Less foreign crapola on our shores? How sad is that?

"Companies will go bust; freight rates may take years to recover."

Wow, 4 comments and still no one has said; "This is inflationary, right?"

And what do we do with all those TEUs? We put them on choo-choos: Railfax Report - North American Rail Freight Traffic Carloading Report 
N.B. Those are y-o-y graphs. Ouch

Talked to a Rail Roader the other day and he said yard business had picked mostly in coal but also new contracts taken from other competitors.

bsr
my teflon non-electric skillets came from brazil

Morning all - One thought on the fall-off in bank closures before hitting the leaves in the yard. Besides lack of cash and waiting for the December assessments to get paid, one thing that will stop the FDIC from closing banks is no bidders. I have chatted with a few banks that would normally be bidders--we have not had that many failures in our area but I asked them if we had a failed bank in our area, would they bid. They all said no. They have basically gone Galt - all are having to deal with their own asset and capital issues and with a much more hostile relationship with their examiners. They are selling assets, not buying. Even with government assistance on loss share, they see what Washington is doing to the TARP'ed banks and they want nothing to do with it. They have one focus, raising capital levels to get the examiners off their backs, and that involves cutting loans and selling assets, not buying dead banks. These are not banks with loads of off balance sheet assets, but they see what Washington is doing that will adversely affect revenue and profits going forward, be it the CARD Act, the overdraft fee bills, the CFPA, lending/foreclosure laws, new capital requirements, forcing debtholders to take haircuts, and dozens of others that are circulating in the background. Many on this board will applaud these actions, blaming the bankers for causing the problems. Some did, a small percentage of certain large banks, but the war is on against banking in general. I fear that serious damage is being done to our financial system, while at the same time many of these punitive actions are not addressing what actions caused the problem.

BSR the link has the empty counts:
Port of LA: Total Empty 2009; 134,207.70 2008; 182,259.90 yoy; (48,052.20) -26.36%

That would be a good indicator for the expected Christmas retail season.

I watch a freight train go by every day. I am seeing coal cars more in the last month.

Yeah. I see those too.

North Georgia too?

What do you get when you have 10 women from West VA in the same room?

a full set of teeth

rats!

it can be a challenge to tell the difference from the menfolk

generally speaking, they're the ones a little too interested in you, if you know what I mean

Question......2009's federal deficit was the worst on record since WWII @ $1.42-trillion. 2008 was $455-billion. Only two weeks after the Sept 30th year-end, could this 1.42-trillion figure still go UP?

could this 1.42-trillion figure still go UP?

the good news is that figure is down from an initial estimate of $1.9T

10K for 90 jobs. Sounds like the Carter years coming.

In that area, $27000 a year is damn good money for a job that doesn't require a post HS degree. It's only when you have a secondary education or a real specialty that salaries start to reach parity with the coasts.

Interesting LA Times article about "pop ups". They're stores that sign very short leases.

Pop-up stores are becoming an overnight sensation - Los Angeles Times

If a green shoot doesn't even make it six months, is it still a green shoot?

KCoop, you have mad skillz. I love how hoocodanode pulls up the title to the links

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Sounds like the Carter years coming.

Except this time, you won't have an expansion of credit and creative financial devices to provide 15-20 years of bubble and/or innovation driven recovery...

Obama(&Co.)/ Owned?

Yagi,

Yep and watch the rest of the exportable jobs fly out of the US if we get government mommy care for everything and taxes to go with it.

People are still waiting around for months for the lenders to even respond on
their REO or short sale offers.

Sometimes nothing happens, the property gets foreclosed
and then the bank sells for far less than they could have gotten months
before.

Why don't the regulators look at this kind of nonsense?

Blackwaterwannabe wrote:

Let's just get !

Sorry, ain't priced in dollars so you can't afford it anymore.

Liz,

It kind of does. People in the bubble areas are pissed that they can't seem to get an offer through because they keep getting beat out by speculators. I had it happen to me last year. Saxon took a 23% cut off my offer to get all cash for a failed Morgan Stanley property.

If the goal is to create wealth for the top 5%ers, then it doesn't make sense. But if you want to see neighborhoods and communities stabilized, then it does make sense. I just don't understand how they can swing the mechanics.

The other thing to consider is people who want to buy are pissed at how the banks are handing this. Maybe these changes are what Summers hinted at. I have no clue but I wasn't about to walk up to these guys and say "Hi I'm deflationary jane from Calcuted Risk, could you please explain how you are considering circumventing this new procedure?". At best, I'd have been merely cussed out. >; )

• Everything has a price.

Don't confuse "happiness" with "happy ending."

Sure there is a lot of evidence that treating people right, paying a decent wage and giving people health care is good for society. I thought we were only trying to look out for the top 1%? Has something changed?

Not a question of how many would apply but how many would apply that you would want to hire. Plus what guarantee is there that those that you would want to hire would stay with you once they got a better offer. It probably makes sense to have a work force that is thankful for the job that they have and are prepared to work their butts off rather than one that is resentful and just waiting to leave. I think this is one of those instances were traditional economic theory on supply and demand doesn't work.

Let's just get !

Sadly, I think Wal-Mart fired the smiley because they couldn't figure out a way to legally import a Chinese for its US ad campaign.

crazyv wrote:

I think this is one of those instances were traditional economic theory on supply and demand doesn't work.

With that sort of longterm approach you are highly unlikely to get a good bonus this quarter.

12th Percentile wrote:

Sure there is a lot of evidence that treating people right, paying a decent wage and giving people health care is good for society. I thought we were only trying to look out for the top 1%? Has something changed?

Not just good for society, good for business. Look up Ford's $5 wage history.

As too looking out for the top 1%. FDHLRUs (fat dumb and happy line replaceable units) don't riot.

Or sabotage.

My philosophy on running a business is "let's all get rich together". Employees tend to really like that. Sharing the wealth and all that. My philosophy is not widely practiced in the US of A and they generally try a different approach. Apparently they don't spend much time on the costs of employee turnover in the halls of the Ivy League business schools.

Those who work for wages will always get paid less. The good workers have to carry the inefficient workers. Base wage + commission or straight commission/flat rate pays by experience, quality and production. Many businesses have had to hire 3 to do the work of 2. America has had new problems long since Ford was around.

I've been harping on it for years but I still stand by my old tag line "this isn't over until a city burns". I'm just shocked one hasn't yet.

In related news, if a neighborhood is 2/3 or best owned by speculators, how much more likely are the natives to torch it in protest or just plain old anger?

I don't see that happening, Jane, even in South Florida. And it's different
people and groups anyway.

Chicago Title used to have some sort of profit sharing thing--sometime before
1976. Then the bean counters decided this was just too much money to share.
Then, instead of hoarding pencils and stuff, to save money, employees started
stealing them.

How come people listen to bean counters?

will not be bringing as many toys for all the girls and boys, but fuck it ...

Coal for you

Doc, you DO have a way with words.

The US went way too far in support of 'free trade'. It turned into trading US jobs for what was advertised as being lower prices. But choice was not provided the consumer. I'd be happy to buy US goods at 10-20% higher prices.

I'm all for a consumer-led movement to return the US flag marking to nearly all consumer goods (with appropriate laws to define the domestic content that would qualify for the flag.)

Having a generation or two of younger folks with no realistic job prospects for a liveable wage is a price too high for our country to bear. The corporate greedsters who thrive on quarter/quarter profit numbers that sustain their McMansion lifestyle with outlandish salaries and bonuses must get the message from consumer-ciizens that they had their chance, they blew it, and it's time for them to be put down.

I can log into blackwell's catalog and give you a list of articles or I can have you start here

Urban Poor & Rodney King Riots (not terribly academic but he hits the high points)

China’s Export Decline Slows as Global Recovery Strengthens - Bloomberg.com

China’s foreign-exchange reserves climbed to a record $2.273 trillion at the end of September, according to today’s data. M2, the broadest measure of money supply, rose a record 29.3 percent in September from a year earlier.

Inflows of cash from abroad and an unprecedented 8.67 trillion yuan of new local-currency loans this year, up 149 percent from a year earlier, add to the risk of asset bubbles, bad loans and resurgent inflation.

“All this increases the likelihood that tightening will begin in the first quarter next year,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist at SJS Markets Ltd. He estimated that speculative capital accounted for $35 billion of the $141 billion increase in the currency reserves.

‘Too Much’ Lending

September’s new lending was “too much, more than the real economy can absorb,” said Tao Dong, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Credit Suisse Group AG. Lending compared with a median estimate of 440 billion yuan.

Now for a and some analytical pondering....

Jim - I don't know if they're US made (likely not) but I strolled through a Sears store a couple of days ago and was struck by the high prices.

Ex: Utility knife-$12.87

You may get half your wish (the +10 to 20% part).

My the icon is getting quite a workout.

Was the Sears stuff USA made?

When I go looking EVERYTHING practically is made in China.

China has not only destroyed us, but also stuff made in Mexico
and Brazil and even Taiwan.

I too would pay a bit more for US made.

the other day i noticed that the bottle of apple juice i was drinking "may contain juice from China". that seems wrong on so many levels. there are orchards all around me full of apples. I don't buy that brand of juice anymore.

But then what is a good' Wal-Mart shopper' to do?

The problem with data and models at this point i time, is that what we have (in essence) is an economy that is the equivalent of a person that became a meth addict and ruined their life. It is great that a person, or country (economy) can get into rehab and attempt to rebuild and adjust, but the prior life, before meth, is gone -- the prior historical patterns of the model are not related, correlated or realistic in terms of fitting the past into the current and future. The model broke, so now what .... do we bullshit ourselves that all is well and that Jonny the dope king will be even more productive after rehab, or do we assume that Jonny is going to struggle and probably never get back to the fun person he was (during the bubble)? Huh, huh ... what of it? :

Ummm, not buy at Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-mart.
The hub goes there for a cheap gizmo occasionally, but
I would never set foot in there myself.

I like Target.

Liz, last summer I needed a reciprocating lawn sprinkler and paid about 20% more to get and American-made one, in large part because the factory is located near my old home town.

Of course while the factory is still there, it is owned by a German company, and I found that the product had some design weaknesses that result in very non-uniform coverage.

Guess I'm saying that generalizations aren't always correct.

Yep, we can produce crap too. But at least the local employees get some
money to spend locally.

why working on cars in particular?

DEATH SPIRAL.

We need more Tarp funds solely to be used to finance the banks own
damn REOs. Prices have fallen well into the affordibility range in South
Florida. We don't need no steekin' death spiral in prices.

Methamphetamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To combat (credit) addiction, doctors are beginning to use other forms of amphetamine such as dextroamphetamine to break the addiction cycle in a method similar to the use of methadone in the treatment of heroin addicts.

Abrupt interruption of chronic (credit) methamphetamine use results in the withdrawal syndrome in almost 90% of the cases. Withdrawal of amphetamine often causes a depression which is longer and deeper than even the depression from cocaine withdrawal...

Or, you ignore being realistic and stay in denial and have a very, very Merry XMAS

Liz, did you see Denningers post yesterday from 4closure.com highlighting the forgery and fraud in FL of mortgage note assignments? Have you come across this and what are the implications for the foreclosed homeowners and the new ones who may have clouded title?

picosec wrote:

Sears store a couple of days ago and was struck by the high prices.
Ex: Utility knife-$12.87

- Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

I'd rather let China get their 40¢ cut from this $1.99 item than perpetuate the distortions a $12.87 item and attending $1.30 in taxes cause.

Yeah, that caught my eye, too. We are simply incapable of identifying the real problems and the real solutions.

Falling rents and prices are just fine until they aren't.

A death spiral is not a good thing.

Doc,

You are one of the people Krugman was criticizing the other day. I don't know if you knew that.

Nice of bloomberg to slip this story out saturday morning so it can be forgotten by monday morning. Our economy has nothing to worry about with Larry 'Hazelwood' Summers at the helm.

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired.

Harvard paid $497.6 million to investment banks during the fiscal year ended June 30 to get out of $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, the school’s annual report said. The university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said it also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps.

...

The annual report provides new details on Harvard’s derivative-related losses. Many were entered into in 2004, said Harvard spokeswoman Christine Heenan. Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, was the university’s president at the time. White House spokesman Matthew Vogel declined to comment.

Harvard’s Bet on Interest Rate Rise Cost $500 Million to Exit - Bloomberg.com 

or get back on Prozac

Meth is more fun. Until it isn't.

Davis has three golf courses. I think I shall print this out and distribute liberally.
Tyler Durden may want to blow up the credit agencies but first sign of major civil unrest, I'm heading to the courses, Bill Murray style >; )

Ok is that your golf course.

The reporter apparently didn't read the docs herself.

Do the adjacent homeowners own the golf course? Have undivided
interests? Have the duty to pay fees to keep it up? Share in profits
if any? Get reduced fees if they want to play golf? Are automatic
members? Have to pay (less?) to be a member?

It sounds like the lawyers did a lousy drafting job.

Typically, if the HOA or Condo assn own a swimming pool, the
owners have to pay to maintain it. Golf courses are 'way more
expensive and generally have a different plan.

It sounds like the golf course owners are blackmailing the adjacent
owners.

But I have no facts.

Nuisance anyone?

Why do you want hundred of spoon?

Can't you try not to buy them in China?

Come on, there are 247 of you; one of you must have a new insight?

lawyerliz wrote:

Can't you try not to buy them in China?

LBD doesn't care about workers working for sub-living wages, here or in China. There's an addiction worse than heroin or meth: believing that 'free markets' cure all ills. LBD has it, and he likes it.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

I have a friend who will have to lay or close his gas C-store cafe that is the hub in his small town.

Or have to treat 'em like servers that live off of tips. 1099 FTW?
.
Also, I went to a sports bar the other day for lunch, and they automatically applied a gratuity of 18% on my greasy diner food. The service wasn't 18% worthy, and a party of 2 getting hit for an automatic tip? This tipping inflation has got to stop, and I know that I won't be returning to that place for food or drinks.

How's school, hoops?

Getting desperate here, talk someone or I will have to
clean.

Reality Jim a life of dealing with employees, customers, Idiot politicians, banksters, education system. Shall I go on? America has been in the tank of denial for decades and it is pay up time.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

If Obama goes for his campaign lie of raising to $9.20
Do we really have to worry about him keeping a campaign promise?
where have you been.

I'm off to gaze hopefully at my 5.2 acres and do a little early happy dance.
peace out

lawyerliz wrote:

Come on, there are 247 of you; one of you must have a new insight?

Nope. Not a one.
Back to lurking in my lurkin.

Ok, so as to my childhood, I enjoyed digging holes and looking for shit buried beneath the surface of the Earth...

That's funny Doc, because I dug a lot of holes too in the vain attempt to create an "underground fort".
Didn't quite understand the concept of drainage back then...

scone wrote:

Spent yesterday foisting off a lot of our junk on unsuspecting GoodWill people.

I did that a couple months ago. Many car trips. I sure felt better when the detritus of decades wouldn't have to be moved by me yet another time.

When I lived in San Francisco, people just put stuff out on the sidewalk (glassware to couches - anything), and it would be gone in hours. Recycling the junk of our lives.

Another indicator are: campsites and RV centers. Around here they're mostly booked all year long and if you don't have a yearly pass its pretty hard to get a site for the weekend on short notice.
Guess that beats a $2000/month mortgage.

Reality Jim a life of dealing with employees, customers, Idiot politicians, banksters, education system. Shall I go on? America has been in the tank of denial for decades and it is pay up time. - LBD

we can guess who is supposed to "pay up".

I'll try to stay on this golf topic for another second:

I'm trying to figure out what happens to a non-profit golf course that goes belly up; many here assume the land will revert back to being a greenbelt, that may be jointly owned by the homeowner development that was plated for the community. The golf club membership could hold on and pay taxes and maintain the place, but as more people drop out and as they go bankrupt, it is a bit confusing. The debt they have is for operating costs and the famous sprinkler system and the debt, which they call a bond, is a non-securitized loan which apparently was floated by the membership, or at least a small group of investors that live here. Thus, if they default on their bond, they technically don't go into foreclosure ... maybe, and as far as maintaing corporate status, they have to pay income to employees and pay taxes, so if they fail to pay taxes, I guess the state could foreclose and assume the property. Apparently, they are trying to sell the course, but this is very hazy for me also, because what happens when a non-profit sells assets .... that really confuses me, because I don't see how that is possible unless they change their charter????

OK, I'm done with that, thanks for letting me express this and may all yur days be at least half filled with

<< Fine video link!!!

scone wrote:

Some of them, I'm pretty sure, are not hooked into the septic system

ugh ugh ugh Penny wise and pound foolish there...

what happens when a non-profit sells assets

You mean like GoodWill? Non-profit doesn't mean you can't make a profit, especially if you're selling the asset to wind up the corporation.

sdtfs wrote:

Non-profit doesn't mean you can't make a profit

American spin renamed the "NGO" into "Non-Profit". You can make all the profit you want as long as you outline your profit earning profile to the IRS and not stray from those areas. It doesn't mean it is nearly as holistic or selfless as the name implies.

Naked shorting is a giant nothingburger, the party that fails to deliver gets automatically debited from their account until they do deliver.

Taibbi makes KD come across as intelligent and understated.

ugh ugh ugh Penny wise and pound foolish there... - Y

A lot of the people here have little or no education, many can barely read and write. But because of modern technology, they've never seen a case of cholera or other shit-borne disease. It's not like Appalachia, where the memory of cholera, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, etc. is still present-- grandparents and parents still remember these things.

The North West is a bizarre mixture of modern and primitive, with few traditions and a rather shallow cultural heritage. Euro-Americans came out here partly to get away from Eastern civilization, and promptly jettisoned their stuff and their memories of the past. But they haven't really built a new civilization yet. There's a cultural vacuum here which breeds a deep-seated know-nothing slackerism. Minds empty of content will take in almost anything, and that leads to people buying into the latest cultural fad, whether it's Dominionism or Scientology.

The local thrift shops, charity organizations, etc. are getting full up,

I notice more and better dressed customers and the prices are going up! Looks like I'm not going to find any more bargains there. Then again, I've never actually bought anything I needed there, mostly just oddball containers and books.

scone wrote:

It's not like Appalachia

OMG. You are telling me the hills of eastern KY and TN aren't the bottom of the Euro-American barrel? Wow.
.
Whatever you got over on that Left Coast, please don't let it over the Rockies. Please.

rps wrote:

Less foreign crapola on our shores? How sad is that?

Lower dollar will do that.

ahh,
..a lower dollar will help traffic congestion?

scone wrote:

In most places, there's a long cultural tradition in poor areas, and it helps to sustain people in hard times.

I guess I should have said "cultural barrel". Yes, poverty is everywhere, and most places of poverty I know did have folklore talking about the GD and how things were so bad that they didn't really know there was a GD 'cause their lives weren't impacted one way or the other.

central va.

Retail margins no likey blood in the water. A lot of small businesses will fold after xmas.

I was raised on Depression recipes and government-issue powdered milk. If it weren't for the Commissary, squirrels, and gar, I might have been almost malnourished back in the early years.

Weirdly, though, I never realized how pinched we were until I started reading blogs on the internet. I was really amazed to find out that my life has not been "normal." I thought everyone lived pretty close to the bone, like we did.

A lot of small businesses will fold after xmas.

A+
You gotta know that. Santa might come a little late next year I fear.

My son and my money is off @ VT...have some fam around Floyd. Was just there a while ago, I could hear the party going on downtown (Jubilee) several miles out on a Friday night.

"There's a cultural vacuum here which breeds a deep-seated know-nothing slackerism. Minds empty of content will take in almost anything, and that leads to people buying into the latest cultural fad, whether it's Dominionism or Scientology."

Thanks, Scone. I think that's an example of what I meant by 'insight' yesterday.

The cultural deprivation you describe isn't found only in rural areas. It's endemic in lots of surprising places, and it affects many areas of life, including economic ones.

I believe your response pertains more to retail than wholesale, but, the luncheon without Bear being present is a curiosity that smells of collusion and illegality.

Are gar good?

Utterly disgusting. Grease and flatulent stench. They smell two days dead before you kill them.

My grandmother and greatgrandmother or maybe great, great? Moved down
from the Appalachian hills in Maryland when somebody built a dam up there
and flooded them. Grandmother had some odd (Elizabethan?) speach patterns
and was very very superstitious. In fact, some of sounds like a weakened attenuated
paganism to me.

Grandmother had some odd (Elizabethan?) speach patterns and was very very superstitious. In fact, some of sounds like a weakened attenuated paganism to me.

Yes, mother came out of the Piedmont behind Blacksburg. It's an old coal-mining Methodist area. She would sometimes forget herself and fall into "thee" and "thou." They still had memories and traditions that go back to Elizabeth and Cromwell. My father's people still remembered the area they came from in Yorkshire. These things are still preserved in the FoxFire books.

Fish from the river slow and still
Will stink so much their flesh will kill
Fish from the stagnant pond or stream
Are to the trout as joy blasphemed

pavel. gross.

"There's a cultural vacuum here which breeds a deep-seated know-nothing slackerism. Minds empty of content will take in almost anything, and that leads to people buying into the latest cultural fad, whether it's Dominionism or Scientology."

No wonder Fidel Castro has been so silent recently. Americans self-criticizing all around and that "we deserve to get punished"-attitude. This is going to be really interesting...

now I don't have to find out for myself. - i

Be careful of those things, they're very aggressive and will bite your finger off if you give them a chance. We used to shoot them from the boat-- back when I was a kid the Mississippi was infested with them and it was considered a public service to shoot them on sight. We didn't use bait and tackle because they'd rip it up, and they're dangerous to haul in. Anyway, black powder was cheaper in those days.

Blackwaterwannabe (homepage, profile) wrote on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 10:50 am

* reply
* Ignore user

You're a natural.

Quite a lot of good talent here..maybe it will rub off on me!
One can only hope.

Second that! Need an icon for Bravo, good writing?!

"pavel. gross"

I didn't think it was that vivid, RockyR.

Castro is silent because he is sick--remember?

Raul, although a bloodthirsty beast, actually has a practical
streak, and occasionally tries to lighten up, followed by havin
his chain jerked by older brother.

No black, why would you think so?

This reminded me of the the time when I spotted the fish in a pretty little stream I would walk by on the way to the library floating with their bellies up. There was a newspaper article about it a few days later. Pretty disturbing to a five year old kid.

I can't understand the Bush years, we were ALL so much better off in Clinton times.

Clinton benefitted from Bush Sr.'s tax increases, as well as Clinton and Gingrich ending "welfare as we know it", in addition to the huge '90's tech bubble.

$45,000 Honda Civics will do that. Is that what you meant?

My Honda Civic was built in North America, and the new model lists for within a thousand dollars of list in 2003.

Rosethorn,
Another reason the (little known)1920's real estate boom/bust preceding the GD was not as devastating as the current RE/CRE bust is a lack of complex derivatives exposure related to the mortgages.

lawyerliz wrote:

Grandmother had some odd (Elizabethan?) speech patterns
and was very very superstitious. In New England villages today, one can still hear the speech of 200 years ago. Campobello Island, New Brunswick has been documented within the modern age with a tongue of early Wales. I have been in a restaurant, heard a pronuciation, stood up and looked over the seating bench, only to find people from Campobello Island.