Using these indicators to proclaim a recession is over is junk science now. It is like saying that every team is a champion because all got first place trophies. The government throwing around trillions of dollars is like giving all economic indicators championship trophies.

rebound has piked

Fanciful numbers tweaked just right into a computer base, is what passes for accounting nowadays.

rmbs cure rates have fallen from 45% to 6.6%

Fitch: Delinquency Cure Rates Worsening for U.S. Prime RMBS | Business Wire

Virginia had the coolest july in ONE HUNDRED YEARS. Usually it is high 80's low 90's with brutal humidity. This year mostly high 70's low 80's with moderate humidity. I would have to think that this helped economic activity in the commonwealth. Despite this virginia reported last week sales tax for july was down 6% yoy.

Dealers submit $29.4 billion in Treasurys to Fed

Fed buys $6.1 billion in Treasurys

Dealers submit $29.4 billion in Treasurys to Fed

Fed buys $6.1 billion in Treasurys

When Primary Dealers compete, you win at LendingFed.com

From the report: "Employment-related indicators also improved substantially in July,
making a contribution of –0.40 to the index versus –0.73 in June."

WTF? You mean the 11.9% U-3 in California is out of recession territory [ >-0.7]? National U3 (SA) in June was 9.5% and in July 9.4% and this is a substantial improvement?

What does this mean?

Sorry to be stupid.

Bad weather causes unemployment and so does good weather, because jobs and weather are inversely correlated. Since there is always weather this is a bad long-term indicator for jobs.

"Yalt, Elvis, this is the problem with the standard definitions of recession and recovery. "

Recession = to recede. If we hit bottom, or even a temporary plateau on the way to an even lower level, we are no longer receding.

Makes sense to me.

"Naughty brokers... "

Those are desperate actions from a company that knows it is going down. "We know we are dead anyway, so FU."

Ghost,

make sure your not the last one out of the market. Cause when the dancing stops you better be wearing depends,

Speaking as an accountant, I don't even have to actually look at their books to know it's a huge mess.

When you go bald, your hairline is no longer receding, yet you are still bald.

+1 for Elvis

Funny and perceptive at the same time Elvis.

I helped my niece with the back to school shopping for her kids this year due to the fact that she has been unable to find full time employment for over a year now. I was out in the stores on Friday and Sunday and from what I saw there was very little buying going on. On Friday the shelves were packed and the stores were empty. On Sunday I saw quite a few more shoppers and the shelves were rummaged thru and it looked as though they may have sold about half of what I'd seen on Friday.

Did they restock the shelves? I have no idea, but from what I saw during those two days I highly doubt it.

FYI. I changed my screen name from Notafriend_of_uncleben to this one because of the legnth of it. Its very diffucult to type that one in on my iphone everytime I get signed out.

Edit: The school year started today in my neck of the woods.

Then, you just have to spin it as bald is the new "sexy". When it doesn't matter that you are bald, you convince men to purposefully remove their hair to be sexy, then you have a huge collection of nature human hair to start a wig company for the next trend and convince some important bald men to start wearing your wigs. When everyone is wearing wigs, you can move to the impressive step which is nature hair! You can show off the ladies in the bar as how your hair isn't removable (because you did hair implants as your wig got worn and faded). Instant constant GDP growth!

Haven't you learned anything over the past years?

In the 80s I worked for a firm that did foreclosures. I did the title part and
filled in at Court when necessary.

About a third to 40% cured. Family help, sales, jobs regained, whatever.
The firm liked it 'cause they charged more money to the curing owner than
the bank!! Also, because it was nice not to foreclose.

I don't see any of that happening now.

Would even the ones on this board who say pay up no matter what
give money to a child, who say, lost job, to catch up on an underwater house,
that was 100k underwater? I wouldn't.

Bald is not sexy in my book.

The hub, luckily has a full head of hair.

"When you go bald, your hairline is no longer receding, yet you are still bald. "

Exactly. And, I think technically, though CR would know better, THIS recession will be over if GDP rises for even a quarter. Doesn't mean it won't start receding again the following quarter. That would be the double dip.

To further your analogy, if you are receding, and you add Rogaine, you may stop the receding, but once you stop using Rogaine, you start receding again.

Not that I would know anything about that...

I just can't believe the crap that comes out of the mouths of these bull shitters. The private credit creation process is over. If the government stimulii and money printing ever ends, all hell will break out, and Purgatory Paul will ultimately end up in hell along with Hey Zeus C. Bernanke and his flock.

I thought it was snark.

Roll Of Slump.

I just closed out the last of my SDS holdings. I'm throwing in the towel on shorting this market.

Anyone else still trying to short the markets?

"Would even the ones on this board who say pay up no matter what
give money to a child, who say, lost job, to catch up on an underwater house,

that was 100k underwater? I wouldn't."

My 2 sisters "own" 5 homes, of which they owe around a total of $1.5 million on...

Giving them $100k would mean nothing in the scheme of things, and a million wouldn't help much either.

Makes it easy to say no.

"If the government stimulii and money printing ever ends, all hell will break out,"

I agree, but that is a big IF.

Personally I think the government stimulus matters less than the money printing. The multiplier effect on stimulus is 1 at best, probably below. But printing money gives the perception of stabilization. Note how much TPTB point to the stock market as a harbinger for recovery, when in fact it is just reflective of the flood of money hitting the financial sector - revenues and earnings are down for most companies, but multiples have expanded. Classic symptom of cheap money, just like 1999 and 2006.

And it is not just the domestic economy. As I predicted, printing money had the biggest impact on commodity prices, which bailed out much of the developing world. Russia at $30 a barrel would be extremely scary, but at $80, it looks downright prosperous.

Where all this leads is pretty easy to predict as well - banana republic. Those closest to the money spigot will get ridiculously rich, those farthest away will see their standard of living decline.

OFR said it also found that Taylor, Bean & Whitaker used a single bank account for all its operations — a violation of Florida statutes — also depositing operating funds and custodial funds into this account and paying employees from it. Taylor, Bean & Whitaker claimed the the accounting of different funds was done internally, but OFR said the intermingling of funds “represents a serious risk to Florida consumers.”"

Oy. That's a serious no-no.

It's also what I suspected when the Feds moved in. Now the question is whether any of the commingled funds disappeared.

Their auditors noticed--why do you think they walked off the job?

Co-mingling of funds is a no no from childhood.

This indicator is great metric, and it does show improvement, though as Elvis pointed out, it probably reflects the stimulus more than anything.

Still too much private debt that can't be paid back. That will sink us.

When did that happen, Yalt?

Alert: Congress holding hearing on "Stock Steroid" use.

Ok, that is less horrible, Yalt.

A person involved in the federal probe said Taylor Bean had told Ginnie Mae that a delay in filing was due to the planned investment in Colonial. Later, however, Ginnie Mae discovered that Taylor Bean hadn't disclosed that its independent auditor, Deloitte LLP, had resigned because of "irregular transactions" that raised concerns about fraud. A spokesman at Deloitte declined to comment.

Taylor Bean Suspended From Making FHA Loans - WSJ.com

To one of you accountant types: I'm missing the significance of "only one account". Why is it easier to steal when there is only one account? If I split my accounts, it should be just as easy to draw down both, no?

Easier for one bank to steal with a little inside help than 2.

Yes, if true.

They've apparently been lying to all and sundry for months now and I see no reason to start taking their statements at face value now.

Either way it's an ugly scene--according to the order the state got 116 phone calls in one week complaining about things like failed tax or insurance payments out of escrow. The company itself doesn't seem to be answering its phones, from what I can tell.

Well if the feds froze the account that had the escrow money, natch they can"t pay.
But they prolly stole the excrow money.

If someone froze my escrow account, (why I don't know) and I needed to pay something, I'd say to
the person I owed--hey, the Feds have got your money. Go scream at them. I'll
help.

When there's only one account, you can post transactions with non-descriptive or fake descriptions and say, transfer money to a Swiss bank account. It's harder to trace where the money actually went when the law shows up, because you've jumbled everything together.

Also, writing yourself a check from the single account to steal funds is simple. Whereas if there's a separate account set up to hold borrower payments like you're supposed to do, that account requires several people to sign off to move money. Makes it somewhat harder for an insider to embezzle.

The original article is worth looking at-- all the charts essentially say "we've bounced off the bottom." They also say, surprisingly, "it was worse in the 70's." Which jives with what I'm hearing at the grocery store.

...but a check bounced from a trust account gets you in the deepest rungs of lawyer hell.

From a lawyer's standpoint, financial misconduct is probably the #1 reason lawyers get disbarred across the country. It is the worst sin of sins and is treated as such.

From a practical standpoint, it means more of a paper trail and more accountability. The actual act is the same with 1 or 10 accounts, but it is easier to hide transactions if you use 1. (poor/simplified e.g. If a company pays off a credit card's balance, it could easily be expensed to a single account. It is just one payment. However, if you looked at the credit card's use and saw it was used for personal and business use, then you get into the hazy part of it.)

Edit: See Yalt's example above.

Money held in escrow is required by law to be in a bank account separate from operating funds. Money's fungible and it's the only way to be certain the funds aren't being diverted.

Also, a mortgage bank's warehouse line completely dwarfs its operating funds at any one time--if they had enough cash of their own to fund loans they wouldn't need the line of credit.

Report: Goldman providing tips to certain clients
The article requested is no longer available.

and so if goes on...

FNM up 45% today. The recession must be over!!!! .... until tomorrow that is.

I think not just inventory but also when manufacturing was much bigger part of the employment picture. Factories can cut shifts or even shut down for a day a week. Yet to see a major retailing store that has decided to shut a day week or cut the hours they are open. Service sector job loss often goes hand in hand with the company going out of business. They can only bounce back with new companies starting up- which is hard to do when you are going through a credit bust.

Also all of those recoveries started out from levels of consumer indebtedness substantially lower than current levels and levels from which increases were possible. The bust up I think proves that we pushed the outer limit of consumer indebtedness levels. So the new max level it seems to me has to be lower than the previous high. So for consumers to take no new debt first requires that they shed debt to bring their total levels significantly below the previous high.

You forgot quiana.

I don't think it was worse in the 70s.

Just reporting what I'm hearing from the older generation-- to me it feels about the same, somehow. But Florida wasn't that bad in the 70's, after all. House prices weren't going down and you don't heat with oil down there. In fact I guess you don't need to heat much at all. For me, the 70's were a disaster-- I started school in Wisconsin, the oil crisis arrived and the school got hit with an extra $1 million in heating costs. Back when a million was a lot of money. Tuition doubled, I had to leave school. Jobs were hard to find, etc. That feels something like Oregon now. The doom has totally different faces depending on where you live.

but surely they didn't move to a single account i.e. the probably had that system in place for years- so why did the auditors just quit now. Seems to me that auditors should be held liable.