Damn Bernanke and his printing press supported double dip. That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip! From now on, when you take a chip – just take one dip and end it!
Seems pretty goddamn premature to talk about a double dip when we haven't even pulled out of this dip yet. Love how even the soi-disant pessimists just assume that the third quarter numbers will show growth.
DOUBLE DIP ?? The first DIP hasn't finished yet... talking about green shoots and putting on rose tinted goggles doesn't make things better.
We are seeing structural employment changes here, basically for the next few years there simply won't be the jobs, they'll have been offshored, outsourced and the existing employees expected to re-double their efforts just to stay in a job. In that environment even the middle class will have huge problems.
I'm just waiting to hear the talk of the a "triple dip" recessions from the usual economic nimrods.
come on...since when do actual results matter? I liken this to be yet another piece that makes people re-examine the fundamental aspects of the current markets.....they short it and then we get lift-off from the next group of weak-assed shorts.
I don't disagree with what he says however look at his past....also this quote just make it so easy to see the real reason for this.
"Bernanke has “done a very good job and I think he should be reappointed,” Feldstein said."
a double dip on a GDP technicality is for academia. For the rest of the US, it is merely a small reprieve in the sucking sound. Denninger is on point talking about the EPS - 30-40% fdeclines. This all sets up nicely for Q3 earnngs in October. What will the gov't do this time? How do the banks replciate the trading performance? What do the industrials say about the Q4 green shoot recovery? What happens when China raises RR? october is setting up to be Epic. What happens when the market finally realizes that companies eating their own feces eventually poisen themselves to death.
Stealth bailouts, direct injection of cash into whatever lynchpin needs to be kept afloat.
I can not believe that I've gotten two emails to be a consultant to a consultant company.
That's so incredible wrong.
How many layers of indirection are needed before my toxicity is safely controlled?
@Feldstein: "likely to contract again in the last three months of the year as the effects of the federal stimulus program wear off"
I don't think he understands the stimulus program. It's a 2-year program and this is only the 2nd or 3rd quarter; the expenditures are still ramping up. Government stimulus is going to keep ramping up and the effects won't wear off until later (read: just after the midterm elections)...
Or maybe he thinks the bond market is going to seize up and freeze Treasury borrowing solid at some point in the very near term? ("No more Obamanomics"?)
Yeah, I found that part odd, too. I thought only 7% of the stimulus money had been spent so far. Hard to imagine the majority flying out the door in the next three months.
Although markets do tend to anticipate the obvious... When you know money is coming in the future, you tend to spend more now. So perhaps the effects of the actual spending will be muted.
"An extension of Secret Service protection for former vice president Dick Cheney – authorized by President Obama – officially went into effect Tuesday, the Daily News reports."
... thus proving that Obama is truly serious about universal health coverage for all U.S. citizens.
A quarter century ago a pilot/technician in the company survived an airplane crash. Understand this is a really really really small number of people on this planet. The story and the lessons resonate. Unexpected event(s). Inadequate real time information. Limited time. Absolute certainty that stability not an option. Current conditions deteriorating.
He survived by pushing over, gaining enough speed to reestablish some control authority and using that to stall/mush as close to the ground as possible.
are you asking us to be consultants
Well, if you ask me, I think we should form a committee. Hold on, I've got to go ask my consultant if I'm allowed to say that.
Broward should stop all this looking for jobs nonsense and open up Sorry. Page not found. ,just embed some content on the his nightly adventures, then attach some porn links to it and wala...real money as affiliate....
broward (homepage, profile) wrote on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 10:57 am
But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
I've seen it before. I call it worldview validation. If what you do stops working the first response is not to reevaluate assumptions. It is to do more of what is not working. Keynes for instance. A consulting firm that stumbles first will turn to more consulting. Hardly surprising.
@Feldstein: "likely to contract again in the last three months of the year as the effects of the federal stimulus program wear off"
I don't think he understands the stimulus program. It's a 2-year program and this is only the 2nd or 3rd quarter; the expenditures are still ramping up. Government stimulus is going to keep ramping up and the effects won't wear off until later (read: just after the midterm elections)...
Or maybe he thinks the bond market is going to seize up and freeze Treasury borrowing solid at some point in the very near term? ("No more Obamanomics"?)
yes it might be a 2 year stimulus plan in terms of when the money is going out but that doesn't mean it has a two year effect. State governments will be getting $140 billion in the next year. However, in anticipation of that money they have not made the spending and employment cuts that they would have had to in the absence of that money. Thus even though they haven't received a penny the stimulus has already achieved whatever benefit it was going to. Similarly a significant amount is in tax cuts- again even though that benefit will flow through to the consumer monthly I am sure that many consumers have already factored that increased cash into their current spending. Lastly, GE talked about the stimulus money that they expect to receive via the "green technology". Presumably that is factoring into their decisions on whether to hire or retain employees now.
Bottom line it is not just when the money actually arrives but the anticipation of the money that drives behavior.
The inventory to sales ratio is still running about 10% higher than it was in 2007. People celebrated a 1% drop in inventories in the last report, but unless sales pick up, we would need to see inventories keep dropping at that rate through the end of the year before the ratio got back where it was in 2007.
There may be restocking going on in some industries, but in aggregate destocking will be continuing for a while.
@Broward: But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
Forget for a moment that it's a consulting company. Why would any company need a consultant? They think they have a problem and they can't solve it themselves. Could be lack of relevant expertise, could be that they've got a political logjam, or could be that the boss won't listen to the workers, so they need a sacrificial lamb to speak truth to power...
P.S. I empathize with whoever said that the economy was a huge distraction from real work. I have days where I look at what I'm supposed to be doing, then I look under the hood at what's happening both in the country and around the world, and I wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing because it seems pretty darn likely that the world is going to be a very different sort of place in a few years...
"That would be funny, but no, my interest in consulting is pretty close to zero.
But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?"
This was not at all unusual during the early 1990s, in my experience.
For example, Microsoft would hire consulting companies that would hire consultants to do the work that the FTE were too good to do themselves. Like software test, for example.
If you people are in the mood to listen to something that will make you want to punch a whole in the wall, you should listed to the National Public Radio show I heard this morning:
The guests are Matt Tiabi and the other is a stooge for Goldman Sachs (Charles Ellis). Just listen to Charles Ellis' condescending tone and you will want to poke his eyes out. It is disgusting beyond anything I can describe.
@crazyv: Thus even though they haven't received a penny the stimulus has already achieved whatever benefit it was going to.
Excellent point. I'd been thinking in terms of individuals, and had forgotten that we've become so corporatized and budgeted that much of the stimulus has already been budgeted and spent by the recipient organizations. We see that in spades in the local school district and in the CA government budgeting.
But I think, on the science side, it could play out differently. Proposals have to be made, reviewed, and then grants awarded before the stimulus will be committed to the end institutions. They then have to decide where to make hires (or non-fires) and procurements.
On the other hand, there are plenty of university departments facing budget whackage from freefalling state funds, declining alumni donations, and eviscerated endowment fund returns. At the whole-institution level, the anticipation of stimulus will be keeping a fair amount of employment going, even though the individual project funds remain unknown.
'It could '“flatten out” or “even be positive” in the third quarter, and then it’s likely to contract again'
I love the characterization from yesterday - another 3-handed amateur astrologer: Wake me up when one of these dipshits has some actual skin in the game.
For example, Microsoft would hire consulting companies that would hire consultants
This is an additional layer.
Microsoft hiring a consultant company who contracts out to another consulting company who hires a consultant.
That makes no sense from Microsoft standpoint so it's an issue with the first-line consulting company.
I've seen other strange things in the past couple of months.
Amazon runs about 70% of the java Dice jobs in Seattle.
Then they started posting to the LA and SF craigslist groups.
And now apparently they've contracted with a Paul Allen consulting company to recruit country-wide (since apparently they've exhausted the pool of candidates in Seattle, SF and LA). Why not just outsource to India or China already?
Some language confusion here. Broward, you're talking about what some might describe as software-engineering subcontracting companies, not business-consulting companies?
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth. "
Somebody needs to securitize bankers. Individuals. Base the value of the security on their future earnings. Be a great ride for the next couple of years.
"...what some might describe as software-engineering subcontracting companies, not business-consulting companies? "
Many times companies hire software consultants in order to get access to domain experts. So it's not straight business consulting, and it's not really contract engineering either, although it's closer to the second.
A new national survey of manufacturing executives found that most believed the U.S. economy would improve over the next six months, even as nearly half expected their own firms' performance to decline.
"probably because the indian programmers are generally horrible. "
I do not think that is true for a second. However you would pay the same for an equally skilled Indian programmer as you would for one in the states. There is a huge pool of bad programmers in India willing to "work" for less though.
Bob Dobbs (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 11:25 am
reply ignore user
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth. "
Somebody needs to securitize bankers. Individuals. Base the value of the security on their future earnings. Be a great ride for the next couple of years.
Cool! Tranches of coffins to stick all the bank(st)ers in.
Ever had to deal with code that came from outsourcers in India or China? - sl
It's true. But there are plenty of mid-level programmers around. Especially if you buy up a whole company at once, and just cherry pick the good ones. Intel has picked up whole teams in this way. OTOH certain high-end specialties are just hard to find period, and you do have to look all over the world.
"A new national survey of manufacturing executives found that most believed the U.S. economy would improve over the next six months, even as nearly half expected their own firms' performance to decline".
Ever had to deal with code that came from outsourcers in India or China?-
Yes, I worked directly for an Indian company last year.
I've seen the coding issues.
The thing still makes no sense to me.
The position was posted months ago by the actual company.
Then it's posted a couple months ago by a brand-name consulting company.
Now I get an email from no-name consulting company trying to fill it third-hand.
And that's the second time it's happened.
It can't be about real work anymore.
Advertising by the National Association of Realtors in 2005 and 2006 after home prices had doubled in five years telling all Americans it was the best time to buy and that buying a house is always a great investment.
Both liberal and conservative ideologue pundits skewing every issue in order to prove their pre-ordained position.
Corporate titans like GE own TV networks and slanting the reporting of the news in a way that aligns with their corporate interests.
"...kill Quicken by outsourcing it to India. Only inertia keeps me using it. "
As bad as it is (and I agree that both Quicken and Quickbooks are horrific excuses for software), there are not a lot of alternatives that are much better. The application space was mostly destroyed by Intuit and Microsoft, so there isn't much oxygen left for new competitors.
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth."
gubmint bubble.
read denniger's post on hoover, obama, and bubbles... raving doomer denniger may be, he occasionally gets off some good points: President HooBama - The Market Ticker
Dip is too kind. We haven't even begun to feel the pain of our decade+ of excess. Despite the best offorts of our 'betters' the market simply has to properly correct at some point.
Shill, this is why they say savings are increasing.
//The rise in savings so far is largely a product of mortgages being extinguished by home foreclosures, government tax cuts and transfer payments under the stimulus package, he said. //
Some way to save, just don't pay it off and it is saved.
Here's another source of good programmers. A certain computer company was asked by the DOD to train Russian nuclear physicists to code. The DOD figured better to give them a good source of income rather than let them sell their services to undesirables. I swear this is true.
Gee you wouldn't want to pull that forward with 19 year's remaining unless you bought a shitload of CDS against it now....would ya? What passes for "business" nowadays is just ridiculous. Hey I'll be the first to admit that CIT put itself in the position it's in however we see the quality of "help" it's getting from GS. Apparently an effective (over the term) payout of $1.7b (for $3b agreement) is not enough for these *uckers.
And that's the second time it's happened.
Gee, if I knew it was gonna cause you so much heartache, I wouldn't have put your name on the mailing list.
Ummm, you can ignore the work at home emails , too.
The DOD figured better to give them a good source of income rather than let them sell their services to undesirables.
I believe it, I read something about this at the time.
It's become a big kooky game of meaningless image-manipulation and political machinations and ego-satiation.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest in the nation, today posted a preliminary drop of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. The second-ranked fund, the State Teachers' Retirement System, reported a preliminary loss of $43.4 billion.
Most pundits, economist, or whatever the hell they call themselves still not come to terms with a core reality of our current situation: the structure of this financial crisis is wholly different than any in our post-war era. This isn’t a recession. This is collapse.
This is the core problem of this collapse and why the prospect for recovery is dim. Americans can’t actually rebuild the savings that the banking system needs to escape from the current mess. Individually, Americans are trapped by debt and cannot spend.
"Step 3: Unanticipated, ongoing, revenue declines cause the budget crisis problem to get even worse... "
Absolutely agreed. The budget "agreement" itself is a success to the pols in that it buys time -- whether or not it ultimately works. "Pretend and extend" isn't just for banks.
I think that we might turn into a giant version of Cuba. Remember, before Catsro, Cuba was a service economy that was heavily dependant on foreign financing. When things fell apart ( for a different reason), the middle class in Cuba had no future other than fleeing to Miami. With no capital being invested there for years, most of the people who stayed in Cuba had to eke out a subsistance living, with marginal socialist support systems. Unfortunately there are too many of us here, so we can't all move to a modern day version of Miami. Plus there is little demand in other countries for highly paid former cube dwellers.
Feldstein sounds like he is joining the growing chorus for a third stimulus.
In order for that to happen the markets can't keep rocketing up. Now just suppose GS and JPM were positionned nicely for a fall in the market now that most (even on this board) bears have capitulated.
i've had this sort of thing happen before actually.
i write mainly win32 C++ code. I did some minor web dev and sql stuff for fun, but I guess I get paid to do windows security stuff. So oddly I don't get called to much since most jobs now are for web development "cloud" social network stuff, and I'd say I'm more in a wierd specialized niche at this point (pretty strange how it became a niche in less than 5 years)
But as for the HR calls, I've had my own company , hire a consulting company to try to get employees, who then called me while I was working in another division of that company to try to hire me. Actually has happened more than once. My former company who did that actually calls me probably every 2-3 months now that I moved to a smaller company (i may take them up on it eventaully so it could work)
Among other things. I'm assuming some of these consultants are pretty terrible seeing as they called me to hire me at the company I already worked for. THe sad thing is some of the consulting companies that work in this field are actually india. So they outsource the HR recruiting that calls people to try to get them to work at the engineeing companies that also sometimes outsource to india. The video on the onion that has everyone outsourcing to some random guy in africa may come true..
at this point any further pumping of the stock market is counter-productive, I think. a rise in equities while the underlying economy stagnates (e.g. unemployment and govt deficits up) will just further aggravate the masses about the risk of stagflation. they will see any rising prices with declining wages as bad. which it is.
Don't feel bad. I was retained as a consultant by two of the largest banks in the US. In one case, it was to give financial advice to others.
Or, if you want irony, how about a client asking for your help after you were an expert witness in a trial against them? The trial was settled and no new litigation was on the horizon, so I was free to do so.
OT-
my observation from the auto finance sector...
the NE is taking part of the green shoots show, SE is scrambling around looking for Green grits-awful numbers, Midwest is drinking green shoots with their ethanol, the West is firmly entrenched within brown shoots of gravy dripping from rotting corpses...
You're assuming that the masses can even spell stagflation..let alone understand it.
I think what I've posted (re: CIT) neatly encapsulates the exact position our "saviours" are in. They can't have a return of 56% (which is outrageous in itself-but I understand it) but need much, MUCH more in short-term gains. The rumors about CIT getting funding from JPM and GS on Friday support exactly this pattern. Wonder how much stock they both traded from Friday until the halt this morning? I bet is was 100's of billions. Get ready for another "blow-out" qtr.
Wisdom Speaker, I posted a similar series of steps last night. However, mine also involved looting and riots.
It's too bad that the people I know at the State aren't in law enforcement. I would encourage them to study recent urban, free-world riots and prepare for them. Think France a couple of years ago, WTO Seattle, LA 1992, European soccer, etc.
Of course, there aren't a lot of good programmers, either. My husband and I have both made good money fixing bad code. And the amount of bad code doesn't seem to go down. I guess some people don't like debugging. Somewhere (can't remember where) I read that the top 10% of programmers produce 10 times the debugged code of the bottom 90%, or something like that. So talent still matters.
Black Dog, is that a Led Zeppelin reference? Anyhow, "just a lot of hanging on the ledge" sounds like what one of my attorney friends is hearing from his municipal clients in CA. They are trying to keep people and municipalities from doing anything they might regret.
Bathing in India is a state of mind. I "think" I'm clean therefore......
I've always wondered how anyone could think about drinking that water downstream. Think about it.
Bob_ - as for the IS ratio....yup! I keep telling people about this and I keep getting the same blank stare I got when I mentioned a housing bubble in 2003.
There is little doubt the depression will be of the double dip kind. I wrote an article on Seeking Alpha recently explaining one of the reasons (demographics) this depression is far from over.
"I guess some people don't like debugging. Somewhere (can't remember where) I read that the top 10% of programmers produce 10 times the debugged code of the bottom 90%, or something like that. So talent still matters."
In my experience, the 10:1 ratio is a reality.
Worse yet, in my experience only about 5% of programmers write unit tests for their code. The ones that do ship code an amazing amount of code that works.
And don't get me started on the ones that claim their code is "self-documenting".
Not sure if people caught Obama on the Newshour last night. Watch his body language and listen closely to his response to Jim Lehrer's question regarding Goldman Sachs. If his pitch in the All-Star game didn't convince you, this will. The guy is a big pussy.
"The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest in the nation, today posted a preliminary drop of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. The second-ranked fund, the State Teachers' Retirement System, reported a preliminary loss of $43.4 billion.
Who's gonna make up the $100 Bills... "
Basel, dude, the value was never really there. CalPERS was too big to get out of its investments and avoid the majority of the paper loss. They had little electronic pieces of information which said they had x shares in company Y and $Z dollars in bonds from ABC Corp. They owned very little actual stuff. Very little actual stuff has been destroyed in the downturn. People just think the electronic bits of info and the promises they represent, and the stuff you could buy at some point in the future with the proceeds of those promises, is worth much less now.
CalPERS doesn't have a vault full of chicken noodle soup, frozen beef, and red wine that they will send to state employees when they retire. They will send cash, well checks, well ok electronic blips serving the same purpose as a check which can be used like cash, to buy actual stuff.
I think depression is too nice. As the Kunstler article points out (Obama=Gorbachev) it's not a recession or even a depression....it's a collapse.
Albeit in slow-motion.
Credit-
I hear ya! many other people did as well- I happened to get lucky and unloaded my SPY puts for almost a 90% gain the day before the whoosh up last week....don't get me wrong..it was luck pure and simple. Whenever you hear about technical patterns in the MSM you know it's a set-up.
That Max Keiser video is great. The French are arguing for a global currency, and the American banker basically says "Goldman will figure out how to run that too."
Re: Indian programmers. Having worked at multiple companies that unsucessfully (from a development not dollar savings point if view) I have come to the conclusion that management does it for two reasons.
1). Wall Street and current business practices require a company to show that they are following the pack
2). You can fail a project for cheaper.
The reality us that the bean counters know that most software projects fail. Might as well fail fir cheaper.
As long as it limps along and us not a collosal failure the financial bottom line is what counts.
So you end up with 80% of the team offshore but 80% of the actual work still done onshore.
The only time I have seen it work succesfully us when a whole self contained business/dev/management unit is built from the ground up at a new location.
Oddly I write unit tests becuase I used to do it when I worked in white box QA.
But most devs dont do it, because well... it takes time and thats what QA people are for. I do not really have a dedicated QA staff at the small company I work for now, so it is more a necessity than ever.
The odd thing is if you are a "good" programmer you can get stuff done in 10 times less time. When I first worked here we had 100 employees. We probably have 200 now (in 2 years). So when I started things would need to get shipped and I'd have like maybe 1 person to help. So now we have a full project management staff, and tons of bueracracy and much slower development teams.
So basically I just sit at work and do nothing for days on end, and its "ok" as long as I code as fast as the "average team" becuase the project managers schedule projects like that.
Its sad how in 2.5 years you can turn a startup into a small company and destroy all the startupy qualities of it. haha.
!!
Let me see will it look like this:
! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ________________
! __ ! . . . . . . . . . ___________________ ?
L______! !_______!
Americans Repaying Debt Most Since ‘52 Spurs Savings
Bloomberg.com
double dip? we're going to double dive bomb!
ya think?
Green shootz wilt from drought.
But for now, start the party up!
After all, the crisis is past, until the next one.
We return to our regularly scheduled CNBC blah te blah.
Ignore commodity prices and any thing else that screams the need for change.
Ignore China desperately waiting for our consumer to start buying again.
Ignore our state government fiscal crisis.
Just pay off your debt and party like it is 1999- for housing is mostly saved and we get free universal health care.
Someday this war's gonna end...
more like DP
no?
Kinda like this? Remember this?
YouTube - Real Estate Prices
Damn Bernanke and his printing press supported double dip. That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip! From now on, when you take a chip – just take one dip and end it!
Loan rates are still rising which is pushing pressure down on the consumer. Look for more sluggishness and revisions down at the end of the year IMO.
Yet another example of MSM = CR + 6 months.
Back Nov/Dec the consensus here was that there might be a very small positive GDP quarter 2H 09. Just enough to interrupt "the big blue bar."
Next up; the hopium smokers call the double dip and the permabears smugly proclaim having called the cliff ledge.
Seems pretty goddamn premature to talk about a double dip when we haven't even pulled out of this dip yet. Love how even the soi-disant pessimists just assume that the third quarter numbers will show growth.
DOUBLE DIP ?? The first DIP hasn't finished yet... talking about green shoots and putting on rose tinted goggles doesn't make things better.
We are seeing structural employment changes here, basically for the next few years there simply won't be the jobs, they'll have been offshored, outsourced and the existing employees expected to re-double their efforts just to stay in a job. In that environment even the middle class will have huge problems.
I'm just waiting to hear the talk of the a "triple dip" recessions from the usual economic nimrods.
come on...since when do actual results matter? I liken this to be yet another piece that makes people re-examine the fundamental aspects of the current markets.....they short it and then we get lift-off from the next group of weak-assed shorts.
I don't disagree with what he says however look at his past....also this quote just make it so easy to see the real reason for this.
"Bernanke has “done a very good job and I think he should be reappointed,” Feldstein said."
Really... Cue the next round of short covering
Ciao
MS
bbartlog (profile)
Seems pretty goddamn premature to talk about a double dip when we haven't even pulled out of this dip yet.
+100 on that.
That would make it Dubya shaped.
MS
"Bernanke has “done a very good job and I think he should be reappointed,” Feldstein said."
So his manager at Goldman gave him a positive review this year. I'm expecting Timmahhhhh to get a similar review from his boss at GS.
Been re-reading Nova's apocalypse epic from start to finish....I keep overlaying it with current headlines. I don't like how well he's lined it up.
A double dip with no resurfacing, that's a scary thought.
Not with a bang, but a dip.......
putting on rose tinted goggles doesn't make things better.
Speak for yourself.
a double dip on a GDP technicality is for academia. For the rest of the US, it is merely a small reprieve in the sucking sound. Denninger is on point talking about the EPS - 30-40% fdeclines. This all sets up nicely for Q3 earnngs in October. What will the gov't do this time? How do the banks replciate the trading performance? What do the industrials say about the Q4 green shoot recovery? What happens when China raises RR? october is setting up to be Epic. What happens when the market finally realizes that companies eating their own feces eventually poisen themselves to death.
Rose-tinted beer goggles. Or rose
What will the gov't do this time?
Stealth bailouts, direct injection of cash into whatever lynchpin needs to be kept afloat.
I can not believe that I've gotten two emails to be a consultant to a consultant company.
That's so incredible wrong.
How many layers of indirection are needed before my toxicity is safely controlled?
@Feldstein: "likely to contract again in the last three months of the year as the effects of the federal stimulus program wear off"
I don't think he understands the stimulus program. It's a 2-year program and this is only the 2nd or 3rd quarter; the expenditures are still ramping up. Government stimulus is going to keep ramping up and the effects won't wear off until later (read: just after the midterm elections)...
Or maybe he thinks the bond market is going to seize up and freeze Treasury borrowing solid at some point in the very near term? ("No more Obamanomics"?)
broward-
"So....what would you say...ya do here at Initech"
Ciao
MS
Broward, are you asking us to be consultants on whether or not you should consult the consulting firm?
Wisdom Speaker --
Yeah, I found that part odd, too. I thought only 7% of the stimulus money had been spent so far. Hard to imagine the majority flying out the door in the next three months.
Although markets do tend to anticipate the obvious... When you know money is coming in the future, you tend to spend more now. So perhaps the effects of the actual spending will be muted.
are you asking us to be consultants on whether or not you should consult the consulting firm?
That would be funny, but no, my interest in consulting is pretty close to zero.
But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
the dreaded double dip...
YouTube - double dip
S-
Results don't matter. We are going to be HFT'ed to prosperity....dammit.....
Ciao
MS
Phooey. Can't make a picture.
Patna Post Offices Begin Sales of Gold Coins
Patna Post Offices Begin Sales of Gold Coins - PatnaDaily.Com
"What the hell is going on?"
Reminds me of a famous Buffett/Munger quote about the insanity of "funds of funds" ...
"If one layer of fees is good, then two must be even better!"
broward-
you should take them up on the offer, and as a social experiment, see just how much absurd crap you can push through.
not hurtful to real humans, just absurd and detrimental to "the company".
example: get rid of casual friday, and institute casual tuesday.
From Prior Thread:
"An extension of Secret Service protection for former vice president Dick Cheney – authorized by President Obama – officially went into effect Tuesday, the Daily News reports."
... thus proving that Obama is truly serious about universal health coverage for all U.S. citizens.
Broward, go for it and be yourself to the fullest, doing the best job you can, and
being paid in advance, with a bonus if they ignore you.
A quarter century ago a pilot/technician in the company survived an airplane crash. Understand this is a really really really small number of people on this planet. The story and the lessons resonate. Unexpected event(s). Inadequate real time information. Limited time. Absolute certainty that stability not an option. Current conditions deteriorating.
He survived by pushing over, gaining enough speed to reestablish some control authority and using that to stall/mush as close to the ground as possible.
I sympathized then. I empathize now.
are you asking us to be consultants
Well, if you ask me, I think we should form a committee. Hold on, I've got to go ask my consultant if I'm allowed to say that.
Broward and himself can be the committee, and if they don't like that
he can add Conjure bag.
I suppose it's the IT equivalent of the loan chain.
Feds loan money to primary dealers who loan to banks who loan to customers.
Chain of re-distribution since there's not really that much work left.
Broward should stop all this looking for jobs nonsense and open up Sorry. Page not found. ,just embed some content on the his nightly adventures, then attach some porn links to it and wala...real money as affiliate....
@creditcriminals: no money left in the porn industry. Oversupply and no more HELOC demand...
Why do CR and Feldstein hate America? How can Animal Spirits return with these animals throwing cold water on any optimism?
broward (homepage, profile) wrote on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 10:57 am
But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
I've seen it before. I call it worldview validation. If what you do stops working the first response is not to reevaluate assumptions. It is to do more of what is not working. Keynes for instance. A consulting firm that stumbles first will turn to more consulting. Hardly surprising.
Great read!
Credit Crunch Part Deux
Credit Crunch Part Deux - The Merk Mutual Funds
troll alert
Ciao
MS
A return to normal - otherwise known as coming down off a high - can be tough.
@Feldstein: "likely to contract again in the last three months of the year as the effects of the federal stimulus program wear off"
I don't think he understands the stimulus program. It's a 2-year program and this is only the 2nd or 3rd quarter; the expenditures are still ramping up. Government stimulus is going to keep ramping up and the effects won't wear off until later (read: just after the midterm elections)...
Or maybe he thinks the bond market is going to seize up and freeze Treasury borrowing solid at some point in the very near term? ("No more Obamanomics"?)
yes it might be a 2 year stimulus plan in terms of when the money is going out but that doesn't mean it has a two year effect. State governments will be getting $140 billion in the next year. However, in anticipation of that money they have not made the spending and employment cuts that they would have had to in the absence of that money. Thus even though they haven't received a penny the stimulus has already achieved whatever benefit it was going to. Similarly a significant amount is in tax cuts- again even though that benefit will flow through to the consumer monthly I am sure that many consumers have already factored that increased cash into their current spending. Lastly, GE talked about the stimulus money that they expect to receive via the "green technology". Presumably that is factoring into their decisions on whether to hire or retain employees now.
Bottom line it is not just when the money actually arrives but the anticipation of the money that drives behavior.
The inventory to sales ratio is still running about 10% higher than it was in 2007. People celebrated a 1% drop in inventories in the last report, but unless sales pick up, we would need to see inventories keep dropping at that rate through the end of the year before the ratio got back where it was in 2007.
There may be restocking going on in some industries, but in aggregate destocking will be continuing for a while.
@Broward: But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
Forget for a moment that it's a consulting company. Why would any company need a consultant? They think they have a problem and they can't solve it themselves. Could be lack of relevant expertise, could be that they've got a political logjam, or could be that the boss won't listen to the workers, so they need a sacrificial lamb to speak truth to power...
P.S. I empathize with whoever said that the economy was a huge distraction from real work. I have days where I look at what I'm supposed to be doing, then I look under the hood at what's happening both in the country and around the world, and I wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing because it seems pretty darn likely that the world is going to be a very different sort of place in a few years...
State Street Posts $3.3 Billion Loss After Writedown
State Street Posts $3.3 Billion Loss After Writedown (Update4) - Bloomberg.com
bloggie-
you can find animal spirits below not at CR...you typed in wrong url...education now days...jeez..
Shamanism Working With Animal Spirits Core
this one seems to befit your animal spirit...
http://www.animalspirits.com/sound/mouse.rm
OT,
Obama states that banks not showing sufficient "humility" on NBC Today http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-6/1248185142160010.xml&storylist=washington
and, LA morgue finds itself w/more bodies as more people fail to claim bodies of relatives because they can't afford burial costs: http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-15/124819834310310.xml&storylist=national
Seems as though if LA county runs out of funding for some gov't functions, there could be some significant public health problems.
"That would be funny, but no, my interest in consulting is pretty close to zero.
But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?"
This was not at all unusual during the early 1990s, in my experience.
For example, Microsoft would hire consulting companies that would hire consultants to do the work that the FTE were too good to do themselves. Like software test, for example.
If you people are in the mood to listen to something that will make you want to punch a whole in the wall, you should listed to the National Public Radio show I heard this morning:
Goldman Sachs & Company | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook (the audio will be available at 3pm).
The guests are Matt Tiabi and the other is a stooge for Goldman Sachs (Charles Ellis). Just listen to Charles Ellis' condescending tone and you will want to poke his eyes out. It is disgusting beyond anything I can describe.
I'm never in a mood to shove a fork into my ear
@crazyv: Thus even though they haven't received a penny the stimulus has already achieved whatever benefit it was going to.
Excellent point. I'd been thinking in terms of individuals, and had forgotten that we've become so corporatized and budgeted that much of the stimulus has already been budgeted and spent by the recipient organizations. We see that in spades in the local school district and in the CA government budgeting.
But I think, on the science side, it could play out differently. Proposals have to be made, reviewed, and then grants awarded before the stimulus will be committed to the end institutions. They then have to decide where to make hires (or non-fires) and procurements.
On the other hand, there are plenty of university departments facing budget whackage from freefalling state funds, declining alumni donations, and eviscerated endowment fund returns. At the whole-institution level, the anticipation of stimulus will be keeping a fair amount of employment going, even though the individual project funds remain unknown.
Heh.. cap-and-trade, more like Con-and-Rob.
'It could '“flatten out” or “even be positive” in the third quarter, and then it’s likely to contract again'
I love the characterization from yesterday - another 3-handed amateur astrologer: Wake me up when one of these dipshits has some actual skin in the game.
For example, Microsoft would hire consulting companies that would hire consultants
This is an additional layer.
Microsoft hiring a consultant company who contracts out to another consulting company who hires a consultant.
That makes no sense from Microsoft standpoint so it's an issue with the first-line consulting company.
I've seen other strange things in the past couple of months.
Amazon runs about 70% of the java Dice jobs in Seattle.
Then they started posting to the LA and SF craigslist groups.
And now apparently they've contracted with a Paul Allen consulting company to recruit country-wide (since apparently they've exhausted the pool of candidates in Seattle, SF and LA). Why not just outsource to India or China already?
Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth.
Some language confusion here. Broward, you're talking about what some might describe as software-engineering subcontracting companies, not business-consulting companies?
"Why not just outsource to India or China already?"
Ever had to deal with code that came from outsourcers in India or China?
Did you see what happened to Motorola in the cell phone business after they outsourced their development to India?
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth. "
Somebody needs to securitize bankers. Individuals. Base the value of the security on their future earnings. Be a great ride for the next couple of years.
probably because the indian programmers are generally horrible.
"...what some might describe as software-engineering subcontracting companies, not business-consulting companies? "
Many times companies hire software consultants in order to get access to domain experts. So it's not straight business consulting, and it's not really contract engineering either, although it's closer to the second.
Did you see what happened to Motorola in the cell phone business after they outsourced their development to India?
Or Intuit.
Holy fuck did they kill Quicken by outsourcing it to India. Only inertia keeps me using it.
"
Great read!
Credit Crunch Part Deux
Credit Crunch Part Deux - The Merk Mutual Funds
"
Excellent, thanks for the link. highly recommended.
minutes ago from the state newspaper:
A new national survey of manufacturing executives found that most believed the U.S. economy would improve over the next six months, even as nearly half expected their own firms' performance to decline.
huh?
"probably because the indian programmers are generally horrible. "
I do not think that is true for a second. However you would pay the same for an equally skilled Indian programmer as you would for one in the states. There is a huge pool of bad programmers in India willing to "work" for less though.
Bob Dobbs (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 11:25 am
reply ignore user
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth. "
Somebody needs to securitize bankers. Individuals. Base the value of the security on their future earnings. Be a great ride for the next couple of years.
Cool! Tranches of coffins to stick all the bank(st)ers in.
"Somebody needs to securitize bankers. "
Or anybody - rather than take debt from a bank, an individual could securitize their future stream of income...
maybe...
bankers would make billions structuring and selling personal ABS.
Ever had to deal with code that came from outsourcers in India or China? - sl
It's true. But there are plenty of mid-level programmers around. Especially if you buy up a whole company at once, and just cherry pick the good ones. Intel has picked up whole teams in this way. OTOH certain high-end specialties are just hard to find period, and you do have to look all over the world.
"A new national survey of manufacturing executives found that most believed the U.S. economy would improve over the next six months, even as nearly half expected their own firms' performance to decline".
What? You never heard of synergy?
Ever had to deal with code that came from outsourcers in India or China?-
Yes, I worked directly for an Indian company last year.
I've seen the coding issues.
The thing still makes no sense to me.
The position was posted months ago by the actual company.
Then it's posted a couple months ago by a brand-name consulting company.
Now I get an email from no-name consulting company trying to fill it third-hand.
And that's the second time it's happened.
It can't be about real work anymore.
Advertising by the National Association of Realtors in 2005 and 2006 after home prices had doubled in five years telling all Americans it was the best time to buy and that buying a house is always a great investment.
Both liberal and conservative ideologue pundits skewing every issue in order to prove their pre-ordained position.
Corporate titans like GE own TV networks and slanting the reporting of the news in a way that aligns with their corporate interests.
..good finance articles
"...kill Quicken by outsourcing it to India. Only inertia keeps me using it. "
As bad as it is (and I agree that both Quicken and Quickbooks are horrific excuses for software), there are not a lot of alternatives that are much better. The application space was mostly destroyed by Intuit and Microsoft, so there isn't much oxygen left for new competitors.
double dip is so 1990.
stone-skipping on the pond is way better.
but eventually, the stone sinks to the bottom.
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth."
gubmint bubble.
read denniger's post on hoover, obama, and bubbles... raving doomer denniger may be, he occasionally gets off some good points: President HooBama - The Market Ticker
"Let's be honest - we need another bubble. Nothing else will lead to material economic growth.
Micro lending whether it be through online lending, non-profits, or the mob could lead to sustainable growth few thousand dollars at a time.
""There is a huge pool of bad programmers in India willing to "work" for less though."
there is a huge pool of bad Indian programmers in the US willing to "work" for less, too
This is the most satisfying condemnation of GS I've heard yet, from an English speaking French source:
YouTube - Max Keiser takes offense to Goldman Sachs story (pt1 of 2)
"They should be at the Hague", he says, and doesn't discredit himself with inappropriate smiling, as some do.
Dip is too kind. We haven't even begun to feel the pain of our decade+ of excess. Despite the best offorts of our 'betters' the market simply has to properly correct at some point.
Shill, this is why they say savings are increasing.
//The rise in savings so far is largely a product of mortgages being extinguished by home foreclosures, government tax cuts and transfer payments under the stimulus package, he said. //
Some way to save, just don't pay it off and it is saved.
New credit card rule at Chase.
Finance charges cannot be revoked even if the payment is late by a day. No exceptions.
I was travelling on that day. Payed a day late.
Here's another source of good programmers. A certain computer company was asked by the DOD to train Russian nuclear physicists to code. The DOD figured better to give them a good source of income rather than let them sell their services to undesirables. I swear this is true.
Me too wisdom speaker, me too.
Double-Dip, California Style:
Step 1: a budget "agreement" (that sweeps a fair amount of elephant back under the rug). The "high point" in the middle of the W?
Step 2: Massive governmental infighting over the spoils of the budget "agreement" -- L.A. county supervisors vote to sue state lawmakers:
L.A. supervisors to sue to block state budget cuts; other local governments expected to join | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times
Step 3: Unanticipated, ongoing, revenue declines cause the budget crisis problem to get even worse...
Check this out regarding CIT...note the date on it....it's not from this year.
CIT Group Rises on $3 Billion Goldman Sachs Financing (Update4) - Bloomberg.com
Key point:
"the accord lasts for 20 year's"
Gee you wouldn't want to pull that forward with 19 year's remaining unless you bought a shitload of CDS against it now....would ya? What passes for "business" nowadays is just ridiculous. Hey I'll be the first to admit that CIT put itself in the position it's in however we see the quality of "help" it's getting from GS. Apparently an effective (over the term) payout of $1.7b (for $3b agreement) is not enough for these *uckers.
Ciao
MS
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. --Pericles (430 B.C.)
And that's the second time it's happened.
Gee, if I knew it was gonna cause you so much heartache, I wouldn't have put your name on the mailing list.
Ummm, you can ignore the work at home emails , too.
And the drug emails.
And the Russian women want to meet you emails.
(The Nigerian ones aren't mine.)
The DOD figured better to give them a good source of income rather than let them sell their services to undesirables.
I believe it, I read something about this at the time.
It's become a big kooky game of meaningless image-manipulation and political machinations and ego-satiation.
Pool is better.
Later.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest in the nation, today posted a preliminary drop of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. The second-ranked fund, the State Teachers' Retirement System, reported a preliminary loss of $43.4 billion.
Who's gonna make up the $100 Bills...
Most pundits, economist, or whatever the hell they call themselves still not come to terms with a core reality of our current situation: the structure of this financial crisis is wholly different than any in our post-war era. This isn’t a recession. This is collapse.
This is the core problem of this collapse and why the prospect for recovery is dim. Americans can’t actually rebuild the savings that the banking system needs to escape from the current mess. Individually, Americans are trapped by debt and cannot spend.
Now I get an email from no-name consulting company trying to fill it third-hand.
And that's the second time it's happened.
It can't be about real work anymore.
MS
Good find.
" Wisdom Speaker (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 2:10 pm
@Broward: But it's a new thing I haven't seen before.
What the hell is going on?
Forget for a moment that it's a consulting company. Why would any company need a consultant? "
How much are they offering you?
" JimPortlandOR (profile) wrote on Tue, 7/21/2009 - 2:33 pm
double dip is so 1990.
stone-skipping on the pond is way better.
but eventually, the stone sinks to the bottom."
How about sliding down the staircase, smacking your @$$ on every stair along the way;)
"Step 3: Unanticipated, ongoing, revenue declines cause the budget crisis problem to get even worse... "
Absolutely agreed. The budget "agreement" itself is a success to the pols in that it buys time -- whether or not it ultimately works. "Pretend and extend" isn't just for banks.
Stair steps are kind of a dip I guess.
Come on,
A "W" recession? Seems like that should have happened while Bush was still in office.
I think that we might turn into a giant version of Cuba. Remember, before Catsro, Cuba was a service economy that was heavily dependant on foreign financing. When things fell apart ( for a different reason), the middle class in Cuba had no future other than fleeing to Miami. With no capital being invested there for years, most of the people who stayed in Cuba had to eke out a subsistance living, with marginal socialist support systems. Unfortunately there are too many of us here, so we can't all move to a modern day version of Miami. Plus there is little demand in other countries for highly paid former cube dwellers.
they had to replace one of the routers
the latency is back to normal
git yr HFT on
Feldstein sounds like he is joining the growing chorus for a third stimulus.
In order for that to happen the markets can't keep rocketing up. Now just suppose GS and JPM were positionned nicely for a fall in the market now that most (even on this board) bears have capitulated.
Nahhh, they wouldn't set us up, would they?
i've had this sort of thing happen before actually.
i write mainly win32 C++ code. I did some minor web dev and sql stuff for fun, but I guess I get paid to do windows security stuff. So oddly I don't get called to much since most jobs now are for web development "cloud" social network stuff, and I'd say I'm more in a wierd specialized niche at this point (pretty strange how it became a niche in less than 5 years)
But as for the HR calls, I've had my own company , hire a consulting company to try to get employees, who then called me while I was working in another division of that company to try to hire me. Actually has happened more than once. My former company who did that actually calls me probably every 2-3 months now that I moved to a smaller company (i may take them up on it eventaully so it could work)
Among other things. I'm assuming some of these consultants are pretty terrible seeing as they called me to hire me at the company I already worked for. THe sad thing is some of the consulting companies that work in this field are actually india. So they outsource the HR recruiting that calls people to try to get them to work at the engineeing companies that also sometimes outsource to india. The video on the onion that has everyone outsourcing to some random guy in africa may come true..
Scary thought for the day-pool of indian programmers....
http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/5051836/peoplebathing_Full.jpg
Shouldn't there be a dress code
our tax dollars at work. Wish there was a law against this.
Bailed-Out Banks Spending Big—on Lobbyists
Big Bailout Firms Boost Lobbying Spending - CNBC
at this point any further pumping of the stock market is counter-productive, I think. a rise in equities while the underlying economy stagnates (e.g. unemployment and govt deficits up) will just further aggravate the masses about the risk of stagflation. they will see any rising prices with declining wages as bad. which it is.
massive failure ahead.
Let me just add that I'm retail here in virginia and I have seen no 'green shoots' just a lot of hanging on the ledge.
Customers habits have changed. Consumers are tight with a buck and you better be giving them a good deal if you want to see them part with it.
iptables -A INPUT -s GSBOT -j DROP
Broward,
Don't feel bad. I was retained as a consultant by two of the largest banks in the US. In one case, it was to give financial advice to others.
Or, if you want irony, how about a client asking for your help after you were an expert witness in a trial against them? The trial was settled and no new litigation was on the horizon, so I was free to do so.
"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin."
Why it is going to be a double dip?
Because the sense of entitlement is still alive and well.
If you make 50,000 a year...
You do not deserve to eat a widely diversified bunch of food.
you do not deserve to wear designer clothes
you do not deserve a BMW
you do not deserve a 5/3 with a swiming pool
You are not rich. You do not deserve to live like it because you DO NOT MAKE ENOUGH MONEY!
Many indian programmers in the US on H-1B are bad programmers. Just dragging down wages and producing products in greater time with more errors
Norm Matloff has it right
OT-
my observation from the auto finance sector...
the NE is taking part of the green shoots show, SE is scrambling around looking for Green grits-awful numbers, Midwest is drinking green shoots with their ethanol, the West is firmly entrenched within brown shoots of gravy dripping from rotting corpses...
ghost-
You're assuming that the masses can even spell stagflation..let alone understand it.
I think what I've posted (re: CIT) neatly encapsulates the exact position our "saviours" are in. They can't have a return of 56% (which is outrageous in itself-but I understand it) but need much, MUCH more in short-term gains. The rumors about CIT getting funding from JPM and GS on Friday support exactly this pattern. Wonder how much stock they both traded from Friday until the halt this morning? I bet is was 100's of billions. Get ready for another "blow-out" qtr.
Ciao
MS
Wisdom Speaker, I posted a similar series of steps last night. However, mine also involved looting and riots.
It's too bad that the people I know at the State aren't in law enforcement. I would encourage them to study recent urban, free-world riots and prepare for them. Think France a couple of years ago, WTO Seattle, LA 1992, European soccer, etc.
"# iptables -A INPUT -s GSBOT -j DROP "
Trouble is, they have a botnet.
so when the ethanol that the EPA is putting in my gas destroys my fuel system(which is not designed for ethanol), is the EPA gonna pay for it?
like a moth to a flame
what is with the predisposition of geeks (myself included) to develop an intense interest in macro econ?
is it because econ, while it would appear to be rules driven like code, really isnt?
nullpointer
Because of the dance of patterns?
Of course, there aren't a lot of good programmers, either. My husband and I have both made good money fixing bad code. And the amount of bad code doesn't seem to go down. I guess some people don't like debugging. Somewhere (can't remember where) I read that the top 10% of programmers produce 10 times the debugged code of the bottom 90%, or something like that. So talent still matters.
Black Dog, is that a Led Zeppelin reference? Anyhow, "just a lot of hanging on the ledge" sounds like what one of my attorney friends is hearing from his municipal clients in CA. They are trying to keep people and municipalities from doing anything they might regret.
So this "double dip" thingy, how does it work considering the stock market implosion coming this fall?
You guys are making a Pakistani blush with all the Indian comments.
credit-
Bathing in India is a state of mind. I "think" I'm clean therefore......
I've always wondered how anyone could think about drinking that water downstream. Think about it.
Ciao
MS
WWNM-
I think the gov't has a few million cars it needs to sell.....
Ciao
MS
@MS
I wasn't going to say that, but the thought sure occurred to me.
sm_landlord : switch to mac and use iBank
Bob_ - as for the IS ratio....yup! I keep telling people about this and I keep getting the same blank stare I got when I mentioned a housing bubble in 2003.
Denial - it's not just a river in Egypt.
There is little doubt the depression will be of the double dip kind. I wrote an article on Seeking Alpha recently explaining one of the reasons (demographics) this depression is far from over.
The Case for Depression, Part 3: Demographics -- Seeking Alpha
"I guess some people don't like debugging. Somewhere (can't remember where) I read that the top 10% of programmers produce 10 times the debugged code of the bottom 90%, or something like that. So talent still matters."
In my experience, the 10:1 ratio is a reality.
Worse yet, in my experience only about 5% of programmers write unit tests for their code. The ones that do ship code an amazing amount of code that works.
And don't get me started on the ones that claim their code is "self-documenting".
@some investor
LOL.
No, its just going to be a long slog for retailers now that the MEW crowd has left the building.
MS,
I would be the last one to bathe in water full of sh$t...ohh thats right I went short on that h&s neckline recently....
Not sure if people caught Obama on the Newshour last night. Watch his body language and listen closely to his response to Jim Lehrer's question regarding Goldman Sachs. If his pitch in the All-Star game didn't convince you, this will. The guy is a big pussy.
"The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest in the nation, today posted a preliminary drop of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. The second-ranked fund, the State Teachers' Retirement System, reported a preliminary loss of $43.4 billion.
Who's gonna make up the $100 Bills... "
Basel, dude, the value was never really there. CalPERS was too big to get out of its investments and avoid the majority of the paper loss. They had little electronic pieces of information which said they had x shares in company Y and $Z dollars in bonds from ABC Corp. They owned very little actual stuff. Very little actual stuff has been destroyed in the downturn. People just think the electronic bits of info and the promises they represent, and the stuff you could buy at some point in the future with the proceeds of those promises, is worth much less now.
CalPERS doesn't have a vault full of chicken noodle soup, frozen beef, and red wine that they will send to state employees when they retire. They will send cash, well checks, well ok electronic blips serving the same purpose as a check which can be used like cash, to buy actual stuff.
the miraculous 3:00PM kermit
is back....
expected returns-
I think depression is too nice. As the Kunstler article points out (Obama=Gorbachev) it's not a recession or even a depression....it's a collapse.
Albeit in slow-motion.
Credit-
I hear ya! many other people did as well- I happened to get lucky and unloaded my SPY puts for almost a 90% gain the day before the whoosh up last week....don't get me wrong..it was luck pure and simple. Whenever you hear about technical patterns in the MSM you know it's a set-up.
Ciao
MS
That Max Keiser video is great. The French are arguing for a global currency, and the American banker basically says "Goldman will figure out how to run that too."
Who's gonna make up the $100 Bills...
Since they expect to make 8% YoY from now to eternity, they can double their money in 9 years. Problem solved!
Re: Indian programmers. Having worked at multiple companies that unsucessfully (from a development not dollar savings point if view) I have come to the conclusion that management does it for two reasons.
1). Wall Street and current business practices require a company to show that they are following the pack
2). You can fail a project for cheaper.
The reality us that the bean counters know that most software projects fail. Might as well fail fir cheaper.
As long as it limps along and us not a collosal failure the financial bottom line is what counts.
So you end up with 80% of the team offshore but 80% of the actual work still done onshore.
The only time I have seen it work succesfully us when a whole self contained business/dev/management unit is built from the ground up at a new location.
They will send cash, well checks, well ok electronic blips
I know all about electronic blips, I deal with electronic blips and codez to manipulate blips all day long.
One thing I can tell is that blips are very easy to copy. You can instantly create trillions and quadrillions of blips.
This is why I convert many of my blips into Glod and Silber, because it turns out, glod and silber are not so easy to copy.
You have to dig it out of the ground at great expense.
MS,
expected returns-
I think depression is too nice. As the Kunstler article points out (Obama=Gorbachev) it's not a recession or even a depression....it's a collapse.
I totally agree. The demise of the dollar is coming, which would be the event that precipitates any collapse.
Oddly I write unit tests becuase I used to do it when I worked in white box QA.
But most devs dont do it, because well... it takes time and thats what QA people are for. I do not really have a dedicated QA staff at the small company I work for now, so it is more a necessity than ever.
The odd thing is if you are a "good" programmer you can get stuff done in 10 times less time. When I first worked here we had 100 employees. We probably have 200 now (in 2 years). So when I started things would need to get shipped and I'd have like maybe 1 person to help. So now we have a full project management staff, and tons of bueracracy and much slower development teams.
So basically I just sit at work and do nothing for days on end, and its "ok" as long as I code as fast as the "average team" becuase the project managers schedule projects like that.
Its sad how in 2.5 years you can turn a startup into a small company and destroy all the startupy qualities of it. haha.
O H Chick - Precisely - subsistance living is what most of us are looking at. Who among us are prepared?