This includes real estate and financial assets (stocks, bonds, pension reserves, deposits, etc)

If it's under a mattress, does it count as deposit?

Most of the increase in net worth was "smoke and mirrors" increases in real estate values - of course, with the cash-out refis, those smoke and mirrors increases have turned into smoke and mirrors credit losses for the banks.

Keep in mind though that in Europe, "elk" = what we call "moose."

Hirsch == Elk

that's a good one. you don't see Ni very often in commodity trades.

After a bubble, the value of assets decline, but most of the debt remains.

And that shows the lack of discipline of bubble participants.

What's the value of a 1964 nickel?

Coinflation says... $0.0456203 (91.24%)

from last thread:
HollywoodHack
I wasn't boomer bashing. The haute couture clientele was dominated by 50-something Wall St wives. That's just a fact. I expected more young women because a 50 year old rich man should have no problem marrying a 30 year old woman. It has to do with both how haute couture was relatively more accessible a few decades ago, thus more likely to bring in new people, and the waves of wealth creation we have seen since WWII. There has been enough money made in tech for that younger group to be well represented there, but I would guess that they are naturally not as interested in it.

For all you older people that see problems in young people these days, I offer you
The Problem with Young People – Trading Cards

Those two peaks on the first graph look suspiciously like pig ears

But I'm starting to see pig ears wherever I look...

...but I would guess that they are naturally not as interested in it.

You are talking about the Tech Culture here. It took billg how many years to finally settle down? Also, I don't recall seeing much eye-candy hanging off of his arms vs. what his crew put into MS Office. Even mixing in S. "The Mac God" Jobs doesn't get you pictures shown on TMZ.
_
I think I get your gist, but rest assured that sometimes money isn't enough to overcome one's looks and social conditioning. (queue any number of Dilbert strips)

quote from prev. thread:

"Judges 'created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,' she said. 'There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."

This is the only place I've seen someone comment on Justice Sotomayor's comment from the bench on last week's SCOTUS arguments (where the conservatives majority are likely to award corporations the full, unadultered (and unregulated) rights to free speech - so they can buy the rest of the Congress that they don't already own.

In my perfect world where corporations are viewed as just vehicles for capital raising/investing and not as 'people', corporations would have no rights to intervene in policy setting (contributions, advertising, etc.).

SCOTUS made corps into people (that sure beats walking on water, right?). Religious transformation of the first order.

We need five more Sonia's on the bench after we do the great housecleaning on the lying, thieving financial/political oligopoly. Corps need some serious breaking to the saddle.

/temporary end of rant

Ya but Market Watch said:

Household net worth rises first time in two years

Seriously, equity has been/will be punished and debt you can just walk away with a slap on the wrist.

The problem with young people is they have a future horizon, of like, what, say 3 months.

"After a bubble, the value of assets decline, but most of the debt remains."
That is a very succinct and interesting observation. It would certainly suggest that creditors like bubbles. The only defense is walking away from the debt, which businesses do all the time but people (usually) try to avoid like the plague.

a new wife that wants to nest in a house that is 6x our combined yearly income, and thinks a used '99 Corolla is a scarlett letter to bear!

Me thinks someone needs to tradein the wife and keep the car.

Sort of like cash for losers.

The flow of funds is fugly.

All categories of private credit are contracting, most at an increasing rate. Only the rapid rise in government debt is keeping the system from imploding.

Bernanke is literaly dropping money from helicopters to bailout years of Wall St. fraud.

And yet, by early accounts, Wall St. year end bonuses will be huge. Imagine that. Wall St. is going to take huge bonuses as a result of helicopter drops.

We have too much non-economic debt.

After a bubble, the value of assets decline, but most of the debt remains.

And this is what will rein in consumer spending for a long time to come...

The market for elk in North America, for example, is very small.
While living in Montana in the 70's, Elk was the major meat we ate. Yum!

The problem is that you can loan all the money you want to banks and the rest of the FIRE sector, and you'll get just what we're getting right now (HFT trading, commodity run ups, bodacious P/E's). Meanwhile, the real economy is bleeding money.

Funding the Fed: Rolling Back the Treasury Supplementary Financing Program

A good analysis of the implications of Treasury's handing bond proceeds over to the Fed. The piece suggests that a good chunk of Treasury issuance recently has been to sterilize Fed actions: that means liquidity provision by the Fed was offset by funds received by Treasury. Therefore net money supply effect is zero.

Essentially propping the banks without funds going to the real economy.

We were having a good gold discussion in previous threads, and I'd like to continue it with this observation. Note I'm not a gold bug, I don't own a scintilla of the stuff. But it's interesting nonetheless.

Median family income in 1967: $33,338
Price of gold per ounce in 1967: $34.95
Number of ounces of gold family income could purchase: 953

Median family income in 2003: $43,318
Price of gold per ounce in 2003: 363.38
Number of ounces of gold family income could purchase: 119

Income of 2003 family if receiving the same number of gold bars (953x363.38): $346301.14

Maybe I will become a gold bug after all

CR Headline: Fed: Household Net Worth Off $12.2 Trillion From Peak
Bloomberg Headline: Household Worth in U.S. Rose by $2 Trillion in Second Quarter

back from Italy....all I will say is that the amount of complacency in Europe is pretty much the same as it is here. I will say that Como is still full of over-optimistic americans (as always!) and that Milan as a city is so over-rated it's not even funny.

The mad rush to cash in on 'depressed' property values in northern italy is as bad as it is here. The Italian gov't has done a much better job feeding the BS to it's people than we have. But alot of that is the Italian attitude of sono. .you italiano non sono… io non mi preoccupo...
or I'm Italian..you are not...I don't care.
I speak a little italian but even if I was fluent it would have made no difference....it's just like Paris.

Having said that the GP of Italy was a fabulous experience that should be done once (if you are automotively inclined) but understand that the world will be a far different place in a year's time.

Ciao
MS

looks as if house prices are down only halfway to their final resting place

Note: approximately 31% of households do not have a mortgage. So the 50+ million households with mortgages have far less than 43% equity.

I would love to see the quintiles for homeowners. Guessing:

0-20% 100% equity (by definition)
21-40% 90% equity. Over half are by definition 100%, the rest close to payoff.
41-60% 30%
61-80% 0%
81-100% negative equity, say -20%.

Okay let's do the math on the guesses. 0.2+0.18+0.06+0-0.04=0.4 or 40% gross unweighted equity.

CR reports: "Household percent equity (of household real estate) was up to 43% from the all time low last quarter of 41.9%. "

Those quintiles should scare you far more than the aggregated totals.

N.b. Bold is typo edit correction

one other thing....you all recall the bond thing that supposedly happened in Chiasso. Well I can certainly add that the these people who were purported to be caught by the financial police must have been the dumbest people on earth. I heard a great "stag" party story where the groom to be was liquored up and then taken to lugano...deposited in a hotel room with no phone, cash or clothes and a hooker was paid to be there when he woke up. He was transported through the chiasso crossing while passed out and the 'authority's' asked virtually no questions.

These were his friends too.

Ciao
MS

I know it wasn't, despite the obvious conclusions. But you'll get there, EHP. The boomers really have left almost nothing behind in every way, including the opportunities to make that kind of wealth outside of a few sports and entertainment types.

Rob Dawg,
Equity
The fabled First American CoreLogic 2006 data
CoreLogic breaks it down by city
More recent Freddie Mac
A look at First Fed delinquencies
h/t to CalculatedRisk

20 years from now, when SS and Medicare are means tested, would you rather have $100K in physical gold or $100K in CDs?

in 1967, Americans couldn't own gold.

Forgive me, I'm new to this whole shiny metal thing.

CalculatedRisk (profile) wrote on Thu, 9/17/2009 - 10:06 am

Rob, I wish we had that breakdown, although we know from the CoreLogic data that about 15 million homeowners are underwater ...
best wishes

I think we do have those numbers. 15 million is approximately a quintile of 80 million homeowners. Very rough, very dirty but they "feel" right.

My point was that right now there are 15 million ruthless potentials who would undoubtably take out another 15 million while the 40% 30 million observed with almost no impact to their present situation just their future.

Humor break: Piggy

"would you rather have $100K in physical gold or $100K in CDs? "

Will my local grocery store accept gold? Will the local gas station? etc...

Putting all of your retirement money in gold in 1920 would have meant you'd have been unable to retire in 1967. Maybe I won't become a gold bug.

Dead Horse meets Buggy Whip time.
_
If you invested that year of income in the market in 1920, chances were good that you would have lost it all by 1939. If you didn't lose a dime through BK but through collapsing share value, you wouldn't break even--sans inflation--until the mid/late 50s. In short, what the bloody heck could have you invested in besides Treasuries in 1920 and hope to retire on in 1967 besides a pension or SS, eh?
_
I know the gold bugs v. gold haters is like vi v. Emacs or Red v. Blue, but that was one silly data point to try to nail that coffin shut.

Moose meat is nice but horse meat is even better

yagij (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 9/17/2009 - 10:15 am

... vi v. Emacs ...

I thought we agreed not to discuss the important religious issues.

"Will my local grocery store accept gold? Will the local gas station? etc... "

If Ben keeps rates too low, for too long, that may be the only thing they will accept as that is what you would have to pay the local warlord/street gang in. But where are the cops? Well they'll want gold too.

teabagger (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Thu, 9/17/2009 - 10:11 am
reply ignore user
20 years from now, when SS and Medicare are means tested, would you rather have $100K in physical gold or $100K in CDs?

I say straddle the fence and put the 100k into a gold ETF.

That way you get faux money and faux gold all rolled into one.

"Will my local grocery store accept gold? Will the local gas station? etc... "

They currently except "Bankster Card" No need for gold or money!

That way you get faux money and faux gold all rolled into one.

What would you rather have, a $20 solar-powered communication device charger that will last 100 years or a pound of glod buried in your yard

LOL!!!

yagij (profile) wrote on Thu, 9/17/2009 - 10:21 am

I thought we agreed not to discuss the important religious issues.
There isn't anything to discuss. vi is the way. /snark
_
Edit: wq!

You are just lucky hoocoodanode doesn't parse apl. 

Of course Net worth is up....they need to tax it.

Gold good or bad = yawn
Republicans versus Democrats = yawn

we've been over these issues roughly 1 million times on CR.

How about mrs important issues like who's going to win American Idle?

I know the gold bugs v. gold haters is like vi v. Emacs or Red v. Blue, but that was one silly data point to try to nail that coffin shut.

Oh I don't deny it was a silly data point; I was only wondering the simple question: if I put my savings into gold at various times throughout the past, how would it have done? Had I gone back to 1900 even less gold could have been purchased.

Forgive me about the horrible faux pas by forgetting FDR's gold heist; this whole gold confiscation idea is a little foreign to me.

What I'm hearing from everyone is that the market in 1920 would have been a horrible place to store your money because of the resulting crash. Gold did terribly due to the fact that the government felt threatened by it and confiscated it. Maybe treasuries would have been better throughout that period, but it was a difficult investment environment for everyone.

I'm just trying to learn from the past to see if anything applies to the future.

who's going to win American Idle

that'd be a great reality show: unemployed in various age groups, seaching for jobs - and don't forget the 70 yr olds looking for walmart cleaning jobs.

Hello old friend! I always wonder when looking at these charts so far off historical ranges whether or not prices for finite assets (gold, land, oil) increase as population increases and create upward pressure on "total household net worth as a % of GDP", or is our new situation not the norm and thus a dangerous global experiment.

"They currently except "Bankster Card" No need for gold or money! "

Now introducting the new Citi Banksta Card - "you buy and we bail you out." or Amex Bailout Ultima - "Little people pay".

"Little people pay".

LOL - can I getz one with a cute lolcat on da front?

Of course. But anything that taxes serfs and canonises tax loopholes that benefit our corrupt congress people and banksters is a good idea. Just like giving $8K to first time home buyers so they can join the ranks of people sweating over unemployment and falling house prices for the next few years. Excellent planning. I can see why these people run the country now.

uses micro eMacs.

That is an oxymoron. Using "micro" to describe any branch of eMacs is like using the word "balanced" to describe a CA budget...

Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer of Toll Brothers Inc., continues to sell stock in the luxury home builder.

Mr. Toll, 68 years old, sold 1.58 million shares Wednesday, according to a securities filing by Toll Brothers Thursday. That included 452,182 shares acquired through stock options due to expire in December...............

Toll Brothers last month reported a loss of $472.3 million for its fiscal third quarter ended July 31, largely reflecting write downs of asset values. At that time, Mr. Toll told analysts in a conference call that stronger housing demand in recent months "makes us feel a whole lot better."

Toll CEO Sells More Stock in Luxury Home Builder - WSJ.com

The "savings" myth.

Per Q2, 2009 FOF:

Personal savings = +$545B

Private Savings = +$914B (includes personal savings)

Government (dis)Savings = -$1306

Total Savings = -$392B

The personal savings number is a sham too if you use a cash basis (BEA tables).

And in reality, the numbers are far worse as unfunded liabilities are NOT accounted for. Same with unfunded private pension and Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB).

Americans have been ripped off by Wall St. and Corporate insiders.

We need the prompt passage of Clawback laws.

That graph looks like it's got mortgage pig hiding under it? Are mortgage pig and dot.com pig the same? Has anyone ever seen them in the same room together?

That's a scary equity stat. So 31% of homeowners have 100% equity, so does that mean the other 8%, plus or minus, gets divvied up by the 69% of mortgaged homes (assuming nonmortgaged homes have roughly the same value as mortgaged ones)? Of course that 8% is a net of folks with positive and negative equity, but I would love to see a chart of how that all breaks down.