast, hops.
In all cases, I'm not learning unless I'm doing. And I hate to say it, I can make better beer than I can buy. (with some exceptions of course).
If not for the stars, WFT should I reach for.
Those numbers do seem high. My wife had our daughter via planned C-Section and according to the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) documents from Aetna the bill from the hospital was roughly 30K but like all insurers and hospitals do the actual amount Aetna paid the hospital was around 18K. And any type of invasive surgery like a c-section is serious and so the prices will go up plus there are several more days in the hospital and, after birth, there are two patients (and lots of family members the hospital staff has to deal with!!). Bottom line is what is stated in the EOB in terms amount billed vs. amount paid.
also interesting to superimpose the price of silver on US wars... said StlFed paper also references that the us went from debtor to creditor 1914-1917...
The bankers had Lincoln’s government over a barrel, just as Wall Street has Congress in its vice-like grip today. The North needed money to fund a war, and the bankers were willing to lend it only under circumstances that amounted to extortion, involving staggering interest rates of 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln saw that this would bankrupt the North and asked a trusted colleague to research the matter and find a solution. In what may be the best piece of advice ever given to a sitting President, Colonel Dick Taylor of Illinois reported back that the Union had the power under the Constitution to solve its financing problem by printing its money as a sovereign government. Taylor said:
“Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes . . . and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also. If you make them full legal tender . . . they will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution.”
The Greenbacks actually were just as good as the bankers’ banknotes. Both were created on a printing press, but the banknotes had the veneer of legitimacy because they were “backed” by gold. The catch was that this backing was based on “fractional reserves,” meaning the bankers held only a small fraction of the gold necessary to support all the loans represented by their banknotes. The “fractional reserve” ruse is still used today to create the impression that bankers are lending something other than mere debt created with accounting entries on their books.1
Lincoln took Col. Taylor’s advice and funded the war by printing paper notes backed by the credit of the government. These legal-tender U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks” represented receipts for labor and goods delivered to the United States. They were paid to soldiers and suppliers and were tradeable for goods and services of a value equivalent to their service to the community. The Greenbacks aided the Union not only in winning the war but in funding a period of unprecedented economic expansion. Lincoln’s government created the greatest industrial giant the world had yet seen. The steel industry was launched, a continental railroad system was created, a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools was promoted, free higher education was established, government support was provided to all branches of science, the Bureau of Mines was organized, and labor productivity was increased by 50 to 75 percent. The Greenback was not the only currency used to fund these achievements; but they could not have been accomplished without it, and they could not have been accomplished on money borrowed at the usurious rates the bankers were attempting to extort from the North.
Lincoln succeeded in restoring the government’s power to issue the national currency, but his revolutionary monetary policy was opposed by powerful forces. The threat to established interests was captured in an editorial of unknown authorship, said to have been published in The London Times in 1865:
“If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. According to historian W. Cleon Skousen:
“Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln’s brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution.”
The institution that became established instead was the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned central bank given the power in 1913 to print Federal Reserve Notes (or dollar bills) and lend them to the government. The government was submerged in a debt that has grown exponentially since, until it is now an unrepayable $11 trillion. For nearly a century, Lincoln’s statue at the Lincoln Memorial has gazed out pensively across the reflecting pool toward the Federal Reserve building, as if pondering what the bankers had wrought since his death and how to remedy it.
This is the pause that refreshes. First we must have yet another deflation panic, then we get some right big inflation.
As for bearer bonds, the best scam has been to call them and make them noninterest accruing. So, they are only worth the face. Gee, and how much use of free money is there in municipal america!!!
inflation - deflation, two sides of the coin your flipping right now depending on the coin and WHAT YOU NEED.
Sorry, but really.
If your in debt and going down;
or if you have saved a little money;
or if your just itching to buy all the toys you have denied yourself, until now!
I saw a crag's list "Wanted - All your toy's" ad a while ago and it once again it made me laugh, and it made me cry.
Do I want to save 40-80% on a two year car? Or buy new and maybe impress someone I don't give an F. about?
We all need a reality check.
I'm not the guy who's focused on making money at any cost.
This is mostly an academic & curiosity exercise for me.
Actually, mostly a humor exercise.
Some things are inevitable. I'd love for the U.S. returned to what it was, an isolationist backwater with little entanglement in the affairs of other countries.
Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade.... therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale"
Barley - TELL this to the soldiers that have died in Iraq.
If you really want to hear from the soldiers that have bled in Iraq, Afghanistan, an other unnamed places I can ask them to join in and contribute to this.
I don't think you will like what you get.
Most of them have been suckered by real lie tors, insurance salespersons, appraisers, speculators, etc (recruiters are surprisingly last on the list); they would really rather rip someone's eyes out than talk.
I think it was just two nights ago when I got ambushed with questions, backed into a corner and grilled about. - WTF - And I was so happy they accepted the truth. (I HAVE NO IDEA).
I hear some much hate and anger undirected, unfashionable and un-focusable it is scary.
OK, not on a soap box, but it is hard to be around these people who spent more time in combat zones in the last 10 years than in the U.S.
Just another reason I believe people need to be able to vent, and be engaged.
Most times you just don't see it until it's too late.
Citizen AllenM - It is not my loss nor my best friends. It is a loss for this country we call home. While I can enjoy a nice swim and beverages...looking at the sun going down I cant help but think this is too for the country that holds my heart and my soul.
06/12/2009 19:05
ASIA – ITALY
Seizure of US government bonds from two Japanese men in Italy raises questions
Seized US bonds are worth US$ 134.5 billion. The whole affair touches a number of economic and political issues. For some the resignation of Japan’s Interior minister might be related to it.
Milan (AsiaNews) – There have been new developments with regards to the story of US$ 134.5 billion in US government bonds seized by Italy’s financial police at Ponte Chiasso on the Italian-Swiss border, which AsiaNews reported four days ago. News about it initially made it to the front page of many Italian papers, but not of the international press. Since yesterday though, some reports have published by English-language news agencies. And some commentators are starting to link the story to reports in US press dating back to 30 March.
On that date the US Treasury Department announced that it had about US$ 134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), whose purpose is to purchase assets and equity to buttress companies in trouble. The existence of such means that the Obama administration may not have to go to Congress for additional funds, something which is especially important since many lawmakers have vowed to oppose any requests for more money.
At the same time, Japan’s Kyodo news agency has reported that the resignation of Japan’s Interior Minister Kunio Hatoyama might also be related to the Ponte Chiasso affair. Officially the minister quit as a result of a row over who should head the state-owned Japan Post, but some sources have suggested that such a scenario is not very plausible since Mr Hatoyama was Prime Minister Taro Aso’s main ally in his rise to the prime minister’s office, and is especially unconvincing since the ruling coalition government has to face elections in just two weeks time. Indeed there are many reasons to connect the Ponte Chiasso incident to the minister’s resignation.
First of all, the men carrying the bonds had a Japanese passport. Secondly, they were not arrested. Under Italian law anyone in possession of counterfeit cash or bonds worth more than a few tens of thousands of euros must be arrested. By comparison the value of the seized counterfeit bonds is equal to 1 per cent of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thirdly, how the seizure took place is worthy of a Monty Python movie—two well-dressed Japanese men carrying a briefcase travelling in a local train usually used by Italian manual labourers who commute to Switzerland for work had as much chance to go unobserved as two European businessmen travelling in the Congo.
For AsiaNews the incident raises several questions. For example, why did Italy’s press, of every stripe, first give the matter great visibility, only to drop it as quickly? Also, if we are to assume that the bonds are real, why were they in Italy on their way to Switzerland? If these were the unused TARP funds why would they be in US Federal Reserve denomination? Would it not have been better to wait to see how they would be used before the bonds were issued? If they are authentic and owned by a foreign state, why were they not transported in a diplomatic bag, which cannot be inspected at customs? And what will the Italian government do insofar as the issue represents an offence under Italian law? Will it impose a fine of 38 billion euros, and run the risk of a row with an ally, or return the money without any penalty to the rightful owner and show the world that Italy is some kind of banana republic, a semi-colonial protectorate that violates its own laws and constitution?
Whatever the case may be, for Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi it is a heavy burden to bear, given the legal and criminal consequences he might face.
The only people who come out of it well are Italy’s tax cops, reason for them to show off their success on their website.
I've been tracking Alameda County (CA) foreclosures and see a different picture from the the post. Looking at foreclosures starting in 2005 through March, 2009, the number of foreclosed homes that were purchased before the third quarter of 2004 is negligible. In fact, 96% of foreclosures have been on homes bought after 2004.
Some of the forclosures on purchases early in this period may have involved refies or HELOCs, but there is no indication of any significant impact due to "home ATM" behavior on homes bought earlier than that.
However, second loans taken as part of the purchase process are likely to have put the buyer underwater much sooner than if a meaningful down payment had been made. In that sense I agree with the author, but at least here the impact of subsequent borrowing doesn't seem to be noticeable.
Actually I could buy the house and rent it out, but I'm not going that route....
Hahahaha...shadow, you may get a laugh, but as I type this I'm sitting in a 'rental' I own that once upon a time was the house next door...that I bought (pre bubble) precisely to control who my neighbors were. Now my ex-wife is my neighbor! Life can lead you to strange places. Thank $DEITY I have another house, a long way away. Living in my renovation job right now.
you're right, broward, kitco actually stops at 1960... found that somewhere else when i was researching PM stuff like a demon in '02...
anywho, Pt spiked up to almost a grand, i believe, in the 20s. a little after WW1, i think. industrial applications, like the kind of drill bits that made Hughes rich, maybe?
the message of washington's farewell address (which could and should be tattooed in full on the back of every representative to congress) was lost forever when Jefferson sent marines to tripoli, and utterly shredded in the mexican war. maybe it was lost even earlier in the party politics surrounding the election of 1796. i'm still fond of it, however.
I try to imagine who would need a third or fourth mortgage and I try to imagine who would lend to that person, but my imagination isn't up to the task. I did hear about one "make money on second mortgages" scam where they sold a hundred second mortgages on a single property and then defaulted on the first, but I didn't think that many people would bite.
I made a second mortgage on a house once. A realtor I knew came to me and presented this deal - I think I loaned the borrower about 12k at 14% interest or something... They made the payments for about 6 months and then stopped, so I called the realtor and asked him to get involved - he convinced them to sell the house and I got paid in full including all back interest and penalties in the closing... fortunately the market didnt fall apart in the meantime - but I never made another one after that...
The Marshall Plan was the rebuilding of Europe after the end of WWII, at our expense... intended to prevent another war by not running the losing side deep into poverty again as was done after WW1...
Yeah, Marshall Plan was pretty successful. However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella. (that could be one politically incorrect source to cut our expenditures, duh too much of the wishful thinking; they go against our plans to dominate oil in Iraq and we build them free anti missile defense, naughty sugar high
p.s. not that I am claiming war in Iraq was a good idea.)
I can remember a time when getting a second mortgage was a cause for real soul searching and worry,responsible people did not do it short of a real emergency,usually health related.I also remember working as a bill collector in the early 80s and talking to a couple who had 31 mortgages on their home which they originally bought with a credit card.they were both recently graduated pharmacists and they eventually got out of debt.they owed. $175 k total on that home,which sold for $1.2MM in 2006,since foreclosed,resold and now with an NOD.
"Much like how Poland, Ukraine, Czech, etc, were "freeloading" from the Soviets in the 40s-80s, right?"
I don't think we meddled with their politics and inside policies. I am not so sure Soviets were as nice. Don't believe me, ask any Czech or Polish citizen.
There's a certain kind of poor that will always stay poor, no matter how many breaks you give them.
A friend of mine used to live in an impoverished part of Africa. He recalled stories of some (very few) who had either inherited a lot of money or got it somehow from western countries. In almost all cases, they quickly began blowing it on flashy, shiny things, whores, booze, drugs, and other debauchery. Almost never saved or invested it. Next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Seems the pattern occurs with lottery winners in the US. The bulk of lottery tickets are sold to dumb people to begin with, and maybe the sudden access to large amounts of cash makes you even dumber. There are many anecdotes (even news stories) about these idiots who then buy a whole bunch of sports cars, some silicone-filled pu$$ies, liquor, the whole kit and kaboodle. Hell they'll even "invest" in flashy overpriced real estate and play some high-stakes loser games in Vegas. Again, next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Now we even have the home equity route to let your true dumbness shine through. Housing prices are on a tear, and will do so for a long time, or so you think. And here come the Hummers, Escalades, Bimmers, boats, RVs, jewelry, designer clothing, expensive weddings, TVs, who-knows-what. Basically, debauchery. 'Cept the bubble prices were just a head fake, and you really are expected to pay off the loans for all that crap. Next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Same pattern. Different kinds of dumb people. Always ends the same.
Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61.
We also did a video of a widow, 85, who tapped all her equity, $500,000 plus, in a home she has owned since 1957. At first one feels sympathy for her -- she sank the money into a losing baby clothes business. But then she also says she spent the money not expecting to live so long and wanting to have some fun. Does that mean she meant to stick the bank with an unpaid debt? She has no children, and says no other living relatives.
On the other hand, Fremont Investment & Loan, the high flying subprime lender that gave her the money later ended in bankruptcy. People made bad choices, and some lenders were eager to help them make those choices. This mess just goes on and on.
This is someone's idea of kabuki theater. This thing was staged to generate certain reactions and precipitate certain behaviors. The day crew analyzed the evidence from every angle but WHY. The details of the case are largely irrelevant except as clues as to which direction the director was hoping to spook the crowd. This is a chess game and you have to think a few moves ahead.
The silence of the Fed. Res. on the Fed notes seized in Italy is somewhat telling. If they were fake, I'd think the Fed would have declared that within 24 hours.
This will be generating conspiracy theories for 100 years or more.
Noting stays secret forever (well, almost nothing LOL). But the US media and gov't silence suggests this is something that the power structure just doesn't want discussed.
On the other hand, its ONLY $134 Billion. Sort of like round off error on the US debt or the amount of net worth Americans have/will experience from Wall Street greed and regulatory capture.
citizen, I also think this whole inflation thing is too fast. So would treasuries (once again) be the safe haven, even though the US will be selling massive amounts as far the eye can see? I just feel that treasuries are done, though it doesn't mean they can't bounce back short term. thx
So would treasuries (once again) be the safe haven
Well, I'm sure quite a few commenters are going to laugh at any attempt to find a safe haven, but you know, I've always heard there's safety in numbers,...so I'd start a numbers racket, if I was looking for a safe haven.
non-US transnational authorities have decided to take an interest in the mystery Japanese bonds,
be some folks working this weekend in a couple of different countries to find out if this is real
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said his government is confident about the outlook for U.S. Treasuries, signaling the second-biggest foreign holder of the securities will keep buying them amid record sales.
“We have complete trust in the fact that the U.S. views its strong-dollar policy as fundamental,” Yosano, 70, said in an interview in Tokyo on June 10 before attending a Group of Eight meeting of finance ministers starting today in Italy. “So our trust in U.S. Treasuries is absolutely unshakable.”
This explains why the bonds were headed from Italy to Switzerland.
It may also explain that they were being used to bribe Yosano into making the statement he did. His reaffirmation of support for Treasuries drove the 10year down to 3.80%, by the way.
War does not cause inflation, neither does producing things that have no added value.
Increasing the supply of money is inflation. Rising prices are the result.
Remember, one definition of money is debt in motion. So far, the increase in the money supply has remained turgid, not yet spread out in the fractional reserve sense. The banksters know what is coming. And they also know that they are already screwed.
High prices are the cure for high prices, BTW.
(Anybody else catch Kenny Lewis' congressional performance? I have seldom seen one man go hamida, hamida, hamida, so often and so well. He said stuff, then he didn't say stuff. He stammered, he blushed, he looked at the wall behind the committee, he shuffled papers, he lied, he should be given a good stern talking to and sent back to the tobacco patch he came from.)
249 US Federal Reserve bonds, worth a nominal value of 500 million dollars each, and 10 Kennedy bonds worth 1 billion dollars each, were hidden in a briefcase having a double bottom, for a total of 134 billion dollars, equivalent to 96 billion euro.
The confiscation took place at the Chiasso International Train station, between Switzerland and Italy, by the Territorial Operatives Section at Chiasso, in collaboration with the service men from the Financial Control Group at Chiasso Bridge, in the course of working to prevent illicit traffic of money.
The valuables were in the possession of two Japanese men in their 50's, from a train originating in Italy, who insisted that they had nothing to declare when they were taken aside at Chiasso train station.
However, a thorough check of their baggage revealed the US treasury bills, hidden in the bottom of a briefcase, in a closed compartment, separate from the one containing their personal belongings.
Besides the treasury bills, the two Japanese were transporting original and conspicuous bank documents.
Maybe Japanese TV channels should start showing a new cartoon tv-series, "The adventures of Sakamoto Kamikaze. The Bond Trader". Unshakable faith until hitting the deck, right?
There's something so effing bizarre about this "smuggled bonds" story. The coincidence of 134.5 billion in bonds with 134.5 billion in remaining TARP funds (amount quoted by John Crudele in a March 13th article) can't possibly by just...well, coincidence. What are the odds?
And finance minister Yosano is a heavyweight. From Bloomberg:
Yosano will now hold three jobs: finance minister, head of the financial-services authority and his former post as economic and fiscal policy minister.
The new finance chief also said the biggest challenge for a financial services minister is to bolster funding for Japanese companies, which is “getting severe” after a slump in exports slowed orders to both smaller and larger companies.
Yosano, 70, was runner-up to Aso in the contest to head the LDP after Yasuo Fukuda resigned as prime minister in September.
* * * * *
Is it possible that Japan, at the Finance Minister meeting in Italy, flat-out told the US that it needed to cash in some of its FX reserves to support its economy? (Japan has recently been struggling with how to raise cash for economic stimulus.) And the US said PLEASE PLEASE don't sell Treasuries--we'll get you some Federal Reserve Bonds from the rest of the TARP funds!
The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened?
US working the weekend to figure out a story that won't spook the markets... or we hear no more about this from official sources... as some of the key players end up committing suicide or dead...
My only hope is for a BSS... Black Swan Sunday baby!
"The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened? How desperate is this whole thing, really??? "
Something really is fucked up about that incident. Like many have said here, you just do not buy 135 billion this way in normal times and criminals are not that stupid to try this. Maybe few millions but not billions.
I had a nice haul tonight. While sorting through boxes of old documents (bills, etc.) found a 6 month old check from the insurance company. It will cover 80% of my rent... nice! Also nice is the fact that it is not void until 6 more months!
Also found the receipt of our platinum wedding rings bought 5 years ago. Looked up the price and the rings have nearly doubled in value... in dollar terms... so who knows what the price of platinum looks like compared to a basket of other currencies... or oil...
Borrowers are in trouble, but WFC with 80 BIL in helocs will be doing fine?
My confidence in WFC is absolutely unshakable. Just like my confidence in the US strong dollar policy, unshakable.
When the SS checks stop flowing we will truly have the "oh crap" moment everyone is awaiting. How do you spin the money would've been there if we just would have bought the treasuries like we said we were going to.
Unirealist, EE, you both have me rethinking this bearer bond incident. Funny about fiction often being more believable than the truth.
Never forget the people with power have the same issues and hangups as the rest of us. They just get caught up in thinking they can juggle more and more balls until the glass balls they were juggling fall and shatter.
hey EHP....
I almost grabbed your moniker on Facebook as my reserved name, it's available....
but I went with something more up my alley, no, not that alley....
but the designated names are meaningless since you can't sell them and
"Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username at any time for any reason."
"Yeah, Marshall Plan was pretty successful. However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella. (that could be one politically incorrect source to cut our expenditures, duh too much of the wishful thinking; they go against our plans to dominate oil in Iraq and we build them free anti missile defense, naughty sugar high
p.s. not that I am claiming war in Iraq was a good idea.) "
It was all paid off I believe with the UK paying off its war debts only 5-6 years ago. The US still have bases in Western europe and the Soviets don't. There is reason for a US presence in Europe and its not just because they are good neighbours. Its about maintaining global influence. I do laugh when I read Americans saying the Rusians meddled politically in the East and that the American's didn't in the West....talk about cool aid. Lets just not get started in Central American political meddling.... as the body count is way too high for such a nice forum
I don't think we meddled with their politics and inside policies. I am not so sure Soviets were as nice. Don't believe me, ask any Czech or Polish citizen.
Plenty of meddling in Italy after the war as socialist parties dominated and of course in West Germany. The US WANTS to have military presence in Europe so it can influence the globe. Its not a case of the EU askng them to bail them out militarily. Do you really need a defence shield in Poland to protect the US....come on open your eyes
"Is it possible that Japan, at the Finance Minister meeting in Italy, flat-out told the US that it needed to cash in some of its FX reserves to support its economy? (Japan has recently been struggling with how to raise cash for economic stimulus.) And the US said PLEASE PLEASE don't sell Treasuries--we'll get you some Federal Reserve Bonds from the rest of the TARP funds!
The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened?"
unirealist, that seems like a plausible scenario to me. I did a little research and posted here about the possibility of US Treas bearer bonds being issued after 1985 due to the need of the govt to fund high deficit spending by facilitating foreign purchase of instruments suitable for tax evasion.
"However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella."
You really do not know shit. Americans spend nowadays 120 billion dollars to FOREIGN US bases per year, all of them. So maybe 40 billion of that goes to European bases.
That is peanuts compared to EUROZONE GDP, which is close to 14000 billion dollars, the same as USA. BTW, it was the WESTERN EUROPEANS which had to go to the army, almost every men while most of Americans licked their ice-creams at Disneyland and pretended to be all Rambos after merely touching a M16. So maybe you should check your facts again.
Just reading Congressional Record from a couple days ago. It appears the House of Reps might be able to get detainee photos released over the arguments of the hawks in the Senate (Leiberman, plus Repubs) and the Democrats. McCain was talking about it on the floor... just thought some of you might want to know. Petraus has said those photos will seriously undermine the war effort.
Since I highly doubt folks will read this here are some excerpts: Much of the current turmoil is related to linkages propagating risk no one really appreciated until it was too late. The resulting downturn occurred with breathtaking speed. Perhaps I am an optimist but I also believe that because of these same linkages and feedback loops the recovery will be far faster than most anticipate, and a failure to properly prepare for a rapid recovery is likely to be just as disruptive as a prolonged downturn. My remarks are thus oriented towards the more normal state of affairs that prevailed before the current downturn and which we will return to in a relatively short period of time
... What does not appear to be as well analyzed are what I call asymmetric opportunities, which can alter power relationships every bit as much as threats. Periods of turmoil from whatever source, including the current economic situation provide many such opportunities and we need to be mindful of when they exist and when others competing with us have exploited them. A good example is the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean or ESPO pipeline project in Russia, which was supposed to connect the developing eastern Siberian oil fields to the Pacific Ocean port of Nkodka. The Russians have a serious problem with exporting their oil in that they have no good means of doing so outside pipelines, and to have a real influence on global oil prices, tanker transport is needed and ESPO would have filled that need. As it happens the economic downturn hits and the Russians (Transneft) run out of money. Last year China recognizes the opportunity and agrees to fund pipeline construction along with the required capital to continue developing the oil field. The pipeline will not however go to the Pacific Ocean, but rather a refinery complex in northern china, essentially locking the production into china as a single destination. It must be remembered that in Siberian oil wells once they start producing they must be kept on line, Russia cannot turn them off and on like in Saudi Arabia. Therefore there is not even a credible threat that this oil will be subject to disruption the way gas supplies to central Europe are. China thus succeeded in getting a long-term steady source of oil secure from interdiction, which once on stream helps them deal with what they call their “Malacca problem” or the ability of the US to interdict the flow of oil destined for China via the sea.
... One key reminder of that was during the recent financial meltdown when trade was significantly disrupted due to the lock up in the letter of credit market, a financial instrument needed to manage counter party risk (this is not trade financing) and without which trade does not happen. While in the most recent case it was the general failure of the credit markets that drove it, a large-scale failure in the global information infrastructure will potentially have the same effect. Cyber warfare is taking on an increasingly important role in our military planning, and it is well to remember that cyber attacks that seriously degrade military performance can be directed at such things as infrastructure like power grids, financial systems, ports, and even railroad traffic managements systems. It might be worth pointing out at this point too that trade in services, which is also a significant component of the global supply chain, is universally dependent on the global information infrastructure. Services now account for about 19% of global trade, and that number is expected to rise as services are incorporated more completely into the WTO structure. Services, things like financial services and telecommunications, could in fact surpass merchandise as a percentage of total trade sometime in the next decade.
... Another significant component of the global supply chain is the oil and chemical business. Oil waxes and wanes in terms of the general public’s focus, which tends to be laser like with gas at $4.00 a gallon, but a little fuzzier when it is at $2.00. Nonetheless, oil remains a critical resource and is likely to remain so for some period of time. The fact is that most of it comes from fairly unstable parts of the world, for the most part must get from where it is to where it is needed by water, and those water routes all tend to pass through a few choke points. I doubt there is anyone who does not know of the link between the Straits of Hormuz and the price of oil, even though most could not point to the Straits on a map. Oil is also the driver for the emerging friction in the arctic, where enormous amounts of oil and gas reside and ill defined state boundaries, the things the globalization literati said no longer matter, are taking center stage. As an indicator, our neighbors to the north in Canada, not normally associated with the mental image of global bully, have been rattling their sabers at the French, Russians, Danes, and to a lesser extent the US recently. For people that don’t pick fights very often, they don’t fool around when they do. All this over potential claims for oil. It also highlights that in complex systems actors behaving in what is to them a perfectly rational manner will appear to behave out of character to everyone else, sometimes another source of strategic surprise.
... One of the exercises firms that were in good financial health and capable of surviving the global credit crisis, including mine, had to go through as a result of the credit meltdown was identifying critical vendors spread across the planet in vast complex webs to understand the state of their financial health. In the short run, a company is only as healthy as its weakest critical vendor, and many of those otherwise healthy firms that were subject to risk propagating into their operation from critical vendors are suppliers to you, the US military, and you would not see a problem coming until it is a crisis.
... The point of all this is that the global supply chain is a very large complex system where little is black and white. Policy focus tends to be on very narrow parts of it. I’m not sure if the true complexity of the global supply chain is understood at the policy level which in and of itself is a threat to the global supply chain in that policy is being made that effects the functioning of the system without appreciation for what those effects will actually be, some of which will not be good. This goes to the comment about self-inflicted wounds I made earlier. A great example was the Dubai Ports World debacle, blocked on the grounds of national security but not one single argument making that case could actually be made. We also failed to realize the extent to which the US military depended on (and still does) the cooperation of Dubai Ports world, who control ports such as Jebel Ali where significant volumes of cargo bound for Iraq are transshipped off line haul to feeder ships in the commercial transport system. If they wanted to hurt us they could do it far more effectively over there, which would require great cost to overcome than in a handful of second tier terminals in the US.
... An interesting example is a GAO report on C-TPAT. In the opening section of the report the authors note “in 2002 Booz Allen Hamilton sponsored a simulated scenario in which the detonation of weapons smuggled in cargo containers shut down all US seaports for 12 days. The results of the simulation estimated that the seaport closures could result in the loss of $58 B..” to the US economy. The pertinent point here is that contrary to how GAO phrased it, in the exercise the attacks did not close the US seaports. In fact in the war game there were two dirty bombs, neither of which even detonated. A rail car of wine is what exploded, and it was not related to the actual attempted terrorist incidents. It was just part of the background industrial noise. The seaports were closed as a result of the decisions of government participants in the game making the sorts of decisions they would make in real life. Decision makers closed the ports in a 9/11-type response to a couple attempted but unsuccessful attacks. Therefore it is inaccurate to say the bad guys did $58 B in damage to the US economy. US response to a far smaller failed attack is what did the damage. The $58 Billion, by the way, is a number that I feel is grossly understated due to what the study did not include. This also causes us to consider what it means to succeed or fail in this area. The bombs did not detonate which in one regard means the bad guys failed. But they also provoked us into doing $58Billion in damage to ourselves, including disruption to ports and supply chains upon which military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan depends, with no increase in security. So did they really fail and did we really succeed? Not as clear as we would hope.
Very interesting read... or at least I hope some of you think so too. Perhaps I shouldn't bury it in the Friday overnight thread...
since there's a lot of CA people on this board somebody here in Asia was asking me what
a woman can get in terms of state aid/welfare in that state if she has one dependent...
from what I understand she is married, it was a sham marriage for papers and the 'husband'
funnels her money on the side since it's his kid... but he has since moved on...
The point of all this is that the global supply chain is a very large complex system where little is black and white.
A complex system that doesn't produce a great deal of value since most things could be produced locally.
A lot of work & risk for a short-term play on temporary price differences.
what I was trying to get at ... does CA give the woman a monthly check in one lump sum...
this friend was asking me if a 1,200 a month payment from the state of CA make sense for a
woman with a 10 year old?
broward:
Yeah, I'm not agreeing or not with his point; very optimistic. Let's just say what happens if they've got this awesome FedEx like system of belts; but no one really has to ship it beyond the next belt over...
But the real question, is has the "smuggling large amounts of treasuries to switzerland in exchange for gold" meme peaked yet? Why are you slacking on this Broward! Get on that!
They were victims, victims, I tell ya! Bankers breaking into their houses with loan forms in hand, talking big dreams, BMW, Tundras, beach homes...I mean who could have resisted? Oh, and yes, I am being sarcastic.
Sorry, I was just being facetious. Looking through your webpage; those meme searches are with a proprietary tool? Or is there a 3rd party who hosts your algorithm (or Google trends has borrowed it?). From your pictures what type of digital camera are you using? Seems to look a lot better than my point and click...
I originally used spreadsheets to track trend changes on misc.jobs newsgroup.
Eventually I wrote a tool that executes time-series queries against Dejanews.com
Dejanews was a nice datasource until Google bought it.
They messed it up somehow with indexing and estimations.
I suspect that Dejanews worked so well because it was a well-balanced and organized binary tree, a lot like Wiki in some ways.
I guess the latest news I've seen is that Italy asked the SEC to authenticate the bonds. The timing makes no sense and its no doubt embarrassing the story even leaked out. Looking at the latest major foreign holders I can find... $134B is 4% of all foreign holdings; and 20% of Japan's holdings. I have a hard time believing our government instantly knows the truth. Although I want to say they are fake; that would be the "dumb criminal of the century". Heck, if fake those guys are probably lucky they didn't fleece whoever the counterparty was (I suppose we can consider it was someone who wasn't Swiss? Wouldn't that be the ideal place to carry out a rogue-bond-transfer?). Is it possible we would be trading something to the Japanese in exchange for the bond's back?
If those are fake; who is stupid enough to think they can fool the Swiss? Who would be dumb enough to buy them? There hasn't been that much intrigue since the rogue trader story...
"Wouldn't that be the ideal place to carry out a rogue-bond-transfer?"
Given the Fed desire to keep yields and rates low and China and Japan's expressed displeasure at those actions and the administrations truthiness with regard to "green shoots", the simplest and most logical explanation to me, would be that the intention was that Japan wanted to reduce exposure to T-Bills and had negotiated for the Fed to buy these with QE dollars, under the radar, so as to not spook the Chinese, UK or the bag holders who are not politically connected. Or that perhaps a similar plan is/was under way for those big government bondholders as well.
These events should have interesting repercussions on the bond market if they turn out to be real bonds, although I have doubts with regard to whether Italy is going to get an honest answer.
"What the authenticity of the Kennedy-Bonds is concerned, we still have doubts, but the U.S. government bonds worth some 358 million euros seem credible. They are made of filigree paper of excellent quality, "said Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli. Moreover, the papers an extensive bank documentation in the original. The examination of the securities has not yet been completed. The "Guardia di Finanza" investigating together with the American secret service. Mecarelli According to the Italian customs so far counterfeit securities with up to a billion dollars worth aufgestöbert.
$134-Billion NOT Reported on MSM? THAT has to be the key. Why wouldn't every network on the planet have paparazzi staked outside the Japs hotel room? If Italy is going to the extent of asking verification by the SEC, they're thinking that their 40% might be a possibility. One hell of a traffic stop!
.....I once had an old guy stop by the hut many years ago - he had dragged his dumbass out of the sand - he was thirsty as hell, said he'd broke down - I figured he's just gotten drunk and woke up lost in the mesquite. He had these initials "HH" embroidered on the cuff of his long-sleeve shirt - who wears a black long-sleeve shirt in the desert in September? That turned out to be one helluva "horse with no name" summer -
Amazing to me is how many in America can't do simple money math and have no discipline. The new rave in education should be common sense thinking. Some how I don't think it will happen.
LOL.....must have gotten lost. You know how people get after too much "snake oil" - it's easier just to drop them off in the desert - let them sleep it off.
Japanese TV story with pictures of the bonds (from Businessinsinder):
Damn. I didn't know ANYONE reported it. Sure as Hell not HERE. But then I was surprised all our TVs even worked. Nothing was changed or changed. It was like our town was passed over by the DTV pandemic..........I guess we're staying 19th century.......again
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of Humphrey: "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while."
Here is what happens when you don't have a politically controlled BK. A BK judge approved this action a couple of months ago. Obama is just punishing management and is controled the union. The word I use is corruption and why Government controlled auto business will fail.
......two old boys got into a fist-fight yesterday morning......at one of our local watering holes.....since we have the brothels, we sometimes get the "high-flyers" out for a good time away from the police state mentality of Vegas. Turns out these old boys were fighting like a couple teenagers in the dirt and sand - one was 72 and the other turned out to be his brother-in-law of 64. Damned if it didn't amaze me - cops never arrested them. They said they were "playing" - brothers and all..........
We were so young and naive in our youth of the 60s.. So much hope and promise. .We had great dreams and it seemed that the world would listen to us...and somehow 40 years later, look at what we wrought on the World and America..............
Another Dylan song song might be appropriate at this time...We opened and looks like we will end our era with
"Why wouldn't every network on the planet have paparazzi staked outside the Japs hotel room?"
Because the foreign news desk of every paper and network did not make it out of the last round of budget cuts? Because no economist of financial analyst would work for the peanuts these guys pay? Because this smells of a Watergate level of conspiracy and TPTB are working overtime to keep this off the front page?
"The PBGC caps benefits at $54,000 a year for people age 65 and up, with lower benefits for younger retirees. "Had I known that I would be in this predicament, I would have waited to start taking my pension"
Had I known pigs won't fly out of your ass if you lie (like my Momma warned me), I woulda gone much farther in life too!
"Are they still broadcasting analog in your neck of the woods?"
Yep....nothing changed. we have a couple local channels, 5-channels out of Vegas on "translators", one PBS out of Vegas (on Potosi as well) and ALL are broadcasting fine - no changes. We kinda like 19th Century though here.
The U.S. should just declare the bonds to be fake, regardles if they are real or not, good way to put at least a little bit of a dent in the National debt.
"The U.S. should just declare the bonds to be fake, regardles if they are real or not, good way to put at least a little bit of a dent in the National debt."
Yeah the remaining bond holders will LOVE that. Plus if they are actually Japans... I think they might be a bit put off. I think any uncertainty punishes bonds on Monday.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of (Insert Any Politician's Name Here): "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack (Insert Same Name) is until you've followed him around for a while."
Now I think it is correct.
The recovery is a forest. People have let their credit cards go, and don"t have mortgage payments it looks as if we are spending more and people have disposable incomes again. Actually, savings are getting drained and there are no new jobs. We are in the calm before the storm. People are spending what every little cash they have left on eating out and shopping for smaller ticket items. This will come to an end in 6 months. There are no new jobs. Can you hear the quiet in America?
Well there's a news flash...
Mew, mew, mew, mew.... like a bunch of kittens...
I peaked at my password.
Everything Xerox invented at PARC was developed by others.
You misspelled "monetized"
79 percent of borrowers had at least a second mortgage. Some also had third and fourth liens. ...
That is just insane.
that is just insane
What's your point?
If you missed the link buried at the bottom of CR's post on Setser today, it is very much worth taking a look at (more chart pr0n):
The Recession in Historical Context (from Paul Schwartz)
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/2009OutlookFinal_Long.pdf
My next door neighbors bought their house in 1997 for about $135,000... Now they are in default with $356,000 on the first mortgage and who knows how much on 2nd, 3rds etc... It looks like they are going to walk - nice for me, hated them anyway and the bank will resell the house at this price... Now if I could just pick my new neighbors.... Actually I could buy the house and rent it out, but I'm not going that route....
Look on the bright side - Much inventory brings more diverse buyers. So this is a good thing. Unless of course we are in a recession and everybody it closing their respective wallets, and then it is not terribly good news because it means prices will remain soft..
Always look on the bright side of life
Somewhat OT but, sadly, not really, in terms of the pressures that made MEW such a part of the landscape and the truly warped fabric of middle-class Americana...
A friend recently had a beautiful, healthy baby. She wanted to do the labor largely at home, so was at the hospital for a grand total of 20 minutes before delivering - no anesthesia, no IV, no medication, no ID, etc .... The hospital was a bit packed (as maternity wings tend to be at random times) so she stayed less than 24 hours to escape the noise of the shared room.
The bill arrived today - the insurance company is on the hook for a little over $10,000. She's only on the hook for 1K, but still... how did a motrin and one night in a diagnostic room shared with a few other couples repurposed as a maternity room end up costing ten grand? What does a C-section cost an insurance company at the same hospital - 30, 40 grand?
energyecon - That report does not flatter the current economic condition.
So people took out all these mortgages ...
Where were the adults ?
Who was there to say NO !
The whole system was corrupt ...
Broward that video is dedicated to you... Best always - SI
O/T
So I now hear Blackrock is managing money which exceedes the UST - To big to fail?
Blackrock announces on Monday that they are buying the entire country for $24 worth of glass beads....
mmckinl -
How can you be so mean to the victims of this crisis?
The FED flow of funds report has shown that mortgage debt was close to 5 trillion in 2002 and by late 2008 was close to 11 trillion. Clearly this was never a first time buyer issue but always a credit binge gone wild with mortgage refi being the leading edge. No mystery here never was, that the MSM along with the financial media tried to pin the tail on first time home buyers has always been another financial sector narrative produced by the GS PR dept.
Back in the mid 1970's when house prices were going up rapidly we cashed out our equity also - but we had to move....
ShadowInventory
I am seeing people who bought in 2006, and still expect their gains to be 150%, And they just don't understand why other people are not snapping up their secondary and primary loans.
You know these are the people who after 6 months with no offers, they RAISE the asking price. ( For the first time in a long time felt sorry for a RA who was trying to describe reality.
I don't know if quoting other members to create a tag line is possible, but taken totality out of context
---
'I must drink more to erase'
Dr,- I think I need to increase the dosage.
Bond Girl - some phrase comes to mind...something 'bout a hourse to water and drinking...cant recall the full quote
(PS - Darwin is always right!)
Add a little rice to the mash you are brewing KK - it will increase the alcohol content...
You can lead a mind to knowledge, but you cant make it think...
Shadow
+1
hehe - Thank yew, Thank yew....
Bond Girl - do you know if there are still bearer bonds issued or outstanding, or were they made illegal in 1982?
outstanding
KK you could also increase your totality...
BB bonds are totally not legal - anywhere that I know. Promisory Notes ontoh are perfectly fine.
My personal totality has reached terminal velocity...
Who was there to say NO !
I said "No" over and over again.
But she still ripped my clothes off.
What do you need bearer bonds for, SI?
A quick getaway to Switzerland, maybe?
Lot of business analyst positions open.
It's probably a big pay cut but anything is now, probably.
I didn't anticipate that the off-shoring would kill coding but B/A work is a lot more localized, it would be very difficult to offshore it, i think.
Bearer bond - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
True there are some outstanding...god I'd kill for some.
Bond Girl
mmckinl -
How can you be so mean to the victims of this crisis?
~~~~
T'was the financial institutions that enabled the crisis ...
Greenspan was told in '92 to regulate mortgages ...
never got done ...
Bond Girl I'll play devils advocate... has any country ever defaulted on its debt when it was denominated in its own currency?
I know many people who have them as art in their offices.
Barley -
So I now I hear Blackrock is managing money which exceeds the UST - To big to fail?.
Not really exceed, but extend with publicly announced purchase dates, and if you call now you can get a bonus of a dividend/dispersement/whatever they want to call it.
So am I the only one needing to throw up on any former belief of a free market? Or are we just doing an exit stage left, now back in, exit stage right.
Now, just stand while everything burns around you and sing the national anthem of "...+++..."
Starting to think too much, ... Must run for cover,,, now.
The hubris exists in believing the dollar is special.
Comrade Coinz, from one of your previous posts. Do you have a link showing that the US was a creditor during WWII? I thought I remember seeing a graph that said the last time we were a creditor was many many many moons ago? 189X or something....
I have been to Switzerland, nice place - didnt have any bonds at the time - back then I think it was travelers checks... But I probably dont need them now - I have my own mode of transportation - As my wife says, "I am the wind beneath the sheets..."
was this a reply to me?
has any country ever defaulted on its debt when it was denominated in its own currency?
Define "default".
Nades: "... has any country ever defaulted on its debt when it was denominated in its own currency?"
In that case it's called devaluation not default, hence the coming inflation.
nades, google 'us net creditor 1960s'. there are many links, including a StLFed paper which seems to suggest that we were indeed a net creditor until 1982 (probably due to commodity-fueled emerging market debt in the 70s).
HH thanks... I'll check it out....
"the dollar is special"
its role as an international reserve currency is very special. but things can change.
From Wikipedia, the last time the US was completely out of debt was January 8, 1835 under Andrew Jackson...
Yes, HH -
How else did world wars get financed?
Most sovereign defaults have been by countries who borrowed in a different currency.... Dont get me wrong I'm not saying the US in invincible....
the last time the US was completely out of debt was January 8, 1835 under Andrew Jackson...
A visual graph will confirm that the greatest increase in debt is war expense.
The debt basically freezes in peace time.
That's what should have happened in 1989 after the USSR collapsed.
United States public debt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
yep....
Most sovereign defaults have been by countries who borrowed in a different currency
nades tell me its different here?
granted we're talking about two different things... outstanding debt vs current account _________
" we were indeed a net creditor until 1982"
~~~~
Under Reagan the US went from the biggest creditor nation to
the biggest debtor nation in the world ...
our Treasuries arent denominated in Yuan.... (yet...)
Here's the property history off a Redfin listing for a bank-owned house near me.
Property History for 320 HARBOR Dr
Date Event Price Appreciation Source
Jun 11, 2009 Listed $498,960 -- MLSListings #80928415
May 22, 2009 Sold $724,465 28.7%/yr Public Records
Oct 27, 1997 Sold $39,000 -- Public Records
Bought it cheap (although that $39K price is at least $100K too low), fixed it up, took near $700K out of it and handed it back to the bank, which is trying to sell it for half a mil.
Repeat one million times.
Bond Girl
"The hubris exists in believing the dollar is special."
~~~~
In contemporary terms the dollar is special ...
From the reserves around the world ...
to our "allies" who depend on our military supremacy ...
The Japanese finance minister just said so ... lol!
mmckini - got a link?
All i could find is this.... Granted I cant do the derivatives in my head but it seems like we've been borrowing for a long long time....
The first dramatic growth spurt of the debt occurred because of the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war. The debt slowly fluctuated for the rest of the century, finally growing steadily in the 1910s and early 1920s to roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in World War I.[18]
The buildup and involvement in World War II brought the debt up another order of magnitude from $51 billion in 1940 to $260 billion following the war. After this period, the debt's growth closely matched the rate of inflation until the 1980s, when it again began to increase rapidly. Between 1980 and 1990, the debt more than tripled. The public debt shrank from FY 1998 until FY 2002 on a nominal dollar basis, although the total debt has not declined since FY 1969.[19] By the end of 2005, the gross debt had reached $7.9 trillion, about 8.7 times its 1980 level.[20]
Creditor Nation
gotta run all...a nice swim and beverages in the warm evening glo
nades wait a day or two....
up 7.2 on the week and 42% on the year, currently 75% in cash....Also, god bless FRN and VWO - I'm now out and thank you very much
ShadowInventory -
Add a little rice to the mash you are brewing KK - it will increase the alcohol content...
OT
Sorry trying to stay on topic, but I do the R laws. If I want to up it, I do the full move up in base, hops and grain additions. Adjunts just do not do it for me, I would and never add basic sugar first.
I have to admit I'm spoiled and target the perfectly balanced 120+ IBU IPA's. OK, at first taste it's like a BMC, then it mugs you from behind and you don't remember what happened next. Of course carmalizing (sp?) sugar or honey in different ways is another story.
But I also experiment with recipes, yeast, hops.
In all cases, I'm not learning unless I'm doing. And I hate to say it, I can make better beer than I can buy. (with some exceptions of course).
If not for the stars, WFT should I reach for.
You'd already know about the debt/war relationship if you'd read The Great Reckoning like I told you to.
Hollywood--
Those numbers do seem high. My wife had our daughter via planned C-Section and according to the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) documents from Aetna the bill from the hospital was roughly 30K but like all insurers and hospitals do the actual amount Aetna paid the hospital was around 18K. And any type of invasive surgery like a c-section is serious and so the prices will go up plus there are several more days in the hospital and, after birth, there are two patients (and lots of family members the hospital staff has to deal with!!). Bottom line is what is stated in the EOB in terms amount billed vs. amount paid.
Bond Girl - The hubris exists in believing the dollar is special.
I don't know about the dollar, but I am special,
Oh, did the short school bus leave already? Now what?
also interesting to superimpose the price of silver on US wars... said StlFed paper also references that the us went from debtor to creditor 1914-1917...
BG - thanks...
United States Note - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The "Lincon's Grenbacks" ~ Ellen Brown
Lincoln’s Monetary Breakthrough
The bankers had Lincoln’s government over a barrel, just as Wall Street has Congress in its vice-like grip today. The North needed money to fund a war, and the bankers were willing to lend it only under circumstances that amounted to extortion, involving staggering interest rates of 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln saw that this would bankrupt the North and asked a trusted colleague to research the matter and find a solution. In what may be the best piece of advice ever given to a sitting President, Colonel Dick Taylor of Illinois reported back that the Union had the power under the Constitution to solve its financing problem by printing its money as a sovereign government. Taylor said:
“Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes . . . and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also. If you make them full legal tender . . . they will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution.”
The Greenbacks actually were just as good as the bankers’ banknotes. Both were created on a printing press, but the banknotes had the veneer of legitimacy because they were “backed” by gold. The catch was that this backing was based on “fractional reserves,” meaning the bankers held only a small fraction of the gold necessary to support all the loans represented by their banknotes. The “fractional reserve” ruse is still used today to create the impression that bankers are lending something other than mere debt created with accounting entries on their books.1
Lincoln took Col. Taylor’s advice and funded the war by printing paper notes backed by the credit of the government. These legal-tender U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks” represented receipts for labor and goods delivered to the United States. They were paid to soldiers and suppliers and were tradeable for goods and services of a value equivalent to their service to the community. The Greenbacks aided the Union not only in winning the war but in funding a period of unprecedented economic expansion. Lincoln’s government created the greatest industrial giant the world had yet seen. The steel industry was launched, a continental railroad system was created, a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools was promoted, free higher education was established, government support was provided to all branches of science, the Bureau of Mines was organized, and labor productivity was increased by 50 to 75 percent. The Greenback was not the only currency used to fund these achievements; but they could not have been accomplished without it, and they could not have been accomplished on money borrowed at the usurious rates the bankers were attempting to extort from the North.
Lincoln succeeded in restoring the government’s power to issue the national currency, but his revolutionary monetary policy was opposed by powerful forces. The threat to established interests was captured in an editorial of unknown authorship, said to have been published in The London Times in 1865:
“If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. According to historian W. Cleon Skousen:
“Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln’s brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution.”
The institution that became established instead was the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned central bank given the power in 1913 to print Federal Reserve Notes (or dollar bills) and lend them to the government. The government was submerged in a debt that has grown exponentially since, until it is now an unrepayable $11 trillion. For nearly a century, Lincoln’s statue at the Lincoln Memorial has gazed out pensively across the reflecting pool toward the Federal Reserve building, as if pondering what the bankers had wrought since his death and how to remedy it.
Web of Debt - REVIVE LINCOLN’S MONETARY POLICY: AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
StlFed paper also references that the us went from debtor to creditor 1914-1917...
Almost 100% inflation in the U.S during the period.
Wars are inflationary.
"Wars are inflationary. "
check the price of Pt in that era for some chuckles at kitco.com
"Wars are inflationary."
~~~~
All military spending is inflationary ...
producing goods that don't add value is inflationary ...
but one needs a defense ... the trick is right sizing it
so that it doesn't consume the economy ...
Read : Chalmers Johnson"s
Blowback
Sorrows of Empire
Nemesis
to see how our military expenditures have hollowed us out ...
economically, socially and diplomatically ...
"but one needs a defense "
that's why we have two oceans, and two ultra-friendly countries on our borders...
the real hollowing is moral, cultural and intellectual...
Everybody is expecting inflation waaaay too fast.
Give it time.
This is the pause that refreshes. First we must have yet another deflation panic, then we get some right big inflation.
As for bearer bonds, the best scam has been to call them and make them noninterest accruing. So, they are only worth the face. Gee, and how much use of free money is there in municipal america!!!
Someday this war's gonna end...
"Wars are inflationary"
A big apology before I put this down and for those who know me this is really out of character......Accept my appology,.
TELL this to the soldiers that have died in Iraq.
(Sorry my best friends son was killed recently - what a great kid....to be blown up for God knows what reason, God knows where)
check the price of Pt in that era for some chuckles at kitco.com
I've never seen a chart from before 1990 there.
Do you have a link?
Platinum and palladium might be unpredictable as they weren't industrial then.
Barley, my deepest condolences for your loss.
The blood is real, the waste of treasure and effort is real, and the cost will be borne by us long after we leave the sandpile.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Barley
Sorry to hear about your friend's son ...
That is the insanity of our Empire ...
Trillions to kill millions ...
While the home front goes bankrupt ...
That is terrible.
inflation - deflation, two sides of the coin your flipping right now depending on the coin and WHAT YOU NEED.
Sorry, but really.
If your in debt and going down;
or if you have saved a little money;
or if your just itching to buy all the toys you have denied yourself, until now!
I saw a crag's list "Wanted - All your toy's" ad a while ago and it once again it made me laugh, and it made me cry.
Do I want to save 40-80% on a two year car? Or buy new and maybe impress someone I don't give an F. about?
We all need a reality check.
Barley, my heartfelt condolences. Each time I hear a story like this it brings a tear to my eye....
Barley, my condolences to your best friend on his loss. His son will be remembered so long as America exists.
His death in service to his country gives him a permanent honor that he earned, regardless of the conflict.
/ and rage some where deep inside of me.....
Barley -
(Sorry my best friends son was killed recently - what a great kid....to be blown up for God knows what reason, God knows where)
Please pass my best wishes to them, and I truly hope it was not their only child. It may not sound right, but it make a hell of a difference.
Another I don't go out much is I'm surrounded by unsung heros. It feels strange to realize how lucky I was, and how much it sucks for them.
TELL this to the soldiers that have died in Iraq.
I'm not the guy who's focused on making money at any cost.
This is mostly an academic & curiosity exercise for me.
Actually, mostly a humor exercise.
Some things are inevitable. I'd love for the U.S. returned to what it was, an isolationist backwater with little entanglement in the affairs of other countries.
Can't help reaching for music and I'm an unreconstructed fan of Early Dylan:
Bob Dylan Blowin' In the Wind
The E. F. Schumacher Society • Buddhist Economics
I posted this several times before.
Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade.... therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale"
Barley - TELL this to the soldiers that have died in Iraq.
If you really want to hear from the soldiers that have bled in Iraq, Afghanistan, an other unnamed places I can ask them to join in and contribute to this.
I don't think you will like what you get.
Most of them have been suckered by real lie tors, insurance salespersons, appraisers, speculators, etc (recruiters are surprisingly last on the list); they would really rather rip someone's eyes out than talk.
I think it was just two nights ago when I got ambushed with questions, backed into a corner and grilled about. - WTF - And I was so happy they accepted the truth. (I HAVE NO IDEA).
I hear some much hate and anger undirected, unfashionable and un-focusable it is scary.
OK, not on a soap box, but it is hard to be around these people who spent more time in combat zones in the last 10 years than in the U.S.
Just another reason I believe people need to be able to vent, and be engaged.
Most times you just don't see it until it's too late.
Citizen AllenM - It is not my loss nor my best friends. It is a loss for this country we call home. While I can enjoy a nice swim and beverages...looking at the sun going down I cant help but think this is too for the country that holds my heart and my soul.
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15505&size=A
06/12/2009 19:05
ASIA – ITALY
Seizure of US government bonds from two Japanese men in Italy raises questions
Seized US bonds are worth US$ 134.5 billion. The whole affair touches a number of economic and political issues. For some the resignation of Japan’s Interior minister might be related to it.
Milan (AsiaNews) – There have been new developments with regards to the story of US$ 134.5 billion in US government bonds seized by Italy’s financial police at Ponte Chiasso on the Italian-Swiss border, which AsiaNews reported four days ago. News about it initially made it to the front page of many Italian papers, but not of the international press. Since yesterday though, some reports have published by English-language news agencies. And some commentators are starting to link the story to reports in US press dating back to 30 March.
On that date the US Treasury Department announced that it had about US$ 134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), whose purpose is to purchase assets and equity to buttress companies in trouble. The existence of such means that the Obama administration may not have to go to Congress for additional funds, something which is especially important since many lawmakers have vowed to oppose any requests for more money.
At the same time, Japan’s Kyodo news agency has reported that the resignation of Japan’s Interior Minister Kunio Hatoyama might also be related to the Ponte Chiasso affair. Officially the minister quit as a result of a row over who should head the state-owned Japan Post, but some sources have suggested that such a scenario is not very plausible since Mr Hatoyama was Prime Minister Taro Aso’s main ally in his rise to the prime minister’s office, and is especially unconvincing since the ruling coalition government has to face elections in just two weeks time. Indeed there are many reasons to connect the Ponte Chiasso incident to the minister’s resignation.
First of all, the men carrying the bonds had a Japanese passport. Secondly, they were not arrested. Under Italian law anyone in possession of counterfeit cash or bonds worth more than a few tens of thousands of euros must be arrested. By comparison the value of the seized counterfeit bonds is equal to 1 per cent of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thirdly, how the seizure took place is worthy of a Monty Python movie—two well-dressed Japanese men carrying a briefcase travelling in a local train usually used by Italian manual labourers who commute to Switzerland for work had as much chance to go unobserved as two European businessmen travelling in the Congo.
For AsiaNews the incident raises several questions. For example, why did Italy’s press, of every stripe, first give the matter great visibility, only to drop it as quickly? Also, if we are to assume that the bonds are real, why were they in Italy on their way to Switzerland? If these were the unused TARP funds why would they be in US Federal Reserve denomination? Would it not have been better to wait to see how they would be used before the bonds were issued? If they are authentic and owned by a foreign state, why were they not transported in a diplomatic bag, which cannot be inspected at customs? And what will the Italian government do insofar as the issue represents an offence under Italian law? Will it impose a fine of 38 billion euros, and run the risk of a row with an ally, or return the money without any penalty to the rightful owner and show the world that Italy is some kind of banana republic, a semi-colonial protectorate that violates its own laws and constitution?
Whatever the case may be, for Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi it is a heavy burden to bear, given the legal and criminal consequences he might face.
The only people who come out of it well are Italy’s tax cops, reason for them to show off their success on their website.
or return the money without any penalty to the rightful owner
And that would be who?
the resignation of Japan’s Interior Minister Kunio Hatoyama might also be related to the Ponte Chiasso affair
Holy cow.
It looks like the Feds WERE engaged in plausible deniability.
I've been tracking Alameda County (CA) foreclosures and see a different picture from the the post. Looking at foreclosures starting in 2005 through March, 2009, the number of foreclosed homes that were purchased before the third quarter of 2004 is negligible. In fact, 96% of foreclosures have been on homes bought after 2004.
Some of the forclosures on purchases early in this period may have involved refies or HELOCs, but there is no indication of any significant impact due to "home ATM" behavior on homes bought earlier than that.
However, second loans taken as part of the purchase process are likely to have put the buyer underwater much sooner than if a meaningful down payment had been made. In that sense I agree with the author, but at least here the impact of subsequent borrowing doesn't seem to be noticeable.
@shadowinventory
Actually I could buy the house and rent it out, but I'm not going that route....
Hahahaha...shadow, you may get a laugh, but as I type this I'm sitting in a 'rental' I own that once upon a time was the house next door...that I bought (pre bubble) precisely to control who my neighbors were. Now my ex-wife is my neighbor! Life can lead you to strange places. Thank $DEITY I have another house, a long way away. Living in my renovation job right now.
you're right, broward, kitco actually stops at 1960... found that somewhere else when i was researching PM stuff like a demon in '02...
anywho, Pt spiked up to almost a grand, i believe, in the 20s. a little after WW1, i think. industrial applications, like the kind of drill bits that made Hughes rich, maybe?
Somebody grabbed $135B of TARP money and ran?
That's just incredible.
Looks like it really is Game Over.
my ex-wife is my neighbor - "The devil that you know is better than the devil you dont know".... That one takes the prize for sure...
"what it was"
the message of washington's farewell address (which could and should be tattooed in full on the back of every representative to congress) was lost forever when Jefferson sent marines to tripoli, and utterly shredded in the mexican war. maybe it was lost even earlier in the party politics surrounding the election of 1796. i'm still fond of it, however.
Some also had third and fourth liens. ...
I try to imagine who would need a third or fourth mortgage and I try to imagine who would lend to that person, but my imagination isn't up to the task. I did hear about one "make money on second mortgages" scam where they sold a hundred second mortgages on a single property and then defaulted on the first, but I didn't think that many people would bite.
I made a second mortgage on a house once. A realtor I knew came to me and presented this deal - I think I loaned the borrower about 12k at 14% interest or something... They made the payments for about 6 months and then stopped, so I called the realtor and asked him to get involved - he convinced them to sell the house and I got paid in full including all back interest and penalties in the closing... fortunately the market didnt fall apart in the meantime - but I never made another one after that...
"Comrade Coinz, from one of your previous posts. Do you have a link showing that the US was a creditor during WWII?"
I think we were the net creditor till mid 70's. We definitely were the world creditor right after WWII, the scheme was called Marshall Plan (I think.)
Do you mean Bretton Woods?
$135 in untraceable US bearer bonds ...
ends up on a Italian commuter train going to Switzerland
in a briefcase with 2 Japanese Nationals in Italy ...
Neither were arrested ...
The finance minister of Japan resigns ...
The Japanese then say the dollar will always be the
reserve currency ...
~~~~
Someone 'splain it to me please ...
The Marshall Plan was the rebuilding of Europe after the end of WWII, at our expense... intended to prevent another war by not running the losing side deep into poverty again as was done after WW1...
Sorry Mckinl, no one can explain much about the bonds yet.
Just get more popcorn and join the rest of us watching the wierdness. What ever the explination is, or the one given to us, it will be interesting.
"at our expense"
Yeah, Marshall Plan was pretty successful. However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella. (that could be one politically incorrect source to cut our expenditures, duh too much of the wishful thinking; they go against our plans to dominate oil in Iraq and we build them free anti missile defense, naughty sugar high
p.s. not that I am claiming war in Iraq was a good idea.)
"However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then"
Much like how Poland, Ukraine, Czech, etc, were "freeloading" from the Soviets in the 40s-80s, right?
I can remember a time when getting a second mortgage was a cause for real soul searching and worry,responsible people did not do it short of a real emergency,usually health related.I also remember working as a bill collector in the early 80s and talking to a couple who had 31 mortgages on their home which they originally bought with a credit card.they were both recently graduated pharmacists and they eventually got out of debt.they owed. $175 k total on that home,which sold for $1.2MM in 2006,since foreclosed,resold and now with an NOD.
"Much like how Poland, Ukraine, Czech, etc, were "freeloading" from the Soviets in the 40s-80s, right?"
I don't think we meddled with their politics and inside policies. I am not so sure Soviets were as nice. Don't believe me, ask any Czech or Polish citizen.
Don't believe me, ask any Czech or Polish citizen.
Or just google "Prague Spring".
There's a certain kind of poor that will always stay poor, no matter how many breaks you give them.
A friend of mine used to live in an impoverished part of Africa. He recalled stories of some (very few) who had either inherited a lot of money or got it somehow from western countries. In almost all cases, they quickly began blowing it on flashy, shiny things, whores, booze, drugs, and other debauchery. Almost never saved or invested it. Next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Seems the pattern occurs with lottery winners in the US. The bulk of lottery tickets are sold to dumb people to begin with, and maybe the sudden access to large amounts of cash makes you even dumber. There are many anecdotes (even news stories) about these idiots who then buy a whole bunch of sports cars, some silicone-filled pu$$ies, liquor, the whole kit and kaboodle. Hell they'll even "invest" in flashy overpriced real estate and play some high-stakes loser games in Vegas. Again, next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Now we even have the home equity route to let your true dumbness shine through. Housing prices are on a tear, and will do so for a long time, or so you think. And here come the Hummers, Escalades, Bimmers, boats, RVs, jewelry, designer clothing, expensive weddings, TVs, who-knows-what. Basically, debauchery. 'Cept the bubble prices were just a head fake, and you really are expected to pay off the loans for all that crap. Next thing you know, the money's all gone and the person is poor and desperate.
Same pattern. Different kinds of dumb people. Always ends the same.
Someone 'splain it to me please ...
Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61.
"I don't think we meddled with their politics and inside policies."
Now who's being naïve, Kay?
OT, this is for Broward, I couldn't resist:
Police Accuse Head of Anti-Drug Program of Selling Drugs at Starbucks....
Police accuse head of anti-drug program of selling drugs at Starbucks | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times
that is one of my favorite dylan lyrics - too bad it was all garbage after the motorcycle wreck except BOTT
Thanks for posting my article CR.
We also did a video of a widow, 85, who tapped all her equity, $500,000 plus, in a home she has owned since 1957. At first one feels sympathy for her -- she sank the money into a losing baby clothes business. But then she also says she spent the money not expecting to live so long and wanting to have some fun. Does that mean she meant to stick the bank with an unpaid debt? She has no children, and says no other living relatives.
Video is here:
Video interview of widow, 85, facing foreclosure - Mortgage Insider : The Orange County Register
On the other hand, Fremont Investment & Loan, the high flying subprime lender that gave her the money later ended in bankruptcy. People made bad choices, and some lenders were eager to help them make those choices. This mess just goes on and on.
Thoughts on the $134B bond seizure:
This is someone's idea of kabuki theater. This thing was staged to generate certain reactions and precipitate certain behaviors. The day crew analyzed the evidence from every angle but WHY. The details of the case are largely irrelevant except as clues as to which direction the director was hoping to spook the crowd. This is a chess game and you have to think a few moves ahead.
The silence of the Fed. Res. on the Fed notes seized in Italy is somewhat telling. If they were fake, I'd think the Fed would have declared that within 24 hours.
This will be generating conspiracy theories for 100 years or more.
Noting stays secret forever (well, almost nothing LOL). But the US media and gov't silence suggests this is something that the power structure just doesn't want discussed.
On the other hand, its ONLY $134 Billion. Sort of like round off error on the US debt or the amount of net worth Americans have/will experience from Wall Street greed and regulatory capture.
Late night music from the Crossroads Guitar Festival a couple years ago.
Eric Clapton - I Shot the Sheriff
Gotta agree with the guy who posted it. One of the best guitar solos I've ever seen.
citizen, I also think this whole inflation thing is too fast. So would treasuries (once again) be the safe haven, even though the US will be selling massive amounts as far the eye can see? I just feel that treasuries are done, though it doesn't mean they can't bounce back short term. thx
So would treasuries (once again) be the safe haven
Well, I'm sure quite a few commenters are going to laugh at any attempt to find a safe haven, but you know, I've always heard there's safety in numbers,...so I'd start a numbers racket, if I was looking for a safe haven.
non-US transnational authorities have decided to take an interest in the mystery Japanese bonds,
be some folks working this weekend in a couple of different countries to find out if this is real
"starbucks drug king"
Hey, I recognize that guy!!!
Sigh.
I miss Doktor J, mitch is funny. Durin pool and funnier but the sex sucksu
From Bloomberg:
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said his government is confident about the outlook for U.S. Treasuries, signaling the second-biggest foreign holder of the securities will keep buying them amid record sales.
“We have complete trust in the fact that the U.S. views its strong-dollar policy as fundamental,” Yosano, 70, said in an interview in Tokyo on June 10 before attending a Group of Eight meeting of finance ministers starting today in Italy. “So our trust in U.S. Treasuries is absolutely unshakable.”
This explains why the bonds were headed from Italy to Switzerland.
It may also explain that they were being used to bribe Yosano into making the statement he did. His reaffirmation of support for Treasuries drove the 10year down to 3.80%, by the way.
Yosano Says Japan’s Trust in Treasuries ‘Unshakable’ (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
(edited update)
I look at the world
And I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
Inflation is a monetary event.
War does not cause inflation, neither does producing things that have no added value.
Increasing the supply of money is inflation. Rising prices are the result.
Remember, one definition of money is debt in motion. So far, the increase in the money supply has remained turgid, not yet spread out in the fractional reserve sense. The banksters know what is coming. And they also know that they are already screwed.
High prices are the cure for high prices, BTW.
(Anybody else catch Kenny Lewis' congressional performance? I have seldom seen one man go hamida, hamida, hamida, so often and so well. He said stuff, then he didn't say stuff. He stammered, he blushed, he looked at the wall behind the committee, he shuffled papers, he lied, he should be given a good stern talking to and sent back to the tobacco patch he came from.)
News quote from itulip forum, no link:
249 US Federal Reserve bonds, worth a nominal value of 500 million dollars each, and 10 Kennedy bonds worth 1 billion dollars each, were hidden in a briefcase having a double bottom, for a total of 134 billion dollars, equivalent to 96 billion euro.
The confiscation took place at the Chiasso International Train station, between Switzerland and Italy, by the Territorial Operatives Section at Chiasso, in collaboration with the service men from the Financial Control Group at Chiasso Bridge, in the course of working to prevent illicit traffic of money.
The valuables were in the possession of two Japanese men in their 50's, from a train originating in Italy, who insisted that they had nothing to declare when they were taken aside at Chiasso train station.
However, a thorough check of their baggage revealed the US treasury bills, hidden in the bottom of a briefcase, in a closed compartment, separate from the one containing their personal belongings.
Besides the treasury bills, the two Japanese were transporting original and conspicuous bank documents.
Maybe Japanese TV channels should start showing a new cartoon tv-series, "The adventures of Sakamoto Kamikaze. The Bond Trader". Unshakable faith until hitting the deck, right?
Study: Home Equity Borrowers in Danger
Borrowers are in trouble, but WFC with 80 BIL in helocs will be doing fine?
Has part of this credit-collapse tragedy been omitted?
History once again being (re)written by the victors?
There's something so effing bizarre about this "smuggled bonds" story. The coincidence of 134.5 billion in bonds with 134.5 billion in remaining TARP funds (amount quoted by John Crudele in a March 13th article) can't possibly by just...well, coincidence. What are the odds?
And finance minister Yosano is a heavyweight. From Bloomberg:
Yosano will now hold three jobs: finance minister, head of the financial-services authority and his former post as economic and fiscal policy minister.
The new finance chief also said the biggest challenge for a financial services minister is to bolster funding for Japanese companies, which is “getting severe” after a slump in exports slowed orders to both smaller and larger companies.
Yosano, 70, was runner-up to Aso in the contest to head the LDP after Yasuo Fukuda resigned as prime minister in September.
* * * * *
Is it possible that Japan, at the Finance Minister meeting in Italy, flat-out told the US that it needed to cash in some of its FX reserves to support its economy? (Japan has recently been struggling with how to raise cash for economic stimulus.) And the US said PLEASE PLEASE don't sell Treasuries--we'll get you some Federal Reserve Bonds from the rest of the TARP funds!
The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened?
How desperate is this whole thing, really???
US working the weekend to figure out a story that won't spook the markets... or we hear no more about this from official sources... as some of the key players end up committing suicide or dead...
My only hope is for a BSS... Black Swan Sunday baby!
"The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened? How desperate is this whole thing, really??? "
Something really is fucked up about that incident. Like many have said here, you just do not buy 135 billion this way in normal times and criminals are not that stupid to try this. Maybe few millions but not billions.
I had a nice haul tonight. While sorting through boxes of old documents (bills, etc.) found a 6 month old check from the insurance company. It will cover 80% of my rent... nice! Also nice is the fact that it is not void until 6 more months!
Also found the receipt of our platinum wedding rings bought 5 years ago. Looked up the price and the rings have nearly doubled in value... in dollar terms... so who knows what the price of platinum looks like compared to a basket of other currencies... or oil...
Borrowers are in trouble, but WFC with 80 BIL in helocs will be doing fine?
My confidence in WFC is absolutely unshakable. Just like my confidence in the US strong dollar policy, unshakable.
When the SS checks stop flowing we will truly have the "oh crap" moment everyone is awaiting. How do you spin the money would've been there if we just would have bought the treasuries like we said we were going to.
David Fiderer: The Simple Arithmetic of Federal Deficits, A Counterpoint to the New York Times Analysis
Unirealist, EE, you both have me rethinking this bearer bond incident. Funny about fiction often being more believable than the truth.
Never forget the people with power have the same issues and hangups as the rest of us. They just get caught up in thinking they can juggle more and more balls until the glass balls they were juggling fall and shatter.
hey EHP....
I almost grabbed your moniker on Facebook as my reserved name, it's available....
but I went with something more up my alley, no, not that alley....
but the designated names are meaningless since you can't sell them and
"Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username at any time for any reason."
by the way CR is still available....
"Yeah, Marshall Plan was pretty successful. However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella. (that could be one politically incorrect source to cut our expenditures, duh too much of the wishful thinking; they go against our plans to dominate oil in Iraq and we build them free anti missile defense, naughty sugar high
p.s. not that I am claiming war in Iraq was a good idea.) "
It was all paid off I believe with the UK paying off its war debts only 5-6 years ago. The US still have bases in Western europe and the Soviets don't. There is reason for a US presence in Europe and its not just because they are good neighbours. Its about maintaining global influence. I do laugh when I read Americans saying the Rusians meddled politically in the East and that the American's didn't in the West....talk about cool aid. Lets just not get started in Central American political meddling.... as the body count is way too high for such a nice forum
I don't think we meddled with their politics and inside policies. I am not so sure Soviets were as nice. Don't believe me, ask any Czech or Polish citizen.
Plenty of meddling in Italy after the war as socialist parties dominated and of course in West Germany. The US WANTS to have military presence in Europe so it can influence the globe. Its not a case of the EU askng them to bail them out militarily. Do you really need a defence shield in Poland to protect the US....come on open your eyes
"Is it possible that Japan, at the Finance Minister meeting in Italy, flat-out told the US that it needed to cash in some of its FX reserves to support its economy? (Japan has recently been struggling with how to raise cash for economic stimulus.) And the US said PLEASE PLEASE don't sell Treasuries--we'll get you some Federal Reserve Bonds from the rest of the TARP funds!
The US delivered them to Yosano in Italy, and he sent them by courier to Switzerland (at US request) where they could be laundered in a way that concealed what had just happened?"
unirealist, that seems like a plausible scenario to me. I did a little research and posted here about the possibility of US Treas bearer bonds being issued after 1985 due to the need of the govt to fund high deficit spending by facilitating foreign purchase of instruments suitable for tax evasion.
"However EU got used to freeloading at our expense since then, take defense for example. The lowest per GDP spending in the world, because they are covered by our umbrella."
You really do not know shit. Americans spend nowadays 120 billion dollars to FOREIGN US bases per year, all of them. So maybe 40 billion of that goes to European bases.
That is peanuts compared to EUROZONE GDP, which is close to 14000 billion dollars, the same as USA. BTW, it was the WESTERN EUROPEANS which had to go to the army, almost every men while most of Americans licked their ice-creams at Disneyland and pretended to be all Rambos after merely touching a M16. So maybe you should check your facts again.
Just reading Congressional Record from a couple days ago. It appears the House of Reps might be able to get detainee photos released over the arguments of the hawks in the Senate (Leiberman, plus Repubs) and the Democrats. McCain was talking about it on the floor... just thought some of you might want to know. Petraus has said those photos will seriously undermine the war effort.
One more thing of interest; to those who want to find out more about the shipping industry outlook.
Keynote speech from Stephen M. Carmel, Senior Vice President, Maritime Services, Maersk Line Limited at the US Naval Institute/Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Joint War Fighting Conference on May 14. This speech was interesting to me...
Since I highly doubt folks will read this here are some excerpts:
Much of the current turmoil is related to linkages propagating risk no one really appreciated until it was too late. The resulting downturn occurred with breathtaking speed. Perhaps I am an optimist but I also believe that because of these same linkages and feedback loops the recovery will be far faster than most anticipate, and a failure to properly prepare for a rapid recovery is likely to be just as disruptive as a prolonged downturn. My remarks are thus oriented towards the more normal state of affairs that prevailed before the current downturn and which we will return to in a relatively short period of time
...
What does not appear to be as well analyzed are what I call asymmetric opportunities, which can alter power relationships every bit as much as threats. Periods of turmoil from whatever source, including the current economic situation provide many such opportunities and we need to be mindful of when they exist and when others competing with us have exploited them. A good example is the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean or ESPO pipeline project in Russia, which was supposed to connect the developing eastern Siberian oil fields to the Pacific Ocean port of Nkodka. The Russians have a serious problem with exporting their oil in that they have no good means of doing so outside pipelines, and to have a real influence on global oil prices, tanker transport is needed and ESPO would have filled that need. As it happens the economic downturn hits and the Russians (Transneft) run out of money. Last year China recognizes the opportunity and agrees to fund pipeline construction along with the required capital to continue developing the oil field. The pipeline will not however go to the Pacific Ocean, but rather a refinery complex in northern china, essentially locking the production into china as a single destination. It must be remembered that in Siberian oil wells once they start producing they must be kept on line, Russia cannot turn them off and on like in Saudi Arabia. Therefore there is not even a credible threat that this oil will be subject to disruption the way gas supplies to central Europe are. China thus succeeded in getting a long-term steady source of oil secure from interdiction, which once on stream helps them deal with what they call their “Malacca problem” or the ability of the US to interdict the flow of oil destined for China via the sea.
...
One key reminder of that was during the recent financial meltdown when trade was significantly disrupted due to the lock up in the letter of credit market, a financial instrument needed to manage counter party risk (this is not trade financing) and without which trade does not happen. While in the most recent case it was the general failure of the credit markets that drove it, a large-scale failure in the global information infrastructure will potentially have the same effect. Cyber warfare is taking on an increasingly important role in our military planning, and it is well to remember that cyber attacks that seriously degrade military performance can be directed at such things as infrastructure like power grids, financial systems, ports, and even railroad traffic managements systems. It might be worth pointing out at this point too that trade in services, which is also a significant component of the global supply chain, is universally dependent on the global information infrastructure. Services now account for about 19% of global trade, and that number is expected to rise as services are incorporated more completely into the WTO structure. Services, things like financial services and telecommunications, could in fact surpass merchandise as a percentage of total trade sometime in the next decade.
...
Another significant component of the global supply chain is the oil and chemical business. Oil waxes and wanes in terms of the general public’s focus, which tends to be laser like with gas at $4.00 a gallon, but a little fuzzier when it is at $2.00. Nonetheless, oil remains a critical resource and is likely to remain so for some period of time. The fact is that most of it comes from fairly unstable parts of the world, for the most part must get from where it is to where it is needed by water, and those water routes all tend to pass through a few choke points. I doubt there is anyone who does not know of the link between the Straits of Hormuz and the price of oil, even though most could not point to the Straits on a map. Oil is also the driver for the emerging friction in the arctic, where enormous amounts of oil and gas reside and ill defined state boundaries, the things the globalization literati said no longer matter, are taking center stage. As an indicator, our neighbors to the north in Canada, not normally associated with the mental image of global bully, have been rattling their sabers at the French, Russians, Danes, and to a lesser extent the US recently. For people that don’t pick fights very often, they don’t fool around when they do. All this over potential claims for oil. It also highlights that in complex systems actors behaving in what is to them a perfectly rational manner will appear to behave out of character to everyone else, sometimes another source of strategic surprise.
...
One of the exercises firms that were in good financial health and capable of surviving the global credit crisis, including mine, had to go through as a result of the credit meltdown was identifying critical vendors spread across the planet in vast complex webs to understand the state of their financial health. In the short run, a company is only as healthy as its weakest critical vendor, and many of those otherwise healthy firms that were subject to risk propagating into their operation from critical vendors are suppliers to you, the US military, and you would not see a problem coming until it is a crisis.
...
The point of all this is that the global supply chain is a very large complex system where little is black and white. Policy focus tends to be on very narrow parts of it. I’m not sure if the true complexity of the global supply chain is understood at the policy level which in and of itself is a threat to the global supply chain in that policy is being made that effects the functioning of the system without appreciation for what those effects will actually be, some of which will not be good. This goes to the comment about self-inflicted wounds I made earlier. A great example was the Dubai Ports World debacle, blocked on the grounds of national security but not one single argument making that case could actually be made. We also failed to realize the extent to which the US military depended on (and still does) the cooperation of Dubai Ports world, who control ports such as Jebel Ali where significant volumes of cargo bound for Iraq are transshipped off line haul to feeder ships in the commercial transport system. If they wanted to hurt us they could do it far more effectively over there, which would require great cost to overcome than in a handful of second tier terminals in the US.
...
An interesting example is a GAO report on C-TPAT. In the opening section of the report the authors note “in 2002 Booz Allen Hamilton sponsored a simulated scenario in which the detonation of weapons smuggled in cargo containers shut down all US seaports for 12 days. The results of the simulation estimated that the seaport closures could result in the loss of $58 B..” to the US economy. The pertinent point here is that contrary to how GAO phrased it, in the exercise the attacks did not close the US seaports. In fact in the war game there were two dirty bombs, neither of which even detonated. A rail car of wine is what exploded, and it was not related to the actual attempted terrorist incidents. It was just part of the background industrial noise. The seaports were closed as a result of the decisions of government participants in the game making the sorts of decisions they would make in real life. Decision makers closed the ports in a 9/11-type response to a couple attempted but unsuccessful attacks. Therefore it is inaccurate to say the bad guys did $58 B in damage to the US economy. US response to a far smaller failed attack is what did the damage. The $58 Billion, by the way, is a number that I feel is grossly understated due to what the study did not include. This also causes us to consider what it means to succeed or fail in this area. The bombs did not detonate which in one regard means the bad guys failed. But they also provoked us into doing $58Billion in damage to ourselves, including disruption to ports and supply chains upon which military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan depends, with no increase in security. So did they really fail and did we really succeed? Not as clear as we would hope.
Very interesting read... or at least I hope some of you think so too. Perhaps I shouldn't bury it in the Friday overnight thread...
since there's a lot of CA people on this board somebody here in Asia was asking me what
a woman can get in terms of state aid/welfare in that state if she has one dependent...
from what I understand she is married, it was a sham marriage for papers and the 'husband'
funnels her money on the side since it's his kid... but he has since moved on...
The point of all this is that the global supply chain is a very large complex system where little is black and white.
A complex system that doesn't produce a great deal of value since most things could be produced locally.
A lot of work & risk for a short-term play on temporary price differences.
what I was trying to get at ... does CA give the woman a monthly check in one lump sum...
this friend was asking me if a 1,200 a month payment from the state of CA make sense for a
woman with a 10 year old?
I'm not sure you'll find CA women with kids up on CR @ 3 AM PST...
broward:
Yeah, I'm not agreeing or not with his point; very optimistic. Let's just say what happens if they've got this awesome FedEx like system of belts; but no one really has to ship it beyond the next belt over...
... and dammit my Windows XP is not time synching well for some reason... w-t-f!
How desperate is this whole thing, really???
You're kidding, right?
It's $135B in a duffel bag being smuggled across Europe.
$135B in a flipping duffel bag.
That's 250 Mona Lisas.
1000 F-22 Raptor airplanes
6 million Toyota Prius cars
In
a
D U F F E L
B A G.
I'd say it's pretty desperate.
But the real question, is has the "smuggling large amounts of treasuries to switzerland in exchange for gold" meme peaked yet? Why are you slacking on this Broward! Get on that!
They were victims, victims, I tell ya! Bankers breaking into their houses with loan forms in hand, talking big dreams, BMW, Tundras, beach homes...I mean who could have resisted? Oh, and yes, I am being sarcastic.
"Why are you slacking on this Broward?"
Don't need memes for this one.
This is Big Bad Mojo right in your face.
Thanks for the link Bond Girl.
Re: the 135B bonds
For those of you late to the discussion, the real questions are:
who turned them in?
why was this made public?
I suggest only the US gov't has both the ability and the motives for both. An example was made for any country trying to run for the door first.
Sorry, I was just being facetious. Looking through your webpage; those meme searches are with a proprietary tool? Or is there a 3rd party who hosts your algorithm (or Google trends has borrowed it?). From your pictures what type of digital camera are you using? Seems to look a lot better than my point and click...
Ahhhh found your meme-miner page...
Man, I'm sure glad CONgress had nothing to do with it. I had heard that Reagan had surrounded the whole country...what could we do?
those meme searches are with a proprietary tool?
I originally used spreadsheets to track trend changes on misc.jobs newsgroup.
Eventually I wrote a tool that executes time-series queries against Dejanews.com
Dejanews was a nice datasource until Google bought it.
They messed it up somehow with indexing and estimations.
I suspect that Dejanews worked so well because it was a well-balanced and organized binary tree, a lot like Wiki in some ways.
Now I use
Google Trends
Trend Search
Job Trends | Indeed.com
Alexa the Web Information Company
there's several other tools, I have a list somewhere.
Here it is.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=job_site_traffic
I use the free version of Quantcast and Compete once in awhile as a doublecheck.
KK, a question. Would you buy new and try to impress someone you do give an F. about? If she cares, you have the wrong girl.
My camera?
For that quarter, I used a Canon Powershot SD 10.
it's almost five years old, not sophisticated at all but the size of a cell phone
I guess the latest news I've seen is that Italy asked the SEC to authenticate the bonds. The timing makes no sense and its no doubt embarrassing the story even leaked out. Looking at the latest major foreign holders
I can find... $134B is 4% of all foreign holdings; and 20% of Japan's holdings. I have a hard time believing our government instantly knows the truth. Although I want to say they are fake; that would be the "dumb criminal of the century". Heck, if fake those guys are probably lucky they didn't fleece whoever the counterparty was (I suppose we can consider it was someone who wasn't Swiss? Wouldn't that be the ideal place to carry out a rogue-bond-transfer?). Is it possible we would be trading something to the Japanese in exchange for the bond's back?
If those are fake; who is stupid enough to think they can fool the Swiss? Who would be dumb enough to buy them? There hasn't been that much intrigue since the rogue trader story...
"Wouldn't that be the ideal place to carry out a rogue-bond-transfer?"
Given the Fed desire to keep yields and rates low and China and Japan's expressed displeasure at those actions and the administrations truthiness with regard to "green shoots", the simplest and most logical explanation to me, would be that the intention was that Japan wanted to reduce exposure to T-Bills and had negotiated for the Fed to buy these with QE dollars, under the radar, so as to not spook the Chinese, UK or the bag holders who are not politically connected. Or that perhaps a similar plan is/was under way for those big government bondholders as well.
These events should have interesting repercussions on the bond market if they turn out to be real bonds, although I have doubts with regard to whether Italy is going to get an honest answer.
RE the 134.5B caper:
Why were the two Japanese gentlemen NOT arrested?
Why has it dropped from the Italian news?
aussie goes oh sh** in ny
Anne Summers
From the Aussie link....
"And so people are stealing children's shoes, scamming diners for free meals and begging in the streets in what used to be the world's richest city."
I live in NY, and though the recession is biting...this is pretty theatrical writing. We are not Calcutta. Or at least not yet.
damn, I forgot the time.... I was reading about those bonds
yesterday ... any new info on if they are real or not? what about the MSM?
fried writes: "....this is pretty theatrical writing.:
Exacamundo. And the upscale homeless were auditioning!
Ups, ein Fehler: 404 - Seite nicht gefunden - Home | STERN.DE
translated in google, emphasis mine:
"What the authenticity of the Kennedy-Bonds is concerned, we still have doubts, but the U.S. government bonds worth some 358 million euros seem credible. They are made of filigree paper of excellent quality, "said Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli. Moreover, the papers an extensive bank documentation in the original. The examination of the securities has not yet been completed. The "Guardia di Finanza" investigating together with the American secret service. Mecarelli According to the Italian customs so far counterfeit securities with up to a billion dollars worth aufgestöbert.
That's 250 Mona Lisas.
1000 F-22 Raptor airplanes
6 million Toyota Prius cars
or 2 2/3 Madoffs
$134-Billion NOT Reported on MSM? THAT has to be the key. Why wouldn't every network on the planet have paparazzi staked outside the Japs hotel room? If Italy is going to the extent of asking verification by the SEC, they're thinking that their 40% might be a possibility. One hell of a traffic stop!
.....I once had an old guy stop by the hut many years ago - he had dragged his dumbass out of the sand - he was thirsty as hell, said he'd broke down - I figured he's just gotten drunk and woke up lost in the mesquite. He had these initials "HH" embroidered on the cuff of his long-sleeve shirt - who wears a black long-sleeve shirt in the desert in September? That turned out to be one helluva "horse with no name" summer -
Amazing to me is how many in America can't do simple money math and have no discipline. The new rave in education should be common sense thinking. Some how I don't think it will happen.
what in the hell was Hubert Humphrey doing out there?
LOL.....must have gotten lost. You know how people get after too much "snake oil" - it's easier just to drop them off in the desert - let them sleep it off.
Japanese TV story with pictures of the bonds (from Businessinsinder):
YouTube - イタリア財務警察13兆円以上の債券
The do look a little goofy. But I've never seen 134.5B US.
......and of course it wasn't Hubert. I surely don't need any rumors like THAT flying around - me drinking with the likes of a card-carrying Democrat.
Something tells me the trail of the $134b bond caper will lead to participants who are not currently apparent.
C
LOL BSR, are you saying you won't drink with me?
Japanese TV story with pictures of the bonds (from Businessinsinder):
Damn. I didn't know ANYONE reported it. Sure as Hell not HERE. But then I was surprised all our TVs even worked. Nothing was changed or changed. It was like our town was passed over by the DTV pandemic..........I guess we're staying 19th century.......again
My closest encounter with fame was when I had a mole that looked just like Bob Hope removed from my leg.
".....are you saying you won't drink with me?"
......Kristina, if I were to start again, it might in fact be with you, darlin'.....
Humphrey was HHH, not HH.
I shook his hand once, wearing a Goldwater button which he laughed at.
In person, he had tons of charisma, tho it didn't come across on the tv.
It makes me happy to know that a Mona Lisa costs more than an F-22.
It's stealthy too! It's made of wood.
Is it just me or are the headlines more and more resembling a Clancy novel lately?
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of Humphrey: "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while."
Well, I was on the other side.
He might have been shallow, but he had charisma!
Only when the bond theft hits the headlines. If it ever does Methinks the
under the table purchase is the best explanation.
Here is what happens when you don't have a politically controlled BK. A BK judge approved this action a couple of months ago. Obama is just punishing management and is controled the union. The word I use is corruption and why Government controlled auto business will fail.
freep.com | | Detroit Free Press
......two old boys got into a fist-fight yesterday morning......at one of our local watering holes.....since we have the brothels, we sometimes get the "high-flyers" out for a good time away from the police state mentality of Vegas. Turns out these old boys were fighting like a couple teenagers in the dirt and sand - one was 72 and the other turned out to be his brother-in-law of 64. Damned if it didn't amaze me - cops never arrested them. They said they were "playing" - brothers and all..........
We were so young and naive in our youth of the 60s.. So much hope and promise. .We had great dreams and it seemed that the world would listen to us...and somehow 40 years later, look at what we wrought on the World and America..............
Another Dylan song song might be appropriate at this time...We opened and looks like we will end our era with
The Times They Are A-Changin'
YouTube -
"Why wouldn't every network on the planet have paparazzi staked outside the Japs hotel room?"
Because the foreign news desk of every paper and network did not make it out of the last round of budget cuts? Because no economist of financial analyst would work for the peanuts these guys pay? Because this smells of a Watergate level of conspiracy and TPTB are working overtime to keep this off the front page?
bsr: how'd the DTV conversion go? Are they still broadcasting analog in your neck of the woods?
BSR: just conjured a vision of Tim Conway and Harvey Corman
Prolly fightin over which one looked like the other one's sister.
"The PBGC caps benefits at $54,000 a year for people age 65 and up, with lower benefits for younger retirees. "Had I known that I would be in this predicament, I would have waited to start taking my pension"
Had I known pigs won't fly out of your ass if you lie (like my Momma warned me), I woulda gone much farther in life too!
"Are they still broadcasting analog in your neck of the woods?"
Yep....nothing changed. we have a couple local channels, 5-channels out of Vegas on "translators", one PBS out of Vegas (on Potosi as well) and ALL are broadcasting fine - no changes. We kinda like 19th Century though here.
The U.S. should just declare the bonds to be fake, regardles if they are real or not, good way to put at least a little bit of a dent in the National debt.
"The U.S. should just declare the bonds to be fake, regardles if they are real or not, good way to put at least a little bit of a dent in the National debt."
Yeah the remaining bond holders will LOVE that. Plus if they are actually Japans... I think they might be a bit put off. I think any uncertainty punishes bonds on Monday.
"BSR: just conjured a vision of Tim Conway and Harvey Corman
Prolly fightin over which one looked like the other one's sister.
Why does that cause me the imagine the Apple Dumping Gang on a train between Italy and Switzerland?
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of (Insert Any Politician's Name Here): "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack (Insert Same Name) is until you've followed him around for a while."
Now I think it is correct.
The Kennedy bonds are mine.
I sure feel foolish having misplaced them; I looked for them everywhere! But I'm glad they've been found, and I'll have them back now, thank you.
the Italians will want their 40% fine.
but I'm sure you won't mind and be happy to have the other $80 billion back...
The recovery is a forest. People have let their credit cards go, and don"t have mortgage payments it looks as if we are spending more and people have disposable incomes again. Actually, savings are getting drained and there are no new jobs. We are in the calm before the storm. People are spending what every little cash they have left on eating out and shopping for smaller ticket items. This will come to an end in 6 months. There are no new jobs. Can you hear the quiet in America?
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