125% is not common outside Wachovia's portfolio. Most of what JPM and BofA hold are 115.
Though the low MTA rates today are helping.
nonetheless, concentrating on the mathematics misses the big picture. you need to think about the mindset of the borrower who would get an OA in the first place.
ghostfaceinvestah, yes, I think that is the problem with the Credit Suisse chart - they probably assumed some lower recast for the Wells Fargo- Wachovia -Golden West loans (most of those are 125%)
Watching the MW interview now.
Basically she is saying:
-GS will benefit from the terrible situation in the corporate and municipal markets as they help companies and states raise capital thru debt issuance. She is pretty bullish on GS's ability to profit from a BEARISH macro economy
-short term financials could go up 15% (she gives a lot of reasons that there Q2 and Q3 numbers could look pretty good even while their core balance sheet issues remain), then flatline and then trend down again
She used the words "trade" and "marry". You could trade the sector, but she wouldn't marry it. She seems to be happy becoming betrothed to GS.
I think it was some good analysis. Don't think she's cheerleading, just calling it the way she sees it. Not very bullish at all regarding the macroeconomy.
More from MW interview:
"the consumer is not gonna come back in any major way and is going to pull in their horns for a protracted period of time"
"the consumer will suffer for a longer period of time"
[in Q1] "what went on with the government buying agency paper was a way of putting money in the backdoor of the financials"
She talked a lot about an unnoticed change from the administration on May 20th that will greatly incent servicers to mod mortgages and help them "beautify" their balance sheets in the process.
If there were green shoots here, they were short lived ones and only for the banks.
Not happy to hear about whiteflies in SC. I used to battle them all the time in San Diego. They'd just leave all that while crap all over our hibiscus. Hope they don't make the flight north here to NC.
JD, there is strangeness everywhere this year. Doesn't bode well with all the doom and gloom already out there. Did anyone see the story about the recent uplift on an Alaska beach that is baffling scientist? Section of the beach just rose 20ft. No earthquake. Someone said it was like a fist punching through the ground. The biggest thing my dad and I keep talking about is how it doesn't feel like summer. Even with the hot temperatures, this summer 'feels' different. Especially the sky and clouds. The storms we have had this year have been weird too. Be interesting to see how winter behaves this year.
Either I'm confused (a distinct possibility) or the upshot of the claimed error in the Credit Suisse chart is that the same reset pain will be spread out over a longer period of time, all else remaining equal. That strikes me as less catastrophic, rather than more so. No?
part of the problem with Option ARMs is many borrowers don't even want to make the 7.5% annual increase in payments.
1.075^4 = 33.5% increase in min payment until the 5 year recast. that alone will discourage many OA borrowers from continuing to make payments, esp when they are 30% or more underwater.
did anyone post that Ken Harney article from this weekend? very interesting in regards to the propensity to walk away.
Yes I've noticed this too. I attribute it to everything comming to a stop. The pollution was so bad here in Bakersfield during the housing bubble that it literally quit raining here. You could see the storms comming on the satalite radar and the clouds would seperate to the north and south of us. Our local weatherman said we had developed a rain shadow but would not explain why it happened. Then when all the building stopped, here came the rain, the shadow magically disapeared!!!
We see hummingbirds all the time, onesy-twosey here, and our neighbors have 5 feeders with sugar water going 24/7, and it's not uncommon to see a hundred of them going @ it, and it's wonderful to watch, except what happens when our friends eventually pass away, and 15 localized generations of hummingbirds that could always count on a free lunch, no longer can do so?
There are ramifications to everything we do, as we are all connected...
Does the air feel the same though? I mean without looking at the temperature, does a hot day outside feel like it did last year? I spend a lot of time outside, so does my father and we both feel that even though the temps on the thermometer are high right now, it doesn't feel the same as last year, or the past couple of years. It is hard to explain, it is almost like the air is lighter. Usually you go out, and the heat just drills a hole in you....I have been able to get out lately any time of the day, and it is warm, but not like normal.
Of somewhat more interest to me than the details of the timescale of the recast pain is that we're already seeing nearly 40% delinquency rates and the recasts have hardly even gotten off the ground.
I would like to hear others' thoughts on when the next mortgage meltdown is going to start. Whether it be CRE or other forms of residential mortgages...
The biggest little story that came and went in the just in time news cycle a few years ago, was thousands of birds falling dead from the sky in Australia and Texas @ around the same time.
" Anybody noticing nature doing funny things? The summer scourge here usually is "Meat Bees".
Yeah, yellowjackets, a kind of wasp. Now that you mention it, I haven't had a single one show up this summer while dining al fresco. Or even outside. Cooler than average here along the California coast. I wonder if they're temperature-sensitive.
And I haven't seen any hummingbirds for months. More crows than average right down here in town, though, and a few ravens, too. Ravens usually stay up in the hills.
Generally birds can find food elsewhere. Studies are hard to perform. Mammals seem more dependent; we try to avoid feeding them. They do come back and the raccoons get mean about it.
For example Birds at Your Feeder By Dunn, Erica H. and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes.
CR- I think it'd be super cool to see a chart comparing the speed of defaults based on subprime vs optionARMs. Something similar to your UE charts that compare previous recessions? Or maybe there have been some estimates by companies, and see how those are stacking up?
I have lived in Connecticut for the past 14 years, and this May through today has been the coldest by a significant amount than any of the previous ones. The warmest days of the year so far were in April.
Farts. How many billions of farts, every day, day in and day out? Cows, dogs, cats, and over 6 billion humans. And you and I breathe this stuff, hundreds of times per day.
This is a relief. Now I don't have to worry about Wells Fargo for two years. Unless of course they have other bad loans. Or some unforeseen problem with the loans, like maybe unemployment.
Standard & Poor's Equity Research on Monday kept its hold recommendation on CIT shares. "We think the firm could see its approval to issue FDIC-backed debt granted, may be able to transfer certain assets to its bank subsidiary with government approval, or may seek to divest assets, but execution risks remain," said S&P analyst Matthew Albrecht in a research note
Cit-the 12-18 month no payment installment contract leader in retail stores..
if we rescue these debtpushers add another notch of stupidity to the fed, fdic etc....
I don't think it is just humidity content. I spent time out at Ft. Irwin, and lived in Germany for 4 years. Trust me I know about dry air and wet, humid places. Before we moved to Ft. Worth, we were down outside of Houston, so on a much smaller scale and with less extremes, I understand the humidity and dry air of Texas too. Air just feels different, can't really put my finger on it. Dad says it is the Indian blood talking, but I can't understand what it means.
The warmest days of the year so far were in April.
Can we attribute these climate differences to the less construction and manufacturing taking place across east Asia and the continental U.S.? Is there some El Nino affect that I seemed to have forgotten the last time it came around these parts? If we are burning less carbons and spending less time building things, would it have an appreciable effect in local or regional areas?
My part of the U.S. (Southeast) seems to follow what other people have been saying. More rain; less humidity. Comfortable weather for July when for the past few years there were droughts and rarely a day under 96F even with a rain storm.
I know humans are horribly weather rememberers, but after the last few years, I'm wondering if we are experiencing a bit of what Nature was like without the 5-10% GDP YoY of Globalization.
I was an L.A. kid, and my dad was quite a player on the Pacific Stock Exchange back in the day, and went back and forth to NYC @ least a few times a month, and we spent the summer of 69' in a rented house (just called mom, she said it cost $800 a month to rent) in PW seeing if we'd like to live on the east coast.
I remember how street-wise all the kids seemed, compared to our laid back ways...
"The final and probably the biggest blow to housing is just getting started. This is not going to end well. "
What I am worried about is what happens in the fall? The housing market always slows in the fall due to seasonality - many markets pretty much shut down from Nov - Feb due to holidays, the school calendar, etc.
Besides the large inventory relative to sales we have today, there is a lot of shadow inventory that is just hanging on, and may be forced to put their homes on the market - people just making their payments, people who have already vacated but are hoping for a late summer buying surge to list, etc.
That is on top of the foreclosures that are continuing to hit the market. Plus at some point the supply of FTHB's using the tax credits is going to dwindle.
I can see us exceeding the months supply high of 11.3 on existing homes in October or Nov.
Which is why I predict the govt will extend their efforts to modify mortgages by introduce principal reductions, and increase demand through credit reporting manipulation (expunging housing defaults from records).
ghost-the issue with that credit reporting direction you mention will be the legal ramifications ie:discrimination. Why would you wipe forclosures off the record if not public records
"I know humans are horribly weather rememberers, but after the last few years, I'm wondering if we are experiencing a bit of what Nature was like without the 5-10% GDP YoY of Globalization. "
Ding! Ding! Ding! we have a winner!!!! I couldent have said it better myself.
Speaking of wasps and bees...we usually have a little of both, but this year I don't have any bees...just three types of wasps. I am not an expert on insects, but I think one kind is a yellow jacket, some type of red wasp, and I think some mud daubers...I am having to constantly spray my back yard right now. Usually, I leave them alone, but we are talking lots of flying critters and it is worrying me. Plus the dragonflies....went out around dusk, and there must have been a hundred dragonflies. Amazing to watch, it was like the whole backyard was moving and dancing at once.
The swine flu viruses currently being used to develop a vaccine aren't producing enough of the ingredient needed for the vaccine, and WHO has asked its laboratory network to produce a new set of viruses as soon as possible.
I had read some rumors about this but now perhaps some confirmation - the story I had picked up some weeks back was that the technology culturing the virus in chicken eggs (how the seasonal vax is produced) was having problems...
Pavel: LONDON – A fully licensed swine flu vaccine might not be available until the end of the year, a top official at the World Health Organization said Monday, in a report that could affect many countries' vaccination plans.
If it takes that long it's going to affect my living plans. Asthma. Hoping for the best....
Pavel: LONDON – A fully licensed swine flu vaccine might not be available until the end of the year, a top official at the World Health Organization said Monday, in a report that could affect many countries' vaccination plans.
If it takes that long it's going to affect my living plans. Asthma. Hoping for the best....
I don't know about your yellow wasps but my experience is wasps just want you to notice them and say hello. Even if they can sting they probably wont. That could just be Florida wasps that were probably stoned on golf course pesticide runoff.
On the weather: We are at the low point in the solar activity cycle, which usually lasts about 11-12 years. Sun spots/flares are hotter than the regular sun. The overlay of the coolness from the solar cycle has the GW deniers out in force, but when the cycle turns in a few years it is going to be mighty hot.
If the two reports are both reasonably accurate, then of the 36.9% of these loans 60 days late and 19% in foreclosure, only a tiny fraction have experienced a recast?
We usually treat wasps that way, don't bother them, and the don't bother you. But I don't know if it is the swimming pool or what, but they aren't be friendly this year. I have two small children, so I am worried. You get 20 or 30 at a time, you worry about swarming....and they like to land of you in the pool.
"Speaking of wasps and bees...we usually have a little of both, but this year I don't have any bees...just three types of wasps. I am not an expert on insects, but I think one kind is a yellow jacket, some type of red wasp, and I think some mud daubers..."
VESPULA
Black and white the hornet
‘Vespula’ they call her,
Armor black and white
Length two centimeters
Builds a paper nest
Underneath the eaves,
Cellulose digests
Paper cells she leaves
Generates a brood
Behind the window pane,
Carries them their food
Insects she has slain
On our window sill
Her colony expands,
Brings to it her kills
We are in her plans
Seeing through the glass
They hurl themselves at us,
Furious they pass
Savagely they thrust
Armored carapace,
Sharp the poison sting,
Flying in my face
The armor of it rings
Kill us or be killed,
Frighten us away,
Venom they have spilled
Intoxicates their prey
Those who recognize
Themselves in such a fury
See with compound eyes
Inhuman testimony
Pavel
July 6, 2009
We had them exterminated. Dragonflies won't hurt you, but these creatures were scary.
Could the discrepancy between the CS chart and what WF is reporting be a result of loosened mark-to-market requirements for the banks? Isn't it in WF's best interest to assume that the loan-to-value of all of their loans will remain below the 125% trigger, regardless of whether that's true or not, and can't they just do that? There are consequences for being honest.
"You get 20 or 30 at a time, you worry about swarming..."
They sent me to the hospital, and when I got out the doctor told me I wasn't particularly allergic to them - it was the dose. There were many of them. If you have small children, it would be highly advisable to get rid of them.
Yeah, that is why I am spraying, if I can't get rid of them myself, I am calling someone. My best friend in Germany dad had a bee fly in to his beer bottle at a block party. Bee stung him in his throat. Went into shock, almost died. Image has stayed with me for life.
Haven't seen many bees at all in SFV. I have been performing the obligatory pollen distribution on the garden. I have seen a few rogue bees - Colony Colapse Disorder (Bee researchers close in on Colony Collapse Disorder.
Very few insects this year. Haven't seen many butterflies, moths or even June bugs. Lots of nasty black gnats, though.
It does seem that things are a little out of whack.
"If the two reports are both reasonably accurate, then of the 36.9% of these loans 60 days late and 19% in foreclosure, only a tiny fraction have experienced a recast?
That seems almost hard to believe. "
To my point about OAs - it is not about the recasts, etc., think of the mind set of the OA borrower.
These guys will be (are) defaulting in droves to try to get a better deal on their mortgage. If not, they are gone. This will happen well before any recast.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. recorded a federal budget deficit of $94.3 billion in June, pushing the cumulative deficit so far this year to a record $1.08 trillion, the Treasury Department reported Monday. Outlays rose in June to $309.6 billion, while receipts climbed to $215.3 billion in the month. The Obama administration expects a deficit of $1.84 trillion for the full fiscal year, which ends in September.
About the sun activity. I am a very uneducated novice. I don't claim to be anything but...we still keep in touch with some people who are members of tribes up in Alaska. The old men (not elders, just old hunters) claim the sun is not in the right place in the sky. The claim some of the stars in the night sky have moved too. Make of that what you will. I watch the sun now a lot. Personally, haven't noticed anything other than what I mentioned about the air feeling different. I do believe however the sun is the chief mover of our climate. And JD is right, if the methane under the icecaps starts escaping in mass, I think all the cow farting in the world will be minuscule in comparison.
when I was about ten i was getting a ball on our roof and stepped on a wasp nest under a roof tile. I was swarmed and repeatedly stung about many times, enough that I ran and jumped off the one story roof onto the ground. No adults were around, some nearby construction worker packed chewing tobacco on the bites. Luckily I'm not allergic.
I bet if I hadn't crushed them they would have not have bothered me. I can only remember one or two other wasp bites ever. The ones that bit me had the thin cellular honeycomb test nest. You can usually get them leave by crushing their nest with something long and quickly running away.
"To my point about OAs - it is not about the recasts, etc., think of the mind set of the OA borrower."
What, these were the guys who were looking to build equity fast, then either cash out or refi at really low payments? So if they can't get either, it's a waste of their money? That sorf of thing?
While the state controller's office won't say exactly how many small companies will be hit, it's likely to be a big number: The state's department of general services says it holds $2.7 billion worth of annual contracts with at least 14,000 small companies, most of them California firms.
"I might not normally feel comfortable buying a home with a $500,000 mortgage, but by reducing my payments $452 per month, it now becomes a viable option for me to get the house that suits my lifestyle," Blackwell says.
"What, these were the guys who were looking to build equity fast, then either cash out or refi at really low payments? So if they can't get either, it's a waste of their money? That sorf of thing? "
Exactly. Not in every case, but for many it was all about cash flow - get a house at the min payment possible, then as it rises in value, flip it or get a new mortgage with cash out and/or a new low payment.
Many would refi just to avoid the 7.5% annual increase in the min payment. And take cash out if they could.
this was a prevalent mindset especially in SoCal and Florida.
Now these guys are severely underwater. They won't be sticking around for the recast.
About the sun activity. I am a very uneducated novice. I don't claim to be anything but...we still keep in touch with some people who are members of tribes up in Alaska. The old men (not elders, just old hunters) claim the sun is not in the right place in the sky. The claim some of the stars in the night sky have moved too. Make of that what you will. I watch the sun now a lot. Personally, haven't noticed anything other than what I mentioned about the air feeling different. I do believe however the sun is the chief mover of our climate. And JD is right, if the methane under the icecaps starts escaping in mass, I think all the cow farting in the world will be minuscule in comparison.
The one reason I've had trouble getting too worried about the prospect of global warming is that it seems to me such a simple matter to deflect or block solar radiation if things get too hot.
Consider it a technological exercise for the human race - we can have farting cows and cool weather at the same time!
if you want to see a neat graphs of co2 verses atmospheric temperature go to the link below.
notice how the yellow line on the top graph is way way close to the y axis and represents the spike of CO2 during modern times
(graph goes from present on left side to 400k years ago far right
the short precis above the graph clearly puts our dilemma in perspective
the earth goes in and out of ice ages on a semi regular 100k cycle due to wobbles in our orbit and axis of rotation see milankovich cycles
and of course volcanism and solar output have effects too
so human effects are in addition to these natural effects
it could be that global warming will save us a little from an impending ice age...or if the natural swing to ice is several centuries or millienia away we could cook first
Many min payments were based on a 1 - 2% rate, amortized over the life of the loan.
Interest rates were 2.5% - 3.5% margin over MTA.
With MTA being so low, neg am is actually pretty slow now.
Prop is, neg am has already happened for many, house prices have dropped, and eventually amortization at full rates will drive payments up. These guys can't refi because many were jumbo, and almost none documented their income on the original loan.
Pushing off the worst pain of the option ARMs looks like it will extend the housing pain and general economy pain even longer. That actually works to my financial advantage, but I'd rather see a better recovery and less general misery.
Probably posted here but bears repetition(from Michael Pettis and Bloomberg):
"New lending was 1.53 trillion yuan ($224 billion), the central bank said on its Web site today, bringing total lending this year to 7.4 trillion yuan", in China of course...ballpark $1 trillion at current exchange rates. Pettis says:
"I guess it is time to introduce something that I might call the Pettis Rule of Banking (although I am way, way down on the list of people who first thought of this): “It is not even theoretically possible that in a banking system in which bankers are given unlimited liquidity, tremendous pressure to make loans, and an implicit guarantee against losses, that enormous amounts of bad loans will not be made.”
Blowing out monstrous amounts of money supply might keep the masses content in the short term, but could eat through China's dollar reserves in a hurry down the road. It looks like "extend and pretend" on a massive scale to me.
"New lending was 1.53 trillion yuan ($224 billion), the central bank said on its Web site today, bringing total lending this year to 7.4 trillion yuan", in China of course...ballpark $1 trillion at current exchange rates. Pettis says:
A real estate bubble in a country where you can't own real estate.
I've been to Pompeii & Herculaneum many times, and by far the most important buildings in both cities were the different temperature baths, as far as I could tell. I highly recommend wasting some jet fuel getting to and fro, to see both sites.
Make sure you go into dodgy Naples, to check out all the goodies in the archeological museum.
My favorite piece d' la resistance is a number of complete gladiator outfits that were found in the underground locker room, above the small arena where men did battle.
"Blowing out monstrous amounts of money supply might keep the masses content in the short term, but could eat through China's dollar reserves in a hurry down the road"
I think that's China's intention all along. They want to hoard commodities.
"Liquidity is drained from the US market because smart capitals are escaping from US soil to look for opportunities in places like China. China simply print their own money to soak up all the inflowing US dollars. It costs them nothing to print the Yuan to buy the dollars, and they can spend all the dollars to purchase physical assets and raw materials around the world"
To me what the Chinese govt is doing is far more reckless than any actions taken to date by US or European governments and financial institutions. In my mind, the Chinese leadership know that when the economic boom collapses, the jig will be up for them. They are just stalling the inevitable.
When I was a freshman at Baylor, in my English lit class we had to write a short story about Pompeii. Anyway, I started my story with a dream sequence flashback of a Roman Centurion in charge of destroying the Temple in Jerusalem. Character is overcome with grief and regret and wakes up with the eruption of Vesuvius and hurries to help people make for the boats. Here's the thing, my prof (good professor by the way) didn't read past the opening chapter, said I was off subject and failed me. Had to go to his office and explain I used a flashback...then he gave me an A, entered my story in a contest, and told me to just keep writing stories and not to come back to class. He graded me on about six stories I wrote that semester. One class I really enjoyed in college.
I'm in Central Contra Costa County and I've got lots of bees. But then, I deliberately plant for them as opposed to poisoning the heck out of my yard by trying to kill every winged thing.
Can we attribute these climate differences to the less construction and manufacturing taking place across east Asia and the continental U.S.?
Yes, but deforestation has a greater impact.
In addition to the deforestation that's taking places in tropical areas like Brazil and Africa, there is massive deforestation taking place in the world's largest forest, the taiga, which stretches from northern Canada into Siberia.
Russia is by far the world's largest deforestation agent. They are obliterating the taiga.
You can grow a new tree in the rain forest in 15-20 years, and they are doing so in quantity in some parts of the tropical world. But you can't grow a new giant evergreen anywhere in the northern climates nearly as fast. The destruction of the taiga can't be reversed by growth.
The warmer Arctic weather melting of the winter tundra also is destroying the taiga.
A lot of the weather strangeness in North America is drifting down from the taiga.
My inlaws own two places in China. One in Beijing and another in the South. It's ver easy to buy/own real estate in China. Banks are now offering 0% down condo loans to juice the real estate market out of it's slump. China is Communist in name only.
China discovered what the U.S. already knew.
it's better to let people pretend to own property, to motivate them.
At least until the pyramid scheme ends.
If you are in the Vegas area and want to see 2,500 year old or so (many atlatls, precursor to the bow & arrow) Anasazi petroglyphs, Valley of Fire state park is the place to go...
Mouse's Tank, in particular.
The best car camping spot i've ever been to, with 4 free shower stalls.
They know their economy (and everybody else's) will collapse soon, so they're busy printing money and buying up food/commodities. The art of war says:
Fight for the enemy’s supply wagons.
Capture their supplies by using overwhelming force.
Mix them in with your own to increase your supply line.
Keep your soldiers strong by providing for them.
This is what it means to beat the enemy while you grow more powerful.
Think of them as the ants and the indebted nations as the grasshoppers. Except the ants knows...well....Kung Fu.
This is from Tanta's post on these loans. I'm sure I read it at the time , but forgot this part:
One other thing I wanted to make clear by providing these examples is the mechanics of payment increases for a very common OA type. The product shown in these spreadsheets allows for annual payment increases, but monthly rate increases. (That is how the potential for negative amortization gets created: the payment does not automatically adjust to match the new interest rate each month.) The eventual recast hits at the sooner of the loan reaching 115% of its original balance or 120 months. We know that a recast is nearly always a huge shock, given a low enough introductory rate. But this loan does involve payment increases of up to 7.5% each year (i.e., the next year's payment can be as much as 107.5% of the prior year's payment).
"New wave of defaults likely as risky loans reset to sharply higher payments"
Some time after Sharren McGarry went to work as a mortgage consultant at Wachovia’s Stuart, Fla., branch in July 2007, she and her colleagues were directed to market a mortgage called the “Pick A Pay” loan. Sales commissions on the product were double the rates for conventional mortgages, and she was required to make sure nearly half the loans she sold were "Pick A Pay," she said.
snip
While McGarry balked at selling these pay-option ARMs, other lenders and mortgage brokers were happy to sell the loans and pocket the higher commissions.
snip
“The next wave (of foreclosures) is coming next year and in 2010, and that is primarily due to these pay-option ARMS and the five-year, adjustable-rate hybrid ARMS that are coming up for reset,” said William Longbrake, retired vice chairman of Washington Mutual. The giant Seattle-based bank, which collapsed this year under the weight of its bad mortgage loans, was one of the biggest originators of pay-option ARMs during the lending boom.
snip
The next wave may be even more difficult to handle than the last one.
“It’s going to get tougher to modify loans as these option ARMs come into their resets," Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair told msnbc.com this week. "Those are more difficult than the subprime and traditional adjustable rates to modify because there is such a huge payment differential when they reset."
snip
Monthly quota: 45 percent
With 16 years of experience in the mortgage business, McGarry didn’t believe the “pay option” loan was a good deal for most of her customers, so she didn’t promote it.
snip
"Foreclosures are going to mount and the negative self-reinforcing cycle will accelerate," said Zandi. "It's already happening, but it will accelerate in a lot more parts of the country." 'Pay option' loans could swell defaults - Mortgage Mess- msnbc.com
My inlaws own two places in China. One in Beijing and another in the South. It's ver easy to buy/own real estate in China. Banks are now offering 0% down condo loans to juice the real estate market out of it's slump. China is Communist in name only.
I thought the real estate was leased from the government for 70 years (or some similar number), and not actually owned.
China is basically 2000 years of free wheeling capitalism sandwiched between 50 years of Communism. It has always been there below the surface waiting to break out again. The level of raw want for the good life now is pretty amazing (and somewhat disturbing) when you travel there.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. bankruptcy judge gave General Motors Corp permission on Monday to buy several assets of bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi Corp as part of a deal with a private equity firm that could take Delphi out of bankruptcy.
"One of the things that borrowers have told us they use it [negam] for is funding their retirement plans. Most people don't fully fund their 401(k), for example. Well, that $452 extra a month, that's an extra $5,400 that can be channeled into a 401(k), giving them more tax advantages there while retaining the tax deductibility of a $500,000 mortgage."
The 2012 thing has been something I have watched since 1988...I read some alt-science piece entitled The Theory of Multi-dimensional Reality...fun book. Anyway the claim there is the magnetic field of the earth and sun would spin down.. causing the earth to stop rotating. Sun would release a massive solar flare that would toast one side of the earth and evaporate the oceans. A massive tidal wave would cause flooding on the night side. Then poles flip and everything starts up again. I can' t remember if the book tied in with 2012 or 2010 at this point...but it was written at the height of the global cooling movement in the 70s. World has always been ending. I like watching too, but doesn't mean we will see it. Some real fun reading is the insanity that took place in 1899, especially in the south with tent revivals. 2012 has the Mayan calender going for it, if you accept we have deciphered it correctly. Only thing I know for sure is man has worshiped the sun since before time began in one way or another.
That may very well be true. I'm not sure. I know that you do get title to the property. But it may very well be similar to the lease hold arrangement that ges on in UK and other European countries.
For all of Major League Baseball, average attendance was down 6.2 percent through Friday, even with many teams offering discounts to battle the recession. An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released this week found 63 percent of fans think the cost of a game is baseball's biggest problem.
The new Yankee Stadium became Exhibit A for baseball in the downturn, with front-row seats in the plush new park going empty at up to $2,625 each, and only the opener selling out among the first 42 games. Things weren't a lot better across town at the new Citi Field, where tickets topped out at a $495 average and the Mets sold out only five of their first 43 home games.
Last time I was at Turner Field (Atlanta):
16 oz. Miller Lite was $7.
A hot dog? $7.
16oz. bottled water $4.
I know around here people go watch the Fort Worth Cats. Family friendly, food is cheap, tickets are cheap, and the games are more fun in my opinion than watching the Rangers. I loved baseball when I was a kid. Dad was stationed at Ft. Leavenworth, we drove in to KC during the summer for every game. Sat in cheap seats most of the time, but I did get to sit behind home plate when Nolan Ryan was visiting and saw him pitch a very good game past his prime. But major league baseball isn't the same anymore. I don't know how regular families can afford to go to be honest.
They are protecting themselves from 'subcontractor F/U' with Delphi 'private' in exactly the same way large mil subcontractors or the 'operators' at Oak Ridge are 'private'.
Delphi was close to going away if some of the weakest links weren't fixed & fast. They were too weak to do fix themselves alone so... Delphi going away would cause GM to go with them.
Nothingburger & fully anticipated. Look for Ford to do something similar with Visteon and Boeing [eventually] to do something similar w/ Spirit. Point is 'de-verticalization' works great in a boom [they all de-verticalized in the 90s & early 00's]... it can be catastrophic in a bust [like now]. Especially a bust where de-leveraging is the norm so they can't just band aid over the scab.
Dude, this country has always been predicated on wealth and freedom. They aren't disconnected concepts.
Some came here for various liberties, but they all hoped to be able to make a buck, too.
Including my ancestor, a German winemaker who settled here in 1721 and then moved to the Iriquois frontier in western PA in hopes of more - and cheaper land - so that he could pursue wealth.
"scone (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 1:26 pm
My guess is methane... - JD
Farts. How many billions of farts, every day, day in and day out? Cows, dogs, cats, and over 6 billion humans. And you and I breathe this stuff, hundreds of times per day."
I've hear that cows are one of the biggest sources of green house gasses on the planet....not that I believe in global warming.....
@ Mock Turtle -
Thanks for the link...
Money quote from it:
While a smaller number than subprime mortgages, option ARMs grew from 3 percent of all mortgages bundled and sold to investors in 2004 to 14 percent by 2007.
Probably still under 5% of all mortgages - since a lot of mortgages were done before or after the 3 year window of Option ARM popularity.
I've been looking at various versions of that reset chart for years, but I've never been able to figure out if anyone has adjusted it for foreclosures already under the bridge. I mean, weren't Option ARMs the favorite mortgage of flippers? And how many of them are still paying?
Dude, this country has always been predicated on wealth and freedom.
Even the US revolution was more of 'bourgeois putsch' than a real revolution. Nouveau riche in the new world thinking they are better off if they aren't lorded over by the old money in the old world.
Man it looks like we are trying to pump the pump before close. If the S&P goes over 900, I may have to burn my clothes and wear sackcloth and get a sign saying the end is coming. This is just ridiculous. Check that, let's build the golden calf for Goldman Sachs and start dancing around in a frenzied daze, wait we are already doing that.
I worked for a company in 1988 that had 4 season tickets (orange level right behind home plate) to Dodger games, which seldom got used, and about 5 pm on game-day, the boss-man would announce over the loudspeaker asking if somebody wanted the ducats?
My buddy and I got em' about half the time, so we saw around 40 games that magical year. We'd sell off 2 of em' for food & booze money.
I didn't make it to the 1st World Series game (Gibson's HR) but we had Uecker seats for the 2nd game.
I could have sold my shitty ticket for $1000 to any of many people that desperately wanted to catch the previous night's lightning in a bottle again*
Past performance isn't necessarily indicative of future performance.
"pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 1:53 pm
..... If you have small children, it would be highly advisable to get rid of them."
Is that even legal?
Except it isn't really stealth - it's in your face bail out. And fully expected... OEs go nowhere but down the drain without Delphi, Visteon, Tower, Magna, TRW, Lear - etc. Some will be merged, others bailed out... few will go entirely away.
The OEs are basically 'platform companies' now - concepts & finance & marketing and some final assembly [sort of like packaging]... its the tier ones and twos that 'make' the cars & detail the designs at the system level.
Thus we see the basic disconnect in American society.
We claim to prize freedom & human life most of all, yet wealth is what most chase.
So we convince ourselves that they are the same thing.
It's interesting I'm reading "Demons" by Dostoevsky right now and he seems to be talking about similar things. He seems to be saying that "freedom" is making people superficial and materialistic in Russia when he's writing in the late 1800s and that this will lead to despotism.
Quite prescient in retrospect, if I'm understanding him correctly.
"Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 2:56 pm
...... Sun would release a massive solar flare that would toast one side of the earth and evaporate the oceans."
Wasn't that a meme from the last thread?
Roger that, HomeGnome, got to remember I am setting an example for my children. It is hard to some days. We watched a lot of election stuff last year, and my 4 year old likes to play Where's Obama now? Every time he hears or sees the president, we have to talk about it and I have to force myself to be respectful and say nice things about the office. It is amazing how much kids pick up so young.
Why does the ballpark have to ream you for $7 a beer?
Because they can?
It's worth noting that it's not the ballpark or club that's reaming you here. Vending and commissary services are outsourced. It was allegedly (and believably--my boss seemed to have stepped off the set of the Godfather and we were making Mafia jokes behind his back even before we found out it was true) a mob operation when I worked there but that was a long time ago. There was a big expose in Sports Illustrated about this, about 35 years ago or so.
“A robot will work every day and night without complaining,” Mr. Matsumoto said. “You can even save on lights and heating, because robots don’t need any of that.”
"Now if only we could get some tenants like that..." Section 8 Slumlord
Never too early to teach children the truth, Vonbek.
Allow me to give you some talking points:
1. The President is NOT the one in charge
2. The President is a LIAR and most likely a thief.
3. Refer to rules 1 and 2.
It was so funny on inaguration day, a number of friends that don't have tvs, came over to watch, and at one point they showed the crowd, followed to a quick glimpse of cannons being fired, and we all thought they were howtizering the hoi ploy.
At last! someone's answered that age old question of "Is it possible to light a fart". Having seen it myself in my college days, I knew it was true, but I've heard other vehemently deny it. Fart Lighting Deniers I call them
Cinco, the book I was referring to, specifically was trying to explain the ancient stories of a period of darkness and flooding on one side of the earth, and the evidence of a massive solar event in North and South America and if the two were related. This was junk science at its worst though. But I did enjoy reading it.
HomeGnome, notice I said respect for the 'office'...Trust me, my children will be versed in the 'fallibility' of individuals who have served in office.
O.K., kids, if you really want some dopamine-enabled worry, here's a wiki list of lots of stuff that would kill us, planet Earth, and maybe the whole universe. too! Enjoy:
One interesting point he brings up about silent seconds. Well, some of the seconds were not so silent - in many cases, the banks knowingly originated a 10% second on top of an 80% Option ARM. How crazy is that? Both stated income, of course.
Ouch.
So what are those seconds marked at? If they are current, are they marked at par?
The only hope for many of these seconds is if the borrower is kind enough to pay on a loan that is significantly underwater.
OT-freedom
My mother emailed all of us kids on july 4th about what she thought about that day...She's simple and doesn't like to shorten paragraphs but she's an american thru and thru....
thought I would share to break up the fart talk
Today I hope you celebrate your independence from harassment, intimidation, torture, coercion, your ability to choose your profession, your religion, to voice your likes and dislikes and your choices to ignore or to participate in any event. Your ability to talk amongst yourselves without tampering, without fear, with the ability to complain without pain.
Today I know our country is in crisis. It has been this way before, within our borders there was discord amongst our own people but that was settled and a lot of men died for our freedom, the Gettysberg Address was implemented and is the greatest document that gloriously announced our rights as human beings. I know to implement these rights has been slow but they are written just as in the bible, Jesus says to LOVE THEY NEIGHBOR numerous times. It is not easy to love your enemies, but it does not say you have to run with them but be wise. But this country is the greatest of all countries that gives any man the opportunity to succeed or to fail without recourse. And it will recover and life will go on, and we will succeed in recovery, but Americans will have to learn to be wise in their money, their expenditures, hard times make strong minds and wise men.
I am proud to be an American, I am grateful for our freedoms, I am proud of our servicemen who fight for the cause of freedom, in countries of hate and discrimination, of unequal rights, of torture and suffering inflicted because of hate. I am proud to have serviced the less fortunate, to care for those who are suffering due to disease. To those are struggling to find themselves in a world that is stressed and testing. You were never promised a rose garden, life is a struggle from the beginning to the end. I hope to continue to help those who need help. It is the nature of life to extend ourselves to help others. It is the most rewarding of all our adventures.
I LOVE AMERICA. When I flew over Dallas recently, from the heavens looking down I saw riches beyond belief. Leaving a country (Costa RIca) where poverty is tolerated but people are happy I thought to myself, it is beyond my vision that just looking down from the sky would reveal the wealth of our country. We are realigning our lives, maybe we will have to adjust to a different life in the future, but let it be a better planned future by each individual who realizes that things do not bring happiness but people, love, compassion, sharing, freedom is the greatest gift we have here in America. We need to focus on what true happiness is, its freedom, its opportunity to change whenever we wish, its faith that there will be a change but we will have learned to change for the better. Its going to bed at night knowing your safe from oppression.
I am grateful for our ancestors who so bravely climbed on that ship to cross that vast ocean, who tolerated suffering in small boats, started with nothing, to create something after they decided to come to a land and establish our country. To our explorers and pioneers, who pushed on thru the deserts, across the valleys who built transportation so that today we could travel and have such a large vast of land to accomodate and create where we live today. To those who fought to cross our lands. To those who created the Constitution to severe our relationship with England to create our AMERICA. To those who have died to ensure our rights.
So today, I ask you to be grateful for your freedoms, for your hardships, for your ability to do what you want when you want, your ability to spend, your ability to pay taxes, your ability to enjoy the fruits of our ancestors, to our servicemen who gave it their all, our lives which are so full of excitement and joy from all we have about us, and for our family who connect with other, and know that life is family and friends, and all else is secondary.. We are here for each other. Life is empty without those we love.
Anyway I wanted to say something, said a lot I know but I am sending you ALL LOVE, ALL HOPE, ALL PEACE OF MIND, without FEAR, as you enjoy this special day. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
My parents live near Panama City, FL...anyway their little slice of paradise came with a chemical factory and a paper mill near the beach. So coming into town over the bridge of the scenic coastline you are bombarded with the most god-awful stench imaginable. Dad said there were plans to take them down in the future so it was a short term problem. And lo and behold, they are going away, think the paper mill is already gone...but man it made me think stone tablets weren't that bad of an idea after all.
MOUNTAIN OF DEBT: Americans' debt stress is easing
My favorite quote: Debt-related stress was 12 percent lower this year than in 2008, according to the poll. "People now have some optimism that the worst is behind them," said Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist and AP consultant who analyzed the results of the survey.
"Many people have no idea who pays the teachers, trash trucks, fire trucks, partol cars, water main lines etc etc. They simply exist and respond as needed. "
The goal of public policy is to make people have no idea by obscuring the costs.
The goal of having towns apply to Homeland Security grants for cars and radios is to make people have no idea.
The goal of public policy pushing HMOs and single-payer health-care is to make people have no idea.
I take it back... this is my favorite quote: Nationwide, total household debt — including mortgages, credit cards, autos and other consumer loans — stood at $13.8 trillion in the first three months of this year. That amounts to roughly $124,000 of debt per household. The total debt figure is down only slightly from a peak of $13.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve.
For those not keeping track at home, the rating agencies have been downgrading RMBS like crazy the past two weeks.
Not that many people care about what the rating agencies think these days.
Except all the financial institutions who use the ratings to determine capital levels.
NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) July 13, 2009--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services
today provided its revised projected losses for U.S. residential
mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) transactions backed by Alternative-A (Alt-A)
collateral issued in 2005, 2006, and 2007. These loss projections are for the
underlying collateral of these transactions.
The weighted average projected loss for the 2005 vintage transactions is
approximately 10.00% of the original pool balance, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 3.18% to 16.72%. The weighted average projected loss
for the 2006 transactions is approximately 22.50%, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 9.42% to 31.93%. The weighted average projected loss
for the 2007 transactions is approximately 27.00%, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 12.03% to 41.99%.
Yeah, except this roulette wheel doesn't stop at 0 and 00. There's also 000, 0000, 00000, 000000, 0000000, 00000000, 000000000, 0000000000, and you can only bet on black or red.
"I used to think that my Dad was terribly unsophisticated; he's been investing in CDs since the 80s.
And you know the punchline: He's beaten the S&P. "
The FED will ensure that is as difficult as possible with neg rates.
FN: It looks like the powers that be are going to "Lehman" CIT. All requests for assistance were rebuffed by the FDIC. This would be quite the serious failure that would unleash a cascading round of small and medium sized business failures.
CIT Group Says Its Failure Risks Demise of Customers (Update2): "CIT Group Inc., the century-old lender that hasn’t been able to persuade the government to back its debt sales, says its demise would put 760 manufacturing clients at risk of failure and “precipitate a crisis” for as many as 300,000 retailers.
A collapse would ripple across the “small and medium-sized businesses who rely on CIT to operate -- to pay their vendors, ship goods to their customers and make their payroll,” the New York-based lender said in internal documents obtained by Bloomberg News that make the case for its importance to the U.S. economy. CIT spokesman Curt Ritter declined to comment on the documents.
CIT executives spoke with regulators during the past two days, according to a person familiar with the talks, after its bonds and shares tumbled on concern that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. won’t allow the lender into its bond-guarantee program created last year to unfreeze debt markets. CIT may default as soon as April, when a $2.1 billion credit line matures, according to Fitch Ratings.
“A CIT default would create liquidity issues for the corporate sector,” Ed Grebeck, chief executive officer of debt consulting firm Tempus Advisors in Stamford, Connecticut. “If CIT isn’t doing trade finance and lending, its customers will look to other banks for replacement and from what I’ve seen, they aren’t willing to step up.”
“A CIT default would create liquidity issues for the corporate sector,” Ed Grebeck, chief executive officer of debt consulting firm Tempus Advisors in Stamford, Connecticut. “If CIT isn’t doing trade finance and lending, its customers will look to other banks for replacement and from what I’ve seen, they aren’t willing to step up.”
Oh they'll step up... just a matter of price point.
So let me get this straight...the bank with the most leverage (what was that something like 1000:1) of any bank in the US, is leading a Kermit charge this afternoon...based upon the assumption that the country may go down in flames but GS will come out stronger for it, and this is good for Wall St.? And by the way they admit the use of software that has given them an advantage...and this doesn't bother anyone except the few marginalized on the sidelines as nuts and bears.....
The Mayans are some of my favorite people. Their language and culture are alive and well in Quintana Roo.
If you go on vacation and get outside Cancun and Cozumel, you will encounter many Mayan. They tend to be short and have almost no necks. But they are some of the nicest people on earth. They speak, at minimum, Spanish and Mayan, and a lot of them also know some English.
So let me get this straight...the bank with the most leverage (what was that something like 1000:1) of any bank in the US, is leading a Kermit charge this afternoon...based upon the assumption that the country may go down in flames but GS will come out stronger for it, and this is good for Wall St.?
OT, but your handle brings up a question, the answer to which has been puzzling me for six months:
Has anyone in the CR blogiverse received in change -- or seen -- even one of the new 200th anniversary Lincoln cents?
I haven't -- except on the US Mint's web site. They claim to have minted more than a couple of billion already, but nobody I've talked to has seen one yet. Thanks for everyone's input.
--SD
[FYI -- this year the mint is making pennies with four different designs to commemorate Lincoln's 200th birthday:
" Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 3:39 pm
My parents live near Panama City, FL...anyway their little slice of paradise came with a chemical factory and a paper mill near the beach. So coming into town over the bridge of the scenic coastline you are bombarded with the most god-awful stench imaginable."
In the '70's, my parents would take me to visit my cousins there. They (my cousins and family) didn't seem to notice it, but it was awful. Even when the wind was blowing the other direction, and the stench wasn't in the air, you could still smell it when you got close to the trees and buildings. It was revolting.
Pure coincidence.
Awe CR, you're wilting my green shoots.
if a problem never ends
is it still a 'problem?'
Fare Well to ARM's
Wait a minute, you mean people aren't happily cranking up their payments on their depreciating assets?
Maybe the Fed needs to cut rates or something.
Juvenal, If you're out there; this one's for you:
404 - Not Found - sacbee.com
125% is not common outside Wachovia's portfolio. Most of what JPM and BofA hold are 115.
Though the low MTA rates today are helping.
nonetheless, concentrating on the mathematics misses the big picture. you need to think about the mindset of the borrower who would get an OA in the first place.
How many mortgages (in a percentage) are "pick a pay" loans? Is this a huge part of the mortgage pool or is it a smaller fraction?
Anybody noticing nature doing funny things?
The summer scourge here usually is "Meat Bees".
You can't eat anything outside without them showing up to pester you, except they haven't showed up for some reason this season.
ghostfaceinvestah, yes, I think that is the problem with the Credit Suisse chart - they probably assumed some lower recast for the Wells Fargo- Wachovia -Golden West loans (most of those are 125%)
best wishes
So, naturally, WFC is up 5%+ on the news.
2nd part got pigged...
Watching the MW interview now.
Basically she is saying:
-GS will benefit from the terrible situation in the corporate and municipal markets as they help companies and states raise capital thru debt issuance. She is pretty bullish on GS's ability to profit from a BEARISH macro economy
-short term financials could go up 15% (she gives a lot of reasons that there Q2 and Q3 numbers could look pretty good even while their core balance sheet issues remain), then flatline and then trend down again
She used the words "trade" and "marry". You could trade the sector, but she wouldn't marry it. She seems to be happy becoming betrothed to GS.
I think it was some good analysis. Don't think she's cheerleading, just calling it the way she sees it. Not very bullish at all regarding the macroeconomy.
More from MW interview:
"the consumer is not gonna come back in any major way and is going to pull in their horns for a protracted period of time"
"the consumer will suffer for a longer period of time"
[in Q1] "what went on with the government buying agency paper was a way of putting money in the backdoor of the financials"
She talked a lot about an unnoticed change from the administration on May 20th that will greatly incent servicers to mod mortgages and help them "beautify" their balance sheets in the process.
If there were green shoots here, they were short lived ones and only for the banks.
I am noticing oddness too, JD.
One is welcome, I suppose, forgetting for a minute any unintended consequences - no Japanese beetles this year.
The second - No fireflies. None.
Have you guys seen the trailer for 2012, yet? Serious doomage-- you'll love it!
YouTube - 2012 - Official Trailer 3
I like where the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy lands on the White House. I bit heavy on the irony, but still.
"So, naturally, WFC is up 5%+ on the news."
2x+ good news!
Here in Scenic South Carolina we've had both bees and fireflies this year.
Had whiteflies for the first time this year though...
And my wonderful and beautiful hummingbirds have finally shown up to work the flowers in my UrbanOasis!
The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
Not happy to hear about whiteflies in SC. I used to battle them all the time in San Diego. They'd just leave all that while crap all over our hibiscus. Hope they don't make the flight north here to NC.
JD, there is strangeness everywhere this year. Doesn't bode well with all the doom and gloom already out there. Did anyone see the story about the recent uplift on an Alaska beach that is baffling scientist? Section of the beach just rose 20ft. No earthquake. Someone said it was like a fist punching through the ground. The biggest thing my dad and I keep talking about is how it doesn't feel like summer. Even with the hot temperatures, this summer 'feels' different. Especially the sky and clouds. The storms we have had this year have been weird too. Be interesting to see how winter behaves this year.
Either I'm confused (a distinct possibility) or the upshot of the claimed error in the Credit Suisse chart is that the same reset pain will be spread out over a longer period of time, all else remaining equal. That strikes me as less catastrophic, rather than more so. No?
it's been record heat here for a month. upper 90s with heat indicies in the 105-110 range.
feels like summer to me.
part of the problem with Option ARMs is many borrowers don't even want to make the 7.5% annual increase in payments.
1.075^4 = 33.5% increase in min payment until the 5 year recast. that alone will discourage many OA borrowers from continuing to make payments, esp when they are 30% or more underwater.
did anyone post that Ken Harney article from this weekend? very interesting in regards to the propensity to walk away.
"Anybody noticing nature doing funny things?"
Yes I've noticed this too. I attribute it to everything comming to a stop. The pollution was so bad here in Bakersfield during the housing bubble that it literally quit raining here. You could see the storms comming on the satalite radar and the clouds would seperate to the north and south of us. Our local weatherman said we had developed a rain shadow but would not explain why it happened. Then when all the building stopped, here came the rain, the shadow magically disapeared!!!
We see hummingbirds all the time, onesy-twosey here, and our neighbors have 5 feeders with sugar water going 24/7, and it's not uncommon to see a hundred of them going @ it, and it's wonderful to watch, except what happens when our friends eventually pass away, and 15 localized generations of hummingbirds that could always count on a free lunch, no longer can do so?
There are ramifications to everything we do, as we are all connected...
I've had many conversations recently about the mild summer here in the Triangle area of NC.
we will not monetize (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 10:13 am
it's been record heat here for a month. upper 90s with heat indicies in the 105-110 range.
feels like summer to me.
"Here" is "where" that it is so very different from the rest of the northern hemisphere?
Yeah, they attacked our dwarf lemons and limes pretty badly.
But then, the ladybug larvae and adults wailed on their punk asses!
Does the air feel the same though? I mean without looking at the temperature, does a hot day outside feel like it did last year? I spend a lot of time outside, so does my father and we both feel that even though the temps on the thermometer are high right now, it doesn't feel the same as last year, or the past couple of years. It is hard to explain, it is almost like the air is lighter. Usually you go out, and the heat just drills a hole in you....I have been able to get out lately any time of the day, and it is warm, but not like normal.
The final and probably the biggest blow to housing is just getting started. This is not going to end well.
Of somewhat more interest to me than the details of the timescale of the recast pain is that we're already seeing nearly 40% delinquency rates and the recasts have hardly even gotten off the ground.
I would like to hear others' thoughts on when the next mortgage meltdown is going to start. Whether it be CRE or other forms of residential mortgages...
South Texas (San Antonio - Victoria - Corpus Christi - Laredo) is going through its worst drought since 1916. It's definitely summer here.
The biggest little story that came and went in the just in time news cycle a few years ago, was thousands of birds falling dead from the sky in Australia and Texas @ around the same time.
My guess is methane...
Chicken Little, revisited.
" Anybody noticing nature doing funny things? The summer scourge here usually is "Meat Bees".
Yeah, yellowjackets, a kind of wasp. Now that you mention it, I haven't had a single one show up this summer while dining al fresco. Or even outside. Cooler than average here along the California coast. I wonder if they're temperature-sensitive.
And I haven't seen any hummingbirds for months. More crows than average right down here in town, though, and a few ravens, too. Ravens usually stay up in the hills.
Humidity hold heat better. Dry heat is more tolerable. Less humidity (Water grains per cubic foot) more oxygen to breath. Hence light air.
Generally birds can find food elsewhere. Studies are hard to perform. Mammals seem more dependent; we try to avoid feeding them. They do come back and the raccoons get mean about it.
For example Birds at Your Feeder By Dunn, Erica H. and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes.
I haven't washed my truck in a month and the front end is spotless.
It's so hot here the bugs have died off and/or left town.
I am not from California.
"Does the air feel the same though? I mean without looking at the temperature, does a hot day outside feel like it did last year?"
You're probably having less humidity this year
And just to contribute, this time of year it's usually 100+ days 3 or 4 days a week, hitting up to 110+
This year, except for one week, the summer has been VERY mild. Most of June was under 90, which is absolutely unbelievable.
I thought it was the weight of all those underwater mortgages being taken off our backs.
OT for JD
According to my niece Manhassett teenagers now refer to our hometown as Puerto Washingsteen. Gave me a chuckle.
CR- I think it'd be super cool to see a chart comparing the speed of defaults based on subprime vs optionARMs. Something similar to your UE charts that compare previous recessions? Or maybe there have been some estimates by companies, and see how those are stacking up?
Down here in SM, we're getting a lot of fruit flies this year. Persistent little buggers, they like to fly in your face.
I have lived in Connecticut for the past 14 years, and this May through today has been the coldest by a significant amount than any of the previous ones. The warmest days of the year so far were in April.
Scone,
Thanks for the link to 2012. You saved me 8 bucks.
the irony would be if windfarms caused the greatest climate change.
My guess is methane... - JD
Farts. How many billions of farts, every day, day in and day out? Cows, dogs, cats, and over 6 billion humans. And you and I breathe this stuff, hundreds of times per day.
This is a relief. Now I don't have to worry about Wells Fargo for two years. Unless of course they have other bad loans. Or some unforeseen problem with the loans, like maybe unemployment.
Standard & Poor's Equity Research on Monday kept its hold recommendation on CIT shares. "We think the firm could see its approval to issue FDIC-backed debt granted, may be able to transfer certain assets to its bank subsidiary with government approval, or may seek to divest assets, but execution risks remain," said S&P analyst Matthew Albrecht in a research note
Cit-the 12-18 month no payment installment contract leader in retail stores..
if we rescue these debtpushers add another notch of stupidity to the fed, fdic etc....
I don't think it is just humidity content. I spent time out at Ft. Irwin, and lived in Germany for 4 years. Trust me I know about dry air and wet, humid places. Before we moved to Ft. Worth, we were down outside of Houston, so on a much smaller scale and with less extremes, I understand the humidity and dry air of Texas too. Air just feels different, can't really put my finger on it. Dad says it is the Indian blood talking, but I can't understand what it means.
The warmest days of the year so far were in April.
Can we attribute these climate differences to the less construction and manufacturing taking place across east Asia and the continental U.S.? Is there some El Nino affect that I seemed to have forgotten the last time it came around these parts? If we are burning less carbons and spending less time building things, would it have an appreciable effect in local or regional areas?
My part of the U.S. (Southeast) seems to follow what other people have been saying. More rain; less humidity. Comfortable weather for July when for the past few years there were droughts and rarely a day under 96F even with a rain storm.
I know humans are horribly weather rememberers, but after the last few years, I'm wondering if we are experiencing a bit of what Nature was like without the 5-10% GDP YoY of Globalization.
dutybalm,
I was an L.A. kid, and my dad was quite a player on the Pacific Stock Exchange back in the day, and went back and forth to NYC @ least a few times a month, and we spent the summer of 69' in a rented house (just called mom, she said it cost $800 a month to rent) in PW seeing if we'd like to live on the east coast.
I remember how street-wise all the kids seemed, compared to our laid back ways...
Daily California links up. Today some tangential issues and marginal perspectives.
No news out of Sacramento. The delegates are still arguing over the shape of the table.
"The final and probably the biggest blow to housing is just getting started. This is not going to end well. "
What I am worried about is what happens in the fall? The housing market always slows in the fall due to seasonality - many markets pretty much shut down from Nov - Feb due to holidays, the school calendar, etc.
Besides the large inventory relative to sales we have today, there is a lot of shadow inventory that is just hanging on, and may be forced to put their homes on the market - people just making their payments, people who have already vacated but are hoping for a late summer buying surge to list, etc.
That is on top of the foreclosures that are continuing to hit the market. Plus at some point the supply of FTHB's using the tax credits is going to dwindle.
I can see us exceeding the months supply high of 11.3 on existing homes in October or Nov.
Which is why I predict the govt will extend their efforts to modify mortgages by introduce principal reductions, and increase demand through credit reporting manipulation (expunging housing defaults from records).
swine flu part deux > everything this fall, including the recovery.
This rally was well telegraphed in the mass media over the weekend.
Even Obomama got on the train.
ghost-the issue with that credit reporting direction you mention will be the legal ramifications ie:discrimination. Why would you wipe forclosures off the record if not public records
Interesting to note on this exuberant day that oil and nat gas are both down a tad atm...
"I know humans are horribly weather rememberers, but after the last few years, I'm wondering if we are experiencing a bit of what Nature was like without the 5-10% GDP YoY of Globalization. "
Ding! Ding! Ding! we have a winner!!!! I couldent have said it better myself.
swine flu part deux > everything this fall, including the recovery.
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Methane is completely odorless and is harmful when breathed only in concentrations high enough to displace oxygen.
It is a very potent greenhouse gas, however.
Speaking of wasps and bees...we usually have a little of both, but this year I don't have any bees...just three types of wasps. I am not an expert on insects, but I think one kind is a yellow jacket, some type of red wasp, and I think some mud daubers...I am having to constantly spray my back yard right now. Usually, I leave them alone, but we are talking lots of flying critters and it is worrying me. Plus the dragonflies....went out around dusk, and there must have been a hundred dragonflies. Amazing to watch, it was like the whole backyard was moving and dancing at once.
What do youse all think is under the melting ice caps?
The swine flu viruses currently being used to develop a vaccine aren't producing enough of the ingredient needed for the vaccine, and WHO has asked its laboratory network to produce a new set of viruses as soon as possible.
I had read some rumors about this but now perhaps some confirmation - the story I had picked up some weeks back was that the technology culturing the virus in chicken eggs (how the seasonal vax is produced) was having problems...
Like global contraction = global cooling?
Pavel: LONDON – A fully licensed swine flu vaccine might not be available until the end of the year, a top official at the World Health Organization said Monday, in a report that could affect many countries' vaccination plans.
If it takes that long it's going to affect my living plans. Asthma. Hoping for the best....
Whitney just squeezed the bears and alienated her core group of fans.
Nobody likes her now.
Pavel: LONDON – A fully licensed swine flu vaccine might not be available until the end of the year, a top official at the World Health Organization said Monday, in a report that could affect many countries' vaccination plans.
If it takes that long it's going to affect my living plans. Asthma. Hoping for the best....
NR, Hoping with you.
Pavel
@ our swimming hole on the river, sometimes squadrons of dragonflies lurk @ around 30 feet, and butterflies @ around 10-15 feet.
They occasionally enter each other's airspace and it looks like a WW1 dogfight.
Vonbek,
I don't know about your yellow wasps but my experience is wasps just want you to notice them and say hello. Even if they can sting they probably wont. That could just be Florida wasps that were probably stoned on golf course pesticide runoff.
Jimmy Hoffa.
"What do youse all think is under the melting ice caps?"
Judge Crater?
Tabasco sauce; Coriolis effect.
On the weather: We are at the low point in the solar activity cycle, which usually lasts about 11-12 years. Sun spots/flares are hotter than the regular sun. The overlay of the coolness from the solar cycle has the GW deniers out in force, but when the cycle turns in a few years it is going to be mighty hot.
CR,
If the two reports are both reasonably accurate, then of the 36.9% of these loans 60 days late and 19% in foreclosure, only a tiny fraction have experienced a recast?
That seems almost hard to believe.
Nobody likes her now.
The fate of the honest analyst.
We usually treat wasps that way, don't bother them, and the don't bother you. But I don't know if it is the swimming pool or what, but they aren't be friendly this year. I have two small children, so I am worried. You get 20 or 30 at a time, you worry about swarming....and they like to land of you in the pool.
"Speaking of wasps and bees...we usually have a little of both, but this year I don't have any bees...just three types of wasps. I am not an expert on insects, but I think one kind is a yellow jacket, some type of red wasp, and I think some mud daubers..."
VESPULA
Black and white the hornet
‘Vespula’ they call her,
Armor black and white
Length two centimeters
Builds a paper nest
Underneath the eaves,
Cellulose digests
Paper cells she leaves
Generates a brood
Behind the window pane,
Carries them their food
Insects she has slain
On our window sill
Her colony expands,
Brings to it her kills
We are in her plans
Seeing through the glass
They hurl themselves at us,
Furious they pass
Savagely they thrust
Armored carapace,
Sharp the poison sting,
Flying in my face
The armor of it rings
Kill us or be killed,
Frighten us away,
Venom they have spilled
Intoxicates their prey
Those who recognize
Themselves in such a fury
See with compound eyes
Inhuman testimony
Pavel
July 6, 2009
We had them exterminated. Dragonflies won't hurt you, but these creatures were scary.
my wifes libido?
I'm curious, Pavel.
Do you derive poetic inspiration from the CR group?
CR,
Could the discrepancy between the CS chart and what WF is reporting be a result of loosened mark-to-market requirements for the banks? Isn't it in WF's best interest to assume that the loan-to-value of all of their loans will remain below the 125% trigger, regardless of whether that's true or not, and can't they just do that? There are consequences for being honest.
Nobody likes her now.
The fate of the honest analyst.
She should have chosen a different time to be honest, or warned some people first.
"You get 20 or 30 at a time, you worry about swarming..."
They sent me to the hospital, and when I got out the doctor told me I wasn't particularly allergic to them - it was the dose. There were many of them. If you have small children, it would be highly advisable to get rid of them.
ucgal wrote 10:02 am
How many mortgages (in a percentage) are "pick a pay" loans? Is this a huge part of the mortgage pool or is it a smaller fraction?
ucgal...my question too...read the thread and dont see an answer yet...looking
"I'm curious, Pavel.
Do you derive poetic inspiration from the CR group?"
I think it's more as matter of good company as a tonic.
BTW:
Amazon.com: Animal Kingdom (9780976858041): Pavel Chichikov: Books
For those with wasp problems:
I haven't tried this yet, but I am anxious to. Looks promising.
Fatal Funnel
Yeah, that is why I am spraying, if I can't get rid of them myself, I am calling someone. My best friend in Germany dad had a bee fly in to his beer bottle at a block party. Bee stung him in his throat. Went into shock, almost died. Image has stayed with me for life.
The maimsteam media has told us about 3 species disappearing...
2 of them are a food source, and the 3rd is too big to miss
honeybees
salmon
polar bears
That's it.
Sun spots/flares are hotter than the regular sun.
I thought sunspots (the dark areas) were cooler areas, while flares were projections?
for the OT crowd
the weather in the puget sound...one of the colder winters i remember in over 30 years
then
this march to may, according to weather stats, the dry-est on record...our ground is powder dry right under the sod
Animal Kingdom? The CR Commentariat? We could have a lotta fun with that.
Scone,
I watched the 2012 clip.
I don't have enough ammo.
I've seen a number from CS of $500 billion outstanding. Don't have a link, unfortunately.
She should have chosen a different time to be honest,
What, like 1953?
JD, there are some migrations going on too. Especially whales.
Nova, if what is depicted in 2012 happens, ammo is the least of your worries.
What's happening in 2012 besides the election?
http://www.fatal-funnel.com/enlarged.htm
May be effective, but looks incredibly disgusting and disturbing...
Useful idiots like drudge play upon the cold temperature news angle to repudiate global warming...
Haven't seen many bees at all in SFV. I have been performing the obligatory pollen distribution on the garden. I have seen a few rogue bees - Colony Colapse Disorder (Bee researchers close in on Colony Collapse Disorder.
Very few insects this year. Haven't seen many butterflies, moths or even June bugs. Lots of nasty black gnats, though.
It does seem that things are a little out of whack.
~miser
It all about missed meals in the animal kingdom, as everything feeds upon one another in some fashion...
The timing is all wrong.
You only need one bullet, Nova.
Nothing pretty about war or politics.
What's happening in 2012 besides the election?
GM Bankruptcy II: revenge of the fallen
"Yeah, that is why I am spraying, if I can't get rid of them myself, I am calling someone."
Be careful. Judging from my own experience I would get a professional to do it.
Wall St loves Sonya Sotomyor!
"If the two reports are both reasonably accurate, then of the 36.9% of these loans 60 days late and 19% in foreclosure, only a tiny fraction have experienced a recast?
That seems almost hard to believe. "
To my point about OAs - it is not about the recasts, etc., think of the mind set of the OA borrower.
These guys will be (are) defaulting in droves to try to get a better deal on their mortgage. If not, they are gone. This will happen well before any recast.
HAL, I am Nomad.
What are the negative amortization rates?
Does it take 10 years to hit 125%?
pavel: 2012 phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LOL.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. recorded a federal budget deficit of $94.3 billion in June, pushing the cumulative deficit so far this year to a record $1.08 trillion, the Treasury Department reported Monday. Outlays rose in June to $309.6 billion, while receipts climbed to $215.3 billion in the month. The Obama administration expects a deficit of $1.84 trillion for the full fiscal year, which ends in September.
Wall St loves Sonya Sotomyor!
Did she upgrade GS too?
About the sun activity. I am a very uneducated novice. I don't claim to be anything but...we still keep in touch with some people who are members of tribes up in Alaska. The old men (not elders, just old hunters) claim the sun is not in the right place in the sky. The claim some of the stars in the night sky have moved too. Make of that what you will. I watch the sun now a lot. Personally, haven't noticed anything other than what I mentioned about the air feeling different. I do believe however the sun is the chief mover of our climate. And JD is right, if the methane under the icecaps starts escaping in mass, I think all the cow farting in the world will be minuscule in comparison.
Global Drying?
when I was about ten i was getting a ball on our roof and stepped on a wasp nest under a roof tile. I was swarmed and repeatedly stung about many times, enough that I ran and jumped off the one story roof onto the ground. No adults were around, some nearby construction worker packed chewing tobacco on the bites. Luckily I'm not allergic.
I bet if I hadn't crushed them they would have not have bothered me. I can only remember one or two other wasp bites ever. The ones that bit me had the thin cellular honeycomb test nest. You can usually get them leave by crushing their nest with something long and quickly running away.
"To my point about OAs - it is not about the recasts, etc., think of the mind set of the OA borrower."
What, these were the guys who were looking to build equity fast, then either cash out or refi at really low payments? So if they can't get either, it's a waste of their money? That sorf of thing?
California vendors fight for their cash
While the state controller's office won't say exactly how many small companies will be hit, it's likely to be a big number: The state's department of general services says it holds $2.7 billion worth of annual contracts with at least 14,000 small companies, most of them California firms.
California's small business vendors fight for their cash - Jul. 12, 2009
"If you have small children, it would be highly advisable to get rid of them. "
Desperate times, desperate measures?
Welcome to "Out-of-Context Theater." Hee-hee.
"I might not normally feel comfortable buying a home with a $500,000 mortgage, but by reducing my payments $452 per month, it now becomes a viable option for me to get the house that suits my lifestyle," Blackwell says.
2005 AD
Mortgage Refinance - Interest Only Rates - Negative Amortization Loans- Deferred Payments | MortgageLoanOutlet.com
"What, these were the guys who were looking to build equity fast, then either cash out or refi at really low payments? So if they can't get either, it's a waste of their money? That sorf of thing? "
Exactly. Not in every case, but for many it was all about cash flow - get a house at the min payment possible, then as it rises in value, flip it or get a new mortgage with cash out and/or a new low payment.
Many would refi just to avoid the 7.5% annual increase in the min payment. And take cash out if they could.
this was a prevalent mindset especially in SoCal and Florida.
Now these guys are severely underwater. They won't be sticking around for the recast.
About the sun activity. I am a very uneducated novice. I don't claim to be anything but...we still keep in touch with some people who are members of tribes up in Alaska. The old men (not elders, just old hunters) claim the sun is not in the right place in the sky. The claim some of the stars in the night sky have moved too. Make of that what you will. I watch the sun now a lot. Personally, haven't noticed anything other than what I mentioned about the air feeling different. I do believe however the sun is the chief mover of our climate. And JD is right, if the methane under the icecaps starts escaping in mass, I think all the cow farting in the world will be minuscule in comparison.
The one reason I've had trouble getting too worried about the prospect of global warming is that it seems to me such a simple matter to deflect or block solar radiation if things get too hot.
Consider it a technological exercise for the human race - we can have farting cows and cool weather at the same time!
if you want to see a neat graphs of co2 verses atmospheric temperature go to the link below.
notice how the yellow line on the top graph is way way close to the y axis and represents the spike of CO2 during modern times
(graph goes from present on left side to 400k years ago far right
the short precis above the graph clearly puts our dilemma in perspective
the earth goes in and out of ice ages on a semi regular 100k cycle due to wobbles in our orbit and axis of rotation see milankovich cycles
and of course volcanism and solar output have effects too
so human effects are in addition to these natural effects
it could be that global warming will save us a little from an impending ice age...or if the natural swing to ice is several centuries or millienia away we could cook first
have a nice day
CO2 vs Temperature: Last 400,000 years
Update to the Gold Heist in Canada
Thieves might have smuggled mint gold in acid
National Post Story
Not just gold missing from mint; hunt also on for silver, platinum
Story - Business - Vancouver Sun
What was the most important thing to the Romans, Anasazi & Mayan?
What's our most important thing?
We all have to learn Mayan.
I watch the sun now a lot.
That will only work for a while, then you will watch nothing.
The agressive biting wasps looks less like ants and more like bees. Wasps are related to ants and bees, the wiki said.
Well, for the Romans it was hot water. I mean you weren't really a Roman without HOT WATER
"What are the negative amortization rates?"
Some relevant numbers:
Many min payments were based on a 1 - 2% rate, amortized over the life of the loan.
Interest rates were 2.5% - 3.5% margin over MTA.
With MTA being so low, neg am is actually pretty slow now.
Prop is, neg am has already happened for many, house prices have dropped, and eventually amortization at full rates will drive payments up. These guys can't refi because many were jumbo, and almost none documented their income on the original loan.
Buh bye.
Yes,
I'd agree that the Romans were about baths.
Next tribe?
JP, touche. I take precautions, but I was mostly talking about charting the movement of the sun through the sky during the seasons.
Juvenal Delinquent (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 11:12 am
What was the most important thing to the Romans, Anasazi & Mayan?
What's our most important thing?
Grain, grain, grain, internet access.
Pushing off the worst pain of the option ARMs looks like it will extend the housing pain and general economy pain even longer. That actually works to my financial advantage, but I'd rather see a better recovery and less general misery.
JD, which came first the food or the water?
i was without internet for like a day or something and OMFG I almost died.
"What was the most important thing to the Romans, Anasazi & Mayan?"
Romans? A source of revenue for the empire, and good enough weather to keep the passes open over the Alps.
Anasazi? Rainfall.
Mayans? Arable land, and keeping it arable; which they couldn't.
Not One Cent @ 11:10 PDT
Loved that archived link from 2005. Did anyone notice the disclaimer at the very end?
Probably posted here but bears repetition(from Michael Pettis and Bloomberg):
"New lending was 1.53 trillion yuan ($224 billion), the central bank said on its Web site today, bringing total lending this year to 7.4 trillion yuan", in China of course...ballpark $1 trillion at current exchange rates. Pettis says:
"I guess it is time to introduce something that I might call the Pettis Rule of Banking (although I am way, way down on the list of people who first thought of this): “It is not even theoretically possible that in a banking system in which bankers are given unlimited liquidity, tremendous pressure to make loans, and an implicit guarantee against losses, that enormous amounts of bad loans will not be made.”
Blowing out monstrous amounts of money supply might keep the masses content in the short term, but could eat through China's dollar reserves in a hurry down the road. It looks like "extend and pretend" on a massive scale to me.
We all have to learn Mayan.
When the time comes nobody's going to be talking...
"New lending was 1.53 trillion yuan ($224 billion), the central bank said on its Web site today, bringing total lending this year to 7.4 trillion yuan", in China of course...ballpark $1 trillion at current exchange rates. Pettis says:
A real estate bubble in a country where you can't own real estate.
Insanity has truly reached new heights.
ac (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 11:21 am
We all have to learn Mayan.
When the time comes nobody's going to be talking...
Mr. Hawking does all my talking stranger. [c.2014]
I've been to Pompeii & Herculaneum many times, and by far the most important buildings in both cities were the different temperature baths, as far as I could tell. I highly recommend wasting some jet fuel getting to and fro, to see both sites.
Make sure you go into dodgy Naples, to check out all the goodies in the archeological museum.
My favorite piece d' la resistance is a number of complete gladiator outfits that were found in the underground locker room, above the small arena where men did battle.
"Blowing out monstrous amounts of money supply might keep the masses content in the short term, but could eat through China's dollar reserves in a hurry down the road"
I think that's China's intention all along. They want to hoard commodities.
"Liquidity is drained from the US market because smart capitals are escaping from US soil to look for opportunities in places like China. China simply print their own money to soak up all the inflowing US dollars. It costs them nothing to print the Yuan to buy the dollars, and they can spend all the dollars to purchase physical assets and raw materials around the world"
Stock Psychology: The Inflation/Deflation Debate and China's Commodity Carry Trade
@shill
So they flushed the gold down the toilet?
Makes the effluent profession a rather affluent one.
~miser
ocgal CR too if its on topic
found it ...good graphs and numbers
answer pay option arms are a bit less by number than subprime
but
are expected to default at a higher rate and have greater impact (negative ) on economy
yikes
Worse than subprime? Other mortgages imploding slowly | McClatchy
To me what the Chinese govt is doing is far more reckless than any actions taken to date by US or European governments and financial institutions. In my mind, the Chinese leadership know that when the economic boom collapses, the jig will be up for them. They are just stalling the inevitable.
Johnus Holmesus
http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/IST/IST515/mural-mercury-pompeii_~1343339.jpg
When I was a freshman at Baylor, in my English lit class we had to write a short story about Pompeii. Anyway, I started my story with a dream sequence flashback of a Roman Centurion in charge of destroying the Temple in Jerusalem. Character is overcome with grief and regret and wakes up with the eruption of Vesuvius and hurries to help people make for the boats. Here's the thing, my prof (good professor by the way) didn't read past the opening chapter, said I was off subject and failed me. Had to go to his office and explain I used a flashback...then he gave me an A, entered my story in a contest, and told me to just keep writing stories and not to come back to class. He graded me on about six stories I wrote that semester. One class I really enjoyed in college.
Dirkus Diglerus
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pyFj865NHDc/RnNnHMYIJGI/AAAAAAAAAhw/QhaLUx1x2TY/s400/Pompeii+-+The+House+of+Vettii+-+Erotic+side+of.JPG
My, that Johnsonus!
Now that's a Roman glandiator.
I'm in Central Contra Costa County and I've got lots of bees. But then, I deliberately plant for them as opposed to poisoning the heck out of my yard by trying to kill every winged thing.
touche'
@ JD
Kokopelli has those gladiators beat. source - Anasazi petroglyphs
~miser
Yes, but deforestation has a greater impact.
In addition to the deforestation that's taking places in tropical areas like Brazil and Africa, there is massive deforestation taking place in the world's largest forest, the taiga, which stretches from northern Canada into Siberia.
Russia is by far the world's largest deforestation agent. They are obliterating the taiga.
You can grow a new tree in the rain forest in 15-20 years, and they are doing so in quantity in some parts of the tropical world. But you can't grow a new giant evergreen anywhere in the northern climates nearly as fast. The destruction of the taiga can't be reversed by growth.
The warmer Arctic weather melting of the winter tundra also is destroying the taiga.
A lot of the weather strangeness in North America is drifting down from the taiga.
My inlaws own two places in China. One in Beijing and another in the South. It's ver easy to buy/own real estate in China. Banks are now offering 0% down condo loans to juice the real estate market out of it's slump. China is Communist in name only.
China is Communist in name only.
China discovered what the U.S. already knew.
it's better to let people pretend to own property, to motivate them.
At least until the pyramid scheme ends.
If you are in the Vegas area and want to see 2,500 year old or so (many atlatls, precursor to the bow & arrow) Anasazi petroglyphs, Valley of Fire state park is the place to go...
Mouse's Tank, in particular.
The best car camping spot i've ever been to, with 4 free shower stalls.
The economy is dead. Now go back to work!
@Kung.Fu.Panda
They know their economy (and everybody else's) will collapse soon, so they're busy printing money and buying up food/commodities. The art of war says:
Fight for the enemy’s supply wagons.
Capture their supplies by using overwhelming force.
Mix them in with your own to increase your supply line.
Keep your soldiers strong by providing for them.
This is what it means to beat the enemy while you grow more powerful.
Think of them as the ants and the indebted nations as the grasshoppers. Except the ants knows...well....Kung Fu.
This is from Tanta's post on these loans. I'm sure I read it at the time , but forgot this part:
One other thing I wanted to make clear by providing these examples is the mechanics of payment increases for a very common OA type. The product shown in these spreadsheets allows for annual payment increases, but monthly rate increases. (That is how the potential for negative amortization gets created: the payment does not automatically adjust to match the new interest rate each month.) The eventual recast hits at the sooner of the loan reaching 115% of its original balance or 120 months. We know that a recast is nearly always a huge shock, given a low enough introductory rate. But this loan does involve payment increases of up to 7.5% each year (i.e., the next year's payment can be as much as 107.5% of the prior year's payment).
On Option ARMs
So even if interest rates never changed, in Tanta's example the minimum payment jumps 7.5%/year.
I bet that accounts for the discrepancy, the CS people assumed the minimum payment didn't rise, so recast occurred much earlier.
It also explains why so many loans would fail before recast, payments are jumping each year.
OT:
NYPD takes down Superman and Batman.
Battle Royale: Batman and Superman Take on NYPD - Crimesider - CBS News
Superzeroes = Maimstream Media
we are going in...and were goin in deep
msnbc reports on the pay option arm fiasco
"New wave of defaults likely as risky loans reset to sharply higher payments"
Some time after Sharren McGarry went to work as a mortgage consultant at Wachovia’s Stuart, Fla., branch in July 2007, she and her colleagues were directed to market a mortgage called the “Pick A Pay” loan. Sales commissions on the product were double the rates for conventional mortgages, and she was required to make sure nearly half the loans she sold were "Pick A Pay," she said.
snip
While McGarry balked at selling these pay-option ARMs, other lenders and mortgage brokers were happy to sell the loans and pocket the higher commissions.
snip
“The next wave (of foreclosures) is coming next year and in 2010, and that is primarily due to these pay-option ARMS and the five-year, adjustable-rate hybrid ARMS that are coming up for reset,” said William Longbrake, retired vice chairman of Washington Mutual. The giant Seattle-based bank, which collapsed this year under the weight of its bad mortgage loans, was one of the biggest originators of pay-option ARMs during the lending boom.
snip
The next wave may be even more difficult to handle than the last one.
“It’s going to get tougher to modify loans as these option ARMs come into their resets," Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair told msnbc.com this week. "Those are more difficult than the subprime and traditional adjustable rates to modify because there is such a huge payment differential when they reset."
snip
Monthly quota: 45 percent
With 16 years of experience in the mortgage business, McGarry didn’t believe the “pay option” loan was a good deal for most of her customers, so she didn’t promote it.
snip
"Foreclosures are going to mount and the negative self-reinforcing cycle will accelerate," said Zandi. "It's already happening, but it will accelerate in a lot more parts of the country."
'Pay option' loans could swell defaults - Mortgage Mess- msnbc.com
My inlaws own two places in China. One in Beijing and another in the South. It's ver easy to buy/own real estate in China. Banks are now offering 0% down condo loans to juice the real estate market out of it's slump. China is Communist in name only.
I thought the real estate was leased from the government for 70 years (or some similar number), and not actually owned.
I'm feeling an itchy BFM coming on...
Scone,
I watched the 2012 clip.
I don't have enough ammo. - nova
What you really need, is alien cars that transform into massively armed warrior robots:
YouTube - Trailer #2 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (HD)
@ JD
Thanks. I will add that to my places to visit list.
Valley of Fire, Mouse's Tank
~miser
China is basically 2000 years of free wheeling capitalism sandwiched between 50 years of Communism. It has always been there below the surface waiting to break out again. The level of raw want for the good life now is pretty amazing (and somewhat disturbing) when you travel there.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. bankruptcy judge gave General Motors Corp permission on Monday to buy several assets of bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi Corp as part of a deal with a private equity firm that could take Delphi out of bankruptcy.
Not enough noticed.
"One of the things that borrowers have told us they use it [negam] for is funding their retirement plans. Most people don't fully fund their 401(k), for example. Well, that $452 extra a month, that's an extra $5,400 that can be channeled into a 401(k), giving them more tax advantages there while retaining the tax deductibility of a $500,000 mortgage."
Negative house ROI, meet negative 401k ROI.
The 2012 thing has been something I have watched since 1988...I read some alt-science piece entitled The Theory of Multi-dimensional Reality...fun book. Anyway the claim there is the magnetic field of the earth and sun would spin down.. causing the earth to stop rotating. Sun would release a massive solar flare that would toast one side of the earth and evaporate the oceans. A massive tidal wave would cause flooding on the night side. Then poles flip and everything starts up again. I can' t remember if the book tied in with 2012 or 2010 at this point...but it was written at the height of the global cooling movement in the 70s. World has always been ending. I like watching too, but doesn't mean we will see it. Some real fun reading is the insanity that took place in 1899, especially in the south with tent revivals. 2012 has the Mayan calender going for it, if you accept we have deciphered it correctly. Only thing I know for sure is man has worshiped the sun since before time began in one way or another.
That may very well be true. I'm not sure. I know that you do get title to the property. But it may very well be similar to the lease hold arrangement that ges on in UK and other European countries.
Weather cools and heats.
I'm just enjoying the relatively cooler summer weather and keeping the ac off.
Warming/Cooling? Too few data points to really make an educated guess in the great timeline of the planet.
As to 2012, I'll just have some popcorn and enjoy the show. Who knows, maybe it'll improve property/housing prices with the housing stock destruction.
I suppose that the NAR is an official sponsor of the movie.
Alright, i'll say it.
Wealth is the most important thing to us.
Wealth is the most important thing to us.
I thought it was freedom?
I would say freedom is the most important thing to us. Not many country in history can claim that.
They are one and the same.
America's Past Time:
MLB's First Half Reveals Money Troubles - CBS News
For all of Major League Baseball, average attendance was down 6.2 percent through Friday, even with many teams offering discounts to battle the recession. An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released this week found 63 percent of fans think the cost of a game is baseball's biggest problem.
The new Yankee Stadium became Exhibit A for baseball in the downturn, with front-row seats in the plush new park going empty at up to $2,625 each, and only the opener selling out among the first 42 games. Things weren't a lot better across town at the new Citi Field, where tickets topped out at a $495 average and the Mets sold out only five of their first 43 home games.
Last time I was at Turner Field (Atlanta):
16 oz. Miller Lite was $7.
A hot dog? $7.
16oz. bottled water $4.
MLB did themselves in, I'm afraid.
So fedgov is taking over Delphi, now?
They are one and the same.
An illusion.
Thus we see the basic disconnect in American society.
We claim to prize freedom & human life most of all, yet wealth is what most chase.
So we convince ourselves that they are the same thing.
they mean BILLINOS, not MILLINOS right??? 128 millions, that's like 300 california homes....
2004 neg-ams already went through a spike to 5% MTA so what does 8% do to compounded neg-am since 2004?
MTA - 12-Month Treasury Average Index - Mortgage (ARM) Indices
"So fedgov is taking over Delphi, now?"
As is the custom, only the liabilities.
And the Cubbies might go BK. That's got to suck.
Hari Kari?
It's a given that every last professional sporting team will go bankrupt, if they don't reneg on long-term ridiculous salaries...
What's it gonna be, boys?
I know around here people go watch the Fort Worth Cats. Family friendly, food is cheap, tickets are cheap, and the games are more fun in my opinion than watching the Rangers. I loved baseball when I was a kid. Dad was stationed at Ft. Leavenworth, we drove in to KC during the summer for every game. Sat in cheap seats most of the time, but I did get to sit behind home plate when Nolan Ryan was visiting and saw him pitch a very good game past his prime. But major league baseball isn't the same anymore. I don't know how regular families can afford to go to be honest.
It's a given that every last professional sporting team will go bankrupt, if they don't reneg on long-term ridiculous salaries...
What's it gonna be, boys?
Financing from the beer vendors (Sportservice, etc.) has usually been the answer in the past. That's one cash cow nobody wants to kill off.
I wonder if the vendors can pay their California taxes with IOUs. That'd be a fun trial to watch
So fedgov is taking over Delphi, now?
They are protecting themselves from 'subcontractor F/U' with Delphi 'private' in exactly the same way large mil subcontractors or the 'operators' at Oak Ridge are 'private'.
Delphi was close to going away if some of the weakest links weren't fixed & fast. They were too weak to do fix themselves alone so... Delphi going away would cause GM to go with them.
Nothingburger & fully anticipated. Look for Ford to do something similar with Visteon and Boeing [eventually] to do something similar w/ Spirit. Point is 'de-verticalization' works great in a boom [they all de-verticalized in the 90s & early 00's]... it can be catastrophic in a bust [like now]. Especially a bust where de-leveraging is the norm so they can't just band aid over the scab.
Dude, this country has always been predicated on wealth and freedom. They aren't disconnected concepts.
Some came here for various liberties, but they all hoped to be able to make a buck, too.
Including my ancestor, a German winemaker who settled here in 1721 and then moved to the Iriquois frontier in western PA in hopes of more - and cheaper land - so that he could pursue wealth.
"scone (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 1:26 pm
My guess is methane... - JD
Farts. How many billions of farts, every day, day in and day out? Cows, dogs, cats, and over 6 billion humans. And you and I breathe this stuff, hundreds of times per day."
I've hear that cows are one of the biggest sources of green house gasses on the planet....not that I believe in global warming.....
HomeGnome
Stealth Delphi bailout?
@ Mock Turtle -
Thanks for the link...
Money quote from it:
While a smaller number than subprime mortgages, option ARMs grew from 3 percent of all mortgages bundled and sold to investors in 2004 to 14 percent by 2007.
Probably still under 5% of all mortgages - since a lot of mortgages were done before or after the 3 year window of Option ARM popularity.
I've been looking at various versions of that reset chart for years, but I've never been able to figure out if anyone has adjusted it for foreclosures already under the bridge. I mean, weren't Option ARMs the favorite mortgage of flippers? And how many of them are still paying?
16 oz. Miller Lite was $7.
...
16oz. bottled water $4.
Hmmm. Two prices on the same item.
A keg of Budweiser RETAILS for around $80 here.
There's about 150 12oz servings (.53 a serving).
Why does the ballpark have to ream you for $7 a beer?
oh, Cuz it's the American Past Time; that's why!
Dude, this country has always been predicated on wealth and freedom.
Even the US revolution was more of 'bourgeois putsch' than a real revolution. Nouveau riche in the new world thinking they are better off if they aren't lorded over by the old money in the old world.
It's a given that every last professional sporting team will go bankrupt, if they don't reneg on long-term ridiculous salaries...
This is true an inevitability
Pretty Much, JP.
Man it looks like we are trying to pump the pump before close. If the S&P goes over 900, I may have to burn my clothes and wear sackcloth and get a sign saying the end is coming. This is just ridiculous. Check that, let's build the golden calf for Goldman Sachs and start dancing around in a frenzied daze, wait we are already doing that.
My Favorite Season
I worked for a company in 1988 that had 4 season tickets (orange level right behind home plate) to Dodger games, which seldom got used, and about 5 pm on game-day, the boss-man would announce over the loudspeaker asking if somebody wanted the ducats?
My buddy and I got em' about half the time, so we saw around 40 games that magical year. We'd sell off 2 of em' for food & booze money.
I didn't make it to the 1st World Series game (Gibson's HR) but we had Uecker seats for the 2nd game.
I could have sold my shitty ticket for $1000 to any of many people that desperately wanted to catch the previous night's lightning in a bottle again*
Please do this out-of-sight of your kids.
Farts are mostly nitrogen and hydrogen, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia:
Flatulence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"pavel.chichikov (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 1:53 pm
..... If you have small children, it would be highly advisable to get rid of them."
Is that even legal?
Wait for Obama to purchase all these unemployed Japanese robots and reprogram them from producers to consumers:
In Recession, Japanese Lay Off Robots - NYTimes.com
I'll have none of this Swift-Boating of children...
Stealth Delphi bailout?
Except it isn't really stealth - it's in your face bail out. And fully expected... OEs go nowhere but down the drain without Delphi, Visteon, Tower, Magna, TRW, Lear - etc. Some will be merged, others bailed out... few will go entirely away.
The OEs are basically 'platform companies' now - concepts & finance & marketing and some final assembly [sort of like packaging]... its the tier ones and twos that 'make' the cars & detail the designs at the system level.
They are one and the same.
An illusion.
Thus we see the basic disconnect in American society.
We claim to prize freedom & human life most of all, yet wealth is what most chase.
So we convince ourselves that they are the same thing.
It's interesting I'm reading "Demons" by Dostoevsky right now and he seems to be talking about similar things. He seems to be saying that "freedom" is making people superficial and materialistic in Russia when he's writing in the late 1800s and that this will lead to despotism.
Quite prescient in retrospect, if I'm understanding him correctly.
@Vonbek777
Don't fight against goldman sach's automated trading system, and fed's unlimited printing press. Go with the flow.
"Wait for Obama to purchase all these unemployed Japanese robots and reprogram them from producers to consumers:"
Talk about social engineering...
"Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 2:56 pm
...... Sun would release a massive solar flare that would toast one side of the earth and evaporate the oceans."
Wasn't that a meme from the last thread?
Denninger has more on Merideth Whitney.
The Market Ticker
Wait for Obama to purchase all these unemployed Japanese robots and reprogram them from producers to consumers:
I think he announced earlier today that US unemployment benefits would be extended to out-of-work Japanese robots.
Roger that, HomeGnome, got to remember I am setting an example for my children. It is hard to some days. We watched a lot of election stuff last year, and my 4 year old likes to play Where's Obama now? Every time he hears or sees the president, we have to talk about it and I have to force myself to be respectful and say nice things about the office. It is amazing how much kids pick up so young.
Cinco-X Didn't read all of the last thread, missed it if it was... have to go back and read it now.
Why does the ballpark have to ream you for $7 a beer?
Because they can?
It's worth noting that it's not the ballpark or club that's reaming you here. Vending and commissary services are outsourced. It was allegedly (and believably--my boss seemed to have stepped off the set of the Godfather and we were making Mafia jokes behind his back even before we found out it was true) a mob operation when I worked there but that was a long time ago. There was a big expose in Sports Illustrated about this, about 35 years ago or so.
“A robot will work every day and night without complaining,” Mr. Matsumoto said. “You can even save on lights and heating, because robots don’t need any of that.”
"Now if only we could get some tenants like that..." Section 8 Slumlord
Denninger has more on Merideth Whitney.
Not really. He's too busy TYPING IN BOLD CAPS to say anything insightful.
Chainsaw's review comments from earlier today were more perceptive.
Never too early to teach children the truth, Vonbek.
Allow me to give you some talking points:
1. The President is NOT the one in charge
2. The President is a LIAR and most likely a thief.
3. Refer to rules 1 and 2.
It was so funny on inaguration day, a number of friends that don't have tvs, came over to watch, and at one point they showed the crowd, followed to a quick glimpse of cannons being fired, and we all thought they were howtizering the hoi ploy.
"scone (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 3:17 pm
Farts are mostly nitrogen and hydrogen, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence#Composition_of_flatus_gases"
At last! someone's answered that age old question of "Is it possible to light a fart". Having seen it myself in my college days, I knew it was true, but I've heard other vehemently deny it. Fart Lighting Deniers I call them
Bubble version:
“A Keynesian robot will cosume and borrow every day and night without complaining,"
ot-
MOUNTAIN OF DEBT: Americans' debt stress is easing
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
more feel good media....
Re: freedom...next comment
Barking spiders come out @ altitude.
Save the Planet- Light a Fart!
Cinco, the book I was referring to, specifically was trying to explain the ancient stories of a period of darkness and flooding on one side of the earth, and the evidence of a massive solar event in North and South America and if the two were related. This was junk science at its worst though. But I did enjoy reading it.
"
HomeGnome (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 3:26 pm
Save the Planet- Light a Fart!
Evil"
FWIW, I'm fairly certain that lighting farts is carbon neutral.
Fart Cap and Trade?
Naw, that idea is full of hot air.
"Denninger has more on Merideth Whitney.
Not really. He's too busy TYPING IN BOLD CAPS to say anything insightful.
Chainsaw's review comments from earlier today were more perceptive."
Your right JP, maybe I should have put a disclaimer on my post "For entertainment purposes only"
HomeGnome, notice I said respect for the 'office'...Trust me, my children will be versed in the 'fallibility' of individuals who have served in office.
You gonna let that asshole talk to you like that?
O.K., kids, if you really want some dopamine-enabled worry, here's a wiki list of lots of stuff that would kill us, planet Earth, and maybe the whole universe. too! Enjoy:
Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Our very own Bob Dobbs could have straightened this out for you.
(Google "Dobbs" and "pyroflatulation" if you don't know what I mean.)
"Denninger has more on Merideth Whitney."
One interesting point he brings up about silent seconds. Well, some of the seconds were not so silent - in many cases, the banks knowingly originated a 10% second on top of an 80% Option ARM. How crazy is that? Both stated income, of course.
Ouch.
So what are those seconds marked at? If they are current, are they marked at par?
The only hope for many of these seconds is if the borrower is kind enough to pay on a loan that is significantly underwater.
Poll: Americans want health-care bill, but not cost
Poll: Americans want health care bill, but not the cost - USATODAY.com
Same old, same old.
Vonbek- understood.
Silent Service: Underwater
Silent Seconds: Underwater
Silent but deadly?
Alright, I'll quit now.
I'm out of gas anyway.
Poll: Americans want health-care bill, but not cost
Poll: Americans want health care bill, but not the cost - USATODAY.com
Same old, same old.
Plus ponies, don't forget ponies. And free lunch... Ponies and free lunch and health care.
OT-freedom
My mother emailed all of us kids on july 4th about what she thought about that day...She's simple and doesn't like to shorten paragraphs but she's an american thru and thru....
thought I would share to break up the fart talk
Today I hope you celebrate your independence from harassment, intimidation, torture, coercion, your ability to choose your profession, your religion, to voice your likes and dislikes and your choices to ignore or to participate in any event. Your ability to talk amongst yourselves without tampering, without fear, with the ability to complain without pain.
Today I know our country is in crisis. It has been this way before, within our borders there was discord amongst our own people but that was settled and a lot of men died for our freedom, the Gettysberg Address was implemented and is the greatest document that gloriously announced our rights as human beings. I know to implement these rights has been slow but they are written just as in the bible, Jesus says to LOVE THEY NEIGHBOR numerous times. It is not easy to love your enemies, but it does not say you have to run with them but be wise. But this country is the greatest of all countries that gives any man the opportunity to succeed or to fail without recourse. And it will recover and life will go on, and we will succeed in recovery, but Americans will have to learn to be wise in their money, their expenditures, hard times make strong minds and wise men.
I am proud to be an American, I am grateful for our freedoms, I am proud of our servicemen who fight for the cause of freedom, in countries of hate and discrimination, of unequal rights, of torture and suffering inflicted because of hate. I am proud to have serviced the less fortunate, to care for those who are suffering due to disease. To those are struggling to find themselves in a world that is stressed and testing. You were never promised a rose garden, life is a struggle from the beginning to the end. I hope to continue to help those who need help. It is the nature of life to extend ourselves to help others. It is the most rewarding of all our adventures.
I LOVE AMERICA. When I flew over Dallas recently, from the heavens looking down I saw riches beyond belief. Leaving a country (Costa RIca) where poverty is tolerated but people are happy I thought to myself, it is beyond my vision that just looking down from the sky would reveal the wealth of our country. We are realigning our lives, maybe we will have to adjust to a different life in the future, but let it be a better planned future by each individual who realizes that things do not bring happiness but people, love, compassion, sharing, freedom is the greatest gift we have here in America. We need to focus on what true happiness is, its freedom, its opportunity to change whenever we wish, its faith that there will be a change but we will have learned to change for the better. Its going to bed at night knowing your safe from oppression.
I am grateful for our ancestors who so bravely climbed on that ship to cross that vast ocean, who tolerated suffering in small boats, started with nothing, to create something after they decided to come to a land and establish our country. To our explorers and pioneers, who pushed on thru the deserts, across the valleys who built transportation so that today we could travel and have such a large vast of land to accomodate and create where we live today. To those who fought to cross our lands. To those who created the Constitution to severe our relationship with England to create our AMERICA. To those who have died to ensure our rights.
So today, I ask you to be grateful for your freedoms, for your hardships, for your ability to do what you want when you want, your ability to spend, your ability to pay taxes, your ability to enjoy the fruits of our ancestors, to our servicemen who gave it their all, our lives which are so full of excitement and joy from all we have about us, and for our family who connect with other, and know that life is family and friends, and all else is secondary.. We are here for each other. Life is empty without those we love.
Anyway I wanted to say something, said a lot I know but I am sending you ALL LOVE, ALL HOPE, ALL PEACE OF MIND, without FEAR, as you enjoy this special day. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
MOM
Plus ponies, don't forget ponies. And free lunch... Ponies and free lunch and health care.
Barack Hoover Obama will promise anything for a second term at this point IMO. Nothing is off the table.
My parents live near Panama City, FL...anyway their little slice of paradise came with a chemical factory and a paper mill near the beach. So coming into town over the bridge of the scenic coastline you are bombarded with the most god-awful stench imaginable. Dad said there were plans to take them down in the future so it was a short term problem. And lo and behold, they are going away, think the paper mill is already gone...but man it made me think stone tablets weren't that bad of an idea after all.
All this pumping is hurting BB's mortgage rate stimulus.
Bloomberg.com:
Personal Finance
Like playing Pop The Weasel - pound one down, another pops up.
6 months into a maelstrom, and he'll do anything to get re-elected?
GS going for the 150 at the close or higher by golly
shill (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 2:17 pm
Thieves might have smuggled mint gold in acid
Not to worry -- Canada's got plenty more where that came from ...
MOUNTAIN OF DEBT: Americans' debt stress is easing
My favorite quote: Debt-related stress was 12 percent lower this year than in 2008, according to the poll. "People now have some optimism that the worst is behind them," said Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist and AP consultant who analyzed the results of the survey.
Tying that health poll to a previous thread:
"Many people have no idea who pays the teachers, trash trucks, fire trucks, partol cars, water main lines etc etc. They simply exist and respond as needed. "
The goal of public policy is to make people have no idea by obscuring the costs.
The goal of having towns apply to Homeland Security grants for cars and radios is to make people have no idea.
The goal of public policy pushing HMOs and single-payer health-care is to make people have no idea.
The goal of public policy is ignorance.
Dropping acid means a whole different thing in the great white north...
More Delphi
freep.com | | Detroit Free Press
Looks like you might want to go shopping for sackcloth leisure suits this afternoon, Vonbeck...
I take it back... this is my favorite quote: Nationwide, total household debt — including mortgages, credit cards, autos and other consumer loans — stood at $13.8 trillion in the first three months of this year. That amounts to roughly $124,000 of debt per household. The total debt figure is down only slightly from a peak of $13.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve.
Barack Hoover Obama will promise anything for a second term at this point IMO. Nothing is off the table.
I'm sure GOP will match BO and then raise the bid with a few 'tax cuts & pork barrel' thrown in. Its how we do elections now in the US of A.
For those not keeping track at home, the rating agencies have been downgrading RMBS like crazy the past two weeks.
Not that many people care about what the rating agencies think these days.
Except all the financial institutions who use the ratings to determine capital levels.
NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) July 13, 2009--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services
today provided its revised projected losses for U.S. residential
mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) transactions backed by Alternative-A (Alt-A)
collateral issued in 2005, 2006, and 2007. These loss projections are for the
underlying collateral of these transactions.
The weighted average projected loss for the 2005 vintage transactions is
approximately 10.00% of the original pool balance, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 3.18% to 16.72%. The weighted average projected loss
for the 2006 transactions is approximately 22.50%, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 9.42% to 31.93%. The weighted average projected loss
for the 2007 transactions is approximately 27.00%, and 80% of the loss
projections range from 12.03% to 41.99%.
Ignorance is Strength.
The precious is making me feel groovy, man.
vonbeck I hope it doesn't chaff too much
Someone is sprinkling pixie dust all over Wall St today.
Show me an American politician who will tell the truth and I will show you the election loser.
Show me an American politician who will tell the truth and I will show you the election loser.
Also:
Show me an American politician who advocates long-term thinking and I will show you the election loser.
The total [household] debt figure is down only slightly from a peak of $13.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve.
Is it higher than 2007 or 2005?
Then add government debt.
Where is the deleveraging that so many people claim is causing the recession?
"Wait for Obama to purchase all these unemployed Japanese robots and reprogram them from producers to consumers:"
Talk about social engineering...
no... i think the democrats call it 'diversity'
I like it that bank stocks rallied on this report, today.
Never bet against the house. Great-grandma said the stock market was just a big roulette wheel.
How many middle-class folks were there in the dark ages?
Wealth is Freedom
vonbeck
Roulette table gives you better odds
Your right JP, maybe I should have put a disclaimer on my post "For entertainment purposes only"
Yep, sorry I missed the implied warning.
Never bet against the house. Great-grandma said the stock market was just a big roulette wheel.
I used to think that my Dad was terribly unsophisticated; he's been investing in CDs since the 80s.
And you know the punchline: He's beaten the S&P.
Yeah, except this roulette wheel doesn't stop at 0 and 00. There's also 000, 0000, 00000, 000000, 0000000, 00000000, 000000000, 0000000000, and you can only bet on black or red.
"I used to think that my Dad was terribly unsophisticated; he's been investing in CDs since the 80s.
And you know the punchline: He's beaten the S&P. "
The FED will ensure that is as difficult as possible with neg rates.
Show me an American politician who will tell the truth and I will show you the election loser.
LOL - so true. Left right up or down - doesn't matter.
I wonder if Timmy still gets his allowance today if we don't close above SPX 900.
"..thought I would share to break up the fart talk..." -CCLT
Scatology and eschatology, together at last!
I saw that Schrödinger's Cat got into a fight with Pavlov's Dog...
I hope they are both ok.
CIT Going the Way of Lehman
FN: It looks like the powers that be are going to "Lehman" CIT. All requests for assistance were rebuffed by the FDIC. This would be quite the serious failure that would unleash a cascading round of small and medium sized business failures.
CIT Group Says Its Failure Risks Demise of Customers (Update2): "CIT Group Inc., the century-old lender that hasn’t been able to persuade the government to back its debt sales, says its demise would put 760 manufacturing clients at risk of failure and “precipitate a crisis” for as many as 300,000 retailers.
A collapse would ripple across the “small and medium-sized businesses who rely on CIT to operate -- to pay their vendors, ship goods to their customers and make their payroll,” the New York-based lender said in internal documents obtained by Bloomberg News that make the case for its importance to the U.S. economy. CIT spokesman Curt Ritter declined to comment on the documents.
CIT executives spoke with regulators during the past two days, according to a person familiar with the talks, after its bonds and shares tumbled on concern that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. won’t allow the lender into its bond-guarantee program created last year to unfreeze debt markets. CIT may default as soon as April, when a $2.1 billion credit line matures, according to Fitch Ratings.
“A CIT default would create liquidity issues for the corporate sector,” Ed Grebeck, chief executive officer of debt consulting firm Tempus Advisors in Stamford, Connecticut. “If CIT isn’t doing trade finance and lending, its customers will look to other banks for replacement and from what I’ve seen, they aren’t willing to step up.”
[ The Financial Ninja ]
The FED will ensure that is as difficult as possible with neg rates.
Naturally, the outcome kinda depends on the S&P as well. And that's the rub.
April? As in April 2010?
I think we may have other problems before that.
“A CIT default would create liquidity issues for the corporate sector,” Ed Grebeck, chief executive officer of debt consulting firm Tempus Advisors in Stamford, Connecticut. “If CIT isn’t doing trade finance and lending, its customers will look to other banks for replacement and from what I’ve seen, they aren’t willing to step up.”
Oh they'll step up... just a matter of price point.
So let me get this straight...the bank with the most leverage (what was that something like 1000:1) of any bank in the US, is leading a Kermit charge this afternoon...based upon the assumption that the country may go down in flames but GS will come out stronger for it, and this is good for Wall St.? And by the way they admit the use of software that has given them an advantage...and this doesn't bother anyone except the few marginalized on the sidelines as nuts and bears.....
"How many middle-class folks were there in the dark ages?"
The 20th century?
I saw that Schrödinger's Cat got into a fight with Pavlov's Dog...
JD, an oldie but goodie...love that joke
Well, there she blows, broke 900....see if it takes...anyone know some good cures for chaffing?
The Mayans are some of my favorite people. Their language and culture are alive and well in Quintana Roo.
If you go on vacation and get outside Cancun and Cozumel, you will encounter many Mayan. They tend to be short and have almost no necks. But they are some of the nicest people on earth. They speak, at minimum, Spanish and Mayan, and a lot of them also know some English.
Their food is fabulous.
So let me get this straight...the bank with the most leverage (what was that something like 1000:1) of any bank in the US, is leading a Kermit charge this afternoon...based upon the assumption that the country may go down in flames but GS will come out stronger for it, and this is good for Wall St.?
Yup... but remember: GS IS Wall Street.
They are, as long as nobody looks...
"It's interesting I'm reading "Demons" by Dostoevsky right now ..."
Yes, prescient and creepy.
oh look, S&P just downgraded 34 more ratings on 9 CDOs.
Time to do more secondary stock issuance to support that capital base...
Not One Cent,
OT, but your handle brings up a question, the answer to which has been puzzling me for six months:
Has anyone in the CR blogiverse received in change -- or seen -- even one of the new 200th anniversary Lincoln cents?
I haven't -- except on the US Mint's web site. They claim to have minted more than a couple of billion already, but nobody I've talked to has seen one yet. Thanks for everyone's input.
--SD
[FYI -- this year the mint is making pennies with four different designs to commemorate Lincoln's 200th birthday:
Lincoln One-Cent Redesign ].
When in Maya make Mayanaise.
I'd guess that the best advice is "don't be a hero." Never go commando in your sackcloth.
"Well, there she blows, broke 900"
Only for a second. Right after it crossed above 900, my whole screen lit up red.
Somebody big wanted out at 900. And they threw a pretty broad sell order.
"Only for a second. Right after it crossed above 900, my whole screen lit up red."
It's baaaaccccckkkk....
Well we are back over again.
900.92
hope nobody was holding FAZ long today.
outside cats gone missing. over couple weeks.
slow economic calendar on Bloomberg = slow day on CR
It's the last mechanism they have any control over...
Dow Jonestown
Me and my big mouth.
" Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 3:39 pm
My parents live near Panama City, FL...anyway their little slice of paradise came with a chemical factory and a paper mill near the beach. So coming into town over the bridge of the scenic coastline you are bombarded with the most god-awful stench imaginable."
In the '70's, my parents would take me to visit my cousins there. They (my cousins and family) didn't seem to notice it, but it was awful. Even when the wind was blowing the other direction, and the stench wasn't in the air, you could still smell it when you got close to the trees and buildings. It was revolting.
I need to go drink.
Well, it looks like Kermit takes the day. S&P close @901.05
vonbek...
ever hear of Tacoma Aroma? Pulp mill hangover...