It did last fall. The BoJ held the line around 88.00 (Revised) I believe. It wasn't 98 a week ago. It hasn't been higher than 95 for over a month or more.
The Euro is currently at 1.4666 to the USD. Anyone want to read the entrails?
I believe I read in CR comment's section yesterday that there are forecasts for parity on the USD/Euro cross. The Euro isn't sitting on a fundamentally stronger economy than the US when you consider all of its parts.
Hey Resistance,
In reference to your last post...
I was a university tech too. Actually tech on call during the day, and vax operator at night. Nothing like printing and separating batch jobs at 3 in the morning. Was supposed to have a 20 hour cap, but they conveniently overlooked that for me. Amazing that a university would leave the running of crucial system backups to a minimum wage employee. Our unix guru, perpetual student until he left for the big leagues, is still running a mud and game server in a hidden part of the university's network after ten + years. Haven't found it yet. Those were the days...a group of eight of us, including my wife, all worked for the university would wait until the labs shut down on Friday nights for backups...leave a few machines on, clone WarCraft II or Quake across the network...and play til the sun rise. The head of the department caught us once. Got really mad until he realized if he fired all of us, his network wouldn't run. Then made us promise we would keep this to ourselves, and not invite any one else. One of the few parts of college I miss.
Please. You have been one of the more vocal bulls on the board for the past few months. "Down Goes Frazier" is only allowed for Bears Who Have Kept The Faith (tm).
.
Also having the equities down ~0.75 - 0.85% doesn't include a knockdown. takes those kind of lulls to sing and dance watching struggle to keep the QE Bubble (tm) down.
Yes, with a bullet. Or as many bullets as it takes.
Conversation with an elderly neighbor this morning. He's "worried" that he'll be taxed out. He's right to be worried. He's wrong that it can be enforced.
yagij (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 12:28 pm
The Euro is currently at 1.4666 to the USD. Anyone want to read the entrails?
I believe I read in CR comment's section yesterday that there are forecasts for parity on the USD/Euro cross. The Euro isn't sitting on a fundamentally stronger economy than the US when you consider all of its parts.
The Euro has been ramping against the USD since 2002, with notable "flights to safety" in Oct. 2008 and Feb-Mar 2009. There's no indication of a change in the trend as of yet. That said, I've long believed that the Euro is superfluous, and will eventually retreat to be the currency of France and Germany in the long term-
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorizes a tax credit of up to $8,000 for qualified first-time home buyers purchasing a principal residence on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.
Flip-Flopping is 2004. May we Bears brand you with a Scarlett "L" until you have earned the collective's approval to remove the taint of your Bullishness.
.
Also, welcome back to the pack. I think Dawg has been saving your seat for you.
Most of the young couples I've talked to that just got married, or are getting married soon....say they are putting off kids until they can manage to save a little dough.
Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.
He's not the only one EHP - on a number of places I pop into, the general mood is switching to bearishness. And this was in place well before this week. I am still curious as to what swayed C&C...either groupthink or specifics.
We kept a corner of the bear cave reserved just for you C&C. I never had any doubt. Bakersfield, I am sorry to say, is in for Oklahoma style 1932 style pain. The crowning glory is if the City commits to an HSR station and actually begins construction. again the GD I parallels are unmistakeable.
Currency valuations at this point are nothing more than swap lines being see-sawed in and out of the world's FCB's. The real problem is that most FX trader's only know how to do that and parade from one to other when one is perceived as less "shitty" than the other's. They do not understand that most fiat currencies are toilet paper but continue to trade them in the hope that they are right on any one given day.
(totally OT)
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 11:33 am
Hey Resistance,
In reference to your last post...
I was a university tech too. Actually tech on call during the day, and vax operator at night.
Nice - the network admin for my hometown college ran a huge archive of commercial games and utilities on a hidden server, much to the delight of me and a few other high school aged misanthropic computer nerds... always wondered where he got such an awesome and up-to-date collection.. turned out that the guy was also a US courier for a major pirate board who'd gotten hooked up with the scene via Rusty and Edie's BBS way back in the day. I have him to thank for my introduction to the computer underground...
*Rob Dawg (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 12:41 pm
We kept a corner of the bear cave reserved just for you C&C. I never had any doubt. Bakersfield, I am sorry to say, is in for Oklahoma style 1932 style pain. The crowning glory is if the City commits to an HSR station and actually begins construction. again the GD I parallels are unmistakeable.
*
It's ironic that much of the "old timer" population of the area around Bakersfield descended from the Oakies of the '30s
One reason home sales in August might be flat is the sheer stupidity of the people and organizations doing the paperwork.
I'm in the process of buying in a major metro area. About a month age there was severe flooding in a town ~60 miles from where I'm buying. We have pretty well connected Congressional representation, so the entire area received a disaster declaration.
I just received a requirement for a re-inspection on my current house, and on the new purchase, from Big Bank XXXX, due to said disaster declaration.
Not an FHA loan, either.
Sheesh
C&C: I'm starting to hear anecdotes that things are getting worse, and doing so relatively quickly. the best stories i'm hearing are ones of: my business has stabilized... we're down 40% from last year, but we're not recovering... the worst stories are: my business picked up over the summer, but it's slowing down again.
Rob Dawg (homepage, profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 12:46 pm
I suspect an embarrassingly large fraction of us would resonate with "Fuckin' A!..."
Thanks! Unlike normal there are few colleagues flying out of this tiny little airport with me, so my 2 hour layover should be more entertaining than usual. But it's still business travel, and I'd much prefer to snap my fingers and be home in an instant. Or even better, to have never left at all.
Number one reason why the Euro will do better than the dollar. They don't have neo cons constantly urging them into wars. They don't feel the need to be the world's policeman . If there is a single lesson to be learned from history it is - if you stop waging war economic prosperity follows. I guess the second lesson countries that perpetually engage in warfare go bankrupt.
Since 1945 close on 65 years the United States has been at war 28 years excluding the cold war which if included would mean that we have been at peace for only about 8 of those 65 years.
Rob - my oldest just left for one of Ca's UC's and my younger one is just a few years behind her...then I am out of here.
(edit - oops)
Ain't ya glad I'm not like some here who jump on the slightest deviation?
Anyway with an 18yo Junior @UC and more in the pipeline myself I feel your pain. I'm okay with staying. I have deliberately positioned for what is happening. I suspect you see the proposed 30% "fee" increase at the UCs as one of those watershed events.
It's been a decade of "we don't want any productive citizens." Now you are surprised at "we don't want to nurture the next generation of donors either" ?
Most of the young couples I've talked to that just got married, or are getting married soon....say they are putting off kids until they can manage to save a little dough.
I'd argue that unless they are doing it for religious reasons that they may not want to get married either. It's cheaper to prove someone a revocable medical power of attorney if you want someone to take care of you if you are sick or unconscious than getting that license. If they do get married, then they need to be "ruthless" about their debts and incomes.
re: 45 days ago
I came back to the comments at the just before August. There were signs China would cut lending, then they warned, and then they did beginning August 1. Which is one of the major reason why I called a market top for the first week of August. I was wrong there, but it was with the caveat that I was no longer worried about further increases and was ready to go short. China was providing crucial uplift to commodities and agriculture. c&c is an an agri-state, and I had said that this was the result of intervention and not sustainable demand/recovery. Now we have seen a taste of USD up, commodities/equities down. China still has plenty of capacity for future loan losses, so the stimulus lending will come back but it is most probable that it doesn't play a dominant theme for the rest of the year. The 2 things that I could be wrong about, whether I misread the situation or didn't anticipate government support, is manufacturing being flat/declining and another wave of layoffs across most sectors of the economy before year end. That house price declines will continue and we haven't hit the bottom is no prediction at all. That SP500 earnings won't increase by 40% within the next 6 months is no prediction either. Granted some predictions I made like Magna getting Opel can sometimes be delayed (said in a thread last October), along with the intuition that Belgian and English factories would lose out as a result. I'm my own #1 fan
"experienced challenges as a result of general macroeconomic conditions." Specifically, it added, "the portfolios and loans that are secured by real estate development loans have suffered deterioration in collateral values."
One of the people I worked with at a summer job (little mom and pop computer shop) I took for better pay invited me over to his place one night. Guy was a genius Novell/Unix guy. I missed out on most of the BBS stuff, didn't start computer stuff hardcore until my senior year in high school. Anyway, he lived way out in the country, my wife and I get out there...and this old country boy has four mobile homes built together with a line of generators and external ac units. We get inside...and he actually lives in just a small part of this setup...the rest is rows of old floor to ceiling vax systems he has acquired over the years. Has everything networked and running in some sort of bizarre hybrid world of vax/unix/Novell...Asked him what he used them for and how he could afford to keep everything cooled...said he made his real money with this setup. Ran some BBS stuff, but I am pretty sure he was a hacker/pirate. Was a very weird experience. I don't know if he was trying to scout me out, or impress me, but it wasn't a world I was prepared to enter. Never got invited back.
crazyv -- nothing to back this up, but 8.6 - 9.2 mn SAAR. keep in mind that is terrible because while C4C is over, there are HUGE promotional discounts / price wars going on
Crazy v - edmunds was saying the first two weeks were (IIRC) 8.8 and 8.4 mil annual rate. Id pencil in about an 8.4 mil for the month perhaps, assuming a further weakening trend in the back half. Kinda crappy, but better than my initial forecasts of 8.0.
I second that. It will be very interesting to see the Sept month end delinquency reports next week, nothing indicates delinquencies are getting better.
The new report, "Quantifying the Effects on Lending of Increased Capital Requirements," shows that higher bank capital requirements would likely have much less effect on lending than many analysts have predicted. For example, if capital requirements rose on average from six percent to ten percent, loan rates on a typical bank loan might rise by only 0.2 percentage points, assuming modest tightening of loan terms or by 0.25 percentage points, assuming no changes in the terms.
*yagij (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 12:55 pm
Most of the young couples I've talked to that just got married, or are getting married soon....say they are putting off kids until they can manage to save a little dough.
I'd argue that unless they are doing it for religious reasons that they may not want to get married either. It's cheaper to prove someone a revocable medical power of attorney if you want someone to take care of you if you are sick or unconscious than getting that license. If they do get married, then they need to be "ruthless" about their debts and incomes.*
What a turn of events. When I grew up down South, they usually were already pregnant when they got married, and it was their debts and income that were ruthless
EvilHenryPaulson (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:00 pm
gabyjan,
Thanks for the laugh, I just noticed how stupid I am. Can't even count to 4. gotta love comeuppance
EHP,
There's three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't-
o/t: Am I the only one current on redneck grammar? eg: all y'all is the plural of y'all
on another note, did you know redneck was originally a slur reserved for Scottish laborers.
There is nothing scarier to Western Europe than the prospect of having to pay for their own own umbrella.
The Euro is sitting in the hands of a some massively schizophrenic E.U. There may be some underlying strength in the Franco-Germanic alliance that is holding the western half of the continent together, but you have to consider what is going to happen with Spain, Italy, Ireland, and others. It is that Crazy/Broke persona that is the Yin to the Stable/QE-phobic persona.
.
Also as Dawg pointed out, they haven't had to dump a chunk of their GDP into their defense sector like we have because we have been providing much in the way of global governmental logistics and blue water navy protections, and even if the French and Germans are on good terms now, I'm not sure how that will hold up if they have to start "trust" the other side for naval and air defense.
When I grew up down South, they usually were already pregnant when they got married, and it was their debts and income that were ruthless
Odd thing for me to say, but there is coming a point where fearing Susie's daddy and his shotgun will be matched by the thought of freedom v. becoming yet another land serf. Poor segments of our economy already fight with Father Flight and are having little luck stopping the creation of single parent homes. That problem will extend into the middle classes.
"I'm seeing a new demographic trend developing. This is the first serious economic downturn where birth control is so widely available and acceptable. An epic Japan sized baby bust may be in the offing. That has repercussions along the entire housing spectrum."
The Depression-era generation was very small, too. People found ways. In the 30s, some of those ways were illegal and dangerous; but that didn't stop people> So I am told.
Of course that very small generation did very well 20 and 30 years later; because when they climbed the corporate/business ladder, it really wasn't too crowded.
I hear what you're saying; but if it becomes easy and desirable to have children again, people will. In Japan, it never did, and part of that is cultural; a free and independent woman in Japan endures an immediate societal demotion as soon as she marries: she essentially becomes the servant of her mother-in-law. (Plus not expecting a lot of help, or even presence, from the husband.) So a lot of employed Japanese women never get married, live at home into their 30s, etc.
"The Chinese stock market is up 85% this year, and commodity and real estate prices are rising. And no wonder: the money supply shot up 28.5% in June alone. That money is looking for a home."
Seems to me that nice little gain will head the other direction if the laws of physics remain a law; but as we know, laws are often meant to be broken and I assume if this one is ignored, all will be well...
EvilHenryPaulson (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:07 pm
o/t: Am I the only one current on redneck grammar? eg: all y'all is the plural of y'all
on another note, did you know redneck was originally a slur reserved for Scottish laborers.
Assume Crash Positions (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:09 pm
OK, Mr. Redneck Grammar Guru. How does one say "you all will" in Redneck? "y'all'll"?
Assume Crash Positions,
I only know all y'all and y'all, perhaps that's all there is. Thankfully the internet has many dialect translators, The Dialectizer
Assoom Crash Posishuns (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 10:09 am OK, Mr. Redneck Grammar Guru. How does one say "yo' all will" in Redneck? "y'all'll"?
Andrea and Brian Morrison know well the pull of a mortgage rate starting with a 4. They had been house-hunting for six months when the 30-year fixed-rate average first dipped into sub-5% territory for a stretch last spring.
"We got a lot more anxious," said Andrea Morrison. "We were like 'We've got to take advantage of this because it's not going to get much lower.' "
Dr. Krupali Tejura, 33, a radiation oncologist from Corona, said she wasn't lured by the credit. She closed escrow Thursday on a single-family home in Newport Beach after following the market there for three years. When she found a good deal near the ocean this summer, she jumped.
The $8,000 tax credit was just "icing on the cake," Tejura said.
"It's going to offset some costs, and it's a nice asset to have," Tejura said. "But I needed to get into the market when I did, when it was on an upswing, because especially in that neighborhood, it's not going to fall that much farther down."
OK, Mr. Redneck Grammar Guru. How does one say "you all will" in Redneck? "y'all'll"?
More like; "Step away from the bar and let's see yer hands." Thus returning to my proposition that a huge fraction of US homemoaners are under a form of house arrest.
No offense, but how does a radiation oncologist qualify for the $8 subsidy. That's BS. The limits, are $75k single, so we can surely say she aint single. And $150k married....so I guess her husband doesnt work and she's a really poorly paid radiation oncologist? Something smells fishy.
should we be worried that the dollar has replaced the yen in funding the carry trade?
The Japanese will not like it at all, and when Uncle Yoshimoto is unhappy with exporting his economic dominance, he tends to send his men out to dominate...
mp,
this story? Visualizing The Upcoming Treasury Funding Crisis | zero hedge
It compares foreign holdings of bonds to bills. True, I'm sure foreign buyers are asking for short term debt but that's what energyecon's data shows. That they'll have to roll $2tn of debt per quarter soon. the ZH article really just speaks to the fact that since foreign holders have been selling agencies, the Treasury auctions offered have been for short term debt, and thus spiking ownership of bills
CO2 is being sucked into volcanic vents & reduced to hydrocarbon even as we speak! In fact, oil is being reformed even faster than we can burn it. Soon it will be gushing & oozing out of the ground & we'll have a real mess. So drill it, pump it, refine it, burn it as fast as we can, before we're all up to our knees in crude.
Now only if Obama will let us drill for it, the market will solve the problem!
Dr. Krupali Tejura, 33, a radiation oncologist from Corona, said she wasn't lured by the credit. She closed escrow Thursday on a single-family home in Newport Beach after following the market there for three years. When she found a good deal near the ocean this summer, she jumped.
She is a pretty poorly paid dr. if she thinks she qualifies (or has student loans up the wazoo).
GDD9000 beat me too it.
"That brings us to today's chart which illustrates how housing prices are currently 30% off their 2005 peak. In fact, a home buyer who bought the median priced single-family home at the 1979 peak has seen that home appreciate by a mere 4%."
Anyone else have a crazy uncle who thought it was great fun to introduce the kids at family get togethers to that classic American card game known as 52 pick up. I think the bankers must like that game too.
psychodave (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:14 pm
... but my family's only been in the South since the 18th century
My Dad's family has been there since the 17th (mid-1600s) assuming you include Maryland as part of the South. Did a long sweep out to Texas through the Deep South. Not sure about my Mom's family; my Dad's family had land and there are records about them, but I think my Mom's family didn't.
"She is a pretty poorly paid dr. if she thinks she qualifies (or has student loans up the wazoo..."
Oh, I agree. I guess my problem with these stories is that the "average" reader sees only . And the "average" readers are the people that, at least here in coastal SoCal, are still happily buying houses at %10 off peak prices believing the bottom is in. Which keeps sellers from lowering prices materially. Which keeps me from buying a decent house at a reasonable multiple of my 200k salary. Of course, I could buy a <1000 sq ft. cabin in a nice area or live in the ghetto. Not much of a choice actually...
I don't know what I was thinking, but maybe a nice water serving glass of Cisco would do it?
Cisco is the brand name of a highly alcoholic, low-price fortified wine, produced by the Centerra Wine Company (a division of Constellation Brands) with varieties selling at 13.9%, 17.5% and 19.5% alcohol by volume. Cisco has a distinctive syrup-sweet taste and, because of its color and bottle shape, was often mistaken for a wine cooler. The Federal Trade Commission forced the company to put a label on the bottle stating it was not a wine cooler and had the company change its marketing strategy from "Takes You By Surprise"
No. All bippies are butts but not all butts are bippies. Truth be told I have a butt but except for Mrs. Dawg's opinion I've barely got a butt. At that Mrs. Dawg is exaggerating.
Extremely OT: Columbia Crest Merlot Columbia Valley Grand Estates 2004
Nom! '05 is as good IMO despite the popular gossip.
Man this is getting more surreal every moment. Do we need a poll for terrorist arrest Friday as well? More evidence of a banana republic in the making? Dallas, Illinois, Quantico, and Philly...guess Philly doesn't count since no one was arrested yet.
steelhead (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:44 pm Patriot Act renewal time. Big bad terrorists all over the place. Instill fear and more fear. Just another day in our fascist state.
What for? I thought we were going to let all those folks out of Guantanamo?
Fortified wines. Wow - I just flashed back to college when I worked in a liquor store in a shady part of town.
While we had Cisco and MD 20/20 - the favorite was Wild Irish Rose. It came in two flavors white and red and a pint was $1.40 with tax, no extra charge for chilled. We kept a couple dozen each in a small refrigerator behind the register.
Looking back I'm lucky I wasn't on the wrong end of a robbery - though the silent alarm to the police, baseball bat, can of mace and loaded 12 gauge behind the register probably did deter some would be robbers...
EHP, not sure how important it is to nail down an older Southern grammar, and it may vary by locale.
But in the parts of South Carolina I know best, y'all is a simple contraction of you all. I've always assumed some of the wilder constructions were created by people who grew up somewhere else, but were coached in the local patois for a film or television role by someone also not from the heart of Dixie.
It's not really a redneck marker - the accent generally is much closer to English than to American - final Rs tend to vanish just like they do in Old Blighty.
Mike,
Longest night of my life...worked exactly three months, the graveyard shift at an interstate gas station outside of Houston...had a big stone drunk cowboy walk in grab a beer and start drinking it in the store. He was so out of it, couldn't even pay. Since they changed the law...I was on the hook if he drove off and killed someone. Had to take his keys away and restrain him from beating the shit out of me for over two hours as I waited for the police to arrive. Seems they had a bar fight down the road, and it took awhile to get to me.
I put a spell on you
Because youre mine.
You better stop
The things that youre doin.
I said watch out!
I aint lyin, yeah!
I aint gonna take none of your
Foolin around;
I aint gonna take none of your
Puttin me down;
I put a spell on you
Because youre mine
That sucks - you should have flattened all his tires.
I think I refused to sell to someone one time because they were drunk - they finally left and later on I found a c note on the floor - my first time earning a tip for refusing a sale!!
The worst I had to deal with were the organized groups who would come in and try and distract you while their friends filled their pockets with bottles. Fortunately the few times that happened I wasn't alone in the store - once the owner came out from behind the 2 way mirror and asked the one guy if he was going to pay for the bottle stuffed down his pants as he casually racked the slide on a shotgun. Not surprisingly he paid.
Since we're on the subject, at the local ghetto-mart the bums LOVE the 750 mL bottles of Cisco - second only to Steel reserve in the 24 oz can. There actually appear to be significant ethnic differences in the bum drinks of choice. Whites and Mexicans around here go for the large cans of Bud, all the unusual stuff seems to be popular with the African American community. The latest trend among the section 8 blacks around here seems to be vodka mixed with grape flavored energy drink.
A client just told me their broker who works for an old time brokerage company
active here at least 40 years, that they had a meeting and were told that prices were still going down, and get rid of stuff now.
BSR,
lol. I know what you mean. Live and learn...dad said the problem with most young people is they can't abide weakness in others. An inward fear of failure on their own part. I am beginning to understand that point as I continue to grow up.
I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act.
Does anyone want to come on board with me that oil will go below $30 per barrel now? or is that just me being a lone wolf, howling at the moon like lone wolves do
I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act.
Here is some insight as to why:
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:
Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.
Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism.
The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.
Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser said.
The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they said.
The terror management feature of conservatism can be seen in post-Sept. 11 America, where many people appear to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of cherished world views, they wrote.
Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of conservatism - an endorsement of inequality, a view reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South S.C.).
Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way, the authors commented in a published reply to the article.
crazyv,
where's homegnome when you need him...there is a third group of people who see both W and O as part of the same problem. I voted for W twice and deeply regret it although I like the man personally. I have met him. His security before liberty put this nation on a terrible track, and O hasn't undone any of that yet.
It's funny how people have a problem with the government paying for health care but are perfectly fine with the government spying on its own citizens, jailing people without trial and shipping them off to other countries to be tortured.
Anything can happen to the oil price in the short term.
But as Hollywood Hack loves to point out, commodities have have to be looked at over the long term.
Sometime in the next few years, I think oil goes to $200.
Then it probably falls again. But the overall trend is up.
poic
the twit has declared the first two recessions over but what about the other six? they still going.
thats what it seems like a dam bunch of nasty recessions
I'm thinking about it too. But the competition is catching up and has passed them on several features.
Besides, my crackberry crashes roughly once a month, so I'm not to happy with them right now.
Even worse, their push email system doesn't work with standard mail servers (ex-Microsoft), and there is no sign of them fixing that.
"I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act."
its easy...they think
big government bad
big corporation good
problem is you have the bill of rights enforceable against government
the bill of rights offers no protection for you against the corporation
it can tell you on the job and sometimes of the the job, what to wear, what to say andd not to say, can search your persons and effects at will, deny your right to bear arms, and more ...corporations own their employees
ps much of the patriot act is unconstitutional (sneak and peek etc)
"I voted for W twice and deeply regret it although I like the man personally. I have met him. "
It was his job to be likeable; apparently he's good at it. Doesn't mean he really gives a damn about anybody else when the chips are down. There ar a lot of guys like that in politics, because people react to the alpha leader who looks you in the eye and talks at you like you're an equal. Even though he probably doesn't think so. Talk about wired-in; that impulse goes back to cro-magnon hunter-gatherer days: tribal-leader bonding crap.
I once saw Walter Mondale and Teddy Kennedy speak at the same rally; Kennedy bloviated some meaningless party rhetoric with verve and force and physical presence and the crowd went wild. Mondale made some excellent policy points and raised his thin, quavering voice for emphasis, and the crowd applauded politely. Shook his hand afterward; like a dead fish.
gabyjan,
There is enough refined product through the winter. They're shutting down because inventories are too high.
sm_landlord
I can agree on a long term focus, but a 50% drop would be much more than a bump in the road. When you look at the cost of rolling futures positions, or the decay in owning ETFs, you can't passively buy & hold. I also think that oil will spike back up sooner rather than later because refiners can't make any money, and we're soon going to have a lot less light crude and a lot more heavy crude to refine. There are huge necessary investments in refining that are being put off
Google "Lakoff strict father model" for as good an explanation as any as to why this is. For many people, the government should be allowed to kick asses as appropriate - "People who need to be killed should be killed", and that sort of thing. But taking money from one person who has committed no transgression and giving it to another is not what a strict father would do.
The dichotomy mystified me for years, until I read Lakoff's arguments.
The strict father model of government also explains why many fairly strict libertarians, who feel that medical licensing boards and stop signs should not exist, nonetheless do not oppose extra-judicial imprisonment or bans on abortion, because these are cases of punishing people for doing bad things, rather than attempts to constrain markets or engineer a better society. To many people, harsh laws and wide powers to enforce them without oversight are not an example of big government.
More from the anecdote-is-a-story, anecdotes-are-data-department. My brother's engineering firm which has been suffering from declining orders all year is expecting 2010 to be worse. Their new products aren't selling. But, the upgrade and retrofit kits are selling. This is good and bad. Not as much money is coming in, but they have a HUGE install base across the entire world, with products from 40 years ago still being maintained and upgraded. They can/should be viable as they are one of two major manufacturers of this product in the world. Development costs can be contained as they finished the new product design phase for this cycle. But, being a victim of an LBO, the company is stressing about their debt obligation in the future. The grim reaper approaches to take it's next debt victim?
I'm assuming this story is playing out across the country many times over.
Does anyone want to come on board with me that oil will go below $30 per barrel now? or is that just me being a lone wolf, howling at the moon like lone wolves do
I'm in w/ DTO. Course, the dollar sliding more won't help, but that can't happen can it?
There is an alternate explanation for falling numbers of births around Sacramento. It might not be a lower birthrate. It might be that fewer people are living there, especially fewer people in their 20s and 30s.
I know if I was a renter in that age group, I would probably be looking for work somewhere else. If I was a homeowner in that group from Sacramento, I would likely be underwater and might take a job and dump the house.
evilhenry
inventories are too high,forgot about all those tankers allover the place storing oil that not even refined right so how is oil going to be 200 brl? oh wait a minute like last year. right? otherwise it might be less than 30 barrel. and they cant have that now can they?
EHP: From last nights thread: I'll beat this dead horse one more time --
If all lobbyists do is advise, then why doesn't the government cut out the middle man and hire those advisors. [...] It's a system that allows the mutually beneficial promotion of self-interest outside the system of electoral accountability.
Too many once-and-done issues to hire permanant expertise -- and advisors need access to technical experts, most already working in the affected industry, making access to them critical. Hiring seems the poorer option.
As to this being outside the system of electoral accountability, replace "outside" with "independent" and you're closer. The goal is to provide an additional degree of freedom so that the Congressperson can optimize the lobbyists' interests and the voter's interests at the same time. What's not to like about that?
As for tax havens and MNCs, I don't see that as neutral. Giving up the ability to tax based on how the accounting is structured, and not how the money was earned is a one way trade. Government gets nothing back for it, and thus the probability is the government ranges from neutral to weaker. Because it is in the MNC sees benefit in lowering its taxes, it is bound to do so as evidence does support. So in practice, the state does become weaker.
Agreed MNCs have proven adept at tax arbitrage, limiting the states ability to tax them directly. But the scale of the damage to state's balance sheets has been minimal, and I doubt one could find any evidence of an overall shrinkage of a state's overall tax take if they allow in MNCs. They just shift to other taxes such as VATs, land, individual income, wellhead taxes, etc., that are harder to game. The real losers here are smaller firms that cannot play the arbitrage games the big boys have access to.
query_tool,
One of the things I expect is oil below $30 per barrel within the next few months. Last fall I said oil would bottom at $35, then early in the new year I said that the commodity/inflation trade was premature and oil can/should be lower ex-speculation (I believe there is a minimum producer price, maximum consumer price, and a market price lies in the middle. So oil at $150 would be a fair price because people could/would pay that much, but the supply constraint was synthetic and free to bounce down to the producer price. Now this time there are huge inventories globally of crude and refined product, so we can go below producer price), then in May I said the highwater mark for the oil rally was $70 per barrel when the price was at $63, and at least since early August I've been saying the sub $30 per barrel.
I just wanted to poll and posture in front of the audience. I hate the idea of possibly being a broken clock that is correct twice a day. I would rather be wrong all the time, than believe I was correct for reasons beyond random chance.
EHP - do you think it matters much what price the major producers have built into their budgets? From my reading of various places, they are still OK around 40-50 a barrel. Id think we could go to about $45 easily, but it would be major problems for Russia at lower than that, as well as the Saudis.
Bob,
I know W from his governor days here in Texas. People liked him around here because he had that down to earth quality. I won't debate you on whether it was real or fake. To me he did seem to actually care about the people he worked with. He remembered names and did little things for people at all levels of society, even people that didn't like him, that I haven't seen in politics in a long time. These weren't media sound bytes events either, just private moments he took to show appreciation or help someone. He did take his faith seriously. I had the privilege of being in his box at a Rangers game and discussed organized religion with him. Anyone who follows my mindless philosophy on this board knows, I am not a big fan of religion...but I had an interesting discussion about faith, and some of his words have stayed with me to this day. Later, I had the opportunity to meet him again (several years later) and he remembered who I was, what we had talked about, and we had another pleasant conversation. This time on NAFTA. I was not a fan of NAFTA, so it was another interesting discussion. It was a terrible thing to see the changes that happened after 9/11. Can't hate the man, but I was disappointed with his presidency post 9/11.
It's not the parents' state of residence which matters for in state tuition, it's the student's. If they aren't living at home, and you don't claim them as dependents, I don't see the need to stay in CA.
Even if you do claim them as a dependent, feel free to leave CA the January of their junior year. December of the junior years is the last tax data which makes its way into determination of tuition.
"In an apparent reference to a recent trade spat in which the United States imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese tire imports, Hu called on the leaders to "resolutely oppose and reject protectionism in all forms.""
"Except when it benefits China" is the part left unsaid.
The Japanese will not like it at all, and when Uncle Yoshimoto is unhappy with exporting his economic dominance, he tends to send his men out to dominate...
This time China has modern weapons too. Uncle Yoshimoto's boy is gonna come home in a little tiny paper sack, and Uncle Sam won't even need to kill him this time.
"That said, I've long believed that the Euro is superfluous, and will eventually retreat to be the currency of France and Germany in the long term-"
and the dollar will retreat to be the currency of original 13 colonies There is no going back anymore. Even Spain or Italy would gain nothing by reissuing their own currencies.
It is a tough pill to swallow in the US in some circles that Europe is coming back in the game, after being a weakling for 50 years.
DCRogers,
I view that there is a fixed amount of political power. Lobbyists represent the shift of political power from electoral votes, towards dollar votes. You will note that I don't argue that the assignation of electoral votes is optimal but that is the chosen system of the state.
I do concede that the government cannot possibly hire all the necessary experts. Perhaps a third way is possible. There are plenty of experts in their fields that would volunteer their expertise if it was in the interest of good policy.
What did you think about the comment that comparing the relationship between state/lobbyist and cells/mitochondria is not valid because government and lobbyists can change their roles for one
GDD9000
Tough cookies, the price can fall faster than the collapse of their government can scare enough stockpiling to reducing the supply. China is building some giant storage, but it's a couple years away still. Everything else including tankers are full right now. They can't get a 2mn barrel per day cut before the price collapses, as that would also hurt their cash flow with no promise that everyone complies
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 2:38 pm
Can't hate the man, but I was disappointed with his presidency post 9/11.
He was not a warfighter and he allowed himself to be persuaded he was a Christian Soldier by people who had an agenda for him to fulfill, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice as NSA.
Note he didn't seize the throne when he cronies urged him to from 2003-2005, and how he left his treasonous friends hung out to dry when he left office.
The problem is the chattering class of warmongering know-nothings the Republicans have cultivated to support them. As a whole they know nothing about war except that we should fight more wars with less regard for our budgets. They were originally cultivated, like the evangelicals, because they provided bovine, unquestioning support to Republican adventurism in the name of supporting corporate sponsors, excuse me, "fighting commies". However, at this point, they have been part of the Republican establishment so long they have penetrated policy-making circles and seized the wheel.
HydroCabron (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 2:23 pm Google "Lakoff strict father model" for as good an explanation as any as to why this is.
I would say it is mostly being too ignorant (as in uneducated) and not trained in formal thinking. People are untroubled by holding contradictory ideas until they are taught there is a problem with it. Further, many of them don't see a reason to reconcile the contradictory issues because they can't see the significance of the policy challenges they create.
Moody's Investor Services has a rather pessimistic view on Oregon's housing. Sez it won't rebound to peak values until sometime between 2014 and 2017. Have to wonder about the impact of foreclosures on Portland and Oregon.
I wrote a piece about the Oregon's Median Income And Housing Affordability which doesn't bode well either:
Rob Dawg,
There is an alternate explanation for falling numbers of births around Sacramento. It might not be a lower birthrate. It might be that fewer people are living there, especially fewer people in their 20s and 30s.
I know if I was a renter in that age group, I would probably be looking for work somewhere else. If I was a homeowner in that group from Sacramento, I would likely be underwater and might take a job and dump the house.
Agreed. Ethnographics and such are subsets of demographics.
It shocks me that people, including our most respected host, continue to downplay the implications.
EHP, if you're projecting the price of oil in US dollars, that brings a series of variables in train. It's why I'm uncomfortable with projections despite possessing some sense of supply and the market.
I see a some volatility as suppliers, storage and refining have been/are being whiplashed by unreliable forecasting at every stage. It's bumper cars out there.
Does anyone want to come on board with me that oil will go below $30 per barrel now?
I think it's got a ways to fall, but I'd be surprised if it gets below $30. I expect production cuts before then, and hording by China if they've got any storage left.
frazier....
hasn't gone down in a good way in months!
It did last fall. The BoJ held the line around 88.00 (Revised) I believe. It wasn't 98 a week ago. It hasn't been higher than 95 for over a month or more.
The Euro is currently at 1.4666 to the USD. Anyone want to read the entrails?
How distressing!
It just puts Boeings on a discount and kills companies like Siemens.
Thanks yagij; will see if BoJ has repeat performance @88. The nikkei dropped 2.64% yesterday, which may explain the yen rising.
I believe I read in CR comment's section yesterday that there are forecasts for parity on the USD/Euro cross. The Euro isn't sitting on a fundamentally stronger economy than the US when you consider all of its parts.
The "Under House Arrest" meme has finally taken hold. The Great American Mobility experiment is fading.
I'm seeing a new demographic trend developing. This is the first serious economic downturn where birth control is so widely available and acceptable. An epic Japan sized baby bust may be in the offing. That has repercussions along the entire housing spectrum.
No kidding: Birthrate drops with economy | Lifebeat |
projo.com | The Providence Journal
Are you saying that we serfs are finding ourselves tied down to a plot of land again will little hope of leaving it legally? History: Rhymes.
Down goes Frazier
Down goes Frazier
Hey Resistance,
In reference to your last post...
I was a university tech too. Actually tech on call during the day, and vax operator at night. Nothing like printing and separating batch jobs at 3 in the morning. Was supposed to have a 20 hour cap, but they conveniently overlooked that for me. Amazing that a university would leave the running of crucial system backups to a minimum wage employee. Our unix guru, perpetual student until he left for the big leagues, is still running a mud and game server in a hidden part of the university's network after ten + years. Haven't found it yet. Those were the days...a group of eight of us, including my wife, all worked for the university would wait until the labs shut down on Friday nights for backups...leave a few machines on, clone WarCraft II or Quake across the network...and play til the sun rise. The head of the department caught us once. Got really mad until he realized if he fired all of us, his network wouldn't run. Then made us promise we would keep this to ourselves, and not invite any one else. One of the few parts of college I miss.
Does anyone recall when the $8k subsidy started?
Please. You have been one of the more vocal bulls on the board for the past few months. "Down Goes Frazier" is only allowed for Bears Who Have Kept The Faith (tm).
takes those kind of lulls to sing and dance watching 
struggle to keep the QE Bubble (tm) down.
.
Also having the equities down ~0.75 - 0.85% doesn't include a knockdown.
I am back in the bear camp for now....
Yes, with a bullet. Or as many bullets as it takes.
Conversation with an elderly neighbor this morning. He's "worried" that he'll be taxed out. He's right to be worried. He's wrong that it can be enforced.
The Euro has been ramping against the USD since 2002, with notable "flights to safety" in Oct. 2008 and Feb-Mar 2009. There's no indication of a change in the trend as of yet. That said, I've long believed that the Euro is superfluous, and will eventually retreat to be the currency of France and Germany in the long term-
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorizes a tax credit of up to $8,000 for qualified first-time home buyers purchasing a principal residence on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.
Federal Housing Tax Credit: Home
yagij
can i say "down goes Frazier?
Spain can't handle the euro....that much looks increasingly clear.
Thanks Basel, I hadnt realized it started so early.
Flip-Flopping is 2004. May we Bears brand you with a Scarlett "L" until you have earned the collective's approval to remove the taint of your Bullishness.
.
Also, welcome back to the pack. I think Dawg has been saving your seat for you.
crispyandcole,
So what finally convinced you?
The last 45 days as has been subpar at our businesses...short term not looking good
Most of the young couples I've talked to that just got married, or are getting married soon....say they are putting off kids until they can manage to save a little dough.
Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.
Here is the video Rick Santelli metioned
He's not the only one EHP - on a number of places I pop into, the general mood is switching to bearishness. And this was in place well before this week. I am still curious as to what swayed C&C...either groupthink or specifics.
Totally OT for the thread:
YouTube - The Banana Republic of Iceland
Iceland's financial genius revealed.
As you laugh, remember, Iceland is Just Six Months Ahead of the Rest of the World.
USD Narrow index is coming up like a Tyson uppercut DXY Index Quote - US Dollar Index Future - Spot Price Index Quote - DXY Quote - DXY Index Price
bam carry trade! biffo commodities! whomp equities!
We kept a corner of the bear cave reserved just for you C&C. I never had any doubt. Bakersfield, I am sorry to say, is in for Oklahoma style 1932 style pain. The crowning glory is if the City commits to an HSR station and actually begins construction. again the GD I parallels are unmistakeable.
rolling the dice on RIMM
Barney Frank is wanting The Fed Audited. Williteverbe?
I don't believe the Euro is suitable for any country south of the Alps, or east of the Elbe. I'm not sure about Scandinavia. Just my opinion-
must resist urge to say three words. first word I, third word so...
i have a question. with all the time the ppt must work to keep the market up. can the market crash no matter or how much money they throw into it?
Currency valuations at this point are nothing more than swap lines being see-sawed in and out of the world's FCB's. The real problem is that most FX trader's only know how to do that and parade from one to other when one is perceived as less "shitty" than the other's. They do not understand that most fiat currencies are toilet paper but continue to trade them in the hope that they are right on any one given day.
Zero sum game IMO
Ciao
MS
Also, welcome back to the pack. I think Dawg has been saving your seat for you.
I've been pwned by my own prediction!
is toldya one word?
Rob - my oldest just left for one of Ca's UC's and my younger one is just a few years behind her...then I am out of here.
(edit - oops)
(totally OT)
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 11:33 am
Hey Resistance,
In reference to your last post...
I was a university tech too. Actually tech on call during the day, and vax operator at night.
Nice - the network admin for my hometown college ran a huge archive of commercial games and utilities on a hidden server, much to the delight of me and a few other high school aged misanthropic computer nerds... always wondered where he got such an awesome and up-to-date collection.. turned out that the guy was also a US courier for a major pirate board who'd gotten hooked up with the scene via Rusty and Edie's BBS way back in the day. I have him to thank for my introduction to the computer underground...
C&C,
Fix that regrettable typo and then I'll reply seriously.
It's ironic that much of the "old timer" population of the area around Bakersfield descended from the Oakies of the '30s
One reason home sales in August might be flat is the sheer stupidity of the people and organizations doing the paperwork.
I'm in the process of buying in a major metro area. About a month age there was severe flooding in a town ~60 miles from where I'm buying. We have pretty well connected Congressional representation, so the entire area received a disaster declaration.
I just received a requirement for a re-inspection on my current house, and on the new purchase, from Big Bank XXXX, due to said disaster declaration.
Not an FHA loan, either.
Sheesh
Should be "told'ja" or "told'ya", depending on where you're from-
Told Ya's Cinco
I suspect an embarrassingly large fraction of us would resonate with "Fuckin' A!..."
C&C: I'm starting to hear anecdotes that things are getting worse, and doing so relatively quickly. the best stories i'm hearing are ones of: my business has stabilized... we're down 40% from last year, but we're not recovering... the worst stories are: my business picked up over the summer, but it's slowing down again.
go figure.
Alright, going to go catch a plane. Later all.
LOL- That too
Have a good flight noob!
evilhenry
that second word could be "said" as in I said so
today's chart of spx is fascinating.
Thanks! Unlike normal there are few colleagues flying out of this tiny little airport with me, so my 2 hour layover should be more entertaining than usual. But it's still business travel, and I'd much prefer to snap my fingers and be home in an instant. Or even better, to have never left at all.
Number one reason why the Euro will do better than the dollar. They don't have neo cons constantly urging them into wars. They don't feel the need to be the world's policeman . If there is a single lesson to be learned from history it is - if you stop waging war economic prosperity follows. I guess the second lesson countries that perpetually engage in warfare go bankrupt.
Since 1945 close on 65 years the United States has been at war 28 years excluding the cold war which if included would mean that we have been at peace for only about 8 of those 65 years.
noob
you could twitch your nose.
btw- does anybody have a sense for what car sales are looking like for September?
crispyandcole wrote:
Ain't ya glad I'm not like some here who jump on the slightest deviation?
Anyway with an 18yo Junior @UC and more in the pipeline myself I feel your pain. I'm okay with staying. I have deliberately positioned for what is happening. I suspect you see the proposed 30% "fee" increase at the UCs as one of those watershed events.
It's been a decade of "we don't want any productive citizens." Now you are surprised at "we don't want to nurture the next generation of donors either" ?
Tesla Motors in Finland
I'd argue that unless they are doing it for religious reasons that they may not want to get married either. It's cheaper to prove someone a revocable medical power of attorney if you want someone to take care of you if you are sick or unconscious than getting that license. If they do get married, then they need to be "ruthless" about their debts and incomes.
re: 45 days ago
I came back to the comments at the just before August. There were signs China would cut lending, then they warned, and then they did beginning August 1. Which is one of the major reason why I called a market top for the first week of August. I was wrong there, but it was with the caveat that I was no longer worried about further increases and was ready to go short. China was providing crucial uplift to commodities and agriculture. c&c is an an agri-state, and I had said that this was the result of intervention and not sustainable demand/recovery. Now we have seen a taste of USD up, commodities/equities down. China still has plenty of capacity for future loan losses, so the stimulus lending will come back but it is most probable that it doesn't play a dominant theme for the rest of the year. The 2 things that I could be wrong about, whether I misread the situation or didn't anticipate government support, is manufacturing being flat/declining and another wave of layoffs across most sectors of the economy before year end. That house price declines will continue and we haven't hit the bottom is no prediction at all. That SP500 earnings won't increase by 40% within the next 6 months is no prediction either. Granted some predictions I made like Magna getting Opel can sometimes be delayed (said in a thread last October), along with the intuition that Belgian and English factories would lose out as a result. I'm my own #1 fan
BFF-related treat
3 more Minnesota community banks hammered | StarTribune.com
1. inadequate capital
"experienced challenges as a result of general macroeconomic conditions." Specifically, it added, "the portfolios and loans that are secured by real estate development loans have suffered deterioration in collateral values."
Resistance,
One of the people I worked with at a summer job (little mom and pop computer shop) I took for better pay invited me over to his place one night. Guy was a genius Novell/Unix guy. I missed out on most of the BBS stuff, didn't start computer stuff hardcore until my senior year in high school. Anyway, he lived way out in the country, my wife and I get out there...and this old country boy has four mobile homes built together with a line of generators and external ac units. We get inside...and he actually lives in just a small part of this setup...the rest is rows of old floor to ceiling vax systems he has acquired over the years. Has everything networked and running in some sort of bizarre hybrid world of vax/unix/Novell...Asked him what he used them for and how he could afford to keep everything cooled...said he made his real money with this setup. Ran some BBS stuff, but I am pretty sure he was a hacker/pirate. Was a very weird experience. I don't know if he was trying to scout me out, or impress me, but it wasn't a world I was prepared to enter. Never got invited back.
Is this Orwellian or what?
From CBS news no less....
crazyv -- nothing to back this up, but 8.6 - 9.2 mn SAAR. keep in mind that is terrible because while C4C is over, there are HUGE promotional discounts / price wars going on
Another CR reader linked to Zero Hedge's story today about the treasury market.
It's an extremely important story, and I'm surprised that CR isn't writing about it.
Also, Julian Robertson was interviewed yesterday on CNBC, I think, and he's echoing Faber's sentiments.
Folks, you really should get up to speed on the TIC data. Brad Setser was doing it for us. He works for the White House now.
Gee, what a coincidence.
Crazy v - edmunds was saying the first two weeks were (IIRC) 8.8 and 8.4 mil annual rate. Id pencil in about an 8.4 mil for the month perhaps, assuming a further weakening trend in the back half. Kinda crappy, but better than my initial forecasts of 8.0.
"There is another wave of foreclosures coming"
I second that. It will be very interesting to see the Sept month end delinquency reports next week, nothing indicates delinquencies are getting better.
gabyjan,
Thanks for the laugh, I just noticed how stupid I am. Can't even count to 4. gotta love comeuppance
crazyv wrote:
Forgive me. I laughed. I'll eschew the political assignation of who starts wars and instead address the EUD/USD issue in a diminished US overbearance.
There is nothing scarier to Western Europe than the prospect of having to pay for their own own umbrella.
As to the cars sales. there's a poll up. Be sure to vote.
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we must not allow a Distressing Gap!
Pew Finds Increasing Bank Capital Requirements May Help Stabilize Financial
(Without Substantially Impacting Lending)
What a turn of events. When I grew up down South, they usually were already pregnant when they got married, and it was their debts and income that were ruthless
didnt mean that. really
evilhenry
EHP,
There's three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't-
mp,
We invented that story on Treasuries here in the comments, old hat now. Energyecon does a much superior breakdown of the data energyecon: Treasury Marketable Debt Rollover Update
Commercial banks earned $5.2 billion trading derivatives in 2nd quarter; signs of risk ease
U.S. commercial banks earned $5.2 billion trading derivatives in the second quarter, as the level of risk eased in the global market for the complex financial instruments, according to a government report released Friday.
I'm glad to hear that.
should we be worried that the dollar has replaced the yen in funding the carry trade?
symmetry is a beatch
o/t: Am I the only one current on redneck grammar? eg: all y'all is the plural of y'all
on another note, did you know redneck was originally a slur reserved for Scottish laborers.
OK, Mr. Redneck Grammar Guru. How does one say "you all will" in Redneck? "y'all'll"?
The Euro is sitting in the hands of a some massively schizophrenic E.U. There may be some underlying strength in the Franco-Germanic alliance that is holding the western half of the continent together, but you have to consider what is going to happen with Spain, Italy, Ireland, and others. It is that Crazy/Broke persona that is the Yin to the Stable/QE-phobic persona.
.
Also as Dawg pointed out, they haven't had to dump a chunk of their GDP into their defense sector like we have because we have been providing much in the way of global governmental logistics and blue water navy protections, and even if the French and Germans are on good terms now, I'm not sure how that will hold up if they have to start "trust" the other side for naval and air defense.
Odd thing for me to say, but there is coming a point where fearing Susie's daddy and his shotgun will be matched by the thought of freedom v. becoming yet another land serf. Poor segments of our economy already fight with Father Flight and are having little luck stopping the creation of single parent homes. That problem will extend into the middle classes.
"I'm seeing a new demographic trend developing. This is the first serious economic downturn where birth control is so widely available and acceptable. An epic Japan sized baby bust may be in the offing. That has repercussions along the entire housing spectrum."
The Depression-era generation was very small, too. People found ways. In the 30s, some of those ways were illegal and dangerous; but that didn't stop people> So I am told.
Of course that very small generation did very well 20 and 30 years later; because when they climbed the corporate/business ladder, it really wasn't too crowded.
I hear what you're saying; but if it becomes easy and desirable to have children again, people will. In Japan, it never did, and part of that is cultural; a free and independent woman in Japan endures an immediate societal demotion as soon as she marries: she essentially becomes the servant of her mother-in-law. (Plus not expecting a lot of help, or even presence, from the husband.) So a lot of employed Japanese women never get married, live at home into their 30s, etc.
mp,
Over at ZeroH:
"The Chinese stock market is up 85% this year, and commodity and real estate prices are rising. And no wonder: the money supply shot up 28.5% in June alone. That money is looking for a home."
Seems to me that nice little gain will head the other direction if the laws of physics remain a law; but as we know, laws are often meant to be broken and I assume if this one is ignored, all will be well...
acp
y'all will
just like everyone else
ALl detailed here:
Amazon.com: Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (9780767916882): James Webb: Books
I've posted this before, and there was a discussion of racial slurs such as redneck, white trash, cracker, etc. which all have been used to describe the Scots-Irish.
How about "won't you all"?
Assume Crash Positions,
I only know all y'all and y'all, perhaps that's all there is. Thankfully the internet has many dialect translators, The Dialectizer
energyecon's data is very nicely done.
**Having said that, you and I are not talking about the same story.
**
2
articles in the LA Times this AM. First:
Borrowers rush in as mortgage rates slip below 5% - Los Angeles Times
Second:
Calls for home buyer tax credit get louder in Washington - Los Angeles Times
See. everythings fine.
Dry bulk market taking a beating
Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide - Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and International Shipping
YES!
... but my family's only been in the South since the 18th century
Re: "did you know redneck was originally a slur reserved for Scottish laborers"
McRedneck
OK, Mr. Redneck Grammar Guru. How does one say "you all will" in Redneck? "y'all'll"?
More like; "Step away from the bar and let's see yer hands." Thus returning to my proposition that a huge fraction of US homemoaners are under a form of house arrest.
No offense, but how does a radiation oncologist qualify for the $8 subsidy. That's BS. The limits, are $75k single, so we can surely say she aint single. And $150k married....so I guess her husband doesnt work and she's a really poorly paid radiation oncologist? Something smells fishy.
Maybe she is just doing residency for now...
psychodave
would you be from charleston?
The Japanese will not like it at all, and when Uncle Yoshimoto is unhappy with exporting his economic dominance, he tends to send his men out to dominate...
mp,
this story? Visualizing The Upcoming Treasury Funding Crisis | zero hedge
It compares foreign holdings of bonds to bills. True, I'm sure foreign buyers are asking for short term debt but that's what energyecon's data shows. That they'll have to roll $2tn of debt per quarter soon. the ZH article really just speaks to the fact that since foreign holders have been selling agencies, the Treasury auctions offered have been for short term debt, and thus spiking ownership of bills
Well, since we're being pedantic, it's F***ing Aye, Mate!
I think we have solved the oil problem:
Now only if Obama will let us drill for it, the market will solve the problem!
JBR from the LATimes :
She is a pretty poorly paid dr. if she thinks she qualifies (or has student loans up the wazoo).
GDD9000 beat me too it.
ag
lots of volcanos should work.
Damn straight.
Freddie Mac monthly data released today Surprise! Delinquencies rising.
Table 8.
http://www.freddiemac.com/investors/volsum/pdf/0809mvs.pdf
On topic for a sec:
Today's Chart of the Day points out:
"That brings us to today's chart which illustrates how housing prices are currently 30% off their 2005 peak. In fact, a home buyer who bought the median priced single-family home at the 1979 peak has seen that home appreciate by a mere 4%."
Perhaps a little whine to go with your BFF?
http://top100.winespectator.com/images/wso/Top100-2007awards.pdf
Maybe something lite and cheap:
Chateau St. Jean Fumé Blanc Sonoma County 2005
Bodegas Borsao Garnacha Campo de Borja Tres Picos 2005
Columbia Crest Merlot Columbia Valley Grand Estates 2004
Or "bet your damn bippy"
dont ask i dont know what a bippy is.
bippy = butt
I posted this yesterday - I found it interesting and worth reposting.
The Biggest Holders of US Government Debt - CNBC
Shows the largest holders of US Govt Debt.
Boones Farm Strawberry, March 09
MD 20/20, August 08
Box 'O Chardonay, Franzia- September 08
-ya'll dont really know much bout hillbillies.
evilhenry
thank you
Anyone else have a crazy uncle who thought it was great fun to introduce the kids at family get togethers to that classic American card game known as 52 pick up. I think the bankers must like that game too.
My Dad's family has been there since the 17th (mid-1600s) assuming you include Maryland as part of the South. Did a long sweep out to Texas through the Deep South. Not sure about my Mom's family; my Dad's family had land and there are records about them, but I think my Mom's family didn't.
MD 20/20-September 08, has a much better bouquet than the August 08 vintage.
bANK fAILURE ,
Can you buy futures in those?
vonbek777
you forget the bankers got someone to come over and pick up all the cards for them
"She is a pretty poorly paid dr. if she thinks she qualifies (or has student loans up the wazoo..."
Oh, I agree. I guess my problem with these stories is that the "average" reader sees only
. And the "average" readers are the people that, at least here in coastal SoCal, are still happily buying houses at %10 off peak prices believing the bottom is in. Which keeps sellers from lowering prices materially. Which keeps me from buying a decent house at a reasonable multiple of my 200k salary. Of course, I could buy a <1000 sq ft. cabin in a nice area or live in the ghetto. Not much of a choice actually...
See, it's all about me!
I don't know what I was thinking, but maybe a nice water serving glass of Cisco would do it?
Cisco is the brand name of a highly alcoholic, low-price fortified wine, produced by the Centerra Wine Company (a division of Constellation Brands) with varieties selling at 13.9%, 17.5% and 19.5% alcohol by volume. Cisco has a distinctive syrup-sweet taste and, because of its color and bottle shape, was often mistaken for a wine cooler. The Federal Trade Commission forced the company to put a label on the bottle stating it was not a wine cooler and had the company change its marketing strategy from "Takes You By Surprise"
Low-end fortified wine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
bippy = butt
No. All bippies are butts but not all butts are bippies. Truth be told I have a butt but except for Mrs. Dawg's opinion I've barely got a butt. At that Mrs. Dawg is exaggerating.
Extremely OT: Columbia Crest Merlot Columbia Valley Grand Estates 2004
Nom! '05 is as good IMO despite the popular gossip.
Alan Grayson is my new hero.
Man this is getting more surreal every moment. Do we need a poll for terrorist arrest Friday as well? More evidence of a banana republic in the making? Dallas, Illinois, Quantico, and Philly...guess Philly doesn't count since no one was arrested yet.
Patriot Act renewal time. Big bad terrorists all over the place. Instill fear and more fear. Just another day in our fascist state.
What for? I thought we were going to let all those folks out of Guantanamo?
steelhead
oh yeah thats right forgot about that. guess it gets renewed by the purple group
Fortified wines. Wow - I just flashed back to college when I worked in a liquor store in a shady part of town.
While we had Cisco and MD 20/20 - the favorite was Wild Irish Rose. It came in two flavors white and red and a pint was $1.40 with tax, no extra charge for chilled. We kept a couple dozen each in a small refrigerator behind the register.
Looking back I'm lucky I wasn't on the wrong end of a robbery - though the silent alarm to the police, baseball bat, can of mace and loaded 12 gauge behind the register probably did deter some would be robbers...
Listen up, the rest of you politicians sitting on your hands...
You can make a name for yourself and separate from the maddening herd of know-nothing-do-nothing hacks, but only if you act.
Alan Grayson is hogging the limelight majestically, but there's room for more...
YouTube - Rep. Alan Grayson: "Has the Federal Reserve Ever Tried to Manipulate the Stock Market?"
EHP, not sure how important it is to nail down an older Southern grammar, and it may vary by locale.
But in the parts of South Carolina I know best, y'all is a simple contraction of you all. I've always assumed some of the wilder constructions were created by people who grew up somewhere else, but were coached in the local patois for a film or television role by someone also not from the heart of Dixie.
It's not really a redneck marker - the accent generally is much closer to English than to American - final Rs tend to vanish just like they do in Old Blighty.
I just zillowed my old home. Zestimate is 666k. Is this a bad sign?
Mike,
Longest night of my life...worked exactly three months, the graveyard shift at an interstate gas station outside of Houston...had a big stone drunk cowboy walk in grab a beer and start drinking it in the store. He was so out of it, couldn't even pay. Since they changed the law...I was on the hook if he drove off and killed someone. Had to take his keys away and restrain him from beating the shit out of me for over two hours as I waited for the police to arrive. Seems they had a bar fight down the road, and it took awhile to get to me.
DCRogers,
reply to last night's tangent
I still don't have a package for my alleged closing.
I'm beginning to like evictions and foreclosures more.
"Is this a bad sign? "
Sold under a bad sign
Price been down since I begin to trawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all
Zestimate is 666k
Not at all, being a member of the Eugene Brick Throwers Union #666, I see it as a good sign!
Mr. Market is trying to swim toward the surface again.
"Mr. Market is trying to swim toward the surface again. "
Focus Elmo damn you, focus!!
Ode to Wall*Street
I put a spell on you
Because youre mine.
You better stop
The things that youre doin.
I said watch out!
I aint lyin, yeah!
I aint gonna take none of your
Foolin around;
I aint gonna take none of your
Puttin me down;
I put a spell on you
Because youre mine
YouTube - Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You
YouTube - I Put A Spell On You - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Are you a beast?
but the market hasnt opened yet even i when it opens,@ 3:30pm
I've been meaning to apologize for that night, Sir........it was a longer night for myself.....
WOW! what a reversal on the SPX, today.
just, wow.
That sucks - you should have flattened all his tires.
I think I refused to sell to someone one time because they were drunk - they finally left and later on I found a c note on the floor - my first time earning a tip for refusing a sale!!
The worst I had to deal with were the organized groups who would come in and try and distract you while their friends filled their pockets with bottles. Fortunately the few times that happened I wasn't alone in the store - once the owner came out from behind the 2 way mirror and asked the one guy if he was going to pay for the bottle stuffed down his pants as he casually racked the slide on a shotgun. Not surprisingly he paid.
Since we're on the subject, at the local ghetto-mart the bums LOVE the 750 mL bottles of Cisco - second only to Steel reserve in the 24 oz can. There actually appear to be significant ethnic differences in the bum drinks of choice. Whites and Mexicans around here go for the large cans of Bud, all the unusual stuff seems to be popular with the African American community. The latest trend among the section 8 blacks around here seems to be vodka mixed with grape flavored energy drink.
That can't be very healthy.
A client just told me their broker who works for an old time brokerage company
active here at least 40 years, that they had a meeting and were told that prices were still going down, and get rid of stuff now.
Does THAT mean we've hit a bottom?
BSR,
lol. I know what you mean. Live and learn...dad said the problem with most young people is they can't abide weakness in others. An inward fear of failure on their own part. I am beginning to understand that point as I continue to grow up.
"get rid of stuff now"
Anything specific, or just everything?
"Does THAT mean we've hit a bottom? "
No.
But we're closer.
I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act.
here the drink of choice seems to be the 24oz of icehouse.
Nothing specific.
Off to eat--that will make my closing package come in, I'm sure.
crazyv
they scared and think the patriot act will protect them but health care omg!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone want to come on board with me that oil will go below $30 per barrel now? or is that just me being a lone wolf, howling at the moon like lone wolves do
I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act.
Here is some insight as to why:
did the economy turn around in the last 15 minutes? Or did someone review the econ data out today and decide it really wasn't that bad?
/snark
crazyv,
where's homegnome when you need him...there is a third group of people who see both W and O as part of the same problem. I voted for W twice and deeply regret it although I like the man personally. I have met him. His security before liberty put this nation on a terrible track, and O hasn't undone any of that yet.
It's funny how people have a problem with the government paying for health care but are perfectly fine with the government spying on its own citizens, jailing people without trial and shipping them off to other countries to be tortured.
All you gotta do is perform an expatriate act, and you'll never worry about big brother and the holding company again...
evilhenry
if you base it on my driving ill go with you
but they are closing refineries and some arent reopening google refineries closing. imo.
Now that what? I missed the back story.
Just some GS pumpimping before the weekend in the Hamptons.
EHP;
Anything can happen to the oil price in the short term.
But as Hollywood Hack loves to point out, commodities have have to be looked at over the long term.
Sometime in the next few years, I think oil goes to $200.
Then it probably falls again. But the overall trend is up.
The article is a 37 page PDF.
G-20 leaders promise tighter regulations - Yahoo! Finance
G-20 leaders declare summit a success
http://www.meltingpotproject.com/.a/6a00e5501bb44a883301156f29efcd970c-pi
Baghdad Ben declares recession over.
Baghdad Ben declares recession over.
"We have them surrounded in their banks"
What is your definition of short and long term?
Looks like Elmo caught up and grabbed a toe...can he attach the cement shoes now?
poic
the twit has declared the first two recessions over but what about the other six? they still going.
thats what it seems like a dam bunch of nasty recessions
Basel Too; [RIMM]
Have you read this?
I'm thinking about it too. But the competition is catching up and has passed them on several features.
Besides, my crackberry crashes roughly once a month, so I'm not to happy with them right now.
Even worse, their push email system doesn't work with standard mail servers (ex-Microsoft), and there is no sign of them fixing that.
"Washington has thrown their soldiers on the F.I.R.E."
Baghdad Bob (the real one)
from crazyv
"I find it amazing that the same people who are so sure that any government interference in health care will lead to communism are so supportive of extending all the powers to the government under the Patriot Act."
its easy...they think
big government bad
big corporation good
problem is you have the bill of rights enforceable against government
the bill of rights offers no protection for you against the corporation
it can tell you on the job and sometimes of the the job, what to wear, what to say andd not to say, can search your persons and effects at will, deny your right to bear arms, and more ...corporations own their employees
ps much of the patriot act is unconstitutional (sneak and peek etc)
"I voted for W twice and deeply regret it although I like the man personally. I have met him. "
It was his job to be likeable; apparently he's good at it. Doesn't mean he really gives a damn about anybody else when the chips are down. There ar a lot of guys like that in politics, because people react to the alpha leader who looks you in the eye and talks at you like you're an equal. Even though he probably doesn't think so. Talk about wired-in; that impulse goes back to cro-magnon hunter-gatherer days: tribal-leader bonding crap.
I once saw Walter Mondale and Teddy Kennedy speak at the same rally; Kennedy bloviated some meaningless party rhetoric with verve and force and physical presence and the crowd went wild. Mondale made some excellent policy points and raised his thin, quavering voice for emphasis, and the crowd applauded politely. Shook his hand afterward; like a dead fish.
"What is your definition of short and long term? "
For me, short term is this quarter or next quarter. Long term is a few years or more.
poic,
20min ago it ticked past 7pm in London?
gabyjan,
There is enough refined product through the winter. They're shutting down because inventories are too high.
sm_landlord
I can agree on a long term focus, but a 50% drop would be much more than a bump in the road. When you look at the cost of rolling futures positions, or the decay in owning ETFs, you can't passively buy & hold. I also think that oil will spike back up sooner rather than later because refiners can't make any money, and we're soon going to have a lot less light crude and a lot more heavy crude to refine. There are huge necessary investments in refining that are being put off
Google "Lakoff strict father model" for as good an explanation as any as to why this is. For many people, the government should be allowed to kick asses as appropriate - "People who need to be killed should be killed", and that sort of thing. But taking money from one person who has committed no transgression and giving it to another is not what a strict father would do.
The dichotomy mystified me for years, until I read Lakoff's arguments.
The strict father model of government also explains why many fairly strict libertarians, who feel that medical licensing boards and stop signs should not exist, nonetheless do not oppose extra-judicial imprisonment or bans on abortion, because these are cases of punishing people for doing bad things, rather than attempts to constrain markets or engineer a better society. To many people, harsh laws and wide powers to enforce them without oversight are not an example of big government.
"These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying"
Baghdad Bob
More from the anecdote-is-a-story, anecdotes-are-data-department. My brother's engineering firm which has been suffering from declining orders all year is expecting 2010 to be worse. Their new products aren't selling. But, the upgrade and retrofit kits are selling. This is good and bad. Not as much money is coming in, but they have a HUGE install base across the entire world, with products from 40 years ago still being maintained and upgraded. They can/should be viable as they are one of two major manufacturers of this product in the world. Development costs can be contained as they finished the new product design phase for this cycle. But, being a victim of an LBO, the company is stressing about their debt obligation in the future. The grim reaper approaches to take it's next debt victim?
I'm assuming this story is playing out across the country many times over.
EvilHenryPaulson wrote:
I'm in w/ DTO. Course, the dollar sliding more won't help, but that can't happen can it?
Baghdad Bob doesn't sound so nutty nowadays...
Bob, Baghdad
Rob Dawg,
There is an alternate explanation for falling numbers of births around Sacramento. It might not be a lower birthrate. It might be that fewer people are living there, especially fewer people in their 20s and 30s.
I know if I was a renter in that age group, I would probably be looking for work somewhere else. If I was a homeowner in that group from Sacramento, I would likely be underwater and might take a job and dump the house.
evilhenry
inventories are too high,forgot about all those tankers allover the place storing oil that not even refined right so how is oil going to be 200 brl? oh wait a minute like last year. right? otherwise it might be less than 30 barrel. and they cant have that now can they?
Mesopotamia Bob
EHP: From last nights thread: I'll beat this dead horse one more time --
If all lobbyists do is advise, then why doesn't the government cut out the middle man and hire those advisors. [...] It's a system that allows the mutually beneficial promotion of self-interest outside the system of electoral accountability.
Too many once-and-done issues to hire permanant expertise -- and advisors need access to technical experts, most already working in the affected industry, making access to them critical. Hiring seems the poorer option.
As to this being outside the system of electoral accountability, replace "outside" with "independent" and you're closer. The goal is to provide an additional degree of freedom so that the Congressperson can optimize the lobbyists' interests and the voter's interests at the same time. What's not to like about that?
As for tax havens and MNCs, I don't see that as neutral. Giving up the ability to tax based on how the accounting is structured, and not how the money was earned is a one way trade. Government gets nothing back for it, and thus the probability is the government ranges from neutral to weaker. Because it is in the MNC sees benefit in lowering its taxes, it is bound to do so as evidence does support. So in practice, the state does become weaker.
Agreed MNCs have proven adept at tax arbitrage, limiting the states ability to tax them directly. But the scale of the damage to state's balance sheets has been minimal, and I doubt one could find any evidence of an overall shrinkage of a state's overall tax take if they allow in MNCs. They just shift to other taxes such as VATs, land, individual income, wellhead taxes, etc., that are harder to game. The real losers here are smaller firms that cannot play the arbitrage games the big boys have access to.
query_tool,
One of the things I expect is oil below $30 per barrel within the next few months. Last fall I said oil would bottom at $35, then early in the new year I said that the commodity/inflation trade was premature and oil can/should be lower ex-speculation (I believe there is a minimum producer price, maximum consumer price, and a market price lies in the middle. So oil at $150 would be a fair price because people could/would pay that much, but the supply constraint was synthetic and free to bounce down to the producer price. Now this time there are huge inventories globally of crude and refined product, so we can go below producer price), then in May I said the highwater mark for the oil rally was $70 per barrel when the price was at $63, and at least since early August I've been saying the sub $30 per barrel.
I just wanted to poll and posture in front of the audience. I hate the idea of possibly being a broken clock that is correct twice a day. I would rather be wrong all the time, than believe I was correct for reasons beyond random chance.
EHP - do you think it matters much what price the major producers have built into their budgets? From my reading of various places, they are still OK around 40-50 a barrel. Id think we could go to about $45 easily, but it would be major problems for Russia at lower than that, as well as the Saudis.
not the bottom but when the $hit hits the fan. remember the leakage link in the chain. blahblahblah
Bob,
I know W from his governor days here in Texas. People liked him around here because he had that down to earth quality. I won't debate you on whether it was real or fake. To me he did seem to actually care about the people he worked with. He remembered names and did little things for people at all levels of society, even people that didn't like him, that I haven't seen in politics in a long time. These weren't media sound bytes events either, just private moments he took to show appreciation or help someone. He did take his faith seriously. I had the privilege of being in his box at a Rangers game and discussed organized religion with him. Anyone who follows my mindless philosophy on this board knows, I am not a big fan of religion...but I had an interesting discussion about faith, and some of his words have stayed with me to this day. Later, I had the opportunity to meet him again (several years later) and he remembered who I was, what we had talked about, and we had another pleasant conversation. This time on NAFTA. I was not a fan of NAFTA, so it was another interesting discussion. It was a terrible thing to see the changes that happened after 9/11. Can't hate the man, but I was disappointed with his presidency post 9/11.
C&C and Rob,
It's not the parents' state of residence which matters for in state tuition, it's the student's. If they aren't living at home, and you don't claim them as dependents, I don't see the need to stay in CA.
University of California - Admissions
Even if you do claim them as a dependent, feel free to leave CA the January of their junior year. December of the junior years is the last tax data which makes its way into determination of tuition.
"In an apparent reference to a recent trade spat in which the United States imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese tire imports, Hu called on the leaders to "resolutely oppose and reject protectionism in all forms.""
"Except when it benefits China" is the part left unsaid.
yagij (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 1:17 pm
The Japanese will not like it at all, and when Uncle Yoshimoto is unhappy with exporting his economic dominance, he tends to send his men out to dominate...
This time China has modern weapons too. Uncle Yoshimoto's boy is gonna come home in a little tiny paper sack, and Uncle Sam won't even need to kill him this time.
"That said, I've long believed that the Euro is superfluous, and will eventually retreat to be the currency of France and Germany in the long term-"
and the dollar will retreat to be the currency of original 13 colonies
There is no going back anymore. Even Spain or Italy would gain nothing by reissuing their own currencies.
It is a tough pill to swallow in the US in some circles that Europe is coming back in the game, after being a weakling for 50 years.
DCRogers,
I view that there is a fixed amount of political power. Lobbyists represent the shift of political power from electoral votes, towards dollar votes. You will note that I don't argue that the assignation of electoral votes is optimal but that is the chosen system of the state.
I do concede that the government cannot possibly hire all the necessary experts. Perhaps a third way is possible. There are plenty of experts in their fields that would volunteer their expertise if it was in the interest of good policy.
What did you think about the comment that comparing the relationship between state/lobbyist and cells/mitochondria is not valid because government and lobbyists can change their roles for one
GDD9000
Tough cookies, the price can fall faster than the collapse of their government can scare enough stockpiling to reducing the supply. China is building some giant storage, but it's a couple years away still. Everything else including tankers are full right now. They can't get a 2mn barrel per day cut before the price collapses, as that would also hurt their cash flow with no promise that everyone complies
Vonbek777 (profile) wrote on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 2:38 pm
Can't hate the man, but I was disappointed with his presidency post 9/11.
He was not a warfighter and he allowed himself to be persuaded he was a Christian Soldier by people who had an agenda for him to fulfill, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice as NSA.
Note he didn't seize the throne when he cronies urged him to from 2003-2005, and how he left his treasonous friends hung out to dry when he left office.
The problem is the chattering class of warmongering know-nothings the Republicans have cultivated to support them. As a whole they know nothing about war except that we should fight more wars with less regard for our budgets. They were originally cultivated, like the evangelicals, because they provided bovine, unquestioning support to Republican adventurism in the name of supporting corporate sponsors, excuse me, "fighting commies". However, at this point, they have been part of the Republican establishment so long they have penetrated policy-making circles and seized the wheel.
HydroCabron (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Fri, 9/25/2009 - 2:23 pm
Google "Lakoff strict father model" for as good an explanation as any as to why this is.
I would say it is mostly being too ignorant (as in uneducated) and not trained in formal thinking. People are untroubled by holding contradictory ideas until they are taught there is a problem with it. Further, many of them don't see a reason to reconcile the contradictory issues because they can't see the significance of the policy challenges they create.
Thank goodness for the pig.
The smug was getting too thick to see in here.
Moody's Investor Services has a rather pessimistic view on Oregon's housing. Sez it won't rebound to peak values until sometime between 2014 and 2017. Have to wonder about the impact of foreclosures on Portland and Oregon.
I wrote a piece about the Oregon's Median Income And Housing Affordability which doesn't bode well either:
Oregon's Median Income And Housing Affordability - Civil Discourse - Portland Waterfront Condos, Portland Waterfront real estate, Portland Waterfront homes, Portland Waterfront Realtor
Welcome your thoughts.
Rob Dawg,
There is an alternate explanation for falling numbers of births around Sacramento. It might not be a lower birthrate. It might be that fewer people are living there, especially fewer people in their 20s and 30s.
I know if I was a renter in that age group, I would probably be looking for work somewhere else. If I was a homeowner in that group from Sacramento, I would likely be underwater and might take a job and dump the house.
Agreed. Ethnographics and such are subsets of demographics.
It shocks me that people, including our most respected host, continue to downplay the implications.
EHP, if you're projecting the price of oil in US dollars, that brings a series of variables in train. It's why I'm uncomfortable with projections despite possessing some sense of supply and the market.
I see a some volatility as suppliers, storage and refining have been/are being whiplashed by unreliable forecasting at every stage. It's bumper cars out there.
I think it's got a ways to fall, but I'd be surprised if it gets below $30. I expect production cuts before then, and hording by China if they've got any storage left.